I tend to write in snippets, the short interchanges that go on between people and then mostly leave out what happens to characters on their own. In any college or high school fic, really, the story goes on when the characters interact, and the diatribes on what everyone's wearing and how omgz it was a rush to catch the bus today are boring and unnecessary. For the most part, you guys are not going to hear about what everyone's wearing. Who cares? Not me.

Chapter 3

Paul, Paul of the Lantern Jaw

"I see someone is looking super fat today."

Bulma glared at Julianna darkly, stirring an early morning wake-up iced chocolate. "Not all of us are compulsively athletic and obscenely thin, Juu. Some of us have to rely on fantastic breasts to get by in this world." The blonde girl sipped her coffee and decided that having marshmallows bobbing in the brew was not a good idea, making note not to order a... whatever the hell it was, again. "Speaking of the enviously thin," Bulma added, "I haven't seen Chichi for about a million years. Or a week, you know." To tell the truth, she hadn't seen a lot of Julianna in the past week, either. The taller woman had been smug and withdrawn, a sure sign that she had acquired a new man in her life. Bulma had been preoccupied too, working herself into a more normal sleep pattern and tentatively re-establishing her friendship with Yamcha in the hopes that someday they could feel somewhat comfortable around each other, like they had been before they'd tried to make a relationship of it.

Ju put down her mug and bit her lip anxiously. "I haven't seen much of Chichi. She hasn't been coming to class, and when I called her yesterday she said she was going to drop out." The incredulous look on Bulma's face said more than she could have expressed with words.

"Why?" The obvious question.

"She wouldn't say. She did say she needed to stay home to look after her Dad. I don't know if her Mum's left or something. Her parents seemed really happy, though, you know? Like yours, I guess." She couldn't keep the slight taint of bitterness out of her last statement, and Bulma winced. Parents had always been a sore spot with Juli, who had never met her mother and didn't even know whether she was alive or dead. Her father, never accused of being forthcoming, wouldn't even disclose whether she had died or left. It was this refusal that had forever alienated him from his daughter and prompted her to start working and leave home at only sixteen, refusing offers of assistance both financial and otherwise from family and friends alike.

When the conversation veered to parents, it was always a prompt to change the topic.

"In other news, I suspect you of having a new feller." The sly, triumphant look was confirmation enough for Bulma, who clapped her hands delightedly and forged onwards, Chichi's plight carefully filed away in her brain for retrieval at a later date. "When does everyone get to meet him?"

"We-ell..." Julianna had always maintained an air of secrecy around her love life, but had lately been allowing herself to introduce beaux to friends. Very charitable of her. "I was planning on hanging with everyone for lunch so maybe, just maybe, I'll invite him to pop in."

oOo

They were eating at the canteen. Well, laughing more than anything else. Krillin had daringly purchased a stir-fry and heated it in the communal microwaves. Now, all that was left was to poke the slush playfully and occasionally insist that one had seen something moving within. Goku's particular variation on the joke was particularly groan-inducing, and Krillin was already regretting trying to have a hot lunch for once.

"Krillin, I totally saw something move in your food. That's disgusting. I bet there's bugs or something in there. As you know, I have completed many biology subjects in the last year." Here, he always did his best to look intellectual. "As I am therefore an expert on human biology, you'd better let me eat that to check if it's going to, uh, upset your... human biology." If nothing else, Goku was persistent. Krillin pushed the plastic container towards his tall friend, finally giving up. It wasn't worth the hassle for $4.

Abruptly, Julianna stood up, her chair scraping loudly against the floor. Bulma couldn't resist a little squeal of expectation as Ju strode out of sight quickly, and quickly related the story of the other woman's new relationship to her friends. Her enthusiasm was infectious, and Ju's return was greeted by excited faces all around, even if at least one of her friends was only putting on a face for her benefit.

"Guys, this is Paul. He's in my journalism classes." Most present were willing to reserve opinions on 'Paul' for once they had gotten to know him but it was obvious to Krillin, at least, that Paul was a dick of the worst kind. That is, the kind that everyone loves. Tall, lantern-jawed and straight-toothed, he was well-muscled without being overbearing with blonde hair tousled just enough to look healthy and clean whilst also appearing as though the owner didn't devote his life to its upkeep. Clearly a dickhead. The casual way he slung his arm around Julianna's waist while he cracked jokes with Goku and Yamcha shitted him off, and he maintained a stony face while everyone else laughed at some old joke.

It wasn't that he was jealous, of course. Oh no, Krillin couldn't be jealous of a dickhead like Paul, especially not over a bitch like Ju.

"So, Paul, dating Ju I expect you get a lot of action." The words were out before he could stop them, and everyone was staring at him, wide-eyed.

"Uh, what?" Shit, he had one of those deep, manly man-voices that girls loved. He probably sang like a damn angel.

"Well, the reason she jumps from one guy to the next so often is that she has insane amounts of sex until she gets bored and needs to move on, right? I'm surprised you can even walk." He was the only one laughing, and it wasn't real laughter. It was scratching his throat. Paul was obviously bewildered. Krillin wanted to die. If the look on Julianna's face was any indication, he was going to be getting his wish very soon.

"I, uh, I gotta go. See you later, Juli." He landed a quick peck on his girlfriend's cheek and hightailed it out of the common room as fast as he could.

There was a long moment of silence in which everyone stared at Julianna, muscles bunched and ready to run if necessary.

When she finally spoke it was in a soft, slow hiss instead of the angry yell they had all been expecting.

"You stupid little twat. What do you think gives you the right to do that to me?" She planted her hands on the table and leaned across it menacingly. "Just to let you know, if you ever say even one word to me again, I will pull out your eyeballs and scoop the brains out of your head with a spoon and feed them to stray cats. Are we clear? Alright." She sat back down in her seat smoothly, calmly. Lunch was a sombre affair.

oOo

Goku didn't know what was up with Chichi either. According to him, she left for a lecture and told him she'd be working that night but she just never came home. When he called her, she told him she was fine, staying with her Dad for a bit, and that she'd drop off her half of the rent soon. He had been surprised to learn that she hadn't been turning up for classes and instantly became fretful. Julianna, in a deep sulk, had declined to join Goku and Bulma on a trip to see if she was okay and Bulma hadn't felt comfortable asking Yamcha. As for Krillin, well, Bulma had resolved not to speak to him ever. Or at least for the next few days.

They caught the train to the neighbourhood and walked the few blocks to the small house Chichi had grown up in, mildly puzzled by the amount of cars parked along the roadside in the narrow street. A woman Bulma vaguely recalled being a friend of the Mau family was packing several children into a battered car outside the house.

Their sharp raps on the door were answered by a harried-looking Chichi with messy hair and a red, swollen face. Her expression was somewhere between disappointment and bewilderment. The bones in her neck and collarbone seemed too prominent and Bulma wondered if she'd lost weight. A thought of Yamcha fluttered at the back of her mind but she squashed it with the ease of practice.

"Guys, you shouldn't be here. I told you I was fine. You... you shouldn't have come."

Bulma's temper flared. She should be thanking them for coming, for caring about her. She should be thanking them for making the effort to find out she was okay and not ill or something.

"Chichi, what's up? Why are you being such a jerk? We just want to make sure you're okay. You've missed your classes and -"

"I dropped out, alright Bulma? Just give it a rest, okay, not everyone's a bloody genius and not everyone's as well off as you. I need to work full time to support my Dad now and I just don't have the time. It was nice to know you, have a good life." She was ignoring Goku, pointedly not looking at him as though she could make him disappear by not paying him any attention, but when she moved to close the door he held it open.

"Chichi, what's up? I'm worried about you. You don't look okay." She averted her eyes when he tried to meet with them. "Are you sick?" She shook her head and stared at the ground. "Is your Dad sick, is that why he needs you around, because I could come and help too and that way you wouldn't have to quit?" She smiled tautly and blinked rapidly, shaking her head.

"My Dad..." she was speaking almost too softly to be heard. "The company my Dad worked for went under. He won't get his severance pay or his super or anything. He's trying to find a new job but nobody wants to hire someone starting out in their fifties, you know? I need to work full time now. Sorry about the rent. Maybe you could move in with Krillin? Yamcha? I don't know. I'm sorry." She closed the door so suddenly Goku didn't have time to reach out and stop it and, although they knocked on the door repeatedly, it did not open again. An elderly neighbour emerged from her house bearing a casserole dish and made her way up the drive. The two young friends left, unsure of what else they could do.

On the train ride into the city they tried calling the house 3 times, but no one picked up.

oOo

End of chapter! Hurrhurr, no. It wouldn't be IoS without surly mathematicians, right?

oOo

Julianna and Paul were being Publicly Passionate (also an acronym for Pushy Pricks, but that's another story) where Bulma usually sat, and she couldn't stand that right now. The science common rooms smelled funny ever since someone thought a good prank would be leaving a cadaver's finger to rot in the sink for a week, and the engineering common rooms were all the way over the other side of campus. All that was left to her were the math common rooms. If she was being perfectly honest, the engineering common rooms weren't that far away but math students were weirder and more interesting to covertly observe. Besides, she was doing like 3 maths subjects this semester, so she felt she had a real place in that room.

If she were to be even more honest, to the point of brutality, she would confess that what she first noticed when she entered the common room was exactly what she'd been hoping for. There he was, sitting on the couch scribbling in a ratty notebook he had perched on his knees. She hadn't seen him in the past week, thanks to her re-regulation of her sleeping patterns and she immediately flounced over to him. He apparently failed to notice her until she flopped down next to him and smiled.

"Fuuuck."

"Watch your language, young man. Someone ought to wash out your mouth with soap." She smiled playfully as she turned on her laptop.

"I thought I'd gotten away from you at last." He crossed something out in his notepad, his pen digging into the paper and scratching at it angrily.

"I've been trying to sleep normal hours lately."

"I think you should sleep every hour. It would spare the rest of us from you."

"I think the word you were looking for there was not 'spare' but 'deprive'. It's a subtle difference."

"Fuck you."

She cocked her head to one side quizzically and examined him critically. "Comebacks are not your strong suit, huh?"

"I already told you I don't like people. Ergo, I do not like speaking to people. Ergo, I do not speak to people. Ergo, I have no need for comebacks."

"You're speaking to me."

"You won't leave me the fuck alone."

"How old are you?"

"What?" He looked up at that one, apparently thrown by the incongruity of the question. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"I'm 17, I'm in my second year. I want to know if you're too old for me." He stared at her. She delighted in the fact that she could bewilder him like this. It made for a fun game, to see just how much she could throw him off his tracks. So far it was pretty easy.

"Do you have any sexually transmitted diseases?" She had to work to keep her voice serious now, leaning forward so she was almost touching him. He smelled like cigarettes.

"What?" He scooted backwards slightly."I... no! What is wrong with your brain?"

Damn, he'd answered that one, but he did seem really distressed, even if distress did seem to translate, for him, to an angry growl in his voice and a deeper frown. "How many girls have you slept with?"

"What business is it of yours?" He'd stopped scooting backwards and leaned forward now, growling. She swallowed and wondered if he really was distressed by her questions, as she had thought, or if she'd just been making him angry and now he was going to tear her in half and feast upon her innards.

"I think it's something I have to know." Her voice wavered slightly, but she kept a brave face. "Because you have a pretty good body, but I don't want to accidentally have some sort of lewd dream about you if you're actually some kind of man-whore."

Apparently, he figured that nasty just wasn't going to scare her away, because he closed his notebook and slid it into a bag at his feet and stood up as though to leave. "If you ever bug me again, I'll make you regret it."

"By tearing me in half and feasting upon my innards?"

"Yes", he monotoned, his expression blank. "By tearing you in half and feasting upon your innards."

Score:

Bulma: One, Mathematicians of the world: Zero

oOo

I feel that it is your duty to give me reviews, lest I tear you in half and feast upon your innards.

And now! Yea! Verily! Lo! I shall address reviews INDIVIDUALLY. That's right, folks, ALL TWO REVIEWERS RECEIVE AN INDIVIDUAL MESSAGE HERE! OMGZ! You could get this too, for the price of just one review!

Ragond: Haha! Zomg! I never imagined someone who read the first chapter would find and read the second chapter. Crazies! Thank you for your interest, it is very heartening.

Heiress2thethrone: Thank you very much! I'm glad you see the humour in their conversations XD Also: Totally Vegeta. I don't think I'm spoiling any suspense here folks, you were pretty much supposed to guess it because she's too busy asking him insanely personal questions to inguire after his name XD