I laughed, Krillin putting on quite the show for us, the sight of sunlight reflecting off his bald head enough to humor me all on its own. The picnic was as peaceful as they always had been, close friends, great food, laughter and light heartedness. Kind of a clash when you had to return to reality only hours later and realize that this world was on the brink of extinction.
But for what it was worth, I don’t think I could remember at the time being so happy. It was like all the wrongs had just been forgotten. Not really forgiven, just overlooked for the time being. And the guilt and frustration with myself, was still there, but numbed for the moment.
Chi Chi stood near Bulma, smirking haughtily as the very congenial hostess complimented her on damn near every feature that left such an invitation. Piccolo leaned against a nearby tree, his eyes closed in embarrassment as Krillin continued making a fool of himself for the sake of entertainment. Even Gohan returned from his “hormonal” self and enjoyed the festivities, laughing excitedly as Krillin blushed, referring to Marron as his girlfriend.
Yamcha sighed, rolling his eyes and, (in a very Yamcha fashion) insisted that Marron had been after him in the long run and had “settled” for Krillin.
“She just knew I was dating Bulma,” he gloated, no one believing him even in the slightest. Bulma rolled her eyes, walking passed him. “No seriously! She just knew she’d never be competition right B?”
Bulma laughed heartily, waving the air in a very sultry fashion, waltzing inside before he had the chance to flatter her further, (another bold, pathetic attempt to win her back if you ask me).
I didn’t know it at the time, but I wouldn’t have a chance to ever see this again. It was the last time we were all together, the last time I would be with the ones I had loved all my life. If you would have told me at the time, that the world would virtually collapse on itself only hours later, I don’t think I would have believed you. But for what its worth, I savored these moments like the taste of candy before the dreaded diet.
Poor analogy, I know. Writing this, its like saying goodbye again. I looked at Krillin’s smiling face, my heart warming as I realized he looked just like a cherub. His small features were so innocent, so light and welcoming. Had I been gay, TRULY gay, I would have fallen for Krillin because unlike Vegeta, I could have felt real love for him in every sense of the word.
The passion for life that he had, the kindness in his heart. Its unequaled. It has never been challenged. So many times I could tell you about him, so many events where he showed me exactly why I could have fallen for him and loved him so much. But one in particular sticks out in my mind.
I’ve never told this to anyone. Never in all the years since have I spoken a word of it, instead, letting the memory of it flood my mind with the inspiration and incentive to fight with all my heart. I don’t know how many people will read this. I don’t know how many people they’ll speak of it to, but for this moment, I want to tell you what happened. Forgive me, Krillin. If ever there was a time when you guarded your secrecy, I pray that you’ll bare me no ill will for this invasion.
Time has a way of changing things and death always comes from time. And death, it seemed, was an invitation for love’s bitter side to show as Krillin gathered at my funeral. Yes, I died. But rather than be sent directly to the other side, I was granted the wish to stay for a while. I don’t know why I wanted it so badly. Maybe the foolish, vain hope that maybe my presence would keep them strong. Give them faith. That somehow, my love would pour through the absence of my body and that love would but for one moment give them the strength to keep living.
Maybe I just couldn’t accept that this was the end. Or maybe, as I believe now, it was God’s way of letting me say goodbye. They were all there, Chi Chi holding Gohan who stared so confused down at the box being lowered into the ground. It’s a strange thing to watch your own body being buried beneath the soil, withering and dead. Chi Chi looked absolutely crushed, the same look I’d seen after her mother’s funeral.
I wasn’t one to pray at the time, but I tell you from my heart, if there is a God, he must have heard me begging for the strength to keep Chi Chi alive. I stood next to Bulma, watching her shoulders shake, her pretty mouth twisted down as she sobbed. Yamcha pulled her close, swallowing hard as if being a man meant biting back the tears.
Hours passed, a mournful ceremony, the priest speaking about all the “great” things I had done. And one by one, as the sun set far away, they left. Only, one lingered.
Krillin stood, his teeth clenched in his mouth, not one tear coming down his face through the whole ceremony. He just stared at my casket, a single white rose bent and broken in his fingers.
“Where are you?” he whispered. He buried his face in his hands, shaking his head. “The greatest man in the world dies and all I can do is ask why it happened.”
Tears puddled on his lids as he turned to face the sky.
“How come it is, that every day terrible people live? How come it is that these monsters can get away with murder, with stealing, with anything? And how come the purest of them all is the one to go in the end? You sacrificed yourself to save strangers and to save your family,” He sobbed. “And I can’t understand it. What does that make of me?”
He fell to his knees, crying until my heart nearly gave out. I tried to reach for him, seeing my spiritual hand go right through his shoulder.
“I wish I’d gotten to say goodbye Goku,” he breathed. “I wished I’d have told you all the things I’m grateful for. That you saved me, so many times. That you showed me the beauty in this world as I could have never seen it on my own. That you gave me love when I didn’t deserve it. That you loved me period.
“In my dreams, I save you Goku. I’m there right on time, rushing to your side right as the blast hits, saving you from all this. You thank me, you hug me, and times are just like always. And I don’t have to wake up and remember that I’m just one more day closer to having to say goodbye to you like this. And I don’t have to wake up and remember that you’re gone and that I couldn’t be there for you as you died.
“People always want to say goodbye to people that died, but not me.” he shook his head. “Not me Goku. I just wish I didn’t have to say goodbye at all.”
Right as I was beginning to wish for life harder than I ever had, life from my body itself wandered curiously up to Krillin, Gohan’s little dimpled hand reaching up to touch his shoulder.
“Daddy’s gone?” Gohan cocked his head to the side. Krillin turned away quickly before his face formed a sob, smothering his mouth with his hand. But Gohan was not one to be deterred, moving to face the small monk, taking Krillin’s cheeks into both hands, just like Chi Chi always did to him when he cried.
“Daddy is gone?” he repeated, eyebrows turned upwards. It seemed he genuinely wanted an answer, imploring Krillin with his eyes, searching for the painful fact that would soon be revealed. Part of him must have known but like every child, he needed the confirmation of an adult.
Krillin stared forward, breathing hard, searching himself for the strength it took to swallow down the tears. He turned to Gohan, taking the tiny body into his arms, holding my son in a great bear hug as he knelt on the ground.
“No Gohan,” he breathed. “No, your daddy isn’t gone.”
I couldn’t understand it! Why would he say such a thing? Why would he lie bold faced to my son? But Krillin pointed to the setting sun, a gorgeous streak of yellow just stretching itself across the far horizon before lying down to sleep.
“You see that Gohan?” he smiled through his tears, holding the boy with one arm. “You see how the sun glitters just like gold, how the sky looks purple over there and pink over here? You see how pretty it all is?”
Gohan nodded, watching Krillin’s finger point to all the different shades of the sky.
“Well Gohan,” Krillin sighed, lips quivering. “Your dad cant be gone. You see, he’s in that sun over there. He’s in the sky above us.” He swallowed hard. “He’s in all the beauty you see around you. You feel this?”
He moved Gohan’s hand over his tiny chest, letting the boy feel his own heart beating.
“Your dad is in there. Every time you remember him, every time think of him, he’s right inside you. He’s a part of you Gohan. He’s a part of me. I see him in every good thing there is in this world. Remember him, Gohan.”
Krillin looked forward, letting the tears finally just flow down his cheeks, the sunlight catching each one just right, making them glitter like little diamonds right before they fell from his chin.
“Remember that he loved you with every breath he took. Remember, that he lives in you.”
I shook myself, remembering that I was at the picnic, staring at Krillin until I’d damn near made the little man uncomfortable. Bulma had exited inside and I joined her quickly, avoiding eye contact with Chi Chi as I borderline fled after her.
“It’s a wonderful picnic, Bulma.” I said courteously, taking a swig of my punch.
“Thanks,” she answered shyly, looking away as she seemed to be preparing another great dish full of potato salad or something. The kitchen, as always, smelled superb, the scent of lemon Pin Sol strong in the air. I gazed around, seeing my family through the shades of the kitchen, laughing and mingling with my friends. It was a pleasant scene.
The only down side was a very small hint of sadness emanating from Bulma. True, it might have been presumptuousness on my part, it wouldn’t be the first time. But years of knowing the Capsule Corporation heiress, I noticed that faraway look in her eyes, the slight way that her eyebrows tilted upwards, the tiniest little frown on her beautiful lips.
“Bulma,” I said questioningly, placing a concerned look on my face. “What’s wrong? You don’t seem quite yourself today.”
“Wrong?” She answered innocently. “No. No, nothing’s wrong.”
I would have been more convinced if she’d told me the sky had turned purple with pink polka dots.
“Honestly!” She raised her hands. I crossed my arms.
“Ok, ok,” she laughed, giving up. “It’s nothing really. Just… well, you know.”
“Vegeta?”
“Well,” she smiled thoughtfully. “Amongst other things. But yes, mainly him.”
I leaned nonchalantly against the counter, my arms and legs crossed as I watched her speak, knowing I could probably do this forever.
“So are you going to tell me about it or do I have to pound it outta ya?” I joked, laughing when she swatted my arm. A strange look came over her face for just a second, one that I’d never seen before. The kind of look where you’re reminiscing over horrible memories. But as so many emotions do, it came and it went like the wind, a mischievous smile its replacement.
“Well,” she shrugged, looking to the side. “Its just like….” She laughed. “Goku I don’t know if I feel comfortable sharing this with you!”
I waved the air, pushing her onward.
“Its just, well, when we’re intimate sometimes I-..”
“WHOA!” I laughed, throwing up my hands. I don’t know why the statement surprised me so much, but I distinctly did NOT want to hear about my best friend and my……. well, (whatever Vegeta was), being “intimate”.
“Oh come on Goku, you’re a married man!” she punched my arm. “Its just that I don’t understand him sometimes. He’s just so…….”
“Insane?”
“Foreign,” she said with a quirk of the eyebrow. “Just very different and….. maybe even a little experimental.”
I guarantee my eyebrows touched my hair line when she added THAT little statement. I swallowed hard, goading her on, memories of their little “excursion” jumping in and out of my mind.
“Maybe I’m crazy,” She sighed. “But sometimes, when we’re……. together, its like he’s not really there. Like, we’ll be… you know, and its like I’m someone else to him. Not even a someone. Like a something suddenly. I hate the feeling that I’m an ornament rather than a person and he DOES that to me constantly. Its like, around him I’m an-.”
“Object.” I finished for her.
“Exactly! Its like, I suddenly cease to be a person and become a thing. Just an object for him to work himself on. And the things he says to me sometimes. It makes me feel WORTHLESS, like a toy. But Goku,” She moved forward. “The worst part is, I can’t say no.”
She shook her head, missing the blood draining from my face. I just stood there, pale and lightheaded, hearing the very same words come from her mouth that I had felt nearly every day since I’d started, “associating” with Vegeta.
“Its like I WANT to say no, I KNOW what’s right and what’s wrong but I just cant stop myself. So I do it and I LOVE it!” She threw her head back. “But in the end, I feel more worthless than I had at the beginning. I don’t know how to stop myself anymore, so I just give in.”
I nodded, knowing the feeling EXACTLY as she had described it. Giving in, ah, the sweet sound of it. Just hearing the words from her mouth made me want the unforgivable, right then, right there.
“Oh, but I’m stupid!” She chuckled, waving the air. “Bugging you with my problems. Hearing this about Vegeta probably makes you sick! I mean, what guy wants to hear about his friend’s sex life?!”
“Heh,” I half assed chuckled. “Well, I AM a married man. And its not like I don’t know Vegeta’s a sexual person and all.”
“Why yes,” Cut in a very rough, accented voice. “EXTREMELY sexual I might add.”
Bulma and I both jumped, my hip digging into the counter as Vegeta waltzed into the room, his eyes blazing as they normally do, darting from one of us to the other suspiciously.
“Well, well, well,” he breathed, lowering his eyes. “Look at you two, gossiping away like a pair of old women in a church. Surprised to see me? Kakarot looks as confused as a baby in a topless bar.”
“Vegeta,” Bulma swallowed. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“No,” He smiled, walking up to her, closer than normal personal boundaries would have allowed. “You wouldn’t, would you? Chirping away over here. Like two blind mice oblivious to the cat. So tell me, any interesting topics?”
He walked up to me, his back to Bulma as he glared into my eyes, pursing his lips into a kiss that nearly melted me.
“Relax, Kakarot,” he whispered into my ear. “I wont kill you. Just try and remember EXACTLY who you’re talking to, ok? Wouldn’t want any…..” he winked suggestively at me. “violent episodes now would we?”
He moved towards the door, both Bulma and myself taking a deep breath as he held open the screen door, gesturing for her.
“Bulma dear,” he smiled wickedly. “It’s your party. Let’s not keep the guests waiting.”
They exited the kitchen, Vegeta’s dark clothing a clash with the brilliant, light colors of the afternoon, a dismal, fearful feeling cloaking every one. But it was Chi Chi’s face that stunned me most of all, a look that haunts me to this day, as I never saw it for what it was. A look of fear, of confusion, of uncertainty and even………
even something else.
I had watched them all from the confines of the window for nearly an hour, seeing the two women mulling over gossip and secrets which men never know or more specifically, refuse to indulge in. It was like a secret garden of immaculate creatures, my eyes glancing from one beauteous spectacle to the next, noting that even in their differences, each was perfect in their own way.
My gaze landed on Chi Chi as she flushed, oblivious to my eavesdropping, and sputtered out a line of sentence fragments that fell short of an actual paragraph due to her frustrated mood. Ah Bulma. She could bring out the politician in anyone, invoking conversations in which normal people, and I use such a word loosely, would never have partaken in, backing up her own forceful opinion by large words and a haughty attitude that always appealed to me.
Chi Chi’s temper was both her weakness and her strength, being quite the intimidating force and yet tripping up her words where sophistication might have been well on its way out. I felt my heart tighten slightly as she threw a black strand of hair behind her ear, her eyebrows knit tightly as she prepared to overwhelm the opposition with a barrage of angry threats and unproven facts.
I loved her didn’t I? Of course I did. I watched the sun throw beams over her flustered face, watched it glitter like so many diamonds in her shimmering black eyes, watched it hit her cheeks with just enough light and just enough shadows so that she beamed almost like a nymph of fairytales. I wanted her as I wanted no one else. I wanted her with pure motives. With a purity I’d thrown away, letting myself be overwhelmed by a hidden fantasy I’d tossed away as an impossibility.
Then I felt the unmistakable power come from behind me, the soft touch of lips on the back of my ear when I’d only just realized he stood there. I shivered, clenching my muscles angrily until my shoulders were sore and tense as his fingers ran over my collar bone, the hot breath seeping from his mouth as he purposefully laughed at my expense, pleased to have frightened me so.
“Don’t you just love to watch it?” He breathed into my ear, a sudden hot wetness coming along the sensitive skin which I no later discovered to be his tongue, moving about like a venomous serpent around my neck.
“To see your family so oblivious to who you are, to what you could be. To know, that with just one thought, one little whim, you could be done with them?”
“What?” I hissed, keeping my voice low as his intolerable closeness caused my stomach to weaken and my nerves to harden.
“You mean you’ve never thought about it?” he whispered, moving his head to rest on my shoulder. “Never…….wondered what it would be like, just to kill them. Just to know that you had the power and the guts enough to free yourself.” His voice lowered until I strained against my will to hear it. “Just to know you could tear their heads from their bodies and no one could do anything about it?”
“Why do you say such things?” I spat, not caring what his repulsive answer might be. He was sickening me and I closed my eyes, wishing away the monster within as it awoke to his fingers running along my stomach, dangerously close to my pant line. They slithered beneath my shirt, running like pads of silk over my tender areas, my teeth clenching as I let him do it, like I couldn’t stop it.
“Look at them.” He said to me sternly, grabbing my face and forcing me to stare at my oblivious family, trapped in their own trust and ignorance, never knowing, never suspecting that I watched them through half lidded eyes, partly wanting him to go deeper downwards.
“What do you think they’d do if they saw this?” he said, running his bottom lip over my neck, his hand slowly descending downwards, much to my delight and regret. “What would they think if they knew what we did when they weren’t around?”
He violently began to pull my belt off with harsh, unnecessary movements, throwing my backside into his torso, awakening the hated heat. Awakening the very core of the monster that smiled, stretched its limbs and put my heart at bay for the moment, delving me into sin.
“Stop it,” I pleaded.
“You have the power, hero,” He taunted wickedly, until I could feel his lips form a terrible smirk. “Make me stop it. Tell me you don’t want this.”
At that he had me, his hot hand winding around my cock, the heat of it grinding into my erection until my teeth were clenched together and my stomach was aching from his savage movements.
“Say it!” he hissed, his teeth on my ear, his hair rubbing against mine. “Say the words and I’ll stop. Tell me you don’t love to watch them while we do this. That you aren’t in ecstasy knowing that they’ll never guess it. Say the words Kakarot.”
But I was lost to the pressure, and the pain and the heat that illuminated around me, his hand pumping up and down like a preteen masturbating viciously, my eyes rolling back into my head as I just breathed to the ceiling.
All the time he watched Bulma and my family, oblivious to what we did, unknowing that we committed this crime within their very vision.
Little did we know, only seconds later, the entire world went insane.
