Chapter 20
Only a few more weeks left until the faithed day for the Saiyans to arrive, in dead of the night, hush winds slapping the grass and leaves to and fro the plant life was shaded dark green due to the lack of light, the nocturnal animals making their hunt and rounds
Piccolo's eyes shot open, sweat trickling down from his temples and forehead, his breath hitched and spiked, never in his life did he feel relaxed enough to doze off, and it's as if the world like being sadistic towards him, the moment he slept he was bombarded with nightmares
He remembered his Sire and he remembered his Sins, he cursed his flakiness, what kind of fever dream did he had that made him actually believe he was able to peacefully forget everything he has done before and live a tranquil life with the boy
He was so close to climbing out of that dark ditched he was trapped in, everything up to now felt promising, it's like light held out a hand to help him up then darkness sadistically kick him back in the pit
Before hope and doubt could have another heated argument inside him, he realized Gohan was looking at him horror-stricken
The Namekian quickly questioned to himself, did he look that bad? He had a nightmare yes but surely, it didn't show on the outside the rising tides inside him
Then a feedback happened, he felt feelings that was not his own, emotions high there mental link was back
Did Gohan had a nightmare too ? Why was the boy as distraught as him
Wait, how long ago did that link activate?
Panic crawled like a hundred mini spiders in his brain as his pessimistic nature zeroed in the worse possible scenarios
No, please, not that, anything but that
Did his little friend saw everything? His memories really did strike at an opportune time, replaying his battle in the 23rd martial arts tournament and as well as his battle with Raditz, both in graphic details zooming in times where he was specifically hurting Goku and to top it off the nightmare was as vivid as the reality back then
Of course, of course of all the memories, he would have a nightmare about, it would be those two, it made sense those were the circumstance he had started feeling guilt and regret over, he had planned to confess to the kid and make peace but not like this he wanted to wait for the Saiyan threat to be over, the kid had a lot on his plate right now
He felt anguished even if the world did not forgive him, hate and attack him, he atleast wanted to remain friends with the boy
He wanted it, wished for it
He barely composed himself on the inside but remain stoic and collected on the outside, he stood confidently and walked towards the boy before he could touch him consolingly, the kid was frantically edging trying hard to increase his distance from him and finally flinching when his hands got near enough
That fear response was all he needed to see to confirm his intuition
Piccolo froze and at that moment, his essence was a fragile drinking glass that was dropped from a 100 story building, landing powerfully and breaking into thousands of sharp edge shards
He reluctantly pulled his hand away but before he could fully retreat, he was rigidly tackled, he came down on his back with the boy on top of him
Gohan's face was scrunched up in anguish waterfall of tears continuously streamed on his face making heaving droplets that landed on Piccolo's purple gi, his posture was stiff, he was hitting his friend's chest with a balled up fist in quick succession
It was him, he did it
He was the one who killed his dad
He was the one who started all of this
He was the one who haphazardly dump all this weight and responsibility on him
He didn't have to go through all of this if it wasn't for him
These line of thoughts was something that didn't occur to him, even if it did, he shoved it all the way down, but when he saw the visions the realization was a small domino hitting larger and larger ones until all was toppled down and broken
And yet he felt like vomiting he berated himself at his actions, he didn't want to be scared of Piccolo, he didn't want to flinch, he didn't want to feel any sort of malice or hate, but he did
The young lad continued hitting his mentor's chest out of sheer frustration, he couldn't tolerate the detest that taunted up in his core when he was in front row sit feeling Piccolo's nightmares
He wanted to violently ripped it to shreds, he didn't care if was wrong, damn this, damn the world!
Gohan ceased hitting and rested his face, pressing it against Piccolo, he inhaled on his chest sharply taking in his scent
He was in too deep, he loved him too much