PICCOLO
The next morning, I was sitting at the fire of our Camp, stirring sticks to feed it. It was still cloudy, with a cool temperature. Then, I saw a desperate Lettie come out of the tent, looking around in confusion.
"Oh!" She ran towards me. Her face was all crumpled, her eyes were sleepy, and her hair was disheveled.
"Good morning." I moved the sticks again. It was still difficult to look her in the eyes after what happened yesterday.
"What time is it?!" Lettie placed her hand on her chest, trying to breathe slower, and looked up to the skies. "Is it late?! Are we late for Training?!"
"Calm down." I raised my hand and then pointed to the ground. "Sit down and have your breakfast. There's fruit, and I boiled some eggs."
Lettie seemed a bit troubled, for she was usually the one who would prepare breakfast with the food I'd bring, however, she accepted my suggestion, sitting on her knees in an anxious posture. She remained silent as she took some mint leaves from a pot near the fire and chewed them, stroking her hair, until she turned to me and asked, "Why didn't you wake us up?"
I wet my lips, trying to look her in the eye, and replied, "I… I-I thought it would be better to let you rest today. Don't worry about the Training." I swallowed hard, my mouth dry. "Consider it a… a day off." I glanced away, looking for more sticks to stir up an already perfect fire, and we got back to silence.
Seconds later, Lettie settled herself better by sitting with her legs crossed and, when I dared to glance at her sideways, I saw that she was showing a little, introspective smile. She took a fruit and then four boiled eggs, which were cooling in a pile of dry moss, and began peeling them. After she finished it, she said in a soft tone, "Thank you. For yesterday."
I finally looked at her. But to maintain my tough-guy pose, I cleared my throat and twisted my lips into a grimace. "I-It was nothing," I said, coldly. "You needed the medicine and the hot water."
"I'm not talking about medicine and hot water," she replied with conviction.
I held my breath due to the butterflies I felt in my stomach. So she was talking about my apology?
I couldn't bear it any longer and looked away again.
It was weird. Lettie and I seemed like two strangers; as if we were meeting for the first time again, but now, without that angry tension we had on Master Roshi's island, but rather, an awkward tension as I remembered what I put her and Gohan through in the last two months, and the consequences that it brought us.
"However..." Lettie continued, with the same shy but also kind expression. "I don't deny that the medicine and hot water did me good." She raised her face to me, and her eyes gleamed. "What was that place you took us to yesterday? Was it real or… did I dream about it?"
"Yes, it's real," I confirmed. "It's further north."
"Good to know..." Lettie frowned as she massaged her belly. "I think I'll go there in the following months. It will help relieve the pain." She then slightly widened her eyes. "Th-That, of course, if you allow us."
I felt bad when I saw a certain... fear of me filling her eyes again. That was definitely not the kind of behavior I wanted her or Gohan to have towards me. Not after what I've learned yesterday.
I took a deep breath and answered her, in the calmest and most serene tone possible, "It's okay. You can go to the Hot Springs."
The fear on her face gave way to a little, hopeful smile. "Really? Wow..." She looked back as if seeing the Hot Springs from there. "If I could, I would go right away…"
"Are you in pain?"
"Yes..." She once again massaged her belly, crestfallen. "In fact, I'm going to take another dose of medicine and change my pad." She ate the last egg she had peeled and stood up. "Excuse me."
Lettie went to the tent, going in carefully so as not to wake Gohan, and came back with the medicine and a new pad in her hands. After taking the pills, I watched her walk to the edge of the Camp and look down at the eight-meter-high rock formation.
It was evident how much she had zero desire to climb that down, especially if she was in pain.
An itch stirred inside me, and I bit the inside of my mouth, until I finally let out a tired sigh and went to her, who turned her head at seeing me at her side.
"Alright." I nodded. "Since you want to go to the Hot Springs, then let's go." And I picked her up, the way I had done the day before, which scared her, and I flew off.
It took fifteen minutes of another awkward silence until we arrived at the Hot Springs, for I flew slowly so as not to hurt her anymore. Lettie clung to her sanitary pad as if it were the only possession she had in life, her body tense for being so close to me once again. However, unlike yesterday, I noticed that she was analyzing me, not taking her eyes off me.
Man, I would give all the money in the world to know what she was thinking about. I must have turned red, because my cheeks burned.
When we arrived at the Hot Springs, some sun rays found a gap between the gray clouds and bathed that place with their light, making the landscape more fantastic than the previous day.
This time, Lettie allowed herself to open her mouth in amazement as I placed her on the ground, enraptured by that vivid painting. However, I was still so embarrassed that I just waved my hand and said, "I'll pick you up in an hour. S-See you later." And I dashed through the skies, without looking back.
I spent the entire way back frying my brain wondering what Lettie had thought about me as she analyzed me, and I swear I almost collided with a flock of migratory birds at one point.
When I arrived at the Camp, I was already stressed out, and I settled myself to meditate in my spot next to the fire. Soon, I would be the one needing a day off.
Forty minutes later, I hadn't been able to meditate in the slightest. I was just more nervous. Would that feeling of discomfort ever go away?
It was then that I heard a crying, coming from the tent.
Gohan.
I ran over there, and when I crouched in the entrance, I found him crying under the blankets.
"No!" he cried. "Pwease, Mr. Piccolo! Don't hurt me and Aunt Lettie! I pwomise we will train better! No!!!"
I narrowed my eyes in confusion. Wait a minute… was Gohan actually having a nightmare… about me?
All my irritation and anxiety were replaced by a deep melancholy.
"Gohan..." I called him, softly, shaking him lightly. "Wake up..."
He woke up with a fright and, when he saw me there at the tent's entrance, he screamed and crawled to a corner, hiding from me under the blankets.
Damn it...
"Hey, Gohan..." I reached out my hand, which scared him more. "It's okay..."
He peeked out from under the blanket and his black eye, with streams of tears running down his face, and my heart ached to see that, just like Lettie, he still feared me.
"It was just a nightmare," I whispered to him. "I won't hurt you." I tried to reach out my hand again. "I promise."
Gohan still stared at my hand as if it were a poisonous animal, until, finally, he seemed to realize that Mr. Piccolo from reality wouldn't hit him.
With visible apprehension, he came to me. When I picked him up and stood up, I felt how much he was shaking, which only made me more depressed.
"Wh-Wh-Where's Aunt L-Lettie?" He looked around, grabbing my clothes tightly.
"Auntie Lettie was in pain and went to take a warm bath in the Hot Springs. We'll soon pick her up, okay?" I was surprised to notice how sweet and friendly my voice was, bordering on childish. "Let's have some breakfast? There's boiled eggs, you like that a lot, right?"
Gohan let out a soft cry, nodding in agreement as he rubbed his good eye. As I sat him down next to the fire, I handed him three boiled eggs and asked him to peel them. But he was having a hard time doing it; maybe because he was still scared, maybe because he was still sleepy, or maybe because he was still in pain, and he destroyed the first egg he was peeling.
I lost my patience and snatched the eggs from his hands, doing the job myself, otherwise there would be nothing left for him to eat. Gohan lowered his head and remained quiet, and still let out a few sobs when he finally ate the eggs perfectly peeled by me, and I watched him carefully.
In the same instant, I felt a painful, accusing twinge of pain.
Was it necessary for me to be so rude and impatient with him, just because of a... mere egg? And, man... How small he was... I could never get tired of being surprised by that.
Damn it, Piccolo…
"How's your eye?" I asked.
"It hurts..." Gohan bit another piece of the egg.
Silence.
"It'll get better when you also go to the Hot Springs in a little while." It was the only decent answer I could say.
"Really?" He looked up at me. "Are you gonna let me play in those warm pools?"
"It's fine by me. Now, you've gotta check with your Aunt."
Gohan ate the rest of the eggs in one go and got up. "I'm ready, Mr. Piccolo!"
I couldn't hold back a chuckle and replied, "Lettie won't like it if you arrive there like that, all disheveled and with your face covered in booger. Go get the comb among her stuff and I'll comb your hair for you."
Within ten seconds, he returned and sat with his back to me. While he washed his face (not without emitting a few "Ouch!" when he bumped into his black eye), I tried to tame his long hair.
I regretted it instantly.
"Ouch, Mr. Piccolo!" complained Gohan, not about his black eye, but about the tug I gave when the comb got caught in a tangle of knots. "That's not how you do it. You have to start at the ends." He turned to me. "I think it's best to leave that to Aunt Lettie."
I grunted in irritation. Was I that incapable of combing a child's hair?
No way! Now, it has become a matter of honor.
"Turn forward and stay still!" I snapped, harshly, but then I faked a cough and added, in a calmer tone, "Huh... I mean... I'll try again."
It took me about fifteen minutes to tame his hair and tie it up in the most similar way I saw Lettie tie it up every morning, but not without getting countless more "Ouches!" from Gohan in the middle of the process.
"Come on!" I got up and picked him up. "We're late. Hold tight and don't let go, okay?" I placed him on my back and flew off.
With Gohan, I was able to fly faster and, throughout the way, he kept pointing out new landscapes and places that he didn't know about that region, and which he couldn't appreciate the day before due to the situation we went through with Lettie.
It was the first time I heard him laugh since I answered his request when I made the uniform like his father's before we started our Training.
His laughter was like music to my ears.
"I thought you had abandoned me here." Lettie greeted us with a shy and, I dare say, a little playful smile when we arrived at the Hot Springs. She looked healthier, sitting on the edge of one of the natural pools, with her hair wet; her pajama pants pulled up to her knees, and dipping her feet in and swinging them slowly.
"Good morning, Aunt Lettie!" Gohan jumped off my back and ran towards her, completely forgotten about the nightmare he had. "We're late because Mr. Piccolo couldn't comb my hair."
Lettie turned to me with a mixture of confusion and disbelief. "Did… you comb his hair? You?"
I stood in front of her, certainly as red as I had been before, seeing that my reputation for tasks as mundane and menial as combing a child's hair was almost zero to Lettie.
I mumbled and cleared my throat, looking away. "Uh... I... I-It doesn't matter!" I crossed my arms, wanting to hide myself, as if it was possible given the fact I'm more than two meters high. "And listen here, his hair is very dry and tangled, he needs a hair conditioner."
"Well, I did ask you to buy a hair conditioner." Lettie stroked the improvised ponytail I tried to tie on Gohan, with a raised eyebrow and an ironic half-smile at me. "Don't you remember? I asked you this two weeks ago, and you refused to buy it."
Damn it. She was right.
Lettie, however, must have noticed the upset face I made and snorted with a chuckle, turning to her nephew. "Let's see this eye..." She caressed Gohan's face. "Hmm, it looks much less swollen. Excellent!"
"Yes!" He raised his arms in excitement. "I think it was because of yesterday's warm bath. Can I have another one now? Pwetty pweeease! Mr. Piccolo allowed me!!!"
Lettie looked at me in a questioning way, as if she doubted that I had allowed that kind of fun. My response was to twist my lips into a grumpy pout and look away.
"It's okay, sweetheart," she said to Gohan. "You can go."
Lettie didn't even have time to undress her nephew, for he simply threw himself into the pool where she was dipping her feet, in his pajamas and all, and started swimming like a baby dolphin.
I stood still in my place, not knowing what to do. Should I sit right here, or should I go sit near them? Maybe I should go away and let them have their fun. I'm sure they would much rather be alone than with my company and–
"Come dip your feet with me," Lettie patted the grass beside her. "The water's great!"
"Come, Mr. Piccolo!" added Gohan, after somersaulting in the water.
Wh-What?
They wanted me... to stay with them? They didn't want me to leave?
To be honest, I don't know if it made me feel better or worse.
Anyway, I accepted their suggestion and sat down next to Lettie, not without grumbling, just to keep the habit. Through my transfiguration power, I took off my cape, turban, and shoes, and lifted my fighting uniform to my knees like her.
Lettie was right. The water was great.
We were both a little uncomfortable in each other's presence in such an informal situation as dipping our feet in a hot pool.
I bet you could see the smoke coming out of my head, from the amount of things I was thinking about, trying to figure out whether I should or not start a conversation with her.
"A-Are you still in pain?" It was the brilliant question I managed to come up with.
"Just a little, but I believe it will pass." Lettie shrugged.
More silence.
I pressed the edge of that pool so hard that my knuckles turned white, until finally I said, "You know... Uh... You can channel your Ki to relieve this kind of pain. I... I can teach you, if you want."
"Seriously?!" Lettie turned to me, her mouth open in surprise.
"Y-Yes..." I ran my hand behind my neck. "It's not hard."
She then curved her lips into a gentle smile and blinked slowly. "I would love to learn that, Master."
It may have been my imagination, but the way Lettie said "Master" was filled with a confidence that I only remember hearing when she called me by that title for the first time.
I felt embarrassed and could not reply to her.
"Mr. Piccolo, think fast!" Gohan filled his mouth with water and aimed to squirt it at me. I dodged at the last moment, and the water jet hit the grass where my left arm was before.
"Aunt Lettie, think fast!" Gohan also squirted water at her and, like me, she also dodged, narrowly missing getting a water jet in the middle of her face.
"Good reflexes," I told her.
"Thanks. Yours, too–OH!" She covered her mouth when I, distracted by talking to her, didn't see that Gohan had filled his mouth with water again and successfully hit me right in the middle of my face.
There was an almost tangible silence.
As I wiped my face soaked in child drool and water, that typical feeling of anger wanted to take me over.
However, when I saw that both Gohan and Lettie were staring at me with wide eyes, showing the same fear I had seen on their faces earlier, the alert in my heart spoke louder.
If that had happened two days ago, I would probably have made Gohan do two hours of pushups in a row, and gotten Lettie to do it as well just out of spite.
But at that moment, my reaction would be different. In response to Gohan's water jet, I cupped my hands, filled them with water, put it into my mouth, and also squirted it right in the middle of his face.
Now, we were even.
There was another almost tangible silence, and Gohan and Lettie once more stared at me with wide eyes.
But now, there was no longer fear on their faces, but rather the purest and most sincere… fun.
Then Lettie burst into a loud laughter. It was the first time I heard her do that, genuinely and without the constraints of shyness.
Her laugh was so warm, so alive, so… beautiful.
A water war began.
We squirted water at each other, in a competition of who could shoot the strongest jet and who could dodge the fastest. Gohan and I had the advantage of moving freely around the pool, as Lettie didn't want to go in due to her period, but I was surprised to see how she dodged our aquatic attacks with great prowess and agility, even being sat down and with pain.
On the way back around noon, I saw that Gohan's eye was much less swollen when I looked at him clinging to my cape as he pointed to a new landscape he had seen, but, more importantly, I noticed that Lettie was also no longer tense in my arms.
When we arrived at the Camp, Lettie was in a good mood and made a nice lunch for her and Gohan, with steamed vegetables, accompanied by a fruit salad using the leftovers from breakfast. After that, they both slept for the rest of the afternoon.
I tried to meditate during that period alone next to the burning fire, for the weather was still colder. However, a movie was playing in my head, in which scenes from the last two months appeared in vivid and cruel images in my mind, torturing my chest without mercy.
How, after everything I put Lettie and Gohan through, did they still want my company there in the Hot Springs?
How did Gohan feel so comfortable to play with me? How could Lettie laugh, even though she knew her pain was caused by me?
How? HOW?!
I couldn't understand it... I couldn't... bear it!
What was that feeling that embarrassed me so much? And would I ever know how to deal with that?
The only thing I know is that the afternoon passed quickly, and when I least realized it, it was already dark. Feeling emotionally exhausted, I went out to provide food for dinner. When I returned, Lettie and Gohan were waiting for me by the fire.
They looked much better.
Lettie thanked me for the food and started making the soup, asking Gohan to help her peel the potatoes. For the first time, I noticed how caring she was, teaching him how to hold the knife in the right and safe way, and how to peel the potato without destroying it.
Gohan had a lot of fun in the process, and in the end, he destroyed the potato, but Lettie just smiled and stroked his head, saying that, tomorrow, he could try again.
I recalled the scene with the boiled eggs in the morning and wished to bury myself in the ground.
To try to distract myself from that horrible feeling, I took another knife to help her peel the vegetables. The problem was that Lettie and I both aimed at the same carrot and leaned over to pick it up. Our hands touched, and we pulled away as if we had been shocked.
"S-Sorry..." stuttered Lettie, rubbing the hand that touched me. She then looked up at me. "You don't have to do that, after all, you've... uh..."
"You've never helped," was what she had in mind. I'm sure.
And Lettie was right.
Could the situation get any worse?
In response, I let out a surly grunt and picked up the carrot and began peeling it. Lettie said nothing more.
A few minutes later, she put all the vegetables to cook and stir the broth with a wooden spoon while adding some seasonings.
"Where... uh... where did you learn how to cook?" I asked when I felt that the silence had become unbearable.
"An old lady who sheltered me for a while taught me when I was little." Lettie gathered the dirty utensils to wash them in a small pot with water.
"What happened to her?"
Lettie stopped and gazed at the fire with a dejected look. "She died."
Silence. Gohan watched us.
"Did you..." I went on with caution. "Did you live in many shelters?"
"Yes." Lettie began to wash the utensils. "I grew up skipping from one to the other, until, when I was about fourteen, I was expelled."
"Expelled?" I asked. "Why?"
"Because I beat up a boy."
"What did he do to you?"
Lettie glanced worriedly at Gohan, wet her lips, and replied in a low tone, "He wanted to abuse me."
My stomach churned with an uncomfortable nausea. To disguise it, I took a stick and stirred the fire to feed it.
"And... uh... where did you go to?" I asked.
"To the streets." Lettie frowned, looking at me as if that were the most obvious answer in the world.
A fourteen-year-old girl, without family, living on the streets. It was then that I remembered that, on the night I saved them from the lionesses, Lettie had told me something about her once being… homeless, and that it hadn't been any pleasant.
Now I saw why, and it only worsened my emotional state.
"A while later," Lettie sighed, "I discovered the existence of clandestine arenas, and I began fighting. After all, apparently, it was the only thing I was good at."
"But don't they only accept people of legal age?" I replied.
"And do you really believe they cared about that?" Lettie raised an eyebrow at me, then gazed back at the fire, shaking her head slowly. "These guys just want to watch a good fight, and they pay for it. Not much, but they do." She suddenly seemed very interested in the soup already boiling in the cauldron. "Oh! Dinner's ready!"
The fake smile she gave Gohan and I revealed that she didn't want to keep that conversation about her past any further, and I couldn't blame her.
She served Gohan, who began eating voraciously, and she turned to me, holding the ladle full of soup.
"Do you... uh... do you want some?" She asked with uncertainty.
"No."
Lettie tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at me. "Are you never going to try my food?" She let out a chuckle. "It's quite different from the one I made on that first night, isn't it, Gohan?"
"Yeah!" he replied with his mouth full. "It's delicious!"
With a frown on my face, I analyzed them two there, gazing at me with a hopeful glow, until, finally, I rolled my eyes and snorted, "Fine, fine! Just one ladle and nothing more. Gee..."
I saw Lettie and Gohan exchange victorious smiles, and she served me some soup in a bowl, and the three of us ate in silence.
Due to my body being able to survive on water only, I hadn't eaten many soups in my life, to be honest. However, I firmly believe that, in a soup competition, Lettie's would definitely be the winner.
But that strange feeling full of shame and accusation that I had been feeling was still around me, and I didn't have the courage to ask for more.
Soon, the cauldron was emptied until there was nothing left. Gohan was the one to blame for that. He ate so much that his stomach was stuffed and it didn't take long for his eyes to feel heavy. Plus, I bet he was still exhausted and in pain from the exercises.
"Looks like this afternoon's nap wasn't enough for you, huh?" Lettie picked him up after seeing him yawn and cuddled him to her chest. "Do you want to go to the bathroom before bed?"
Gohan replied no, practically drooling on his aunt's pajamas.
"Right," she said. "Say 'good night' to Mr. Piccolo and off to bed."
Stumbling over his feet, a sleepy Gohan came to me and, to my surprise, hugged me. "Good night, Mr. Piccolo," he whispered. "I forgive you, okay?"
Whether Lettie had heard her nephew's words or not, I cannot say. The only thing I know is that a tingling sensation came over me and, for just a second, my heart felt less heavy.
After excusing herself, she got up and picked him up again, and headed to the tent. After putting him to bed, she told me she would climb down to change her pad and relieve herself, and I was left alone with the fire and my thoughts.
When Lettie climbed back up, she came to the fire to get water and take another dose of her medicine. I needed to tell her something important, but it was difficult due to my nervousness and anxiety.
"I-I... uh..." I began, looking at her standing next to me drinking water from a skin, then I composed myself and said, firmly, "Listen. From tomorrow on, our Training will change."
She stopped and turned to me with a curious expression, and I saw no other way out but to continue, "I'll adapt the exercises to make them less heavy, but still efficient, especially during this... uh... this phase of the month of yours. I'll also allow you to take a day off on the first day of your period, and you and Gohan will also have half a day off once a week, to rest and recover your energy."
When I finished, it felt like I had run a marathon, looking at her with my chest rising and falling, and there she was again, analyzing me in the same way she did in the morning when I took her to the Hot Springs.
What was she thinking about?!
Slowly, Lettie approached me, bending down until she was at my eyes' height, and she gazed deeply at me. "Thank you."
Then, gently, she touched my arm, squeezing it lightly, and smiled.