(A week later)
"For the next upcoming house party, I think that we should play the 'I have never' game sometime after all the barbeque shit is done," Sharpener stated, looking down the aisle to see the rest of his friends looking back at him with their utmost attention, "You know… just to spice things up a little."
Since it was the middle of free-study period, midday on a Wednesday, this was the ideal time for any and all students to swap ideas and plans for upcoming assignments. As expected of the minority, a lot of the students in the class were using this time wisely to make up for lost time. However, for those who were ahead in their work or just couldn't be bothered doing any writing-based tasks, the members of the opposite group were using this period to interact with their friends.
And who else would capitalize on this moment then the blonde-haired jock that was known school-wide as one of the chattiest men in the institute.
Gohan, finding curiosity behind the topic, looked back at his friend over the heads of Videl and Erasa, both of whom were sitting between him and the sportsman, and were also listening intently to their classmate. "The 'I have never' game? What's that?" the teen asked.
Propping an arm on the desk and leaning forward, Sharpener threw the spiky haired teen a surprised look. "Are you serious? You've never heard of that drinking game before?"
When the Saiyan shook his head, Videl emitted a playful giggle and thumbed at her boyfriend with a sheepish smile in play. "He doesn't go out to parties that often. Believe me, I know."
Erasa nodded in agreement. "That's just the kind of person Gohan is, Sharpie: an innocent, down-to-earth country boy who has yet to taste the thrill of a real high schooler's life."
Blinking a couple of times at their collective remarks, the blonde haired jock decided to roll with it and continued on with his line of talk. "Anyway… the 'I have never' game is pretty much a drinking game you play around the table, where one person takes turns in saying 'I have never' something, and if the people have done the thing the person said they didn't do, they take a drink. We basically keep on playing until one of us passes out or throws up."
This then led to Erasa turning around to smile in the demi-Saiyan's direction, "It's a great way to kill some time… and to find out your closest friends' dirty little secrets."
Finding out the details of the game quickly brought a smile to the intently listening Gohan's face. "Sounds like a really fun game."
"You should give it a try. Though, just a fair warning to you, it isn't exactly a game for lightweights," Touya spoke up from the other side of the blonde jock, an act that drew everyone's attention towards the young male. When he found himself under the curious gazes of his compatriots, the glasses wearing sportsman grinned, "Just make sure you have something good to eat before downing any form of alcohol. It'll do well in softening the blow."
Nodding towards his friend and classmate, Sharpener then looked back at the others and continued on with his planned reading. "Basically you think up random stuff or stuff that you yourself haven't done. Like, for example; I've never bought anything in red suspenders. I've never driven twenty miles over the speed limit. Or I've never been on live television before." He then brought his hand up and waved it forward in a suggestive manner. "And basically if a guy is losing, he can always say 'I've never used a tampon'."
Videl thought about it for a second before then nodding in agreement, "For a bloke, I'd say that's a real winner."
"Yeah. No kidding," Erasa chuckled, shaking her head as she then went back to sketching happily in her workbook.
For several brief seconds of glorious silence, Gohan watched on as the chuckles and giggles slowly faded with Sharpener's little joke in the wake of his informative talk. Not only had the teen learned something new from the conversation, but he was also given a greater understanding as to what one of his closest friends at school had planned for his upcoming bash. If he was to go up to Bulma, Krillin or Yamcha and ask them for a few suggestions as to what possible activities he could pull at this sort of gathering, he was certain he would get more than a handful of ideas. However, what he'd just heard over the course of the last couple of minutes had been more than enough to satisfy him.
He felt like he could go to sleep that night feeling just a little bit wiser.
As it turns out though, the line of dialogue between the five amigos had yet to be completed, as one other person at that table had something else interesting to share with them.
"I have," the voice of Touya suddenly interjected, a combination of words that slowly had everyone's eyes turn robotically in his direction.
Hell, even a few of the boys and girls sitting in the rows of desks around them looked towards the teen with looks of sheer bewilderment.
Blinking a couple of times as he stared at his friend, Sharpener then opened his mouth to speak. Hesitant at first, with no words being spoken at all, he then stared at the boy in disbelief and asked the question that was now on everyone's baffled minds, "You've… used a tampon?"
Nodding his head with pride, the brown haired teen then looked across at his other friends and watched them lean away from him ever so slightly. "Yeah. You know… for spillage." He then cracked a sickeningly cheerful smile.
Finding his very brief and straight forward response incredibly baffling, Videl gazed across at the sportsman with bemusement written all over her face. "Aw, mate… what?"
After the rest of the group's members started sharing strange looks with one another, they then watched as their proud classmate started making mopping gestures with his hand. "Well I had a bit of an accident over a cooker once, and-"
"Sorry, dude, but… this is just getting worse," Sharpener interrupted, looking at the man as if he were crazy.
"No, no. Hear me out," Touya interrupted, at the same time gesturing to a space in front of him as if he were tending to a pot. "When you're boiling something, I was doing something with milk in it and, you know, it boiled over, and it goes into that bit in the back where you can't get your finger in. Basically if you don't clean it out, it goes rancid and it smells, forever."
Erasa, waving her hands in front of her, stopped the teen before he could go any further. "So… let me get this straight. You used tampons to clean out a cooker?"
Finding an equal interest in the conversation, Videl leant across her desk and propped her chin on her elbow curiously. "Can I ask what brand it was?"
Making an 'ick' face, Sharpener then reeled the discussion back in his direction and jabbed a hand towards Touya, while at the same time directing all of his attention towards his half-Saiyan classmate. "And this is coming from a man who doesn't have OCD?" He then made several pointing gestures back towards the man next to him, who was now attempting to interrupt the blonde and was failing miserably. "He does have OCD."
"I do not," Touya said loudly, but was promptly shrugged off by his classmates.
The boy's efforts to prove his friends otherwise were thwarted by a quick and very pronounced smirk from Gohan, "You totally have OCD." This was supported by a brisk nod from his girlfriend, who was sitting comfortably alongside him.
"We can prove it too," Erasa cut in, holding out her arm and showing off the wristwatch that she currently had on her. It was a beautiful, silver Swiss with a brown leather strap holding the timepiece in place. "You know the bezel on a watch… and that little arrow thing here?" she asked while pointing at the red marker at the top of the ring. "If I have it…" She then turned it so that it was pointed over the six, "here. He's fine. But if I put it around…" The girl then offset the arrow ever so slightly, "there."
"It's like a powerful magnet," Videl whispered, before then proceeding to watch along with the others as the blonde girl then brandished the watch in Touya's direction. "He just can't resist it."
At first the young man in glasses didn't do anything and simply stared down at the girl's wrist being held out to him. But then, without warning, the silence of the classroom was broken by the teenager suddenly jumping out of his seat, catching the girl's arm, and his fingers moving to grip the bezel to rotate it back to its previous spot. His sudden movement drew a startled yelp from the girl in the desk behind him, at the same time the surrounding students and the boy's friends looked on with interest as Touya corrected his best friend's manually altered device.
The clicking of the bezel rang out when it was promptly returned to its previous state. "Get it back to the right position," Touya ordered, causing Videl, Erasa, Sharpener and Gohan to hold in fits of laughter as the young sportsman stopped cranking the ring. As soon as the arrow was back over the twelve, he released the girl and sat back down.
A giggling and thoroughly amused Erasa then showed everyone the now properly restored watch, before then giving her friend an incredulous grin. "You can't bear it if I don't have that arrow, can you?" she asked. As soon as she saw the teen plant his posterior back into his seat, she then cheekily and ever so slightly rotated the bezel out of place.
Touya, looking on irritably as the blonde also sat back down with her watch plainly in sight, then took a few deep breaths to steady his nerves before pointing across at his friends. "So another interesting thing about tampons is that…" He stopped when a few of his classmates snickered, "they can be used for more than just a material to clean kitchen appliances. They can also be used in the garage by slipping one onto the end of a screwdriver, a Philips head, and you can use that to clean out the bottom of your motorbike cylinders, where the blobs of oil sometimes drip."
"I swear to Kai, you should be working in an infomercial or something," Videl groaned, shaking her head disbelievingly at the teen as he continued to smile in their direction.
"I'm half expecting you to be carrying these things around with you on a bandoleer across your chest," Gohan remarked, making gestures over and around his jacket to illustrate the appearance his friend should take under advisement. "You know, in a military sort of arrangement like Rambo… just in case."
Groaning at the smug looks and smirks his friends were giving him, Touya then tried one last time to defend his case. "It's a new application for an existing technology. When you think about it-"
"Touya. Touya," Erasa chuckled, at the same time holding out her watch for him to see. "Go away."
Shaking his head, the brown haired teen then breathed a sigh of defeat, collected his books and pens, and stood up. "I can't stand looking at that." Without another word, but with an amused smile on his face, the teen edged his way out of the aisle and began making his way down the stairs. Under the watch of the entire class and the grins of his colleagues, the brown haired sportsman marched through the doorway and shut it loudly behind him.
It was after following him out of the room that Gohan and the others soon noticed their homeroom teacher was staring up at them from the front. Hands on her hips, the woman in the skinny jeans and maroon sweater threw the group of mischief-makers a look and raised an eyebrow at them. The expression drew a series of sheepish grins and prompted Erasa to sit back down, while the others awkwardly began rearranging material on their desks in a nonchalant manner.
"Care to tell us what that was all about?" Mio asked, gesturing to the rest of their peers, some of whom were still trying to get work done. "There'd better be a really good reason why you five troublemakers decided to interrupt my class's quiet time."
Sharpener, slicking back his hair, gestured in the direction their classmate had gone, "I'm not sure, Ms. Hirasawa. Some guys just can't handle studying, I guess."
"Uh-huh," the young adult replied in an unconvinced tone, before then holding two fingers up to her eyes and then pointing them in their direction, clearly saying that she would be watching them… the jock especially. Upon signing her warning, she then went back to pacing the rows of desks and helping out students in need of assistance.
As the class quickly returned to its business, with Sharpener taking the time to lean back in his seat and whisper to the guy in the row behind them, and Erasa slowly adjourning herself to the task of doodling in her textbook, Videl then leant to her side and bumped her head against Gohan's shoulder. The teen responded to the playful move with a look, which earned a warm grin from the crime fighter in kind.
After silently conveying to the girl that he was alright through their invisible bond, the pair then went back to work, while at the same time turning their once vocal conversation into a whispered one.
"So… when is your first swimming trial?" the raven haired girl asked curiously, a question that also had Erasa's head perk up and caused the blonde to lean over. Feeling her friend practically press into her shoulder to listen, Videl frowned and playfully pushed her away, earning a quiet giggle from the teen.
Sensing his girlfriend's eagerness, Gohan smiled, "Next Monday."
"Great."
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