Chapter 21: We Meet At Last

"Chichi! We meet at last."

"Maron. We had English lit. together this morning."

"Um." Maron looked at Lunch uncertainly. "Okay. Well, this is my associate, Lunch."

Chichi folded her arms across her chest. "Otherwise known as my room-mate."

"Oh, yeah." Maron waited for Lunch to bail her out, but she just shrugged. Clearly since this was all Maron's idea, Maron would be the one who had to handle the hard-line questioning and questionably legal interrogation methods.

"What is this about? My theatre studies class is about to start, so hurry it up."

"Uh, yeah, I know. I'm in that class." Maron scoffed and rolled her eyes, but Chichi didn't seem particularly wounded. Lunch checked her watch. She had a different classroom she needed to hike to. "Okay, so, um, is it true that you were super mad at Haski for not inviting you to Bulma's party? And you had to hear about it from Lunch instead? You must have been like a thousand percent betrayed. She was supposed to be your best friend, right?"

Chichi opened her mouth, then forced it closed and took several very deep breaths before speaking. "What are you insinuating?"

"I'm not insinuating. I'm just asking."

"You are insinuating." Chichi's fists opened and closed, white-knuckled. "You're insinuating I was somehow involved in getting her kicked out, right?"

"I never said that," Maron replied, triumphant. That was how they got them in the movies. They let the suspect reveal something they shouldn't know, and that was the evidence they were the murderer.

"It was pretty obvious," Lunch whispered in her ear, and Maron deflated.

"If I was upset about someone considering me less of a close friend than I thought, why would my response be to make them even less close by getting them kicked out of school? What kind of logic would that serve?" Chichi turned to Lunch. "You know, I can kind of see why this bimbo would think that, but you must know me better than that."

"Hey!" Maron planted her hands on her hips and gave Chichi a severe look.

Lunch shrugged. "Honestly, Chichi, I don't know you at all."

"We live together!" She slapped her desk for emphasis. "We talk to each other every single day."

Lunch was visibly uncomfortable. "It's just sharing a room. It's not like we're best friends, I just don't want to be rude to you."

Chichi's mouth hung open like she'd been slapped. "You only talk to me to be polite?"

"And I guess it would be awkward if we were always silent in the dorm."

Maron put a hand on Lunch's shoulder. "Okay, partner, I don't think she did it. She's just a crazy person who thinks people like her even though she's mean and boring. Oh, sorry Chichi. I'm sure you're nice once people get to know you. Also, Lunch, make a note that for our next interrogation we should bring sunglasses so we can put them on at the end and look really cool." She smiled at Chichi as though nothing had been said and sailed past to her desk. "We're solving a mystery."

Goku chewed the inside of his mouth and tried not to feel too disappointed. He was trying to be friends with everyone, after all, so it shouldn't really matter what group he'd ended up in for cross country training. But it was hard.

Miss Violet had split them into two smaller groups to train, as there wasn't any time she could arrange to suit all five. Goku had ended up with Piccolo and Eighteen, which sucked. His first pick would have been Chichi, and his second would have been Vegeta. For friendship purposes, though, he probably would have tried to arrange it so Vegeta and Eighteen ran together, and then Goku ran with Chichi and Piccolo. Goku thought Vegeta and Eighteen would be great friends if they stopped sniping at one another. They had a lot in common. If only Eighteen weren't so tall, Goku would have already tried to engineer a way for them to accidentally fall in love, like in the movies.

Eighteen was stretching her long legs against the exterior wall of the games hut, and Piccolo was staring off into the distance, as usual. Goku thought he might be the only one listening to Miss Violet talk about strategy and mental readiness for the big competition this Saturday, so he compensated by listening super extra hard.

"And Goku!" He stood even straighter and shot Miss Violet a snappy salute. "Stop staring at me like that. It's very strange." Goku slumped back onto his bench. All that effort to listen and he'd only come off as strange. "So we've talked about what mental processes let each of you down, individually. Do you have plans to counteract them for this weekend?"

After a few seconds of awkward silence, Goku realised the question wasn't rhetorical. "I'm going to try and follow some other people on their practice runs so I don't get psyched out running beside them on Saturday."

Piccolo raised a brow, as if to suggest he thought Goku a brave soul. It was no secret Goku had himself tied up in knots over what would happen to his room-mate situation in he beat Vegeta at something again.

Eighteen looked up for just long enough to say "I won't run for the rest of the week, just swim and stretch and try to clear my head", then bent back into a deep hamstring stretch.

Miss Violet nodded encouragingly. "Piccolo?"

Piccolo's attention returned to whatever he was always looking at on the horizon. "I will meditate."

Although her ponytail covered most of her face, Goku could see Eighteen's eyes roll.

That night, Goku pretended to keep studying after Vegeta neatly packed away his prep, closed his laptop and left to run. He waited a few minutes, then pulled on his own trainers and headed out. Goku didn't know exactly what route Vegeta ran, but he'd have to do more than one lap to make up enough distance, and Goku did know the spot where Vegeta had injured his foot, so he jogged down to that path and waited by the side.

After a while, he heard footfalls on the path and stepped out.

"Hi!"

Vegeta stopped dead and stared at him.

"What are you doing?"

"I came to run with you. Because we'll have to run together on Saturday." He smiled hopefully. Vegeta couldn't really stop Goku from following him, but he could probably spew enough venom to make it really not worth Goku's while.

"We won't be running together. We'll be running against one another."

Goku shrugged. "Well, it's not championships so we're really better off making sure the whole team does well, if it comes down to it, so the school as a whole ranks well. It's not until championships that we're really racing for an important title. I know you like to win and all, but for this weekend individual results are probably less important than the team."

The answer was a contemptuous huff. Under his breath, Vegeta muttered something that sounded like "it's not just about what I want" and took off, loping past Goku down the crooked path. Goku hesitated for only a moment, then took off after him. He took the fact that Vegeta didn't immediately shoulder charge him in the gut and leave him for dead at the side of the path as a good sign, and decided not to push things by talking.

Goku lay on top of his quilt fully clothed, with shoes, making the bed all sweaty and dirty. On the mirror universe side of the room, Vegeta sat straight-backed at his desk, having already taken a quick shower after returning from the run.

"Can you just go to bed already? Whatever you're studying can wait." Goku moaned. "Night is an evil time to run. The cafeteria isn't even open to grab a snack after. I need to be asleep so I can ignore my stomach." His stomach growled in agreement. Goku clasped his hands over it and groaned.

"Fine. If you don't want these translated any more, I won't do them." With one sweep of his arm Vegeta pushed a large stack of papers off the edge of his desk and into the wastepaper basket sitting between the two desks. The bin wobbled dangerously, but stayed upright.

"Huh? For me?" Goku sat up and swung his feet to the floor. He squinted at the papers, then hopped over onto his desk chair so he could reach them for closer examination. "What are these? Russian?"

Vegeta put his pen down and squinted quizzically at Goku. "Briefs gave them to me. She said they were for you." Goku stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth thoughtfully and Vegeta quickly amended to add "I only agreed because it's good translation practice for my exams."

"Bulma gave these to you?" It dawned on him now what these were related to. Goku wasn't sure whether he should be grateful Bulma had the nerve to ask Vegeta for help, or angry that she'd cut someone else in on his secrets without asking his permission. "What did she say about them?"

Vegeta snorted contemptuously. "Nothing. She came around yesterday looking for you and crying everywhere."

"Crying? Bulma doesn't cry. Unless you mean screaming and shouting."

"If that's what I meant I would have said it," he snapped.

"Well, I mean why was she crying? I guess you've known her longer than I have, but that doesn't seem like her."

"I don't know." Vegeta shrugged. "Women. Do you want these translations or not?"

Goku wanted to insist Vegeta must have a better idea of Bulma's state of mind than just 'women' but he'd clearly used up all his goodwill for tonight. "Okay, yeah. If you give them to me now I can get some opinions from Bulma and Krillin tomorrow."

Vegeta tore a number of pages from his notebook and handed them over. Goku had to squint to read Vegeta's handwriting, which was neat but small and dark and dense. He managed to fit two lines of writing to each line printed on the paper. "Holy shit, Vegeta. You're going to go blind writing tiny like this."

The other boy said nothing, but looked pointedly at the papers in Goku's hand, then back to meet Goku's eyes with an expression of guarded curiosity. Goku shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Um, anyway thanks, and I hope it helped with your class." He didn't like keeping secrets from people who were helping him, however reluctantly, but he hadn't been the one to ask for this help.

"Well, I'm going to sleep now."

Goku kicked off his shoes and dove under the covers before Vegeta could voice an objection to the secretive behaviour.

Yamcha spent most of his spare study period on Friday wandering the grounds. He had an essay to work on for economics, but he'd been feeling aimless and philosophical ever since the most recent breakup. Or maybe philosophical wasn't the right word. Thoughtful? The sensation was very much like thoughtfulness, very much up in his head, but Yamcha couldn't name a single actual thought he'd managed to fully form.

The doors to the big hall, where they held whole-school assemblies and basketball games, were open, so Yamcha stuck his head in as he wandered past.

"Hey, Maron."

She looked up and smiled in the beatific manner of those whose minds never weighed heavy. It was the sort of smile that made your own mind seemed lighter just for seeing it. Maron and Goku were the only people Yamcha knew who could pull it off.

"Hi, Yamcha."

He didn't have anything better to do, so he entered the hall and walked to where she knelt, head bent over a piece of stretched canvas almost the width of the hall.

"Whatcha doin'?"

She made a small noise and kept going for a while before resting her brush on a rag and smiling up at him.

"For the half term concert upper and lower sixth are collaborating on this canvas. We all designed it together." She looked upon it like a proud mother, then frowned gently and picked her brush back up. "I'm trying to fix what Oolong's done here." She sighed and worked in the offending area with some blues. "We have to let him hang a framed piece or exhibit a sculpture for the parents to view before the concert starts, but I've no obligation to let him ruin our collaborative work."

Yamcha nodded. He didn't know much about art. "I like the border. It's really intricate."

She nodded, blue ponytail bouncing in time with the movement. "That's Zarbon's design, but Ranfan and Jeice have been doing the brushwork. He has a great feeling for the pretty details, but he's impatient with paint."

"Do you have a main bit?" He squatted next to her and watched her brush transform Oolong's crude anatomical illustration into a rushing wave smashed against the rocks of someone else's part of the picture.

"No. I usually work in abstract. I'm overseeing the unity of our colour palette, and helping people who have trouble manipulating the medium. Even some of the uppers ask for my help." Her face was flushed with pleasure, and Yamcha supposed around here she didn't often get to be a voice of authority on anything. "I don't want this to be just another student mural. I want a unified, tonal piece. Something evocative and musical." She sighed and cocked her head to one side, listening to something nobody else could hear. "Whether I use a brush or my violin, it's really the same in the end. It has to sing to your heart. Do you know what I mean?"

Yamcha had no idea what she meant, but she looked right into his eyes, and he looked at that perfect porcelain face streaked with paint and all he could say was "yeah".