Goku flattened himself to the roof, instinctively covering his head, though they'd never see him even if they thought to look.
"Bulma's gonna kill me," he whined, watching in horror as Trunks and Bra crouched over the woman, hair falling into each of their faces. He swallowed thickly, reluctantly noting that there was no physical age difference between them.
He hadn't meant to grant Bra's wish. He actually didn't know how he'd done it, to tell the truth. Goku'd been keeping tabs on his family and friends over the last four years, and had decided to see what the Briefs were up to this morning. Of all mornings. He'd gotten there just in time for the snowball incident and Bra's wish.
He'd been standing right behind Trunks when Bra had made that wish, and because he'd been laughing so hard, he supposed it had managed to slip around the guards he'd been forced to set up around his mind. The guards that were supposed to prevent this from happening. And when Trunks had lost his balance and fallen onto him...
Goku squirmed as he watched Trunks lift Bulma into a piggyback hold with the help of his sister. The boy looked confused, his glasses shoved into a pocket, his eyes lost in thought. Bra looked like she was functioning on autopilot.
"Ah, man!" he cried to himself, rubbing the back of his head with two large paws, as if ChiChi had threatened him with her skillet. "Now what am I supposed to do?"
Trunks leaned back against a cupboard, legs dangling off the edge of the counter, absently poking his stomach with a finger. It was his stomach that made it perfectly clear that by some will of Dende, he was eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old again. He hadn't been this hungry since high school.
His father was at the stove, finishing the omlette that had been abandoned after he'd fallen out of the window. That Bulma had been making before Bra had gone offhinge and made that wish.
Trunks turned his blue eyes towards his sister, still in shock over the fact that the world was in perfect clarity. Bra would probably want to use his glasses because she obviously didn't trust her eyes on their own; she was still standing in the doorway with wide pupilless eyes, looking as if she'd just been told that Pan was pregnant with his kid.
In all fairness though, he felt as if he'd just been told the same thing.
"Great," his mother was muttering, hunkered over a cup of scalding coffee, nearly lost behind the table, wrapped up in his jacket. "As if one teeneaged saiyan wasn't enough to feed, now I've got another, and this one's appetite rivals Goku's."
His father smirked as he slid the giant omlette onto a plate, cutting a small pie-like wedge to lay to the side. "You've been given an opportunity to get stronger, Boy. I would suggest you use it."
Trunks would have paled if he didn't already feel like he'd been completely drained. He watched mutely as his father carried the plate to the table, turning it so that the small wedge was before his mother. When Vegeta glanced back at him, Trunks offered a full and terrified smile, his eyelids disappearing back into his head and his lips pulling away from his teeth.
"I...I don't understand," Bra mumbled, finally blinking. She lifted a hand, pushing a fistfull of blue hair from her eyes. "I...I wished he'd act his age...why's...why's he my age? I mean..."
"Look at it this way, Sweeite," Bulma sighed, resting her elbow on the table and her chin against her knuckles. "If anyone of us had wished for Goku to act his age, we'd have had a 12 year old saiyan running around."
"Like we did," Trunks yawned, poking his stomach one last time before pulling his shirt down. If he wasn't so confused, he'd get up and lay seige on the refrigerator, but that would mean finding out that this wasn't some horrible dream. "If it weren't for what happened to Goku, I don't think even I would be willing to considering your wish as even an imaginary option."
"But why my age?" Bra cried, stomping her feet in frustration, her slippers making a squelching sound on the linoleum. "Do you realize how badly you've just ruined my life?"
"Hey!" he snapped, jumping down from the counter to tower over her, two pairs of crystal blue eyes boring into each other. "Do you think I want to live through raging hormones again? Do you think I want to live the next fourteen years over while my best friend is getting married with the snow melts? How the hell am I supposed to show my face in the office now--I already have problems with my authority being undermined simply because half the office staff is obsessed with me! It was your wish Bra, you made it."
Bra growled at him desperately, clenching her fists at her sides and baring her teeth. He mirrored her, his hackles raised. But before either could come to blows of the verbal or physical variety, the doorbell sounded throughout the house and Bra broke away, panic spreading across her face like oil over water.
"Shit! They're here!" She leapt past her brother, hopping as she ripped off her wet socks and squishing slippers. "STAY!!" she spat at him as she sprinted up the stairs.
Trunks sighed and turned to look at the refrigerator. There was no use trying to deny this any longer. Shrugging his shoulders, he opened the refridgerator and pulled over a chair, resting his feet on a shelf as he gnawed on a wedge of cheese.
"You're mine, Son! Get your scrawny ass back here!"
Pan laughed maniacally as she sprinted through the snow, stooping as she ran to snowplow a handful of powder into her hands, packing as she sought cover behind the hedges. Snowballs hailed down around her and she squawked as one pegged her shoulder.
"You'll never take me alive, Soshiki!" she cried, making a break into the open, dashing past Tatsuki's apple green hyundai, grinning broadly at him as he waved from within. White missles exploded on the windshield and she sped past, still holding her own snowball.
"Then I'll just have to take you dead!" he cried back. He was light on his feet and making easy progress across the snow behind her, but she wasn't a sitting duck. Pivoting on her heels and shoving a foot before her into the snow, she slid to a stop. Drawing back her arm, she let her projectile fly, letting out a whoop as the white bomb made contact with her target. Soshiki flew backwards in a windmill of blond and green hair, black pants, and leather jacket. Almost as soon as he was down, he was back on his feet, swiping white snow from brown eyes, packing together a new clip as he watched her gloat and prance away.
"I'd like to see you try!"
"You're not invincible, pan," he told her with a crooked smile, pushing away green streaked hair from his face. "Especially since you promised to play at my level."
Without warning he was off and running, oblivious to his brother who sat in the warm haven of his car, laughing hysterically. Pan dodged the first two snowballs easily, crunching through the heavy crust of snow by the house and making it to the relative safety of the front door. He was somewhere behind her, but she'd labeled the front door as home base, which meant "throw snowball in this direction and suffer the consequences". Raising her hand to the doorbell again, she glaced back over her shoulder, just in time to see Soshiki pull back his arm and fling it forward. Instinctively, she ducked.
And stood up with a start when she heard the distinct sound of snowball hitting flesh.
Made more distinct by a strangled whimper.
"Ah shit," Soshiki breathed, his eyes wide. Slowly, Pan turned, watching as Bra stood there, her face covered in snow, still as stone. Usually a good sign that she was on the verge of "kill".
But Bra only let a shiver ripple through her as she wiped at the snow on her face and closed the door. Pan watched, baffled, as Bra smiled and asked how long they were going to be gone.
"Um, Bra? Are you ok?" she asked quietly, just as prepared as Soshiki for the pending explosion.
"Fine!" she cried suddenly, clutching tightly at the collar of her coat with 2 sets of white knuckles. "I'm fine!"
"Riiight," Pan drawled, raising an eyebrow as she watched Bra squirm. "You sure?"
Bra tittered in a way that could only be described as giddy and nervous.
What is going on with her? Pan mused worriedly, watching skeptically as Bra hurried towards Tatsuki and the Hyundai, calling over her shoulder that if they didn't hurry she wouldn't be able to gen an all-day treatment.
Soshiki moved towards her, setting a hand on her shoulder. Pan turned her eyes to him, meeting warm grey eyes that voiced the worry screaming in her heart.
"I think I broke her," he said simply, watching the blue haired girl walk through the snow as if half asleep. Pan swallowed thickly and nodded as he applied pressure to her shoulder, steering her towards the car.