Welcome to Boxer & Rice

It was a very hot night. Even the open window barely helped. Trunks pushed the cover lower and turned to his side. It wasn’t just the heat that kept him awake. He gripped his sword tighter to himself. Despite the knowledge that he was completely safe here, he wasn’t able to relax. Years of constant android danger and threat at home, in his timeline, had always kept him prepared. This current utopic peace felt surreal.

Trunks listened to the cacophony of the sounds: Gohan’s breathing mixed with the mosquitos’ buzz behind the insect net on the window; the night birds hooting, cheeping and chirping; grasshoppers’ choirs, frogs and toads croaking. All of that came from around the mountain. At home, it was awfully quiet at nights. Everything was dead, extinct. Any type of sound indicated immediate danger.

It was probably guilt that was keeping him awake after all. He was given a second chance while others had only been his stepping stones. He felt guilty and afraid that he would not meet the hope and expectations that they had put in him. He simply had no right to fail, and it was the scariest thing of all.