I hear the birds on the summer breeze
I drive fast, I am alone in midnight
Been trying hard not to get into trouble
But I, I've got a war in my mind
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Everything begins and everything ends. This, the mess, starts in May with a pair of big black eyes staring at her from a very close distance.
There is something unspoken in the way they slowly widen in what is, unmistakably, pure and unconcealed wonder and she tries to hold that stare, blinking and blinking dumbly, not knowing what to think of the young man (who once was a chubby monkey boy) standing tall before her. She sees, by the way he reaches with one hand to touch her painted lips, that there must be something strange in her own eyes as well – and decides to end that unspoken something by slapping the hand away.
The bubble bursts, but curiosity had settled in fast.
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Her eyes follow him around the ring, entranced.
This is not the first time she's watched him fight, but it feels like it is – during that twenty-third edition of the Tenkaichi Budokai, she discovers she likes watching him move. And how can she not? He is a true force of nature, light but imposing, powerful but in control. It's marvel and delight, like watching fireworks – and she feels adrenaline pumping through her veins as she observes the way he spins and jumps and bends; and his angular features, and the full mouth curved in a cocky smile, then the wide shoulders; and the muscles, tight and sleek under the pale skin.
Of course he wins the tournament and, as a result, saves them all; and she convinces herself, now more than ever, that he's a creature apart, not of the sky, not of the earth. Her hands are itching to reach and touch him, see if he's real – if he would touch back. The thought sounds preposterous, but then she remembers his eyes glued on her lips and tells herself that yes, he would. Maybe he would.
Then he flies away with the other girl.
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The next time she sees him, he has a sickeningly cute four-year-old son and she genuinely wonders if she's crashed her car and is in a coma, dreaming the whole thing up.
He smells like the forest and the ocean, all at once. His smile is warm and forthcoming when his eyes trail on her face like he was never gone for five years. They're dark but inviting, like newly tilled earth.
"Pretty wild, huh?"
She considers his choice of words – wild is the understatement of the year. But still, she crouches and greets the little boy the way a long-lost aunt would and when she straightens, she deliberately ignores the amused if slightly surprised look the father is sending her direction.
The funny thing is that the big revelation that comes only moments later – that she was right all along in never trying to label him, not in any way the Earth could understand – and the madness that ensues are almost nothing compared to the bombshell that is Son Goku: family man extraordinaire.
None of that is actually funny, though.
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On planet Namek the grass is blue, the sky is green, the heat merciless and they are waiting for Goku, as you do.
There is not an aspect of that mission that isn't turning into a gigantic fiasco and Krillin and Gohan must be thinking they're the dynamic duo or something, because they leave her on her own once again – but she's too pissed to be scared and too hot. (and in her heart of hearts she knows that, come hell or high waters, he'll make everything okay.)
So she falls on her back on the dry grass and lets her eyes adjust to the unforgiving light of the three suns – she sighs and pretends she's sunbathing by the pool of Capsule Corp. while the clouds move slowly above her head.
That cloud has the shape of his hair.
Bulma gasps softly.
Something hits her with scorching clarity – she does want him. But she wants him in the most ruthless and terrifying way, that makes everything else fade into transparency and it should be unacceptable for her; but while she stares at the cloud she thinks she doesn't care if she'll go to hell – she would gladly sell her soul to the devil if that means she can thread her fingers through the black hair of the ex-monkey boy once, just once and his fingers, god–
It's a desire that burns her to a cinder, that eats the marrow of her bones.
She wants to know how they feel up her back, over her spine should he pull her closer; the muscles of her thighs tighten microscopically and her pulse gallops fast and thin in her throat as she imagines Goku's hand sliding down her belly, brushing on her skin until he lets it slip under the elastic of her panties–
And his weight on top of her; and his sweat onto her.
The three suns keep pounding on her head and she suddenly remembers that there is someone who doesn't have to wonder what it's like to make love to him.
Her stomach churns – she feels sick. Jealousy is coiling beneath her ribcage like a rattlesnake, it cuts off her breathing – so much she thinks she's going to die from it when the most magnificent notion flashes in her fading brain: it could be Chi-Chi who could die. People died all the time, all over the world, for every each reason. Chi-Chi could very easily die and set Goku free.
"I guess that would make me really selfish," she says out loud, bursting into a lunatic wheezing giggle; but true remorse doesn't come to her until much later, when the second phase of heat exhaustion sets in and she vomits in the toilet bowl of the Capsule house, cursing Son Goku – and him alone – for having the guts of making her dream of him and for trying to turn her into such a despicable being.
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She thinks she can forgive him when he doesn't let her (and the universe) down and she makes it back to Earth all in one piece; she's too happy to hate anyone, much less someone that, in spite of everything, is making her heart swell with pride (and nothing else).
That nobody will ever know about her ludicrous, tridimensional daydream on planet Namek, well – that's just the cherry on top.
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Almost two years pass before they see each other again in the middle of a desolated nowhere that apparently is a very popular spot in more than one universe. He's there, but they're all there – and anyway there's too much going on, too much to think and talk about, so it doesn't count. It shouldn't count.
Bulma cocks her head to one side, taps her chin with a finger.
"A time machine?" she muses, her voice trailing off in fascination.
Only then, and by chance, she looks up and catches Goku's curious glance – he's smiling as he's looking at her, but the smile doesn't quite make it to his eyes, which is very odd. There's something in them very intent and calculating but, before she can dwell on this unprecedented occurrence – or on what she could possibly have done to put such an expression on his face – she starts to feel weird and uncomfortable and maybe she's being paranoid, but she cannot control the heat rising to her cheeks. He's making her feel undressed.
It's like the unraveling of a beautiful, outrageous secret for a moment. She tells herself she'd rather die than look down now so she raises her chin a little, daring him to look away first. When he does, immediately – it doesn't feel like a victory at all.
He's handsome in a new, more chiseled way than she remembers – she imagines cutting the tip of her index finger on his cheekbone and closes her hand in a fist. She narrows her eyes and examines his confident, wide open stance, the hands on his hips, the way the others talk to him and listen to him and laugh with him, surrounding him like satellites. There is something ineffable about him, an effortless magnetism in the way he bears himself; she can feel it too – in the little tug in her stomach, just behind her navel, begging her to get just a little bit closer.
"Have a healthy baby!" he says then as a goodbye, friendly and warm, but there is something calibrated in his voice; his black eyes are twinkling mischievously and Bulma has the distinct impression she's the brunt of a joke she has no hope of understanding; but it's too late to call his name and demand for an explanation so, once again, she just let him fly away. At her side, Yamcha is laughing faintly but she's fuming.
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She doesn't wait another bunch of years or for destiny – or for the end of the world or for whatever – to pull them back together like stubborn magnets.
His eyes are still burning all over her flesh and she is too pissed at him, too restless, so she finds him the next day thanks to Chi-Chi's directions (of all people).
She spots him lounging in the sun by one of the many streams of mount Paozu, fishing rod at his side, birds chirping all around. She marches towards him and he stands up like he knows exactly what's coming at him and he's right – but she doesn't waste any time being impressed at how easily he can read her even though they barely talk, even though they barely even saw each other during their supposed adulthood.
"Do you mind telling me," she roars without preamble when they're finally into each other's personal space, "what was that all about?"
"Huh?" he says, bringing a stupid arm to rub the stupid back of his neck and grinning, so good at feigning ignorance and innocence – but didn't he know? The charade is over, she's seen him; she too can read him now.
"Goku," she seethes, tight and bitter. "I swear to god, if you don't start talking right now–
"Bulma," he interrupts quickly. "We're friends, right?"
She rolls her eyes. "Don't remind me."
"You'll have to trust me on this," he says in his even-tempered, infuriating way. Something resembling an apologetic (sad?) smile stretches on his face. "I can't tell you."
Bulma's blood shoots to her head. "Why were you looking at me like that?"
"Like what?!"
"Just answer my questions!"
"No!"
There's a wild, frantic look in his eyes; Bulma tries to hold that gaze, but it's a second too long – she plunges and resurfaces.
"Go to hell!" she yells when it's clear he won't say what she's there to hear. She will never, ever admit that it feels for some reason like the breaking of a promise. He gulps and recoils and the rattlesnake in her chest slithers and hisses in satisfaction; she spares him one last look of contempt before turning on her heels and storming away, thinking that she wouldn't be surprised if, after that, they're really never going to see each other again.
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Everything begins and everything ends and somewhere along the lines she and Yamcha part ways with a tenuous goodbye kiss on the cheek before she starts having sex with Vegeta once, twice, one million of times.
A self-serving act from both parts, she knows – her nails linger and graze on the spot where the tail used to be and it's great fear and pleasure, all at once; and to the part of herself that absolutely craves the adrenaline that is enough – until one morning, when she has to pee on a plastic stick, already knowing the verdict in her guts and hoping for the first time in her life to be proven wrong.
When it doesn't happen – as if – she panics for a ferocious half an hour before dwindling down and deciding this is it.
Time to grow up.
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She buries it in some part of herself, the memory of those sparse glances, of the way they felt on her skin. She hides them underneath her clothes, beneath her heart.
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Three years and a different may day later, Bulma likes to think (though nobody really wants to fight her on this) she's a poised and well-adjusted mature woman – scientific genius, happy mother of Trunks.
She's a grown-up; the girl who used to ride on a motorbike in her pink nightgown is long-forgotten, she wants everybody to know this – and all the animosity toward him is blown over, but she doesn't know what she's setting herself up to when she introduces her infant son to her friends.
She can tell immediately, by his lack of surprise, that he already knew. But how – when she finally learns the truth, she shatters. She can't help it, she doesn't even know exactly why. She just thinks about Goku's eyes that day by the river and feels cheated; rejected and manipulated in the most merciless way – she can even hear the laughter and the rude comment in her mind, in his stupidly endearing country inflection:
"Well, duh! For a genius, you're pretty dumb."
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She doesn't know if she's supposed to thank him or to strangle him and the doubt alone is galling, enough to make her hate herself. The scientist in her guesses that's what you get for pushing boundaries like that.
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So she hates him – she decides.
Joy doesn't even begin to explain what she feels when news reaches her that he's pulled through that weird heart-virus incident; when she sees him up and alive and well she feels her heart stir and her skin crackle with goosebumps in a way she's familiar with but that still, after all those years, she hasn't been able to put into words – but she absolutely loathes him.
She hates the way he stands there on Kami's Lookout, all smiles and smirks and jokes and words of encouragement all around; the way his eyes don't seem to stay on her any more than necessary.
No, no – she thinks. Hate is too much. Too much effort for someone who, in his infinite wisdom, has made a lot of decisions without ever consulting with her. She feels a flash of guilt, and then of shame and then of anger because of course she loves Trunks so very much and of course now she knows she wouldn't have wanted history to have gone in any other different direction – but he is nothing to her regardless, much like she seems to be nothing to him, if not for the inexplicable, random and invisible thread that seems to bind them together since the beginning of time and then beyond, and then across it.
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He needs something.
That's the only reason he's there, she tells herself; this newest version of him, with the blond spiky hair and the loose slacks, the canvas trainers with the big white laces. He's sitting backward on one of the metal chairs of her lab, tinkering with the dragon radar, clumsily with his large hands, zooming in and out looking for the nearest dragon ball so he can start his quest.
She's just finished listening about how he convinced a little namekian child to become the new god of the Earth – and this new reason to always feel a little bit safer and warmer and like there's a little less to fear when he's around is making her eye twitch.
"You always get your way, don't you?" she says, trying to sound normal, trying to make it pass as one of those 'oh-you!' condescending remarks she's sure he's heard quite a number of times before (though never from her). She just cannot stomach the way he has everything and everyone wrapped around the finger.
"Nah," he says without looking up. "Not always."
Bulma's eyes narrow. She pulls a crisp white sheet over the shut-off form of Android 16 lying on the working table and lights a cigarette with a few flicks of her lighter, unable – as usual – to absorb his voice and then to feel at peace afterward. She exhales, leans against the counter behind her back and glares at him for a moment through the stream of smoke when a sudden thought crosses her mind.
"I was thinking," she begins, haughty as ever. "That a 'thank you' would be nice."
He's less than zero. She has nothing to fear from being alone talking to this man – the one she used to maybe want, maybe hate and maybe not and that now is finally looking at her with perplexed, glowing green eyes. (that ought to be unfamiliar, but they're not.)
...