"You win!" The man sat back up as if nothing had happened.
"But why are you here?" Piccolo asked.
"The future was too boring for me." The man said with a shrug. He saw the look on our faces, and deducted that we did not believe him. His tone suddenly became serious. "Alright, fine. I screwed up, and I came back to fix it."
"What exactly did you do?" Papa asked.
The man sighed. "I did a lot of things."
Da jerked forward as if he was going to hit him. "Just give me a straight answer!"
"And I'll tell you!" The man continued, raising his voice, and shrinking back from Da's shirking range, "If you let me have my rum back."
Da shook his head. "Just say what you need to say and then I'll think about it."
"But I'm starting to sober up," The man protested, "And you wouldn't like me when I'm sober, trust me. I get pretty mean."
"I don't care. The faster you tell your story, the faster this can be over."
The man sighed deeply, and paused to think for a moment.
"Talk!" Da barked, and the man began immediately.
"Well, I came back in time to stop myself from ruining my life and everyone else's. I came back to figure out exactly when everything started going wrong so I can fix it."
"That's it?" Da asked, raising his eyebrows. "You took up all that time just to say that?"
"Well, there's more; but that part of the story is a little boring."
"I don't have anything better to do at the moment." Da said with a growl, getting up into the man's face.
"Fine then. I'm from thirteen years in the future. A while ago; which will be about a year in the future to you; I did something pretty bad. Because of it, I ruined all of your lives." He looked over to Papa, "So I got into drugs from the guilt, and became what you see today." He laughed suddenly, with a twang of bitterness to it. "I can't even function now."
"What exactly did you do?" Papa asked, hesitant to ask.
"I destroyed your lives." He said without skipping a beat. His expression was of the utmost seriousness as he spoke, his gaze unwavering. "I sent you back to your wife."
"What?!" Vienna cried, seeming perplexed.
This one thing is what I had feared most; that our parents would slip up, or fall in love with someone else. I think it is secretly every child's worst fear; every child who had not already faced the fear, anyway.
"The only reason you didn't go back to your wife, though," He was looking at Da this time, "Was because I killed you."
The color drained from me face. I take back what I said about the worst fear being that my parents split up. That was defiantly my worst fear.
Silence came about after that for a long while, until Da cleared his throat. "Why did you kill me?"
The man on the ground seemed to think about this. "There were a lot of reasons. I thought at first it was because I hated you… but now that I've had time to think it over, I realize it wasn't because I hated you."
"Then why?" Da demanded before the man could continue.
"Because I loved you." The man said without hesitation.
Da blinked several times. "You realize that doesn't make any sense."
"Oh I know; I knew then that it didn't make any sense. A lot of things that happen don't make any sense. Why should they? Sense is relative."
"That doesn't make any sense either." Da replied.
"It doesn't have to. You name me one thing that does make sense, and I'll give you seven more paradoxes to solve."
They fell silent; both of them. They simply stared, Da with wonder, the man on the floor with determination.
"I can tell your smart," Da said all of a sudden, "Smarter than the average Saiyan, no doubt."
"I try."
"What I don't understand though; among other things; is how you even got here."
"I'm actually already here. But younger."
Everyone looked around, baffled.
"Where?" Papa asked.
"Capsule Corp, probably."
We all blinked. I couldn't think of anyone I knew that even resembled this guy.
A moment later he sighed and turned his attention back to Da.
"How's your wife?"
"She's not-"
"You're wife, yeah I know. You think getting married is a waste of an afternoon."
Da stood up and took a step back. "How do you know all this?"
"I know a lot of things." The man shrugged. "I know a lot about you, Vegeta. You and I spent a lot of time together, once upon a time."
"What does that mean?" Papa asked quietly.
The man did not answer this question. "You know what puzzles me, though? I wonder why things are so different. Where I came from, you three were not born." He nodded at us. "The triplets. Whose children are you?"
"Their's," Vienna said, motioning at Papa and Da.
"Their's…." The man repeated and then paused. "You see, that doesn't fit. Something's not right about this time line." He rubbed his chin. "Where is Trunks? Do you know him?"
"Yes, he's our brother." Vienna said. "Well, half-brother. You can talk to him yourself. He and Goten are on their way right now."
It was about five minutes later that they arrived.
"Mom told me about everyone being here. What's going on?" Trunks asked as he entered the room. His eyes fell upon the man, who was frowning deeply. "Who's he?"
"We don't know." Da said with a sigh.
"Who the hell are you?" The man on the floor asked. "You're Trunks?"
"Yeah," Trunks said, frowning.
"You can't be Trunks," The man said, shaking his head. "You're too old."
"Old? I'm 30,"
"Old!" The man insisted. "You're supposed to be, like, fourteen!"
"Well I was fourteen; sixteen years ago."
For a long time, the man had a troubled look on his face. His began counting on his fingers and muttering to himself. "Hold fuck," He finally said, standing. "Shit! God damn it!" He began to throw some kind of tantrum.
"What?" Papa asked, eyebrows rising. "What's wrong?"
"What year is it?" The man asked.
"2037," Trunks replied.
"Fucking-" The man stopped suddenly to take a deep breath. "Something's wrong with that God damned machine! It didn't take me back far enough. This is a problem. God damn it!" He took his fist and put it half-way into his mouth, biting it with frustration. He crossed the other arm across his torso, and for a moment, he looked like someone who shouldn't be allowed outside a padded room.
Then he stopped, and seemed to come to a realization.
"But none of you know who I am," He said in an icy voice. "You've never seen me before in your lives."
"That's what we've been saying all day!" Da growled with exasperation.
"No, I know that; but if it's fourteen years after I meant to come, and you still don't know who I am; than that means that… I never came to earth." He let his arms drop and began to pace. For someone so skinny and frail looking, he was extremely active now. "What happened? I don't understand,"
"You do know… that whatever you do in this timeline, won't affect the one you're from, right? They are parallel Universes; you can't actually go back and change things from one timeline. You can only go to the ones next to it, in which the event you're trying to change hasn't happened yet." Papa explained slowly.
The man suddenly stopped his pacing and stared out at us. "You're sure?"
"We've dealt with Time travel before." Everyone in the room nodded.
"Then… You're wife; she never went to another planet? She never talked about finding a little boy?"
Da shook his head. "She didn't say anything about it to me…And she's not my wife."
"Yes, I know, I know. I know!" The man seemed angry now with frustration. He collapsed onto the floor. His knees came up to his chest and he wrapped his arms around them. His eyes were looking around wildly as he thought. Faintly, I could hear him rattling off numbers.
"1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23…" He kept going on and on, naming on random numbers for nearly twenty minutes. He did not move, and no one said anything.
He got up to 103, and then, finally, he seemed to clear his head enough to speak.
"Well, I guess I came here for nothing." He said in a hollow voice. He began gathering up all his belongings and his drugs.
"Well, you came back and tried to make everything right; that's what counts." Papa said.
"Yeah, a world of good that did." He took out a cigarette that was tucked inside the lining of the book he carried and lit up. "If you need me, I'll be on the biggest drug binge of my life."
"So you're just going to give up?" Vienna asked, seemed perplexed, "Just like that? You're not even going to try to do anything?"
"Like what? Save him from nothing? There's nothing to do; I don't have a reason to be alive, really."
"There are a lot of thing you could do," She offered. "You can stop using drugs, for one." This last part she said quietly, as if she thought he wouldn't hear.
"There are a lot of things I've tried to do. I'm just not up to challenges like I used to be." He turned to Da, "I promise I won't be of any more trouble. You leave me alone, and I'll just disappear. Deal?"
Da nodded. The man threw the T-shirt from his bag over his shoulder and turned back around to look at us all. He had a look of calculation on his face. Then, without another word, he turned to leave.
"Wait," I said all of a sudden, "What's your name?"
The man turned back around slightly, his back hunched, which exposed his spinal cord. "Can I trust you with my name?"
I glanced at my parents, but they did not respond. "Yes," I said after a moment.
He gave me a teasing laugh, but it was hollow too. "If I didn't have such a head ache, I might be willing to make a game out of it. It's Kagen. Don't forget it, love." He winked, and with that, was gone.