Dragon Ball Z: Paradise Found

Family Values

A little boy sat beside his window. The bright sunshine beamed through and illuminated a pile of papers in front of him although this physical illumination did not make the contents of the pages any less confusing. In moments of bafflement, while he scratched his head with the other end of his pencil, the six-year-old found his eyes wandering and focusing on the image of his father throwing punches and kicks outside, striking at thin air.

His father had been going at it for a while, as seen in the sweat building up on his face. Just watching his father stretching his limbs in the outdoors made the little boy sweat too, he dragged the yellow sleeve of his oriental top over his forehead. An answer to the math problem he was solving came to him and thus Goku's son focused on filling up the page in front of him.

He'd better fill every page up, grandpa did venture out into the town to pick these up for him after all. They probably cost a whole lot of money. Plus, mother really wanted him to do good at everything. Sometimes she was even stricter than father when he taught him martial arts. It was mother, most of the time, pointing out flaws in stance or mistakes that he had made while considering his strategy. Father acted so laxly that it might have seemed like he didn't care. He did, in fact, fighting was the one thing he cared immensely about and the boy liked connecting with his father doing the thing that made father open up and be himself.

Another confusing math problem...

The boy of shoulder-length, spiky black hair lifted his head up to look at his father training while he figured out the answer in his head, recalled which formula came first and the priorities of operations. Something was wrong, the little boy was just six-years-old but even he could know that much. Father was just standing there, perfectly straight, watching up and in the distance, as if trying to see something far off in the distance.

"Gohan-chan!" the doors burst open, mother rushed in and approached little Gohan's desk. "Stay indoors, don't look through the curtains. You're still studying? Good, just keep doing that. Focus really hard on your studies. A boy needs to be both smart and strong so keep grinding those books as hard as your father's working out, okay?"

"Is something wrong?" Gohan looked up in a troubled voice. At his early age it was tough to be emotional and not sound a little bit whiny though little Gohan didn't feel like crying. It was just that his blood was pumping and something was bugging his gut. It felt a lot like the times father took him flying and teased him by blitzing dangerously close to mountains or dinosaurs that roared really loud after being startled.

"Don't worry, Gohan-chan. Your daddy and mommy are really strong and they'll protect you. We kicked the demons back to their realm that one time, you know. Daddy will oversee your training today. We'll postpone it a bit further in the evening, maybe after dinner," Chi-Chi gave her son a smile of encouragement before rushing off. Almost immediately after she ran off, Gohan tilted his head to stare at the closed blinders.

Mother said not to worry and not to look. Gohan always did as his mother said, he'd have done as father said too but father didn't really tell him to do all that much. He just kind of watched Gohan and went with the flow. It was much tougher understanding father than it was his mother. Gohan's pinky reached out and slipped in between two pieces of the blinders, with a light turn of the finger there was a tiny opening through which some light went in.

She told Gohan to study but how could he study with the blinders all closed? He needed to open them up just a little bit, at least...

"What is that? It can't be Piccolo..." Chi-Chi rushed out to the yard to join her husband in tracking the large Ki signature rushing at them at incredible speed.

"Don't know, it's nobody we've met. It ain't Piccolo, it could be Chayote if she's suppressing herself but that sort of thing ain't her style..." Goku replied with a serious expression. He didn't like what he felt one bit.