Sometimes Yamucha wonders if the girl knows the consequences of the game she plays. Does she understand the rules and adhere to them strictly, or does she stumble through blindly like a fool rushing in, breaking everything and leaving others to clean it up? Because it's a dangerous sport she's playing, and if she thinks he's blind to her advances, then she's clumsier than he thought.
Bra must have her father's spirit, he decides. She has her mother's eyes and lips and breasts and oh-so-perfect curvy hips, but it's Daddy's face and wicked, sickle-curved smile that peek out beneath the brim of overhang bangs. Proud and strong, loud and arrogant, she is a fool beyond measure, but he is even less a wise man for allowing the charade to go on.
He knows it wasn't like that at first. It started off as nothing more than words, spilling from textbook pages onto papers scattered haphazardly across kitchen tables. A scholar's work, the memory reassures him.
"Mr. Yamucha," she had asked in her little bird's sing-song voice - and that was always what she had called him, even as a baby-fat girl, "Mummy's busy, Daddy doesn't care, and Trunks is always out. Can you help me with my studying?"
A perfectly reasonable request for a perfectly reasonable man with nothing much to do in his spare time, which was racking up like salt poured into a shaker without ending until it spilled over the rim and covered everywhere.
It didn't take long for him to figure it all out. He may be a fool, but he's not blind. He knows the sway and pull of feminine hips, the sidelong glances fulfilling, the cock-eyed look over one shoulder with the hair thrown back, elbow set crooked on her waist at a short angle. They're more familiar to him than breathing, practiced in front of mirrors poised long and high, hoping to be the suave Mr. Charming, Mr. Numero Uno yearning for the big score, back before he knew the price of such things.
The silly, sad, and frightening and thing that prickles at the back of his mind is that it works for her, stealing furtive glances beneath falling bangs as her chair slides ever closer to him. Mother's lessons from long ago echo then. Don't touch that. and Be careful. It falls apart easily, and it's too expensive to replace. Faded words on her China figures gone with her dust, but the memory serves him well.
The fear is the worst part. Wondering if she'll move ahead, more afraid if she pulls back, scared if Daddy walks in one day while she's bent back throwing Marilyn Monroe smiles over perfect shoulders.
Because Yamucha knows what death feels like. A sudden burst of pain that ends as quickly as it begins, or maybe a slow slide toward eternity with blank eyes looking on into nothingness. Vegeta taught him one, sent him spiraling toward the emptiness, then came back and left it empty all again.
There are many things Yamucha has forgiven Bulma, but that he never can.
Yamucha knows the feel of death, but this scares him ten times more. Because this time is the killer is much slower, taking her time as she click-clacks her way through his heart's closed doors in small white, single-strapped high heels. He's a hollow man, then, an empty man with one foot in the grave and sinking ever faster.
Bra boasts Marilyn Monroe smiles, and all he sees is Bulma. Inevitably, always, the ever-pull of the tide. Same soft hair and bold blue eyes, elegant legs that curve into slim ankles in two-inch stiletto heels. Same pinch-cheeked look of determination crossing long-drawn features. And he feels a little more life slip out of him, a little closer to the edge, as old-new memories blur together.
Over the rim of chipped mugs, Bra smiles cat-eyed wide.
And then he sinks a little more.