Piccolo stood at the rail of Kami's Lookout several days later. He'd gone into deep meditation since the tournament in an effort to regain control of his thoughts. It hadn't worked.
"There you are, Piccolo," Mr. Popo said behind him.
Piccolo jolted. It wasn't the first time he hadn't sensed someone approaching in the last few days. Very unlike him…
Mr. Popo stood next to him and looked out over the earth. A long silence passed between them until finally Piccolo broke it.
"I…" he sighed. He wasn't accustomed to expressing his feelings, but he couldn't wait another day with all this tension penned up inside. And Mr. Popo was wise. He just may be able to help. "I haven't felt like myself since the tournament."
"You have been rather subdued, Piccolo."
"Mmm."
"Is it Gaszha?"
Piccolo flinched at hearing her name.
"Ah," Mr. Popo said. "It is."
Piccolo frowned, and reluctantly unloaded. "I can't stop thinking about her."
"Hmm." Mr. Popo sighed. "She did seem to come out of nowhere and surprise everyone. You shouldn't feel bad that she beat you, Piccolo," he commented innocently.
The hard edge in Piccolo's face dissolved into a look of distress, and he turned to face Mr. Popo. "I don't. It's not THAT she beat me. It's…how."
"Her trickery? I could hear Vegeta's complaints quite clearly even from up here-"
"No. I mean yes." Frustrated, Piccolo turned back over the railing.
There was a pause and Piccolo felt Mr. Popo's eyes on him. "There's something completely unfamiliar in you," Mr. Popo said, scrutinizing him.
"Obviously," Piccolo said. "That's what I've been trying to tell you. It's how I think about her; the way she looked, smelled, fought…" He looked down, and added quietly, "Her kiss…"
"Oh…oh my," Mr. Popo interjected. Piccolo dropped down to Mr. Popo's height and grabbed his vest.
"What's happening to me? Up until our fight, all I wanted was for her to leave me alone, and now all I want is to see her again!" He shook his head. "It's not right. I'm a Namek for crying out loud!"
Mr. Popo gently unlatched Piccolo's hands from his vest. "It sounds like you're attracted to her, Piccolo."
"But I can't be!"
Mr. Popo paused as he thought. "Think about it, Piccolo. Nameks are an adaptable species. When you are in cold weather here, such as was never had on Namek, your body adjusts so that you become impervious to it. If you lose a limb, it replaces itself. If you're trapped under water, your skin sucks oxygen from the surrounding molecules so you don't have to breathe through your mouth."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that you've adapted to this planet in more ways you thought possible. In a system that requires two genders to procreate, your body has altered itself to do just that, and Gaszha's kiss is what triggered it."
Piccolo wanted to counter Mr. Popo's words with his own. He wanted to say something that would cancel out Mr. Popo's explanation, but he couldn't. It made sense, and somewhere inside of him, he believed it.
"I don't want this, Mr. Popo. I can't focus on anything. I can't meditate."
"You should seek her out, and resolve your curiosities."
"I can't go in search of her! That'd only make it worse."
"Then when she gets here, give her your undivided attention."
"She may never come!"
"You're wrong." Mr. Popo leaned over the railing. "As a matter of fact I see her right now."
"What?" Piccolo looked over and indeed there she was, a small speck down below closing in rapidly. He couldn't believe he'd missed her approach. And then an odd sensation formed in his chest and spread all throughout his body. She was here! How was he supposed to act?
At that point, Gaszha appeared over the railing, and landed not ten feet from him. Her hair was wind-tossed from the flight, and her face flushed from the morning's chill air. Her attire came in a neat arrangement of blacks and greens, and the material was such that it hugged here and hung off there to accentuate her full-bodied figure. She was visually stimulating. Robbed of will and independent thought, Piccolo could only stare. Fortunately, however, she misinterpreted it.
"You were hoping I wouldn't come, eh Piccolo?" Her voice for some reason triggered his saliva glands and he found himself wondering what it would be like to kiss her in a non-combatant setting. He said nothing.
"Well, I'm tired of thinking about who I am and who I am not. I need a distraction and you're it. I'm afraid I'll have to hold you to our bet."
Piccolo didn't realize he was still staring. His eyes had dropped to her waist where two-inches of midriff separated the top from the bottom.
"Ready to go?"
"Hmm?" Piccolo shook himself. "Oh, uh…" he looked quickly to Mr. Popo, who nodded his head. Piccolo looked back to Gaszha. "Y-yes."
"Good." Unexpectedly, she walked up to him and yanked off his turban, and lifted off his cape. He watched as both items crunched on the floor. "You're more handsome without them."
He gawked at her. "There's not many women on this planet who could do what you just did," he stuttered. "And even if there were, I'd never let them do it."
"Well," she brushed her hands on his shoulders, which somehow made his gut tighten and his feet tingle. "Thank goodness I won the bet, then." Her eyes fixed on his antennae, and crinkled in curiosity. "Hmm. What odd little appendages." Gaszha reached up and lightly touched one. He gasped and jumped back, stumbling in the process.
Her eyes lit up, and she laughed. "Well nowguess those are pretty sensitive. I'll have to use that to my advantage next time we fight."
Piccolo swallowed, desperately trying to regain his composure as he was bombarded by new sensations.
"Piccolo, Piccolo."
He found that he liked how she said his name.
"Are you going to make me feel like a freak the whole day, or are you going to be able to tolerate me?"
"I'll be, uh, fine."
She sighed. "Then let's go."
"Where?"
"I know of some places."
Chapter 6
The day was coming to an end, and Piccolo looked over the cliff to a halved sun dimming on the waterline.
"I told you it'd be beautiful. The sun sets prettiest over the ocean. Always," Gaszha said as she shifted in her sitting position to get a better view.
"Mmm." He felt incredibly relaxed, as opposed to earlier that morning when he was a walking bauble of clumsiness and confusion; stumbling over his own feet, stuttering on his own words... They had flown to this place, and had talked…ALL DAY. It startled him to realize that this was the first time they'd had a lull in the conversation.
She asked him question after question. In retrospect, he felt that she drilled him though it didn't seem so at the time. And he opened up. So unlike him… He spoke of Namek, and what he thought was his destiny. He spoke of wanting to kill-and finally killing-Goku, and subsequently raising his son, Gohan; whom he later died for, finally having learned how to care for someone besides himself.
He figured early on that if he didn't look directly at Gaszha, he was able to think more clearly. She interpreted it as disinterest, and he let her. Easier to deal with that than the opposite, he thought. And the longer they spoke, the more comfortable he became and had ultimately spent the last two hours of the day making eye contact, and using hand gestures to express himself better.
He was a different person around her, yet oddly he didn't care. Piccolo shook his head.
"What are you thinking?" She asked.
He paused. "I'm thinking that I was just interrogated for an entire day, and it didn't even bother me."
She perked. "You intrigue me. What can I say?"
"Why?"
It was her turn to be quiet and stare at the horizon. After several seconds, she shrugged. "I can't explain it, really. I'm just drawn to you, which is quite odd considering that the chemistry," she gave him a good once-over from head to toe, and smiled sadly, "is not, nor ever can be…mutual."
Ah, the sexless thing, Piccolo thought. Better that she doesn't know what's been happening to me, because of her… And then it hit him that it was indeed odd. In her mind she was intentionally fostering a hopeless relationship. Piccolo wondered how long it would last before she got frustrated and gave up on him. And then he wondered if he'd even let it get that far.
He watched Gaszha as she stared at the sunset, and was hit by another rush of feelings and longings that he had no idea how to cope with. She'd wrapped her arms around her calves as she sat, resting her chin on her knees. Her hair was none-too-securely tucked behind her Saiyan ears, and her expressive shadowed eyes glistened from the light of the setting sun.
He secretly dug his nails into the flesh of his palm to funnel his thoughts. Conversation, he thought. He needed a subject to fix on, for in the silence he only fixed on her. He suddenly found himself curious about her life, and how she worked. "What's it like living with the demons?"
If the question caught her off guard, she didn't show. Sighing, she said, "Intense."
"How so?"
She looked at him as if surprised that he wanted more than a one-word answer. She cleared her throat and looked back out over the ocean.
"A lot of violence, a lot of competition, a lot of back-stabbing. I have many friends, but the only demon I trust completely is the female who raised me, and she's dead."
Piccolo considered that her death was probably aided, and figured it was none of his business . "I'm…I'm sorry."
Gaszha shrugged. An awkward silence fell between them, and Piccolo was unsure how to break it. She'd lived a life that would have suited him perfectly had he never aligned himself with good. He imagined that her concept of 'normal' was probably more than a little askew. Yet why, then, did she seem so sincere?
"Who taught you how to love in that environment?"
A brief pause, and then she snorted. "A demon named Zobo, or at least he thinks so anyhow." She rolled her eyes. "He's more aggressive with me on a daily basis than I was with you at the tournament."
Piccolo felt the beginnings of a growl resound in his chest, and quickly quieted. Whoever this Zobo was, he knew he wanted him out of the picture. Gaszha was hiiisss… Startled, he shook himself. What the hell…?
Having no awareness that she'd just made him jealous, Gaszha continued. "Seriously, though, besides my mother-it was the humans that taught me how."
Huh? He quirked an eyebrow at her.
"We'd raid them every so often. You know, for sport. A couple times I'd go to scout out the communities, and found myself observing them." She winced, as if at some resurfacing guilt. "I saw how they interacted with each other; as families, friends, co-workers… All so endearing. So unlike my home." She smiled ruefully. "And I wreaked havoc on them anyways."
Piccolo said nothing. After several seconds, she continued.
"That's what the tournament money was for, you know. To undo the damage I've done. The last couple days were spent distributing what I could to the towns I'd helped terrorize."
Piccolo was impressed. He never tried to right his wrongs, and he'd terrorized plenty before Gohan had changed his life. "That was…good of you."
"That was right of me. I'm still working on the good part," she winked at him-something that she did often, something he found pleasantly distracting. "A year ago, I made a decision to start listening to my gut instinct instead of my conditioning. As a result, I've been campaigning in the demon world to end the attacks on the humans."
"That can't be a popular notion."
"Oh, it isn't. But where coercion fails, brute strength succeeds." At that, a very familiar grin split her face. It was the grin of someone who knew that they could kick anyone's ass, anytime.
"What you say, goes," Piccolo smiled back at her, finding more in common with the woman than he'd anticipated.
"Eventually. Needless to say, the humans haven't seen hide nor hair of my people since."
"Hmm."
She stood up, and brushed the dirt off her clothes. The only colors left in the sky were darkening shades of blue, and it was getting chilly. "Well Piccolo, I've taken up enough of your time."
A dull ache contracted his chest, and he felt a sadness wash over him. "Is…is the day over?" And the question he wasn't about to ask, Will I ever see you again?
"Yep. You've done a marvelous job of pretending to enjoy yourself, and for that, I thank you." She grabbed a long coat of ambiguous material up off the ground and wrapped herself in it.
"I…" What he said next just might bring her back later. It could also further throw his once-controlled feelings into utter chaos. His old self wouldn't have even entertained the thought of encouraging her. But his old self wasn't in control anymore… He swallowed. "I wasn't."
"Hmm?"
"Pretending," he breathed. "I wasn't pretending."
She froze and whatever thoughts were racing through her mind failed to alter her expression. Piccolo had expected a reaction-he needed a reaction. He'd just crossed a line, and had to know where the new boundaries lie.
Finally her eyes narrowed and she chewed her bottom lip, "What was it that made you change your mind about me?" she asked. "My strength?"
"No."
"My new-found identity as a Saiyan?"
"No."
"Then what was it?"
"It was you." It was vague, but true. And it was the only answer she was going to get. Already, Piccolo felt like his heart was beating in his throat, a sensation he only got when facing an unbeatable foe. She stood there scrutinizing him, leaning on one hip with her head cocked. As he watched her, Piccolo became awkwardly aware of where his hands were, and where he'd rather they be.
"So this isn't some ploy to get me to join your little fighter posse of super heroes, is it…?" she asked.
Piccolo unfolded his arms and stared at her, slightly stung. "Is that what you think?"
She nodded.
"No, Gaszha. It's not," he said firmly. "Your upbringing has made you cynical. I don't play those games."
It was apparently the right answer. Her expression lifted into mischief, just like it had the day of the tournament when she'd spent most of her time flirting with him. She paced slowly up to him with her hands clasped behind her back until they were face to face. Piccolo forgot to breathe for several seconds while she basked in his obvious discomfort.
"Then you wouldn't be opposed to doing this again sometime?" she asked.
She was so close to him it was hard to think. Thank heavens he only needed to say one word. "N-no."
"Great." She wrapped her arms around his chest in a quick embrace and then skipped off. "I'll be seeing you around, Piccolo," she tossed over her shoulder as she hopped into the evening sky. He watched her until she disappeared from view, and then leaned heavily against a rock outcropping with his head in his hands.
Stunned, stupefied, and elated, Piccolo wondered just what he'd gotten himself into.