| Toranks and Goten Part Two Then one day at school, everything changed… “Hey Toranks!” I turned around, but kept moving forward. I was going to be late for class if I didn’t. Running towards me, in the flashy varsity letter jacket, was Jake. Now Jake was not my favorite person in the world. In fact, he was one of the people I try to avoid. But he was friends with Emmi, my girlfriend. Therefore, I had to tolerate his presence. I spun back around, facing forward, just in time to get a muscular arm thrown over my shoulder. “Hey man! Where ya been lately?” I smiled as pleasantly as I could, but before I could say anything, two other arms were thrown around my waist. “Yeah,” Emmi chimed in. “You don’t call. You don’t write. We were thinking you died or something.” It had been two weeks since Goten had told me his secret. In that two weeks, he had told his parents, my parents, all the z fighters, his brother, and his few friend’s at school. Needless to say, almost everyone had a bad reaction. His school friends seemed to be cool with it at first, but then they gave him the cold shoulder. His okassan had completely freaked out, yelling at everyone for perverting her baby. His otossan, surprisingly enough, had just laughed and promised Goten he would love him no matter what. The rest of the z fighters hadn’t really said anything, but they were definitely treating Goten different. It was almost like he had a disease or something. Well, I don’t think I need to say this. It should be pretty obvious that Goten became depressed. Very depressed. In the past two weeks, he had done nothing but sit in his room and listen to loud music, normally with me for company. I didn’t know if my parents had figured out that I was skipping school yet, or if they even cared. I knew that Chichi was furious with Goten for skipping school, but all her yelling had just driven him further into a hole. I don’t know how, but finally I convinced him to start coming back too school. It was our first day back. I was not looking forward to it. “I had some family problems guys. Had to stay home for a while.” Emmi's face fell into a sad sort of frown. “Is your mom sick or something?” I shook my head, laughing bitterly on the inside. If they knew I’d been home with Goten for the past two weeks, I knew they’d probably never speak to me again. “I’m not supposed to talk about it. They’re fine now.” Jake gave me a strange look. “You know, I heard you were hanging out with that fag kid.” Feigning surprised, I asked, “Who?” “Son Goten. He missed the past two weeks too.” I shrugged. “He is a family friend. We were best friends back when we were younger.” Emmi made a face of disgust. “Ugh. Why would anyone want to hang out with someone as sick and twisted as that? It’s not natural.” Before I knew it, my temper had flared. “You know, just because he’s gay doesn’t make him any less human!” Well he wasn’t really human but that was beside the point. The hallway was suddenly silent. I glanced around me to meet nothing but the blank stares of my classmates. Sighing, I turned back to Emmi, who had shock written all over her face. “I’m sorry. He’s a friend and I don’t like to hear people talking about him that way.” She managed a small smile and backed away. “Yeah. Okay. It’s fine.” “I’ll call you later?” The smile wavered slightly. “Yeah. Sure.” Sighing, I turned back around, to meet Jake’s face. I jumped, completely not expecting him to be there. He put a hand on my shoulder and asked, “Hey man, you okay?” Being smaller than him, I was able to duck under his arm. “Yeah, yeah I’m fine.” “You know, you shouldn’t go around defending him. You could develop a reputation.” Not wanting to alienate any more of my friends I just nodded. He took one more look at me and left. The hallway came back to life and I was lost in the crowd. But that was just the beginning… I met up with Goten after school. I had told him to meet me by the gym, but for some reason, he had tried to ditch me. By the time I caught up with him, he was halfway home. “Hey Goten, I though we were going to meet man.” He shrugged and readjusted his baseball cap. “Sorry Toranks. It kinda slipped my mind.” I danced around in front of him, making him stop. He turned his head to the side, keeping the side of his face that had been hidden from me still hidden. “Goten look at me.” Hesitantly he turned his face forward. I could see the beginnings of a bruise surrounding his left eye. Sighing sadly, I caught his eyes with my own. “Goten, who did this to you?” He shook his head and started walking again. “It doesn’t matter. This isn’t the first and it won’t be the last.” “You got that right, Son.” I looked up to see Jake, Chris (another guy on the football team), and a few other of me ‘friends’ blocking our path. They all had their arms crossed over their chests and looked very much like a fifties gang. You could see that Jake and Chris were the leaders. The others just looked like mindless muscle. “Toranks you better get out of here. We can forgive you being in his presence this once.” My mouth dropped open in surprise. “W-What?” “Toranks get out of here. I don’t want you to get hurt.” I glanced at my best friend to see him staring at the bullies with angry fires in his eyes. He took a step forward, but stopped, breathing deeply. “I am not going to do this today. I am giving you a chance to get out of here, now.” “You better watch it, Briefs, or people are going to think that you are a fag like this boy here.” I blinked my eyes, torn between what I had told Goten about my reputation and what Jake was saying. Was I really ready to give up the good life to stay friends with Goten? Was I ready to risk my social standing for him? My questions were answered when Chris punched Goten in the face. He smiled and the rest of them laughed as Goten fell to the ground. I knew that he probably wasn’t physically hurt from the punch. Even a halfling should be able to take more than that. But emotionally? I didn’t even want to think about it. I came back to myself as Chris punched Goten again. Somehow, in the past few seconds, Goten had gotten back to his feet, but was now on the ground again. Chris moved in again, but I was suddenly in front of him, blocking the next punch he threw. All the guys looked at me in shock. “What are you doing, briefs?” Jake shouted, trying to act bad ass and failing miserably. “He’s my friend. Nobody beats up on my friends.” Jake snickered and I felt my blood boil. “How can you be friends with a punk like that?” “It’s none of your damn business. Now get out of here.” Jake glanced at his gang before turning back to me. “Oh. I get it. Are you two… fucking?” My mouth dropped open. Me? Gay? I was dating Emmi for Kami’s sake. Of course I wasn’t. “What?” “It makes some sense, you know. I mean what they say about your fathers-” I punched him in the nose and he stumbled backwards, blood spewing from it and cussing. “Don’t ever say anything about my parents. Ever.” Chris snarled and moved towards me, but I stopped him with a kick to the stomach before he could get close. Two of the nameless thugs came running at me, but I simply back flipped, letting them crash into each other. Jake, who had finally stopped the bleeding, pointed a gore covered finger at me. “Watch it, Briefs. Get rid of the punk or you won’t like the consequences.” Then they ran. Sighing, I turned around and offered Goten my hand. He didn’t take it and stood easily on his own. I saw a trickle of blood leak from his lip and stared in shock. “Goten, you’re bleeding.” “You act as if you’ve never seen blood before.” “You shouldn’t be bleeding. He didn’t hit you that hard.” What have you been doing to yourself, Goten? “Just like I shouldn’t have a black eye?” That caught me. He shouldn’t have a black eye. “What’s going on?” He shrugged. “Who knows?” “Goten are you eating?” “What do you care?” he asked before stumbling forward. I raced to him to help him walk, but he shook himself out of my grip. “You’re my best friend, Goten. Of course I care.” He started walking away. “I’m fine.” But no sooner had those words left his mouth, he collapsed. |