As Gohan entered the Tendo home, he smiled at how warm the house felt. Not because of the heat, although he was appreciative of that. He smiled how inviting the home felt.
"Kasumi, could you come here please?"
Kasumi’s hopes sank a little as she took in the young mannext to her father. Boy, in all honestly. He was obviously younger than her. She let out a small sigh of disappointment as she picked at some imaginary dust on her housedress. ‘Oh well, it was too much to hope for, I guess…’ she thought to herself.
"Can you get this young man some of my clothes so he can change?"
"Of course father," Kasumi nodded and bowed slightly to Gohan before retrieving said articles.
"Excuse me sir, but can you please tell me what's going on here?"
Soun blinked. "You mean you don't know?"
Gohan shook his head. "Should I?"
Soun hmmed to himself. 'Ah, I see. Genma must have died before he could tell him of his engagement.' "Well, don't worry. It will all become clear soon."
Gohan sure hoped so.
=========
Now dressed in a dress shirt and a pair of slacks from Soun, Gohan sat at the table in front of three young ladies eyeing him. Gohan suddenly felt conscious of how he looked as he felt like a piece of meat.
Akane glanced over at the young man sitting in front of her. She took one look at him sniffed. ‘Sure, he’s built,’ she thought to herself. ‘And cute. But he’s probably a lousy jerk, all ready to start drooling all over us and thinking we’ll be ga-ga over him and itching to jump in his pants, just because he’s a cute boy. Humph, BOYS!’
Nabiki had a slightly different outlook. 'Very cute. If he's half as cute as he is smart, this marriage thing might not be so bad after all.'
Soun then cleared his throat to get the teenagers attention. “Girls, this is the son of my old friend, Gohan,” Soun introduced his guest. “Gohan, these are my daughters: Kasumi, 19, Nabiki, 17, and Akane, 16. Pick which one you want to be your wife.”
A pause.
“MY WIFE?!?!” Gohan cried.
Soun cleared his ears after Gohan's outburst, "Yes, your father and I studied under a very harsh master many years ago. When we finished, we made a pact to unite our houses in marriage between our children."
The only master Gohan could figured that this man and Gokou could have trained under would be Kame-Senin, but he couldn't help but think that he would've met this man before if that was the case. 'Then again, Dad did train on his own for a while. Maybe that's when they met.' Although that still didn't explain why his father never told him about this.
"Unless he forgot," Gohan muttered under his breath.
"I'm sorry, son?" Soun asked.
"Oh, it's nothing Tendo-san." Gohan reassured him. "I'm just figuring out why I never heard about this. My father may have meant to tell me about this, but he died before he could."
All the Tendo girls could feel a slight pang of sympathy after they heard that. Having lost their mother at a young age, after all.
As Gohan thought more on this, the more he could have seen his father actually agreeing to this before forgetting about it, considering the story his mother told him about how she got engaged to Gokou when they where young. However, he wasn't quite ready to get married just yet. "Uh, I'm sorry Tendo-san but I don't think I can just pick someone and marry them just like that."
Soun hmmmed in thought. “That makes perfect sense. You should get to know my little girls before you decide who will be your wife.” He gave a hearty laugh and slapped Gohan on the back, ignoring that it felt like he was slapping solid steel.
“Uh, aheh, that’s great… uhm, well…” Gohan’s mind tried to find something to lock on to. It found his book bag. “Hey, could one of you tell me where the local high school is? I need to register for classes. I also need to find a place to stay for the night, so if you could point me in the right direction I’d be very grateful.”
“Nonsense, my boy! You will stay here! There’s plenty of room for you and, after all, when you marry one of my daughters you will inherit the dojo.”
Nabiki smirked to herself again. ‘And I didn’t even have to prompt daddy.’ In her mind, the circle closed and she would soon have a new sap to play with.
Gohan started to consider politely refuse, but he felt his energy drain from the shock of the days events and just nodded in acceptance. “And about school?”
Before Nabiki could volunteer, Akane stood up. “I’ll take him,” she told her father. ‘ I’ll keep a close eye on him, and when I can prove he’s a perverted jerk, I’ll get daddy to break off the arrangement.’ She missed the glare from her older sister.
Gohan put a hand to his temples as:
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(Posted Sun, 29 Apr 2007 06:44)
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