Depresaversary

Summary: Not everyone celebrates when the anniversary of Cells defeat comes around. (One-shot. Completed)

Fandom: Dragon Ball Z Characters: Gohan, Videl, Sharpener, Erasa

Celebrations were in full swing with the parties planned for the upcoming public holiday that Wednesday. The chatter amongst the students was excited as they planned their day off.

“I’m going to have the biggest party ever,” Sharpener bragged. He was always throwing last minute parties. He liked to wait to see if someone else was doing something better first before he made his own arrangements.

“Oh, can I come?” Erasa asked, jumping like a hyperactive child.

“Of course babe, it wouldn’t be a party without you,” Sharpener answered. He put his arm around his oldest friend. “Wouldn’t be a party without you.”

“Gohan, you can be my date.” Erasa pulled away from Sharpener and clung to Gohan. “Are you alright?” Erasa asked when she did not get a reaction. He usually pulled away after a nervous laugh when she flirted with him.

“It’s time to party.” Sharpener cheered. Watching with concern as Erasa picked Gohan’s hand up and moving his arm around like a puppet. Sharpener moved so that he was standing the other side of Gohan and then joined Erasa in trying to get their friend to respond. Both concerned seeing nothing but hollow eyes staring into nothingness. “Nerd-boy, you in there. Earth to Nerd-boy.”

“What are you doing?” Videl asked startled both the blonds into dropping Gohan’s hand.

“Trying to get Gohan’s attention. Something’s wrong with him. Wow, you look terrible. You okay?” Erasa let go of Gohan and raced over to Videl when she noticed she wasn’t her normal self. “What’s wrong?”

“Something’s wrong with Videl?” Gohan asked, still in a trance-like state. But it was more than they had out of him before.

Sharpener snorted. “Of course you notice Videl but not us. Why are you both depressed? This is a time to celebrate. No moping allowed,” Sharpener cheered.

“Why does it have to be a celebration for my dad?” Videl yelled out, drawing the attention of the other students in the class. “There were other people at the Cell Games as well. Why couldn’t one of them have beaten Cell instead? That way, I wouldn’t have to put up with the stupid celebration and my dad’s big ego every single year for the last seven years.”

“But that is the day that you’re family came into wealth. You were two weeks away from being evicted if your dad didn’t beat Cell. You would probably be living on the streets now or with your grandma.” Erasa reminded Videl how far her family had come money wise.

“But I don’t get to spend much time with my dad anymore,” Videl said, sounding like a spoiled child that didn’t want to share a toy with anyone.

“Babe, come to my party that will keep your mind off everything,” Sharpener suggested.

“Nice try Sharpener, but no thanks,” Videl said, a slight grin sneaking its way through. She turned her attention to the zombie-like state that the new kid was in. “Why are you so sad?” Videl enquired.

“My dad died …” Gohan started to explain but was interrupted before he could continue.

“What are you even doing at school if your dad died?” the shocked blond girl asked. “You should be home with your family.”

“It’s wasn’t recent, babe. Was it?” Sharpener asked. He wouldn’t put it past Gohan to put his education before personal matters.

“It will be seven years ago on Wednesday,” Gohan answered, trying to get the images of his last moment with his father out of his head.

“Wow, that is the same year as the Cell Games happened,” Erasa said.

“My dad died the day of the Cell Games,” Gohan answered. “He was one of the only people that was killed by Cell that didn’t come back. It was my fault that he died.”

Sharpener remembered something from the news stories from after the Cell Games. “It was rumoured that some of the people that died and came back during the time of King Piccolo didn’t come back after Cell. Did your dad die then?”

“No, it was another time when I was little. That was my fault too. I killed my dad twice,” Gohan said, tears now streaming down his face.

“How could it be your fault if Cell killed your father?” Videl asked. “And I am sure that other time wasn’t your fault either.”

“I made a stupid mistake, I was too cocky, and because of that it cost my dad his life.” The teenager answered in hysteria. “The time before, he died trying to save my life from my uncle who kidnapped me. If I wasn’t around, if I stayed home with mum, he would have survived that day.”

“Cocky! You?” Sharpener started laughing, trying to imagine Gohan being cocky.

“Your uncle kidnapped you,” Erasa gasped.

The teacher chose this moment to come into the class and stopped in surprise when she noticed it was the class genius and his three friends were the ones disrupting the class.

“Don’t worry Gohan, school will be back on Thursday,” The teacher said jumped to the wrong conclusion about why her prize student was upset.

“It’s not about that miss,” Videl said. The crime fighters tone unsettled the teacher. She’d never seen or heard Videl looking so upset.

“Something happened between you two didn’t?” The teacher suggested knowing the mischief that some of her students could get up to.

Sharpener went into another fit of laughter, trying to imagine Gohan and Videl in a relationship.

Videl turned red at the suggestion. It went over Gohan’s head what the teacher had suggested.

“Believe me, it’s nothing like that. I would know.” Erasa answered, confusing the teacher about the sudden behaviour changes of Gohan and Videl. If nothing had happened between them, then why were they both so upset?

“Can we go?” Sharpener asked, holding back giggles.

“If it means that the students that actually want to learn, get a chance to learn, then you may leave,” the teacher answered. She didn’t usually like to dismiss students without good reason. They wouldn’t get anything done while Gohan and Videl were both in that state. She watched as Sharpener and Erasa helped the hysterical genius out of the classroom followed by the grumpy crime fighter.

“Miss, can I go as well?” One of the boys in the front row asked.

“If you even think of disrupting my class you will get detention for a week.” The teacher scolded. “That goes for all of you.”

There were some grumbles from the students about Videl and her friends getting special treatment from all of the teachers and wishing that they were close friends with the crime fighter. One question that came to the minds of all the students was why she was friends with the people that she hung out with? And why did she go to their school in the first place? Weren’t famous kids meant to go to exclusive schools that cost a zillion zeni to go to?

Sharpener and Erasa had spent the whole day attempting to cheer Gohan and Videl up while setting up for Sharpeners Totally Awesome Party for Cells Defeat Day.

“So what are you going to do for your day off if you aren’t going to come to my party?” Sharpener asked.

“I’m going to spend the day with my mum pretending that I’m not upset and that I still don’t blame myself for what happened while trying to keep her from crying the whole day. Oh, I just remembered that I have to hide the television. We normally have to buy a new one every year after the anniversary of my dad’s death.”

“What does your dad’s death have to do with getting a new TV?” Erasa asking the question that everyone else was wondering.

“Any mention of the Cell Games reminds my mum that my dad was killed by Cell. She gets angry and takes it out on the television,” Gohan said, remembering the first anniversary of his father’s death. His mother threw the television which narrowly missed six-month-old Goten. The only reason the television didn’t hit Goten was Gohan catching it. His mother hadn’t thrown the TV again after that incident, but she did hit it with her frying pan or punch her fist through it on more than one occasion. One year she had somehow got hold of a machine gun and blasted the TV to smithereens.

“Earth to Gohan.” He heard a voice saying bringing him out of thoughts of every anniversary so far. Erasa was sitting in front of him, waving her hand in front of his face. She smiled when he jumped back.”Destroying a TV sounds like something Videl would do,” Erasa piped up when she saw he was back in the land of the living. “I was at Videl’s the day of the Cell Games. My parents died near the start of the Cell stuff. I was missed because I was at a sleepover at Pira’s. I walked home from Pira’s house, finding only my parents clothes on the floor. Pira and I lived close to one another, so they allowed me to walk between our houses. It was strange only finding the clothes, but I didn’t think anything of it at first. I just assumed my parents had gone out in a hurry. I started watching TV. I was looking for cartoons. But ever channel was the same thing. That was how I found out about Cell.” Sharpener went over to comfort Erasa who had broken down in tears. “I ran back to Pira’s because they were the only people that I knew close to my house. By the time that I got there,” Erasa choked up. “They were the same as my parents, just clothes. He had been so close. And everywhere I looked around was more clothes. Everyone was gone. I was alone. I was so scared.”

“I don’t think I actually know anyone that was absorbed by Cell,” Gohan said imagining that it was his mother and friends in the place of Erasa’s family. “I don’t know what I would have done if I came home to find my mum and grandpa’s clothes lying on the floor like that.”

“The times of Cell were pretty bad, I died, I was absorbed. It was the scariest thing that had ever happened,” Sharpener said realising how lucky he was to be alive after dying. “We evacuated the city and were in a camp with hundreds of other people. They all got together, and with the remainder of the money we had hired this guy, I think his name was Taio or something like that. He built a shelter that was meant to keep Cell out and keep us safe. It was just almost completed when this blond kid came and blew up the shelter. Telling us, we were stupid if we thought something like that would be able to keep Cell out.”

Gohan felt so guilty, was it his fault that Sharpener and his parents had been absorbed? He was the one that had blown up the shelter that Sharpener was talking about.

“That kid was right, so many of us in one place had attracted Cell. He would have come either way. With how quickly that building was built, it never would have been strong enough.” Sharpener finished the story.

“How did you end up at Videl’s?” Gohan asked the crying blond girl after seeing that Sharpener wasn’t going to continue.

“I ran from Pira’s house trying to find anyone that was alive, but finding no one,” Erasa said barely above a whisper. “I think it was about two days that I went from place to place, breaking into houses to get food and sleeping in a cupboard and even in a washing machine under clothes hoping that Cell wouldn’t find me. I heard someone enter the house that I happened to be hiding in. I ran to find a better hiding spot, but he heard me. I almost died of fright and collapsed with relief when it wasn’t Cell standing before me. The person that saved me was Hercule. I had broken into his mother’s house. He’d come to check on her, but she had been absorbed like everyone else.”

“Grandma brings it up every time we visit her, reckons that we let her die on purpose,” Videl said, wishing at times that her grandmother had stayed dead. Videl punched the disco ball angry with herself that she would wish that anyone was dead, especially a blood relative.

“Anyway, Hercule took me to where he was hiding Videl,” Erasa said, “and that is how we became friends and why I was with her when we watched the Cell Games. When all the cameras were wiped out, Videl got really angry and threw the remote control at the TV screaming for it to work and then got up and started kicking and punching it. She kicked the screen in.”

“My grandpa said that my mum picked the TV up and started shaking it and then threw it when the reception was lost for the Cell Games,” Gohan said, a shiver running up his spine at another similarity that the girl he went to school with had with his mother. “I wasn’t home at the time, I was out with dad. Telling mum that dad had died to protect me, that he wasn’t coming back was the hardest thing I ever had to do.

“How did you die?” Erasa asked the ghost-white jock.

This time he continued his story. “We fled from the site of the Cell protection structure with some of my parent’s new friends. We thought that being in the middle of nowhere was remotely safe, but we were wrong.” Sharpener said remembering the last moments of his life. “Cell had us trapped in a cave with nowhere to run. I watched as Cell picked people off one by one starting with adults followed by teenagers and then the elderly leaving the children till last. He absorbed us kids youngest to oldest. It was horrible; Cell absorbed my baby sister while she was in my arms. There were only four of us left. I remember Lime fighting till the very end; she was the closest to my age out of the people that had escaped. She tried to fight Cell till the very end. A few moments later, I was absorbed, I assumed the two older ones after me.”

“Lime died,” Gohan said. He knew that she had to be the same Lime that he had known. “I should’ve let her drown; it would’ve been a nicer death than being absorbed by Cell. It was a miracle that she survived when Cell absorbed her family, and then almost drowned a few days later and then a few days after that to actually die.”

“Wait, you’re the guy that saved her from drowning?” Sharpener said, seeing his friend in a new light. “She said that he had blond hair.”

“I had blond hair for a couple of months when I was younger,” Gohan said hoping that they wouldn’t link him to the kid from the Cell Games with that information. “Mum started crying about me turning into a delinquent the first time she ever saw me with blond hair.” Gohan managed to chuckle.

“If she had drowned she never would have got to live again,” Erasa said.

Gohan knew that she was correct.

“What were you doing in that area anyway?” Sharpener asked, “that is a couple of hours away from the 439 mountain district.”

“We ran out of food. Mum wanted something nice,” Gohan answered with a grin for the first time that day. “It was for my birthday party. We had a picnic, it was like everything was normal for a few moments. We could forget about Cell for a few hours.”

“Birthday?” Videl asked. “When is your birthday?”

“Eleventh of May,” Gohan answered.

“Why didn’t you tell us it was your birthday?” Erasa asked she liked everyone knowing when her birthday was.

“I didn’t think that it was important,” Gohan said with a shrug. “Besides my mother makes a big enough deal about my birthday every year I didn’t want anyone else to know.”

“Eighteen is the only important one to worry about. Next year when you turn eighteen we will have a big birthday bash,” Sharpener said already planning Gohan’s birthday party.

“I turned eighteen the other day,” Gohan corrected.

“Dude, you’re the same age as me,” Sharpener said shocked that the class nerd was the same age as him. “I thought that you were the same age as Erasa and Videl.”

“How come you only started school now, shouldn’t you go straight to college?” Videl asked, “You’re smart enough to be in college already.”

“My mum kept going on about getting a high school diploma,” Gohan answered. “She also said about meeting people my own age and that college wasn’t the place to make friends.”

“That’s stupid, college parties are the best,” Erasa said who had been to her fair share of college parties.

“My mum wants me to be concentrate on studying when I start college,” Gohan said. He would be forced to do so much more studying then he already did when he started. He was not looking forward to that.

“Do you do everything that your mother asks you to do?” Videl shouted sick of the goody-goody act that Gohan always portrayed.

“I don’t do everything my mum says. Maybe if I did everything that she asked my dad would still be alive.” Gohan said. His mother hadn’t wanted him to fight in the Cell Games. She had begged him not to go, to stay home with her.

“Stop blaming yourself,” Erasa said as the light mood disappeared as quickly as it came. “The times of Cell were dangerous and terrifying.”

“Which is why we celebrate the fact that Cell is dead,” Sharpener said, not feeling as festive anymore.

“Why did it have to be my dad to beat Cell?” Videl shouted. “I hate being famous, I hate being rich. I want to be normal. Like you three are.”

“Videl I’m not normal,” Gohan answered without thinking.

“You’re more normal than I am,” Videl answered.

“I live in the middle of nowhere,” Gohan said, trying to prove that he wasn’t normal without saying too much.

“Many people do. I live in a mansion,” Videl said back.

“My grandfather lives in a castle,” Gohan said. Maybe it was time to open up a little. These people were his friends. He didn’t need to keep everything from them.

“Is it an old one or a new one?” Erasa asked. That little girl inside her that wanted to be a princess showing through. “Does a handsome prince live there, oh and a king and a queen and a princess. Is the prince single?”

“It’s probably not that type of castle,” Sharpener said in fits of laughter trying to imagine Gohan as a prince.

“What’s so funny about that?” Gohan asked as clueless as ever.

“Which royal family?” Videl asked, having met quite a few royals.

“Let’s not talk about them,” Gohan said, trying to move the conversation to another topic.

“So it does have a royal family,” Erasa squealed in excitement.

“They might be someone that I’ve met, like Princess Mioku from Gurumes?” Videl asked. She had clashed with that princess on a few occasions.

“Mioku is a princess?” Gohan said, “She hates me because I accidentally pushed her down a set of stairs and broke her arm when I was three.”

“You met Princess Mioku when you were three?” Erasa said with excitement, “is she the one that lives in that Castle where your grandfather lives?”

“No, her grandfather and my grandfather are friends,” Gohan answered with the first thing that came to his mind. “Let talk about something else, like Cell.”

Videl’s watch beeped. “Duty calls.” She sighed.

“I should head out. School is over for the day, and my mum worries when I come home late. Enjoy your party on Wednesday,” Gohan said, waving to his friends. Talking about what they had gone through with Cell had helped.

Slide after slide was displayed on the projector of Goku as a baby with Grandpa Gohan, a lot of pictures of Bulma and Goku, Goku and Chi Chi.

They were up to slides of Gohan as a baby when Goten spoke. “I wish that there were pictures of me as a baby with daddy.”

“I know that he would love to be in photos with you,” Bulma said. She was hoping that Chi Chi and Gohan would add more, but they were both non-responsive.

It was better than previous years when Gohan seemed almost suicidal with his depression and blaming himself over his father’s death. This year was more thoughtful and quiet. Maybe school was doing good for him.

Chi Chi was angry at Goku for not coming back. Bulma feared that if Goku stayed dead too much longer, he would lose Chi Chi forever. Chi Chi loved Goku to death, but Bulma occasionally got the feeling that Chi Chi was ready to move on.

There was also no destroyed TV’s this year which was another plus though she had noticed that there were no TV’s around to destroy. Maybe they had already been destroyed or removed beforehand.

“Gohan, how’s school?” Bulma asked, trying to bring up some light chitchat.

“It’s good,” Gohan answered, trying to put on a happy face in front of his mother. “I almost let it slip yesterday that Grandpa is the Ox King.”

Bulma smiled, glad that Gohan was now talking.

“Is that a bad thing?” Bulma asked.

“Probably not. I’m just want to be normal.” Gohan replied.

Gohan looked up as Goten started laughing. “Big brother, your hair looks funny in that picture.”

“Our trip to Namek,” Bulma said, wondering how Chi Chi ever managed to get Gohan’s hair like that.

“I wonder how all the Namekian’s are?” Gohan asked, forgetting why they were watching slides in the first place.

“My poor baby getting sent to space like that.” Chi Chi said, in a lighter mood than she’d been in for previous anniversaries.

“I enjoyed space. I learnt so much that you can’t learn from a textbook.” Gohan answered. His mum’s eyes sparkle at the mention of education.

“I want to go to space,” Goten whined.

“I want to go as well,” Trunks said enthusiastically. “Can we go to space, please?”

“You’re too young to go to space,” Chi Chi answered sternly.

“I agree,” Bulma said, “and space is a dangerous place.” Bulma smiled, they were all going to be alright.

Gohan just ignored the two adults hoping that they wouldn’t remember that he was younger then the boys were now when he went to space. Though he was a lot more mature than his brother and young friend when he was a child.

Gohan was in a happy mood when he returned to school the next day. Most of the day had been spent talking about old times and remembering the good times that they all had together. Krillen and Maron had come by in the afternoon, and it was nice seeing the two adults that he was closest to, that had always been a part of his childhood. Gohan watched as Videl skipped into the classroom, something that he had never seen before. He didn’t take her as the type of person to skip, that was more Erasa’s sort of thing.

“You seem happy today,” Gohan said, as the teen hero sat down.

“My dad spent most of the day with me,” Videl said happily. “He was away in the morning for some ceremony but was back before lunch. I got to spend the whole time with dad and grandma.”

That’s great about your dad spending time with you.” Gohan answered with a smile. “I spent the whole day with mum and my brother Goten and a couple of close family friends.”

Gohan and Videl both watched as the two blonds entered the classroom.

“Are you two okay?” Gohan asked, wondering if they should even be at school.

“They’re fine, both have hangover’s,” Videl answered, glad that she didn’t go to the party. She’d probably have to arrest her friends if she saw what they had been up to.

“Isn’t Erasa underage?” Gohan whispered. Videl nodded, and Erasa groaned.

“Why can’t the public holiday be on a Friday?” Sharpener complained. “I want to sleep.”

Gohan watched the reactions of several students as the teacher came in and as she made slightly more noise than usual. He turned to see Videl smile at each reaction from the students. He wondered where they would all be a year from now and how the next anniversary of the Cell Games and his father’s death would go. A part of him hoping that next year his dad would finally be in his life again.

Also posted at:

• Fanfiction.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7381123/1/Depresaversary
• Archive of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24553321
• Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/898469852-depresaversary