Author's notes: So I'm back with another chapter. Enjoy.

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MangekyoMasta510: Thanks for the review. And I guess the subject isn't all that popular.

Black Seconds

Yajirobi didn't help with the search. He sat on the ground in his garage, with a book in his lap. The cold of the cement crept through the seat of his pants. Trunks sat on the workbench against the wall, looking at Yajirobi. His clothes were damp after walking in the drizzle for hours. The search party had not produced anything. Now he looked at his car. From the place where he sat he couldn't see mutilated mud fender. He could imagine that it had never happened, that it had only been a bad dream.

'How was it?' Yajirobi asked, without looking at him. Trunks thought about that question for a fairly long time.

'Creepy,' he said. 'To walk and search like that. A lot of strangers. They search everywhere. In all the corners and creaks.'

'Will they search on tomorrow?' Yajirobi asked.

'They say they'll continue for days.'

He looked at his older friend. Yajirobe is really fat, he thought. He had a fat face with a double chin and broad shoulders. His knees could clearly be seen through his nylon overall. Now he rubbed some filth from his cheek with a finger, while he tried to comprehend the text and pictures about damage, repairing and painting of cars. The book was old and had been used a lot. The pages were littered with oil spots. A couple of pages were torn and had been repaired, makeshift, with some tape. He studied the picture of a fender, the right side, like Trunks' car.

'We have to scrub first,' Yajirobi decided. 'We need two sorts of sandpaper, fine and coarse.' He gazed at the book. 'Number 180 and number 360. The fender must first be scrubbed with dry sandpaper, and afterwards with wet. We need a sanding cork and filler,' he said. 'A rust converter. Degreasing agent. Are you listening, Trunks?'

Trunks nodded. In reality he was far away with his thoughts. Yajirobe read on.

'We need to scrub a piece around the damage. It says here: Start in the middle of the damaged spot and work in circulatory moves towards the outside. Get something to write on. You have to buy the material. First we need to get the fender off the car.'

'Yes, I can go shopping,' said Trunks. 'but I don't have any money.'

Yajirobi looked up. 'I'll lend it to you. You won't be going to school for ever, will you? Sooner or later you'll start to earn money on your own.'

He looked back in the book. 'We are also missing some tools. I'll try to borrow it from someone.'

He put the book away, stood upright and walked over to the car. He bend over the fender, legs spread, with hands on his hips. With a profesional face he studied the damage. His shoulders were bend like two sails, ready to set to work.

'Come on Trunks. We'll start!'

Trunks heard the rustling of the nylon overall and a whining sound from the metal of the car. In between he heard sighing and wheezing. A fifteen year Opel Ascona didn't fall apart without a fight.

'I know somebody who works at the Shell-station,' Yajirobi wheezed. 'Juunana. He'll borrow me what we need.'

Yajirobi also knew a lot of people, Trunks thought.

'Damn it Yajirobi,' he said relieved. 'If you can manage this, I'll owe you big time.'

'Indeed,' Yajirobi said with a smile. His eyes were alight. 'But then you need to lighten up a bit. It will be fine. I'm sure of it.'

He went on with the wiggling and bending of the metal. A vein in his neck swelled.

'No, shit, I'll have to crawl underneath.'

He crawled all the way underneath the car. His short, stubby fingers appeared from underneath the intrusion.

'I actually don't understand it,' Trunks said. 'I don't understand at all. How could it have happened?'

He really hated what had happened. His cheeks started to get flushed because of it.

'Relax, buddy,' Yajirobi said easily. 'Like said before: it will be fine.' Then he thought of something. 'How did your mother react?'

Trunks moaned. 'Not so well. That she won't pay for it. That she doens't like the fact that I spent time here. But she's more concerned with the other thing, you know what...'

'Yes, off course. No, I'm not exactly the ideal son in law, I have always known that,' Yajirobi grinned. 'But you are an adult, damn it. You have to decide for yourself with who you associate.'

'That's what I said to her,' Trunks lied. 'Say,' he thought about it, 'should we also check the brakes?'

'Stop it, alright!' Yajirobi scolded him. 'The brakes are fine. Now you have to help me. The fender has to go, but it's stuck. Hold it for me!'

Trunks jumped off the workbench. He tried to stay calm. It was a relief that Yajirobi arranged everything. The role of assistant was fine for him. But sometimes he had the feeling that he was kept underneath the thumb of his older and more venturous friend. When Trunks had finally gotten his driver's license, after failing for the first test and had had to endure many weeks of pestering, he had gotten the feeling that they were equivalent. He could drive on his own. Yajirobi had also been the one that had searched the papers for a reasonable car that fitted in Trunks' budget. His search had saved Trunks at least fivehundred dollars.

'An Opel is safe,' Yajirobi had said with full conviction. 'A solid engine, especially the older models. Don't care too much about the colour. Don't be too picky. If you find an orange Opel in good state, then you take that one.'

But the Opel they had found had been black. Even the paintwork was pretty well done. Trunks had been on cloud nine. He couldn't loiter around anymore, he had to drive continously.

'And the police?' Yajirobi asked carefully. 'They will visit everybody around here because of the missing girl, right?'

'Yes.'

'Have they spoken to you already?'

'No way,' Trunks yelled. He let the fender go for a moment, which caused Yajirobi's finger to be stuck.

'Watch out, man! You have to hold it while I do my job!'

Trunks held onto the fender with all his might. His knuckles turned white.

'With such a case, with a little girl and all,' Wheezed Yajirobi from underneath the car. 'they pull out every stop. Maybe they have even interrogated her father. Have they?'

'No idea,' Trunks mumbled.

'But they ask a lot about relations, family and friends,' Yajirobi said. 'Maybe they'll ask you?'

Trunks nodded. He felt like a doll, while he listened to the stream of words. On one side it worked relaxing, but on the other side he started to get nervous.

'The fact that you're the son of a close friend of the family, it is taxing on it's own already,' Yajirobi said. He had finally stood up. The fender was loose. 'Especially when she isn't found,' he said. 'If they never dig up the truth. Something like this will make people peek at each other for generations to come. You know that there was a murder here about thirty years ago?'

Trunks shook his head in denial.

'I do. A boy who had raped and killed a sixteen year old girl. The families still live here. You can see it on their faces.'

'What do you see?' Trunks asked. He became more high-strung as the conversation went on.

'That they are thinking about it the whole time. That they realise that everybody knows who they are. They walk with their noses downward. That sort of stuff.' He wiped a drip of snot from his nose. 'The mother of the boy who has done it, is almost seventy. And you can see it from miles away.'

'I don't,' Trunks said. 'I don't even know who they are.'

He wanted his friend to shut up. All the talking about death and corruption was really bothering him. The only thing he was interested in, was his car. That it turned out whole again. Whole and shining and without scratches, like he was before.

She know she's pretty, Tien thought melancholy. He held Marron's picture in his hand. He had the idea that he could hear them all, a repeating chorus, of aunts and uncles, neighbours and friends. 'O, what a cute child!' He remembered his own aunts, when they pinched his cheeks, as if he was a young puppy of something that couldn't talk back. But I was, he thought. A thin, shy boy with legs too long. He kept gazing at the photograph. For years Marron has seen her reflection in other's eyes and had seen her own beauty. Because of that she had become a self-assured child, a child that was used to be worshipped, and maybe be envied. Used to get her own way, around her friends and her parents. However... Eighteen seemed stern and resolute, Marron had had clear rules. And she had always kept herself to them. Who had she met that she had thrown away the warnings of her mother? With what had she been lured? Or had she just been knocked unconscious and thrown in a car?

Charming and friendly, he thought. That combination didn't sit right with him. It made her vulnerable. It was impossible to look in the blue eyes without melting. He tried to connect those three things. Warm feelings for a charming child, afterwards the lust and in the end the destruction. He could imagine the first two. Even the moment of lust he could understand. The innocence, the weakness of a child. The smooth, soft, pure, that smelled so good, that shuddered and wept. That could make you strong, that could make you take something you thought was your right, only because you were an adult. But to take the life from a slender child by hitting ot choking, he couldn't comprehend that. All that panicky, struggling life that seeped away so slowly from your fingers. He rubbed his eyes tiredly. That's why he dialled the number of Lunch's hotel in New York. She wasn't there.

It was late in the evening. The city lay there, glowing like a dimmed campfire between the blue black hills. He could go home and drink a glass of whisky. Porbably he could also go to sleep, without trouble. The fact that he could go to bed while Marron had disappeared in this deep darkness, while Eighteen was waiting with teary eyes, bothered him. He would prefer to go outside. Walk through the streets with his senses alert. Outside, where Marron was. The patrols still hadn't had anyhting new to report.

He jumped when he heard a knocking on his door. Yamcha Westwood stuck his head around the corner.

'Aren't you going home?' Yamacha asked. 'What are you still doing here so late?'

'The same as you, I assume. Fiddling around.'

Yamcha let his eyes stray over his boss' office. Underneath Tien's desk lamp stood a small statue of clay. It resembled a policeagent in a blue uniform, made by Tien's grandson. Yamcha picked up the figurine and inspected it.

'It's starting to grow moldy,' he said. 'Did you know that?'

Tien acted as if he hadn't heard it. It wouldn't occur to him to throw the figurine away. Yes, it was indeed looking a little moldy, but at least it didn't stink yet.

'Can I smoke out of the window?' Yamcha asked.

He waited patiently on an answer, sigaret in hand. After a small nod he went to sit on the window sill. He fiddled a bit with the heavy window.

'Disappeared without a trace,' he stated, while the smoke into the septembre night. 'They haven't even found a hair pin.'

'She didn't wear anything that she could have lost,' Tien said. 'No watch, no bracelet or necklace. But for one thing I am truly happy.'

'Really?' Yamcha said somberly.

'That we haven't found bloodied clothing. No lost kid's shoe somewhere at the side of the road, not her bike that was thrown in a ditch. I like the fact that everything is gone.'

'Why?' Yamcha asked befuddled.

'I don't know,' Tien admitted.

'It only means he's very careful,' Yamcha said. 'That doesn't really make me happy.'

He inhaled deeply. 'This waiting,' he said, 'is a test.'

'Especially for Krillin and Eighteen Chestnut,' Tien remarked dryly.

Yamcha stayed quiet. Was that an admonishment? He blew the smoke through the open window, but some drifted inside the dim room. When he had finished his sigaret he held the glowing stub underneath the faucet of the sink.

'Shall we go home?'

Tien nodded and grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair.

'What's your opinion about the papers?' asked Yamcha a while later. They stood outside on the parking area. They both jingled their keys.

'The journalists are fine,' Tien thought. 'If you look at the facts they are writing about. But there is also something as a lay-out. And press photographers, they do have a special feeling form dramatics.'

Yamcha thought about the pictures in the papers of that day. The picture of Marron, the picture of the same bike, a yellow Nakamura, and the picture of a similiar jogging suit she had had on. 'This is where Marron had went to'. Dotted lines. An enlarged picture of Mama Betty's Shop.

' They have started a serial,' Tien said. 'I hope there won't be too many episodes.'

With a nod they said goodbye to each other. Once home Tien walked to the kitchen to grab the pack of dry dog food. The dog, Chaozu, who had laid on the floor waiting on his master moved very carefully. But when he heard the food fall into his metal bin he stood up. Slowly he scrambled toward the kitchen. The dog, a Leonberger, was already so old that it went against all statistics. He stared at Tien with a black, uncomprehendable look. Tien had trouble meeting his gaze. He knew the dog was way too old, that he should let him sleep in. Soon, he thought. Not yet. I'll wait 'till Lunch is back. He cut a slice of his bread and put a piece of sausage on it. Afterwards he grabbed a tube of mayonnaise from the frigde. He stood there, contemplating the pros and cons. When he screwed the lid of off the tube, a strange thought went through his head. He could wring out an eight of mayonnaise on his sandwich and eat it afterwards. While for Eighteen Chestnut, breathing was already an enormous task.

Author's notes: Not much to say. Just, you guys think it's going too slow? Or is the pace fine?

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