Chapter 4

After they had arrived back to the cottage from Chichi's escape and unsolicited rescue from the woodland dinosaur, Goku had left her a little while to rest by the stream near their home while he fetched some firewood. It relieved her to be by herself and her own thoughts, the change in her attitude towards him rattled her a little, it made her question whether she had been right in her behavior towards him, there was a seed of discomfort in her belly that was growing from the thought, she didn't want to think what it could be.

Goku had returned, beaming as usual with the promised firewood, and greeted her with his standard joy. She wondered if he was always this happy, or if he appeared especially happy to see her where he had left her, rather than disappeared, still committed to dining with him. Chichi wondered if she affected him at all, she wondered if she wanted to affect him. Goku then proceeded to create a spit and to her shock, set fire to the wood with a small blast of something bright from his palm.

"How did you do that?!" A part of her resented herself for breaking the silence, because conversing with him made her feel vulnerable somehow, but her astonishment could not be contained and the question slipped from her lips before she had the presence of mind to stop them.

Goku seemed pleased with her question, "it's a kamehameha wave, I just made a small one for the fire."

"Where… how did you learn to do that?"

"Master Roshi taught me, he invented them," and then a quick excitement seemed to run through him, "wait a minute! I'll show you a bigger one, it'll be really great!" And before she had a chance to compute, Goku had grabbed her hand and dragged her through a five minute run towards the edge of the forest they had just exited.

"What are you-" but before she had a chance to finish her question Goku had blasted another much larger kamehameha at a lone tree on the edge of the forest, which immediately burst into angry flames.

Goku then turned towards her with his trademark grin, "Tada!"

Chichi was stunned at the display, but quickly morphed into anger, much to Goku's surprise, "The tree's on fire! Why would you do that to a tree! It never did anything to you!" But before Goku could respond to her outburst, Chichi quickly ran back to their little station grabbing a bucket, rapidly filling it with water and ran back to the tree, trying to douse it with water, but in the time it took chichi to return the flames had multiplied, threatening to engulf the whole. Her water almost evaporated as soon as it approached the almost fully burning tree.

"Wait, let me do this. NIMBUS!" Immediately the faithful cloud swirled to a stop from high in the sky in front of Goku's feet, he hopped on, disappeared, and then returned within two very painful minutes with what looked like a huge ball of water suspended within another ball of energy above his head, and being controlled by his upraised arm. With a wave of his arm the glowing energy circling the water disappeared, allowing gravity to do the rest, and the tree was doused of its flames.

Chichi's shoulders dropped and she let out a sigh, before walking closer to the victim, trying to assess how bad their injuries were. Goku walked up to her gingerly, "are you okay Chichi?"

"What do you mean am I okay?! You just set fire to a tree! In a forest! You could have set the whole place blazing!" She yelled as she turned eyes full of fire that could have competed with the flames that had just occupied the tree.

"It's just a tree."

"It's not just a tree!" Her outburst shocked even herself, worried she exposed too much of herself, Chichi clapped eyes on the receiving end. Confusion and surprise was splayed across Goku's face.

"Are you okay chichi?"

Taking deep breaths, Chichi closed her eyes, "I'm okay, but why did you do that?"

Goku scratched the back of his head sheepishly, his eyes averted to the ground. "Heh… I guess I got excited to show you what I can do." His answer flicked something in her chest… had he been trying to impress her? Her eyes flicked from the smoking tree to her husband, "Sorry I burnt the tree, I promise not to do it again."

That seed of discomfort from earlier in her belly was growing a little, she needed to put it out "I'm sorry too… for shouting at you."

She was answered by his effortless full smile, "No worries!" And she couldn't help but smile a tiny one in return.

They traveled back with nimbus, which Chichi was now grateful for. "Goku, how did you move the ball of water to the tree?"

"I used Ki, it's like your body's energy that with enough control you can get to leave your body and make it do what you need."

"Did master roshi teach you that too?"

"No, I learnt all that from Mr. Popo up on Kame's look out" She had heard those names before from her dad. "Want me to teach you?"

Shocked, Chichi nearly fell off the cloud again, "What?"

"Do you want me to teach you how to control Ki? It's really fun. You like Martial arts right?" Chichi considered this, she did indeed like martial arts, but she felt like it was such an intimate thing. She was still feeling very uncertain about the man next to her and about her whole situation, so how could she consent to being taught by Goku if she's still planning on running away from him? She didn't like it, but she was starting to dislike the idea of hurting the guy. Her long silence however had reached Goku's thoughts, "you don't have to now. Maybe one day in the future, when you're ready, and if you want to."

It relieved her, and in a small voice, forgetting temporarily her plan to run away from Mount Paozu, she replied "Yeah, one day, that would be nice."

When they arrived, the fire for the spit was in good strength, "The fire is ready, better get a fish quick then. Stay here Chichi, I'll try to be fast." And before she could do or say anything, Goku began taking his clothes off… all his clothes off.

On mortified instinct Chichi spun around and covered her burning face with her hands "Goku! Y-you can't just strip n-naked like that!"

"But I need to get the fish." Was the simple answer, accompanied by an indicative splash into the active stream.

"What about a fishing line? You don't just dump yourself into rivers like this to get a fish!" Chichi didn't think it was safe to turn around. But she heard what seemed to be a commotion in the water, breaking the otherwise usually peaceful currents. After a very heavy thud of something presumably large hitting the ground, and a loud gasp of air from Goku, Chichi assumed Goku must be getting out of the stream, with water cascading from his hair, down his neck, down his chest….

Shaking her head, she shut her eyes tighter, willing the image to disperse. She had no idea what his chest looked like, she therefore had no business imagining what it could look like. She barely knew this guy, she shouldn't think of him like that… it was… inappropriate, even if he was her husband.

"I've put the fish on the spit Chichi, it's a big one, hopefully it feeds the both of us, but if it's not enough I can get another one later."

"Are you dressed yet?"

"Yup! Just putting my boots back on."

At this, Chichi turned around tentatively, and what she saw stunned her, Goku was indeed putting his boots on, and he had dressed in his trousers, but his chest lay bare for all her eyes to see. A split second later and with a renewed blush Chichi turned fully back around.

"Goku you're not wearing a shirt!"

"It got wet when I got the fish."

"Can't you make it dry somehow?" There was an edge of panic in her voice, how could she be near him when he was like that? Chichi really needed him to understand that he really really needed to put his shirt back on. Or maybe she really really needed him to put his shirt back on.

"How?"

"Try placing it close to the fire, or use some of that energy Ki thing of yours!" Anything just to make him cover that broad strong chest…

"Huh… never thought of that, let me try…" she heard his shuffling footsteps move further away from her, and then a small wave of heat met her clothed back, it was comfortable and cozy. "Aww great! My shirt is dry!" His voice muffled suddenly, as though he were putting the shirt on, "and warm too! Thanks Chichi, that was a great idea."

"Can I turn around now?"

"I guess, you never needed to turn away in the first place."

"No, Goku… I definitely did."

"But why?"

"You weren't wearing any clothes!" She was starting to lose her patience, didn't this man understand decency? And innocent minds?

"It's just bodies" that got her turning around more forcefully and she was greatly relieved to see he was indeed wearing his shirt,

"What do you mean by that?" She didn't like the word bandied about carelessly, her whole life had been structured around her body and the rules applied to it, something in her grew furious at that struggle being disregarded so easily.

"Just that a lot of people keep telling me to put clothes on. I don't get it, it's just my body."

She was confused… did Goku not have any idea of social norms? She decided to delve deeper, "well… let's say… hypothetically, I was the one who started taking their clothes off, wouldn't that make you uncomfortable?"

"I don't know… probably not."

"Why not?" She was curious despite herself, did she have no sex appeal? Did she not impact this man at all?

"Because you know… you need to get the fish."

Stopping herself from rolling her eyes, she replied "Goku… have you ever seen a woman's body before?"

"Well kinda."

And then began a discussion that Chichi found fascinating, after her initial outrage subsided of course. Goku had gone on adventures with a girl called Bulma, but had lived by himself on Mount Paozu for so long that he hadn't met girls before, or even knew what they were. He had trained far and wide in martial arts, and then trained for the bulk of his teen years of Kame's look out. His interaction with women were therefore limited, and in terms of sexual experiences, pretty much non existent, not that she had any either, but she had at least a sexual awareness. Chichi wandered if he were a late bloomer and whether he was interested in women, and whether that extended to her.

It was then that Chichi realized, Goku either did not have sexual feelings, or just did not know what sex was. She decided she would park this for another time. It wasn't her responsibility to educate him on such a matter, but him not knowing about sex, and his evident naïveté, definitely put her in a safer position for now. Chichi pondered this as she ate her fish, noting in a distant part of her mind that it tasted good, but a combination of herbs would really make it.

"Chichi, can I ask you a question?"

She brushed her hair behind her ear, feeling suddenly self conscious, "okay"

"Why did you get upset over the tree?"

She sighed, wondering whether to tell him. She gazed up at the dusk growing on the horizon, he had told her a lot about himself, she decided she might as well mention a harmless story from her childhood. So she described the tree she had loved to climb as a child, the one she would sit on when she was sad, or needed an escape. It had been more than a tree, it was like a friend, or close to one for an only child in a big lonely palace.

"Then one day my father had the tree cut down."

"Why!?"

"Some spoilt prince I beat up in a match said he wanted a table made out of its wood. To keep the peace between our kingdoms my father got the table made as a gift."

Goku folded his arms across his chest, his brows furrowed, "that would have made me angry."

"You bet I was."

"You must have felt betrayed too."

"There was that too." Chichi was surprised at his astuteness, he looked like he was looking beyond her for a moment.

"And really really sad."

"Yes, I was." She wouldn't say it, but in that moment she really appreciated his presence.

As they continued eating, Chichi was once again thrown back by the vogue in which her husband ate, but as the fish was almost finished, Chichi took a moment to cast the man sitting on the other side of the fire a side glance. Why was he so content? Why wasn't he angry, like her, to be forced to marry, to be in an arranged marriage in the first place?

"Chichi?" Startled, she came out of her daze.

"Ye-yeah?"

"You okay? You were kinda staring at me."

She was about to answer non committedly, but a stroke of emotion pierced her and pushed her soul to find out what had agitated it for more than thirty days, "Just… I don't understand. You have freedom, you can earn a living for yourself. You have this cottage. Why did you marry me when you could have made your own choice?"

Goku paused mid bite to glance at her with a strange combination of emotions that she couldn't name. He carried on the bite while his eyebrows furrowed in a slight frown, he looked to be thinking, it was odd to see him so reflective, he was usually always doing something, or so she thought from the little time she had observed him, it made her realize she really did not know anything about this man she had been forced to call a husband.

"But I did make a choice."

"What? You call marrying a woman you've never met a choice? Well that's the most bizarre logic I've ever heard, if you could even call it that." Snapped Chichi, her anger rising once again like bile.

Goku frowned again, "Yeah, I could have just not turned up to the wedding."

"Well why did you?"

"Grandpa wanted me to. It was one of his last requests before he died."

This made an authentic response from Chichi difficult to school, "How old were you when he died?"

"I don't want to talk about that right now."

Chichi couldn't hide her shock, "Excuse me?"

"I'm not ready to talk about Grandpa." Replied Goku calmly, he didn't look angry, but the stiffness in his shoulders indicated his discomfort. Chichi had enough residual anger in her to insist upon an answer, this was her life they were discussing! But there had been a steeliness to Goku's dark eyes that arrested her, it wasn't aggressive, or dangerous, but it was commanding, and despite herself, she found it intriguing and… exciting.

Shaking her head for the third time that hour, Chichi decided to let this slide for now, he hadn't said they could never discuss his grandfather, so the conversation could come up another time, she guessed she would have to respect his boundary and be patient.

"Fine, but can you at least tell me why you accepted your grandfather's will? I still don't think it's okay to choose your grandson's future wife."

Goku shrugged, the hardness in his eyes dropping along with the stiffness in his shoulders, "I loved Grandpa, I trust him."

This answer shocked Chichi, "but…"

"Grandpa was my teacher, he took care of me, he never taught me anything bad, or anything that caused me harm. Everything he asked me to do was for my own good. So if he believed marrying you is good for me, I believe him too."

Chichi's shoulders sagged, Goku's answer hit her heart in a way she had not known was possible. His trust in his care giver was… inspirational, even if she didn't share in it. Was that the secret to his contentedness? His happiness? Had she expended a traumatic amount of mental energy in pushing away a marriage because she just didn't trust her dad enough? Was this an issue of loving your parents properly? Was she just not loyal enough?

"Chichi? You okay?"

"Yes, just thinking about your answer."

"Did you choose this?" He suddenly asked.

"What?"

"Our marriage? Did you choose it?"

And her anger was simmering right back up to the surface, "Of course not! How could I? What choice did I have?"

Surprisingly Goku looked a combination of sadness and concern, "couldn't you have said no?"

"You don't think I didn't?"

Despite her spitting anger, she was affected by the sudden hurt that flitted across Goku's eyes, but it left almost as soon as it came, "You could have just not turned up, or run away."

She rolled her eyes, "Yeah? Where to? Where could I have gone? What job could I have gotten? How would I have fed myself? And even if I could have done all those things, my dad's reputation would have been ruined."

Goku frowned even more, "How?"

She couldn't contain herself "Because he's the King!" Her voice rang with the emotion of a lifetime of released restraint "If his people see that he can't manage his daughter's affairs he would lose their trust to manage theirs! Plus… it would just look really bad that the King of Fire Mountain was defied by his own daughter. I would have been labeled as disrespectful and no one would choose to marry me after that. So kind of a lose-lose situation."

Goku was silent for a few moments, and just as she was about to push him for an answer, he had moved a few paces away from the fire to sit closer to her, but not within a close enough range to invade her personal space and said "I don't really understand all this, but I'm sorry you were not happy to marry me." Chichi gasped, her eyes visibly widened, tears welling between her eyelids, she was utterly thrown by such a kind and sensitive thing to say. "Is that why you weren't talking to me?"

The tears fell down as she nodded her head, "I'm sorry about that. I should have realized it wasn't your fault."

"Nah… nah… don't worry about it but… err… can you stop crying?"

Her anger was back on full speed, it was getting tiring switching her emotions so often, "What?!"

"It's just that I'm not used to this! I don't know what to do about it…. Do you need some more fish? Will that help?" Despite herself, her sorrow, her relief, her anger, she let loose a little chuckle. He was quite sweet, she couldn't help but find it endearing.

"How about a tissue instead?"

"Don't have one, but I can get a bandage cloth, will that help you Chichi?"

She nodded with a slight smile, "Yes that would."

Within no time at all Goku had disappeared and reappeared, handing her ten meters worth of bandages, which she managed to use to wipe her tears and blow her nose.

"Is this why you won't sleep with me?"

She froze, bandages falling from her hands. "Wh-what?"

"Is not being happy about marrying me stopping you from sharing the bedroom with me?"

"Y-you could say that- yes."

"I see…" there was an awkward but reflective pause for several long moments, "so what now?"

This also threw her completely off balance "What?" She would she had something more intelligent to say.

"If you didn't want to marry me, and it kinda looks like you don't want to be married to me, well then… what do you want?"

"Wow… I'm not sure… not one's ever asked me that before."

"Really? No one's asked you what you want for dinner?"

She refrained from rolling her eyes, food seemed to be quite important to Goku, "no, I mean no one's asked me what I wanted to do with my life. But I guess, I just want a normal life, and a normal marriage, one where I can choose my own husband."

"Why don't you choose me?"

"What?"

"Choose me, what's stopping you?"

"It's not that simple Goku, people normally take a long time to choose whether to marry or not."

"How long?"

"I don't know okay… months and months."

"Then take your time."

"But that's not how it goes, you're meant to get to know each other first, go on dates, fall in love, be proposed to… everything's been done backwards with us, and I don't blame you Goku, I can see you're an okay guy, but we're passed all that now. It's not like you can make me love you." There was that emotion that flitted between his eyes again.

His voice held a firmness to it, almost like a resolution. "Is it really important for you to choose for yourself?"

Wasn't it obvious? "Of course."

"Why?"

She pondered this, even though she had been forced to think about choice a lot for the past month, "I guess… because choosing, making my own decision… is part of being human. Someone who is recognised as a person who can think for themselves, someone who is respected."

Goku took several moments before speaking, "Fine, I don't want to give you up. I'll wait till you choose me."

There was an arrogance and a compliment in his statement, "What makes you think I'll choose you?" The question was meant to hold consternation, but instead her voice was full of invitation, she liked the idea of a challenge.

"I don't, I'll just have to try my best."

"And how will you do that?"

"I won't accept us as married until I make you fall in love with me."

AN: I'm really enjoying this fic! Thank you everyone for supporting it. And sorry for the delayed update, current affairs have really gotten me down, especially as I have children and it's been hard to tear myself away from the news. But writing this fic has helped with my mental health. Take care everyone, next chapter will be quite… juicy.