Only one person in the universe had energy like that. Krillin looked up from where he was watching Marron make sand castles with her mother, and was treated to the sight of Vegeta's boots descending from the sky.
"What's up, Vegeta?" he asked warily as the Saiyan landed. He still didn't completely trust the guy after watching him blow up a stadium of people. But Bulma had made sure they all knew he was okay now, and Goku agreed wholeheartedly, and well, Krillin was never one to hold a grudge, even when maybe he should have.
Eighteen, on the other hand, made no pretense of picking up Marron and holding her protectively to her chest. Vegeta studiously ignored her.
"I require your… assistance," he said to Krillin, his nostrils flaring slightly on the word. Krillin's eyebrows shot up.
"Anything you need." He knew making carte blanche promises was unwise in principle, but he would do anything to keep from scaring away the skittish unicorn that was Vegeta asking for help.
"I also require your absolute secrecy on the matter," Vegeta said imperiously, and Krillin knew him well enough to know that the bigger the show he put on, the bigger the bluff he was making. It would be interesting to play poker with the guy, he mused. Certainly more interesting than playing it with Goku, if perhaps less profitable.
"Of course," he said, "nothing you say will leave this island."
Vegeta glanced at Eighteen for the first time, clearly not counting on her discretion. She snorted and stalked back to the house, Marron wailing at having her fun curtailed. Vegeta turned and looked out over the ocean like he was trying to number its faults, and when he still hadn't spoken for almost a full minute, Krillin realized he was going to have to bear the brunt of the conversational burden.
"What did you need me to do?" he asked.
"I—am not well versed in the—customs of—Earth," Vegeta said, sounding like a man refusing to stutter. "I wish to do this thing properly, and I cannot—I do not—I must know that my information is accurate."
Was he blushing?
"Uh, sure thing. I can tell you anything you need to know." Krillin sighed when the silence stretched again. "What exactly did you need to know?"
Vegeta mumbled something unintelligible. Krillin cupped his hand to his ear, and Vegeta snarled.
"I wish to propose to the woman!" he shouted.
He was blushing.
"Good for you!" Krillin said. "I'm really happy for you both. Congratulations!"
"I do not need your congratulations. I merely wish to know the proper way to go about it. I have heard much about this custom, and much of what I have heard contradicts itself."
"Well, let me warn you right now," Krillin said, thinking back to his own impending nuptials and trying to resist the urge to laugh in Vegeta's face—whether out of triumph at his domestication or in sheer giddy excitement that there was going to be another wedding and it wasn't going to be his. "You are going to get congratulated—a lot. That's just what people say when you tell them you're getting married. So if you don't want to sound like—ha ha—like it's a shotgun wedding, you should probably just accept it."
Vegeta finally looked at him.
"What is a shotgun wedding?"
"Oh, haha... ha." Krillin realized right then that he had agreed to something akin to torture, only it would hurt both of them. "It… well, traditionally it wasn't considered… proper… to, uh… get a girl pregnant before she was married." When Vegeta only looked puzzled and not offended, Krillin pressed on. "So fathers would, uh, sometimes force the guy to... take responsibility. At, um, gunpoint."
"What is the purpose of forcing marriage on a man that does not want it?" Vegeta still sounded only puzzled.
"Well, kids born out of wedlock are, you know, illegitimate. But if they're born in wedlock, they're not. That was pretty important to, uh, some people. Not so much anymore." Still with the puzzled, slowly morphing into realization. Good.
"Any child born out of wedlock is illegitimate?" Now falling into horrified. Um. What?
"Y-yeah. It's not that big a deal anymore, you know, people aren't really judgmental about that sort of thing in this day and age—"
"So Trunks is a bastard," Vegeta said, looking pale. Krillin cursed his stupid sense of humor and spoke quickly.
"Well, only in the, uh, technical sense, you know, it's not like... I mean... well, what's the big deal?"
"I have brought shame on my household," Vegeta whispered, clearly talking to himself and looking like he was going to be sick.
"What? No! No one holds that against you, it's not like—I mean, we all know Bulma, and you were—things were different then. Vegeta, I gotta be honest, you're kind of the last person I would have expected to take this so hard."
A flicker of hope seemed to kindle in the Prince's eyes.
"Perhaps it is different here," he murmured to himself. Piercing Krillin with a sharp gaze he asked in his usual demanding tone, "What exactly does it mean here, to be illegitimate?"
"Well… in the olden days it used to mean the kid couldn't inherit property and… titles and stuff? It honestly doesn't mean that much these days, I mean sometimes it's a little bit of a scandal depending on, you know, who it is, and other stuff, but…"
Vegeta was looking like his haughty self again.
"Bah," he spat. "Primogeniture stuff. Not the same thing at all."
Krillin literally couldn't stop himself. "What did you think it meant?"
"Raditz was considered a bastard," Vegeta said airily, but Krillin could see he was almost giddy with relief. "You know, he is only Kakarot's half brother. Their father mated quite a bit too far above his station with Raditz's mother, and couldn't even prove his genes worthy by producing powerful offspring. Thus, Raditz was doomed never to have the option of testing out of the lower class, no matter how high his power level got."
"Um, okay," Krillin said, scratching his head in puzzlement. He wasn't sure how being weak made Raditz illegitimate, but then, Saiyan stuff had never made sense to him.
"So it is not important," Vegeta said, not entirely dismissively. Krillin wondered if he was looking for reassurance.
"Not to anyone that matters," he said. "I honestly don't know anything about the legal stuff since Bulma's rich and all, but none of us think of Trunks that way, I can tell you that."
Vegeta nodded.
"I have seen much made of the ring giving, but no one seems to agree on how it is to be done."
"Well, that's kind of up to you." Krillin tried to imagine Vegeta in a fancy restaurant on one knee and found his imagination lacking. "But the main thing is that it has to be really romantic," Vegeta flinched, "and then you get down on one knee and hold up the ring and say, 'Will you marry me?'"
Vegeta's lip curled. "It must be done in this manner?"
"Like I said, it's up to you. Frankly, since it's… you know… you, I bet Bulma won't mind if it's not too romantic. But the ring is crucial. Without the ring, it's not a real proposal. And it has to be a nice ring. It has to have diamonds, and be really expensive—" Krillin stopped to consider if he was putting too much of his wife's personal tastes into his explanation, and then remembered that it was Bulma they were talking about.
"Do I have to kneel?" Vegeta said in a low voice that didn't sound at all like him.
"Well…" Krillin thought. "You can get away with not kneeling, I guess. But it's traditional."
Vegeta hmphed and turned away.
"What happens after that?" he asked.
"Well, then you wait for her to say yes or no, and then—"
"What?!" Vegeta was incensed. "She will not refuse!" Krillin bit back a chuckle.
"This is Bulma we're talking about," he said, and Vegeta's enraged expression fell back into something more miffed.
"She will not refuse," he repeated.
"Probably not," Krillin agreed. He'd seen the way Bulma moped after he had died. She wouldn't say no.
"I will not kneel," he said, pulling something out of his pocket. "Not to anyone. You know that. But I will stand before you as an equal," he opened the box to reveal a large diamond ring, "and I will ask, instead of demand. Bulma," he said, looking her in the eyes with a soft, solemn expression, "will you marry me?"
Later, when they told Krillin and Eighteen, Bulma was shocked to see Krillin raise questioning eyebrows at her, her fiancé—and even more shocked to see him nod in response.
A\N: I know Bulma starts calling Vegeta her husband in the Buu saga, but there's no way he would've stood for a traditional wedding at that point in his life. My guess is either they signed some papers for convenience's sake, or it's a common law marriage.
Also, I know Raditz isn't Goku's half-brother, but I wrote this a long time ago and it made for pretty good head canon, so I left it in.