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Narrative Style

Gohan reached the Artic in the next two days, in the morning when he was supposed to be at school with a week's worth of clothes, a few personal items including a scratched CD player and couple notebooks and texts, all in Capsules, and a Capsule house that Vegeta had shoved at him.

He never really said a formal good-bye to his mother, and she had never learned the result of Videl, so saw no reason to mind if her son was a little more absent-minded than usual and keeping more time away from home, blaming it on the vapors of puppy-love.

He hadn't disillusioned her, though it was getting harder to smile at her gentle teasing and insinuations.

He avoided his father partly on Vegeta's advice, partly on his own shame. It wasn't difficult or suspicious at any rate, with Goku's sporadic training schedule that sometimes kept him lost in the wilderness for weeks on end.

In the end, the one who had the best idea that Gohan wasn't going to be back for a while was Goten.

Gohan had tried to keep the tone light, wincing when the panic and fear started to flow into the younger one's eyes, and exchanged a vow of secrecy for a promised return. He never let out why he was going, despite Goten's pleads and lucid probing, and wound up sleeping in the same room with him like they had when Goten was still a toddler.

Gohan had agreed readily to the sleeping arrangements, grateful for the company and tactile comfort and filial love and acceptance.

For the first time, Gohan began really wondering why he had to be the one going into seclusion and isolation and not Vegeta. Why was it he who had to leave his family and home and life for a problem that seemed to now encompass the both of them? Goten had been the catalyst to his new confusion, and from there the woolen ball raced wild through his mind.

At the time, Gohan discovered he had never even thought to question or defy Vegeta. He had believed and obeyed everything he had said at face value. Even now, he couldn't quite bring himself to go and confront Vegeta, couldn't quite muster the nerve to cross swords.

Not yet.

Why? Because of the biological impulses his condition demanded? Residual fear of the homicidal prince? The fact that he couldn't think of a decent argument?

At any rate…he didn't enjoy the knowledge his musings brought him.

The only defiance he offered was because he wanted to stay by Vegeta's side, and that was hardly comforting. But if he had agreed to his own exile so easily for Vegeta, what else could have Vegeta asked for that he wouldn't be able to deny?

Perhaps nothing. At any rate, he was practically defenseless against the Saiyan prince. This, as he was painfully aware of, was a very bad place to be.

He was in the Artic for 6 days before things came to a climax.

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