5: Avoiding the inevitable

He knew he could not stop his parents from fighting. He wished he could, but they had been fighting all his life. His grandmother told him that it was the reason they were together. They constantly challenged each other and that seemed to be what they liked. Trunks did not see it as a challenge. A challenge was a fight where he actually had to work to win. A challenge was a sparring match between him and Goten. His parents weren't challenging each other, they were yelling at each other. And it drove him crazy.

He'd fallen asleep pretty much the moment his head had hit the pillow, but now he was wide awake. Outside the sun was about to show its face. Soon Yamcha would wake up and he would call his mother. That meant that soon he'd have to face his parents. Would they have cooled down yet? To be honest Trunks doubted it. Perhaps his mother would be worried, but his father might be pissed off even more than he had been last night.

He wondered how much the beating would hurt this time. Surely quite a lot. Trunks had defied his father like he had never done before and that had to warrant a beating worse than he'd ever had before.

He sat up in his bed and pulled his knees to his chest, hugging them with his arms. He wished he could skip today and move straight on to tomorrow. Then the beating would be done with and he would be able to lock himself in his room and just try to ignore the fighting.

Damn it! It was not his fault he'd run off yesterday, it had all been his parents' fault. If they did not fight so much, Trunks would not have felt the need to escape the compound. With a sigh he rested his chin on his knees and stared at the window, watching the first rays of sun hitting the blue curtains.

Escape the compound. If only his parents would ease up on their rule of no going out on school nights. He would be able to just get away then whenever they were fighting. That would make a difference. It had made a difference last night. He would have just gone to sleep if his parents had not found out he'd left. But they had found out so he'd had to leave again.

In the next room he could hear an alarm clock going off. That was Yamcha getting up then. He decided to get up as well. He had to get ready for school in any case. With a yawn he got out of bed and knelt by his schoolbag and clothes. Yamcha had lent him a pair of piyama's, which were too big for him, of course, but at least he would not be smelling like he'd slept in his clothes. He removed his night clothing and picked up his shirt, frowning for a second at the cut on his right sleeve. Right. The woman in the alley with the knife. He glanced at his arm, not surprised to see no more than a thin line. The blade had cut him, but he healed quickly. According to his father it was because he was saiyan.

What did it mean to be a saiyan anyways? He contemplated that while he got dressed. According to his father it meant strength, pride, honour. The words meant little to Trunks. Strength he could understand. He knew about sparring. He knew about battles. But pride? Honour? Those things were the very reasons his father always ended up fighting with his mother. If pride meant looking down on people all the time and if honour meant arguing with everyone about every little thing then he'd rather be human without all that complicated stuff.

But if he told his father that he was sure he'd just get himself into trouble. Of course, his own son rejecting his heritage would be a huge blow to the prince's precious pride.

Trunks had been proud once as well. His father had told him he was a prince, the first-born and therefore the heir to his kingdom. But there was no kingdom anymore. There was no people to lead. If there was no people, then what was the point of calling yourself a prince?

A knock on the door was followed by Yamcha coming in. "Hey, big guy." He greeted him. "I'll make you pancakes for breakfast and then I'll call to your home. Or you can call them yourself if you'd rather?"

Trunks shook his head. "I'd rather not call them."

"Alright, then I'll do it"

Yamcha was pretty cool that way, Trunks thought, watching the man leave. He didn't have to take Trunks in and put him up for the night, but he had done it. Trunks had definitely appreciated that.

Ten minutes later, Trunks was working on the stack of pancakes Yamcha had made for him. The older man was at the phone, dialling his home number. It rang a couple of times before it was answered.

"Bulma? Hey, this is Yamcha." There was a short silence in which Trunks figured his mother replied something. Yamcha answered "Things are fine here. Actually I'm calling to tell you that your son spent the night at my place."

"What?" Trunks flinched and almost choked on his piece of pancake when he heard his mother's voice. "He's been there? All night? And you DID NOT CALL ME?"

"Uh yeah," Yamcha laughed nervously. "He told me what happened and said you all needed some time to calm down."

"It is not for him to decide when we need time to calm down!" His mother's voice clearly spoke through the telephone. "And it is definitely not your decision!"

This was not going good. Trunks looked at the pancakes that were still left, but he wasn't very hungry anymore. He watched Yamcha for another moment as the man tried to get an apology in-between, but his mother overruled him easily, telling him that she was coming right over to fetch her son. That was not good. He didn't want to face her just yet! So Trunks flung his bag over his shoulder and ran to the door. "I'm off!" He called, waving at Yamcha. "Just tell her I'll see her after school."

"Trunks, wait!"

But Trunks did not listen. He was already out the door and taking to the air. "Thanks for the bed and breakfast!"

-.-

When were you really a man? To the law it was when you were eighteen, then you could vote and drink and be trialled as a man. But it did not happen overnight like that. It wasn't like the night before your birthday you were still a child and then all of a sudden the night after that you were a man and you knew how to be responsible and stuff.

Trunks felt like he was a man, He'd fought alongside other men to save the world several times now and he had done pretty good. He was nowhere near as strong as his father or Goku, but he was already much stronger than either of them had been at his age. His father had not turned super saiyan until around the time that Trunks was born!

He thought he should qualify as a man. He was smart, he could make his own decisions and he had a good perception of how the world should be. If he were allowed to vote he was sure he would be able to make a good decision on who to vote for and he could take care of himself. He would have to show his parents that if he ever wanted them to take him seriously. He would have to let then know that he wasn't a child anymore and he could take care of himself, make his own decision. It really irked him that he wasn't even allowed to go out if he had school the next morning. Like he couldn't decide for himself if he was tired yet or not!

"Trunks, over here!" Goten knew he did not have to call out to him to help Trunks find him, but he always did anyway. That was just the kind of kid he was. Trunks took his tray over to the table his younger friend was already occupying and sat down.

"Heya, Goten."

The age difference meant that Goten was a grade behind Trunks. They did not share classes and they both had some different friend, but they often met up in lunch. They were always drawn towards each other. After all, who else in this building could possibly match either of them in strength? And fighting was a hobby they shared.

"I heard your mom called my mom last night." Goten said with his mouth full. "Did you really run away?"

"Yeah." Trunks answered simply. He did not know if he wanted to talk about this.

"Why?" Goten did not seem to notice. "What happened? My mom even searched my room even though it was really late. She only quit after having searched every inch and dad told her he didn't sense you there."

Trunks looked up in surprise at that. He hadn't thought they would search that thoroughly for him. Good thing he had not gone to Goten's place then. "I'm sorry." He said.

"Ah, no worries. I was barely asleep anyways." He took a gulp of his drink. "So, what happened?"

Trunks shrugged. "I got into a fight with my dad." He'd decided to settle for that since he'd told Yamcha the same.

Goten glanced at the tear in Trunks' shirt sleeve and nodded. "I see."

Trunks let the boy believe what he wanted.

"So, how mad were they when you went back home?"

"I haven't yet." Trunks answered casually. "I crashed at Yamcha's place."

"Really?" Goten asked. "And they just let you?"

"They didn't know until he called them this morning. I'll go home after school."

"Good luck with that." Goten answered. "I swear my mom would kill me if I stayed out all night without telling her!"

But Goten's mother did not have the strength to actually accomplish that and Goten's father would never react like that to his son. For Trunks it was another story, though. His mother was also not capable of actually killing him short of poisoning him which he was sure she would not do. But his father had the strength to do it and he was not as opposed to it as Goku was.

"Hey, do you remember your field trip to the art museum last year? Is it important? 'Cause if it's not I'm gonna ask my dad to write me a note so I won't have to go. That stuff's boring."

Gladly, Trunks let himself be distracted by his best friend.

little princess

Decided to keep Yamcha's thought out as nobody seemed very interested in it.