----Trunks's journal; Vol 1: Page 8
I wandered into the living room, following Tayhei silently. She had been locked up in her room for most of the day, and by the looks of her hair and face, and the carefully selected outfit of a casual white top, skirt and sneakers, she had probably spent most of that time getting ready. She paused momentarily to smell the bunch of flowers that were sitting on a vase near the doorway, brushing her golden hair back with a smile, not noticing that I was behind her. I knew she was probably on her way out to see Goten --- she didn’t know anyone else in town, and for some reason, I didn’t want that. Before I had thought it was because I didn’t want her evil influence on my friend, but lately….well, I wasn’t so sure about my motives anymore. I wasn’t sure about anything anymore, it seemed.
Okaasan sat in a big comfortable green chair, a worn book in her hands, and she looked up at us as we walked into the room, a delighted smile on her face. As always, she looked beautiful. Her turquoise hair fell around her shoulders, perfectly styled, even though he knew that she had been relaxing all day long.
“Are you two going to keep me company?” She asked. “I was afraid I would have to spend the evening all alone.”
Tayhei looked back in confusion, most likely wondering why my mother had said ‘you two’. She was unaware of the fact that I had been watching her. I watched her a lot actually. At first it was just out of suspicion, and then I didn’t know why I watched her. It was hard to think when I was watching her, especially when she looked so beautiful. I did my best to blend in with the shadows along the wall as she looked back, but she spotted me there anyway. She rolled her eyes at me, then turned her attention back to my mother with a sweet smile on her face. “I was going to go visit Goten, actually.”
My mother's face fell. “Please? Just stay for a little while? Vejiita is busy out in the gravity chamber and I’m a little lonely. I promise I won’t bore you with any of my stories. I am just going to sit here and read. You too, Trunks.”
“Iie, Okaasan. I want to go.” I complained. “I have things to do.”
She glared in frustration, and lifted her book. “Tough! You’re already in enough trouble as it is. I think you should just sit down and do as I say!”
I groaned, not wanting to waste my day sitting here, but Tayhei obediently took her usual position against the far living room wall with her arms crossed pleasantly. She was so good at gaining my mother’s affections. It almost made me jealous to know that Okaasan was so fond of her.
When the doorbell rang and all of us looked up in surprise. As far as I knew, we weren’t expecting any visitors, and those that did come to visit usually just flew in through an open window or barged on in through the door. Okaasan put down her book and walked to the front door, which was quite a ways from the living room that we were sitting in.
She left Tayhei and me alone there, but no fighting or trickery ensued. Instead, she passively looked out the window at the stars, barely even noticing that I was there. I thought that she was acting rather odd tonight. All through dinner, she had barely said a word, but she almost always had something to say before, whether it be to gain my mother’s affection or alienate me from my family. She had been completely quiet, though, and I think that even Okaasan was a little worried after dinner. I hadn’t minded the fact that she was quiet at all. Dinner had been rather pleasant, probably because she wasn’t talking. And now, she didn’t even take this great opportunity to say something nasty to me. She very well could have, Okaasan was gone for quite a while, but instead she merely stared at the window, as if she had some distant thought on her mind.
After what seemed like a lifetime, Okaasan finally came back into the living room. She brushed her turquoise bangs out of her eyes, then looked up at Tayhei. Her expression was vaguely puzzled. “You have some visitors, Tayhei.”
Tayhei turned away from the window and gave her a confused look. “Who?”
“They said that they’re your parents.” Bulma told her as she sat back down in her reading chair. “You didn’t say that they were coming for a visit. We could have waited and eaten dinner with them.”
“I didn’t know.” Tayhei said quickly, then looked towards the room where entry hall was, her green eyes wide and scared. “I didn’t know they were coming.”
My mother looked concerned as she stared at her, and I felt concerned as well. There was something in the tone of her voice that made us both think that something strange was going on. I had never seen Tayhei act in such a way. She actually looked frightened about something. Okaasan tilted her head to the side and motioned towards the doorway and the entry hall.
“Aren’t you going to welcome them in?” She asked, puzzled.
“No!”
Tayhei’s response was so sudden that both my mother and I were shocked. I looked at her in curiosity. For the first time ever that I had seen, Tayhei actually looked frightened, and had actually lost her cool exterior. She was backed up against the wall, her hands drawn up and clasped in fear and her green eyes wide. It made her seem almost childlike, as if she were a little girl that was scared of a monster in the other room. She kept looking towards the entry hall frantically, and I thought she looked so flustered that I actually felt bad for her. A sheen of tears began to appear in her bright green eyes, making them sparkle.
“Please, just….Tell them I left. I….” She trailed off, not knowing what to say. “Just….please.”
Okaasan looked at her with concern, but agreed. I could practically feel her motherly instincts coming out and I knew that she longed to hold the girl in her arms and ask her what was wrong. But Tayhei’s parents needed to be dealt with first. She probably felt strange lying to people like that, but I believe she was so concerned about Tayhei that she might have done anything for the girl. She eased up out of her chair and turned to walk back to the front door, then paused. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
Tayhei didn’t answer, but nodded slowly. Without another word, she walked out of the living room and down the hall towards her room, her feet a little unsteady. My mother went to the front door to explain to Tayhei’s parents, and I was left alone, contemplating. I wasn’t sure what I should do or how I was feeling at the moment, but I did know that I had to do something. There was obviously a problem with Tayhei. She had been so mean to me, and yet….Just now, I couldn’t help but feel curiously sorry for her. A part of me just wanted to hold her and tell her it was all right, to protect her from any kind of hurt or pain. But the other half of me wanted to tell her that she was just being an idiot, and that she should say something to her parents --- after all, they had come to visit her here. I stood in the living room debating for another minute or so, listening to the murmurs of Okaasan’s voice from the other room. Then, after a moment of contemplation, I followed her down the hallway.
Walking down the hall, I paused to stare out the windows that lined it. They were large picture windows; they were open tonight, because Okaasan liked let the fresh breezes roll in when it was warm enough. I watched as the white curtains billowed silently back and forth in the night wind, then stepped up to the windows ledge and looked out. The stars were unusually bright that night, and the grounds of Capsule Corporation were bathed in that in the warm glow of moonlight and starlight. As I stared out of the window, gathering my thoughts and thinking about what I was going to say to Tayhei, my thoughts drifted suddenly over to my father. My eyes fell upon the gravity chamber, and I knew that he was probably in there training as hard as his body would allow him to. I wondered if he ever thought about me while he was training, of when he was on his cliff, contemplating. Sometimes I wished that I knew what he was thinking when he flew off and sat on that cliff’s edge, and other times I was afraid to find out. There were so many harsh feelings in my father’s heart; so much anger and bitterness. But although he seemed to hate me and seemed to not care about me at all, I felt deep down in my soul that I meant more to him than anything. He just acted the way that he did to guard his memories and his pride. Perhaps that was what it was like for Tayhei as well. Maybe the anger and cruelty that she showed was a defense mechanism, something that protected her heart and her pride.
When I reached her doorway, I stood there for a moment, staring at the light that shone from underneath her door. I was transfixed by the way that it made the dark hallway light up, glowing across the floor. The light flickered back and forth as shadows past; shadows which I assumed were the restless results of Tayhei, who must have been pacing back in forth in front of the door.
She didn’t know why her parents had come. She couldn’t even think of a valid reason, unless it was because all of their high society friends had wondered why their daughter had run away. No that it mattered. They probably just told them that she was away at boarding school or college, just another one of their grand illusions. She didn’t know why they were here; didn’t even care why. She just wished that they would disappear. She gave up pacing the length of her room and sat down on her bed, trying to keep her emotions at bay.
When Trunks entered her room, without so much as a knock, she wasn’t surprised. In fact, she was so paranoid that he was going to barge into her room again that she had taken to changing in the bathroom. Though that entire scenario had been hilarious to see, she wasn’t too excited to live through it again. Besides, he was too wise to fall for the same trick twice. And also, the boy had a little bit of a temper problem; she was often scared that he was going to try and break something of hers or actually hit her. When he came into the room now, however, he didn’t look threatening and angry. In fact he looked almost concerned. She was a little relieved that he wasn’t mad about something. As much as she usually enjoyed a verbal sparring match with Trunks, she just didn’t feel up to it right now. As hard as it was for her to admit, she probably wouldn’t even win if they fought right now. Whenever she was feeling depressed and bitter, it was hard to snap back with an insult or a good argument. She watched him with unblinking eyes, sitting on her bed, her mind lost in her own thoughts.
Just knowing that her parents were there was a huge emotional blow to her. She did not want to see them, didn’t even want to think about them anymore. They had never really even been her parents, just people that had ruled over her and tried to make her into something that she wasn’t. It always been that way….They had never been loving or kind towards her. Distant was the best word to describe it, and sometimes cruel if she ever did something that they didn’t approve of. Her childhood had been a mass of false pretenses and lies, and the only thing that made it even bearable for her was her sister. They had loved each other and found comfort in each other, even when their parents were so terrible to them. Yakosoku, her little sister and best friend, was her only solace and escape.
And when she had gotten sick, Tayhei had no idea what to do. She had quit school, quit everything, and stayed beside her sister’s bed. She didn’t care what their parents said anymore, didn’t even care what anyone thought of her. She just wanted her little sister to be okay. Her little sister had been the only one that ever showed her any love and the only one that she had ever opened her heart for. She even went so far as to ask her parents for help, to beg them to use their money and connections to get her a better doctor, a miracle cure for this thing called cancer. But they simply stood there and did nothing, not wanting to waste their hard-earned money on something that didn’t even matter to either of them. And so, in the end fate gave her no mercy, and Yakosoku died. And the only thing that she had ever held dear and close to her heart was ripped away from her. The pain had been unbearable. It had been excruciating. After it was all over with, she had immediately closed herself up. She built those infamous icy walls around her heart, acquired a good sense of arrogance and a bitchy attitude, and she swore to herself that she would never love anyone else again.
She had run away, left her parent’s house and their money. She was sick of it all; sick of the lying and the fake way that they grieved for her little sister’s death. It was all bullshit, all of it, and she didn’t want anything to do with it anymore. So she had lived on her own, making her own money, living off of her will and her spirit and her intelligence. So far, she had done an excellent job of making herself into an independent person, and the job at Capsule Corporation had sealed the deal. She didn’t need anyone anymore.
Trunks walked over to her, standing a little too close for comfort, and looked at her with curiosity in his deep blue eyes. “Why didn’t you want to see them?”
She paused. There was no need to tell him anything. “I just didn’t want to, okay?”
He sat down on the bed next to her. “They’re your parents, Tayhei. The least you could do is say hi to them.”
Tayhei glared at the presumptuous bastard sitting next to her. How dare he say something like that to her, as if he knew all about her life and her past. “How would you know?! You don’t even know how my parents are, so stop trying to treat me like a bad child.”
“I would know, if you’d tell me!” He yelled.
“Maybe I don’t want you to know!”
“Why the hell not?! What harm can it do?!”
“FINE!” She yelled back, and talked in a rushed voice. “They’ve never been around. I raised my sister and myself all alone. And I don’t think they can come back into my life now and expect me to love them. It isn’t fair. So I’m sorry if I’m anti-social, or mean, but that’s the way I am, and if you can’t accept that, than you can just go hang yourself. I don’t care what you think. There. Are you happy now?”
Trunks frowned, and she was certain that his sky blue eyes will filled with real, genuine concern for her. “No, I’m not happy. That’s awful. People should always care about each other.”
“Then why didn’t my parents care about me?” She countered. She looked down at her hands, concentrating on them so hard that she couldn’t see anything else in the room and the only things she could hear were the beating of her heart and the light sound of Trunks breathing next to her. There had been so many things that she had missed locked up in her room, hidden away from the rest of the world, shoved into plane after plane, drug from one end of the world to the other. There had been so many experiences that she had missed out on, including finding herself. And it was all because her parents deemed themselves worthy enough to make life miserable for her.
“What did I do that was so wrong?” She continued softly, feeling awkward and silly at revealing so much about herself to someone that she barely even knew. And for all his faults, Trunks appeared to actually care now, forgetting about all the horrible things she had done to him. He gazed at her with warm blue eyes, quietly listening to her.
In a sudden rush of emotion, Trunks reached out and took her hand gently, and she looked up at him with big green eyes.
“It is not your fault.” He said softly.
That one statement seemed to echo in her mind. It wasn’t the fact that it made sense, or that it made her heart lighter, but it was the fact that it was said by him. The words rolled over her in waves and touched that deepest part of her that she tried so hard to keep shielded in ice. And it was almost as if she had heard them before, those very same words, spoken in that very same voice, long ago, or far into the future; it was so familiar and so beautiful that it gave her chills. She couldn’t believe that after all this time, and after everything she had done, he was still kind to her. She had been horrible to him, absolutely horrible, and yet he was sitting here in her room consoling her. It was almost as if what she had done to him hadn’t mattered at all, as if he had completely forgotten about everything. She had never in her life experienced so much kindness. It made her heart swell, and she began to feel the kind of love and attachment that she hadn’t felt for a very long time.
She blinked back tears, not wanting to let herself fall apart in front of him. She pulled her hand away from his, clenching it into a fist and holding it close to her heart. “If it isn’t my fault, then why do I feel so bad?”
He didn’t have an answer to give her, and she didn’t expect him to have one, but the silence that followed her statement was too much for her to handle. It was an uncomfortable silence that hung heavy around them like a dark black cloth, thick as the night air outside. Showing weakness was not something that she was easy for her, and if she was going to show it, there was no way that she was going to let Trunks remember it. She didn’t want him to get close, didn’t want to feel an attachment towards him. She didn’t want to open up her heart and she didn’t want to start being friendly and likeable. She just wanted to keep herself from getting her heart broken again. And when people get too close, that’s what happened. It only hurt that much more when they left. She pushed away the friendly feelings of love and emotion that she was feeling in her heart, and started thinking rationally once more. She took a deep breath and then stared up at him, glaring.
“And why do you care anyway? Don’t you have something better to do?” She accused, crossing her arms and turning away from him. “I didn’t want you in here in the first place.”
A look of anger appeared on his handsome face, immediately replacing the worried look that had been there before. “I’m trying to help you here, Tayhei!”
“Well congratulations, you’ve succeeded. Now get the hell out of my room.”
Trunks stood to his feet, looking at her in angry disbelief. “I don’t understand you! I’m trying to help you through a problem and you are still being a total---”
She cut him off with a wave of her hand. “I never asked for your help, did I?” She brought her eyes to his, glaring. “Besides, I’m not the only one with parents that hate me. I don’t think you’re exactly on expert on the subject of loving parents, do you?”
He shook his head at her in anger and disgust and started walking towards her door, his hands buried in his pockets. When he neared the door, he turned around and stared at her for a moment, his face deadly serious. “You know, Tayhei, you are an unbelievable bitch.”
Tayhei didn’t say anything to him in reply, and Trunks turned and walked out the door, slamming it shut behind him. As soon as the door slammed shut, Tayhei felt her chin tremble. She tried to fight the emotion and hold it in tight, but she couldn’t help it. Tears began to form in her eyes and spill down onto her cheeks, as she thought about everything. Yakosoku, Bra, Bulma, Goten….Trunks. Everything. It felt like her entire life had been destroyed, and she had been the one to do it. Trunks had told her that it wasn’t her fault, but it was. It was all her fault, always her fault. She sat on her bed for a long time, tears streaming down her cheeks, wondering what was wrong with her.
“Kaasan?”
Goten wandered through the small rooms of his house, and found his mother sitting at the kitchen table. Her hands were folding in her lap, her head was straight up, and she was staring at the wall. The look on her face was tragic, so sad that it almost brought tears to his own eyes. A large picture of the family had been tacked up there, and seemed to be grinning down at them threateningly. They had once looked so happy and so peaceful. There had been a time when he thought his life was perfect and his family life was perfect as well, but that was over now. He had tried to let go of it and was succeeding, but his mother was not. He grimaced.
“Kaasan?” He called again.
She finally looked up at him. An absent, sad look was on her pretty face. “Yes, Goten?”
He paused for a moment, not sure if he should tell her or not. He had been thinking about this for a long time, and knew that there was no other way for him to start living life again. It was painful for him to have to tell her and to have to make her even more depressed than she already was, but he could not go on living like this forever. He would start to get depressed too, and then the both of them would have nothing good and pure left in their hearts; just bitterness. And he didn’t want that. He cherished and longed for the days when he had been truly happy. He might never get that kind of happiness back, but he at least wanted to start living his life again. They would have to have this talk sooner or later and there was no use avoiding it.
“I’m….I think I’m going to stay with Trunks for awhile.” He told her as gently as he could.
ChiChi frowned at him. “How long?”
“I don’t know.” He admitted. “I just need to get away for awhile. I’m sorry Kaasan, but I can’t live like this anymore.”
Her chin trembled for a second, and he thought that she might break down and cry, but she held strong --- just as she usually did for him. She looked up into his eyes. “If that is what you feel is the best choice, then you may go.”
He didn’t hesitate this time. “I’ll get my things.”
When he left the room, ChiChi stared at the framed picture of her family once more. She had to strongly fight the impulse to run up to it and tear it off the wall, rejoicing as it rained down in confetti on her clean kitchen floor. She wanted to rip it up and proclaim to Goten and the world and herself that there was no such thing as a happy family. That all of the childish dreams that you built up as a child were worth nothing. That there was no such thing as falling in love for the rest of your life and being with someone who you knew would never leave you.
But instead she just sat there, just as she had been for hours, and wondered why everyone in her life had decided to leave her.
Previous Chapter
As
Chikyuu Turns Index
[ Chi
Chi's fanfic ]
E
mail Me
