Candid

AN: So like the first chapter, these tiny snippets don't come in any particular order. Enjoy!

Videl would not cut her hair. Who was Gohan anyway that his words equaled eight inches of perfectly decent hair? His hair didn't look like it came twelve feet near a fashion magazine. Besides, she had been fighting for years with long hair, and never had she given even the slightest opportunity for her opponents to trick her by grabbing her hair. Nope, she was not going to do it. No, not today at least. Nah.

… Alright, fine.

-o-

They danced around each other for years. It was quite a tango, really. They swayed about each other, fully content in their mutual admiration and longing, and not even the insistent jokes around them could make them stop. For them, it was enough that their movements whispered the words that their lips could not.

-o-

Gohan wondered sometimes how the world saw her. Was her last name more significant than her first? Was she just a strong girl? A pretty fighter? Did they know she didn't like ice cubes in her soda? That dust bunnies drove her insane? That there was a line on her hip marking the path of a throwing knife as she put her life in danger for a bunch of forgetful city folks? Let them not know. Let the world turn a blind eye to the real her. This pearl was his. Because maybe, Gohan thought, once in a while he could afford to be selfish.

-o-

They were not perfect. Sometimes it hurt to know it. Other times it was a relief.

-o-

She used to tell herself, back when she was a younger girl that the only way she'd know if she truly loved someone is if she would take a bullet for him. Now it seemed a little silly. Imagine her, throwing herself in shooting range, in front of a man who would never even flinch at the touch of metal. That was alright. She's already short on years as it was.

-o-

They would crawl under the covers of his or her bed, depending on whose room they were using as a temporary study hall for that afternoon. And it was like they were five, not seventeen, the way they laughed, like they were high on nitrous oxide, over the silliest jokes, the strangest thumb wrestling move, and their high pitched voices as they ventriloquized dead philosophers. It was the childhood Gohan never had.

-o-

She loves me. She loves me not. She loves me.

...she loves me not.

Gohan threw the now bald flower out his window. He really should never get flowers with prime-numbered petals. Or he should really learn how to follow heuristics. This was the deal: with odd-numbered petals, one should start with the positive. With even-numbered petals, the negative. It was simply really, and it makes him wonder why he was still sitting here, cooped up in his room, instead of by her side.

-o-

Videl wondered sometimes how the world saw him. His life was one that could both fascinate and perplex, teach and stupify, and he hoarded it away in the mountains. She had watched as he shied away from the limelight, refusing the offer to subvert the irony that made their relationship so strange. She ached to know how much would be hidden, unrecorded, unrecognized, falling in the abyss of history. Videl chaffed with the knowledge that this was an injustice she could not remedy.

-o-

"What was it like?" Goten asked.

"What?" Gohan said.

"You know... you and Videl, well, you have a baby now." Goten's eyes shifted to the crib at the corner of the room. At twelve, was it so surprising that his younger brother would be curious? Still, Gohan found himself blushing to the tips of his ears, even as a married man and a new father. There had never been secrets between him and his brother. But there's a first for everything.

"Get your head out of the gutter, Goten," he reprimanded. "Whatever Roshi tells you, it's not like that."

"It's not?"

Gohan winked. "It's better."

-o-

Goku left again. Their daughter woke up everyday asking when grandpa would be back. They did not know, they told her. Patience was an exercise that a four year old failed so easily. Gohan kept a smile, assuring Videl that, oh he did that all the time, and that she need not worry, and once he returned, everything would go back to the way it was. But there was a line in between his brows that told her it was not so. Goten was frequently bored. Chichi fell ill. Yes, perhaps death might have proved incompetent when it comes to Goku, but he was not the only one who could die. His leaving had never been idempotent.

-o-

She stirred up something really quickly one afternoon. It was nothing comparable to Chichi's snacks, which were exotic even in bite-sized proportions, but there was a simplicity in its homeliness that tickled Gohan's satisfaction. The ingredients weren't even that expensive: cheap butter, a can of corned beef, onions and spices. It was a small snack even for the two of them, but it would get them through another hour of physics homework.

"I didn't know you could cook!" he exclaimed, with something almost like pride.

She shrugged and smiled. "We weren't always rich."

-o-

She would not be jealous. The world deserved him as much as she did, if not more. And if he did not come home tonight, at least she could sleep knowing another city or town or village was safe from the clutches of evil.

She never slept anyway.

-o-

"I would wax poetic if I could," Gohan confessed. "But describing your kiss might sound like a restaurant menu."

Videl never laughed so hard.

-o-

Gohan shifted her head onto his lap, as she dozed off quietly. He often teased her that the mountain atmosphere and environment were too boring for her, which was why she always fell into short naps when she came over. But she fervently denied this. It was peaceful and soothing, and those were her reasons. It was never easy to sleep in the city when every waking minute was punctuated by car horns and door alarms and the buzz of a rowdy populace. Gohan ran his fingers through her soft, short hair. Briefly he wondered what it would be like if it was still as long as it had been before.

-o-

Videl had sometimes wished for a sibling. Perhaps a nice older sister who could help her tackle the social world, or maybe a cute, little sibling, either girl or boy, that she would spoil to the world's end. She sort of got her wish in the form of an adorable terror called Goten. Chichi never let her splurge on the little boy, but she still tried to give him as much as he wanted (chocolate and Gohan-time, mostly). She let him color her textbooks, and even though she was not anywhere near qualified, she let him wrestle with her. His open, unabashed joy was worth the colourful bruises she'd end up nursing.

-o-

Falling in love was exactly that: falling. Until someone teaches you how to fly.

-o-

It was on the tip of her tongue, and she was just about to reach out to touch his arm, spill her heart into the open, but her muscles clenched up and she could not move, let alone speak. What right did she have? She had already presumed too much. And whatever sentiments he had should be his to give freely; she had no right to claim them for her own. She sighed and smiled, swallowing the words away. They would never do. Not from her. He deserved more than her humanly affections, and she could not give more than everything she was.

-o-

It was difficult when his parents fought. He never understood why two people, who fought so frequently, would decide to spend the rest of their lives together. It was folly!

"When I grow up, I will marry a girl I will never argue with." He promised himself that. Why in the world, why in Kami's name, would he make himself so miserable?

Oh, better yet. "When I grow up, I will never marry."

Yes, he could be just like Piccolo.

He couldn't have been more wrong.

-o-

"I still need you, you know. I don't think I'll ever stop."

-o-

He lay there on their bed, under the canopy of an endless night, one of too many. Time, at last, proved to be the most bitter, most sadistic enemy. He traced his youthful face on one hand, and the empty side of the bed with the other. He stared at the moon, fully convinced the sun would never follow.

AN: So, I'm trying to rewrite the bazillionth draft of "What You Will", and since I've been away from this fandom for quite a while, I wanted to see if I still had a handle on Gohan and Videl's characterizations. I thought that the best way to get back into G/V mode was to write another 20 Truths, just to see if the shoe still fits.

Oh, and shout outs to Lilly-sama who always encouraged me to get back to the G/V fandom. You should all get to know her, because she's that awesome.

I hope you guys liked it! Even if just one out of the twenty, let me know, I'll be happy to hear any comments, opinions, etc.