The cafeteria was a huge room full of tables with kids who either stared at Gohan like he had a tail again, or who ignored him utterly. The place smelled like a cocktail of food and salt and blood and sweat and a million flavors of deodorant and body spray all swirled together, like most crowds of humans were wont to do, but much more pronounced.
He spotted a lone boy lurking in the back corner with black clothing and a particularly foul odor of smoke hanging off of his frame. But he was smiling- if a little vacantly- so Gohan interpreted that as a good sign and took a seat next to him.
Then, Gohan peered at his companion closer and noticed the boy's eyes were bloodshot. "Gosh, you look tired. Is the school day really that difficult?" he asked, scrambling for a way to make conversation.
The boy giggled stupidly, and then suddenly the smile dropped from his face as he mulled over what Gohan said.
"Man, if you're gonna be all straight-edge like that and ruin my high, I don't think we can chill, dude," he said. He started giggling again. "Go with your own pack of prudes, man, and let me be."
"Uh," Gohan realized he had just been denied his seat. "Oh. Excuse me." He stood back up, bowed, and took his lunch- a modest six bento boxes- and looked around for a new spot.
There was an empty chair by a group of girls who were sharing a laugh about something. They looked like they enjoyed making friends. Gohan made his way over.
"Hello," he said from behind his wall of bento. "Would it be alright if I sat here?"
"Uh," the girl closest to him- a girl with dark hair held in pigtails and the only one in the bunch sporting a serious face, scooted over. Gohan thought he recognized her.
"Yeah, sure!" Her friend, a blonde, motioned for him to sit down. "Girls, this is that new kid in me and Videl's class!"
"You don't say "me and Videl", Erasa," the girl with the dark hair said. "It's incorrect."
Erasa giggled and nudged her friend's shoulder. "Whatever!"
Gohan nodded and plopped down with a clatter of lacquered wood on metal. "It's nice to meet you! I am Son Gohan!"
The other girls at the table gave him a barrage of names he had no hope of remembering, and then either ignored him again or stared at him in a way that made him feel uncomfortable and weird. He opted to open the first of his lunch boxes and start on the rice and pickled plum sitting to the left of his pork katsu.
He was on his third bento when the dark-haired girl, Videl (he thought it was Videl. Or was it Verde? Vera? Virgil, like the poet?) said something to him. "Are you… really going to eat all of those?"
Gohan swallowed a mouthful and looked around the table. The girls around him were absolutely silent, and he realized that the denizens of the entire cafeteria were staring at him.
"Look at him go," one boy in the back said.
"Uh," Gohan answered.
"Hey, ladies," another boy, this one with blonde hair, big arms, and some fake, overpowering scent sprayed on himself, came up from behind Gohan. "You letting the new kid sit with you 'cause you think he can eat your pussy like the groceries, too, or what?"
"Sharpie!" Erasa covered her mouth and swatted at him while the rest of the cafeteria erupted into laughter. "He's new! Be nice."
Gohan was still puzzling over his remark. "Huh? But I don't like to eat cats," Gohan said. "Not unless I have to."
The blonde boy raised his eyebrows. "You serious, new kid?"
The laughter died down a bit and another male voice in the back cut through the remaining clamor. "So do you eat dogs instead? Like hot dogs? 'Cause I got a sausage for ya in my shorts!"
Gohan furrowed his eyebrows when the room erupted into another peal of laughter. "That's really nice of you, but I have plenty of lunch here in front of me, thank you."
"I'll say," another boy, this one with a ball cap jammed on his head despite the school rule against hats, leaned over the table and considered Gohan's food. "You've got enough to feed an army."
Gohan had thought this was downright light for a normal lunch, but then he took the time to examine the food in front of his peers. Maybe these other kids did not have the money for anything except the contents of their tiny styrofoam trays. He felt exceptionally rude and selfish. "Do… do you want some?" he asked, turning pink and holding out his bento to the crowd.
"Nah," the boy said. "I think a scrawny little thing like you needs it a little bit more," he reached over and grabbed the bottom of the boxes, "than me!" He flipped them off of the table and into Gohan's face.
Or, at least, he tried to. Another hand, this one sporting a black, fingerless glove, slammed the stack of bento back onto the table before they could spill. Gohan looked over at the owner.
It belonged to Virgil, the not-poet. From her expression, she had been glaring daggers at everyone this entire time. "That's enough," she said.
The boy in the hat backed off, along with the rest of the crowd. "Oh! V-Videl. I didn't, uh, see you there. We was, uh, we was just givin' him a hard time. We didn't mean nothin' by it. Just, uh, just kidding around!"
Videl didn't say anything. Instead, she stood up and crossed her arms. Her blue eyes flitted over the crowd with a commanding glare.
The crowd scattered pretty quickly in the wake of that, and Videl reclaimed her seat.
The blonde boy with the big arms, Sharpener, remained. "So is this dude your boyfriend, now?" He laughed.
Videl rolled her eyes and smacked him in the arm accompanied by some line of banter, but Gohan was too busy turning the color of the fatty tuna on his chirashi don to actively listen to what they were saying. Boyfriend? He was this girl's boyfriend? Already? His mother had told him that kids these days moved a little fast when it came to romantic relationships, but this was unreal!
He sat there staring, red in the face, until Erasa looked over at him. "Poor Gohan. He's so embarrassed that he doesn't want to eat anymore!"
Videl turned to him. "Don't worry about what those guys think, or anything else. Just eat your lunch like you normally would. But," her mouth scrunched into a crooked line. "Uh, try not to get any on us while you do, okay?" She smiled sheepishly at him then, and Gohan felt his heart try and leap out of his throat.
His new girlfriend was smiling at him!
He nodded, quickly and dumbly, and escaped into his food to try and hide his rouged face.
He could not wait to tell his mother how well his first day had gone before it was even half over! He had a girlfriend and everything, like a normal kid! He had a girlfriend, a girlfriend!
The lunch bell rang and the cafeteria cleared out before Gohan worked up the nerve to say anything else to Videl. He watched her pick up her tray and disappear into the crowd.