"VEGETA!"
Bulma stormed across the compound towards the gravity room. Various employees wandering around the courtyard recognised the danger signals and hurried to get out of the way of the blue haired genius. However, a young man walking in the opposite direction towards Bulma failed to hide, being new, and not yet understanding what was happening. His arms piled high with paperwork, the unlucky man failed to see Bulma striding along straight ahead of him.
Crash!
Bulma scrambled up off the ground where she had been knocked, looking even angrier than she had before, if that was possible.
"Why the hell don't you look where your going, you fourth rate excuse for an employee!" she screamed.
The poor man cowered on the ground as he scrambled to pick up the documents his collision had knocked out of his arms. Bulma towered over him threateningly. Steam was practically coming out of her ears. "How dare you be so clumsy! You could have killed someone like that! I can't believe we even let people like you work here at all!
The man abandoned his search for papers in favour of bowing low on the ground where he crouched. "I'm so sorry, Miss Briefs. I promise you it wont happen again," he stammered.
"Damn right it wont happen again, you jerk!" she yelled. "You're fired!"
She looked away from the quivering employee, her eyes narrowing as she caught sight of the gravity room over his shoulder. Without a backwards glance, she stepped around the mess on the ground, and stormed off towards the gravity room.
Several employees hiding from the Capsule Corp President's rage exchanged glances with each other, and a few kind people hurried over to help the man pick up his papers. The young man appeared to be on the verge of tears, apparently devastated by Bulma's words. A young dark-haired woman who was helping him up noticed.
"Oh, don't you worry about her," she said soothingly.
"But she fired me!" he said the edges of tears welling up dramatically in his eyes. "I just started here last week, and I thought I was gonna be so lucky to work at Capsule Corp, and now its all over."
The woman laughed a little, and patted him gently on his shoulder. "As I said, don't you mind what she said. You won't be fired."
The man looked at her in bewilderment. "But…you heard her. She said-"
"Oh Miss Briefs was just upset, that's all. She didn't mean it. You'll have to learn not to go near her when she's in one of her moods. But she never means what she says." The woman gave him a sunny smile. "I bet if you wait an hour or so she will come and apologize to you herself. She always does."
The man smiled at her hopefully. "You really think so?"
The woman nodded at him reassuringly. "Trust me, it'll be fine."
He sighed, a bit theatrically. "Well that's good to know," he said in relief. He smiled at her again. "My name is Jalen," he introduced himself, and looked inquiringly at her.
"Tshibo Kalika," said the woman, smiling back. "I only started here a few months ago myself, so I know how you feel." She helped the young man to his feet, noting with appreciation as she did so his unusual blonde hair and green eyes. She took in the slender but toned body visible through his thin shirt. "If you like, I could show you around?"
Kalika waited, then looked at him when he didn't answer, puzzled. He wasnt listening to her, gazing away in the direction Bulma had gone, and a peculiar expression was on his face. If she hadn't just seen him almost in tears, Kalika would have thought he was laughing to himself at some private jest. He noticed her scrutiny, and turned back to her. The weird smile was gone, but there was still something strange way back in his eyes. He smiled at her questioning look and said, his head cocked to one side. "I wonder what made her so angry?"
Vegeta paused in his training exercises as he felt the approach of weak ki which he had identified as the onna's. From the flare of her aura, she was mad. Again. Vegeta frowned slightly, but then relaxed. He was just about to finish training now anyway. His stomach was rumbling, and he knew he wouldn't make any more progress until he had eaten something.
Abandoning his training exercises, he lowered himself to stand lightly on the floor. And just in time, as the gravity was abruptly turned off from one of the outside control units. If he had been in the air, as he was before, the unexpected change in pressure would have sent him crashing into the roof as the force he was straining against was unexpectedly removed. But the onna had caught him that way once before, and he was ready for it this time. With a smooth hiss, the doors to the Gravity Room opened, and Bulma appeared, her eyes blazing.
"Vegeta!" she yelled.
Vegeta turned his back on her, pretending to ignore her as he grabbed a towel from the rack and began to rub himself dry.
"Vegeta!"
Vegeta continued to ignore her, taking a long swallow of water from his bottle.
"Hey, look at me when I'm talking to you, monkey-boy!"
Vegeta smirked to himself. So she really was mad at him. He had noticed that she only used that particular epithet when she was really pissed. He took one last swallow and finished his drink. Slinging his towel round his neck, he made his way to the door of the Gravity chamber. Bulma blocked his way, hands on hips, blue eyes blazing.
"Just where do you think you're going?" she said angrily.
"Out," he said, pausing to glare at her.
"Not until you apologise to me."
He gave a short laugh. "Apologise? Me? Why the hell should I?"
"Because my father told me that you just destroyed two of my new robots, that's why!"
He smirked. "So?"
"So!" she exploded. "So I just finished making those robots last night! I stayed up all night to make those, and you go and destroy them in the space of an hour!"
"You made them for me to train with, didn't you?"
"Yes, but-"
"Well, I trained with them." He smirked. "It's not my fault that you make such lousy machines that can only last a few measly minutes."
"I DO NOT MAKE LOUSY MACHINES!"
"Then why did they break?"
"You just couldn't be bothered to control yourself long enough to use them properly!"
Vegeta didn't even bother dignifying that with a response. Instead he phased out, and reappeared behind Bulma. She spun, aggravated "What, his highness cant even finish an argument now?"
"This argument is finished," he said over his shoulder as he began to walk away. He could feel Bulma's glare boring into his back. Halfway across the courtyard, however, he faltered slightly in his step.
Something wasn't right His instincts were all suddenly on the defensive. He could feel his body slip into attack mode as he scanned the area, wondering what it was that had alerted his senses. Around him scurried Capsule Corp employees heading towards the staff restaurant for lunch. Around Vegeta though there was a clear space, as the wary employees gave him a wide berth. His reputation as a man to be avoided was even greater than Bulma's, thanks to the man he had blasted on his first week here. Vegeta himself didn't know what they were complaining about. He hadn't even killed the guy. A few weeks in hospital and he could even walk again. What was their problem?
Frozen in his spot, Vegeta scanned the area, his heart beating faster as he tried to determine what it was that was off balance in this scenario. His nostrils flared. There was something…
"Vegeta! Are you just going to stand there all day, or are you going to come and have some lunch like a normal person? If that's even possible for you."
Bulma's voice broke the spell. She had walked past him while he was paused in the middle of the quadrangle, and was waiting at the door to the family quarters, hands on hips, glaring at him. Vegeta glared back at her, his concentration broken, and when he turned back, whatever had caught his attention was gone. He shook his head slightly, and turned away, heading towards the family kitchen after Bulma. But as he turned, he caught a scent in the air, one that tugged lightly at the corners of his mind. Where had he smelt that before? He paused again, trying to put a fix on the strangely familiar scent that wafted past him, but it was gone as mysteriously as it had come.
He glanced around again at the courtyard, but everything was normal again. A tiny frown tugging at his mouth, he turned and followed Bulma inside.
Bulma paused before her chair in the dining room off the kitchen and watched the Sayian Prince devour his food. As always, the way he ate struck her as unusual in comparison to Goku, the only other sayian she had ever watched eat. Unlike Goku, Vegeta ate quickly and neatly, consuming huge portions of food in seconds without dropping or wasting a single scrap, and also without any of the loud eating noises that accompanied Goku on these occasions, though the food disappeared just as rapidly.
"Where did you learn to eat like that?" she asked, suddenly curious.
Vegeta looked up from his food, surprise flashing quickly across his face before it was replaced by its habitual anger. "What kind of question is that?" he snapped.
"Well, its just," Bulma waved a hand vaguely at him. "You have nice table manners for someone who eats at sixty miles an hour."
He scowled at her, not judging that worth a reply, and returned to his food.
Bulma watched for several seconds longer, then turned her attention to her own meal. Her mother had made Bulma's favourite lunch for her today - chicken teriyaki with rice, along with a tall glass of raspberry spider. Mmm. Her mouth watered just thinking about it. Even Vegeta, having finished his own feast, was eyeing her meal with thinly disguised hunger.
However, just as she was about to crunch into it, her attention was diverted by what looked like a flicker of movement at the open window. She stared at the window suspiciously. She could have sworn someone just ducked out of sight as she looked up. She watched for a long moment, then shrugged dismissing the thought, as she turned back to her food.
Or rather, to where her food had been.
Bulma stared at her empty plate foolishly for a second. No doubt about it, the teriyaki that she had put on her plate a moment ago was definitely gone. She turned around, to check if she had left it on the benchtop for some bizarre reason, and when she turned back, the straw in her raspberry spider rattled in a suddenly empty glass.
Bulma's gaze settled accusingly on Vegeta who was seemingly absorbed in catching the last few grains of rice that slid around his bowl. His face was impassive as usual, but there was a smear of raspberry on his chin. Bulma took a deep breath, her face turning red with rage for the second time that morning...
"VEGETA!"
Kalika and Jalen ducked down underneath the window again as the familiar sound of the heir to the Capsule Corp Presidency and her alien houseguest arguing again. With a glance at each other, they both moved away from the family quarters and strolled out over the courtyard.
"So that's the alien I keep hearing about," said Jalen. "I see what you mean about Ms Briefs and her temper."
Kalika waved her hand airily. "Oh, she's not so bad. She really is decent most of the time. It's just a few things that set her off. A few months ago, it was that baseball player boyfriend of hers. If one of us girls so much as looked at him, she'd go nuts. These days though, its usually that man you saw in there who cops the brunt of her temper."
Jalen looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "Yes, I see that. What did you say his name was again?"
Kalika rolled her eyes. "Its Vegeta. You'll get used to it, Ms Briefs yells it out at least two or three times a day here."
"How much does everyone know about this man?" asked Jalen, casually inspecting his fingernails.
"Not much. For all he's so good looking, he's not much for social chitchat. The buzz is that he is an alien, and that's why he's so strong. He spends all his time in that Gravity Chamber, training. "
"How did he get here?" Jalen pressed.
"He arrived here a year or two ago, along with all those little green men that were staying here for a while."
"Little green men? Are they still here too?"
"No, they left a few months later."
"And Vegeta didn't?"
"No, he stayed."
Jalen stared at the kitchen window thoughtfully. "I would have thought by the way he fights with Ms Briefs all the time, she would have kicked him out long ago."
Kalika shrugged. "You'd think, but for some reason she didn't. And as far as I know she has no intentions of kicking him out. He lives in the family wing, and eats with them and everything. Its strange, but I think Ms Briefs enjoys having him around, despite all the trouble he causes. Did you know he blasted a man last month?"
Jalen nodded absently, his mind obviously on other things.
"It was Mr Haku from Genetics. Poor guy, he had to go to hospital and everything. And all he did was accidentally walk in on him while he was training. Vegeta went berserk."
Jalen continued to gaze at the kitchen, where he could still make out the outline of Vegeta against the window. He smiled, a spark flaring in his green eyes, and an odd look crossing his face again. He whispered something softly to himself as Kalika prattled on.
"So I've found you at last … Vegeta no Ouji."
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"Hi, Bulma here. Next time on Aishiteru, strange things begin happening around Capsule Corp. Its almost as if we've been sucked into a memory! Find out soon in the next chapter - Yesterday"