I have never ever in my life been a person to like changes, especially vicissitude ones. But then again, it was a case I wasn't given a say in. It was them barging in into my house. And, let's face it – me not throwing them out the moment I saw them.

And even though I hated changes so much, I couldn't deny – being a part of a clique was . . . an attractive thought to my lonely depressed self. It was more of a relief perhaps from all the internal pain of watching him from afar for so long, many and extremely long years of hankering after him and his group of friends around him, wishing to be one of them . . . that the moment it came true, I could hardly realize it.

But now time has passed. It's been over a month, and I finally feel myself . . . I don't know . . . as a part of a whole . . .

And it feels great.

Sitting by Vegeta, the object of all my desires, has many pros and cons. The biggest con is that, no matter how good I get at trying to bring myself to act normal around him – I never manage. But then again, the biggest pro is that . . . Well, he doesn't exactly like me even, in the friendly kind of way, but at least he tolerates me. It's a huge step further in Vegeta-ish, so I learnt, since he doesn't even tolerate many people and he likes no one, as he informed me himself once.

We're in the same clique, we're sitting together all the time, but we rarely even talk to each other. It is truly strange . . . to you, I could guess. To me it's a miracle I'm even just sitting with him on the same desk. It makes me both happy and uncomfortable at the same time. It's a strange sensation, yet one I'm quite used to by now. I have had to grow used to many things about now . . . So many sudden changes brought upon my life, so much havoc wreaked over my every day life by five teenagers . . .

And even though we weren't exactly close with Vegeta, I felt truly honored and grateful for all the occasions that he so much as acknowledged my existence . . .

. . . But after all, it is one's duty as a friend, is it not . . .?

Sighing deeply in both annoyance and exhaustion before she had even begun, Bulma crouched down into a start position for a fifty meter dash. She had always despised physical education class and she could hardly figure what being a physicist had to do with having physical education till the end of her wretched days at the god-forsaken hell hole of a high school, so she had given up on trying thinking her way out of the riddle. Teachers hated them, full stop.

Another reason for her to hate physical education class and especially the fifty meter dash was that she sucked at sprinting. She hadn't improved much ever since she entered the school and she didn't give any signs of getting any better any time soon either. It was a vicious circle of her caring only about improving her mind power and daydreaming about Vegeta (what with her new seating next to him being a completely alien concept and quite the fantasy-stirrer) that didn't let her spare any time for her body.

She was glad that at least the whole class had run by now and she was the last one left. There was one con though – all of them had run in pairs: two girls, two boys. She was left with no one to run with as ChiChi took on Juu and Launch ran with Videl. As you see, the girls weren't many either way. But that didn't matter a bit as the fact prevailed – Bulma had no one to race with. Sure, she could run on her own, but it wasn't the same . . . She had always had competitive character and she was sure if she had, if she just had whom to race, she could give better results . . . probably . . .

She looked forward to the teacher but felt someone crouching next to her only to make her whole body silent enough to hear her own heartbeat in that exact moment.

"What the—" she began, yet had no time to finish at all, too dumbstruck and interrupted.

"I won't run too fast for you, woman, I promise I'll be just ahead of you with a millisecond or two." He smirked almost making her feet collapse beneath her. "Besides, you don't look like someone who runs fast in the first place."

She could swear she heard water splashing or glass breaking in her head, and she felt as if both had happened to her. The comment felt as if a bucket of freezing water was poured over her and her nice little repulsing-sweet girly reverie was broken in thousands of tiny shards.

"Oh, do I?" she hissed between tightly clenched teeth and her finger tips sunk deeper into the asphalt as Vegeta just kept grinning maliciously to himself, head forward, as was hers now. She might not be the fastest runner out there, but she'd be damned before he humiliated her. It wasn't as if there was something so particular about him making fun of her . . . It was the fact she wasn't used to hearing people making fun of her and, well . . . it had to do with her liking him for so long that she thought there should be at least some solidarity on his behalf towards her.

. . . Of course, she knew that he was completely oblivious to her case and she was quite thankful for it, but that was a different matter. She would not be humiliated, and especially not by him, and that was that!

That day, Bulma ran the fastest in her whole life, giving Vegeta quite a hard time keeping his promise to her as he was caught completely off-guard.

After the dash, the girl collapsed on her knees and hands, salty droplets of sweat cascading down the sides of her face, her breath in frequent sharp gasps as her heart rate had increased immensely because of the strenuous work of her muscles during the sprint. Vegeta's breathing was also slightly laboured as he sat himself on the concrete, watching his antagonist take a rest.

He smirked. Making her run that fast was worth the sight of her terribly flushed cheeks, a thing completely in contrast to the snowy white they were usually tinted in, and her rapidly rising and falling bosom.

His smirk shifted into an evil grin immediately. Maybe he could race her in the three hundred meter cross as well?

Friday afternoon; the last bell after the ninth class has rung for the day, dismissing the diligent (and not so diligent) pupils from any duties to the facility until next Monday.

Bulma sighed heavily, collecting her things into her bag as she remembered she had to work with her father on a project tonight. A tight frown grasped her facial features, turning them into an exasperated expression as the girl reminded herself of the last time she had worked together with her father. Let's just say 'disaster' was a complete understatement. And the thought of another encounter like it made her shudder in anxiety for the state her nerves would be left in afterward. She was getting tired enough from school and she didn't really need to exhaust herself further by dealing with her father . . .

Just as she was placing the last notebook in her sack she noticed the vast shadow that had fallen over her whole form. Her frown only intensified and her eyes searched up the cause of this uncalled for eclipse.

What stood before her was a complete foreign figure of a tall broad-shouldered bald boy who stared at her in a very unnerving way. She gritted her teeth in ire. Who the hell was that guy and what did he think he was doing, eyeing her as if she was his dinner, or even worse? Damned hormone driven teenagers and their goddamned urges.

"Hello there, little one. How come I never saw you before?" His voice was as hideous as his face, she deduced immediately. And as sly too, she added and turned her attention away from the burly guy. Maybe if she ignored him, like how they advise you to play dead if you see a bear (and he could quite well qualify as a bear), he'd just leave her alone. No such luck . . . "Are you this smart chick that skipped? I never thought a girl could be smart and pretty at the same time." He slurred his words in what he thought was a seductive murmur—perhaps—yet to Bulma all the effects it produced was make a bile rise in her throat.

"As far as I'm concerned no one else has skipped a grade in this school before and I have to agree – you definitely don't look or sound like someone who has had a lot of experience with women." Her expressionless face was probably one of the things that made the boy even angrier as she said this to him. She was completely impassive to her statement, acting as if he wasn't around at all. As for if you're wondering, she had changed her mind from ignoring to lashing back so fast for one and solely one reason. If there was one thing she hated being called, that was 'chick'. What an utterly disgusting word, really!

"What did you say?" His voice boomed at her, turning several heads towards the scene. The girl seemed unfazed as she vulgarly stuck her pinkie finger into her earlobe as if to clean it.

"The fact you're deaf doesn't give you the right to deafen others too, if you please," she said as she stood up, throwing her backpack over her shoulder with the full intention of sidestepping him and proceeding towards her home. She usually was in no hurry to do so, but she definitely preferred the intimidating tranquility of her lurid room to the loudmouthed bastard in front of her.

"Who the hell do you think you are, small fry? I could easily crush you if I so much as wished to and you dare talk back to me!" he exclaimed in fury yet his rage still seemed unimpressive to the half a meter shorter girl.

"Now, if you do that you'd prove just how pathetic you really are, almighty." She frowned uninterested at his frame as she circled him and was so close to finally being out of his range before he crossed her path again, making her growl at him. "Move out of my damn way!" She snapped angrily for the first time since she met the repulsing figure, already fed up with his presence near her. The guy just snickered merrily at her, refusing to obey her demand.

"Aren't you a pesky one?" he asked rhetorically even though she doubted he could tell you what a rhetorical question was if you asked him. All of a sudden his gigantic arms were no longer by his side yet around her shoulders, stopping her from going anywhere. Upon the impact, her knees wobbled slightly by the sheer weight of the colossal limbs on her shoulders, her legs not used to the additional pressure. She was about to start kicking and yelling at him when a voice interrupted the burly boy's assault towards her.

"Nappa, if you make me late I'm going to rip you to pieces."

Bulma's cerulean eyes and head turned to glance at her Prince in Shining Armor. And indeed, he was her Prince in shining armor.

Vegeta cracked his knuckles as he approached the pair and his persistent glare, wondrously, made Nappa, as Bulma figured was her attacker's name, cower back and let his hold on her slip.

"I was just—"

"You were just pissing me off, trying to soothe some of your inferiority complexes by going all high and mighty on a skinny girl." Hm . . . he regarded her skinny?

"But, Prince, she started it first! She—" It obviously wasn't Nappa's day for finishing any sentences.

"She twisted your arm behind your back? She kneed you in the gut? Punched you in the face?"

"No, but—"

"Then what the hell are you whining to me about? Get moving or I'll get you to move myself!" In no time at all, the taller boy had nodded and dashed out of the room to wherever the two were going.

Bulma sighed in exhaustion. She couldn't have dealt with that bastard even a second longer and her temper had been close—too close—to boiling point. She watched subtly as Vegeta retreated towards the door, still very much annoyed with his friend—or whatever that ape was to him—but she didn't miss the fact he stopped right over the threshold, his hand still on the door frame, though his body was leaning forward. He seemed in thought and she barely blinked as she observed him. Maybe he forgot something under the desk . . . Nah, she checked, there was nothing there.

Just as she was about to start pondering what was it that had stopped him in mid-air like that, he leant back inside the room, his onyx eyes locking with hers. The girl blinked her discomfort away as she just observed his actions. In the next second he was smirking devilishly, wordlessly making her know he had heard the entire confrontation. And then he . . . he winked at her before he disappeared out the door.

What he left behind was a very flustered girl once he was gone, her hand to her chest and her cheeks slightly redder than normal.

If he could do that to her by just winking . . . She didn't want to finish that thought.

Bulma shut the door to the silver Skoda Octavia after she had exited her house to find the residents of the car quite sleepy with the spiky-haired driver leaning in over the wheel with his arms crisscrossed over each other. She looked at him in a puzzled matter, then checking on Goku and Juuhachigou. Goku had already strapped himself with the backseat belt (which was very uncomfortable of an accessory and rarely anyone used it, yet the strange-haired boy seemed not to mind it at all) and Juuhachigou was discreetly clinging to her door's handle.

"What's wrong with you two and how come I, who got in last, do the honours of sitting in the passenger seat?" the cerulean-haired girl inquired interested listening as the engine's purr when Vegeta turned the ignition key.

"You didn't seem to mind sitting next to me in school." Vegeta threw in sarcastically as he pulled out of Capsule Corporation's driveway.

"Did I say I mind? I just asked a question, jeez." Bulma rolled her eyes and looked out her window, trying to hide the fact that her eyes were shifting nervously to Vegeta at the sound of his voice. She didn't mean to upset him . . . She slapped herself mentally. She might like him, she might obsess over him but she would not be reduced to a blathering weakling because of him, even if it was only in her mind!

"You're in the front because you screwed yourself to get in last." Goku laughed at her but his chuckle soon evaporated as Vegeta's foot pushed the gas pedal closer to the floor.

"I hope these text books prices are worth it . . ." Juuhachigou muttered, looking out her window, her fingers laced with the door handle still, indifferent eyes glancing over the impossibly fast changing scenery.

"Why do we have to go as far as the next city to have text books only a dollar cheaper?" Bulma couldn't understand and Goku noted worriedly that she still hadn't strapped herself with her seatbelt.

"Not all of us are the richest people in the world." Juuhachigou noted with boredom in her monotonous voice.

"Sorry, I didn't mean for it to sound that way . . ." Bulma muttered guiltily. It was true – none of her current friends were as rich as she was. She had to get used to it, being tactful that is. She had never had to take anyone else's feelings in mind but her own and it was another sudden change in her life . . . She didn't want to offend those people. God, she already loved them! So, deciding that changing the topic was the best idea for the case, she asked, "Where are ChiChi and Krillin?"

"No place in the car for the two of them. Or at least that's what they excuse themselves with every time they have to ride in Vegeta's car," the blonde explained, taking a glimpse at the driver's vicious smirk, a sweat drop sliding down the side of her face.

"Why? What's their problem with Vegeta's car?" Bulma blinked, still not understanding that the boy in question was already well over several miles per hour over the limits.

"ChiChi said she can buy her books from Western Capital anyway and Krillin gets sick from high velocities . . ." Goku clarified sheepishly.

"High velocities? And just how high must a velocity be to have someone sick?" Bulma asked mockingly, barely catching a glimpse at Vegeta's smirk before his foot sunk deeper on the gas pedal.

As it came out, Bulma was the only person in the gang to like Vegeta's style of driving – reckless-looking, intolerably fast and quite dangerous, no matter how you looked at it . . .

And that made Vegeta smirk once again. She liked his high speeds, eh? They would get along quite well, he sensed . . .

Classes tended to get quite dull at times, but that was no excuse for Vegeta leaning back on his chair during math class, his eyes closed completely to the world.

Bulma took a glance at him every once in a while, wondering how long would his impudence last before the teacher caught him slacking off. To tell you the truth, their math teacher was a fiend. She had once been a principle for about a month or two but her tyranny hadn't lasted long since no one liked the new rules she had tried to imply on both teachers and students.

Vegeta looked exhausted. The bags under his eyes were so obvious that it almost hurt her every time she looked at him. He hadn't written a single thing in his notebook . . . Scribbling as fast and as readable as she could, Bulma waited for the teacher to turn her back at them to snatch something from in front of him on the desk and place another in its place . . .

"Mr. Ouji, why don't you read the answer to the equation we have all been solving?" The harpy's voice was shrill and strident, but the boy was probably already fast asleep with his head fallen slightly back as if to stare at the ceiling. Bulma's eye brows narrowed in exasperated concern.

"Vegeta!" she whispered as husky as she could in the palm which supported her head so that the teacher couldn't hear her. Suddenly, the boy's eyes snapped open and he glared at her from his unchanged position. Her eyes shifted forward to motion for him to look at the teacher. He did so without rushing himself a bit.

"The equation, Mr. Ouji?" The teacher grinned maliciously, knowing there couldn't possibly be a way for him to answer her question – he had been sleeping (or meditating?) during the entire class and if someone tried to help him, she would punish them for sure. This boy had to learn not to slack off during her class and he would learn that lesson one way or another.

Before he opened his mouth to snap at the beast, he felt his desk mate's knee collide with his and his eyes whipped back to her angrily. This time she motioned beneath his arms. And when he glanced down he found the answer to the question. And it came out to be the correct one.

Huffing angrily, the math teacher turned on her heel and started writing on the black board again while the boy stared baffled at the girl next to him. With a heart-warming smile (and in a reverie, if we have to be honest), Bulma switched their notebooks again and murmured a, "You're welcome any time" to him before she resumed writing.

. . . He didn't know what to think of that.

All sorts of such encounters occurred during the whole year . . . All in all, nothing serious or special. Small happenings that gave me more material to daydream about . . . Everything was so innocent (as innocent can be after all the atrocious thoughts of mine directed at a certain spiky-haired boy's address) . . . Until . . .

I waited with the guys outside of school, all of us getting ready to split up and go home. I said my good-byes, wondering absent-mindedly where Vegeta was. Just as I was passing the front fence, my question was answered.

I moved behind a tree in a thief on the job fashion, curious eyes staring wide at the pair before me.

He had a girl entangled around his body with her arms around his strong neck as he had pressed her against a tree further away from the one I hid behind. Their lips were moving against each other fiercely . . . I could faintly hear the girl's moans as one of his hands pressed her tighter to him, closer to his body, to the heat he emitted.

I was disgusted with myself for being so pathetic, for looking at this . . . I was repulsed by the fact that it made the heavy heat in my stomach burn ablaze again like every time I imagined him over me . . . I couldn't part my eyes from them, their mouths, as I wondered what it would be if it was me there with him . . . I wanted him to touch me like that so badly . . . I wanted to be the one to moan beneath him, to groan his name as he moved against me, touched my body with his massive hands . . .

I hated myself for not being able to stop even as the girl's hands detached from his neck and wandered down towards his belt. Did this arouse him? Could I ever arouse him as much as this nameless bimbo could? I could already feel the heat rising in my cheeks but did a great job in ignoring it and I leant forward into the tree, suddenly incapable of any more self-repulsion. I was already on the train to Bashful Virgin Land of Sexual Frustration, on the ride "Pull my body out of its misery, Vegeta!" . . . Yes, you know it now – I'm done for . . .

Suddenly they parted and he shrugged her off of him. I blinked and realized he was coming this way, his hands in his pockets as he took step after step, each seeming more menacing than the other to my sinned self. I was a terrible person . . . There wasn't anyone else in the world who could possibly be as disgusting as I was.

Yet I couldn't move. If I ran, he'd see me and know immediately I have been staring at him and his girlfriend . . . He was looking right at me . . . He had already found me out . . .

"What are you doing here?" His eye brows narrowed slightly as he stopped in mid-air when he noticed me behind the tree. My body stiffened at the annoyed tone of his voice. "Weren't you going home?"

"Er, ehhh . . ." There you have it – Bulma Briefs, the genius! And that is all a genius can come up with? I was so incredibly pathetic! "I was going on my way home but I remembered that I have to, um . . ." It was some improvement! Give me a break! I was caught red-handed in something horrible! Even my mind couldn't think that fast in such a situation. How about you tell your secret friend-crush that you have been staring shamelessly at him making out with his girlfriend thinking how you'll feel if he were to screw you? Oh, man, it sounds even more terrible when you say it that way . . . I felt so embarrassed . . .

Suddenly he smirked at me and reclined toward me, his hand resting above my head to support him against the tree.

"Were you watching me?" he asked slyly, making my face fill with colour. I know it, I could feel it . . . My cheeks were red, my cheeks were red, my cheeks were so red . . . ! I was so flustered! I felt like a caged animal. I was completely in panic. I wanted to escape him, to dodge him, to get away from this situation. I wanted to hide from him; I didn't want him to see my face any longer with that expression of his . . . My heart was thumping intermittently against my chest, it was almost about to burst through. The blood was pulsing through my entire being, making me feel even hotter in my clothes.

"Of course . . . I . . . wasn't . . ." My head barely registered that my voice was getting quieter and quieter with every word that exited my mouth as his head came closer and closer to mine. He was still smirking in that way that made my whole being shudder in desire and my knees give out as if my body suddenly got several times heavier.

"Did it arouse you?" He asked frankly, touching my flustered cheek with the outer side of his index finger while his face was now only a few centimeters from mine.

All my thoughts swam in my mind mercilessly, flooding me with emotion, drowning me in their power, sucking all my energy out of me with their intensity. And his tender touch had been the top of all of my feelings . . . I couldn't take it anymore . . . I will-I will—

"Achoo!"

There was a long quiet moment while my hands stood between us, shielding him as I had—

I had sneezed!

He was blinking incredulously at me as my face was still in my protective hands. Well, duh! He was about to kiss me when I sneezed! It was kind of puzzling when you think about it!

After that, I couldn't look at him any longer. I would burst from embarrassment. I slid against the tree beneath his outstretched arm and dashed home as fast as I could. I didn't glance back, I just ran as fast as my feet could take me.

Oh the humiliation!

You see, every time I think of something romantic or just . . . well, tender, I get all ticklish and I sneeze. And his touch had been so gentle and amplified by my thoughts and the sight, it was just inevitable . . . I just sneezed, ruining my once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to kiss the Vegeta Ouji, the object of all my desires and heartaches, my everlasting obsession, my driving force so far in high school life.

I couldn't look at him after that incident. I couldn't bear even taking a faint glimpse at his handsome profile any longer. I pushed all thoughts of him from my mind while I was around him, otherwise my embarrassment resurfaced and I would get all bright red again. And that's the last thing I wanted.

It was all going well, him not bothering me about this, not even mentioning it, until the inevitable confrontation came . . .

One day I had the whole clique at my house for a drink and just dallying around at Capsule Corp, if even only because it was bigand it just begged to have people over. They all left, pair by pair, until only Vegeta remained in the house. I tried my best to keep my composure in tact, my whole body obeying me as long as he was present, knowing he would soon leave . . . or so I thought at the time.

I did the good housewife act, seeing the great option of keeping my back facing him while taking the dishes and glasses towards the washing machine and loading it, hoping to find myself alone after I returned. No such luck . . . He was still there, sitting in the arm chair, looking heavenly as ever, and staring right at me with that unwavering gaze of his. Suddenly, he stood up and walked towards me.

"You shouldn't have run off like that . . ." he muttered lowly, advancing toward me more and more. I swallowed hard. I could play dumb and say I didn't know what he was speaking of . . . but that would be useless and, not to mention, a downright lie. I knew perfectly well what he was talking about. I couldn't sleep at night because of it. I dreamed of it every time I drifted off, always waking up with a start. I wanted to dig up a hole and die in it before I had to look at him in the eye again. That's why my gaze was pinned at the rug beneath our feet even as he took step after step towards me.

"What else could I do? Do you have any idea how humiliated I felt . . . ?" I murmured meekly, pondering if he even heard me in the first place . . . but I didn't have the courage any longer to look at him. I couldn't lift my eyes up at him . . . I couldn't bear it, not a second longer, this embarrassment! Why wasn't he going home? Why was he doing this to me? Why? I'm not a bad person, am I? I just wanted him so much . . . was that a crime? I'm just a confused teenager that has no parents! And he . . . he's everything I ever wanted! Does it make me a bad person that I want him?

"How about I repair the damage and this time you get no time to 'humiliate' yourself?" Before my brain could digest what he had just said, my chin was cradled by his hand lightly and forced up for my eyes to meet with his deep onyx pools . . . which were so close and enclosing even further . . .

I only had time to gasp lightly before his lips took mine in a tender embrace, his tongue invading my mouth roughly, without waiting permission.

A jolt of electricity ran through my entire being . . .

A jolt that sent life into my body for the first time in my life span . . .

I could finally say . . . that I felt alive . . .

And the first kiss was just the beginning of my night of first experiences . . .