Even after more than two weeks' passing, still Vegeta had yet to confront Bulma. Every evening had been the same: he would finish his training around dusk, go inside for dinner, then scan the premises for her energy during his nightly shower. Not once had he sensed her presence on the Capsule Corp. grounds before he went to bed; each time, he had instead read her faint energy signature emanating from West City's center. He could make no mistake about it now—she was avoiding him purposefully. If she came home at all, she must have done so either while he trained or slept. He figured it was the latter, for his mind had strayed to her occasionally during his training.

The long days he spent alone tranquilized him pleasantly at first, but that pleasant stillness slowly morphed into a foreboding silence. Vegeta would have no more of it. After going through his evening routines, he, instead of going to bed, prepared himself for a long night, dressing himself in a sweatshirt and a pair of athletic pants. Suppressing his energy instinctively, the Saiyan stalked Capsule Corp.'s main floor for an ideal place to lay in waiting. She had to come home sometime. If she did not, then he could either wait for her again tomorrow night or seek her out in the city as he had before. He hoped he would not have to resort to that second option; prolonged human interaction agitated him, he knew the walls of Capsule Corp.'s mansion much better than its headquarters, and here he could ensure his privacy.

An armchair lodged in the corner of a parlor served Vegeta's purposes relatively well. From his perch there, he had a view not only into the hallway, the kitchen, and the main lobby, but also out onto the front lawn via a bay window. He held himself in an uncomfortable position as to ward off weariness. Ever since he had resumed his gravity training, exhaustion practically forced him into a deep, dreamless sleep the moment the clock struck eleven. He appreciated the regularity, but it made focusing on the woman's energy considerably more difficult as the night drew on. No amount of tiredness could shake his determination, however.

Sure enough, Vegeta detected Bulma's nearing energy no more than an hour past midnight. He straightened his posture, shifted to the edge of his seat, and watched the window attentively. Barely thirty minutes had passed before he sensed her presence near the garage. From there, she would head either into the house or the laboratory. If the former, he would no doubt glimpse her crossing the lawn. He did. She entered through the main door, and he watched her disappear into the kitchen.

As he crept toward the kitchen himself, he made every assurance that not even the hint of a sound betrayed his step. Leaning against a wall on the opposite end of the room, he regarded her while she pulled an assortment of bottles from a top cabinet. She mixed their contents over ice along with some milk. Just as she turned, resting her backside on the kitchen counter and raising her glass to her lips, Vegeta announced his presence.

"Woman," he said.

Bulma inhaled sharply, and shock shook her perceptibly. Her glass crashed to the floor. It shattered. "Shit," she cursed finally. She swallowed, drew her shaking hands into loose fists, then turned and fetched a broom and a dustpan. Lowering herself to her knees, she began to sweep the broken glass off of the hardwood.

"You have been avoiding me," Vegeta accused, his voice low. "Even now you won't look at me when I speak to you."

In response, the woman shot him a direct, simmering glare.

Vegeta returned it, his lip curling into a slight sneer. The loss of her temper was imminent.

"I wondered when you'd show your sorry face," she began caustically. "You should be glad I left you alone because only God knows what I might have said. It's not exactly smart to mouth off at your questionably suicidal Saiyan houseguest."

Vegeta felt the first flares of his own temper. "What?" he growled.

Bulma lowered her eyes to the mess on the floor, clearly regretting what she had just said.

The Saiyan exhaled moodily, calming himself. "I have done nothing to offend you. If anything, it is I who should take offense. You sought to manipulate me, and now you blame me for your own failure. You are either delusional or foolish."

Once she dumped the broken glass into a recycling bin, she met Vegeta's gaze once more. More than anything, his words seemed to have confused her. "Manipulate you?" she asked, flustered. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Don't toy with me," he threatened. He stared at her for a moment, but her confusion did not seem to subside. "You can't have forgotten what you did, but I will remind you anyhow. You whored yourself out to me, then you insulted me for taking up your offer. I want to know what you hoped to gain by this."

Bulma's jaw slackened. "You did not just say that."

"Say what? I only repeated your own poorly-constructed scheme to you."

"You know what? Fuck you, Vegeta." She stomped up to him, her heels clacking against the hardwood, and stopped hardly a foot from his face. "It's enough to treat me like a whore, but to straight up call me one—! Fuck you!" In vain, she threw her right hand at his cheek and her left fist at his chest.

He caught both by the wrist and laughed in her face.

As the woman struggled to break free from the Saiyan's grip, tears tears rose to her eyes. She neither sobbed nor sniveled; instead, her tears streamed silently down her cheeks as she beamed hatred at him, biting her lower lip and burying a scream in her throat. The combined effect of the fiery wrath and dewy hurt in her eyes dazzled Vegeta. He released her, then folded his arms over his chest.

Her hands fell to her sides. "I'm not a whore," she stated weakly, but nevertheless firmly.

After a moment, Vegeta asked flatly, "Then what were you trying to do? What did you want from me?"

Her fingers twitched with the temptation to fly at him again. "Are you fucking serious? Do you even need to ask?"

Vegeta was serious, and his expression revealed no more, no less.

"Oh my God. You are serious."

Vegeta remained frozen.

"Oh my God. Are you—? Shit. You actually thought—! Fuck you!" Her shoulders trembled with rage, and her voice had lowered to a bitter rasp. "I am not a whore. I was not just letting you play with me like some sex toy to, what, manipulate you? Bullshit. What the fuck could you possibly have that I would want? You don't even have anything! You only have what I and my family gave you. All you have is yourself. What else could I have wanted but you? Is that so fucking weird? And I actually thought that you wanted me too. But no, none of that ever even occurred to you! This whole time, you never thought this was about anybody but yourself. I'm not a person—I'm just a thing that gets you off. Fuck you, you self-centered asshole! Excuse me for giving a shit about you, for wishing you the best. I know now that it was one of the biggest mistakes I ever made. I don't know why I ever expected anything different from you."

Vegeta blinked in disbelief, hastily processing the implications of Bulma's words. "I," he stammered, "I don't under—"

"No. Don't even start. Shut up. You have no idea what's been going on. I've had to pay off the press for your little visit to my headquarters. I've had to stay late every night, calling everyone and their brother so I can blackmail them. You're lucky no one's attempted a full-blown investigation. And that's probably only because I've paid millions to shut everyone up. But it doesn't matter if I tell you this or not. You won't give a shit either way. Because I don't matter to you!" She paused to wipe her tears away with her forearm.

"Woman," Vegeta barked before she could begin again, "I don't understand! I never injured you. You are overreacting."

The Saiyan dodged the open palm aimed at his face at the last second. "Fuck you! I have every right to be as angry as I am. I gave you a place to live and someone to talk to even when you didn't deserve it. My dad and I have taken weeks out of our schedules working on things for you. If it wasn't for me and Yamcha, you might have bled out and died when you blew up the ship. So when you opened up to me, I thought you were finally coming to appreciate me as someone you could trust. You even said you couldn't stop thinking about me. But no—you just randomly decided that you wanted to fuck me. That was all. So you took advantage of me once you got your easy opportunity, you had your way with me, and then you just left with that smug, self-satisfied look on your face. I thought there was more to you than that, but I guess I was wrong. I've had this idealized picture of you in my head all this time. At least you were enough of a prick to make me realize how heartless you really are before it went any further. Fuck you! And to top it all off, I bet you couldn't have gotten me off even if you had bothered to try. For all I know, I was the first anatomically compatible woman you even saw naked!"

"Enough, you insolent creature!" Vegeta interrupted with an authoritative shout. Digging his nails into his biceps, he stood sputtering angrily and wordlessly. He wanted eviscerate the woman, whether verbally of physically, but instead floundered about in his own enraged stupefaction.

"Ugh!" Bulma spat, spinning around. "I really needed that drink you made me drop. I need about three of them now." She returned to the counter and fetched herself another glass. "What, Vegeta? You just going to stand there and stare at me? Get the fuck away from me."

"I will do as I please, woman!" Petulantly, he sat down at the kitchen table.

Bulma drained her first glass, then poured herself another.

Vegeta thought of something to say at last. "You must think yourself very wise to drink yourself silly in my presence."

The woman shot him a withering scowl that would have rendered a weaker man spineless. "You wouldn't dare!"

"Of course I wouldn't. I have my dignity. You, however, might start ingratiating yourself to me once you've lost yours. Did you not say that you wanted me? Yes, you did. That certainly explains why you made so much noise before. Shame on me for not having understood sooner."

"Just go away, asshole." She drained her second glass.

"No. I have missed you. I want to get a good look at you while I can. Your strange shoes, for example: they make no sense, but I think I understand their purpose; they force you to rotate your hips in a most provocative manner when you walk."

Bulma rolled her eyes as she filled her glass a third time. "You're seriously doing this right now. You think you're being funny? Go to Hell. You're killing my buzz. I should just go to bed. But I want to get drunk."

Vegeta ignored her and carried on. "Let me set one thing straight for you. I am not ignorant of your anatomy or how it responds to stimuli. I made it my business to know the physical structures and functions of the races I went to destroy. And as your race relates so closely to mine, there is a particular affinity between them, and that grants me a rare intimacy of knowledge."

Bulma snorted into her glass. Clumsily, she set it down, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Right, sure. I almost feel embarrassed for you. You're so awkward and clueless. You don't know a thing about relationships. At first I thought it was cute, but now it's just sad. Go away." The slightest slur had entered her speech.

"I have no respect for your petty Earthling social practices."

"Well, obviously. Like right now. You're only taunting me because you couldn't respond to any of my accusations. You don't want to admit that you were wrong, so you're just poking fun and hoping I'll get mad and forget. You're so predictable." She snorted again. "I have better social skills than you when I'm fucking drunk."

Vegeta's eyes narrowed. Subconsciously, he knew she was right, but he refused to consciously acknowledge that intuition. He taunted her only because he knew of nothing better to do. It was an excuse to be near her; he had not seen her in weeks. He wondered if she knew that.

"That sure shut you up. I guess I win this round." She pushed her glass into the sink gracelessly. The resulting clashing sound nearly made the Saiyan flinch. "I'm going to bed while I can still go up the stairs without stumbling," she announced, departing without putting her liquor back in its cabinet. "You can go fuck yourself."

Vegeta stood from his seat at the kitchen table and followed Bulma into the hallway. He had gotten the confrontation he wanted; nothing remained but for him to sleep. By now, only a few hours remained before the first light of dawn. When he reached the staircase, he saw that the woman had barely ascended halfway. She placed each foot in front of the other slowly and deliberately, but haphazardly; with her absurd shoes, Vegeta knew a fall was forthcoming. He caught up to her just before she tripped.

"You're obstructing my way," he said with dark amusement.

"Fuck you!" she groaned, her voice muffled by the carpet.

He bent over, wrapped one arm around her waist, hoisted her up, and balanced her against his side. With her folded over his forearm, he began to carry her the rest of the way up the stairs.

Bulma struck his knee with her fist in protest. "What the hell!"

With calculated abruptness, he dropped her once they reached the summit. "You are a pathetic woman. And you are very foul-mouthed. You use vulgar words constantly."

She struggled to stand, propping herself up against the wall. Her glazed expression wavered somewhere between confused and frustrated.

Vegeta left her and vanished into his room. He had not foreseen how vastly the woman's expectations had differed from his own.