I do not own DBZ!
Chapter One
It starts off as something relatively innocent.
Just a small streak of blush, when he walks in, just the tiniest feeling of a little puddle in her navel when his knuckles grace her fingers as he pushes a wrapped box in to her palms, just a smirk, the one that tilts towards the right, the one he always seems to wear.
"So, happy fifteen" He says, his voice just as deep and velvet, void of any emotions, with no subtle joy nestled in between those words.
Really, it shouldn't have made her all flushed, but then, the screaming gold of evening Sun decides to brush his face, and the blue of his eyes reminds her of a wild ocean and so she stutters a silent thanks and looks down before her eyes go all big with hearts.
"Ahem" Her mother chuckles or fake coughs (because her face seemed a bit too obvious and her so called 'cool' mom had to cover up) and so Bra shakes her head as if to move and pocket her thoughts to somewhere in to the back of the mind, a place that would be just hers, right next to all the other words that defines him. She even has a diary, where she pens her frustrations in black, adorations in glitters and bookmarks them with dog ears, so that she could always nudge those little sonnets in the wee hours of night.
Bra, may be the most beautiful girl on earth, with the hair that births azure and skin that rivals with porcelain and caramel, she is usually confident and has an air of smugness permanently etched, because, she knows she is beautiful and could literally own the world. But, she is also just like any other normal teenager, the one that crushes on someone so deep.
It was really a surprise though. She had never really met 17 before her tenth year, she had of course, known about his existence as 'the twin of 18', 'uncle of Marron', but no, she had never met him. He had dropped in one fine day, when she was having her 10th birthday bash in the gardens of Capsule Corp and everyone were equally shocked, tensed and a bit cautious, but then Marron had squeaked and hugged her uncle and it wasn't suddenly a big deal anymore.
They all cooed until Vegeta gagged.
Trunks and Goten kind of followed him around, teaming up with him to pull a prank, sparring when they had nothing else to do and cracking jokes about Krillin's hair. And, that was when she started noticing the way his hair curls a bit in the ends, the way his voice goes from velvety to satin often and the way his eyes just shine like the sapphires from Tiffany, like a jewel of Earth that is hidden in his iris, so that it could always be safe, existing only to make her go fifty shades of tomato.
Yep, it was in the tenth year that she realized the she was crushing on her best friend's uncle. And no, it didn't sound gross. It was crush at first sight. (It's a thing!)
So, it takes everything for Bra to be composed and smile on her 15th Birthday when 17 had strolled in gracefully, because, her father seems to be near her and she knew that he is aligned to her every reaction. Her mother, had of course, possessed a talent in reading people and had found out that Bra was crushing hard, ages ago. Bulma had laughed out straight for fifteen minutes the day she had found out.
"Please let me be there when your father finds out. Gods, I just couldn't-" She started and continued laughing, until there were literal tears, causing Vegeta to snoop in to ask what was so hilarious. (Bra knew for a fact that he came running when he sniffed saline in the air, thinking that Bulma was crying her eyes out!, of course, he denied it, but then details!)
Her father would kill him and then obviously would ground her, until she is like 80. Thank you very much, but she didn't want to have a lonely life and die.
So.
She keeps a straight face when her mother chuckles and when her father looks over his shoulder.
And then there is stupid Goten, who had to make things obvious.
"Hey Bra, why are you all flushed" He asks, genuinely concerned and Vegeta comes closer, looking for some kind of an answer.
"Nothing, pig head" she mutters before offering him a cake to shut his mouth, which, he accepts with a smile that threatens to blind the whole of the world, because, Goten is like that, the bundle of Sunshine, the one who even once made Vegeta to smile. She could never hold a grudge against him, not in million years, but she really does wish she could smack his head for being a bit oblivious and annoying.
So, it's not a big deal that she lost her smugness and sassiness when 17 arrived, stealing her breath away and shining under the skies and heaven.
Maybe Bra should stop reading poems.
Maybe Bra should stop being unreasonable and stop crushing on an older man even though he doesn't look like a day older than 17 (Hah!).
But then, Bra had always been a little over the board and so she sneaks a final glance towards the silent one lounging on the grass with her brother, before hiding her face with more cake, calories be damned, she can always work out later when the world sleeps among the morning dews. Right now, she needs a distraction, something, anything, that would take her mind away from the black haired being who gifted her the smallest of teddy attached on a key chain and she already knows that she would have them snuggled under her pillows.
~.~.~.~
"Daddyyy" She whines and pouts, her lower lip sticking out, just the way that would melt Vegeta's heart.
"Fine, fine. Yes, I have got another gift for you, apart from the training gears" he gruffs and gets a hug in return with a shriek. He rolls his eyes, faking an annoyed sigh, but then he bends down, just a bit, whispering to her those little words that ends with 'princess'.
She beams, of course.
He tells her that the present is already in her bed and she could open it after dinner. And then, Goku comes in with a force, ruining the moment effectively, just because there is a talk involving food.
That's how her birthday evening ended up in a spar, Goku Vs her father, and then Goten and Trunks decides to pitch in. But then, a smile creeps in her face when she spots him sitting in the grass, among litters of little flowers and she knows she could paint him with the richest of colours and it would still not do any justice to the way he really is.
She makes a silent walk towards him, nestling down in the grass, not bothering about her pristine white jeans,(for the very first time in her life) just to make small talks with him.
"So, what are you doing here?" He asks, his eyes were still closed and the edge of his nose a bit too sharp that makes her wonder whether it is even possible to just touch his nose tip without being downright creepy.
"I'm bored" She huffs, which is a lie, because she gets to awe at him with no one noticing.
His lids fly open and he turns to her side, eyes gleaming, smirk and all.
'Gods! Even his lashes are sinfully pretty. I want to touch them.' she thinks before focusing on to his irises.
"Hm, the gifts aren't enough for the princess?" he mocks at her and her eyes narrow, because, she maybe head over heels for him, but no, she would never take any sorts of insults.
"I know I would be getting tons this evening, and it seems as if you are the one who is bored and lonely" She says, a hint of sassiness pairs in her words and all he does is to give an evil smirk.
It's just a smirk, something that should rattle her up, but then no, it ends up making the butterflies in her stomach to flutter, and she inhales again, hoping desperately that she didn't give any sort of Saiyan smell that would make her father and brother to dive in and lock her up in a dungeon.
She bites her lip and rolls her eyes, trying hard to pull a façade of indifference. It may have worked, because he goes back to closing his eyes and facing the sun, to soak up all the golden light that sinks in the sky and she may have drooled a bit before Pan tugged her hand for a spar.
So, yeah that happened.
She was extremely jealous of the Sun, the way those gold rays made love to his face.
'Good talk' she pats her back and strolls off with Pan before she could break in to a fit of rage.
"So, what's the deal with you having gooey eyes on 17?" Pan asks, out of nowhere and Bra may have shrieked a bit (she would absolutely deny it later) and looks around to make sure that no one got a whiff out of it, but then she does see the tingle of Piccolo's ears, the way he actually leans towards their direction from all those bushes in which he meditates.
"Piccolo, I'm not crushing on anyone. Okay?" Bra immediately hushes him in a hoarse whisper. She finally lets her breath out when she sees him nodding and flying off further away to give the young girls some place.
But then, Bra knew he could still hear the entire conversation even from the new position and is eavesdropping shamelessly.
At times like this, she really wish she could just be normal, with normal friends around her.
"Pan, I have no idea what you are talking about" She scowls at the thirteen year old and proceeds to take a stance against her.
"Fine" She says and drops the subject when she finally spots Piccolo. She mouths a 'Later' but then Bra just rolls her eyes to hide the traitorous blush that kiss her cheeks.
~.~.~.~
She hops around a bit, ignoring the sting in her legs, and hopes that her father wouldn't find about it.
"You lost the fight?" He asks. Of course, the fate is never on her side.
"Um" She nods, biting her lips. She could have won, it was all in her favors, but then, Trunks announced the pool ball game and bam, she just couldn't miss the little dream land of 17 taking his shirt off to jump in the water. She had gasped, drooled at the hard panes that tattooed his chest, the small scars that shimmered a bit and finally on the black ink that was inscribed on his back, something in a foreign language, something that denotes two words, and as always, she was hooked.
Of course, Pan had seen the opening and then, well things were no longer in her favor.
It honestly wasn't her mistake. But then, she could never tell her father that she was smitten with someone and so she pouts and hopes to the dear Gods that he would just drop it. He does, but not before he sniffs the air and raises his brow.
She crosses her legs when she sits in the chair, half hiding under the table, praying that she didn't give anything away.
Miraculously, Goku calls Vegeta for the game they were looking forward to and he flies away, leaving her to wonder why is she so smitten with the guy who had once attempted to kill her father.
So, she does one thing that she can, she crawls to her bed, finding a gift in bright pink, with stars and bows tied on top, the one that her father has got. She unwraps the shiny paper, to reveal the new set of oil paints, the one that comes with pastel and poster colours, the handpicked ones, the odd dyes that are too rare, the one that includes that hue of blue, not the dark one like the star dimpled sky, not the medium one like her father's suit, not even the one that resembles the colour of her hair, no, it is the brightest one, almost the essence of cornflower blue, the one she always uses just a smudge, because she needs just a drop, just to draw his eyes, and nothing less or more.
She nods off with the tint of blue in her finger tips and a splash of smile in her lips, a dull sense of content pooling in her navel when he clouds her dreams with all his smirks and curls, smiling under the pale sky and rainbows.
What she absolutely didn't expect is for her brother to walk in to her room, to call her for dinner, only to spot her drooling over what appears to be a portrait of 17, sitting in a meadow, with his eyes shining with purest of blue under the pilfered rays.
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A/N: Leave a comment : )
