Gohan lay wide awake, his eyes fully open in his confusion. There she lay, her gentle breaths caressing his chest, caring nothing of the torment that was currently coursing through his mind and his very being. Since when did he actually fall asleep with a woman actually in his arms? He found out very quickly that women were an annoyance to say the least when using a bed for what it was designed for.
They moved around far too much, mumbled incessantly, and put their heads in awkward places atop of him. Of course he himself never did anything of the sort, he was a composed and restful sleeper. So how in God's name had he allowed this to happen? How had he got the best night's sleep he could remember? The fact that he was exhausted beyond belief probably helped. Dancing all night long, and then returning to bed with a woman who, despite having no knowledge of it herself, was a demon in the bedroom. Even though it had been her first time and he had caused her discomfort at first, he knew that something magical had happened, as much as it pained him to say it. It had emotionally exhausted him.
The best night of his life? No doubt about it for Son Gohan. Another thing that worried him was the fact that he wanted her again, right now to tell the truth. He wanted to wake her up, stare into those eyes that he had looked into longingly for the last three months or so, and make love to her. He did not just say that, he did not just say 'make love'. What was he, a girl? At least he didn't say anything quite as stupid as to say that he loved her, even in the confines of his vexed mind.
He returned to the topic at hand, and the sleeping woman that lay peacefully in his arms. He still encircled her with those arms, not wanting to disturb her slumber, and enjoying the comforting weight of her lying on his upper body. Her head rested just below his chin, tilted to the side so that he could see her features fairly clearly. Without thinking he bent is head and placed a kiss on to the top of her head, breathing in her scent as he did so, relishing the softness of her hair on his face. He could almost imagine being able to look at her, and only her for the rest of his life. That didn't sound too good, he had to get out from this position before he started deciding on how to propose to her.
Perhaps all he was worried about was that he would struggle to find anyone to top that night. He was sure that he would easily enough, given enough time and plenty of women. He tried in vain to ignore the niggling voice at the back of his head telling him that he wouldn't, and that he did not even want to try to.
He slowly and gently began removing his arms from around her petite body, trying wholeheartedly not to wake her, so as to avoid any awkwardness for either side, not only himself. After losing the support that his arms supplied, Videl easily rolled from off him, falling slowly onto her sheets. All he had to do was return to the hallway, collect his clothes and belongings, and he could be gone. She could have an explanantion on Monday morning, just like the rest of them.
Doing as planned, he placed a hand on the brass door knob that would open the door leading out to the world, but found that he couldn't face to turn it. He turned himself around instead, wanting one last look at her before he left her. He pushed the door slowly open, negating the creak of the door's hinges, but was surprised to see no one lying in the bed. Instead, he saw the woman that he had returned for, sat on a stool before her dressing table, brushing through her silky locks in the mirror, dressed in a rose red robe.
She turned her head a little and their eyes met in the glass. "I take it that you weren't about to make me breakfast in bed?" Without waiting for an answer, she continued. "You are such a bastard, you know that Gohan? I can't believe it took me this long to realise that what you have done to all of those women over the years is an absolute disgrace." She laughed a short laugh. "And I actually wanted, wanted the same treatment." She stood and turned to face him.
He was dumbstruck. This was not how it should go, how it normally went. Those eyes seemed so angry, but the remnants of her blue eye shadow still remained, giving her the look of a sultry goddess. If he wasn't careful, he was about to get shot down by a very big bolt of lightning.
She moved even closer to him, and began poking a finger into his chest. With every word she gave a sharp prod. "You are a sexist, chauvinistic bastard of a man. You know what? I honestly believed that maybe, just maybe, that there might be more between us than there had been with all of your other women. I thought that since you didn't simply sleep with me in the first week there might be something more, that I might mean something to you, maybe that I was special." She laughed, a little longer and harder this time. "As if! I meant nothing to you, did I? Just a good screw to add to your list of conquests."
"Videl, I di-" He was cut off almost immediately.
She was looking deep into his eyes, a sadness in them he hoped wouldn't last, a single tear flowing down her right cheek. "I cannot believe that I actually...fell in love with you."
He closed his eyes at the words as they stung him dearly. Silly girl, she shouldn't allow herself to become trapped by silly emotions like that. He suddenly realised that she was right, however. How many women had he slept with and never even given the time of day to afterwards, simply discarding them as he had the used condoms.
He suddenly felt like the lowest piece of scum on the planet. How would he feel if a woman did the same to him? He couldn't think of a single word to say to her that would make much sense, or ease her pain, so he effortlessly allowed the words that he had uttered on countless occasions down the years.
"You're young, you'll get over it."
When a person has hearing that could sense a pin drop from a mile away, eyesight that can see a speeding bullet from a gun as if it were moving at a pace a snail would be ashamed of, they often miss the little things when they aren't really paying attention or aren't really expecting them.
Her open palm struck his shocked face with considerable force, born out of years sparring with her father as a youngster. The force was not what shocked him, nor did it cause him to snap his head back to allow the continued passage of her delicate hand, it was simply the action of it, and how well he deserved it.
"Oh my GOD!" She screeched. "What the HELL are you made of Gohan?" She began shaking her hand in the air furiously, attempting to shake off the excruciating pain running through the offending body part. She spotted the large hand reach for her own, but didn't recoil, she allowed it to take her own, enfolding her own with a gentleness that was not suggested by their rough, calloused surface. She felt the familiar jolt down her spine as she recalled how they had felt as they ran over her body during the previous night, always knowing exactly what to do, or where to go. She had to shake those feelings off. He had made his intentions perfectly clear, she could not back down now.
His fingers traced over the now throbbing, red palm of her hand. "Oh, Videl..."
"What?" She spat out, although it really didn't sound quite as sharp as she hoped it might.
"I'm sorry."
"Is that it? That is all you have to say. Is that what you would say to the hundreds of women you have emotionally hurt so much."
The high hundreds, he thought to himself, but quickly realised in his mind that that fact certainly did not make things sound much better. No, that made them seem a heck of a lot worse. Had all of those women really felt the same way as Videl, or was it simply because she thought that she loved him? Had any others 'loved' him too? Probably not, he surmised, at least not in the way that Videl obviously did, or thought that she did. Normally a few sweet words was all it took to appease them the next day or week, or whatever. But all of those women weren't as strong as Videl, they weren't as beautiful. They simply were not Videl.
He soon began to feel that this situation could soon get out of hand. His own hands were in fact now enclosed around her own tiny one, engulfing it completely. She too noticed quickly, and withdrew it sharply. That had hurt Gohan, despite the fact that he knew it was forced, and was done with the obvious intent to do just that. This was quite possibly the first time that he had been hurt emotionally by a woman in this kind of relationship.
"Do you really love me? Despite what I've done to you and so many others."
He saw the answer immediately in those eyes, and saw the emotion that he had seen the previous night. That was what it was. Had it been in his own eyes too? He couldn't decide whether he actually wanted it to have been, or if he hoped it had not been present at all, and never would be. He didn't want to be in love.
"Yes." She sighed the word out, as if in resignation to the fact. She couldn't help but feel it, and felt glad on so many levels that it were true. But sadly, he didn't appear to feel the same way, despite what she had glimpsed in his eyes, and even if he did, he didn't seem to want to do anything about it but walk away from it.
"But it doesn't matter, you obviously don't want anything more to do with me, your intentions have become perfectly clear."
He wanted to scream the truth at her, the one that had just dawned on him. He had been waiting for this moment, this time and place, and of course, been waiting for her, his entire life. He was about to blow it completely, his chance at love. He cringed inside. There was that word again, taunting him with its ridiculousness. If only he could admit out loud that he loved Videl Satan. But no, he was nothing but a coward, an unbelieving fool as well, he was still very sceptical about this whole idea of having feelings for her, and suddenly felt an upsurge in the desire to just walk away without any regrets what so ever. A bastard of a man according to her, and he certainly was, he saw it now. If only he had done things differently in his life. But maybe if he had done that, he would possibly never have met her, and he couldn't imagine how life would be without her in it.
Listen to him now! Like a poet or something, spouting off nonsense like that. All he could think of was how she had changed him so drastically, and she didn't know a thing about it because he was far too cowardly and foolish to admit it to her. He had not restrained himself from sleeping with her just to see if he could, he had done it because his heart had actually prevented him, held him back and allowed him to get to know her properly, as if in a real relationship. A realisation hit him once again, they appeared to be coming one after the other today, that essentially, he had never been in a proper relationship with a person before, not in a romantic sense at least.
The mind is an economic organ, and all of Gohan's thought processes were mulled over in an instant, as he stood open mouthed before the only woman that he had ever, and would ever love.
"I think that you should go, I wouldn't want to keep you, I'm sure that you have some very pressing engagements, no?" The stony silence afterwards was matched by her equally stony glare. She certainly was mad. Gohan couldn't quite fathom just why she was this mad, it wasn't like he had cheated on her anything, was being on the bad end of a one night stand really that bad?
"What do you want me to do? To say? I know I've hurt you, but is it really this bad?"
"Yes Gohan, it is. I think that you will have to search yourself for the answer, I won't give it to you freely. I don't even know all of the answers to this myself. But I will tell you this, you need to sort your life out. Because some day you might actually find someone that you can love, and you probably don't want to do this to them, no matter what you say in the contrary at this current time. I just wish that I could be that woman."
If only you knew, was all he could think of.
He turned quickly, he was trying to leave on his terms, to try to save some face. He left a look of complete nonchalance on his features as he did so, and paced towards her door, letting himself out. The way he left actually made it seem as though he really didn't care at all.
However, after stepping through the portal and slumping back against it as it shut behind him, he couldn't help but pick up the sounds from behind him, his sensitive ears picking up every sound in the vicinity, which, thanks to her quiet apartment block only emanated from her own abode.
The sound of her slowly falling to the ground, suggesting that she sat, legs folded underneath her and to one side made him swallow sharply, realising what was to come. She didn't wail, or cry out loud, just simple sobs creeping their way underneath the threshold of her large, oak door.
The sound of love lost.