He was alone.

He had never thought of it that way, really. He had never considered his life that deeply before. He had always viewed himself as somewhat of a loner, living out in the woods, detached from society. But Juunana-gou had never before come to the realization that he was actually, truly alone. Now that he lay in silence, cowered in a dark corner of his mind, he began to dwell on the idea. He began to think about what his life meant. And as he thought about it, he discovered that it really meant nothing. The whole purpose of the human existence was to love; he had realized that almost immediately when he had started to live his life as one of them. There wasn’t a single human on this planet that didn’t seek out love in some way, shape, or form. Life seemed to revolve around love and the pursuit of love; he hadn’t seen a human yet that had completely banished the entire idea of it. Even his sister had found it. Perhaps that was why she was had always been so much happier than him: she had found the one thing that completed her as a human being.

That set him apart from everyone, distanced him instantly from the rest of the population. Because he had never sought out love. He had never had a thirst for it. He had to admit that he was not exactly happy with his life, but he was somewhat content. He liked his cabin in the woods, liked the way that the sunlight streamed through the pine trees and onto his skin as he chopped wood and fished in the creek behind his home. He liked walking through the forest by himself, and found the silence of life to be so thick and overwhelming that it was almost deafening to his sensitive ears. After awhile, that silence began to form its own melody; he began to savor the sweet notes of quiet and calm that wrapped themselves around his lonely, pointless life. He was content with the way that woke up each morning and worked until he fell asleep again at night, content with being alone and being silent. Although it wasn’t the way that most people’s lives were, it was his. It was his life, and not anyone else’s. He didn’t have to obey anyone, didn’t have to answer to anyone. No one had control over him, and he liked that.

What he didn’t like was the empty feeling that seemed to surround his heart. It was funny how he could ignore it for so long. He could go weeks, even months sometimes, pretending that a gaping hole wasn’t forming around his heart. But eventually he could no longer ignore the feeling, and sometimes it felt as though he might die from it. The emptiness was almost eating him alive, from the inside out, making his entire body nothing but a hallow, lifeless shell. In these moments, nothing seemed to comfort him. The only thing that managed to fill that cavernous rift inside of him was to seek his niece, or talk to his sister. When they came to visit him in his cabin, that feeling of emptiness would slowly dissipate until it was nothing more than a slight fissure. He knew that it never went away entirely, because it would always open up again as soon as they had left him. He supposed that he had been lonely, so lonely that it was destroying him.

But he didn’t know how to love. He knew that it was possible --- his sister had done it so quickly, so easily. The gaping hole inside of her would be filled forever as long as she had Kuririn and her daughter by her side. But he had no one. He didn’t even have the possibility of someone. Because every time he thought about love and sharing a life with someone, the feeling of fear inside of him outweighed the emptiness by far. Love had this amazing power --- a power more astounding and incomprehensible than anything he had ever seen in his life. Love showed that it had the power to change, to mold, to reawaken; it had completely made his sister into a different person. And although he knew that she was happy with the life that she led, he wasn’t exactly sure that it would be the right life for him.

Honestly, he didn’t know what he wanted. He often used to stare into the small mirror above his bathroom sink, memorizing the shiny black locks of hair, the pale skin, and the icy blue eyes that gazed back at him. He could see himself so clearly, could see every detail on the outside, but he could never see through the coldness of his eyes; he could never see his heart. It was as if he actually were nothing but a lifeless shell. He was completely perfect on the outside --- the absolute epitome of what a man should look like; so gorgeous that it sometimes hurt him to look into that mirror and stare at his flawless face. But on the inside, he just felt cold and barren. There was nothing that warmed his heart or touched his soul; he was apart from everything. Sometimes he wasn’t even sure if he was capable of love or emotions. Maybe when Dr. Gero was creating him, the doctor had forgotten that small, insignificant detail.

Juunana-gou had always wondered about his personality and the dark coldness that seemed to lurk in his heart. Had it been that way before or after Dr. Gero had started experimenting on him? He didn’t really know anything about Gero’s experiments; he had no real, solid idea of what the lunatic had done to him. After the experiments were complete, the only things that he could remember were that he once was human and that he hadn’t wanted to become a monster. It was only recently that memories of the experimental surgeries were coming back to him. He wasn’t sure what was bringing these memories into light --- he just knew that he didn’t enjoy them. Those horrible memories had been the only time that he had ever truly felt anything. It was probably those dreams and flashbacks that gave the evil inside of him a chance to resurface and take over again. The evil had taken advantage of those few precious moments of real human feeling --- fear, sadness, frustration. It had used those feelings as weapons, rendering him completely weak and unable to fight against it.

Because of those memories, however, he now knew that he had at one time been capable of love and emotion. He had been human; he had been real. He knew that at one time, he had probably been able to feel everything --- the good things and the bad things, the sting of pain as well as the lightness of elation. But he wasn’t sure if he still possessed the capacity to feel those things. Maybe Dr. Gero had somehow taken it away from him. Juunana-gou was pretty sure that no doctor could ever take away a person’s ability to feel however, at least not with the use of a scalpel and antiseptic. But there were many other ways to void a person’s emotions, and torture was one of them. If Dr. Gero’s experimentations had taken away his ability to feel, then it was because the doctor subjected him to so much suffering that he had to close off his heart in order to keep his sanity. The trouble was, he didn’t know how to open it back up again. He didn’t know how to make himself be able to feel again.

Juuhachi-gou had done it. She had slipped out of Dr. Gero’s grasp and had managed to open her heart up and let in true human emotions. She had a family now, and a life that was at least somewhat normal and acceptable. Seemingly with ease, she had pushed the pain and torture of the past behind her and learned to live again as a real human being.

Maybe there was something wrong with him, then. Maybe he had gone through more of the torture, or maybe he hadn’t been able to withstand what little had he had to endure. The outcome was always the same, however: he was incapable of love. He would never be able to feel. That seemingly intrinsic ability had been stripped from him long ago. All he had now was the shell of a perfect person, and a heart that was so cold and so tired that it was nearly dead.

Piccolo looked around the area with a vague sense of frustration. They had touched down next to a small cottage on a hill, which looked down upon one of the smaller harbor villages. The cottage was small but very neat and proper, with a mailbox in the shape of a pig that read, “Smith”. He had played with the mailbox for a moment and discovered that it actually began to snort if you walked in front of it. It probably had one of those sensors inside of it. He immediately cursed Capsule Corporation for ever inventing such asinine things. Why would anyone want a mailbox that only looked like a pig, but actually made pig noises as well? It was probably just another one of those silly human traditions that he would never be able to understand.

“The dragonballs have to be inside of that little house.” Gohan said suddenly, trekking quickly up the hill and towards the mailbox. Koronu, Goten, and Marron were trailing behind him, looking just as frustrated. Gohan straightened his shirt and smoothed his hair down, trying to look presentable after the swamp incident. “There is no other place that they could be. We’ve searched the surrounding area nearly a dozen times now. We know that they are here --- but if they aren’t on the outside, then they have to be inside of that house. They probably are collecting them, which means that we might not be able to convince them to give up the dragonballs. We have to have all seven though, so we have to try every single method of getting them into our possession. Bribery, the truth, anything. And if the owner of the house is going to be difficult about it, we’re just going to have to take them and run.”

Right on cue, the tiny door of the cottage opened. An old woman stepped out and squinted at them, wiping her hands on a pink dishtowel. “Can I help you with something?”

Goten nodded enthusiastically. “We’re just looking for---”

“A phone.” Gohan interrupted. “May we come in and borrow your phone for a moment?”

“Of course! Come in! Come in!” The old woman grinned as if he had said the most incredible, beautiful thing in the world. She moved aside and motioned for them to come inside of the cottage, still smiling brightly and looking completely ecstatic. She looked just a little too excited. Piccolo had the feeling that they were probably the first people that she had socialized with in a long time. He supposed that when human people got old though, no one really wanted to visit them anymore. Especially not an old woman who had a pig for a mailbox. People like that were definitely not people that he wanted to converse with. It wasn’t that he had any kind of prejudice about old people or people that enjoyed pigs. He just didn’t like that many people in general, and he was a bit picky about who he chose to talk to.

He reached the door last, and when he passed by her, she squinted and smiled again, her face wrinkling. “My, you’re tall! My late husband was tall as well. Strapping man, he was. Had to duck to get under the door frames! You remind me a lot of him actually. Handsome bone structure in the face, muscles, long hands….”

Green skin, sharp fangs, pointy ears….Although he had his suspicions before, he was now completely sure that this woman was certifiably insane. No person in their right mind could ever take a look at him and say that he resembled “Mr. Smith”, the man that lived in a cottage on a hill and had a pig for a mailbox. Mrs. Smith was either going nearly blind (which might explain the excessive squinting) or highly delusional. As he stepped into the cottage, she followed closely behind him, staring at him the entire time. She looked at him as if she had just discovered something that she had been missing for years and years. Wistful and drugged up at the same time. Piccolo tried desperately to get away from her, but she followed him into the room and even helped him sit down on the couch.

He took a moment to look around the room and was immediately sorry. If he thought the mailbox was bad, he should have never come in through the door. There were pigs everywhere: ceramic pigs on the fireplace, paintings of pigs on the walls, pig pillows on the couches and chairs, stuffed pigs smiling stupidly up at him from the floor. It was sickening. He didn’t think he had ever seen anything so strange. He supposed that she collected pigs, but had no idea what her motives were behind it. It was just further proof that the woman was insane. Idly, he tapped a fingernail on the rough fabric of the couch and looked around the room again. Although there were enough pig related items to fill two storage warehouses, there were no dragonballs in sight. He dearly hoped that they weren’t in one of the other rooms in the house, because he was afraid to run into more pigs.

“The phone is right there.” She said, pointing to an old fashioned phone that looked suspiciously like a….pig. “I’ll make some tea for everyone to drink, eh? You must be tired if you walked here. Just make yourselves at home and I will be back in a few moments.”

As soon as she had disappeared around the corner, everyone jumped up off of the couch and began searching the room, tossing up pig pillows and looking behind the chairs. It seemed as though the more they searched, the more pigs they came across. The entire room was completely filled with them, like some awful, twisted farm horror movie. The search took a few moments, and Piccolo thought he would scream if he saw one more pig snout looking back at him. He tossed aside another stuffed pig and found nothing behind it but a smaller stuffed pig --- and this one was actually wearing a tiny pair of men’s trousers and a hat. He made a face and set down the original stuffed pig, grimacing as he turned back to face the others.

“I found them!” Marron said suddenly. She was ducked down in front of a small cabinet that had pigs for the door handles. Both of the dragonballs were seated comfortably on plush pink pillows, looking perfectly innocent and perfectly polished as well. Before any of them could say anything however, the old woman’s voice suddenly spoke up from the kitchen, informing them that the tea was ready. Everyone immediately found their seats again, except for Marron who stood nonchalantly beside the cabinet with her small hands behind her back.

The woman came out of the kitchen with that same, huge smile on her face. Piccolo noticed with an inward scowl that she actually had a pig barrette nestled in her silvery gray hair. She handed him a teacup off of her tray that was (thankfully) not even remotely pig-like. Her eyes twinkled as she smiled at him. “I thought I’d give you yours first, since you put me in mind of my late husband. I daresay you’re even more handsome than he was.”

Piccolo suddenly got a very bad feeling in his stomach. He didn’t know much about human emotions and feelings, but he was pretty sure that this woman was fairly enamored with him.

“These are lovely.” Marron suddenly said, looking towards the cabinet as if she were completely surprised to find the dragonballs there. “Wherever did you find them?”

The old woman squinted over to her and nodded when she saw the dragonballs, as if recalling a memory. “My late husband found the first one. I don’t know where he found it, but he brought it home one day under his arm, proud as could be. He tried to pass it off as a bowling ball, but I knew better. It looked like a collectable to me, and sure enough --- I found the second one at the market --- the same market I go to when I am shopping for my pigs. I brought it home, stored it with the first in that cabinet, and have been on the lookout for more of them ever since. I’ve yet to see another one though; maybe they only made just the two of them, in which case they are probably worth a great deal of money. I’d never sell them, though. I’d never sell any of my collectables. They’re like part of the family to me.” She paused when she noticed Marron reaching out to touch one of them. “Don’t smudge that, dear. They’re quite difficult to polish. Children these days! They just don’t know how to keep their hands to themselves!”

As she said the last sentence, she let her hand drift to Piccolo’s thigh. He didn’t know for sure, but he could have sworn that she actually winked at him. He looked down at her with a sour look on his face, completely unable to hide the amount of discomfort and disgust that he was feeling at the moment. It wouldn’t have been so bad normally, but he was in a room full of people that actually respected him. If this old lady kept making passes at him, he was going to be laughed at for the rest of his life. No one would ever let him live it down. And it wasn’t as if he had asked for any of this. He hadn’t even wanted to go inside of the house. If he had it his way, he would still be standing out by that stupid pig mailbox. Or even better, miles away from anyone and anything. He certainly didn’t want to be trapped inside of this cottage, with an old woman slyly hitting on him every few minutes.

“They are lovely, aren’t they Piccolo?” Koronu asked, placing a thoughtful hand on her chin and eyeing him with dark, playful eyes. Sure enough, everyone else had noticed that Mrs. Smith seemed to have some sort of attraction to him. Koronu’s dark eyes sparkled with a dangerous sort of happiness. “Wouldn’t you like to have a couple of fine collectables like that?”

The old woman looked very surprised, and then she smiled, looking even more delighted than she had before. She clapped her withered hands together in excitement and grinned at him. “You would? Well, seeing as how you’re so much like my late husband….I suppose we might be able to make a deal. I don’t get visitors here very often, especially not ones so handsome. I suppose that I could give up my small collection if you were willing to give me a kiss….Just a small token of your appreciation, of course. It’s been a long time since I received a kiss from such a handsome gentleman.”

Piccolo stared at her as if she had just grown a second head.

“That sounds like a perfect deal to me.” Gohan said darkly. “Much more enticing than diving into a swamp, wouldn’t you say?”

Minutes later, they emerged from the cottage, Koronu leading the way. She jumped down the front steps and spun around, placing her hands on her hips and grinning playfully up at Piccolo. Her tail lashed back and forth eagerly, and she reminded Piccolo vaguely of a cat that was about to pounce on its prey. Her grin transformed into a deep, mock-surprised smirk as she lifted a hand to touch the outline of bright pink lipstick that was now plastered on his green cheek. “Why, Piccolo! I never knew that you were such a lady charmer!”

“Shut up.”

“I thought she was actually quite nice, Piccolo.” Goten added thoughtfully. “I’m rather fond of pigs myself. It’s amazing how she found all of those collectables, isn’t it? And if you’re ever in the area again, at least you know that you have a friend.”

Piccolo narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip on the dragonballs that he was carrying under his arms. “If you say one more word to me, I will personally shove these dragonballs down your throat.”

“Grumpy, isn’t he?” Marron asked the group in general.