From Bulma's POV again!
For a while after that, I took to watching Vegeta every chance I got. I decided that if he WAS going to get a girlfriend or whatnot, I'd be the first to know about it. Chichi's statement the day before, "who would be crazy enough to go out with him," kept coming back to me. Who WOULD be crazy enough? Though most people don't even know about the time he first came to earth, Vegeta still doesn't have the image of one of those suave, handsome guys that girls fawn over. The scowl that's permanently on his face and the way that he carries himself when he walks, sleek and graceful, but with the authority of king...or prince...let's most people know that he shouldn't be messed with. Thus, their first impression is usually one of fear, awe, or maybe even both. But with the body he has...and he isn't all THAT bad looking, I have to admit, even if he is a bit short...I could see how maybe a few of the more daring girls out there could go for him. The only problem was that he NEVER went anywhere. Other than the places he'd fought at, I don't think the guy had ever set foot off the Capsule Corp. property. The longest trek he'd taken recently was probably from his room to the gravity room. It was rather annoying.
It was about two weeks later, after I hadn't learned a single thing about him, that I began to realize Vegeta was wearing the same clothes pretty much every day - that battle armor Krillen had shot him in, which, by the way, had been washed so it didn't smell anymore. He'd worn the shirt I gave him a few times, probably only because it said BADMAN on the back, but he hadn't touched the pants. I didn't really blame him. After all, they were yellow; yuck. I hadn't even expected him to wear the shirt again because it was pink, but wonders never cease. So, I realized this, and suddenly a light bulb went off above my head. There was a way I could get him out of the house, AND have a good excuse to do so. Off course, Vegeta didn't think it was all that great. In fact, he stared at me in what could barely be determined as shock for a brief second, before scowling, as usual.
"I don't need to go WITH you for you to by me new garments to wear, baka," he huffed, crossing his arms across that battered armor he always wore.
"But Vegeta," I said calmly, determined to keep my cool, "I don't know exactly what size you wear, so I need you there to try on the clothes."
"I refuse to act like some doll that you can dress up however you like." I frowned.
"Vegeta, for Kami's sake! I'm just trying to be civil towards you for once and buy you some new clothes! You've been wearing that stupid armor for the past who knows how long, and you won't wear the other outfit you have. If you don't come with me, I'm going to throw that stupid thing you're wearing out and fill your closet with pink shirts and yellow pants!" I threatened. It wasn't the best threat, but it worked. Vegeta actually looked a little freaked out for a second, before switching back to neutral.
"Then I'll just have to keep this on at all times then."
"I'll rip it off you if you even attempt that."
"Oh, so that's what this was about," he stated, smirking at me. It took me a second to register what he'd said, and when I finally did, all I could do was glare at him. He is SO full of himself! I muttered a few choice words under my breath, which I'm pretty sure he heard, and pointed to the car beside us.
"Whatever, just get in."
"I'm not going in that thing! We can fly there."
"Like hell! You can't FLY to a mall Vegeta. It doesn't work like that on Earth." He stared at me for a while before finally dropping his arms to his sides and getting ready to climb into the car. I was a little surprised he'd given in so quickly, but that been happening a lot lately for both of us, so I pushed it aside. He was halfway into the car before I remembered something drastically important. "Wait," I commanded.
"Now what, woman?" he scowled at me over his shoulder.
"I'm not taking you anywhere in that." He was still wearing the armor. He'd be attracting enough attention with the hairstyle he had. Wearing battle armor that was cracked and had a gaping hole in the middle of it wouldn't help the situation any.
"Well what do you expect me to put on?" he asked exasperatedly. I didn't answer and looked at him expectantly. "No," he said plainly. "I'll go with you, but I will not go in that ridiculous ensemble."
"Look, we'll get another outfit right away so you can wear that while we shop for more things, ok?" He growled at me, but complied, and in a few minutes we were finally off to the mall.
The main reason I had brought Vegeta with me was to see what type of reaction he would get from the people around him. I was right about the fear thing. Almost every girl that walked by would suddenly cling to their boyfriends' arms, and a couple of the guys even shuddered under his cold stare. It bugged me a little. Sure Vegeta does have a sort of threatening appearance, but he wasn't any worse than some of the other people there. Maybe it was the fact that he turned his glare onto anyone who dared to stare at him for too long, which was almost everyone around us. I've been on the receiving end of that glare, and believe me, it IS a scary thing to look at. I shook my head. I was clueless as to how that kid would ever be conceived. Vegeta certainly didn't show any interest to the other women around us. I gave up on it for a while, and decided to get on with the shopping part because I wasn't sure how long Vegeta would actually stay there. For all I knew, he could fly off in two minutes if he got bored enough.
We went into one of my favorite stores at that particular mall. It has an excellent selection of both men and women's clothing. I've bought many things for Yamcha and myself there before, but this time I was trying hard not to wander to the Women's section. If I did, I wouldn't be out for hours. I started picking out outfits for Vegeta. Most of the outfits were made up of dark colors, a lot of blues and blacks. They seemed to look the best on him anyway. Somewhere along the line, I picked out a really nice dark blue, button down silk shirt, and a pair of black slacks to go with it. I had no idea where he would wear something that nice, but what the hell. When he came out of the stall, I nearly had a heart attack. Kami, he looked good. He'd left the first few buttons undone at the collar, and the sleeves were rolled up a bit. He wasn't really paying attention to me at first, so I allowed my eyes to roam over his body quickly, before returning them to his face. He was glaring at me. But then I realized, not at me, more like everything else BUT me. Glancing around I noticed that most of the girls close to us had stopped what they were doing to gaze at Vegeta appreciatively. I suddenly got the urge to deck them all, but refrained from it. After all, it's not like I had any sort of claim to him. Clearing my throat, I gave Vegeta a thumb's up sign.
"You've got an audience," I told him. He, of course, scowled. Big surprise there. I turned back to what I'd been looking at before. Vegeta had enough outfits to last him a while now, including training clothes. But he was lacking in other essentials... "So, I was thinking of getting you these smiley face boxers," I said picking up a pair. "Do you like them in black or white?" I smirked as he blinked, and I noticed the tiniest bit of pink creeping into his cheeks. He looked down at the table.
"Actually I like these better," he said, picking up a different pair. I resisted the urge to laugh, but failed slightly. Go figure, he'd picked the type of smiley faced boxers that have the bullet hole through their foreheads. I should have seen that coming. Chuckling slightly, I threw a bunch of solid black pairs into the cart, and one with pink polka dots for good measure. He apparently didn't notice, because I know he wouldn't have allowed it.
Sometime later, after we'd finished with the clothes part of the shopping, I decided it was time for lunch.
"Are you hungry?" I asked the saiyan next to me. He was wearing one of the more casual outfits I'd bought.
"No," he replied. Of course, not ten seconds later his stomach growled. Vegeta frowned even more than he had been. "Well, maybe a little," he admitted. I smirked.
"Let's go to the food court then." I was a little nervous when we got our food and sat down to eat. This was the first time I'd ever eaten alone with him. Usually my parents or Yamcha were around for me to talk to, and I had no idea how I was going to hold a conversation with Vegeta that didn't end with one of us stalking off in the opposite direction. But then I realized that being with Vegeta didn't require a conversation. He was more likely to hang around longer if I DIDN'T talk to him. So, we ate in silence. He was done a lot sooner than I was, but I hardly ever finish everything I order anyway, so after throwing our stuff away, we started shopping again.
"What else are we getting?" Vegeta asked, breaking the silence between us. I jumped a little, his voice startling me, which was silly because it was far from quiet in the mall anyway.
"Well, I figured you need shoes, right? You can't always wear those boots everywhere." Vegeta only nodded, looking very bored with the whole mall thing by now. Since he'd dropped his glare, the looks he was receiving were no longer of fear. Definitely awe, and maybe even lust from some of the girls. I realized then, that it probably wouldn't be too difficult for Vegeta to pick up any girl he wanted. I just...didn't see that happening. So anyway, we got new shoes for the both of us. There had been this one pair that was just too cute for me to pass up, and besides, I hadn't bought anything else all day. I was actually very proud of myself for that. By the time we got home, it was dark out, and Vegeta looked very irritated.
"You do realize that I've missed a whole day of training, right?" he inquired, glancing at me from the corner of his eye. I shrugged.
"Yeah, well, you really needed clothes. And besides, what is one day?"
"Say that for thirty days over the course of a year, and you'll have already missed out on a month. Spread out over time, it seems like nothing, but in the long run it can mean a lot," he said coolly, getting out of the car. He shut the door and turned towards the house. I stared after him for a few seconds, comprehending what he'd said. I had to admit...it was true.
"Wait, Vegeta!" I called after him, hopping out of the car. He turned to look at me, and I tried to think of what I'd wanted to say. "Uh...here, you forgot your stuff," I said lamely, throwing him the capsule that contained all of his new clothes. He caught it deftly, and turned on his heel to walk into the house. It didn't occur to me until later that he hadn't even bothered to thank me, and even then I didn't really care. I was still surprised he'd actually stayed the whole day.
I don't know if it was because of that one day he missed of training, but for the next couple of days, Vegeta worked nonstop in the gravity chamber. He got so worked up one of those days that he actually ended up blowing the damn thing up. I think most of you know about this. Yamcha had been training at Capsule Corp. that day, thank Kami, and he helped me carry him to the infirmary. He didn't seem to pleased that I was so worried over him, not that I even know why I was worried. I reasoned that it was the shock from the fact that he had actually been IN the room when it had blown up and he could have been seriously hurt. Well, he WAS seriously hurt; it actually knocked him unconscious for a while, but he really could have been killed, and that was a scary thought. We needed him in the upcoming battle, despite what Yamcha and some of the others of our group thought. Plus, for some reason I wasn't sure, I really wanted that kid to able to be born. I don't know why I was so worked up over that. I didn't even know for sure if Vegeta WAS the father. For all we knew, maybe there was another saiyan out in the universe somewhere, or maybe Vegeta was right and the purple-haired kid with the Capsule Corp. jacket wasn't a saiyan, but some other species that could give themselves blonde hair and- wait a second... Capsule Corp. jacket! I replayed the boy's image over in my mind, remembering the conversation we'd had. It hit me like a ton of bricks. How could I have forgotten the jacket he had on? Maybe Vegeta didn't have to leave the grounds...maybe he would hook up with one of the female employees that worked at Capsule Corp.! (A/N: sweatdrop yeaaahhh, sure Bulma...)
Thrilled with my new discovery, I began tending to Vegeta's wounds, thinking of which girl I thought would be the best match for the saiyan prince. None came to mind immediately; they were all too brainy. But maybe Vegeta liked smart women. I really had no idea what his tastes were. I focused on the wounds I was cleaning, and gasped. Where had all those scars come from? It was unbelievable how many there were. How had I not noticed them? I'd seen Vegeta shirtless before, but never up close enough to notice the smaller scars. They were all across his chest and back. Some looked like they were from battles, and others across his back looked like they came from a whip or something. I put a hand to my mouth, my eyes involuntarily filling up with tears. What exactly had he been through before he came to earth? I placed my other hand tentatively on Vegeta's face, about to stroke his cheek, but drew it back immediately when he flinched backwards into the pillows, away from my touch. I don't think it was from pain either. At least not pain from the explosion he had just been in. It was like he was afraid to let someone touch him. His eyes clenched shut, tighter than before. Quickly, I finished cleaning out his wounds and put my medical kit away. There was a lot to Vegeta I didn't know about, I realized. More than just his tastes in women, probably more than I would ever want to know, but I was determined to find out anyway.
More chapters coming soon!
-Maxine