4:08
Yamucha looked up at the microwave clock with a sigh. He couldn’t sleep. He had given up on the bed a few hours ago and moved out into the kitchen, where he fixed himself a cup of tea and waited to feel fatigue again. It was dark in his kitchen, he kept the lights off to save money, and the streetlights and other city lights outside kept the place lit up well enough to do most activities. He sat at the table now, sipping at the tea occasionally, and just staring off into space. A million thoughts were running through his head at speeds so fast that they made Gokuu look like a tortoise.
Tomorrow was THE DAY. They were leaving from Capsule Corp. at 7 a.m., and he had already packed what little belongings he had and was ready to go. Physically anyway. Mentally was an entirely different story.
His eyes looked around the room of his cheap apartment; at the blue walls with the paint peeling, and the worn wood of the table and cabinets, the cheap linoleum floor and the little to no decoration. It was the very top story of a tall, but broken down building that housed more cockroaches than it did people. The whole place was disgustingly dirty and unsanitary, no matter what he did to clean it. He couldn’t afford anything else. It was only by borrowing money that he acquired the apartment in the first place, and he wasn’t about to ask for more. It didn’t matter anyway. Nothing he did could make life better. His eyes fell on a vase of orchids that was sitting proudly on top of the window sill, reflecting light from outside street lights onto the table.
He looked at the clock again.
4:08
His head dropped down until it hit the table, and then he picked up it and banged it down again. This was going to be another one of those sleepless nights. He lived in a rough neighborhood, and usually his reason for not sleeping was something going on out in the street, or sirens or gunshots. Or the people next door, who had a rather uproarious relationship and loved to yell at one another. The place was an absolute dump, and as of this morning, he had killed forty-nine cockroaches. The elevator had broke today, and he had to walk up all 30 stories just to get to his apartment, which is hard to do when you aren’t eating right and aren’t breathing right and aren’t thinking right. He had no friends, no job, no money, no girlfriend, and now, to top it all off, he had no sleep.
Why do I have to think so much? Why do I have to worry all the time? Why do I even care that much about what happened to ChiChi? Why am I wondering why when I already know the answer? Why do I think I know the answer when I am so screwed up I can’t even remember my birthday? Why am I so screwed up?!
He looked at the clock again.
4:08
Why does time have to move so slowly when it knows I am waiting for something? Why does time move at all? When is this all going to end? Tomorrow? A week? Years?
Everything in his life seemed to be coming to a dead halting crash. He had been in ruts before, but this was worse than anything he had ever experienced. When he woke up every morning, there was nothing for him to do but just sit there, useless and still. He never went out anymore, never even thought about it. Who would want to see him when he looked as tired and old as he felt like he did? The dark circles under his eyes had grown to an amazing porportion, and despite his pitiful attempts at gorging himself on food, he had lost way too much weight, and his bones were beginning to show. And his face especially, which was once handsome and endearing, was now gaunt and pale, and his scar stood out painfully, looking like an ugly purple streak across his face.
For awhile now, he had felt so dark, and so retreated and ugly. Nothing seemed to make him smile anymore, and even when he opened his curtains in the morning, and saw the sun streaming in brightly, casting a glow over the dreary neighborhood that would have otherwise made him cheerful, only made his eyes hurt. Nothing out there in the vast expanses of his world could pull him out of this. Bulma had said to him the other day that everyone had problems, he just had to wade through them until they were finished.
But I’m in over my head! Everything seemed to be shrouded in darkness, a dark black ink that seeped into everything, his eyes, his mouth, his skin. He didn’t know why this was happening, because he had never felt it before, but he knew that something was very, very wrong with him. Briefly, he entertained the idea of visiting a psychiatrist, until he remembered that despite how helpful the doctors might be, they were also expensive, and money was just another commodity that he did not have right now. So the darkness prevailed, and kept making him worse and worse. He no longer just looked bad, but he felt worse. It had started from the outside and worked its way in, that something that was eating off his soul. And it was tearing up every part of him and leaving him for dead.
He buried his face in his hands and took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself down. With one bloodshot, shaky eye, he looked up to see the microwave clock again.
4:08
Anger swept over him in a sudden rush. “DAMN IT!!”
With a loud crash, the chair he had been sitting in fell to the floor as he jumped up from the table and grabbed the microwave in his hands, shaking it roughly and tearing it away from it’s plugged in position on the counter.
“The damn clock is broken!! THE DAMN THING IS BROKEN!!” He howled, and threw it to the ground in anger, shattering it into a few small pieces. Smoke rose up from the broken machine and a loud hissing noise began, bright blue sparks flying everywhere and lighting up the dimly lit kitchen. He kicked it over and over again, each kick becoming more and more forceful, and pieces of the microwave scattered themselves about the kitchen floor, sparks still flying until he finally stopped and stood there with his hands on his knees and his head bent down, breathing heavily.
In the distance, another siren went off, and the neighbors started screaming at each other as a cockroach scampered out from underneath the cabinets and ran for his bedroom door.
Yamucha closed his eyes tightly, and pressed a clenched fist against his forehead, his chest heaving in anxiety-ridden breaths, hunched over above the broken microwave.
I can’t take this anymore.
It wouldn’t be half as bad if it didn’t seem like everyone else had their lives so together. Bulma had left him and found love in the oddest place possible; rich and beautiful as always, she now had a real family, and though he never thought it possible for Bulma to grow up and become a mature woman, she finally had. Tien had Lunch, just like he always had Lunch, and along with her, he also had Chaotzu, and their friendship was so close and so deep that it sometimes scared him. Hell, even Kuririn had a family now; the amazingly sexy and beautiful Juuhachi-gou, and the sweet as pie daughter, Marron.
Gokuu of course, had….ChiChi. All of Gokuu’s other accomplishments, and his strength seemed dim in comparison to that. He had ChiChi. And two wonderful, healthy boys that were both pure of heart and high in strength, with peaceful, hopeful lives ahead of them. Even if Gokuu wasn’t around so much, or so he heard from Bulma, he still had them, and would never lose them. Never. No one could ever take ChiChi away from Gokuu. Not man, nor beast, nor child, nor Saiya-jin could ever change that woman’s mind, he knew that better than anyone.
I can’t take this anymore.
Taking another deep breath, he stepped over the broken microwave, and waved the smoke away from his face, coughing as he stumbled to the doorway of the small balcony off of his apartment. He thew open the door and closed it harshly behind him, standing there for a moment, just staring at the rusted, broken old railing.
The city was as usual, noisy and overbearing, surrounding him on all sides and suffocating him with it’s closeness, but when he took a step toward the railing, toward his death, all the sounds, and all the sights seemed to vanish. The only thing he could see were flashes of what his life used to be.
His happy times as a teenager, the celebrations after fights, victories, winning another baseball game, his friends, and….her. Her. The way her eyebrows drew together and her eyes sparkled when she was angry. The way that those two perfect locks of hair would always fall in her face when she bent her head down to laugh, or were swept behind her when the wind blew with force. The way she had grown apart from him when Gokuu returned, acting like nothing had happened, while the whole time, he could see her standing there in his mind, holding her hands together, watching in sadness as he went further and further away. Now that she was gone too, he didn’t see the use of anything. He had nothing left. There was nothing.
I can’t take this anymore.
He closed his eyes.
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