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Once in a while, when there is only one ki present in the usually chaotic home, Piccolo arrives, announcing his presence with an oddly human knock at the door delicate enough not to damage the wood. His arrival acknowledged only by the clanging of pots and pans stopping briefly he enters magicing away his weighted clothes out of respect for the fragile things inside the small space.
There will be the smell of cleaning products, fresh laundry and cooking. Two cups of tea steaming hot would appear soon after he entered the constantly warm kitchen. Always the same flavour, the one he had never mentioned or admitted that he enjoyed the most, in a cup he loathed to acknowledge had also become his favourite. There would be a chair conspicuously larger than the others pulled into the small space. Three or four pots bubbling on the stove regardless of the time. Cookware and spices organized with military precision. A bare spot on the counter the rice cooker would normally occupy.
He often wondered if she would ever pare back the amount she cooked, enough to feed a human army, now that she often wrapped so much of it up in tupperware, to wait for one of, ‘her boys’ to return, stomachs empty and mouths full of stories. He’d supposed her cooking and cleaning were like his meditations, a way to center yourself from the chaos that the universe threw at them.
In the past he had judged the amount of time she put into maintaining a home, one that occupied a planet so often up for destruction. Time scrubbing floors and folding laundry, was time that could have been spent training, or learning ki control or flying. Now, as someone who had come around from a formerly monastic and nomadic existence he could only admire the amount of effort it took to keep it so orderly. Especially now that the only other member of her family that craved organization and order had a home of his own.
There was no longer shouting, doors slamming in his face, or the need for Goku or Gohan to play peacekeeper. Even his constant vigilance for pans appearing from nowhere that he may have to dodge had finally disappeared long after the last pan had been thrown. No more references hurled towards monsters fictional and real at one another. Accusations that had cut just as deeply as Chi Chi had intended even if Piccolo would never show their impact. The tension that used to follow him to this place had long ago dissipated. The long tense silences that followed the shouting, the terse glances and barbed words. The awkward smiles on the male Son’s faces wondering how long the truce may last this time.
Now there could be comfortable silence and the glances they shared were often in commiseration. Strange how loving the same people, some platonically, one romantically, could bridge a divide as great as theirs. Loving the same incomprehensible person had given them a kinship. One that flourished, unexpectedly in the gaps around his presence in their lives. The smiles were genuine now on the rare occasion the others were around, easy. Somewhat disbelieving.
Piccolo sits in the chair and a steaming mug appears, and the face across the table is smiling. He had long ago made her endure so much, at the time he had not realized it. That she had ever forgiven him, that they could sit together like this felt unbelievable.
Chi Chi had long stopped expecting a phone call, even after Gohan had insisted Piccolo have a phone, or really any sort of plan or pattern to the visits. Perhaps the other men in her life had prepared her for people dropping in, out of thin air. She would never admit she looked forward to it. That the surprise was half the fun in a life where the bulk of her routine had been phased out as her children now moved through the world independently.
She set the mugs down, years of observation had let her know which tea the Namekian liked best and which mug suited his large hands and long fingers. Not that he would have ever mentioned it, though she took pride in the knowledge that she makes sure to keep a stock of it ready for these visits. She heard Piccolo sip as she lowered the burners and sat across the table.
Oftentimes they met, they did not exchange many words beyond asking how the other had been. This time she stared out the window at the mountain she had adopted as her own when she married Goku what felt like several lifetimes ago.
She had longed for a large family, having been just her and her father alone together for so long, looking out on the world through flames. Goku had offered her a glimpse of the adventure of a life full of other people and different places. Just to find herself time and time again looking out on the world in metaphorical and sometimes literal flames, watching the people she cared for most getting burned and destroyed trying to keep the world peaceful. The carefree adventures of childhood became full of life or death consequences so quickly.
“You know I don’t think I could do with him being around all the time anymore. I’ve come to like my solitude.”
A pause. She didn’t feel the need to fill it. Piccolo would answer in his own time. When she met his eyes the corner of his mouth had lifted slightly. Not exactly a smile.
“You sound like me”
A delicate snort into her tea follows. “And you’ve come to enjoy company, it seems.”
“Rarely.”
“That’s not what Pan says. I heard her bragging about a sleepover the other day. How you two are going to have another one soon”
Piccolo frowned slightly. “It was outdoors, for training purposes. You make it sound so soft when you call it a sleepover.”
Chi Chi smiled. She knew for a fact Gohan hadn’t been given marshmallows to roast during his time with Piccolo. Or that people often didn’t bring their stuffed animals along on training excursions.
“Whatever you say.”
“Besides I am not sure if I can handle another sleepover soon” Piccolo sighed into his mug. “She insisted on a campfire song and my hearing hasn’t fully recovered.”
Chi Chi wanted to defend her granddaughter, or at least say that her tone deafness wasn’t from her side of the family, but she couldn’t. Her family was talented at many things. Singing was not one of them.
“Well things are quieter around here these days.”
More silence, a comfortable one. So much of their relationship had blossomed in silence.
Piccolo let his attention wander into the sounds he often filtered out the ambient noises of a million decibels unheard by human ears. Water in pipes, electricity in walls, a human heart beating softly.
Chi Chi looked at the pots on the stove bubbling away and wondered if she was packing it all up again tonight. Goten was good about telling her when he was away for dinner, calling the old fashioned land line she’d hung on to out of stubbornness. She kept one ear out all day for the ring to let her know he was at Capsule Corp, or his brothers, or hunting for his own food after training. She sighed softly.
“I wonder if I’ll regret saying I enjoy this quiet when I’m officially an empty nester.”
He had made her explain that the first time she had mentioned it. ‘Empty nester’, was an oddly human expression, though they neither lay eggs or typically flew. All the same humans were like birds. Small and fragile but capable of amazing feats of endurance.
Piccolo studied her face as she looked at him from across the table. Each time he visited there was more gray in her hair, more fine lines around her mouth and eyes. Piccolo’s own face remained as smooth as the day they had met, though age had carved out his features. His throat caved in as he broke away from her gaze and looked down at his cup. Seeing those around him age was too painful to acknowledge.
They had both been so young the first time they had crossed paths. Both had shown up ready to fight. No idea who truly parallel their battles were. They hadn’t known then how similar they were in so many ways despite the obvious physical differences, both wildly stubborn and willful, often convinced they were correct. Both thinkers and planners in company that preferred thoughtless action. Age had softened both of them, sanded out the hardest edges, and blurred their formerly inflexible natures. Age had seemed to change everyone, everyone except Goku.
But age had also allowed them to sit like this, to allow for stillness.
Piccolo didn’t miss most of those days, not the pain or the anger or the isolation, but sometimes he did miss the breathless rush of youth in the inability to wait for the next adventure. Goku popping in and out of his life provided it in measured doses and that seemed enough for him now. Sitting at a table, across from a friend, still felt almost as novel as it had the first day Chi Chi had put down her frying pan and picked up a kettle.
Piccolo had looked, in early life, inside the homes of the houses he passed in the forests that he trained in. Families in homes full of light and love, things that he had assumed he did not need or want. Moving from place to place telling himself it was freedom not to be tied to anyone or anything.
One knot at a time he had been tied to people and places. To friendships. To this family. And slowly, and often begrudgingly he had become part of them. And they had become a part of him.