I've been looking to write a piece like this for months now, and I finally got around to do it. My final push was when I had a request from J.W. Appel to connect the two character Ranfan and Fanfan, and though this doesn't really do that (I will write one that does - don't worry), it strangely helped me to finish this one. Anyways, enjoy - it's kid friendly save for maybe the very end, but I don't think it's T material.
The old master of martial arts sat perched on a bench, readjusting the red sunglasses sitting on the bridge of his crooked nose periodically. His dark eyes darted about underneath the green lenses, and he pulled the black fedora resting on his head down further, as though to create a shade of mystery around his being. He sat alone, watching the throngs of spectators huddle around in awe and wonder, all far too excited by the coming events to notice the man.
His terrible posture would straighten when women occasionally passed by him, and he would lean in as though to smell them. However, with one lean too close, allowing his face awfully close to a woman's rump, he found himself to be slapped across the face with a crimson burn. Then he shook his head in shock and looked up to find a rather menacing Bulma leaning over him with her raw hands placed on her hips.
"Stop being such a perv, you old man!" she yelled, waggling a finger condescendingly at him, though her tone wasn't as harsh as it would have been six years prior, when the two had first met. She had finally come to admit that he couldn't help himself at times, but that certainly didn't excuse him from such inexcusable actions. One day, she was certain, he would get his penance for peering too closely at young ladies. For now, however, she settled with the usual chastising, as though telling off a puppy for peeing on the floor.
His face was stained with a faint red, whether it be from the lasting mark of the impact of her palm or from the enjoyment he received from the attention of a young lady. Feisty one, was all that coursed through his mind as his eyes trailed down her high-necked dress. She may have thought that she had beaten him by wearing something that showed no chest, though he allowed his eyes to rove over the form-fitting outfit with a tiny, naughty chuckle escaping his throat.
"Horrible old man," she muttered to herself, not noticing his active examination of her. She flipped her bright, blue bangs out of her eyes, allowing them to trail back with the rest of her straight hair. She sniffed slightly in disgust while turned away, but she quickly twisted her torso around so as to inquire, "Why don't you come to these things for the same reasons as other people? They come to watch fighters, and you especially should be cheering them on. They are your pupils, after all!"
She waved her manicured fingers through the air before settling them back into a fist against her hip, Roshi watching it crash into the blue suede with undisguised pleasure. He tore himself from this sight, though, to tilt the fedora back out of his eyes and look back up at the woman, one who had both plagued and treated him for the past six years.
"They don't need me to cheer'em on anymore," he said, a bit of remorse tainting his otherwise cheery tone. "Look out there! They've got tons of fans!" Her eyes narrowed with the word 'fans', an excuse Yamcha had been throwing at her lately in an effort to talk to other women, though she was pulled from this thought as he moved his wooden staff in a motion to part the waves of people. Bulma's blue eyes followed it before landing back on the hermit again.
"You are their teacher," she said matter-of-factly, again flipping her hair out of her eyes with an extra unnecessary flaunt of her wrist. She sniffed drily before adding, "It'd be better to cheer them on than to waste your time out here. Just face the truth, old man - there's no way you're going to get a date, not when you're half a millennium old."
Roshi's eyes flashed behind his sunglasses as he laughed, "Oh, Bulma, I'm older than that, and I've gotten plenty of women. Trust me, I've gotten the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great granddaughters of some of my ex-girlfriends, and let me tell you, they-"
"Just stop talking!" Bulma snapped, allowing her signature huff to escape from her mouth. Then, after scrutinizing the old man in his black suit for a second longer, she offered with a bite, "Now, if you want, you can come with me and we'll find Launch and the others and grab a place near the ring. That is, if you're not planning on sitting here all day and staring at women."
"Go on ahead," the man replied, his eyes traveling from her to the others in the crowd. "Trust me, I've been here since before these tournaments even began. I've seen everything I've ever wanted to see and more."
She stared down at him for a moment longer before sighing indignantly, "Suit yourself." And with that, she stalked off, Roshi watching her until she faded into the multitude of women that apparently would never love a man like him.
Roshi had grown accustomed to such banter from the woman and soon enough shrugged it off. He gave his raggedy beard a twirl from its tip, chuckling quietly whenever a woman came in close enough proximity for him to get a good look, and even more so when they were wearing a low-cut shirt. However, even such a man of his pleasures was distracted from this activity when he noticed a throng of people leave the central hut, and these were no ordinary people. They were fighters, as could be told by the aura they emitted. Some seemed proud, holding themselves with an air of dignity, while the majority allowed their shoulders to sag slightly.
The preliminaries to the twenty-third World Martial Arts Tournament were over.
He leaned against his wooden cane and waited for some familiar faces to stand out in the crowd, the first one being a rather weary Krillin. The young man, eighteen now, had never seemed to hold up quite as well as his best friend during these matches, though even from this distance Roshi noticed the hint of relief on the tired face.
In an effort to catch the attention of the bald fighter, he waved his wooden cane in the air and stood up, trying to gain some height over the crowd. He somehow managed to succeed as, after a few blinks to ensure that it was indeed Master Roshi in the black suit with sunglasses, Krillin gravitated towards him, welcoming a retreat from the pressure of the preliminaries. He managed a grin for his master and, before anything could be asked of him, he murmured a bit breathlessly, "I got to the quarter-finals, Master."
"Good work, son. I knew you had it in you!" And to the poor fighter's surprise, he found the knob of the cane bash into the his back, bringing expressions of brief, yet excruciating, pain to contort his features.
"Master!" he yelped, rubbing his back after having leapt slightly away from the weapon. He clenched his teeth before asking, "What was that for?"
"Gotta make sure you're still on your game. Just because you're out of the preliminaries, it doesn't mean you're quite finished yet."
"Thanks." And the sarcastic undertone was met with a grin from Roshi through his wiry beard and a place for the fatigued fighter to sit after budging to the left on the bench.
There was silence as Krillin continued rubbing his aching back and clenching his teeth, wishing the worst of pain to be inflicted upon the turtle hermit. He wished he could retaliate, but as cowardly as he proved himself to be when standing up for himself, he simply allowed his anger to pass. And as his temporary anger faded away, an unsettling suspicion was left behind. He only glowered as he watched his master lean against his cane, the eyes at work peering at women from behind the defense of those sunglasses.
So still was the man that surprise shook Krillin when suddenly, those old lips moved to ask, "So when are you gonna get yourself a girlfriend, Krillin?"
"M-me, a girlfriend?" the short man repeated, not able to even comprehend such a thought. He'd never given the possibility any room to grow, what with his training and all, and the factor of his being bald had never helped very much. Launch could only ever see him as a kid, even with his technically being an adult, and even the younger Bulma treated him like an annoying, little brother. However, he couldn't keep the suspicion from his tone as he asked, "Why?"
The man shrugged his thin shoulders and, still not facing him, replied, "Well, I just thought that it was getting to be about that time when a man settles down with a woman. Eh? And you can bring her back to my place, if you want." He swiveled his head around with a large grin plastered on his face, his eyebrows raised from behind his sunglasses.
"Oh, Master Roshi," Krillin groaned, realizing that it was impossible to have a real conversation with him about women. His cheeks were tinted with pink as he gave the thought of getting married further consideration, though he shook his head and decided that it was impossible. However, he wasn't going to admit that his six incense marks did not exactly attract women like wolves to his bald head. Instead, he smugly asked, "Why didn't you ever get married?"
Krillin leaned against the bench with one arm dangling over the back, faced towards his master as though with a cool indifference. He was almost certain that he knew exactly why: it wasn't as though women fought over old men who constantly try exploiting them. But he knew his master wouldn't admit that, and so he wasn't surprised when Roshi sat up straight and answered, "Well, did ya think I could ever settle myself down with just one woman? With this hunk a' fresh meat, right here?" And with this gesture, he raised his bony arm and flexed unconvincingly, bringing Krillin to roll his eyes.
"Well, if you didn't want to get married, then why don't you still have a girlfriend?" Krillin inquired innocently, a frown settling on his features as his shoulders dropped slightly. He was forced to reconsider his utter disbelief of the idea that Master Roshi could ever have had a girlfriend - in fact, the man had to have once been about his age. It wasn't as though he had been hatched from an egg in the ocean with all of those wrinkles, breaking through the shell using his crooked nose. In fact, the more that Krillin scrutinized the facial features of the man that weren't hidden by looming sunglasses, the more easily it came for him to accept this notion that, one day long ago, this ancient dinosaur had been young and lively.
"Women just aren't worth the trouble," he said wisely, leaning back against the bench with his hands resting on his staff. "They're pretty, but they're living paradoxes. They say one thing and mean another. They say it's okay that you didn't bring them flowers, or that you accidentally pushed them off a roped bridge, and then they whine about it for weeks!"
"I'm with you on that."
A new, disgruntled voice entered the conversation, brought along with Yamcha emerging from a thinning crowd and rubbing the back of his head. Puar was latched on to his shoulder, massaging a newly acquired bump that had come from none other than the woman of his life. Or rather, as he thought of her nowadays, the woman of his strife. Both Roshi and Krillin raised their eyebrows curiously as they watched him approach them, muttering, "Bulma says that I can talk to other chicks as long as we're just friends, but then when I talk to this one fan who just wants an innocent, little autograph, she goes all ape on me!"
"It's true, it's true!" Puar insisted, still inspecting the site of injury all the while. "She hit him right over the head!" The blue cat quickly shifted from an eager anger into a reprimanding tone, squeaking, "I told you, Yamcha, that she was nothing but trouble! All she did was gripe about you while you were in the preliminaries!"
Roshi shook his head and said, "See?" as though this little anecdote backed his point. Krillin, however, remained unconvinced.
"C'mon, Master," he said, his arms crossed now as he turned away from the scarred bandit. "That's Bulma we're talking about. It's not as if all women are as hotheaded as she is."
"Even the ones with the best tempers are unreasonable. Trust me, I'd know," the old man sighed, staring down at his veined hands with a tiny shake of the head. After another few seconds, he elaborated, "When I was a young man, still training under my old master, I knew a woman-"
"Hey, guys!"
Suddenly, another new face appearing from the crowd, not really a crowd any longer. It was Goku, and he promptly wiped a substance that looked like barbecue sauce off of his mouth with his forearm, giving a little breath of relief with having gone and eaten. However, before he could get a word in, Krillin glared at him and said, "Shh! Master Roshi's trying to tell us a story!"
"Oh, sorry!" he quickly apologized.
But before the turtle hermit, who was a little annoyed with having had his story interrupted, could begin again, Yamcha laughed, "Hey, you'll never guess what, Master Roshi, but Goku's been having his own girl problems, too! Some chick keeps looking at him, and she's cute!"
Even Master Roshi couldn't be torn by his own story to ask more details about the girl, and he promptly asked, "Didn't you ever learn not to talk when somebody far wiser, far older, and far greater-looking is about to speak?" That managed to shut Yamcha up, whose arms fell to his side and whose bump seemed to be left forgotten, only Puar giving it a comforting pat every once in a while. And now with everybody quiet and watching him intently, he grumbled, "I guess I can finally start.
"Well, when I was a young man, about you all's age, I met a woman. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever met. I was living in my master's training center, training vigorously every day in an attempt to become the best fighter I could be. I was his most dedicated student, and I never took my eyes off of training for anything, always keeping focused on my goal. Then, one day, I heard that my rival, Shen," and Krillin clicked his tongue in distaste, "had found a woman in the next town over who was very attractive. Naturally, I went over there to check her out, and it was love at first sight. She had a skinny waist, hips, and even purple hair! I decided that I'd court her-"
"Does court mean to watch somebody taking a bath?" Goku immediately asked, confused as Yamcha and Krillin laughed. He remembered going back in time during Mr. Popo's training and spending a day with the younger Master Roshi, and the mention of purple hair immediately made him realize that this was Fanfan he was talking about. The only thing that he had ever seen the young fighter do was watch the woman bathe herself, though this apparently had been a bad question.
"Of course it doesn't mean that!" he exclaimed angrily, glowering at this mention. He had no idea of where Goku would have picked up such a definition - surely Kami hadn't told him that, of all entities! He managed to recompose himself before explaining indignantly, "To court means to date them, to see if they like you back. And sure enough, I thought I'd won the jackpot!
"She let me do little things for her at first after seeing just how nice I was. You see, I'd go around training the local boys, showing them some of the suave moves I'd picked up-" Goku cocked an eyebrow at this lie, recalling that it had been him who had been showing up the young master "-while training under my master. Then, after sending the little bugger away-" and Goku could only scratch his temple in confusion "-I would pick flowers and give'em to her, being the romantic guy I am."
Before Goku could object to this testimony, Krillin snorted, "Romantic, Master Roshi? I'll believe it when I see it."
"Yeah," Yamcha added, allowing a smirk to pull through his grimace with the fading pain. "Your idea of romantic is to watch workout tapes all day with women doing stretches on your big screen." And with that remark, he found another spot of pain on the back of his head as Roshi's cane swiftly made contact with it.
"Hush up, you two," he said, letting Krillin off of the hook for now. He paid no mind to the surprised Goku as he plowed on, "I was, and am, very romantic. I know how to show a lady a good time or two." He heckled slightly, leaving Krillin to contort his noseless face with disgust. "Anyways, I even managed to save her a couple of times from danger. That Shen was always up to no good, and he kidnapped her once! But I was there to save the day, and when one of the little annoying kids that tagged along with me all day was caught in a fiery blaze that fool had concocted, I managed to use my Kamehameha to put it out!"
By now, Goku was too flabbergasted for words. He only stared at the turtle hermit and remembered that he had been the one to put out the flame, not his master. He had ultimately rescued the both of them and Fanfan, who was tied up to a tree with a knife held to her throat. But before he could clarify matters, his eye caught sight of something far more pressing, and within a flash he had disappeared from the small gathering.
Puar and the two young fighters glanced around, wondering where the man had disappeared off to, but Roshi didn't seem to notice. He shut his eyes beneath those large, red-rimmed sunglasses after pushing them up his crooked nose. Then he took the black fedora off of his head and rested it in his lap, leaning back as he wiped his shiny forehead with a handkerchief from his breast pocket. It suddenly occurred to him that it was hot out on this particular day, the morning having passed into the afternoon. He mused on this as Krillin asked, "Where'd Goku go?"
"I dunno," Yamcha replied, rubbing his head where a new wound had been freshly inflicted upon him. "He just kinda disappeared, I guess."
"But why?"
"Maybe he needed to go to the restroom," Puar piped up from behind Yamcha's shoulder.
Before Krillin could retort to that response, a smug look dawned on Yamcha's face that matched his growing grin. "Restroom? Yeah right," he laughed, feeling a laughter build in his throat. "It's more like him trying to meet up with that chick. I mean, who wouldn't? With all of this talk of women, I bet that's where he disappeared off to."
"Goku?" Krillin asked uncertainly, furrowing his shiny forehead with confusion. It wasn't as though his friend had ever shown interest in women before, but he had changed a lot since he had last seen him. First of all, he he grown at least a foot and a half taller, something he'd noticed Bulma admiring. Secondly, he wasn't as goofy anymore, sometimes getting that serious glint in his eyes but never revealing just what was bothering him. And lastly, he had become an even better fighter! What the young man had thought impossible seemed to be possible for his friend, it seemed.
"Yeah, that had to be it!" Yamcha exclaimed excitedly, forgetting his own pain once again to clench his fists into balls. "Just think about it! Our little Goku's gonna have his own girlfriend soon!"
Krillin had difficulty containing a burst of jealousy that split his insides for a brief moment, wondering just why a random girl would go after the man who hadn't even been able to differ the two genders just a few years before. Was it the factor of height? Or was it hair? Krillin, who had enjoyed the girlish magazines at the Kame House almost as much as the owner himself, had never gotten so much as a second glance from a woman. How was it fair that the clueless hero should receive the attention he longed for?
And his squirmish innards weren't helped as he noticed Bulma appear from the crowd and clasp her manicured hand on Yamcha's shoulder, tugging him back before he could utter another word on the subject. "Where have you been?" she asked angrily, ignoring Puar who was glaring at the woman with distrust.
"Just chatting with the guys," Yamcha assured her, his hands out defensively as he faced his girlfriend. Bulma, however, remained unconvinced.
"'Just chatting with the guys?'" she inquired haughtily, turning towards Master Roshi, who seemed to be dozing off on the bench. "What are you doing with this perv right here? He's as bad as you are, looking at girls all day!"
"I heard that," escaped from Roshi's tired lips, chapped with the sun's heat. He blinked his eyes open but was forced to close them again after catching the glare off of Krillin's bald head.
Yamcha, however, ignored his comment to defend himself, "I swear, Bulma, that we weren't looking at anybody! We were just chatting!"
"About girls?" she assumed, and when she received no reply, her lungs swelled with fury. She lunged forth and grabbed her boyfriend by the ear, muttering, "You're coming with me, Yamcha, where I can keep a close eye on you. And we're not going to stay around here all day with this perv who just wants to sit around like a lazy oaf!" She's completely forgotten Krillin, who was left to watch the odd pair hobble off, Puar flying frantically about in an effort to keep Bulma from tearing the man's ear off.
Krillin should have been relieved to have been dateless when he heard Yamcha's embarrassed yelp of, "Bulma! Let go of me!" but he felt far from it. It only made him wish that there was somebody who cared about him enough to look at him for long enough to yell in his face, who cared enough pull him away from trouble by his ears. But here he was, alone.
He sighed, not realizing that the turtle hermit was scrutinizing him through squinted eyes, trying not to catch the full effect of the sun on his shiny head. Thus, Krillin was surprised when Roshi asked, "You want a girlfriend, now, dontcha?
The poor man didn't reply as he bit his lip, not even registering his master's words as he sulked in the misery left behind after the jealousy had dried up. He sat hunched with his hands on his legs and looked none the part of the sarcastically amused fighter he usually was. The two sat in silence, Roshi keeping his eyes on the other, Krillin simply turning his eyes upon the ground, as they both contemplated over what to do of this situation. And finally, Krillin's voice cracked, "Why don't girls pay attention to me, Master Roshi?"
He lifted his head to face his master, whose expression was vacant save for those furrowed eyebrows beneath the lenses of the large pair of sunglasses. He twisted his mouth into a frown as he glanced up at the blue sky, wondering what in Kami's name to tell the boy. Was he supposed to admit that nobody ran for bald, noseless midgets when there were handsome turtle hermits to be won? No, no. He simply couldn't bring himself to say that to the boy, possibly taking the little confidence he already possessed. But what?
With his teeth tugging on his lower lip anxiously, feeling as though he needed to comfort the boy when his spirits were so low, he sat up straight and started, "Look, Krillin. The reason why you don't have women out there, trying to date you, is... is..." and his eyes brightened as an idea sparked in his old cranium, and so he continued more enthusiastically, "it's because you don't put yourself out there. You need to let them realize that you're a single man, looking for a date!"
"Really?" Krillin asked, looking in slight wonder towards his master. His mood had lifted so quickly that it caught him off-guard, though he couldn't help but hope that the turtle hermit was right.
"Really!" he said, placing his wooden staff firmly on the stone ground again, though only resting one hand on it as he place the other to his bony knee. "All you have to do is follow the rules of... of the Turtle School of Lurve!"
"The Turtle School of Love?"
"No, boy!" he heckled, slapping his knee and feeling rejuvenated. Then he said in a louder voice, "Turtle School of Luuuurve!"
Krillin could only blink as he straightened his posture, watching his master's face intently. He raised his eyebrows with surprise and asked fearfully, "What's that, Master?"
By now, Roshi was laughing loudly, and Krillin immediately suspected that the heat of the day had finally cracked the man. "I'll show you how to be a man! I'll show you all the ropes you have to follow to get to the ladies!" he promised as he leapt up to his feet, an energy from his youth coursing through his aged veins. It was about time he proved his worth with women, considering how little faith his own pupils seemed to have in his abilities.
"There isn't gonna be one girl who can keep their hands off of you once I'm done!" Roshi cackled, at which Krillin found his cheeks stained a deep red. "We're gonna get you some snazzy, new threads, a pair of shades, some new shoes..."
And at this point, Goku had chosen to appear again. Against Yamcha's many hopes, he hadn't left to chase after that mysterious girl who constantly bombarded him with threats and glares - instead, he had gone to keep an eye on the mysterious, green man, the one who could be none other than King Piccolo's son. But after chasing down the alien who seemed to dissolve into the vast crowd, he had given up and headed back to this spot.
"What's Master Roshi talking about?" he asked, blinking as Krillin flinched with surprise.
But Goku was the one to jump back with surprise as his bald friend latched on to the front of his gi desperately. "Please take me away from here! I'm not ready to be subjected to Master Roshi's torture! I don't even want a girlfriend yet! I'm too young to die!"
"S-sure, Krillin," he stammered, backing off as the man released him. He cocked his head and stared at Roshi for a moment longer, who was rambling on about how to hold one's self to attract women. He had no idea of what his master was really talking about, and so he only shrugged and shook his head. Then, with a nod to the other man his age, the shorter of them crept off without the turtle hermit even noticing, as absorbed in his own lecture as he was. Goku stood his ground though and watched, in slight awe by how caught up his master was in this whirl of excitement.
"...isn't much that a woman doesn't enjoy at my touch! They like to have a little lovin' with words, and they just go nuts when you greet'em with a little squeeze!" So blinded by his own enthusiasm, he jumped around and immediately grasped for a woman to demonstrate with. And he released a yelp of appreciation as he spun around, though his enjoyment was extremely short-lived.
There was silence as the thin crowd watched in disgust, and finally Goku said, "That feels weird, Master." And the glare was so great on Roshi's sunglasses that he let them slide down his crooked nose, those unprotected eyes of his surprised to see his student standing above him, his eyebrows cocked as though with interest. And Roshi's uncertain grin slipped into an expression of horror as he looked down to see that he had grabbed his student by his privates.
The scream released by the turtle hermit was so great that the announcer preparing the ring for the final matches lifted his blond head up. He readjusted the dark sunglasses sitting on his nose and glanced around warily in wonder of who exactly could yell that loudly. He finally turned to a green contestant leaning coolly against the brick wall.
"What was that?" he dared to ask, staring at the odd, green man with a turban perched on his head. But he only shook his head in reply, not taking his pupils off of the dusty surface of the Earth.
"It's my relief that I'm asexual."