Walking on broken glass

By: Burikko / Katie.G

I do not own Dragonball/Z/GT. This is strictly a fan fiction. I do not plan on making a profit out of this story.

Chapter 1: "Knock, knock. Who's there? Reality."

Yamcha sat silently, twirling his finger around the edge of his shot glass. Thoughts and regrets of the past raced through his mind. But no matter what he thought about, it always changed back to Bulma. The first love of his life. He remembered the wonderful times they use to have together. Especially when they first met. It was like they were joined at the hip, doing everything or anything for each other. But as they grew, they're relationships sort of just dissolved into pity. Bulma only being with him because she didn't like being alone and Yamcha wanting so badly to believe everything would work out.

Yamcha went away to go train for the arrival of the Androids. Yamcha made an effort to call Bulma, but she was either not there or busy doing something important. Leaving Bulma in the dark was the worse feeling he could have. After three months of being away, he decided to drop in and surprise her. But he's the one who got the surprise. As soon as he walked in the front door, his eyes got as big as dinner plates as he witnessed Bulmas and Vegetas first kiss. He could remember every detail of that moment if he was asked. What Bulma was wearing, how Vegeta held her so tenderly, and so on and so forth. It made his head hurt just thinking about it. He drowned himself in booze, trying to forget about it, but on the day of the Androids arrival, he couldn't deny it any longer. He arrived on top of a mountain with Tien, Gohan, and Goku, waiting for others to show up. As they waited, Bulma showed up, landing her aircraft. As soon as she got out, there in her arms was a bouncing baby boy.

Ever since that day, Yamcha tried so desperately to fill the hole in his heart with cheap booze and woman who went even cheaper. He was a wreck, but never really showed it in front of his friends. He normally would turn to Goku for advice and comfort, but he was finally gone for good. He somehow knew that it would happen like that. Goku always thought of others before he thought of himself. He was a great guy.

"Yamcha!"

Yamcha didn't bother to turn around. He just remained sitting, taking another shot out of his glass.

"Please don't ignore me, Yamcha! Come home."

"Puar, I told you I'd be home by 5:00pm. It's only," He paused to look at his watch, and realized it was already past 8:15pm.

"Yamcha…" Puar whimpered in a worriedly hushed tone. "Please come home..."

"Okay… I'm coming." Yamcha said under a sigh. He stood up, and almost immediately fell over, but quickly caught himself.

"Yamcha!" Puar gasped as she zoomed over to help him.

"I'm okay, I'm fine." Yamcha reassured her. He reached into his jacket and pulled out some money, laying it on the counter. "See you tomorrow, Frank."

"Sure thing." The bartender said, wiping down a shot glass.

"Yamcha. You have to stop this." Puar said to him, following behind him as he wobbled out the door.

"Stop what?" Yamcha snapped. "I'm fine. Let's just go home, okay? I don't want to hear about it."

"But Yamcha…"

"ENOUGH!" Yamcha shouted. His anger echoed in the empty streets, making him realize what he had just done. He finally looked to Puar, who had flattened her ears with tears in her eyes.

"Puar. I'm sorry, I'm just…"

"An angry old drunk." Puar said, finishing his sentence.

Yamcha looked at her with shock. Did she just say that? Puar? She never questioned his way of living…

"I'm going to Tiens. When you decide to let me help you, you'll know where to find me."

"Wait! Puar…! Wait just a minute!" Yamcha called out just as she began to turn around.

"I'm tired of waiting, Yamcha!" Puar shouted with tears in her voice. Her back remained turned to him, she refused to look at him.

A long and painful silence fell over them. Yamcha wanted so badly to say something, but he didn't know what to say that would make it better. Puar slowly began to float away, and she vanished in the darkness of the night. Yamcha's eyes slowly met the ground as he turned to the opposite direction and began to walk home. Things couldn't possibly get any worse…

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As soon as Yamcha walked through the doorway of his humble home, he collapsed on the sofa, face first and let out a long mournful sigh. He felt like he wanted to cry, but he was always taught that it was for the weak. He lifted his head and noticed a flash on his answering machine. He reached over and pressed the play button.

"You have one new message. First message, sent today at 7:32pm."

"Hey, Yamcha. This is Toshie, your baseball manager. Look, there is no easy way to say this… but I'm going to have to let you go. Unless you can get your act together, you can come by tomorrow to get your stuff. See you in the funny papers, kid."

"End of messages."

Yamcha laid silently on his sofa, staring at his answering machine. He wasn't surprised, and to be honest he couldn't possibly get hurt any more then he already was. He turned over to his side and closed his eyes, falling asleep almost immediately.

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"Hey, this is Yamcha."

"And this is Puar!"

"Leave us a message after the tone, and we'll get back to you as soon as we can."

"……Um, hello? Uh, I don't know if you remember me, but I don't really know who else to call…"

Yamcha slowly opened his eyes and glanced up at his clock. It was 10:00am. He grunted and slowly sat up and rubbed his head. He had a major hang over. It was like somebody was banging a drum inside of his head.

"I'm in trouble. I don't know what happened. I mean, I don't remember…"

Without much of a hurry, Yamcha slowly got up and scuffled to his phone and picked it up, putting it to his ear.

"Hello?" He mumbled.

"Yamcha!" The person on the other end seemed thrilled that he actually answered.

"Who is this?" He asked, checking the clock again.

"I'm sorry, where are my manners? It's me, Launch!"

"Launch?" Yamcha questioned. He paused to think where he heard that name before. Then it clicked. His eyes widened, now fully awake. "Whoa, Launch! It's been forever!"

"Oh, I know!" She chirped. "But…" She paused, as her voice got lower and more distressful. "I'm in trouble. I think my other half may have done something really bad. I'm in jail right now."

"Which one?"

"I don't know… I think it's the one downtown." Tears began to develop in her voice. "I'm really scared… I don't know what's going to happen to me."

"Calm down," Yamcha said in a soft voice, trying to sound as soothing as possible. "I'll come down and bail you out."

"No!" Launch shouted. "It's too much."

"It can't be that bad." Yamcha said, very sure of himself. "How much is it? Do you know?"

"500,000 dollars."

Yamcha's mouth dropped, dropping the phone to the floor. That's more then what he made in a whole year, and he was a baseball player! What did she do to piss off the judge so much to make her bail so high?

"Yamcha? Hello?"

Yamcha slowly picked up the phone, and cleared his throat. He went to say something, but his mouth got dry. 500,000! Was she pulling his leg?

"Yamcha! Please don't hang up!"

"No… I'm here. I'll be over there in a minute." He hung up the phone and let out a long and deep sigh. He only had half that much in his bank account. Where would he get the other half? Only one name came to mind. As much as he didn't want to ask for money, this would be an exception. He picked up his phone again and dialed a few numbers.

"Hello? Bulma?"

.:Author's Note:.

Hi everyone! This is Burikko, the one and only! I know neither Launch nor Yamcha are very popular characters, but please give this story a chance! I think it'll turn out pretty good, if I actually finish it. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make it better? Any comments would be appreciated! Thanks for reading!

Watch out for the second chapter.