It didn't seem right! It certainly wasn't fair! He gets brought back to life and his girlfriend is housing the guy who got him killed?! Talk about a low blow! He knew Bulma could take things personally but he never thought she would go to such an extreme to get back at him for dying. He had given his all in that fight! He had! And after he died, he had even opted to train in the afterlife under Kaioh-sama and gotten even stronger and for what? For his girlfriend to house the psychopath who killed him! It wasn't fair or right!
Vegeta ought to have remained dead after Freeza killed him! He was evil through and through as far as Yamucha was concerned. Why he got to come back to life, what Son Goku saw in him was beyond Yamucha's understanding!
Though Yamucha knew that they desperately needed the bastard on their side if they were even going to hope of defeating the Artificial Humans. Son Goku's power was immense, but the Saiyans were really something else when they teamed up together...if they teamed up together.
Vegeta's superior-than-you-peasants attitude was royally beginning to irk Yamucha, every pun intended. Bulma just bantered his japes at her back with the kind of foxy sharp wit that she used to flirt with Yamucha with back in their younger days. And to make it worse, her and Vegeta's verbal crossfire was beginning to become laced with more and more (sexy) double entendres!
The thought that she could purposely be doing this with Vegeta because she wanted to make Yamucha jealous crossed Yamucha's mind nearly every time this happened, which was pretty much anytime the psycho and Yamucha's blue-haired beauty were in the same room. Yamucha could feel the sexual tension from both of them as if it were Ki leaking from an untrained body. Which it kind of was, in a sense (ew!).
Yamucha wasn't used to someone else being the bad-but-pretty-boy — that was his role! Yet Vegeta wasn't just a bad-boy with good looks; Vegeta took that to a whole other extreme, much like everything else about him, his power-level included. Vegeta was technically royalty for starters — trumps Yamucha's genes for sure — not to mention an alien (double trump). Then there was the obvious power level difference; Yamucha was gifted for a human but Vegeta was that much more gifted for an alien of his race. And then there was also the gut-wrenching fact that the psychopath probably had way more experience with women than Yamucha (who did pride himself on his experience) because of all the alien ladies he had access to and so he could probably show Bulma a hell of a lot better time in the sack than Yamucha had been!
To put it simply, Yamucha felt utterly trumped by that little angry alien.
Admitting it didn't make it any easier to digest, though.
Especially because he and Bulma had so much history!
But because of that, everyone was expecting him to go to the next level with her — marriage (ugh!) and then kids (barf!) — but how was any of that fun? Yamucha was all about spontaneous fun — his upbringing in the desert certainly still influenced him and so the idea of settling down, tying himself down, just didn't sit well at all, especially after having died and having seen himself and all that trippy stuff; no, he now knew that he was a "go where the wind blows" type. He really had surprised himself with this long-term thing with Bulma.
Yet, he didn't want to let her go. He still wanted her all to himself — it was nice having someone to fall back on, who was always there for you, who wanted you, you, you.
Yamucha didn't think he was a monogamous creature. Hell, after dying, he knew he wasn't a monogamous creature! So why did Bulma wanting to get it on with another guy make him so jealous?
...because she's all yours now and sharing her is different than sharing yourself...not to mention the obvious one-up upgrade in my face...how could she fall for that psychopath?!
There couldn't be much depth to him, could there? The guy was a cold-blooded killer! And he was so short! He wasn't much taller than Bulma! Although that did give him an advantage in combat as everyone else had to make themselves smaller to adjust— his opponents were forced to stoop to his level.
Not that Vegeta could be packing much down below, being so short...though what did he, Yamucha, know about other guys' physiques? It was hard to tell what the guy was packing just by looking (like he wanted to anyway, gross!), but the psycho certainly seemed comfortable with himself parading around in next to nothing like he owned Capsule Corporation.
That irked Yamucha most of all, the way Vegeta acted as if all of this — Bulma, her house, her amenities, her food, her gravity room — was for him. He was the king and this was his kingdom.
A wrenching in his gut faintly reminded him that it was already so.
Just watching Bulma behave around Vegeta...watching Bulma behave ever since she met Vegeta said everything — she was totally enamoured with the murdering Saiyan! But not just enamoured, no, Bulma Briefs' was ready to give her everything to this psychopath from outer space. Yamucha could see it, clear as the sun, clear as the day and he was feeling left in the dust.
He supposed that maybe he himself had ruined his chances of something more with Bulma Briefs...but Yamucha was a desert creature, and he reminded himself: he goes where the wind blows.
Yet like a ship trapped at sea, he had all his sails out but there wasn't even a whisper of wind.
The squirming, sinking feeling that had been brewing in Yamucha's stomach these past few months suddenly intensified as the spaceship landed in the front yard of Capsule Corporation that morning.
Yamucha had secretly been waiting for this day.
He knew the psychopath was going to return one of these days - the alien had been living under Yamucha's girlfriend's roof all the long months Yamucha had remained dead and the very day that Yamucha was brought back to life Vegeta had taken off in a spaceship. Yamucha had attempted to pick up the relationship where he and Bulma left off, but something had changed in Bulma.
And not just her stupid up-do.
Is it cheating if I was dead? his suspicious mind kept asking himself.
Fueled by this mental fire, Yamucha leapt up from the table he had been sitting at and dashed to the front lawn. He was ready for this confrontation! He was going to show that alien killer just who Bulma wanted around!
The spaceship's door hissed open and out leapt Vegeta in all his scowling glory with his armor cracked and tattered — the visible signs of whatever training he had undergone while away. Despite his short stature, his auric field was large and radiated out menacingly — the familiar Ki sent shivers up and down Yamucha's spine but he held his ground and adopted a fighting stance as Vegeta stood glaring with his arms crossed.
"What do you think you're doing here?! If you know what's good for you, you'd best be gone!"
Yamucha noticed his words elicited no response, not even a scoff from Vegeta. The psycho continued to stare off with his arms crossed and that was when Yamucha noticed Bulma marching slowly but confidently towards the both of them. "I don't take orders from insects," Vegeta sneered. Yamucha opened his mouth to say something in retort but never got the chance because his mouth was left hanging open in a mixture of shock and horror:
Bulma had marched right past Yamucha and up to Vegeta. She clucked her tongue and swiped a manicured finger over Vegeta's chest armor and squinted her eyes, looking nearly as menacing as Vegeta. "Absolutely filthy!" she said. "What kind of a guest shows up like this? Well, there's nothing to it — into the shower with you!"
Vegeta's micro expression of shock mirrored what Yamucha felt but the feeling lingered in Yamucha. Vegeta's expression seemed more relieved now — Yamucha could not mistake any of this! What is going on?! he thought, staring wide-eyed.
Bulma was marching away, her dirty finger pointing out, pointing the way. As Vegeta had not yet moved, she stopped and turned around. "And now you're keeping a lady waiting! How rude!" Her eyes flashed as she frowned.
Yamucha caught that micro expression of shock again and then Vegeta unfolded his arms and began to march after her, looking both perplexed and pleased and obviously at her swaying hips.
"Vegeta is at her beck and call!" announced an astonished Puarr who Yamucha now noticed was floating by his side. The accurate statement felt like a stab in the gut and Yamucha could only stare after the two marching figures as he was rooted to the spot in shock. He vaguely heard Bunny Briefs behind him exclaiming, "Oh! Vegeta-chan was the spaceship thief! Ah, I'm so happy Vegeta-chan is back with us! I will start preparing dinner right away!"
Yamucha felt as if he had stepped into another dimension. Vegeta-chan? Mrs. Briefs had never given him, Yamucha, such a nickname! Why did Vegeta get one?
That dark suspicion was creeping in his bones again and he was beginning to feel ill.
It's not like you've been completely monogamous with her, y'know! his brain said to him. But...but that was his girlfriend! And his girlfriend was trouncing off with his murderer!
Yamucha clenched his fists.
He decided to take a breath. And then he flew over to sit with Kuririn. He waited.
Is it cheating if I was dead? his brain asked himself again.
"I was convinced it was Son Goku!" the small monk said, folding his arms behind his head. "I didn't think Vegeta would ever show up again...to be honest, well, I had hoped." Kuririn stared off into the sky for a beat and then let his seat fall forward as he snapped his fingers. "Ah well! Looks like Bulma's got things handled, as usual!"
They could hear her in the hallway yelling to Vegeta about soap. She came out to where they were on the balcony and began cooking and serving those around her, but she kept yelling at the irate Saiyan in the bathroom down the hallway.
How can the others not see this blatant flirtation?! Yamucha narrowed his eyes at his comrades around him: a pig, whatever Puarr was, and a very hungry monk. Like he'd get an answer from them.
A little voice that sounded suspiciously like Puarr's piped up in his head and said, You know it's because Bulma's always been the biggest flirt! Especially when any scent of danger was in the room!
He ate into the barbecued food ferociously, swallowing it down along with the instinct to protect a woman he cared about who kept giving him signals that she didn't want anything to do with him. He kept eating as everyone else was staring at her yelling at the psycho killer in the shower. This couldn't be leading anywhere good but all he could do was sit back and watch the wind finally pick up.
And pick up it did — in fact, it turned into a whirlwind.
Granted, he had known about it, but seeing with his own two eyes up close and personal that Bulma Briefs had a baby was a whole other level of bizarre. Especially knowing that it was Vegeta's baby as well.
It wasn't as if he were jealous of the baby itself, no, more like there was the freaking proof that Bulma and Vegeta were fucking.
Or had been.
To Yamucha's current understanding, Vegeta had been absent for months training someplace, leaving Bulma alone with their stupid glaring baby.
What did she expect from a cold-blooded killer, pointy-haired alien psychopath?
Did she really expect Vegeta to do what Yamucha could not? (Step up to the plate! Hey, batter batter batter! Swing and a miss!)
Though some instinct told Yamucha that Bulma had not outright planned her baby.
In any case it was obvious Vegeta had not.
Though Yamucha had to admit that he hadn't seen Bulma this happy and vibrant in a long while. If anything, he was glad of that — her joy reemerged. But now she was stuck with some angry alien psychopath's baby!
Though she didn't look or act stuck or like her life was put on hold. Here she was with all the assembled fighters waiting to see the Artificial Humans with her gadgets and her spunk...and her baby.
And, although it pained his heart somewhat to admit it, it all just seemed right, Bulma and her baby. Bulma and her half-alien baby.
Is this really what she wanted? A half-alien baby with super strength and crazy power? He supposed that Bulma's oldest friend was Son Goku, who was, like Vegeta, a Saiyan.
There was now only a battle that lay between him and this knowledge. Guess he would find out once the wind died down and after the dust settled.
The wind, as it does, kept on blowing. Especially when it was windy and one was in a helicopter. It was another thing altogether when the winds were due to a fantastic force of energy unleashing itself upon another, immenser force of energy while one was flying said helicopter, but that was neither here nor there. What was there had disappeared and what was here had just told of its disappearance.
And granted, Bulma was loud in general, but Yamucha had never heard something quite so painful to his ears (nor his heart — ouch!) as the anguished sound that she made after Goku told her of Vegeta's death.
The whole way to Kami-sama's palace Yamucha had noticed the way she was holding in her distress — had she picked that trait up from Vegeta? He remembered thinking he didn't know her at all as he stole glances at her seated co-pilot next to him. She had been with Vegeta now for almost as long as she had been with Yamucha. That was weird to think about.
Even weirder was watching Bulma break down in total heartbroken grief — she was temperamental by nature but her great sorrows were relatively private; until now.
Maybe he had convinced himself somewhere along the way that the relationship his ex had began with this alien was just superficial, a fling, lust-fueled. He never felt more wrong in his life, listening to that sound coming from Bulma. Yamucha swore her heart was bursting, would explode over them all, and so he grabbed Bulma's arms to try and steady her — Yamucha could feel the denial and the heartbreak warring within her and so he held fast to her arms. But really he was steadying himself because at any moment that sound was going to come whooshing through him to topple him over and blow him far, far away.
Was this what she sounded like when I died? he wondered, but with little resolution in it.
He was afraid she might collapse but he didn't want to embrace her (she wouldn't have let him and he didn't know her anymore) so he kept holding her shoulders up, just offering the vertical support to maybe help her regain her composure.
Like a gentle breeze, he vaguely wondered if her cries would wake Trunks and Goten. And then, as if a sudden gust had shaken the low-hanging branches off the trees of his mind, he wondered how her son would take the news of his father's death.
Little annoying brat though he was, everyone could see how deeply Trunks adored his father (the little brat practically wanted to be his old man! yowee!); the news could very well crush the little tyke! Yamucha had always thought that the little twerp's ego could be taken down a notch or two (as could Vegeta's but that was a lost cause, am I right guys?) but Yamucha had never wanted it to happen with such an enormously grave event.
There was no coming back a second time with the Earth Dragonballs.
Some little bird in the foliage of his mind piped up with the notion that he could take back his place at Bulma's side...
...but that was utterly ridiculous, of course — he didn't want to raise Vegeta's brat and the kid would certainly give him hell!
Not to mention that Bulma probably wouldn't go for an idea like that in the slightest...
...nope! Yup! She was still sobbing stiffly in front of him.
Yamucha certainly was happiest where he was! He had everything he needed, could want for — he was a free man whose responsibilities were his own!
So why did finally learning to ride the wind feel like cabin fever?
The funny thing about mastery is that they say it's within limitation...so wouldn't that mean that the more you limit yourself the more there is to learn?
While the latter half of that might only be true for aliens like Saiyans, the first half was in fact a human adage and so it was very human to say that in limiting himself to baseball, Yamucha had mastered his own form of martial arts.
So the least that his friend and multi-time savior of the world Son Goku could do was to try and actually play the damn game, but no Goku and his friend Vegeta had to get into some sort of pissing contest and play some sort of crazy alien version of baseball that devolved into fisticuffs like they always do...it's like why is he even surprised at this point?
The one good thing that came out of trying to teach those bumbling bench-pressers such a sophisticated game was Bulma showing up and cheering him on — it was just so out of the blue but so sincere (aww!). But what made it even better was that he didn't get all blushy and twitterpated like he usually would (no he waited until he was home for that!). And for that, he got some weird nodding smirk of approval from her jerk of a husband (and one-time savior of planet earth but that only neutralizes his original intent to blow it up, thus making him a neutral guy, not a good one; like yes there's a system here ok?!). But that in and of itself felt...good. Weird. But, good. Like, instead of a bug, he had finally been acknowledged as once having been something of importance in the life of someone they both cared deeply for.
But, like everything in the mad Prince's eyes, the Saiyan saw it as a challenge. And before you could even say, "Damn it Son Goku stop getting the Earth caught in the crossfire when you're looking for super strong guys to get into fights with!" Bulma had her second alien baby.
Like you'd think one hybrid kid plus one Vegeta was enough but Yamucha was as fat as Yajirobe if Bulma was anything if not extremely over-the-top dramatic in everything she did.
Of course, like a good friend, he came over to meet the baby — a little girl. A little girl that looked just like Bulma but with this little pointy, very Vegeta-like, but never-the-less adorable tuft of blue hair sticking right out of the top of her tiny head.
Did he mention how overly-dramatic Bulma was? Like could she have had a more ridiculously adorable baby? He supposed it was even-stevens now, what with Trunks practically looking like a mini-Vegeta and this new baby being Bulma's clone. She must know how damn cute that thing is — look at her, sitting there all smug as a bug in a rug! But Yamucha also couldn't help but think how beautiful and how utterly happy she looked.
Or was that her devilish smile? Yup! So it was! Because — oh Kami-sama — now he was being handed a baby. Like, yo, he had never held a baby before and even though the Dragon Balls could bring people back from the dead more than twice now, he still didn't feel like being murdered by the same psychopath who had murdered him before due to Yamucha dropping the guy's new baby all because Yamucha didn't know how to hold a damn baby!
And to make matters worse, the cute little bundle suddenly showed that it was in fact a spawn of Vegeta's and started making this evil wailing. Yamucha was proud of himself that he didn't drop the baby but was not proud of the fact that he nearly did so when Vegeta, standing a bit ahead of them, powered up into Super Saiyan Blue.
"Vegeta? What's the matter? Is there an enemy nearby?" said Goku, who was shielding his eyes against the sun and looking around the horizon line.
But Vegeta simply powered down and stepped quickly over to Yamucha's side.
"Give her here, you obviously don't know what you're doing!"
Yamucha didn't trust himself to move.
A warm, gentle breeze drifted between them as his long-ago murderer lifted the little wailing bundle out of Yamucha's hands and Yamucha sighed in relief. And a peace settled over him at the same time it settled over the daughter in Vegeta's arms.
As Trunks ran smiling up to a stoically pleased Vegeta and giggling little baby, Yamucha turned around. He caught Bulma's eye through her brightly beaming face. That pleasant breeze sighed by again. He smiled at her.
And was the first to toast his dear friend's second baby.
The wind meandered through the trees — some as gnarled as time, some bright-green new — and even though the Earth was at stake once again, at least for now, Yamucha felt that everything was fairly right with the world.