Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Iterations ❯ Mother's Day ( Chapter 5 )

Author's Note: I apologize for my long absence from the DBZ fandom. Consacra is long overdue for an update, I know. For many reasons including my obsession with another fandom, I haven't been working on it. However, I will continue it for sure. I just wanted to update something in my DBZ writing today, just to make up for how long I've been gone. Hope you enjoy.

 

***

 

A car. A vacation home. A new fashion line. A personalized supercomputer.

 

Ah, choices.

 

There's only one day of the year where my status as the richest person in the world doesn't matter. Because I have to buy something for the woman who held that title before me.

 

Mother's Day.

 

In elementary school, I gave her crappy poetry and art, except in fifth grade, when I built her a model plane. She kissed and hugged me as usual, said she was proud of me for inheriting her brains. She said that a lot, and I don't know if she ever realized how much of a contradiction that statement was on multiple levels. I didn't do anything to earn her genes. Why was she proud? And if she was really so smart, how come she never figured out that her pride was pointless?

 

And fake, come to think of it. The next day when I came home from school, I saw my grandma flying the plane in the backyard and having the time of her life (now I'd understand if my mom were proud that she didn't inherit my grandma's brains). Suffice it to say, my mother has the shortest attention span of anyone I know, except when she's working on one of her impossibly advanced machines that she calls her “babies.” Funny, she used to call me that, too.

 

She also has the shortest streak of gratitude of anyone I know. I guess that's what happens when you're the second generation of self-starter wealth. My grandpa is the most normal person in my family, because he actually grew up poor. He was born to a mechanic and a seamstress. He learned to cobble together machines in his garage and kept at it until he invented the now ubiquitous capsuleâ„¢ that made him and his descendants richer than God. (That's not blasphemy; Jesus was poor.)

 

My mother grew up with all the privileges and power that I have, but she's female. That makes a world of a difference, I'm certain. You just have to look at the difference between me and my sister. Same parents, same upbringing, same environment, and look how she turned out.

 

Sometimes I wonder how she even got it in her head that she could be a mother. It's a touchy subject for my father, actually. I really don't think he intended to be a dad, ever. I think that my birth caused them to split up, though I was too young back then to remember that my father wasn't there. That's another thing that bothers me about her. I guess I could understand if her biological clock or Dende slapped her with a maternal instinct in her thirties, but why the hell did she pick my father to sire her child? I think you could make a documentary out of it - the surefire recipe for a perfectly dysfunctional family.

 

Ah, Mother.

 

I've resorted to looking at gift suggestion websites. I have completely run out of ideas for attempts to please her. She would be sorely disappointed if she saw me here, huddled in front of my computer at midnight a few days before her wretched holiday, having just missed the express delivery period for online orders. Maybe inherited brains have an expiry date after all.

 

What can I get her that she can't get for herself, anyway? Or rather, what can I get her that she doesn't already own in at least three editions, copies, or patents?

 

Gift idea #73: plastic surgery.

 

I don't even dare to laugh.

 

Gift idea #85: a home-cooked meal.

 

Do I want to kill her? Her inheritance is slightly tempting, but no. Saiyans are supposed to kill their fathers, not their mothers, anyway.

 

And now I'm looking at the long sidebar where they actually try to categorize mothers for lazy, barely filial children like me. Hostess Mom? Pampered Mom? Lesbian Mom - what the hell? Crafty Mom - ha ha, the double meanings there.

 

Okay, Gadget Mom seems to fit the best, though I really wish there were a Richest Mom in the World category just to make things easier.

 

Oh, but there's a Proud Mom. Just noticed.

 

Would you look at that. The Proud Mom category is full of self-aggrandizing gifts like personalized photo frames and t-shirts that put words in her mouth. “My child loves me.” “World's Top Mom.”

 

“Because I said so.” Ha. Subtitles for everyday conversation with her.

 

Maybe I should get her this little misplaced gem. A photo mug that says “We love Daddy.” Careless webmasters tick me off.

 

I need to shower and sleep. This is entirely too much work for a woman who doesn't need anything and doesn't deserve it in the first place.

 

Okay, I have to take that back. I'm not that cruel or ungrateful of a son. She's given me a lot. She gave me life. She gave me her brains. She gave me the best clothes, best toys, best vacations, best cars. Sent me to the best schools, gave me the keys to the empire of empires. How can I not be thankful?

 

I am really not trying to be cynical. But I think I've forgotten how.

 

She gave me my cynicism too.

 

As I said before, I'm mediocre. She gave me my mediocrity, ironic as it is. She says she's proud of me for inheriting her brains. That's just it. I inherited them. I didn't earn them. I never had the chance to earn anything. She had everything gift-wrapped and dressed on a silver platter for me when I was born. I never had to prove myself to her, because she knew that no matter how dumb I might have turned out, no matter how badly I might have screwed up in life, I would still be fine. My safety net was miles thick, in the form of bank accounts and stock options.

 

She never expected anything of me, so there were never any expectations for me to surpass, no ways to make her truly proud of me. She just tossed things at my feet, everything a person could ever need or want, whether or not I needed or wanted it. It was all the same to her, no matter the price tag. She had everything, and her son would too. That was all there was to it.

 

Everything she gave me meant nothing to her.

 

No other websites are telling me anything useful. I might actually have to resort to calling my sister. But I hope it doesn't have to come to that. I wonder what my father's getting her, or if he's once again allowed this “pointless human holiday” to slip his mind. If he refrains from arguing with her for a day, I think that'll be enough of a gift from him.

 

This is ridiculous. It's past midnight and I am actually considering texting my sister. More superficially personal than emailing, but less painful than calling.

 

I think…I think I'll just settle for flowers. It won't matter then if she forgets about them after an hour or so. They die in a few days, anyway; as a strict businessman, I fail to see the value in such things.

 

Now for the personalized message. You really can do everything online these days.

 

Dear Mom,

 

Sorry I haven't kept in touch lately, but I hope these flowers represent how much you mean to me.

 

Happy Mother's Day.

 

Your son,

 

Trx