Disclaimer: I don't own DragonBallZ.
I would like to give my great thanks to all of you who have been reading, and my even greater thanks to you guys who review! You just don't know how you guys keep me inspired, so thank you so very much! My hat's off to Trugeta, Katana Midori-Fading Shadow, and animeprincess1452!
To Trugeta: Well, here's what happens. I hope you enjoy it, because I've gone for another humorous impression! Also, Chain is still mad at me, but I managed to convince her to wait so I could make it up to her. And the glasses helped, partly, as well, they did. Thank you!
To Katana Midori-Fading Shadow: Understandable! But it's not that bad (since they are married) right? And anyway, here's what happens with the whole Dea ordeal. Hope you like it!
To animeprincess1452: I just can't tell you how much I appreciate all of those compliments, dear authoress! And oh, we all wish for a room like that! I do, anyway. Thank you!
Chapter, then...
Bra was sleeping soundly, resting comfortably in her bed with the covers pulled up right under her chin. She sighed in contentedness in her slumber, until suddenly a sound from next door caused her to stir.
She opened her sore eyes in the darkness of the room as a loud thud hit the wall from the room next to hers.
Chain, always a heavy sleeper, continued to purr, still sleeping, while Bra wondered what the heck was going on in the other room.
"Dea, don't mess up the equipment," Sena scolded from the twin bed across the room, until her younger sister threw the remote over at the wall.
'Stupid annoying gadgets,' she thought, and yanked the covers up over her torso to try and keep warm for the night. She reached over to her nightstand to turn the lamplight out, but instead her hand ran across...the alarm clock...
BEEP BEEP BEEP
Sena groaned irritably as she lay back against the pillows in her bed, and watched foully while Dea tried to shut the blaring alarm off.
After several moments of hitting a lot of stupid buttons, Dea finally yanked the alarm clock off the nightstand, cord and all, and threw it across the room where it crashed against the wall.
Bra sat up in abrupt shock from the loud bang right behind her, and even Chain woke up in wonderment. She rubbed her head as she squinted through the darkness to her older sister.
"What are you doing?" Sena snapped. "You're going to wake someone up, now stop it. Go to sleep."
Dea reached over for the lamp to turn it off, but, in her extreme and uncontrollable anger, she accidentally knocked it over instead.
Bra and Chain had just about had enough, and Bra was actually kind of glad when her younger sibling banged her elbow on the wall. "Hey! Shut up!"
However, the commotion started a chain-reaction, and with his sharp Saiyan hearing, Goten awoke in his own room. "What...?"
"See?" Sena hissed.
The younger sibling finally got the lamp back up on the nightstand, clicked it off, and faced the opposite side of the wall in aggravated tiredness.
. . . . . .
The following morning, Goten sat up in bed, rubbing his stale, heavy eyes as the sun shone in through his light blue curtains. He glanced at his alarm clock beside him and saw that it was only six-thirty in the morning. He decided to get himself ready for the day, and immediately headed into the bathroom for a shower.
'What a night,' he thought, running a hand quickly through his hair.
Within their room, Chi-Chi nudged Goku to wake him up, and he stirred in his sleep, muttering something about too large a serving of animal crackers. "Come on, Goku. Wake up. We have to get breakfast and then head back to the tournament."
Goku sat up, wide awake, and exclaimed, "Breakfast!"
The shout was enough to wake up the other sharp-hearing Saiyans, and Gohan, Trunks, and Vegeta all growled angrily from being woken up so early.
Goten was the first to head out of his room and go down to breakfast, and closed his hotel door behind him just as Dea appeared. She looked at him for a moment, that same expression of indifference on her face.
"Oh," Goten paused and nodded to her. "Uh, good morning."
She stared at him for a moment before brushing her way past him and going down the stairs to join her older sister and King Kai in the dining area.
'Well, don't bother to answer,' Goten thought, and suddenly saw Bra step out from her room. Freshened up for the day, she looked positively radiant, and Goten couldn't help but smile. "Good morning, Bra."
"Good morning," she replied. "Sleep okay?"
"Yeah," he lied, wanting to seem positive.
"Well, hungry? Chain went down to warm up and get breakfast about an hour ago."
"Oh, sure," he nodded. "Do you...that is...do you want to get breakfast together?" he wondered quietly, and she nodded, smiling.
At the breakfast tables, Chain had finally piled several plates high with pancakes, waffles, French toast, bacon, sausages, buttered toast, fruits, cereal, and potatoes, along with four or five glasses of milk and orange juice.
A few of the human contestants stared over in her direction while she stuffed a bite of watermelon into her mouth, but she ignored them, too focused on eating to bother with them.
Dea and Sena, too, had piled their plates pretty high with their own preferences of food, and started to eat while King Kai watched them, blinking a few times from behind the little sunglasses.
When Goten and Bra came down, they helped themselves to some food and then joined Chain at the table. They didn't bother to say good morning to her. Heaven knows it would make about as much sense as saying good morning to the table itself, besides the fact that the two adults themselves could think about nothing but breakfast right now.
Soon enough, the others joined them, and started on their silent morning meal.
When they all finished, Vegeta spoke up to his daughter. "Chain, I thought you were going to train today."
"I did before I ate," she replied.
"But I thought your turn wasn't today," Pan said as she stood from her seat.
"Yeah, but I still do a little bit of training...Anyway, I managed to be one of the first people awake this morning to go training, so I didn't run into too many people."
"Speaking of running into people," Goten said, "I tried to say something to your sister this morning, Demi."
She frowned.
"Yeah, I think it was Dea...and she was pretty...quiet."
"What else is new?" she replied sarcastically. "But it was nice of you, anyway. Dea may be very quiet, but she's actually very emotional and sensitive."
"Really?" Goku interestedly asked, listening in.
Demi nodded in confirmation.
They all headed back to the stadium and arrived shortly. Once again, Bulma, Chi-Chi, and Videl all bid their families good luck, and then headed for their reserved seats.
Back on the side of the platform, where all of the still qualified fighters stood waiting, Goten happened to be standing near Dea and Sena.
Neither of them looked at him, especially Dea, who, quite coincidentally, was leaning on the barrier poles in the same way he was. Goten, thinking he should probably be polite, waved to Dea. "Hi."
She glanced at him from the corner of her eye before looking back out to the arena where the announcer stepped up.
"I'm Goten. You...might remember me, I guess."
She said nothing while Sena looked over at Goten. He waved nervously up at her, and she waved back. When he turned back to Dea, he found that she still hadn't acknowledged him. "So, quite a coincidence that we're all here, huh?"
Still no reply.
"I know why you don't say something. It's because you're mad. You're mad because..." He paused, realizing what he'd just said as Trunks and Demi stared over at him with looks that said 'Are you mad?' He tried to think up the most humorous line he could in his anxiety. "...Because you don't have a boyfriend." Okay, it turned out to be more of a stupid reason than a humorous one...
Maybe not. It caused Sena to turn in the other direction while she snickered at the thought. 'That is so good! Dea interested in guys! Sure!'
Gohan and Pan suddenly stepped in to make Goten feel less embarrassed. "Because you don't, do you?" Gohan asked.
Dea started to frown.
"You ought to go to more social gatherings," Pan said, raising an index finger to emphasize her declaration. "Maybe then you could meet someone and fall in...love." 'I just realized how dumb that sounds,' she thought, and blushed in embarrassment.
Now Demi started to snicker.
"I...don't...love."
Everyone paused in shock, looking at Dea with widened eyes. Even Vegeta had noticed that the young woman spoke, and stared at her in disbelief.
Goku stammered, "W...what?"
"I said I don't love."
. . . . . .
At a particular lookout high over Earth, a certain all-knowing Kami paused to listen again. What had that been? This rather curious and attention-catching statement? 'I don't love.'
He gazed down to where he'd heard the voice, and found that the owner of this deep, tinted-like-dark-glass, feminine voice belonged to none other than Dea, whom he'd (just slightly) kept an eye on since she'd arrived on Earth.
'"I don't love,"' he recalled, and suddenly smirked.
Mr. Popo looked back at Dende worriedly, recognizing that mischievous gleam in his eyes.
Dende pushed his sleeves up, still smiling with a cunning look, and focused completely on Dea. 'So you don't love, huh? We'll just see about that.' Dea was a nice girl, as far as he knew, and hadn't caused any trouble since her return to Earth. But one had to admit that she could be too proud for her own good.
Dende decided that perhaps it was time that she swallow her pride and eat her words. This was going to be fun...
Well, I hope it was good, and that you all liked it. Hard work! How do you make lines that are supposed to deliberately be dumb and embarrassing seem like "Now why the heck did I just say that?" instead of planned out? Review, please!