Author's note: *...* signifies thought.

Vegeta's First Valentine's Day at Capsule Corp.

It started like any other day for Vegeta. He got up at five a.m., showered, dressed, raided the kitchen, and headed out to his training capsule. The only thing he noticed that was any different was that Bulma's parents were acting strangely and that he could sense Yamcha's ki heading towards him. Since Yamcha was no threat, Vegeta continued on as usual. He set the gravity enhancer to 200 times normal Earth gravity.

Bulma woke up around ten and glanced at her calendar. *How depressing,* she thought, *Valentine's Day and I don't have a boyfriend. What am I going to do?* Bulma got out of bed groggily and thought of solutions. *Yamcha's a playboy jerk that I don't want to associate myself with anymore. Who else is there? Tenshinhan's nice, but he's shy and sort of creepy, plus I don't want Lunch to find me and sneeze. Goku's taken, and Kuririn's too short. Vegeta's...wait, maybe Vegeta! I'll just have to figure out some plausible way. All right!* Bulma hopped up and down with pleasure as she brushed her teeth.

***

Yamcha thought as he flew to Capsule Corp. *How am I going to get Bulma to take me back? Hmm...she's always taken me back before. All I have to do is apologize.* Yamcha smiled as he thought of his answer.

"What are you thinking about, Yamcha?" Puar asked him.

"Oh, I just thought of how I'm going to get Bulma back. Angela just dumped me last night, so I don't have a date for tonight."

"I don't know. Bulma-san looked really mad the last time she kicked you out."

"Oh, I know, but if I apologize, I'm sure she'll take me back."

"I don't know, Yamcha," Puar insisted.

"Don't worry, Puar! I've got it under control," he said and sped up his flight.

***

*Hmm, how am I going to pull this off?* Bulma asked herself as she looked in the refrigerator for some lunch. *Man, Vegeta ate almost everything again. I guess I'll have to have a salad. That's the only thing he never eats.* It was then that Bulma noticed an unopened bottle of champagne. *Ooh, champagne. Perfect for my plan. Now what do I have to do before?*

Just then, Vegeta walked into the kitchen. It was obvious that he was hungry and ready for his noon meal. "Hey, woman, what's for lunch? I'm starving."

"Just a sec, Vegeta. It's kind of hard to get anything to eat when you empty the fridge at breakfast." A low growl escaped from Vegeta. "Okay, I found a few packages of bacon, so I'll make some BLTs."

"Good. Hurry up, I've been training since six this morning, and I'm hungry." Vegeta pulled out a chair and sat at the dining table.

Bulma fried the bacon and sliced a tomato. She didn't figure Vegeta would want any roughage on his sandwiches, so she didn't fix him any. She turned and asked him, "Hey, Vegeta, do you know what today is?"

"Wednesday."

"Duh, Vegeta, but do you know why today's special?" Bulma replied to Vegeta's obvious answer.

Vegeta was unacquainted with Earth holidays, so he said no.

"It's Valentine's Day. Any idea what that is?"

"No."

Bulma served the sandwiches and thought, *Oh, great. He's never heard of it. How am I going to explain this to him without cluing him in or turning him completely off? Crap, this is going to be harder than I figured.* Just as Bulma was about to sit down, the doorbell rang.

"Who could that be at noon on a Wednesday?" Bulma asked out loud. Vegeta just continued to eat as she got up and answered the door.

"Yamcha? What do you want?" Bulma spat at him in an annoyed manner. The last time she'd seen him was right after she had found him romancing some teenage girl. She had kicked him out of Capsule Corp and told him not to come back.

"Bulma, I came to apologize o you. I'm so sorry I cheated on you. Please take pity on me. It's Valentine's Day, the most romantic day of the year, and I miss you. Please say you'll go out on a date with me tonight." Yamcha made himself look as pitiful as possible.

Bulma almost lost her composure and gave in to Yamcha's patheticness. She quickly shook off her pity and put on a stern look. "No, Yamcha! You've treated me disposably ever since you got over your fear of women! I won't be treated like trash by you any more! I think you should leave right now."

"But, Bulma..." Yamcha protested.

"No! Get out of here before I call security!"

"Are you having a problem with someone, Bulma-san?" Vegeta asked as he appeared in the doorway behind her.

"Huh?!" Bulma was stunned. Vegeta had actually called her Bulma-san, addressed her with some sort of respect! "Uh, yeah, Vegeta. Yamcha's refusing to leave my house, and he's badgering me into going out on a date with him."

"Hmph, really? Well, that's easily remedied. Get out of here, weakling, or you'll have a problem with me, too!" Vegeta powered up and looked as fierce as possible.

Yamcha blanched and looked like he was about to wet himself. "Uh, uh, all right, bye!" Yamcha spun around quickly and flew off.

"Hah. That takes care of him. He probably won't be coming back soon, the baby," Vegeta commented as he headed back towards the kitchen to finish his sandwiches. Bulma followed close behind.

"So, Valentine's Day is a romantic holiday? Sounds interesting," Vegeta remarked as he finished his last sandwich.

Bulma blushed bright red and replied, "Yeah, it's usually a perfect holiday for boyfriends and girlfriends. That's why Yamcha wanted to go on a date. Probably hoping to get some action, the jerk."

"Wouldn't surprise me a bit. I'll make sure he leaves you alone." Vegeta smirked at Bulma. She almost thought it was a smile, but that sure wasn't likely.

"Hey, Vegeta...do you want to go on a date instead?" Bulma asked hopefully.

Vegeta was thrown off-guard by this. *Bulma-san has interest in me? I thought she hated me.* Vegeta recovered from his shock and scowled. "No way, woman. I don't have time to waste on dating. I have to train so I can get stronger than Kakarotto. You know that, baka."

Bulma stopped smiling as her heart sank into her stomach. *What happened to Bulma-san? I thought he liked me.* Bulma almost started to cry. She stood up and slammed her chair under the table with a bang. "Fine! Go train! You can fix your own food from now on. I'm not going to be nice to you anymore!" Bulma yelled at him before storming up the stairs, sobbing.

Vegeta remained sitting at the table, blinking disbelievingly. *I didn't think she'd take it so hard. What am I thinking? What do I care? She's just Bulma-san! Huh, right. JUST Bulma-san. I've liked her ever since I set eyes on her. She's gorgeous and can actually tolerate me.* Vegeta began feeling guilty for his actions. It was rare that he felt any of the emotions he was experiencing now.

Vegeta stood up and paced back and forth in the kitchen. *Crap, my one chance at romance and I screw it up! Grr,* he thought. *This sucks. The only way I can fix this is to apologize, but I've never apologized to anyone. That's stepping out of character even more than accepting a date invitation. It's the only way, though.* Vegeta growled at himself as he sat down in a recliner in the living room. "How am I going to do this?" he asked himself quietly. Vegeta closed his eyes and thought to himself silently.

*Oh, I can't believe Vegeta! I thought he'd changed,* Bulma thought as she sobbed into her pillow. *He called me Bulma-san, he stood up for me against Yamcha, he practically smiled at me...maybe I'm just delusional with loneliness.* Bulma sat up on her bed and wiped her eyes. *Oh well, I guess being with no one beats being cheated on. I'll be all right.* Bulma walked over to her vanity and brushed her hair.

"I guess there's only one way to apologize," Vegeta concluded after an hour of thinking about it. "I'll just have to say I'm sorry straight out."

Bulma was still brushing her hair when she heard a knock on her door.

"Yes, who is it?"

"It's me, Bulma-san," she heard Vegeta mumble from the other side of the door. "Can I come in?"

"All right, I guess," she said sternly. "What do you want?"

Vegeta looked her straight in the eyes and opened his mouth to apologize, but it went dry and the words wouldn't come out.

"If you don't have anything important to say, I wish you'd leave," Bulma said as she crossed her arms across her chest in a gesture of impatience.

"Bulma-san," Vegeta said, then dropped his gaze towards his feet. "Bulma-san...I'm sorry." Vegeta hung his head in shame.

Bulma's jaw dropped. She was absolutely floored. For a minute, she was too stunned to do anything. When she regained her composure, she stood and walked across the room to the Saiya-jin prince. "Oh, Vege-chan, you're forgiven."

Under normal circumstances, Vegeta would be embarrassed to be called Vege-chan, but he was so happy at the moment that he didn't care. He grabbed Bulma and kissed her. She was shocked at first, but soon relaxed and passionately kissed him back.

Finally, Vegeta slowed the kiss and loosened his embrace. "Oh, Vege-chan, this is my best Valentine's Day ever," Bulma said as she looked lovingly into Vegeta's eyes.

"Mine too, Bulma-chan, mine too."

Author's note: Sorry, probably no sequels (unless you really, really want one...)