Dragonball: Unforgotten

Chapter 40

A/N: It may seem like I'm repeating a theme in here too often. However, I promise you that I used the actual time measurement they gave us for how long everyone was training for the tournament. I didn't just use it for plot convenience - they actually say that it was 28 days till the tournament the day of or after telling everyone that Goku gets to come back for the day.

Dragonball: Unforgotten

Chapter Forty

The days went by rapidly; much faster than you thought they would. A large part of you seemed to count them down with such eagerness that you felt much like a child waiting for summer vacation. You knew why too - Goku was coming back. For the day, sure, but he would still be back. The other part of you wished that the day would never come. You were angry and upset that he was gone to begin with. A day of him being back seemed like a cruel joke. Especially since he wouldn't remember you. That was by your own choice, sure, but...the closer you got to the day of the tournament the fresher the wound felt. You wanted to hit something.

What made it worse was that Gohan had made it seem like it was the best thing in the world. He'd talked about being excited to see his father again after so many years while he was in the hyperbolic time chamber. You'd gotten a lot of different anecdotes from him on his time spent with Goku over the course of six months that it only further confused you about the situation. Not that you told Gohan any of that. You didn't want him to feel bad about sharing something he was passionate about. Especially when you knew that the story came from a place of comfort. After all, he'd tell you a lot of his stories after you'd woken up from a nightmare. Apparently he'd had nightmares often when he was younger too. Which only confirmed your idea that he'd gone through a lot as a kid. Though what that said about your mental state...you weren't quite sure.

Your phone gave a soft ping, letting you know that you had a message. There weren't too many people with your number so it wasn't a surprise when you saw that Gohan had messaged you. After a lot of reasoning and maybe a little bit of peer pressure, you'd convinced Gohan to let you get him a simple phone. It wasn't anything fancy and you didn't pay for any outrageous plan or anything like that. It was what most people would call a burner phone but it worked for the purpose it was intended for - communication.

Wonderboy: Are you awake?

You: nope

Wonderboy: Very funny.

You: i thought so

Wonderboy: You ready to go to the island?

You: i might not go

Before you got a reply, Gohan was knocking at your door. Which was nice of him, really, considering that he could have just transmitted himself into your apartment without asking yet he did the polite thing and went to your door instead. Yes, after six months / half a day of being in the chamber, you had taught Gohan Instant Transmission. It seemed only fair given the amount of work he put into helping you. Besides it felt like a trade. Now you could fly everywhere and he could actually get to places on time.

You pulled on the thinest robe you currently had and stood at the door. Did you want to open it? Yes. For all the wrong reasons. Were you going to open it? Probably. Should you? Probably not. But you did it anyways.

Gohan was there with a confused expression on his face as he held out his phone. Like you didn't know what you had just typed. You took a deep breath and stepped backwards, letting him in before closing the door behind you.