Chapter 37 – A Game

A normal life was something Gohan spent years dreaming about, a life without murderous aliens or androids or dangerous training regimes. When Cell died, he had been certain that normal life had arrived. His mom wanted it and so did he, but then his father pulled him into another crisis and his brand new "brother", Reinyn, kept him from sinking into the role of normal boy.

Much like Reinyn and the lies he told himself to get through the crises in his life, Gohan built masks and lived roles. School had put his normal mask to the test, and he found himself in need of a new identity to protect the city and Videl. He had thought to enlist Bulma's help but between Reinyn's insistence that they train before and after school and the homework and the chores of his life, Gohan could hardly find time to sleep.

He had only made the trip to Capsule Corp. by faking a field trip for his physics elective. Bulma had come through with a slick disguise that he could access without having to do more than press a button. His new disguise and the persona he adopted to fit it, had been met with varying degrees of disdain from his family and friends. Gohan didn't much care if they all thought Saiyaman was silly. He couldn't be happier with him.

Reinyn hadn't criticized his alter ego. He frowned, sighed, and told him to change so they could train.

"You know," Gohan said, "If you wanted, Bulma would probably make you a disguise too."

"Since I'm not running around protecting the city or your girlfriend, I don't need one." Reinyn gestured for Gohan to attack him already.

"You approve of Saiyaman then? I was sure you'd have a dozen negative things to say." Gohan paused. "And I don't have a girlfriend. Videl is a classmate, a friend. You know how it is."

"I do know how it is and Saiyaman is exactly what you meant him to be, so why wouldn't I approve?" Reinyn knew that Videl wasn't Gohan's girlfriend, yet, but not because it wasn't what he wanted. He also knew that Saiyaman was purposefully a geeky parody of a hero. Maybe Gohan wasn't admitting it to anyone, but he had spent a good portion of his life in terrifying situations surrounded by people who were stronger than him, many of whom wanted to hurt him. Gohan wanted to help the humans without scaring them and with the power difference between Gohan and just about any human, only a goofy caricature of himself would have any hope of that. "I have homework, so can we please get a decent spar in already?"

"Yeah, sorry." Gohan deactivated his Saiyaman gear. "I thought we could do tag today and Goten could train with us. He's been asking all week."

"Tag isn't really training, it's playing," Reinyn groaned. He could see the big brown eyes of their small sibling in the bushes, his body literally thrumming in anticipation of his favorite game.

"Sometimes being a big brother means sacrificing an afternoon and playing tag instead of training. Come on, it's good for stamina. Tag?" Gohan wheedled.

Reinyn shrugged. "Fine, tag."

"Yes!" Goten ran out of his hiding place, raced between his older brothers, and slapped Gohan on the hand. "You're it."

Chasing through the wilderness after the two boys born in this reality, Reinyn knew he had changed a lot in the years he had been on Earth, mellowed, softened. He wasn't foolish enough to discount the alien music's influence in that or the fact that just maybe he had lost himself to it. Mentally composing a soundtrack to "tag" for his composition assignment, Reinyn could admit that he didn't want to be found if he was lost.

Losing himself to both this reality and the music was an endless release.

While Reinyn was acutely aware of the reality's effect on him, he was far less aware of any effect he had made. He couldn't know how much sharper and stronger Gohan had become than he ever would have been, leading his normal life and trying to forget he was ever anything but a scholar. He couldn't know that his demands on Chichi had opened her eyes to the need for balance for her boys and the need to let them find their own paths. Goten had been allowed to train since he could walk, and rather than try to mold her youngest into another scholar, she easily accepted his academic limitations and made sure he was functionally literate, whatever else he decided to pursue.

Far from the rural bliss of the Son household, a modern day princess of martial arts tried to work her way through her calculus homework. She had spent a little too much time crime fighting and now she couldn't make herself focus on stupid asymptotes. Taking the accelerated course load had seemed like a good idea when she was signing up. Videl enjoyed a challenge, but that was before the math tripped into complicated concepts that she couldn't just figure out from reading the texts. With her community service, she missed a lot of lectures.

After the last test, their instructor had been quick to offer her a list of students with the skills to tutor her if she needed the extra help. One name on that list, Son Gohan, might help her kill two birds with one stone. The Son twins were hiding something. Gohan was a bit odd and nerdy, but Reinyn was glowering ball of mystery that wasn't taking a single accelerated class. He might be the mysterious golden fighter. The symmetry made sense to her, freakishly smart twin, and freakishly strong, intermittently glowing twin.

It sounded like the plot to a B movie excepting that just seven years ago a mad scientist unleased killer androids capable of destroying the world. Who's to say Gohan wasn't a mad scientist who had experimented on his twin to make him the glowing crime fighter? When she had tried discussing her concerns and theories with Erasa, her friend hadn't been able to see why Videl would be looking a gift horse in the mouth. Hadn't the gold fighter helped her and even saved her life. Maybe the gold fighter hadn't broken any laws yet, but he was a vigilante and had strange powers, and Videl didn't trust people who flew around using tricks.

Taking her bright yellow jet copter and a copy of the student directory, Videl set out to find a tutor and investigate a mystery.

After two hours stalking each other, suppressing their ki, and playing a game of tag more akin to guerilla warfare, Reinyn let Gohan hold him back from tagging Goten before he made it home, also known as home base. "Letting him win isn't good for him. You should earn your wins," Reinyn said.

"I'm hungry, and we don't always let him win. He earned this one. He tagged you three times, and I know you didn't let him the third time," Gohan said. "It was a good game."

"I suppose we need to get ready to greet out guest anyway." Reinyn nodded toward the barely audible whine of a human's flying vehicle. "It doesn't sound like Bulma."

Even though the yellow vehicle wasn't yet visible, Gohan recognized the distinct whirl of a jet copter. He only knew one person who flew a jet copter and might have a reason to fly it this deep into the mountains. Mentally preparing to be tormented by Reinyn over her visit, Gohan grinned uncomfortably and rubbed the back of his head. "How strange?"

"Did you really invite your girlfriend to dinner? Cute." Reinyn shook his head and snorted.

Gohan sobered abruptly. They shared things, he and Reinyn. They shared Gohan and Chichi like any set of naturally occurring twins would. It had never come up for them to fight over anything, but they were biologically identical. Videl wasn't his girlfriend, but she made him feel things that he thought girlfriends really probably ought to make their boyfriends feel. If he was attracted to Videl, then wasn't Reinyn too? Videl probably wouldn't much like the idea of being shared. Would Reinyn understand that they weren't going to have a literal fight over a girl if they both wanted her?

"Do you like Videl?" Gohan asked.

Reinyn took a quick step away from Gohan, his expression shocked. "No, not at all. Not even a little." He shivered despite himself. Reinyn didn't bother explaining to Gohan that his little girlfriend bore a better than passing resemblance to the Saiyan who had managed to bring the killer out in him first. Commander Turnitz might be dead, and the entire universe she originated in vanished, but her ghost lived on in Reinyn's warped brain and that ghost made Videl about as appealing to him as an old wet trout.

"But if we're biologically identical, shouldn't you at least find her, attractive?" Gohan asked, surprised at his double's vehemence. "Come on, that hair, those eyes, those tight toned muscles?"

"Apparently there's more to attraction than biology and chemistry." Reinyn shrugged and raised a hand to keep debris out of his eyes as the copter landed in the clearing by their house. "I'm going in to eat. You have fun with her, stud."

Reinyn stuffed his hands in his pockets and didn't spare a glance or a greeting for the girl jumping from her aircraft in front of him. Gohan stepped forward to make up for his brother's snub. "Videl, hi, what are you doing way out here?"

"I came to see you, Gohan." Videl stopped short and looked her classmate slowly up and down. "What are you wearing?"

"Oh this? Just an old gi, for working out. My dad was a fighter. He left a lot of clothes behind and we don't waste things here." Suddenly very aware that the orange gi and blue undershirt were not really able to camouflage his physique like his school uniform. There was no hiding his arms or chest from Videl's probing eyes. "Healthy body, healthy mind, my mom always says. Right?"

Apparently, Gohan was more than just a wimpy nerd. Videl had never seen Reinyn with so much skin exposed either and she realized with a start that he had some distinct body art on his arm and neck that would have been exposed several times if he were the gold fighter. Reinyn wasn't the gold fighter, but maybe Gohan was? "Right."

"So, to what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?" Gohan blushed, embarrassed at the stilted formality, but not sure how to proceed. "Would you like to come in for dinner?"

"I came to hire a calculus tutor," Videl said. "What would you charge me and would you be willing to take me on as a student? I'm not stupid, but I'm behind in the class and I don't want to fail."

"Calculus? Sure no problem. I can help you. You don't have to pay me! Really, I'd love to teach you calculus." Gohan could feel his face burning on, blush intensifying to what had to be solar flare levels of color. "Would you please join us for dinner and we can do calculus afterwards?"

"I don't want to impose," Videl turned to climb back into her aircraft. "Would you be available to teach me tomorrow after school?"

Gohan nodded. "It's a long commute home so I can't stay too late, but yeah, after school is fine."

"You know, since you won't let me pay you, I could train you a bit. It would be a shame to not know how to fight at all if your dad was a fighter." Videl smirked inside, certain that if she could get him onto a training mat, she could find out quickly if he was the golden fighter.

"That would be a disaster. I'm hopeless at fighting," Gohan deflected.

"I'm not a mathematician, but I'm going to let you teach me calculus. Let me teach you a few things, just some basics," Videl coaxed.

"Okay, a few pointers couldn't hurt I guess," Gohan conceded.

Author's Note:

I'm torn a bit about Buu. I need a villain. There is no reason to write an original one when the canon has one ready to go, but Buu is not my favorite. To use him, I need to rewatch the arc. I can't seem to make myself do that. Ungh, I don't want to declare a hiatus, but it may happen again. I'm trying hard not to spend too much time rehashing things that actually played out on the screen in the anime. So the high school arc is almost over.