Alexithymia

“To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.” – UnknownAuthor

She didn’t want to look at me for the rest of the day and I can’t say that I blame her. I didn’t want to look at myself either.

I tried not to say anything that would further upset her. I may not feel the same way about us, but that doesn’t mean I have to be a jerk about it. She cries a lot now because she thinks everything I ever did and said to her was a lie. It wasn’t. I did mean those things.

She is still and always will be the love of my life, but he’s the other one. I need both. Don’t look at me like that. I’m done denying my soul to conform to society. And I don’t care if people can’t handle this because it’s not their burden to bear.

I told Pan to go back to her room. She’s worried about mom. I can tell she’s been crying herself. She doesn’t know yet and I pray that she doesn’t have to. But she can still hear Videl’s cries echo throughout the house.

I feel like such an ass.

I guess I am.

I sat outside of my own bedroom for most of the night, just in case she wanted to talk. I didn’t mention my feelings or how my intestines were constricting around my other organs and choking them like a snake. I am secondary now. They come first.

I slept on the couch that night. I’m guessing my wife left sometime after I had passed out. She left a note in the fridge that was taped to the orange juice carton. She knows me well. The note said she was leaving to stay with some friends for a couple days. She had taken Pan with her.

I found myself utterly alone when I needed someone the most.

It felt so dirty, but I had to see him. I needed someone to tell me that I was loved and valued. For one day I needed to feel important not because I am the son of Goku or married to the heiress of the Satan fortune, or even the world’s most powerful being—I wanted to be important because I am Son Gohan, the nerdy, socially challenged, underpaid Literature teacher with glasses who just happens to be haphazardly involved with a seven foot tall bald, green, menacing alien.

But would he even want to see me? I know things have been different in the past couple days, but is this even the right thing to do? I mean, I’ve lost so much already. Well, I guess I think I’ve lost a lot. I don’t know yet.

Videl technically hasn’t left me, but if and when she does, she’ll take this house and probably everything in it. The car as well, but I don’t really need that much, considering. I’ll still have my job as long as she doesn’t go public with the impending divorce and get me fired from it. The administration has always been a bit on the conservative side and there are no laws saying that they can’t fire me for being too ‘liberal’ with my personal life. Oh Kami, what if Pan’s friends don’t want to talk to her anymore or come over because I’m . . .She’ll hate me. She’ll hate me and tell me that I’ve ruined her life and that I should just leave. And Goten—he’s too busy with his own life to really care, but he’s still family. I don’t want to get that phone call. He use to idolize me and now . . .

I can’t handle this.

Where’s that stupid dog, I need something soft and fuzzy to cuddle.

She took the dog too?

Damnit.

Sometimes I just wish I could stop being who I am, life would be so much simpler.

Making a sandwich helps my mood a lot, and that’s exactly what I did. I don’t care if people know I’m an emotional eater. I eat a lot anyway and I love sandwiches. There’s nothing wrong with that.

I do my best thinking, well, normal thinking anyway, on the couch. It’s a very comfortable spot and I’d highly recommend giving it a try. Having your eyes closed and being completely sprawled out on your couch is the only way to fly. I try to think of better things but I can’t help but think of where I’m going to move out to. Maybe I could build a cottage or something in the forest. Yeah, it wouldn’t be so bad. I’d have no problem gathering stone and I can buy new furniture and dig a well and get electricity and install the plumbing and, and, and. . . Well maybe I’m not that great of a homemaker.

I’d settle for an apartment in the city limits. You know, a tiny one-bedroom thing with a kitchen and a bathroom. The kind of thing you get when you’re moving out of your parents’ house for the first time and can barely afford to eat much less anything else. I’d pay for a nicer one if he’d come with me. Maybe we’d even get a condo or something. But he’d never do that. He can’t survive in there. The world hasn’t forgotten the reign of the terrible King Piccolo yet. Hell, it’s even taught in sophomore history classes. Stigma is such an ugly thing. We’re both victims to it.

Maybe I never wanted to be the hero of the day.

And maybe, just maybe I never wanted to be the scholar either.

I wanted to be an archeologist once—and an astronaut librarian cowboy too.

I can hear him come through the doorway. He’ll only visit when I’m alone though. I use to think it was kind of sexy the way he’d wait till he had me by himself but later I figured out it was just a courtesy thing because he scares the shit out of my wife still. Pan’s okay with it though. Uncle Pic’, heh. Close.

His shoes make a distinctive sound on the carpet. I have never figured out what they’re made of. Did you know he has toe claws? Yeah, it’s kind of freaky. He has four toes too.

Don’t think we ever did anything.

We haven’t.

Believe me. I wish.

He won’t let me because it still scares him.

And now he won’t even touch me because he knows I’ve just eaten.

Take this as a lesson kids— Don’t screw up. Ever.

He stands across from me not because he feels unwelcome to sit down, but because my furniture is ‘too small’ he says. He’s absolutely right. This house was built to scale for my wife. Even my legs are sticking up awkwardly in these chairs and I’m barely to the six-oh mark. Okay, I lied. I just a little under it, but my hair gives me an extra little bit.

So he’s standing there all huffy because I’m pretending I’m asleep and he knows I’m not. I’ll never win this because he can stand and wait all day. I’ve tried this and I loose every time. I peek an eye open and look at him with this big, slowly emerging grin on my face. I must look like shit. I have that two-day old stubble, I haven’t slept more than a wink, and to top it off I have mayo breath.

But I make it look good.

Ha.

“So.” He said, expecting me to enlighten him as to why I’m collapsed on the couch on a Monday morn—

Monday.

Holy shit, it is Monday.

I forgot to go to work. Holy hell. Why haven’t they called me and told me that I’m fired. Oh Kami. This is bad. This is more than bad this is horrible. Wait. Waaaait. It’s not that bad there are plenty of T.A.s running around, they’ll have no problem, I’m probably not fired, I’m probably not fired, I’m probably not fired because they have people to cover me and I’m never sick or late and I have everything nice and neatly planned and there’s only one class I teach and it’s just a lecture today. I have everything prepared and they’ll just be very cross that I’m not there because I’m the head of the department and I do it the best and this is okay because my wife, my ex-wife, my significant other, my person’s father is the holy grail of this school and it’ll be A-Oh-Kay and why is Piccolo looking at me like I’m a two-headed gerbil?

Oh, right. The hyperventilation thing. I’m fine.

I just worry a lot.

I need to be medicated.

“I take it you finally told her?” His voice makes my breath hitch. For some reason I wasn’t expecting him to say a word.

“Told her what?” I honestly had no idea what he was talking about.

He gave me this skeptical look before it registered.

“Oh, oh that.” It was still embarrassing. “I kinda spilled the beans inopportunely.”

“Mh.” He shifted his weight slightly. “She stormed out of here at the crack of dawn dragging your daughter along.” He was trying to get more out of me.

“I told her I was . . .Gay?” I didn’t even want to say it to him

He quirked an eyebrow. I don’t think he knew what the word meant. It would be silly of him to know, I mean, he never had to worry about labels or anything like that before . . .

“I told her that I love other men.” And he gave me this whole other look like I was crazy.

That hurt a lot until I realized how I said it. I knew he wouldn’t judge me like that.

“Well, just the one in here.” He seemed less on edge then. I like to think of it as him being protective, but I think it’s more that he knows I’m not going around guy to guy causing trouble for the establishment.

“All those curses were for me then?” He sounded so amused. Kami he was the most vague person on the planet when he wanted to be. I guessed my wife had left like a banshee crying out all kinds of blasphemous things as she departed. The mental image relieved some of the grim mood that was over me.

“I didn’t exactly tell her it was you. I thought she knew but I don’t think she does anymore.” To which he nodded and made this guttural sound I have a hard time describing.

“You humans and your mating rituals.” He scoffed. I always liked his brand of humor. I knew he was trying to cheer me up a little. I did look like something scraped out of a dumpster, anyway.

“Half-Human.” I stuck my finger in the air for emphasis.

“I don’t see why your attraction to other humans would matter. You all look the same to me.” That felt so good to hear from someone. It was just sad that other people didn’t see it in black and white this way.

But it made me think.

I hate my thoughts; I need to stop having them.

“Piccolo” My throat felt scratchy, like an insect had bitten it.

He tilted his head subtly and met my eyes.

“Did you really mean it when you said you’d stay with me?” This was going to be worth it.

“I can’t leave you alone when you do this to yourself. I’d stay with you to make sure you didn’t do anything stupid.” Oh . . .

That was not the answer I was looking for.

“That’s not what I meant.” It wasn’t. “I meant” I had to force myself to take a breath and slow my speech down before I spat it out in one long word. “Would you stay with me for me?”

Why didn’t he say anything?

“I don’t think Videl’s going to want to stay married to me.”

“Why?” Did I really have to explain this?

“Because I’m gay.”

“And?”

This was so hard.

“It’s not acceptable for a married man to—she just can’t—it’s not something that—It makes her feel ashamed.” Which was true. She hated it . . . Maybe that’s why she spent so much time preparing herself in the morning. I never ever gave her a compliment. Not once. I’m an ass.

He nodded once and exhaled sharply through his nose.

“It makes her feel like she wasn’t good enough and that I’ve lied to her all these years. It makes her feel . . .feel like I’ve wasted her life for her and she doesn’t think I’m sorry about it. She doesn’t think that I’m hurting too. She just doesn’t think about me in this whole mess because she’s too caught up in her own little perfect world where things like this don’t happen to her.” My eyes stung like I wanted to cry and the lump in my chest prevented me from getting enough air to choke up a sob.

Piccolo did a rare thing then. He put his hand on my shoulder albeit roughly. Tenderness wasn’t his thing but he so cautiously extended an offer of sympathy that it might as well have been a full-scale bear hug on his part. Being myself, I pulled him into me, my hands grasping on to the thick white material of his collar. He could have resisted, but his cape and armor would have been ripped off of him like rag doll clothes. Normally, he would have defended himself, at very least given me a nasty verbal spar, but he accepted this. I buried my face in his chest as my body heaved in ragged breaths.

I wasn’t crying, just so you know. Well, not with the waterworks anyway. I needed the familiar comfort. I don’t care if he was rolling his eyes or whatever. After about five minutes of this, he became tired of it. I felt his entire body shift into a more comfortable position on the couch and he let out a long sigh.

“Please tell me you care for me.” I sounded so little and weak it was hard to believe that it was the voice of a grown man.

“If you don’t know that I do by now then there’s no hope for you, kid.” I could feel the corners of my mouth pull into a faint smile when he said that.

“Could you ever think of me as more than just a kid?” I rested the side of my head against his chest so that I could look up into his eyes.

He had a frown on his lips but not in his eyes. “I did.”

“Hm?”

“Once.”

“Really.”

His black eyes glanced down into mine. “Yes.”

“When?”

He looked at the plate that my sandwich had been on. It was sitting on the coffee table next to us.

“A long time ago.”

I winced, remembering the day.

“It’s not like that.”

“Feh.”

“It doesn’t generally go that badly, I promise.”

“Just don’t ever do that thing to me again.”

“What, you mean this?” I pulled myself up to kiss him and when I did, he spasmed like a fish out of water.

His entire body was so rigid in a brace against what he was expecting to be the second worst moment of his life. I felt his claws lightly scratch into my side as he tried to pull me off. He managed to lift half of my body off of him, but not detach me. When I finally broke the kiss, I let him shove me off. He wiped his lips with the back of his forearm before licking them gingerly with his tongue. It was a taste test of sorts. Then he paused and looked at me like he was morbidly surprised. I can’t remember a time where his eyes have been wider.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Kami, now I’m giddy like on prom night in the back of the capsule car.

“It was a great improvement.” But the tone he said that in didn’t make it at all sound like he was enthralled with the whole idea.

“There are other things to do besides that.” Whoa, whoa now. Where was this coming from all of the sudden? This isn’t like me; I just don’t make moves like that.

He cringed.

Oh for fuck’s sake, I’ll never eat breakfast again, all right?

But I had to be cool about it in my infinite uncoolness.

“You might like it if you’d give it a chance. Just saying.” I flipped his turban off and bopped one of his antennae with my finger in what was suppose to be a coy gesture, but I swear that thing shied away at my touch and literally moved aside. That little shit.

“Gohan, not now.” The seduction of the innocent wasn’t working as well as it was suppose to.

“But you never refused before?” Now I was just a little confused.

“Before you did that out of curiosity. Now you’re doing it for other reasons.”

“You like it.” I nearly pleaded. What part of this couldn’t he understand?

“I don’t want to like it.” Ever have that stabbing pain in your chest?

Like you’ve been run through with a knife and it just keeps on going?

That’s me right now.

I can still feel the blade cutting deeper.

Or maybe that’s the sound of blood rushing through my ears.

I can even hear my heart beat

And my lungs cry for air.

“Gohan?” He says

And it just takes me a moment to realize what I’ve done.
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Notes: I’d like to make the assumption that, when in Gohan’s house, Piccolo would not wear his one ton armor. I do imagine that kind of weight shifting around the house would be very bad for the structure. Because of this, I’ve taken the liberty to just say that Piccolo wears lighter shoulder pads/armor when visiting, as to not destroy Gohan’s humble abode. As for the vomit scene in chapter four, sorry about that, but it was the littlest of all the evils I had plotted out and it works for the progression of the story. If you only knew what could have happened, you’d be thankful. I really am a sick fuck /. Oh well. Finally, never fear, this is going to work out well. I’m not having something monumentally horrible happen; despite what the ending line says. It really DOES get better. I just have to have Gohan come full circle and learn the lesson he’s suppose to before it does—which should be in about, oh, the next chapter. If you have any constructive criticism regarding the progression of things, I'd like to hear it. I'm going a bit out of my safety zone and would be glad to hear if I'm making the characters too ridiculous or whatnot. Toodles.