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CHAPTER 4:
Big Secret
Goten had always held a special place in Trunks' heart. He was the only person in the world who understood how Trunks thought, and never cast any judgments on him. And he knew all of Trunks' secrets, and never told a soul. He also knew Trunks' big secret - the one that Trunks never told anyone else in the entire world, and the one he would never be able to tell.
The secret was kept in memories locked in a folder in his mind. The secret was unneeded and unwanted. Trunks knew that if he ever wanted to clean up the mess in his mind, he'd need to rip off the bandage and address the contents of his mental folder, but he chose not to.
It was simply something he lived with. And whoever knew him would need to understand that Trunks' touch issues came with the full package. They were annoying, but they weren't really bad. And the reason why they weren't worse was all because of Goten.
And the reason why they were there at all was something Trunks wanted to forget by burying it under all his older mental folders. There was no purpose to trying to touch on that subject anymore. Trunks chose to forgive and forget.
His father, Vegeta, had changed a lot since Trunks was a boy. And all the issues that Trunks used to have were gone.
Ever since Trunks' little sister, Bra was born, Vegeta truly became a good man. And opening any box of negative memories at this point would only risk reawakening the Bad Man. There was no point, now.
His father was now truly good to his mom, now. He said nice things to her, now.
And he was good to Bra. He poured a tremendous amount of healthy attention into playing with her and educating her.
Compared to how Vegeta used to be when Trunks was younger, this new Super-version of him was almost unrecognizable. Ever since the day that his father had been wished back after the infamous battle against Majin Buu, his father had truly accepted his life on Earth, and it changed him. After Majin Buu, everything had gotten better, for him, and for Trunks.
Things had gotten so good in their family at this point that Trunks could honestly say that he loved his father. His father was a role model for him, and the fact that he had become a good man had meant that Trunks could put that past behind him, and truly forgive and forget.
His body didn't forget, though.
Trunks never meant to flinch or jump back when touched in certain spots. His body reacted instinctively, and was triggered by his rapid reflexes. Trunks did his best to contain it, and tolerated touch as long as it wasn't sudden. But he never relaxed to it; his mind would always laser-focus on every part of his body that ever touched anyone else, and he would spend a lot of his mental energy monitoring it uncomfortably.
Despite how sensitive he was to being touched, though, Trunks secretly longed for it.
He wanted to be held. He wanted to be loved. He hadn't felt anything like that since as long as he could remember, and being starved from it with Mai only intensified his need for it. And being in Goten's arms for a night only made Trunks want it back.
His Grandma Panchy, whom he now started to think of as "Grandma Pan-chan," was the only one he could depend on holding him with a comforting embrace like that as he grew up.
Sure, his mother held him and hugged him, but a hug from his mom was just like any other hug, and whatever emotion behind that got super stale long ago when he started to feel smothered by her.
But, when Grandma Pan-chan held him… at the lack of a better explanation, it was like being enveloped in pillows of freshly-popped popcorn. She smelled so good, and just hugging her was fun and made him feel happy and giddy, like she was embracing his child at heart.
Trunks loved hugging his Grandma Pan-chan. But as Trunks got older and bigger, it became harder for him to justify hugging his Grandma, or basically anyone, out of nowhere.
Instead, Trunks got sucked into his Saiyan, teenage male pride about it all, which surprised nobody. It was common for teenage males to feel embarrassed hugging their family.
Unfortunately, it meant that Trunks isolated himself from almost all touch. And since Mai had given him nothing to work with, he had only been left longing for it, until he had numbed himself to it entirely. He had simply accepted that he'd be sensitive to touch from everyone.
There were three people who didn't trigger Trunks' flinch, and they were specifically his little sister Bra, Gohan's daughter Pan, and Goten. He was simply comfortable being unguarded around them because he subconsciously did not view them as any type of threats.
When it came to Bra, she was a tough and clever five-year-old with immense potential when working with computers and coding. She never was raised with the kind of "training" that Trunks had growing up at her same age, so she was very comfortable interacting with people and touching and holding without any kind of worries at all. Bra used to like to grab onto Trunks' leg when she was younger, and have him hold her hands and dance in the kitchen with her.
Bra also took pride in the one time she surprised and humbled Trunks when she was just four years old, and managed to grab him and flip him a dramatic suplex move, crashing Trunks down on his back in front of their dad Vegeta in the kitchen, all because Trunks refused to hand her a candy bar for breakfast (and then of course, his dad handed it to her anyway, because she was Bra).
When it came to six-year-old Pan, she liked to climb on Trunks' shoulders a lot to ride around piggy-back. He never had any issues with her touching his neck or his hair, and actually found it funny how she laughed the entire time she rode on him. She got such a kick out of the simplest of things, ranging from piggy back rides, to how she'd braid Trunks' hair without him knowing it almost every time she was on his shoulders. And, every time, he'd have a chunk of his hair sticking out in the wrong direction for at least an hour before Goten would laughingly let him know about it and would unbraid Trunks' hair for him.
Goten was the only other person who never once triggered his flinch. And Trunks knew it was entirely because his comfort with Goten was grandfathered in from before Trunks developed his touch issues... from before he ever told Goten his biggest secret that he never told anyone else in the world.
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When both Trunks and Goten were very young, Trunks had shared with Goten his big secret.
The night he shared his secret was just a few days before the Battle of Majin Buu.
And it was from Trunks' confession that Trunks learned that Goten would be on his side no matter what, even to the death.
Goten almost died that night - the night that Trunks confessed his secret to him.
That was the night that Trunks ran away from home.
Trunks had just turned eight years old, and had decided to run away that day in the middle of the night, several hours after the conclusion of Trunks' eighth birthday party.
Nobody knew that he had planned to run away. And, during the entire time he was out of the house, nobody ever realized he was gone.
He was only gone for about four hours, in the middle of the night on a weeknight. And, all he did was go to Goten's house.
But, he was dead-set on vanishing entirely after visiting Goten, because he couldn't handle his anguish anymore, and he didn't know how to stop the source of his pain without his whole world ending.
He didn't know who he could talk to, to explain why he had to leave. So, he flew to Goten's bedroom window and woke him up.
Goten snuck out with him that night, and they flew far away. They flew to nowhere, and everywhere, at once.
It didn't matter where they went. Young Trunks wanted to blow off as much steam as possible without doing any damage. He just needed to rage, and be angry for once, just to put to words what he had been feeling.
He didn't want to destroy anything; he didn't want to hurt anybody; he didn't want to alert or awaken any Z fighters who might blow over his whole plan to run away.
That was the night that Goten first went Super Saiyan, at just seven years old.
It was also the night that Trunks first went Super Saiyan, at just eight years old.
Young Trunks was crying throughout their chaotic flight as he tried to find his words.
He had suspected that his life wasn't normal for a long time. Maybe something was wrong with him, but he just didn't know.
He cried to Goten about how Vegeta had been "training" him ever since he was two, behind locked doors in the gravity room.
Goten had gone berserk at the story, in an instinctual kind of Saiyan rage. Trunks had never seen a first-transformation like what happened, and he had never sparred against Goten as a shining blonde Super Saiyan. It made Goten fifty times stronger as he tried to wrestle out from Trunks' pursuit.
Trunks followed him, screaming for Goten to "Stop!" as his friend flew toward Capsule Corporation in a mad frenzy, wanting to avenge Trunks' pain.
Goten despaired about how Trunks didn't deserve the treatment that he had gotten from his dad.
At just seven years old, Goten cried, unable to understand how any father could hold a helpless child down by throttling their neck and hitting them senseless. He couldn't understand what kind of "training" went into learning how to tolerate punches to the gut, while yelling such awful, monstrous things to a little kid.
Vegeta never hit Trunks' face, and Trunks' body didn't bruise easily. It was easy for him to get away with it at home. His mother never noticed. And Trunks had always thought it was normal, until he recently started to doubt if Gohan ever did that to Goten.
So, when Vegeta told Trunks that he was going to "level up" his training, now that Trunks was eight years old and "ready for it," Trunks was in a panic. Trunks thought he was going to die, and he couldn't tell his mom because he was afraid of breaking up their family.
But telling Goten had almost done something even worse.
Trunks had to fight Goten to stop him from trying to impulsively fly to Capsule Corporation and attack Trunks' dad Vegeta in his sleep.
If Goten attacked Vegeta like that, Trunks knew that Goten was going to die.
Vegeta would have absolutely killed Goten for attacking him in the middle of the night. Vegeta would have destroyed him. Vegeta had been an experienced killer throughout most of his life, and he hadn't changed much since those days.
This was from before Majin Buu. Goku hadn't returned yet. This was when his father was still pink-shirt toting Bad Man.
Bad Man Vegeta would have murdered little seven-year-old Goten.
And Gohan, in his Super Saiyan 2-level rage would have taken down Vegeta as revenge.
And then, everyone would have lost their families. It almost happened, all because Trunks had decided to tell Goten.
If Goten had reached Vegeta that night, then everything that Future Trunks had tried to save among their families would have been gone.
It all came so close to just being Trunks and Gohan left, along with Piccolo, on the day that Majin Buu would have showed up, three days later. And since Gohan likely would not have participated in the Budokai tournament after losing Goten, Spirit-form Goku likely would not have showed up that day to do his battle-winning Spirit Bomb.
Nobody would have been able to defeat Majin Buu.
The world would have ended if Goten had started a chain of death by attacking Vegeta that night.
Thankfully, in Trunks' panic, he managed to stop Goten. In his fear and grief, and to save Goten's life, Trunks fought Goten for his life.
Trunks had wanted to save Goten from making a bad decision with all of his soul. And, pushing himself to his limits, Trunks also turned Super Saiyan that night.
As a Super Saiyan, Trunks, at eight years old, fought Goten down until they were both crying in the mud, in a rain that had started during their fight.
Goten was sobbing that he wanted to tell Gohan about Trunks' situation, but Trunks pleaded for him to not tell anyone.
Trunks was terrified of his mother leaving his dad. He didn't want to lose having a dad in his life.
He knew how Goten grieved often about not knowing his dad, and Trunks knew that his future version, "Future Trunks," had enabled this timeline and life opportunity for his dad to be with his mom.
Trunks didn't want to also be the one responsible for breaking it up.
He wanted his mom to be happy, and he was able to handle everything so far while his mom smiled, none the wiser about how Vegeta would suddenly grab Trunks' arm and drag him into the gravity room whenever he had his own emotions to work out.
After Trunks told Goten his big secret, and after they lay panting in the mud, crying, he felt a lot better.
His problem wasn't fixed, but at least he didn't run away from the truth anymore. After he talked with Goten, he knew that Goten was on his side. For Trunks, that was enough for him to gain the courage to go back home and no longer run away from what his father was going to do to him.
But then, after Vegeta learned that Trunks was able to go Super Saiyan, his attitude changed. Out of nowhere, his father seemed surprised and impressed. It was as if Vegeta suddenly saw him as a fighter instead of as a punching bag.
And then, shortly after his father had died during the events of Majin Buu, everything changed after Vegeta had been wished back to life.
After Majin Buu, Vegeta never laid a hand on Trunks like that again.
Trunks' training even became optional. If Trunks wanted to go into the gravity room, Vegeta preferred to do anaerobic activities with Trunks instead of sparring, such as weightlifting.
Then, shortly after his father had been wished back, Vegeta finally married his mom, Bulma.
And then things started to get really great.
Trunks' mom was happy, and that's all Young Trunks wanted to see. Trunks was joyful that although he wasn't able to protect himself for all those early years, at least he protected his mom's happiness.
She never found out about what happened with Trunks, so it all worked out. Trunks felt he made the right choice by keeping it a secret. It didn't matter that he had touch issues now; what mattered was that his mom was happy.
Trunks knew that his life easily could have been different and darker. If Trunks had ever said anything, then surely his mother would have never married his father.
And his sister Bra would never have been born.
Everything worked out because Trunks was able to stay strong, and pull through it all. And he was only able to do it because he had Goten in his life.
And Goten never tattled. Goten kept Trunks' big secret.
Since that day when Trunks was eight, and Goten was seven, Trunks knew that he could trust Goten with all of his deepest secrets, and all his love and his touch.
And because Goten was special to Trunks, Trunks implicitly trusted any girl who Goten would date.
After all, if Goten could lower his guard around a girl and trust her, then Trunks would too.
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–Published on AO3: 1/7/24–
–Published on FFnet: 1/9/24–
A/N: Even in just narrative form, I know that read had some heavy moments. I tried to keep it long enough to understand the gist of it, and short enough to be able to skim by it and move past it without feeling too much pain.
I've kept it fairly short here in this story because this plot point will be re-addressed and expanded in Legend & Legacy (the rewrite of Goku's Humored, which is exclusively on AO3 right now but will start to move over once this prequel is done).