Raindrops

8: Soul Of A Man

Marron sat in her cubicle, glancing at the spread she was working for the next copy of La Mode. But her mind was hazy from the night prior. She could feel the dryness in her eyes from the lack of sleep, heavy dark ringlets circling her usually bright eyes. Her mind continuously replayed the same scene of Trunks' arms around her, her chest swelled at the thought of being caught between his chest and arms one more time. She understood now that her feelings for him have been growing, violently. Much like a monster in the night, she tried to pretend it wasn't hiding under her bed. But it was everywhere. Her feelings for him were spilling from her closet, spreading across her bedroom floor drowning her.

She palmed her forehead. It was bad. It was bad to think these things of a friend who was equally as vulnerable as she felt right now. She could enjoy pretending Trunks was back to normal but the distance she felt that morning when he gave her a single glance told her all she needed to know.

She needed to step away. It wasn't her doing, it wasn't her problem,

Marron grabbed a pen, scribbling circular shapes onto a paper. Her expression dejected before she glanced over to her phone which laid upside down on her desk. She simply sat, and let the waves of emotions come crashing over her. She should get away from all of this, it wasn't her business. She kept drilling into her head. She didn't know what felt worse, the fact Marron's longing grew with a simple embrace or that Goten and Trunks were fighting and there was nothing she could possibly do. She went back to the night before, thinking of his enigmatic pools of blue. Marron swore she could swim all day in them. She recalls the orange light hitting the top of his scalp watching the orange glow as it reflected against his soft lavender hair.

He had been watching her, glancing at her. It felt wrong.

Marron heaved a sigh, turning her head to the computer screen where the same spread stayed the same. She struggled with how to design it, unsure if the red and purples looked good together. Her mind was too fuzzy to know what to do, or even, how to do it.

For the first time in about a year, Trunks decided he wasn't going to work. His reasoning for this outrageous idea was that Vegeta was going to demand him out of the office anyway. Trunks slumped down in the couch staring at the empty apartments feeling as his father's ki approached the skyscraper. It was going to be minutes before he burst into the penthouse yelling about being a disgrace to the Saiyan name, or something along those lines. You can never make everyone happy, Trunks mused. His mother had argued with him for months on fixing his work ethic, which he did and began making great strides for the company.

Sacrificing his own happiness for it all.

His father, he wanted Trunks to be strong. He didn't want Trunks to stoop to the level of humans in these times of peace...and wasn't happy with Trunks' extreme focus on working. Trunks felt himself separating from his family, sensing that Vegeta and Bulma both expected too much from him.

Did anyone care about what he wanted?

He was just another successors to his grandfather's genius, Trunks will never even reach any level of greatness as he. Trunks accepted this the moment he realized all the hard work he was doing, all the late nights he spent in Capsule Corporation was not making him happy. Not much made him happy anymore, not working, not training, not even partying - as Goten so grossly assumed would work. He looked to the side and saw his father floating in front of his window. He could see Vegeta's face contorted in what seemed like a disappointment.

He cocked his head to the side, calling Trunks to come outside. Much like a child, he followed his father's command. He exited out of the balcony and blankly stared at his father, attempting to make sense of what he would do next. Trunks flew closer to his father, who gave him a domineering glance. "Trunks," Vegeta began, "your mother wants to see you."