Last time:
My last conscious thought is of Vegeta. Just him, standing there. And I know, with crushing force, that I've made the biggest mistake of my life out of anger and fear.
"I'm so sorry," I whisper, sleep beginning to pull me away. "But I can't ever go back…"
It was nice to have my hands empty for a change. Not that I don't want to hold Trunks, but shopping at the flea market for that perfect item is next to impossible with an infant in my arms. My love for the antique and bizarre finds at seaport flea markets always baffled everyone I knew. They couldn't understand why with all my money I went hunting for bargains and nearly broken and dusty objects and books.
Izumo understood. He and Izumi always came with me to the markets, their love of antiques contesting with my own. But on this particular day the twins were expecting their most prized customer, which meant that at least one of them should stay and keep shop. Izumi opted to assume the duty, not because she wanted to, but because their customer, Dr. Nagase, had been trying to woo Izumi for the past four years, which subsequently persuaded him to purchase some of the most expensive items in Iz Goods. That, and he despised Izumo, who hated him back for his forwardness with his sister. It didn't matter that Izumi was completely uninterested in the older man; a brother's duty, in Izumo's eyes, was to protect their sister. And he intended to follow through with that.
I thought it was absolutely adorable.
"Oh man," Izumo sighs, holding Trunks out at arm's length. "Someone needs a change."
"Think you can handle it?" I ask, my eyes on a gorgeous 19th century necklace embedded with emeralds. It was tarnished and one of the clasps was broken, but that was nothing I couldn't fix.
"Of course," he says, then disappears into the crowd in search of the bathrooms we passed ten minutes ago.
"Excuse me." The man behind the table looks up from his morning paper, his greasy face and beard shimmering in the hazy light. Absently I wonder where he acquired such a beautiful find; none of his other items were nearly as valuable. Hell, it was the only piece of jewelry on the table. "How much is this?" I point to the necklace and his lips spread into the lewdest grin I've ever seen.
"For you," he says, his eyes drifting quite a bit lower than my face. I hold back my sneer and vicious comments; I want this necklace too much. "I would have to say…three thousand zeni."
I narrow my eyes and lean forward. His grin widens.
"Two thousand," he says, his staring so obvious that I have to consciously keep the bile from rising in my throat.
"This is a very well-made replica of a 19th century necklace," I tell him, with no regret for lying. If he's going to stare openly at my chest with those leering eyes then I might as well get something out of the deal. "Believe me, I've been antique hunting all my life. I know a fake when I see one. I won't pay more than one hundred zeni for it."
"One hundred zeni for a fake?" He didn't believe me just yet.
"It's real enough looking to pass as the real thing to untrained eyes. I plan to wear it at my wedding."
"I see no ring on your finger," he points out.
"I never said I was engaged. I like to plan ahead."
"I…" He pauses, taking his eyes off my chest for the first time since I approached his table. "Fine. One hundred zeni."
I reach into my purse and draw out a single bill, crumpling it into his open palm. He picks up the necklace and shoves it at me, not bothering with a box of which I know he has plenty.
When I have the necklace secure in my purse, I head in the direction Izumo and Trunks went. But I only make it seven steps or so when my eyes catch a glimpse of something that sends shockwaves of sheer terror through my entire body. I stand stock still, my mouth agape slightly and my hands trembling.
Dr. Gero, 17 and 18's estranged father, stood only paces away from me, his wild flowing white hair a bush behind his head and under the black cap he wore. For an instant his cold blue eyes meet mine. My breathing stops and I clutch my bag. And then he turns away and walks through the crowd and out of sight.
I let out a long over due sigh and ease down my shoulders. He hadn't seen me, or rather, hadn't recognized me. I look so different, and it's been so long since he's been around, that I now doubt he could have picked me from a line up if I still looked the same as before.
Moments later Izumo and the freshly-changed Trunks are at my side. He sees the dissipating fear in my eyes and asks what's wrong. I shrug his concern away and brush past him, toward a distant table at the market. He follows reluctantly.
How did I ever think I could hide from my life?
I groan and slip out of bed, my eyes already set in a glare for Izumo, who is rustling outside my house again. I grab that wrench again for emphasis, and swing open the front door.
"Izumo!" I hiss into the darkness. The footfalls around the corner stop, and then, causing me to yelp in surprise, two shadowed figures fall to the ground, wrestling with each other as if there were some prize involved. I quickly flip on the porch light and gasp. "Yamcha!"
"Bulma!" he coughs, Izumo's hands around his throat.
"You know him?" Izumo snaps, looking not at all ready to get off my ex.
"Yes," I manage to squeeze out; my blood must be acidic by now, it's pumping so fast. I lower myself to the ground in an attempt to stop the world from spinning. Izumo releases his hands from around Yamcha's neck and climbs off, coming immediately to my side. I try to look at him, to look at Yamcha, who remains sitting on the dew-wet ground, but no matter what I tell my body it simply will not obey.
The warm night wind sweeps across my face and I shudder.
"Who is he?" Izumo whispers, his arms around my shoulders.
"He…" But the words fall and I sigh. This is what I've been waiting for, what I've been dreading; the end to my new life, the recycling of my old one.
"I'm from her past," Yamcha offers, finally standing. He keeps his distance, not wanting to invade my world any more than he already had.
"Izzy," I say, and look over at him, his big eyes glistening stones in a pool of emotions. "I think you should go home and get some rest—"
"Yumi—"
"—I'll come see you tomorrow. I have a lot of catching up to do." Yeah, I think, and a hell of a lot of explaining.
Izumo nods and stands, his shoulders low as if he were carrying a burden too big for his frame. He gives me one last fleeting look, then disappears into the shadows, leaving only me and Yamcha in the bathing yellow light.
"Would you like to come in?" I ask, as if almost a whole year hasn't gone by without so much as speaking to him.
"I would like that very much," is his reply, and he follows me into the house.
"He's beautiful," Yamcha says, his hand immediately going to the tuft of lilac hair atop Trunks' little head.
"Thank you." I can't think of anything else to say. I'm still not over the initial shock of seeing him. But, as I've always known, they were going to find me no matter what.
"You dyed your hair."
"Yes…"
"Bulma," he sighs, gently handing Trunks back to me, "I didn't come here to reprimand you for leaving. I didn't even come here to try to get you to come back with me." I open my mouth to comment, but he holds up his hand, then continues. "I'm not saying that I don't hope for it, but I'm not going to force you into anything. I'll tell you what I came here to tell you, and then, if it's what you want, I'll leave and no one will bother you again."
"Why just you?" I don't even know where the question came from.
"Short straw," he laughs, but, seeing that I don't join in, coughs and straightens his back. "I should start at the beginning."
"The day I left?"
He nods and catches my eyes. But I can only hold the gaze for an instant, then look away, completely ashamed and cold inside.
"We didn't start looking for you until we realized you weren't at anyone's house in Satan City. Your parents tried family friends and relatives. After about a week we knew you weren't coming back…" He pauses, the reality of the story obviously still affecting him. He truly did love me, and possibly still does, and I had crushed him like the bug I thought he was. I forgave him the moment I decided to leave my life behind; one stupid mistake forgives another. "Vegeta," he says, his voice low and careful, "went to look for you when he reached that conclusion a few days before the rest of us. He didn't say where he was going…A month after you left we got your first letter and tried every possible way to track where it came from. A month after that Vegeta came back and didn't leave again until after Gohan was born." I whimper quietly to myself; I had missed the birth of my best friends' child. How could I have been so selfish! "We looked so hard and for so long it became routine…It wasn't until you sent your letter about Trunks being born that we finally saw some hope. We called every hospital in the country until finally one had the exact information we were looking for. It took us two months to find you from the time we got that letter…I'm the one that came because we decided not everyone should come and bombard you…We have a lot of unfinished business."
"I'll say," I sigh, my eyes on Trunks in my arms. I take a deep breath, then ask the question that's been on my mind since I saw him tackled to the ground by Izumo. "Where's Vegeta now?"
"He came back two more times since Gohan was born. Once to check in on Goku, and another time I guess was just to update us on his progress. The last city he'd been in was Sekigane, which, at the rate he was going, would have taken him four or five more months to find you…The last time we saw him was just before we got your letter about Trunks…"
"That means he doesn't know about Trunks," I say, more to myself.
"No. And we would never be able to find him. He gave us no contact information; just disappears and reappears at random."
"You all hate me, don't you?" And I want to slap myself for saying such a thing. How dare I try to get pity from him! From anyone! I should be buried alive, or burned at the stake, or some other horrible fate that could possibly equal what I have done to those I love.
"No one hates or blames you. We always knew you would take it hard."
"Why did you stay with me, Yamcha?" I can't keep myself from saying what's on my mind and in my heart. I need this information, just as surely as they need to know things from me; why I left, why I never intended to come back, why I abandoned Vegeta when I loved him. "Why did you all let me believe a lie? I was engaged to Vegeta." Nothing in my tone is harsh, not the way it was the day I found out. I have since learned to deal with my misfortunes, and have forgiven everyone involved. But that doesn't mean I can't ask my questions.
"We wanted to tell you," he says, but I can see that he's holding something back. I don't question it, because I already know what it is. He had never wanted to tell me because he loved me. He'd had me first, and when I left him for Vegeta he was embittered and never stopped having feelings for me. I don't blame him for jumping at the chance to have what he wanted again. "Vegeta screamed at the doctors and nurses and anyone else who would listen. He even punched a few out cold, but still they insisted that you regain your memory on your own."
"But I never did…"
"But you never did," he repeats with a sigh. "The last thing memory you had was of me, and we were together. If we were all supposed to pretend things were normal, then there was nothing for me to do but be with you. After a while it was like the accident never happened, and we all sort of went on with our lives."
"Everyone but Vegeta," I say.
"Right…He couldn't handle it…He tried several times to tell you, but, in the end, when he saw that you were happy he didn't want to disrupt that, so he never told you." He wasn't trying to gloat, he was simply stating the facts. "You remembered him as an enemy. In your mind Goku never forced you two into the same room."
"Why didn't he try after that? Like he had before?"
"He wanted to, but—"
"Vegeta said no," I guess, the hairs on the back of my neck standing as if they too are afraid of the answer.
He nods solemnly.
"He was very bitter, Bulma. You have to understand that." Never, in all my life, did I think I would live to see the day Yamcha defended Vegeta. Never. "After he gave up on trying to tell you, he grew angry with you. He couldn't see how you didn't remember him, all the grief you went through just to be with him. When Goku suggested he do what he did before, Vegeta snapped at him and said that he never wanted to be near you again."
I swallow hard and sit back, cradling my son close to my chest.
"He went to a college on a different island just to get away from everything that reminded him of you. But, when he came back, he couldn't stay away and took the job your father had offered him years ago…I guess he accepted it when he was away, because when he came back he never tried to push telling you again. He hardly mentioned you, or so Goku and the others said. It was almost like he was over you."
"I'm so sorry you had to be in the middle of this," I say, blinking back tears. This is not real life! This is a movie! This does not happen to real, good people!
"You're sorry?" he gasps, sounding almost angry. "No Bulma, you have nothing to be sorry about. I should never have agreed to stay with you. I should have pushed to tell you like Vegeta did. I should have broken up with you and then you would have eventually found your way back to him. But I didn't!" The sudden fire in his eyes startles me. "I let you believe you had never been in love!"
"Yamcha! Please," I beg, placing a cautious hand on his knee. "None of that matters now."
"I robbed you of ten years of your life. Of course it matters."
"I've forgiven you, Yamcha. I've forgiven all of you. The moment I decided to leave I forgave you."
"Then why did you stay away?" he all but whimpers.
"Because I made a mistake, and I knew it, and I thought I could never go back."
"What you did is nothing compared to the lies we constantly told you. Even when you knew we were hiding something still we didn't tell you. We were selfish; we didn't want things to change again."
Without a word I stand and walk out of the room. I hear Yamcha half groan, half sigh, and know that he thinks it's my way of telling him the conversation is over. But Trunks has fallen back asleep in my arms and I'm only putting him in his crib. When I come back into the living room, Yamcha has his face in his knees.
"I don't get it," he says, feeling me sit next to him. "How can you forgive us? How can you forgive me?"
"An eye for an eye," I offer, and he laughs, looking up at me. "I've missed you Yamcha."
"I missed you too." For a moment I think he might kiss me. But, instead, he leans in and hugs me. I melt in his arms and burst into tears. "Who was your friend that made me eat dirt?" he asks when my crying subsides. I sit up and smile.
"Izumo. He lives next door with his twin sister Izumi."
"You're not—"
I frown and shack my head.
"I love Vegeta. And even if I didn't, I don't think I could love Izumo, or even date him. He's a lot younger than me, and I just feel like a big sister to him, you know?"
"And Tetsu?" Of course he's read my letters. "And his wife…Kazue, is it?"
"I don't want to leave them. They think my name is Yumiko, and that the reason I came to live here was because my husband, and Trunks father, died. They I'm a widow. They have no reason to believe I've been lying to them the whole—" My head drops and I moan in my hands. I have being doing exactly what was done to me. I told one big lie, then compounded it with a hundred little lies, until my life became one giant fallacy.
All I know how to live now is lies.
"Can I go back?" I whisper. Yamcha's hand rests on my back and I flinch.
"It's your decision. Like I said, I can't make you come back."
"What will happen if I don't go back?"
"We'll go on missing you…"
Chapter 13:) Hey! Lookie what I did! Heehee! Bulma has been found! Oh no! Will she decide to go back? What will Izumo and the others say when she tells them she's been living a lie? And where is Vegeta in all of this?
REVIEW! Please:D
Next time: Vegeta:D
