Welcome to DBZ Love Garden

That Fateful Day

Trunks flew through the acerbic, ash laden rain. His gut was tight with the instinctive knowledge that something had happened to Gohan. “There!” he blurted aloud, when he spotted Gohan laying unmoving upon the ground. Trunks had already counted on Gohan being injured, and possibly even unconscious, after another of his narrow escapes, since the androids always teamed up against him in a fight.

As Trunks flew closer, he saw that Gohan was laying face-down in a rapidly filling pool of water. The wind and rain seemed to conspire to push Trunks away from the gruesome scene that was unfolding before him. Trunks choked on a sob as he neared Gohan’s motionless body.

Then he noticed that the blood, from Gohan’s many wounds, was mixing with the oil from the road and the murky rain. Trunks landed a few feet away, running to the lifeless body of the man he loved.

“Gohan…? No… It’s not fair..!. How could you leave me? You were everything to me. Everything!” Turning his beloved’s body over with care, he cradled Gohan’s head in his lap.

“Go… han…” Trunks took a deep ragged breath tears welling in his eyes as pain exploded in his chest, “GOHAN!”

Incredible energy surged through Trunks. The feelings of anger, sadness, guilt, and loss were building, raging within him. “GOOOOO… HAAAAN!” He screamed, struggling for air to resume his keening. Too shocked to weep, Trunks kept on screaming.

As he cried out his grief, he felt as if something was about to snap within himself. He released Gohan’s head, staggering back, feeling as if his body were on fire. The energy trapped behind Trunks’ emotional barriers detonated, surrounding the half-Saiyan teenager with a golden glow.

Trunks could not stop roaring. His voice got louder as his hair turned yellow and his eyes became a brilliant green. Trunks’ body seemed to leave the ground as he transformed. Finally, he was a Super Saiyan. Trunks resented the fact that all he had trained for came to fruition only with the loss of his secret love.

Flashback

Images, crystal clear and cutting, slashed Trunks’ conscience like a cat-o-nine-tails, as he agonized over the wasted chance he had been given, but had squandered, to tell Gohan of how he felt about him.

“Gohan! I need you to train me. I have to be stronger. I want to fight the androids. I want to destroy them. All those innocent people, they didn’t deserve to die!” Trunks pressed the issue as he and Gohan sat in the sunlight on top of the tarnished Capsule Corporation dome.

Gohan looked over at Trunks. “Let’s forget around training today. I want to enjoy the sunlight. You don’t see such a beautiful day, everyday, you know?” He stretched his arm, waving it towards the sky above, his smiling face turned upward in appreciation. “We could use some rain though. Maybe get some of the dust from the destruction out of the air. Fresh air would be nice.”

Trunks took a note from his pocket. He considered once more what it said, fingers suddenly shaky with nervous hesitation. Could he give the note to Gohan? Would Gohan understand what he was trying to tell him? He repeated the words in his head, hoping that they were the right words to convey what he didn’t really know how to say.

//What would you do if every time you fell in love, you had to say good-bye? What would you do if every time you wanted someone, they would never be there? What would you do, if your best friend died tomorrow and you never got to tell them how you felt? What would you do if you loved someone more than you knew how to express and you couldn’t be with them? And if you ever had reason to hate me, I just want you to know that I would be truly sorry for whatever I did… Some people live, and some people die, and some people dream and pray, and hope, wish and love. I want to tell you while I know that I definitely can, that I love you, because I know that you are a true friend. If I died tomorrow, I promise that you would still be in my heart. Would I be in yours?//

He had addressed it to Gohan, but he realized that he didn’t have the courage yet to give it to him.

“What’s that Trunks?” Gohan asked, looking at his fair haired student with a gentle smile on his face.

“Oh, nothing.” Trunks put the paper back into his pocket.

“Shopping list?” Gohan asked again, sensing Trunks discomfort.

“Yeah. A shopping list.” Trunks smiled sheepishly. “Mom had me go to the store a few days ago. I must have put it back in my pocket without thinking.” Trunks wanted to kick himself for the lie, but if Gohan took the heartfelt letter wrong, Trunks knew his world would fall apart.

//Gohan is like a father to me, a better father than the one I never knew I’ll bet. He’s my best friend and brother too. I know that I love him. Maybe I just don’t know how yet.// Trunks thought.

End of flashback

Trunks still had the note that he’d written, sharing his heart and soul on paper, as he had been unable to do aloud. He kept it in a locked box where he kept all the things that truly mattered to him, like the ring his mother gave him for his fourth birthday, which he never wore. He hadn’t been able to give it to Gohan.

Trunks came out of Super Saiyan and sat back down, pulling Gohan’s body into his trembling arms in the rain, crying, his face buried in Gohan’s gi. With agonizing clarity, Trunks deepest emotions became fully clear.

“Gohan, I loved you. I still do and I will always love you?” His voice, now reduced to little more than a hoarse whisper, fell upon Gohan’s forever deafened ears, as night cloaked the duo in its sympathetic embrace.

The Morning Of Gohan’s Funeral

“Trunks? Hurry up sweetheart, we have to leave soon or you won’t be able to say good-bye to Gohan, so get down here and eat your breakfast.” Bulma, Trunks’ mother, looking worried over Trunks’ lack of appetite, called up to her son.

Trunks ran down the stairs, with a piece of paper in his hand.

“Mom, I want to sing.”

“Sing?” Bulma looked at her son, confusion evident in her voice. “What do you mean?”

“At the funeral.” He looked at her, pleading for her to understand. “I want to sing for Gohan. This song came to me last night in a dream, so I wrote it down.” He showed her the paper he held in his hand.

“The Time Has Come?” Bulma mused, “Sounds good.”

They both sulked into the dining room and ate their breakfast silently, Bulma forcing Trunks to eat, and finished getting ready for the trip to the Son home.

At The Funeral

Chi-Chi sat on the couch, her father, the Ox King, was holding her as she cried. “My baby! Why did I have to lose my baby! He’s gone! First I lose Goku, and now I lose my only son! Why does this always have to happen to me?” Chi-Chi wailed, her body wracked by sobs.

Trunks and Bulma walked into the house, they were expected and the door was open for them.

“We’re here. Chi-Chi” Bulma called softly as she moved forward to comfort the grief-stricken woman.

“Oh, Bulma!” Chi-Chi got up, running over to hug her blue-haired friend.

“Trunks wants to sing for Gohan,” Bulma told her, hugging her back. “That is if you’re okay with the idea?” Bulma looked askance of the dark haired woman.

“Sing?” Chi-Chi blinked a few times, looking at Trunks, who blushed.

“Yeah, I have this song that I sort of wrote down to say good-bye,” Trunks answered.

“Oh, thank you! That is the sweetest thing I have ever known anyone to do for Gohan!” Chi-Chi threw her arms around his neck.

Ox King walked up to them, wiping his eyes with a handkerchief. “Well, it looks like everyone is here. Let’s get started,” He motioned for the local holy man to begin the proceedings.

Gohan’s casket was sitting next to the mini shrine they had made years ago in memory of Goku. Bulma noted that another one was in the making as she sat down. She felt the prickle of her first falling, hot, thick, choking tears as she remembered the Namek adventure. She had trekked the stars with Krillin and Gohan in search of the original dragon balls so that they could wish back their friends, who had died fighting the Saiyans.

Trunks walked over to the casket and looked down at the beautiful face of his departed love. “The time has come,” he whispered. He placed the note he wrote those few years ago over Gohan’s heart and smiled weakly. “Well, looks like I finally got to give it to you.”

“Well, let’s all get seated so we can get started.” Chi-Chi, in an effort to maintain her good hostess air, ushered everyone to a seat, without noticing that everyone but Trunks was already seated. “Trunks, will you? We all know how close the two of you were.”

Trunks straightened up and turned around to face his family and friends.

“Mother, you should know that Gohan was training me. He was helping me to be stronger and to become a Super Saiyan. Which I did.” he sighed. “But it took the thing no one wanted, Gohan’s death, for me to achieve the level I had desired for so long.”

Trunks cleared his throat again. “The Time Has Come,” he said before taking a deep breath to quietly sing.

I close my eyes, and I can see the day we met,
Just one moment and I knew
You’re my best friend, so anything for you.
We’ve gone so far, and done so much
And I feel like we’ve always been together
Right by my side, through thick and thin,
You’re the part of my life I’ll always remember!
The time has come
It’s for the best I know it
Who could have guessed that you and I
Somehow, someway, we’d have to say goodbye.

Everyone was crying openly, Trunks was trying to fight back the tears, not out of pride, but in order to keep his voice clear as he sang.

You’ve helped me find the strength inside,
And the courage to make my dreams come true.
How will I find another friend like you?
Two of a kind, that’s what we are,
And it seems like we were always winning,
But as our team is torn apart,
I wish we could go back to the beginning!
The time has come
It’s for the best I know it
Who could have guessed that you and I
Somehow, someway, we’d have to say goodbye.

Trunks finally allowed himself to cry.

“Goodbye, Gohan,” everyone said as they carried the casket outside and laid it in the ground, next to Goku’s grave, where the Ox King had dug. After they filled the hole, Chi-Chi placed a marker at the head of the mound. It stood beside Gohan’s father’s marker, reminding all that father and son were now reunited for eternity.

“Goodbye…” the wind seemed to whisper through the trees, as it rustled through Trunks hair, much like Gohan’s hand used to when he had teased the lavender haired teen.

Turning his face to that breeze Trunks swore a quiet oath as the family began to cover Gohan’s
casket. “I will make the androids pay for what they did to you, Gohan. If it kills me while I’m doing it, I don’t care. I will destroy them for you.”