Mirai walked towards Goten, remarking to himself how incredibly the youth resembled Goku, their age difference making no dent in the identical features. It was almost as though he were staring at the older Saiyan, the facial structures exactly alike, the eyes closed in peacefulness as he rested beneath a tree, arms folded behind his head.
“Goten,” Mirai cursed himself for almost saying ‘Goku’, watching as the dark, identical eyes fluttered open, red with deep sleep. “Goten, wake up.”
Goten’s eyes snapped open, glaring up at him. Eyebrows furrowed as he attempted to make out the person speaking to him, standing over his body with the sun shining directly behind..
“T-Trunks?!” He spat out in complete surprise, crawling backwards in astonishment. “You look so different. My God, four years.”
“Goten, wait I’m-..”
“God, you don’t even feel like the same person!” Goten rambled on, raking his fingers through his thick hair, staring as if still trying to believe it. Mirai hadn’t exactly thought this through as thoroughly as he might have, not taking into account the idea that his presence could be completely mistaken by the younger man. Goten believed he was Trunks of the present timeline, staring up at him in disbelief and shock.
“Trunks, I can’t even feel your aura!” he was blabbering on. “it’s so different, so flickering almost! You’ve changed! You’re so…” It seemed as though the truth dawned on him too quickly, cutting off his words. “You’re so not even the same person, are you?”
Mirai frowned, somehow finding his shoelaces fascinating as he couldn’t stare back into Goten’s hurt face.
“I’m not Trunks of your time Goten,” He admitted, avoiding eye contact at all cost. “I’m the Trunks that came back from the future a long long time ago in your universe. Before you were born. You can call me Mirai if you want to. Everyone else does and I’m almost getting used to it I suppose.”
Goten still stared at him, probably intrigued by the sight of someone so identical to Trunks yet so obviously different on all other accounts. Hurt registered in his eyes, poignant memories no doubt flickering from times before, the disappointment of this Trunks poisoning his usually courteous manner.
“I’m sorry I’m not him Goten,” Mirai admitted. “I wish I could be so it wouldn’t disappoint you so much. But I am here on account of him, if that’s even the smallest consolation.”
“You’re here to help him.” Goten nodded, not asking so much as announcing.
“I’m in this timeline due to a virus attacking mine but yes, I wanted to see you about him. Whoever-whatever he’s become… it’s not natural. In fact, it unnerves me to the point of almost fear now. It’s almost as though mentally, he has detached himself from any thought to another person besides his own bodily needs. He’s-…”
“He’s a monster.” Goten finished for him, sitting up. He slowly wrapped his arms around his knees, bringing them up to his chest. “I’m sorry Mirai, I can’t help you.”
“What?” Mirai snapped, staring down at the other man. “Is that a ‘can’t’ or a ‘won’t’ might I ask?”
“Look, I once believed, as you do, that he could be changed back. If there ever was a ‘back’ to essentially go to, once again, I’m not sure. Maybe Trunks was just better at playing charades as a child, or at least felt more inclination to at the time. Now, any obligation to common civilities has escaped him and he’s nothing more than a shell of what a person might be. I almost thought him humane at one point, my equal. Now, I don’t know what I see him as. I view him as a superior, yet I pity him as an unfeeling creature.
“So what can I help you with? You want to know why he’s so terrifyingly distant? Why he can’t feel? You might as well be asking God questions in the heart of some old, condemned crack house. You won’t get much from me, I assure you.”
“Then fine, you won’t give me answers, give me what you do know,” Mirai demanded, sitting down next to the handsome creature. “I want to know what happened with you two. I want to know why you haven’t seen him in four years. Give me the history, anything.”
Goten just stared at him for a moment, unnerved by this proposal.
“I don’t know if I can do that either,” He whispered. “I…..”
“Please Goten, what could it hurt?”
“Me.” The dark haired Saiyan answered. “For years now, I’ve tried to push it all behind me. To forget him. By now, you must realize how incapable I am of that. Perhaps his cruelest curse of all is that you fall in love with him and stay that way. Or more specifically, you cannot forget him. Yes, I’d say that’s the worst part. Once he’s shown you the world you want to see, given you everything you’ve ever wanted with but one smile, he owns you.
“But I’m lying, aren’t I?” He smiled thoughtfully, looking at the ground. “I’ve never tried to forget Trunks. I wouldn’t want to. I told him four years ago that I knew the meaning of love. That it’s the quality of not WANTING to forget, good or bad. But I don’t want to tell you that right now.
“What do you expect from me Mirai,” He shook his head, looking away. “An impossibly elaborate love story? Earth shattering epiphanies? It was simple and it was stupid.”
“Is that why you’re still alone after four years?” Mirai asked, receiving a glare from the younger man.
“So I’m still stupid,” He shrugged. “not exactly a revelation there. How do you go from Trunks to anyone else? That’s like seeing the gates of Heaven and then trying to live amongst the glorious streets of a ghetto. It’s a pathetic consolation. The world turned to grey once Trunks was gone. Everything turned to ashes.”
Goten stared off into the distance, forgetting himself for a moment as he held the backs of his arms.
“I learned to love him,” he breathed. “It was a gradual thing but yes, Mirai, I did love him. It wasn’t a movie love. It wasn’t a romance novel love. Perhaps, in the way of things, it was a very boring sort of love. We were best friends growing up, I’m sure you’ve gathered. I was always his side kick in the way of things. Always one step behind him, always in his shadow, looking up in almost idolism for him.
“The world saw Trunks very quickly as a type of outsider. Cold; impaired emotional reactions. It’s true, but then, maybe I was the only one who could see past all that. Or maybe, I was just one of the stupidest who fell in love with those qualities regardless. I don’t think I ever really knew it was love at the time. I just knew that, like everyone else, I loved looking at Trunks. Everything about him was a contrast with the rules of the world. Like Vegeta, he’s a rebel against society, cursing unspoken rules and saying to hell with damn near everything the world obligates us to.
“When he was sixteen he announced he was gay. I was the first to hear it, of course, being his closest companion and when he told me, I was suddenly hit with everything all at once. It was an overwhelming realization as new worlds opened up to me. I guess I’d been as neurotic as every other fifteen year old, poking fun at friends, calling them “fag” or “queer” or “homo”. And then suddenly, my best friend was one.
“That was my big revelation as a kid. Having my young, heroic (in my eyes) friend admit, or rather announce to the world, that he was homosexual and quite proud of the fact. I thought for sure that Trunks would be bombarded with hatred for his honesty, but to my surprise, it seemed like everyone was suddenly OK with it. The girls that he’d dated or had fallen for him only fell that much harder for what they couldn’t have. Other boys in the school system came out directly after him, idolizing his brash behavior as I did.
“In fact, I think only one person ever ended up saying anything derogatory towards Trunks and his response was basically along the lines of “yeah, I take it up the ass sweetheart. Deal with it.” I believe less than six months later, Trunks ended up having sex with that same guy and posting up pictures of their encounter all over the school, with only the boy’s face revealed.”
“Did the kid tell the school who did it?” Mirai asked out of curiosity.
“Nope,” Goten laughed. “Trunks was too clever for that. He knew that the guy would rather kill himself then reveal that he ACTUALLY was with Trunks at the time and tried to play it off as though it was one big digitalized joke. I don’t imagine anyone believed him. But I’m completely off topic aren’t I? Sorry about that Mirai. I get nostalgic sometimes when thinking about him. Seems like another person’s life some days.
“It became a game for Trunks at one point, a game between us that I admittedly didn’t even like but took part in. He would say the names of random people, gorgeous men (and sometimes even women) that he was going for at the moment. Gym teachers, school board members, jocks and upper classmen. Gay, straight, he preferred a challenge. I would laugh at him, insisting that even HE couldn’t get them into one of his infamous tumbles. We would make small bets on whether or not he could pull it off. After losing every allowance for a straight month, we started making bets based souly on how LONG it took him to get them.
“He was insatiable Mirai and the more and more he won what he wanted, the less and less I felt like I was part of his life. I was merely the listener to all of his excursions but never truly part of them.
“But I realized gradually why it was that I was so fascinated by him. I hadn’t even known my own father until I was what? Five? Six? And Gohan, though my brother, has always been a rather neutral person in many ways. But here was Trunks, this compelling, rash individual that inspired me in a way no one else did. He was so energetic, so full of life, the most influential person you’ll ever meet. I was taken by him.
“Of course, I still fought with myself for years about how I felt. I was cool with his life, his ideas, his world. But I was still insecure, still afraid of him as he delved more and more into his life and left what we’d had behind. I’d go to clubs with him, once we were old enough and he knew enough people to get us into the bars. I played my charade off, seemingly comfortable with his new friends, new “fucks” as he called them, new everything. But maybe, I held on too much to what we were. I wanted to still be his best friend Mirai.
“But the farther he got into the drugs, the drinking, the sex, mostly the sex, I realized I was losing him. The idea of it literally paralyzed me. That ‘Trunks and Goten’ was now becoming Trunks and his wild life and Goten trying to doggy paddle his way behind.
“It was other things that very slowly awakened my mind to how I felt. Things Trunks would say out of the blue. The way he would talk about my father and even Gohan to an extent. But no, it was my dad that he lusted after the most at that time, always saying things in derogatory context, smiling at my father in the most unusual ways and laughing later about the reaction he’d get. I think he truly would have pursued it early on if I hadn’t been so insistent that he leave my family alone on that account.
“My mother was still alive, growing sicker, yet it didn’t seem to faze him when the woman, who had all but raised him along side his own mother, grew fainter and fainter before our eyes. He seemed unfazed by everything about her, her usually shrill, upbeat voice sinking to a low whisper, her once pale skin growing with patches of bruises, yellow and blue. He once said in a melancholy voice that he could smell death on her whenever he entered the house, like it was my fault or was something to be dealt with so as not to cause him further discomfort.
“But again, I’m going to tell you Mirai, it was his behavior towards my father that really opened my eyes to what I was experiencing towards us. I remember one day as we had sat on the roof of my old house, he had leaned back and laughed at me. ‘When I fuck your dad Goten,’ he smirked in the most cruel fashion. ‘The entire world will know.’
“I, of course, out of my own insecurity chose to pass it off as merely arrogance on his part, his ego positively enormous. No, I never thought in my wildest dreams he would ever win over my dad. I would stare at my father after he had left, after having to endure one of his graphic depictions of what it would be like, and think to myself that it was surely the greatest impossibility. But the more I thought about it, the more the envy grew against my father and realization gradually dawned on me.
“God,” He looked up suddenly, laughing despite himself. “how much courage it took me to finally tell him. I was turning nine-teen and he had forgotten. That was unlike him. Despite his cruelty towards most people, I will say that Trunks reserved some civility on my account. He very rarely ever stood me up or forgot important things that revolved around me. But when I told him when my party was, he was completely stoic about it, telling me quite plainly that he wouldn’t be able to make it; other plans of course.
“I was stricken about it. I spent my entire birthday watching the door through the passing bodies of family members and friends, wondering if he wouldn’t jump through at any moment, smack me in the arm and laugh at my stupidity for believing he would EVER forget something like that. But he never came. Ideas flooded my head of course. That he’d had every intention of being there and now something horrible had happened. That he had been attacked, gotten in a car accident, something had happened to Bulma or whatever. But as the hours past, the guests leaving, the cake on my plate untouched, the scenarios changed to an orgy of pornographic ideas. He was with someone, he was with several someone’s. Whatever the case was, every thought imaginable coursed through my brain like salt on a wound, my anger growing. And I suddenly thought, ‘my God, this isn’t concern. This isn’t sadness at being forgotten. This is plain out jealousy.’
“And there I had it. I escaped from my house through my window, marched without knocking into Trunk’s house, LITERALLY tossed people out of his bed before grabbing him up and smacking him in the face for forgetting my party. Normally, he would have fought back, my uncharacteristic behavior stunning him slap after slap. When he’d finally found the wits about him enough to stop my hand, I kissed him very hard, pounded him one more time in the head and told him if he wanted to discuss this, I’d be down in his living room.
“After about ten minutes of making me wait, (quite literally counting the seconds as they past on a nearby clock) he waltz into the room, smacked me upside the head for being so rude and then grabbed me up in the biggest huge I think he’s ever given anyone. And I do believe his apology for missing my party was the first and the last he’s ever given out of sincerity. And that was that.” He shrugged his shoulders. “There’s your great romantic story. I was an idiot, I fell for him, I loved him and I’ve been paying the price now for four years.”
“But why?” Mirai wondered aloud. “Why did it end? And on such terrible terms that you would stop speaking to one another for this long? What happened?”
“Inevitability happened,” Goten sighed, sitting cross-legged on the ground. “Trunks is a borderline nymphomaniac, or at least I suspect. Who was I to him but an inexperienced old friend with more than a crush. Maybe he cared for me back. We were officially “together” in the minds of the outside world. But Trunks could never learn to love me. I guess I entertained the idea for an excessive amount of time, seeing every smile, every wink, every small gesture of attention as possible blossoming of love. But in the end, I knew that, though he did try, Trunks wasn’t in love with me.
“It’s just something you know I guess. Something you feel in your chest when you’re laying beside a person that doesn’t feel as strongly as you do. A sort of desperation, the sad, aching kind. I knew also that he cheated on me. He slept with as many people as he had before. Maybe it was my insecurities or my lingering inability to accept my sexual preference that made me refuse him in the way no one else could. But I never had sex with Trunks. I couldn’t do it. Maybe, somewhere, deep inside, I knew how easily Trunks could separate emotion from sex. I knew subconsciously, he was unable to combine the two and detached himself from his “fucks” as though they were a disgusting thing to him.
“I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to be just another idiot to be discarded later. So I denied him. Maybe that was why he stuck around so long, (or, a long time in Trunks’ opinion). I was still a challenge and forever will be I suppose. I was the one person he pursued at the time that would never bend to his will. It made him crazy and perhaps that’s why he slept around so much as he did. I couldn’t keep him happy. I was inadequate. So we let each other go.”
“But WHY!?” Mirai shook his head. “Why not stick by him? Give him more time!? You knew it was different in your case… why not just wait a little longer?”
“Who was I to him Mirai?” Goten asked. “Who was I to him but another person claiming his lifestyle was wrong. I had failed him and in a way, he failed me. Who was I though, to tell him to stop living his life? Wild, untamed sex will always be a part of Trunks. What kind of monster would I be to try and take that away from him? To give him an ultimatum essentially? I fell in love with who Trunks was; I wasn’t about to stop him from being that person. So I let him go. I wanted him to live.
“Trunks seemed deranged afterwards, creeping through my window at night when he didn’t think I knew he was there, standing at the foot of my bed and just staring for three minutes before leaving. That’s why I say that we haven’t spoken in four years. We’ve certainly seen each other from time to time. From then on, I always knew when Trunks was having sex. It must seem odd to you that I point this out, but bear with me. It was a slow, steady flickering of his energy that would alert me to it. His signal to me that he’d moved on, that he didn’t give a damn about me and that I should go my way as well.
“The flickering would grow in speed, sometimes very fast, other times as steady as waves on the beach of a calm ocean. But I always knew when it was happening and I hated him for that. For thinking the way to make me stop loving him was to hurt me. Trunks has never had even the faintest grip on emotions, human or otherwise. He can’t comprehend that love is not so fickle as to completely stop once another emotion has come along. Maybe he thinks emotions replace each other, like you can’t experience several at the same time or something.
“I thought at the time it was just plain cruelty, that he indulged in this treacherous signaling as a way to deliberately be hateful. But I think now, as I look back, that it was his only way of letting me go. He wanted me to hate him, to let anger take over every other feeling and just let him go. It never worked but I do see it now for what I imagine it was.
“But it went too far. When my mother had died, finally giving up after literally years of fighting off inevitability, I didn’t know if I could handle it. I’ll admit Mirai, I knew my father loved my mom but when I had found him curled at the side of her death bed, her cold, bloated fingers still clutched in his hand, I knew that he could be broken. It was the first time my dad looked anything but invincible to me, and I nearly fell to the floor in my horror of it. I’d never even seen my dad cry or even come close to it, except when concerned with Vegeta, when he would show the rarest emotions of sadness or pain. But I’d never seen him like this.
“God, it was bruising, watching him sob against the death fingers, his shoulders convulsing with his rage and grief. When I realized that muffled pleas were really a conversation with her, the greatest fear I’ve ever known struck me. That perhaps my dad had truly lost his mind. My father, the unbeatable super hero, the forty-something man that remained in the body of no more than a twenty-two year old, looking suddenly aged in his agony. I couldn’t even lift him from the floor, Gohan already moved out with his wife and child, my father and I the only ones left. Perhaps I might have carried him away if I hadn’t been so unnerved and even fearful at the sounds he was making.
“As it was, I remained kneeling on the floor, watching him in my shock and nearly crying out when I felt a force behind me. Trunks had nudged me with his foot, demanding with his eyes that I get up and help him move my father away from the body. I shuttered, staring up at his careless eyes, slowly doing what I had to and inching towards my disillusioned father.
“ “Shut up.” Trunks ordered him, kicking my dad painfully in the ribs. “Stop your whining and get off that fucking floor.” To my shock, my father actually obeyed part of the order ceasing his crying and staring up in disbelief. Very carefully, we grabbed my father up, walking him towards the living room where we let him crumple in a dazed mess upon the couch, Trunks turning on the TV and rudely tossing the remote on my dad’s chest.
“I didn’t really get the chance to thank him or ask him how he had known, only turning to see his eyes upon my father, cold and calculating beyond measurement. He seemed to be staring at every portion of my father’s body, receiving the strangest gaze back from my dad. Like there was this unspoken arrangement or agreement between them suddenly and I was the one left out in the cold to try and decipher it. Catching Trunks’ eyes, he merely smiled mischievously, turning on his heels and walking out.
“At my mother’s funeral a couple days later, he refused to meet my gaze, staring only at my father who had not stopped his mourning since Trunks had left. It didn’t surprise me that Vegeta stood beside my dad, as I always figured there was much more friendship between them then this harsh rivalry they kept up for years. I don’t think anyone was caught off guard when Vegeta even pulled my dad into what almost resembled a hug, though it might have been a strangled “hold-yourself-together-or-I’ll-do-it-for-you” embrace.
“Seeing Trunks finally leave with the rest, I breathed a sigh of relief, leaving my father to Vegeta, the prince giving me a nod of encouragement before moving closer to the bend over figure. ‘Go on Goten,’ he smiled warmly (if your dad is even capable of that). ‘He’ll be fine. He’s got to deal with this his own way. Leave him be.’
“Later on that night, sitting in the empty kitchen, detecting the faint smell of food my mother had long ago cooked, I felt the familiar, steady beat of Trunks’ energy flare up. I tried to ignore it, flipping on the television, shaking my head at his uncouth behavior. But when it became an indescribable, throbbing pulse, unlike anything I’d ever felt before, I knew it. I gasped, searching out his ki and finding it exactly where I’d most feared it would be. Right next to my father’s in the graveyard.”