Love, A Game..

Chapter 25

If I could reach the stars
Pull one down for you
Shining on my heart
So you could see the truth

"Sleeping bags?"

"Check."

"Check."

"Torches?"

"Check."

"Uh ... check."

"Eskies?"

"Check. You Saiyans are such pigs, really."

"Check. It's our demanding training."

"Yeah, you don't get a body like this from starving yourself. Bug spray?"

"Check."

"Check."

"Marshmallows?"

"Check."

"Check, check, and check again."

"Honestly, Gohan, you and your marshmallow fixation ... Paper plates?"

"Check."

"Check."

"Knives and forks?"

"Check."

"Check."

"Matches?"

"Check."

"Check."

"Dressing gowns?"

"Ch-what?!"

"Dressing gowns?!"

Mirai's eyes widened innocently. "What? You never know who you'll meet! ... What? ... Why are you looking at me like that? ... What're you-hey! Oi!"

When Chi Chi bustled in a moment later, she had an apt comment on the situation.

"Cut it out. You're wasting marshmallows."

Gohan, Videl and Mirai paused in the midst of smearing each other with marshmallows, suddenly acutely aware of how ridiculous they all looked. Clearing his throat, Gohan awkwardly removed his hand from where it had been stuffing marshmallows down the back of Mirai's top. Videl disentangled her fingers from their rather tense grip of the lilac-haired boy's sleeve and returned the shapeless pink mush in her free hand to the table. Mirai released his grasp on Gohan's hand - the one not disappearing down the back of his shirt, that is - and at the same time freeing Videl's wrist from the grapple they'd been involved in.

Then this love I have inside
Is everything it seems
But for now I find
It's only in my dreams

Chi Chi surveyed the scene with raised brow and hooded eyes. "And what exactly, may I ask, if going on here?" she asked in a voice somewhere between drawling and disdain.

"Nothing, mum," Gohan said almost frantically, waving his hands palm outward in a disclaiming gesture. "Really!"

Mirai chose that moment to reach out and swipe a bit of marshmallow from the corner of Gohan's mouth with his thumb. The darker demi-Saiyan gaped at the other boy, words suddenly failing him, and watched goldfish-like as Mirai, meeting his eye with seeming unconcern, ran his tongue over the marshmallow-smeared digit. He grazed the pad of his thumb with teeth that Gohan was certain looked more canine than usual, drawing the appendage into his mouth and closing his lips over it slowly, relishing the taste of pink fluff.

Then he opened his mouth, gave his thumb a final, impudent lick, and dropped his arm. All this was done with such a bland look that it left Gohan quite confused and not sure whether he should me smirking or glaring or winking or anything, what with all the thoughts chasing each other around his head and the suspicion that he had just been Toyed With, which was unacceptable, and the marshmallow and the flirting and the Mirai.