Bulma chewed on her already shortened thumbnail as she waited for her co-performers to arrive on the first day of training. With her other unoccupied hand, she pinched at her skintight shorts that had bunched up on her thighs and adjusted the fuchsia tank top, emblazoned with the Master Kami's Dragon Acrobatics logo from 5 seasons ago with twitchy fingers.
She had managed to keep in shape, her gymnast's body reacclimating steadily from the long hiatus while the others indulged in their short respite. For them, the week off most likely consisted of drinking, cheating on their strict regimen of health foods, and minimal exercise. Bulma took that time to ready herself for the tortuous road ahead if she were to be performance ready once the new season began.
She had made the decision to reapply to her old career a few months before and prepped through self-disciplined workouts knowing full well what was going to be required of her if she was permitted back. Getting the call that she would be wholeheartedly welcomed, she met with her old mentor Roshi, but insisted on particular stipulations prior to signing another contract with the company.
"I'm a little older," she stated sullenly, resenting the sting to her vain constitution with the admission, "so I may not be as quick as I was before."
"I understand. But during our test period, I witness first hand you're capabilities. You are still very agile and flexible to perform your acts. Don't tell me you're too old. You're 24. You've got quite a few years before we see you start to slow down." Roshi insisted through the compliment.
"I've also gained some weight after leaving. I don't know if I can get back to where I was before."
"And with strict exercise, you should be able snap back. You are nothing if not determined."
"Haven't been on the silk in a while." She fidgeted in her seat, the list of obstacles seemingly getting longer the more she thought about it.
His old joints crackled as he leaned forward. If he felt any discomfort from old age, he didn't show it. Instead, Roshi removed his glasses and peered at her assuredly with watery, hard-set eyes. "Bulma, are you trying to talk yourself out of joining? I know what you're capable of. If you want to come back, you can. Your circumstances don't affect that. You were an incredible performer before. I know you have the potential to be incredible again."
She let out a persuaded sigh and nodded, confident enough to prove her mettle once again. "I want to come back. I only request that I can leave at 5 every day. And I need one day a week off. I'll make up for the lost time." She caveated.
He pondered her requests for a moment before putting the shades back over his eyes while extended his hand. "If you're okay with lowered pay until you've put in the time and work, we have a deal. You gotta earn back what you were making before."
She took his handshake with a smile.
Roshi returned to his chair, pleased with the agreement but tilted his head with concern as her blue brows pulled together apprehensively. "What's wrong now, Bulma?"
Her mouth set to a thin line. "I need you to promise you won't say anything. To anyone. This discussion stays between us?" She asked and he nodded in understanding of her need to keep certain things secret.
"I won't tell a soul."
She appreciated the owner's confidentiality and discretion. And subsequently worked her ass off in preparation to be a Dragon, from the bottom up.
Alone in the gym, for the time being, Bulma continued to bite her nails to assuage simmering nervous energy in her stomach. She made the effort to turn the anxiousness into excited jitters, compelling her forward onto the equipment with a burst of adrenaline. She jumped up and treaded a dainty path across one of the worn balance beams, utilized her toned biceps to hoist herself up onto the pull bar, then to vault down with ease before sending herself into a full sprint across the empty mat, executing two flawless front handspring flips, the mat bouncing under her palms.
With her landing stuck gracefully, hands pointed to the sky in personal triumph, she heard a chuckle behind her and was greeted with two smiling faces.
"I see you haven't lost your touch. You're still fast." Launch remarked as she put her voluminous wavy blue-black hair into a bun.
"Thanks," Bulma replied embarrassed at the compliment, leaning into her other friend when Chi Chi came over to link her arm. She smiled at her teammates, grateful at how receptive all of them had responded to her return. Well, most of them.
A derisive scoff burst the happy bubble the girls had been enjoying as Vegeta stalked over from his silent observance near the entrance to the men's locker room.
Bulma glanced around, confused as to how he'd gotten in without her noticing. She was sure there was only one way in, one way out. She was even more sure that she had been alone only moments before as situational cognizance slowly dawned.
Her face must have given away her thoughts when Chi Chi chimed in, "Vegeta's always here before the rest of us. He was probably living here all week. He has nothing else going on in his life besides practice and yelling."
"I wouldn't have to yell if you were better and put in more work." His reply flippant.
Chi Chi had a biting retort all planned from the fire in her eyes when Bulma interrupted the prepared jab. "You saw me practice." She realized.
He smirked. "Yes, I did." He scrutinized her under dark eyelashes. "You need a lot of work, too."
Taken aback and thoroughly insulted, both women glared maliciously while the rest of the team arrived nearly all at the same time, the front door banging against the metal wall in loud exuberance. Thinking it better to not be fired the first day from breaking his judgmental nose, Bulma changed her mind and decided to just ignore him.
"Man, I'm gonna miss bread." Yamcha lamented, causing a collective groan to emit in depressed and hungry agreement. He sat himself down on the mat to begin his stretches, rolling his ankles and pointing his toes up and down while keeping his long mane of black hair out of his face.
"Why'd you have to remind me." Goku rebuked with a mournful face, the usually loose, blue athletic sweatshirt pulled somewhat tight over his arms and broad chest. He sighed, taking a seat next to his teammate and mimicking the warmup routine. "Ramen. I ate so much ramen. Delicious, delicious ramen." He salivated at the memories.
"Restricted meal plans begin today, team," Roshi called over, a roster sheet in his elderly hands. Their head choreographer Whis, sauntering behind just as cordial and elegant in a lilac tracksuit as Bulma remembered him to be. Although, he seemed taller as he towered over most of them with a sparkling, carefree grin.
"Let's start by assigning partners for new routines." Roshi began, scratching his white beard and smoothing out the paper. Bulma itched with anticipation over who she'd be paired with, secretly hoping it'd be the girls,
"Chi Chi and Launch on high wire."
Or Yamcha with his encouraging compliments boosting her ego. Not to mention their past romantic history turned to loyal friendship was certainly a plus,
"Piccolo and Yamcha on rings today."
Or Goku with his cheerful optimism,
"Goku, I want you to do high bar alone." The old man directed. She watched her friends taking their assigned places across the gym floor.
Running out of options, Bulma cringed when she realized who was left.
"Vegeta, I want you to train with Bulma. I think she'll do well under your guidance."
"No." Came his blunt response. She didn't even have enough time to form an opinion one way or the other as her gaze searched his face which appeared moderately surprised that he, himself, answered so abruptly.
"What do you mean, no?" Roshi inquired, adjusting his sunglasses to better observe his hostile team member.
Vegeta's gaze directed at the old man, unwavering, as he drew in a defiant breath, doubling down on his blurted reply. "I mean no. She can go with someone else."
Roshi opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted by a small gruffly sounding, snigger that disturbed the tense air. Piccolo edged next to Bulma, peering down at the shorter, more resistant man with an upturned brow. "You must really be intimidated." He chuckled darkly.
"What?" Vegeta seethed, looking as though the hair on the back of his neck was standing up from personal offense.
"I've only noticed that Bulma comes back after more than a year and clearly must have some incredible skills to show us or Roshi wouldn't have hired her. I didn't realize til' now how threatened you must be that she'd show you up. Are you afraid she'd still be better than you at ropework and highwire? Like old times, right?" The dark-skinned man's veiled taunt, exacerbated by the sly glint in his black eyes, struck a nerve for Vegeta's face to scrunch into a teeth-grinding sneer. He clenched and unclenched his fists before stalking off in a provoked snit. Taking that as a conceding victory, Bulma smiled up at her defender as Piccolo gently pinched her arm and winked.
"Don't worry about it, he'll come around. We got your back." He added protectively. "You're part of the team again. We're family."
Grateful for Piccolo's supportive words, Bulma felt she didn't need verbal justification to reason her way into rejoining the team. She was confident her abilities would show for themselves.
Bulma didn't know it was possible to sweat nearly 2 gallons of water from her pores in 6 hours. After being openly disregarded as a partner earlier in the morning, Vegeta called her over gruffly to begin rope climbing only to endure his chastising from the floor for being too slow, to practice parallel bars where he snapped at her further for not executing landings to his standards, and to then do trampoline flips, where his constant barking to not 'look like an uncoordinated cow' grated on her nerves. She noticed how he refused to let her on the silks. He probably remembered that was her place to shine.
She spent the entire afternoon biting her tongue rather than lash back. She could have it out with him. Scream back and alter the clear power dynamic he was setting. However, she chose to remain internally resentful and silent. At least until the end of the day.
Taking one last swig of water before upturning the remainder of the bottle's contents over her head, she rested on the ground in the cool air outside the hanger. She rubbed a towel over her face exhaustively as it absorbed the wetness from her forehead and dripping ponytail. The soft tinkling of keys made her look up expectantly. She glowered in boiling irritation when she recognized the brow-beating ass the keys belonged to.
"Hey!" she yelled, meeting Vegeta's unsurprised glance in the unpaved parking lot. Her muscles ached with every step but that didn't stop her from stomping over and prodding his pectoral with an angry finger. "What the hell, Vegeta. You have some nerve treating me like that. You are such a jerk." She spat, last bit of restraint broken as he stood seemingly unfazed by her tirade.
"I wasn't the one that left and got fat and lazy." He retorted curtly.
"You're just mad you got paired up with me. I didn't choose to work with you!" She pointed out, placing her hands on her hips.
The flash of rage overtook his indifference. "Yea, I am! Why would I want to work with a clumsy, overweight, untrained former teammate." He glared.
"Well, deal with it because I'm not leaving!" She spat back vehemently.
"Fine! Don't! Just know, I'm going to make your life a living hell!"
"What is your problem?"
Gritting his teeth, he slammed his hands in the car's hood. "My problem is you! You vanished for two years-"
"A year and seven months." She corrected under her breath.
He narrowed his eyes to slits as his voice dropped to a harsh, low octave. "Two years. And now you've come back expecting open arms? I won't do it."
"You are acting like a child. Why are you being like this? We used to get along-"
"We used to get along because we were sleeping together. Then you left."
"And why did I leave, Vegeta? You had commitment issues. We were dating for like a year! You lied and told me we could be together. I thought we were more than just a fling." Hints of pain clipped on her tongue as the memory of their past dredged up.
"You thought wrong." He replied coldly. Bulma couldn't help the chill in his words freezing its way down to her bones. She hadn't thought of their break up with animosity in a long while. She surmised enough time had passed for wounds to scar over and they could be friends. It was evident he felt differently.
She heard him sigh and after a few moments, he leaned against the car to collect himself to a semblance of civility. "And I didn't lie. I told you I wasn't ready, then. You pressured me."
"I didn't pressure you." She whispered with flimsy conviction. This was the first she had heard him identify an issue clearly without callously screaming in circles to then be left unresolved.
"Yes, you did. We fought constantly. You asked me to move in with you and wouldn't take no for an answer. I distinctly remember that day when I said I wasn't going to, you told me to leave, which I did, then was greeted with a very large trash bag full of my clothes, covered in pink paint that you threw over the balcony… to explode on the sidewalk." He reflected resentfully.
"I am sorry about that." Her gaze drawn to the side with remorse held back for too long, an admission that took nearly two years to materialize.
"Then you disappeared. And I hadn't heard from you until a week ago." His tone shifted, a painful edge to his wording that expressed itself more visibly in his dark eyes.
"We had more good times than bad." She tried to reason as she swallowed the guilt.
"Not the way I remember it." He replied, his gaze purposefully aimed over his shoulder.
"I'm not that person anymore."
The sharp tsk from his disbelieving mouth caused her to involuntarily flinch. "It doesn't matter. What could possibly have changed from then until now that you feel so reformed?" He replied, although he seemed disinterested in her answer.
"More than you think." She remarked in hushed honesty.
"Why did you come back?" He asked with veiled accusation in his tone.
"I missed the team. I missed being here."
"You knew I'd be here, though."
"I did." His eyes finally came up to meet hers and searched without much expression. She wished there was something more she could say; to convince him she no longer harbored vindictive or hateful feelings toward him.
She watched him shake his head with a drawn-out sigh and get into his car. "You shouldn't of come back." His response dismissive.
Dirt kicked up as he drove off, creating clouds of dust in his wake to swirl around her, gritty and harsh on her physical senses but not as painfully as the dull ache that rested on her heart.
