AN: MY GOD, IT'S BEEN AN UNBELIEVABLE AMOUNT OF TIME SINCE I'VE UPDATED THIS STORY, AND FOR THAT I APOLOGISE. I CAN ONLY EXCUSE MYSELF BY SAYING THAT I'VE BEEN HIGHLY DISTRACTED AND UNINSPIRED. I ONLY GAINED INSPIRATION FOR THIS STORY AGAIN BY WATCHING SPIRITED AWAY AGAIN RECENTLY. DUE TO WORK, I'M NOT ABLE TO PROMISE HIGH RATES OF UPDATING AT ANY TIME, BUT I'LL TRY HARDER, PARTICULARLY AS VACATION IS COMING UP IN THREE WEEKS. I'M TAKING MY LAPTOP TO A SUNNY VILLA IN THE MEDITERANEAN AND DOING NOTHING BUT EATING, SWIMMING AND WRITING FOR A FORTNIGHT (AND REVISING FOR MY EXAMS, BUT THAT WILL COME SECOND, I WON'T TELL IF YOU DON'T)

DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN SPIRITED AWAY, DUH. SAME GOES FOR DRAGONBALL Z.

Chapter Five

ONE YEAR LATER

"I still don't see why we have to go to my house to do this properly."

Videl rolled her eyes at Gohan, even as she followed his directions to his house, expertly piloting her 'copter through the sky.

"I've already told you why we're doing this at your house, Gohan-chan. We're going to your house because my dad has a new slut – ahem – I mean girlfriend, and the bullshit level at my house is too high to stand at the moment."

Gohan sighed and nodded,

"Of course, whatever you say, Videl. I know that going to my house has absolutely nothing to do with trying to find out my secrets and getting me to confess to being the Gold Fighter."

Videl's eyes narrowed,

"Of course it's not to do with that. Unless you are the Gold Fighter that is."

Gohan rolled his eyes. Sharks the world around could take lessons in sniffing out blood from Videl Satan. She was obsessed with proving that he was the mysterious hero known only as the 'Gold Fighter'. Of course, he was, but she didn't have to know that. In fact, he would very much prefer if she didn't find out. It was bad enough putting up with her amateur detection when she didn't know any of his secrets, if she were to find out that he could fly, she would be absolutely unbearable.

He hadn't meant to become a superhero. He had just stopped a bank robbery on his first day of school, and he had done so in Super Saiyan form to protect his identity and his family from just the kind of scrutiny that Videl was currently putting him under. He didn't really go out of his way to do anything particularly amazing, just stopped crime if he saw it going on. He had gotten a kick out of at first and had thought about going into the whole superhero thing properly, but he had thought of what Chihiro would have thought of it, and the sound of her kindly mocking had prevented him from getting carried away. He was now immensely grateful for her influence on him. If not, he might have ended up being a total loser, wearing a ridiculous chartreuse costume, making stupid poses and giving himself a really stupid name, like 'The Great Saiyaman'. Honestly, the very thought of it made him pale.

The thought of Chihiro made him smile sadly in reminiscence. He hadn't seen or heard from her ever since she had returned to the Spirit World. But he had no doubt that she was very happy where she was. He had known that she would be from the first moment they had entered the Spirit World. But when he had seen her the morning after she had reunited with her Haku, he had known more than ever that that world was where she belonged.

In fact, both she and Haku had seemed far too obscenely happy with being reunited. Happier in fact, than he was sure that he had been comfortable seeing his sister, as he had known perfectly well what had caused the disgustingly satisfied and infatuated smiles that had been plastered across both of their faces. So the three of them had sat down together and had tea, and he had given Haku the 'hurt my sister and I will chase you down and kill you with a shovel' speech, whilst desperately trying to ignore the fact that both of the other two had been playing footsie under the table and giggling slightly all the way through his speech. And he had practised as well.

But Gohan had not been able to stay in the Spirit World for long. It was perfectly obvious that, even though he wasn't exactly human, he didn't belong in the Spirit World, not like Chihiro did. So he had had to return to earth, leaving his sister smiling and looking obscenely in love. He had also left Haku with the reminder that he was fully acquainted with a lot of different methods of killing a person extremely slowly. Chihiro had walked in on the tail end of this little speech and had been furious for exactly ten seconds, before she started laughing hysterically and told Gohan that he had spent far too much time with Vegeta and Piccolo. Gohan had pretended affront for a moment, and then he had told her that if anyone spent too much time with Vegeta then it was her, and had topped this off with the comment that she should be grateful that Vegeta was not the one who had walked in on them making out. Chihiro had turned quite entertainingly pale at that thought. Haku had looked quite distinctly terrified – Chihiro must have told him about Vegeta.

So he had returned to earth, bringing back with him the report of Chihiro's extreme happiness, and the fact that her lover seemed okay, and was at least in possession of some kind of sense of self-preservation, he was at least sensibly terrified of the wrath of Vegeta. He had many times in the past year since then been tempted to find the Dragonballs to wish back the moon so that Chihiro could come back, but he reminded himself sternly that she was perfectly happy where she was.

"What are you smiling about Son Gohan?"

Videl's interrogative voice pierced his reverie and he grimaced. He should have known better that to let his thoughts wander when in Videl's presence, he might have let himself be tricked into saying something incriminating.

"Just thinking, that's all Videl."

Videl was distinctly unimpressed by this answer and pressed on,

"And what were you thinking about that made you grin like such a dope?"

Gohan grimaced. Grinning like a dope was not something he was particularly fond of doing, particularly not in front of Videl, the human blood hound,

"Just remembering a friend, that's all."

Videl rolled her eyes and then persisted,

"Must have been some friend."

Gohan frowned, he had no desire to talk about Chihiro with Videl, it was really none of her business.

"She was something special."

Let Videl think of that what she would, even if the thought of anyone thinking that he and Chihiro ever having been 'an item' made him feel slightly nauseous. It wasn't that Chihiro was unattractive, she was in fact one of the most beautiful people Gohan had ever known. It was just that she was his sister.

Videl, obviously sensing that that alley of investigation was without a doubt going to be permanently closed, wisely changed the subject.

"How much longer is it until we get to your place anyway?"

Gohan smirked at her,

"Why, got a hot date later or something?"

Videl growled,

"No. I just want to get this project over with so I can get back to my life."

Gohan affect a mock-hurt expression,

"Is my company really that intolerable?"

Videl rolled her eyes,

"No. You're just that annoying."

Gohan clutched at his breast in a melodramatic fashion,

"You wound me with your words, my lady."

Videl raised her eyes to the roof and then quickly turned her attention back to scenery passing below them. Gohan also looked out of the window, and then tapped Videl on the shoulder,

"My house is just over there, see."

Videl looked and nodded,

"Sure takes long enough to get all the way out here."

Gohan smiled equably,

"My family like their privacy."

Videl rolled her eyes,

"Well, you obviously don't live here for the night life."

Videl brought the copter down in a clearing near to the Son house and the two of them got out. As they walked towards the door, Gohan felt something on the edge of his senses, but, as he was concentrating on his verbal sparring with Videl, he disregarded it. It was probably just Trunks and Goten destroying vast swathes of forest in one of their sparring matches, anyway.

Gohan let himself into the house, enjoying the fact that living in the middle of nowhere meant that he didn't have to have a key, as the door was always left open. There was the smell of food cooking in the kitchen, and, preventing himself from salivating too obviously in front of the far too observant Videl, headed towards there, knowing that if he didn't introduce Videl to his mother, his mother would definitely reintroduce him to the Frying-Pan-of-TerrorTM.

He heard his mother speaking excitedly in the kitchen and presumed that she was on the phone to Bulma again. It was either that or she had forgotten that the characters on her soaps couldn't hear her when she tried talking to the TV. Neither of these were uncommon occurrences. As Bulma was used to it and the people on the TV couldn't hear him either, he yelled as he walked to the kitchen with Videl,

"Okaasan, I have to work on a project with Videl, from school, and we came back here to do it, as her place's busy. Is that cool?"

For a moment there was no response from the peanut gallery, er, kitchen, then Chichi's furious voice emanated from the kitchen,

"Son Gohan, I know I raised you to have better manners than that. If you don't introduce your friend to me properly, I swear you won't be allowed to train for a month, and you can explain that to Vegeta yourself, and don't think that I won't give your dinner to Trunks and Goten as well."

Grimacing, Gohan turned to Videl with an apologetic look on his face. The look got a whole lot less apologetic and a whole lot more terrified when he saw the contemplative look on Videl's face. He knew that bringing her to his house was a bad idea. Not only was Videl almost certain to find out some of his secrets, but his mother was going to be pestering him about marriage and grandchildren for months. Frankly, it annoyed the HFIL out of him. Just because his parents had gotten married barely out of infancy, not to mention Chihiro leaving home at sixteen to be with her lover, didn't mean that he wanted to settle down while still in high school. And he certainly didn't want to settle down with Videl 'I will find out all your secrets' Satan. Maybe he'd have to invent a crush on Goten from Marron or someone. But if he did that, Eighteen might kill him. It was just the kind of thing she did.

Resigning himself to his grisly fate, he pushed open the kitchen door to meet his doom. As he expected, he collided with something very solid as soon as he entered the kitchen. But instead of having an unfortunate collision between his head and a solid titanium frying pan, approximately 100 pounds of teenage girl barrelled straight into his chest, wrapping its arms around his neck in a close approximation of a strangle-hold.

Fortunately, he managed to disengage the clinging arms about three seconds before he suffocated. Disentangling himself from the remnants of the embrace, he backed up a couple of feet to try and see the features of his new limpet. The head that had been pressed against his chest was bowed, so that he could not see its features. However, the bowed head was adorned with silky black braids of hair, falling to a slender waist. A pressure beat against Gohan's chest, the same pressure that beat there whenever he thought of his father. He opened his mouth to speak, but his voice cracked. Clearing his throat, he tried,

"Chi-chan, is that you?"

The braids swirled as the head raised to reveal twinkling eyes and a perfect smiling mouth set in an elegant pale face. Then the girl spoke,

"If you call me 'Chi-chan' ever again, Gohan-kun, I will feed you your own twitching corpse.

Gohan rolled his eyes and achingly familiar mock-exasperation,

"You definitely haven't changed."

Chihiro, for it was indeed to absent moon-spirit, smirked and quipped back,

"Neither have you. I thought not seeing you for a year would make your bullshit more tolerable, but you're just as much of an ass as ever… OW."

Chihiro rubbed at the lump on her head as Chichi brandished her beloved frying pan and scowled at her,

"Young lady, just because you have been away from home from a year, doesn't mean that you can just forget such things as manners. Greet your brother properly."

Smiling ruefully, Chihiro turned her sparkling green eyes to her brother and extended her hand, humour twitching the corners of her mouth,

"Gohan, I am truly sorry for not being appreciative of your utter lack of sense of humour. It's good to see you again."

Gohan smiled at her and accepted her hand. Then he pulled her into a hug, saying into her hair,

"It's good to see you too, you brat."

Ten seconds later, Gohan and Chihiro were both sitting dazed on the floor of the kitchen, rubbing matching lumps on their heads from the attack of the Frying Pan of Doom™. They smiled at each other, and it was just the same of ever, like nothing had ever changed.

Smirking in a way that made Gohan very uncomfortable, Chihiro turned back to him and said,

"You haven't introduced me to your friend, Go-chan."

Cursing slightly, Gohan rose to his feet as Haku, whose presence he had not noticed until then, helped Chihiro to hers. He had forgotten about Videl. Sighing, he attempted to keep the introductions as short and painless as he could,

"Chihiro, this is Videl Satan, we go to school together, Videl this is my sister Chihiro."

The two women shook hands and smiled at each other. Videl then turned on Gohan,

"You didn't tell me you had a sister, Gohan."

Gohan paled. How was he supposed to have explained about a sister who was a spirit and lived in a bathhouse in the spirit world, even if he had wanted to share that particular information with Videl? Thankfully, either Chihiro was satisfied with the amount of chaos she had caused, or she was merely concerned with protecting the Spirit World, Gohan tended to believe the latter, but for whatever reason, Chihiro intervened,

"It was unlikely that it would ever have come up. I live a long way from here and my job makes it hard for me to get away to come visit."

Videl seemed to accept this, but Gohan knew that she wasn't finished with him, not by a long shot. Hopefully they would finish the project quickly, so that he could have time to talk to Chihiro.

TBC