Welcome to Boxer & Rice

Gohan swallowed nervously as he looked at his love. He knew that it was time to tell everyone but he really didn’t want to. He had no idea how everyone would react, and frankly, he really didn’t want to find out.

“Go ahead,” Torunksu said, giving Gohan a nudge. “Unless you want me to tell them?”

Gohan shook his head. “No,” he said, looking around the room at everyone else. “I’ll do it.”

“Umm…Guys?” Bulma asked, “Sometime today, please?”

Gohan cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Well, umm…the thing is….umm….”

“Spit it out, brat! We haven’t got all day, you know!” Vegeta growled.

“Well, you see…I…uh…well…”

Torunksu groaned and stepped forward. “Gohan and I are in love and we are going to be moving in together,” he said, and then turned to look at his love.

“Right, Gohan?”

“Right, and, we…uh…that is to say…I am…well…quitting my job as a scholar,” he said, looking at everyone in the room as he said this.

In that moment Torunksu could have sworn he could hear a pin drop, it was that quiet. For a moment, it seemed as if the silence would stretch on forever, until…

“What?” Vegeta quietly growled.

Torunksu swallowed. “It’s what we said, Father. Gohan and I are in love and well…we have been for a long time and we thought that it was time we told everyone.”

“So, you mean to say, that my son is seeing that disgusting spawn of Kakarott?” Vegeta snarled, not really believing it.

“Yes,” said Gohan quietly.

“Get out,” said Vegeta.

Torunksu couldn’t believe his ears. He had expected some sort of reaction from his father, but well, not to this extreme.

“What?”

“Get out, I don’t want to see your face anymore. You have shamed both me and the rest of your family, leave, now.”

Torunksu’s eyes widened. “But, Father…”

“Leave,” Vegeta said, ki beginning to form in his hand. “Leave before I blast you out of my home.”

Gohan tugged on Torunksu’s arm. “Come on, koi, let’s go. It looks like we aren’t wanted here,” he said, glancing around the room again. The reactions from everywhere were far from happy, they were… well…beginning to frighten him.

Especially the one’s from his family.

His mother had, well, fainted. He expected that when she finally did come out of it, there would be a lot of explaining to do. After all, it wasn’t everyday that his mom heard that he had no intention of marrying a girl, especially a girl to which he had been engaged to for over a year.

His father was not even looking in his direction, which really spoke volumes to Gohan. Either his father had completely decided to ignore what was going on, which wasn’t likely, or he was disappointed, or even, angry.

His brother was well, looking surprised. He didn’t look angry, or disappointed, or even disgusted. He was just….surprised. That gave Gohan hope, but not that much, because next to Goten was….

Videl.

She was glaring at them with such hatred that Gohan had to look away. He hadn’t wanted to let her down in such a way but there had been no other way. If he had let her know at any other time it would have been disastrous in more ways than he could even begin to comprehend.

“Come on, Torunksu, let’s leave,” said Gohan, a bit of urgency creeping into his voice. They really shouldn’t go right now, because the rest of the group had apparently gotten over the shock of the announcement and were beginning to assume expressions of dislike and extreme disgust.

Oh, well, it’s not like they had really expected for things to end up peachy keen, after all.

“Torunksu nodded, and slowly they began to make their way towards the door. They were stopped, however, by a small voice.

Bulma.

“Torunksu, I’ll call you on your cell phone later to discuss this, okay?” she said, a small smile on her face. “Even though everyone else doesn’t seem to share my feelings, I wanted to let you know that I’m happy for you.”

Torunksu managed a small smile back and before anything else could be said they had left the room and were headed for the front door.

There wasn’t a sound to be heard throughout the whole house as they made their way towards the front door and by the time they had let themselves out the front door they had still not heard a single thing from their friends and family.

Well, former friends and family, it seemed.

“It didn’t go as well, as we’d hoped,” said Torunksu, as they walked down the street.

“No,” said Gohan. “But maybe they’ll come around. You know how they are. Once they get used to it they might accept…”

“No, I don’t think they will. This isn’t just a thing they can ignore because we’re Saiyans. It’s something that is not accepted by both societies, Saiyan and human.”

Gohan frowned. “How do you know it wasn’t accepted by Saiyans, for all we know…”

“Gohan, you saw how my father acted! How could it be accepted by the Saiyan culture with a reaction like that!” exclaimed Torunksu, his mind reliving the scene that had occurred only moments earlier.

“He was so…angry…”

“Well, maybe it wasn’t the fact that we were both males. Maybe…maybe it was the fact that I am my father’s son. Did you think about that?”

Torunksu turned towards him. “You think?” he asked, hope evident in his voice.

Gohan nodded. “Yeah, I do. Plus, your mom seemed to accept it.”

“Yeah, she did,” said Torunksu.

“Maybe there’s hope that our families will accept us after all,” said Gohan.

“Yeah, maybe.”

And with that, the two lovers walked on towards their home, the idea of hope bringing light to their horizon.