19 WHAT PIGS DESERVE
The universe has given Vegeta a gift, and Vegeta is skeptical to say the least.
As has been mentioned to the point of ad nauseum, Vegeta and the universe have always had a poor working relationship; and, if anything, it's about to get a lot worse thanks to Vegeta's new, very stupid pet, but we're getting ahead of ourselves, aren't we? That shitshow's tonight. No, you see, while Vegeta will never admit it, the universe has given him a number of gifts over the years. It's just, well… they've always come with caveats. If it wanted to do the decent thing, it'd at least let Vegeta take a step forward every once and awhile. You know, before fucking him over like the universe usually does to people. But Vegeta is not usual, something he both revels in and despises.
Right now, he's despising it. His usual cynicism should be moving over towards anger-filled glee because, I mean, come on - the answer to every single one of his problems could potentially be sitting in that kitchen right now, making sandwiches, none-the-wiser. Somehow, someway, this very, very stupid human helped bring about the Saiyan race's coup de grâce, and the least he can do to make up for it is to help the right person too - you know, by dying.
Probably dying. Here Vegeta was, set on sparing him! He doesn't think he's ever flip-flopped this much in his life. Maybe about Raditz and Nappa, sure, and most certainly about himself, but about some bumbefuck from the planet that's irreversibly ruined him? The planet that three years from now is apparently going to kill him? You should've shot him the moment you walked into that kitchen, the demons say, before you ever ate those sandwiches; and Vegeta's inclined to agree because becoming a Super Saiyan does take anger and it does take power, but while it's true that Goku might not have had the power back then during their fight, Vegeta does not think he had the anger either. Not even with four his friends' bodies scattered across the battlefield, his son near-dead. It didn't matter. Krillin was alive. But then he dies and - boom! - Vegeta's destiny is torn away from him just like that. In theory, Vegeta could potentially get it back and the fight with Kakarot he's been looking for all in one fatal swoop.
But like it's been said: his gifts? They always come with caveats, and this one is simply too good to be true. It's lunchtime, so he should be in the kitchen (whether to eat or kill or both, he's not quite sure), but his stomping took him back to the training chamber, where he's currently flying around like a maniac in 200x gravity. Now, should Vegeta be training only a few hours after his heart episode? Probably not, but Vegeta doing something good for himself is like the Christian apocalypse - it hasn't happened yet and most likely never will. It's not like he has to work himself up to killing Krillin or anything. 'Course not. Even if he did - which he doesn't - this information shouldn't fuck with his schedule. Vegeta's spent a long time (in his book, anyway) convincing himself to be patient. If anything, this new development should support it because, before he becomes Super Saiyan, he needs grow stronger than Kakarot ever was on Namek, and he especially needs to grow stronger than Kakarot ever was on Namek before royally pissing the guy off. 'Cause these gifts come with caveats, and someone needs to pay for the fallout, and wouldn't it be better for Krillin to trust him completely when the time comes? When Vegeta will be able to go so much further because that stupid monk won't run - not at first, anyway. 'Vegeta's been eating my sandwiches,' he'll think. 'Vegeta won't hurt me.'
Joke's on him. Vegeta's hurt everything he's ever touched.
Krillin must know this, right? Honestly, that's the main thing giving Vegeta pause. Their strange sandwich covenant hasn't lasted long and has only been held together by one good dish and Vegeta's delusions of honor. Surely such a short period of time has not changed Krillin's opinion of him, and even if it has, it doesn't change the fact that Krillin was the first to offer the sandwiches, the first to propose their arrangement, and the first to take it beyond their original guidelines. Does he think that their inevitable death by androids suddenly binds them? Does he think their same location on this accursed planet makes them have something in common? Does he think that Vegeta has a sense of honor that isn't just his own selfish desires? Vegeta's not sure, which is annoying because, honestly, it bothers him that he cannot figure Krillin out. Well, okay. On one hand, it should be impossible to figure Krillin out because everyone on this planet is clearly insane, but on the other, Vegeta is so obviously superior to every single one of them that their every inclination should be obvious. After all, these people read giant folding papers and cut each other in order to heal themselves. This should be easy, but no. For some reason that Vegeta cannot comprehend, Krillin has isolated himself from the rest of the world and (the rest of?) his friends while making Vegeta sandwiches, and Vegeta has no idea how to deal with it.
You know, Vegeta should kill Krillin just for confusing him. Now thinking about it, Krillin owes him an explanation before he dies. After all, Vegeta adopted him. He can at least show some gratitude. And thinking about it even more, Vegeta hasn't killed anything in weeks, so maybe those are the reasons he's stalking the halls with every intent to make the monk squeal.
He then walks into the kitchen to find a dead pig on the table and no longer knows what to think.
The pig's not cooked. If it was, that'd be one thing. Vegeta knows very well that pigs go into sandwiches and, judging from the size, this pig could go into a lot of sandwiches. But no, 'course not. It's just a dead pig on the table that doesn't even have the decency to be bleeding everywhere. That would've at least suggested foul play, which could've been fun and distracted Vegeta from his (like, eighteenth) dawning realization that he might be a failure, but from the looks of it, the pig wandered in here, somehow climbed up a seat, and then promptly died. RIght where Vegeta eats his sandwiches. He's not sure whether the universe is giving him a sign or if it's its pettiest fuck you yet.
He then hears a brief scrape of metal against the hallway floor and looks to his left to find Krillin, emotionally-drained and carrying a shovel too big for him. "Oh," he says, rather monotone. "Hi, Vegeta."
Vegeta doesn't do well with being sidetracked, partly because it's an occurrence he chooses to believe happens very rarely when he's in fact sidetracked all the damn time. His rivalry with Kakarot? Him being sidetracked because he had come to Earth for immortality and everlasting dictatorship, not to train in some dome all day and bitch at the gravity console. His quest for immortality and everlasting dictatorship? Him being sidetracked because he had been training to beat Frieza with purely Saiyan blood and then, I dunno, not rule the Empire? He never actually got that far with his scheming, mostly because he kept getting sidetracked.
Right now, well… you get the picture. Vegeta's mind's put aside its original intentions and instead substituted them for the very little, mostly inaccurate information he knows about Krillin. He gestures to the pig and, with a certain amount of anger, says, "The hell'd you kill your roommate and bring him into my kitchen for?"
"What?" Krillin asks. It's already been too long of a day, but leave it to Vegeta to say something so completely puzzling that Krillin forgets himself too. "Vegeta, no. First of all," he says, "I dunno if Bulma would appreciate you calling this your kitchen seeing that her family built it and owns it and all but - Vegeta, that," (he points to the pig with the shovel), "is not Oolong."
"Of course that," (he points to the pig with no shovel), "is not oolong. What do you think I am? Stupid?"
"Then-"
"Does that look like tea to you?"
After a moment, Krillin lets out one of the most impressive sighs he's ever managed, and he's been sighing a lot lately. "I'm talking about my roommate, Vegeta," he says. "His name is Oolong. You met him, remember?" When he receives a skeptical look, he tries, "Talking pig? Upright? Wears overalls? Constantly puts his foot in his mouth?"
Vegeta doesn't remember that last part, but then again, Vegeta'd have his foot constantly in his mouth too if he was that delicious, so he doesn't contest it. He does vaguely remember the descriptions before that though, mostly a short pink man laughing at his short pink shirt just before they had flown off so that Vegeta could not personally kill that short not-so-pink man again. These people really have taken everything from you, haven't they? the demons ask. We thought you were kidding. Vegeta replies to Krillin with, "Do you expect me to remember every single one of your stupid friends?"
Krillin scrunches his shoulders a little. "Well, no," he replies, "but, I mean," (he looks at the pig), "you met Dodoria, like, a week ago. I thought you'd at least remember her."
Dodoria? Vegeta looks over to the pig as well, which has started to attract a fly or two. Dodoria! The pig from the garden! Vegeta wouldn't have usually agreed to the name seeing that Dodoria doesn't deserve to be remember for shit, but now that the pig's dead, well… it fits. "You kill it?" Vegeta asks.
"What? No, of course not!"
"Then why the hell is it here?"
Krillin had been minding his own business. Really. It was hard not to after what he confirmed this morning, and he had flown back in a capsule plane to the compound in order to think. Well, more like crawl into bed and die, but the moment his feet touched the ground, boom. The pig was dead. Should Krillin have sensed it the moment it happened? It's hard to say. On one hand, he had the wherewithal to feel a few ants and their hill despite Vegeta throwing around his energy like a game show host about to make his network go bankrupt; but on the other, there's enough living beings buzzing around Capsule Corp. that Krillin shouldn't have been able to identify such an insignificant loss without some contemplation at least.
But Krillin's been keeping tabs on the pig ever since their trip to the garden, and he hadn't been sure why. In fact, it had been down downright frustrating him. It wasn't the first thing he sensed in the morning, but it was the first he gave the time of day and the last he'd concentrate on before going into an uneasy sleep. In between, it was like a tumor in the back of his head, pulsing like a heart too hard to beat, and Krillin hated it. Grew to hate the pig too, which made him wonder if he had sought it out due to some petty spite and had truly sunk that low.
He hadn't. Turns out the pig had been dying all along, and the moment it did, Krillin realized what he had been sensing all along - death. After all, he's got a lot of experience with it - death, I mean. You know, dying? Krillin might have the most experience out of everyone in the universe, which sounds about right to him, really. Leave it to him to be good at the one thing you're not supposed to come back from. But he had stood over that pig for several minutes and never even noticed. He had just talked about how it looked like fucking Dodoria, and then he had left it to die. That's what Krillin believes he gets when he places more emphasis on himself than others - the universe reminds him just how little emphasis he actually deserves. But if he gives in and gives up and abandons that last little bit he's tried so hard to hold onto by staying holed up in this kitchen, well… he looks at the pig. Maybe he should just go to where he's wanted.
Vegeta would think he was crazy if he replied with any of that though, so he just shrugs, then adds before Vegeta can get angry, "There's sandwiches in the fridge. From this morning."
Well, that's good news at least. Krillin's sudden pig-dumping hobby hasn't caused a delay in Vegeta's sandwiches, which he has just realized he's going to have to really savor because, after today, this might be it. 'Course, he'd be able to better do it justice if there wasn't a fucking pig on the table.
"Here," Krillin says, already struggling to figure out how best to hold the shovel as he starts to approach the pig, "I'll get her outta here so you can eat. Don't worry, she didn't touch the food or anything."
Vegeta doesn't know why that matters, but the idea of eating the sandwiches here in peace does not sit as well with him as it should. What if Krillin's come to his senses and, after doing… whatever he's going to do with this porker, decides to go home? If that happens, Vegeta won't even get an explanation, and frankly, that's unacceptable. You could just do it right now, the demons tell him as they watch Krillin step from side-to-side, trying to figure out how best to pick up the beast. If you shoot him through the head, you'll shoot through the pig too, and wouldn't that be funny? Well, yes, Vegeta replies, but how will he explain himself then? He'll be dead! Isn't that the point? they reply.
It's been all of ten seconds, and already, the sandwiches are taking too long. Vegeta stalks across the room, grabs a terribly startled Krillin by the biceps, and sets him down to the right. It takes some grabs from a few different positions, but he manages to lug the pig over his shoulder.
Krillin's so surprised that he forgets himself. "I could've done it myself," he says.
Vegeta replies by snatching the shovel out of his hands. "Where you want it?" he grits out.
Krillin's got his hands up like he still has the thing in his hands. "The shovel?" he asks.
"The pig."
"Um, th-the backyard, I think? I thought it was too open at first, but no one's really been going back there 'cause of y-uh…" Vegeta quirks his eyebrow. "... not wanting to disturb you, so I figure no one will see me-uh…" Vegeta quirks his eyebrow more. "... us or disturb us. I know how much you... hate that." Krillin nods definitively.
Vegeta grunts, then heads for the door. "Well come on, already. Don't have all day." Krillin starts to follow him, but Vegeta looks over his pigless shoulder and says, "Make yourself useful, would you?"
"Useful?" Krillin asks. "What does that mean?"
"Whaddya think?" Vegeta replies. "Grab the sandwiches."
It's deja vu, really. After managing to avoid every living soul for about three buildings over, they're behind the pool house looking down at the pig with some skepticism. Except it's not deja vu because it's light outside, they are in fact outside, and the last Krillin remembered, he had not been carrying a plate of meticulously wrapped sandwiches and Vegeta had not been holding a shovel. The pig looks the same though, which is… guilt-inducing to say the least.
"Still disgusting," Vegeta says.
"Yep," Krillin replies.
Vegeta tilts his head slightly to the right. "... and still looks like Dodoria."
"Yep," Krillin says again. "Except, you know, Dodoria was a lot uglier."
"Yeah."
The wind gusts, forcing the grass east, Vegeta's hair and the pig's too, before dying down to a soft, silent, steady breeze. Krillin's hands grip the plate a little tighter as he shivers. He should've thought of gloves and maybe he would have if Vegeta hadn't come in and usurped his whole guilt trip. Seems like this is how far Vegeta's gonna go with it though because he's suddenly shoving the shovel towards Krillin and taking the plate like that should've been the arrangement in the first place. "Well," Vegeta says, already starting to undo the saran wrap with some annoyance, "cut it up already."
"Cut it up already?" Krillin asks. "Whaddya mean 'cut it up already'? You can't possibly mean-"
"Why the hell else would you've dragged us out here then?" Vegeta replies. He shakes his hand rapidly, trying to stop the offending saran wrap from sticking to his fingers. It's not working very well. "Well, hurry up already!" he yells when Krillin does not immediately comply. "Do I have to do everything?"
"Vegeta," Krillin says, "we're not here to cut her up. We're here to bury her!"
"Bury it?" Vegeta asks, taken aback.
"Yes! Why else would I have a shovel?"
Vegeta supposes that's a factual statement. He had just assumed that Krillin used it to pry the pig off the ground in the garden, an explanation he came up with in his head right at this moment because, honestly, he hadn't cared enough about it to assume anything before now. But why bury it? he wonders as he watches Krillin lowkey roll his eyes, take a few steps forward, then stake the shovel into the earth. And more importantly, why do it outside the garden? Oh right, those scaly things. What did the cueball call them again? Dinosaurs, his chip provides. Ah, right. Dinosaurs. They can't have dinosaurs eating their food. But seriously, Vegeta's never seen an animal that needs to be planted before it can be consumed. What is wrong with this planet?
Vegeta takes his first bite of sandwich to help him feel better. It helps somewhat. He wonders if Krillin prepared the pig in these sandwiches the same way he's preparing this one now. No, Vegeta remembers him taking the meat out of some sort of mass-market package in the fridge yesterday. Does that mean his sandwiches are now somehow going to taste better? Dammit! Well, maybe he can wait to kill Krillin until after they're finished with the fresh pig. But wait, does mean he'll have to wait for his explanation, too? Hm. Vegeta takes another bite as he watches Krillin transfer sod from one side to the other. "How mong dis take?" Vegeta asks, mouth full.
Krillin looks over his shoulder with slight disbelief. "Digging a grave?" he asks. "Well, I dunno, Vegeta. Haven't exactly done it before." He turns back to his work, but he realizes that, if he overestimates, Vegeta might assume control again, so he turns again and says, "You can go eat in the kitchen if you want. I'll be quick."
"Grave?" Vegeta asks. His chip is translating it strangely, conjuring images of his father's funeral on HomeWorld rather than peasant farmers on peasant farms planting peasant crops. Just like with surgery and the healing tank, the association his translation chip is drawing makes no sense to him. Sure, surgery and the tank arrive to the same end, but the process to get there is entirely different. If he's going to relate these two then, the answer's obvious if not completely confounding: "You're burying it because it's dead?"
Krillin stops mid-dig and slowly looks over his shoulder again. He glances around to make sure no one's punking him. "... y-yes?" he finally replies. The look on Vegeta's face makes Krillin want to launch into an explanation the Saiyan Prince would not want to hear, but judging off their past miscommunications, Krillin figures he should first ask a very simple question: "Vegeta, do they bury people where you're from?"
From Vegeta's demeanor, the answer's obviously 'no'. It's not that the Empire doesn't have any rites for the dead; it's just that the Empire is very, very efficient. Oh sure, the actual process of mourning the dead varies planet-to-planet - because, in a depressing bit of irony, death is one of the only traditions different cultures really have left under empirical expansion - but no one wastes space by putting bodies in the ground. Well, maybe one of those backwater planets Vegeta's blown up did that sorta thing, but were they ever really part of the Empire if they were dead within mere hours of being inducted? Probably not.
People are smote, mostly. Well, okay, maybe that's not the best translation, but the process is different enough from cremation that to identify it as such would be misleading. Pretty much, your body's ground into such a fine powder that you can fit onto a microscope slide, and that slide is filed by your local mortician into their catalog, where it stays - forever. This might be seen as conniving on the Empire's part, seeing that it fits their usual M.O. and it's your DNA quite literally on a device used to observe such a thing, and you'd be right.
But don't worry, you can still visit your loved ones before, during, or after their participation in government experimentation. All you do is go to your local mortician, ring the little bell at their desk, and ask for whomever you'd like to visit by their government number. After a bit of finagling, the mortician will hand you a device, led you to the visiting area, and sit you down with the others. Press the button on the device and presto! Your loved one's digital tombstone is there for all your reflecting, babbling, and vengeful declarations. Some projections are the size of the device; others, the size of the room. Depends on how much money you have, really, and how many people you think will actually visit once you're dead. Some get creative, of course - uploading moving images of themselves or their favorite place or the loved ones they left behind. You can rent the device for the ceremony, but it must always come back to the morgue.
One of the downsides to being a dictator is, while you have absolute autonomy over anything and everything, things are somehow still expected of you - like attending the funerals of people you're probably happy are now dead. Vegeta was forced to go to many of these while he was in Frieza's court, and as such, he's seen many digital representations of death. Obviously many physical representations of death, too, seeing that he was pretty much a hired killer gussied up as an exploratory officer, so he's well acquainted with the process, misconceptions be damned. But burying? The only time he's ever had an experience like that was -
"You idiots!" he screams. "You buried me! On Namek!"
"Shh!" Krillin stage whispers. "Don't yell!" He looks around more out of habit than anything (he'd sense them if someone was really coming), then shrugs. "I mean, yeah, you were dead, so we buried you. Well, Goku buried you."
"Why?"
It might seem odd that Vegeta had never questioned something so fundamentally foreign to him after he, you know, had to dig himself out of his own grave immediately upon being brought back to life; but Vegeta, in his all-assuming glory, thought that the humans had planned to bring back the people of Namek all along and wanted to make sure he didn't raise from the dead like the rest of them. You know, a final fuck you by giving him second life and then immediately having him suffocate for it. Of course, they didn't do a very good job of it if that was the case. One blast of energy and Vegeta was out just like that. So Kakarot hadn't been kidding when he said he was happy he hadn't bury him that deep? Oh, of course he hadn't. Once again, Vegeta has underestimated these people's utter foolishness and Kakarot's very human heart. These people can't scheme. They just… bury things.
"Why did Gokubury you or why were you buried in general?" Krillin asks.
"I don't care!"
Krillin's always liked generals more than specifics. "Well, I guess burying someone's what you do when you're feeling sad," (he glances at the pig), "or guilty." He holds the shovel a little closer, which makes him look even smaller than he is. "Some religions here require it - think that's the only way your body will go to the afterlife - but I think most people keep with it since it feels more… physical? Final? Than cremation or whatever." He gives a sad smile. "Gotta put your back into it, you know? Rather than machines."
"Kakarot buried me because he felt guilty?" Vegeta asks.
Oh, so Vegeta does want specifics then. Krillin turns around and gets back to work. "Um, I mean, maybe?" he replies. "It's hard to say." Krillin's movements become quite a bit rougher as he continues "Then again, it's kinda hard topredict what Goku's been thinking lately."
"But why bury your enemy?" Vegeta asks, stronger than ever.
"I dunno," Krillin replies, digging. "I mean, why bury a pig?"
It takes some time to get over his surprise, but Vegeta must face the truth. Killing Krillin will do nothing. Appease his ego maybe, but that never lasts long, and Krillin will never turn him Super Saiyan. Because Vegeta is not stupid. Oh, sure, he's an alien prince from a warrior planet light years from here and whose only proper bed was on the warship of the man who made him near-extinct, so yeah, he's a little slow on the uptake, but have no disillusions. There's no cultural misunderstanding here. Vegeta is a horrible man. There might be complicated reasons behind his actions, but isn't there a sob story behind every killer? Vegeta's no different, except he has the blood of entire galaxies drenched all over his body, and no wife, no son, no sacrifice, and certainly no sandwich will ever wash it away. It'll just dry, then stain, and then one day, people will assume it is the color of his skin and forget he was ever covered in blood at all. But he was, and he is, and he will be until no Dragon Balls are willing to bring him back again.
Years from now, another will draw power out in him, but by then, he'll believe the blood's been washed away too - at least a little, as he won't ever be so thoroughly convinced. Right now though? He's a prince fresh off a dictatorship that has ruled his entire life, but while he might not have liked the circumstances, he is (for not the first time) faced with what the demons have been whispering in his ear all this time - he's never cared if a person lives or dies. It's always been about his ego. He killed the only man completely loyal to him the moment he failed, never mourned the one who raced across the universe to make his throne just a little more complete, and the death of his planet has always been about him, him, him. Who cares if he's spent day in and day out lying in a thousand different beds hoping the coursing pain through his muscles were them just about to combust so he too could turn from Saiyan to hot matter to nothing like the rest of them? The Empire was a convenient enemy that allowed him to do what he wanted - soak in buckets and buckets of blood in order to reinforce that he was the somebody his people said he was when he so young, fresh of his first murder that he hadn't even meant to commit. Even his carefully-constructed self- importance can't convince him most days. How can the importance of anyone else make him anything more than what he already is? How can the anger of loss or the glee of a kill transform him when that's what's been supposedly fueling him his whole goddamn life?
He now knows what happened to stupid other timeline Vegeta - death. Unfulfilling death. A non-Super Saiyan death just like his last one, and while Kakarot could be dead by then, he's sure one of these people will make a crater in the ground and shove him in it because they'll be sad or guilty or another emotion that embarrasses and terrifies Vegeta more than he cares to admit. And there will be a point where no one will remember him or his people or their Gut Blood, Rikka's body will be sketched into complete nonexistence, and the universe will move on. Vegeta's body will rot in the ground where no one will even be able to see his bones, or his armor, or his DNA on a little glass slide. Vegeta must come to terms with how little emphasis he might actually deserve.
Krillin meanwhile is nearly done with the top layer of sod and is currently debating on whether he should jump down into the hole and just, you know, stay there. He's gonna have to climb in anyway if he really wants it to go all six feet down, right? He glances over to the pig. Yep, definitely gonna need to be six feet. Eh, he'll see how he feels once he gets down there.
He never does, though, because one moment Vegeta's got a ki blast aimed at the back of his head, and the next, it's blowing a big ol' hole right where Krillin was digging, taking the sod, the dirt, and shovel blade with it. Krillin nearly jumps out of his skin for good reason. "What the hell, Vegeta?" he yells, whipping around. "You could've at least warned me or something!"
"... you were taking too long," is all Vegeta can manage.
"Too long? Vegeta, I told you you could wait inside," Krillin replies, more miffed than he'd usually be showing, especially to Vegeta, though it still comes out mostly flabbergasted. He looks down at what now is just a handle with a very fat stick on it. "Guess I can just add this to the stupid amount of money I'm gonna owe Bulma when this is all over." He sighs. "What's the freakin' difference?" He looks back up at Vegeta. "Really, Vegeta, you don't need me to go in with you; you can just-" He takes a look at Vegeta's face. "Um… you still have a lot of sandwiches there. You should eat one."
Vegeta looks down at the plate he's now only holding in one hand. Krillin's right; he's only eaten one. Huh.
Krillin shuffles over to his side, shovel handle still in both hands. He turns back towards the grave so he doesn't have to look at Vegeta directly. "Um," he says, awkwardly, turning his head, "you're not, uh… upset about the pig, are you?"
Vegeta can't reply, mostly because he just shoved a sandwich in his mouth in a hopeless attempt to try to feel better, but the completely confounded look on his face says enough.
"Didn't think so," Krillin replies. He looks back to the grave-turned-crater to find that Vegeta had actually done a pretty decent job. The pig will fit. "Um, well… I guess I should say something. Um-"
Vegeta kicks it into the hole.
"What the hell, Vegeta?"
"Was sick of lookin' at it," he replies around another sandwich. They're not working like they should.
Thankfully, Krillin's keeping him distracted. "Well, you didn't have to kick it!" he says.
"What were you gonna do?"
Krillin blushes. "... shove it in?"
Vegeta gives him a look.
"Well, will you at least let me," (he looks down at the handle), "shovel-" He sighs. "-awkwardly use my foot to push dirt on it?"
"Ain't stoppin' you," Vegeta replies, yet another sandwich in.
"Alright then."
Krillin approaches the grave and, after a moment, drops the handle on top of the pig. Exactly how many bodies have to be buried to make this a mass grave? Three? Krillin always does come in third. Vegeta seems way more concentrated on eating the rest of sandwiches in record time though, so Krillin does just what he said and starts shoving dirt in with his boot. Really, really should've worn gloves.
It takes a few minutes, but Krillin's used to doing odd chores in odd ways, so he finishes well before he should. More importantly, Vegeta finished the sandwiches and still feels hollow inside. Sure, the world's a little brighter than during the climax of his existential crisis, but he isn't content. Not like the night he first met this pig. Maybe he is a little upset after all.
Krillin stomps over the top of the slight mound for good measure, then returns to Vegeta's side. "I'm gonna say a Buddhist blessing," he says, taking his hands out of his coat pockets and putting them together, "so, um… just bear with me for a moment, okay?" He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in:
"May all beings have happiness and be the cause of happiness;
May all be free from sorrow and from that which causes it;
May all never be separated from the sacred happiness that is sorrowlessness;
And may all live in mindful peacefulness,
without too much attachment or too much aversion,
and live believing in the equality of all that lives."
Krillin lowers his hands to his sides. "You wanna say anything?" he asks.
"... good riddance," Vegeta replies.
Krillin looks back to the grave. "That's the best you're gonna get," he tells it. "Now stop making me feel guilty."
"What?"
"Don't worry about it," he replies. After a moment, he says, "Hey, do you wanna go out?" When he doesn't get a reply, he looks up and, very evenly despite Vegeta's face, says, "As in 'leave the house in order to do something fun,' not however your chip is currently translating it."
"Why would I want to do that?" Vegeta asks, even more aghast.
Krillin shrugs. "I dunno. I mean, have you even left Capsule Corp. since we got back from talking to that future Saiyan kid?"
"Of course not! I've been training. I don't have time for stupid distractions!"
"Vegeta, you just helped me bury a pig."
Even Vegeta can't argue with that.
"Where is… out?" he asks.
Krillin shrugs again. "There's, like, a whole entertainment district in this city, so, I mean, we can go there, I guess. I just…" He looks back to the mound. "... need to get out - like, not just errand or terrifying-existential-crises out - and, well… figured I'd ask. I dunno."
Vegeta looks at the mound too and, after a moment, shrugs and says, "Fine. Whatever." Nappa and Raditz were able to drag Vegeta around when he was depressed. Why should this be any different?
"Wait," Krillin says, "really?" He sounds more skeptical than surprised, mostly because he's tired. "Okay, well… we can meet in the kitchen in a few hours then. Make sure to shower and," (he looks Vegeta up and down), "change into something that's not that, okay?"
"What's wrong with my armor?"
"There's blood all over it and you probably smell like pig."
"I'm nothing like that pig," Vegeta mumbles.
"Um… okay," Krillin replies, clearly confused. "But you probably still smell like-" He watches as Vegeta starts stalking back to the house. "I'll see you in a few hours then?" he asks loudly.
He doesn't get a reply.
"Okay then. Few hours it, uh, is then."
He's gonna really regret this.
Sponsor: The following chapter is brought to you by the things you've buried. The things you've buried: Watch out. They're coming for you.
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