Winning the Love of the Handsome Skater

Chapter Twenty-One: Hailie and Vegeta – A Couple Never Meant To Be

Even though Christmas Eve and New Year's had been a bang (literally), as soon as school started again Vegeta resumed his odd behaviour yet again. Although Bulma couldn't complain about lack of his attention, he seemed even less concentrated on anything than his usual artist-like absent-mindedness. They saw each other on daily basis, like couples should, talking (even though Bulma was the one that did most of the talking, but that was how it was before as well), walking together and making out, like couples should, at home, she could see that he had all of his possible defenses up against her and that he had placed some space between them that she couldn't penetrate through no matter how hard she might try.

It was all getting really weird when added his edginess, more than the usual grumpiness and his obvious restless state of mind. What confirmed her suspicions that his nerves suffered some sort of turmoil was the amount of cigarettes he subverted every goddamn day. He was the living and breathing (surprisingly though, considering the amount of tobacco that attacked his lungs on daily basis) incarnation of what you can call a chimney-stage smoker. The occasions when she didn't actually see him with a smoke in hand were so rare she couldn't even remember them. Even his skating buddies were starting to get worried about him.

However, being Vegeta, he naturally denied that anything was going on and blamed it all on… well, he didn't actually give her a reason to blame his behaviour on and that was what disturbed her most. Whenever she asked, he kept repeating like a parrot "I'm fine", "I'm fine"! She was becoming fed up with all of that and wished he would entrust her with some of his weight so he'd finally feel like having a mature relationship, because she was sure that this was what theirs was and since neither looked like close to a thought such as ending it she assumed they'd keep seeing each other even after graduation.

Though, she tried not to think of graduation, because it made her sad, knowing that most of her friends, being sharp and quite intelligent people and perfect in at least one area (while her boyfriend was a natural talent at everything, the thought made her all giddy and giggly with pride every time she remembered), would scatter all over the world to become better in the thing they like doing best and plan to continue doing for a living too.

How things developed after a few weeks since returning to school was a more intriguing issue…

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

On a Wednesday like any other, Bulma visited the bathrooms during lunch for a refreshing splash of water against the face, a quick make-up check or just plain fooling around while she waited for the bell to signal the end of her break. She watched in the mirror in front of her as the trickles of water ran down her face, slid on the sides of her sink and got devoured by the siphon. She was surrendering to the tranquility of the restroom when the silence was shattered as the door to her temporary sanctuary burst open, giving entrance to a quite infamous girl, though Bulma could hardly find herself hating the female as she seemed engaged in what appeared to be nasty coughing fit.

"Of all the fucked up timings," the lavender haired heiress heard the girl wheeze out between coughs in a tone that suggested she was actually just talking to herself. Soon her lungs and throat relaxed and she removed her trembling hand from her mouth and finally noticed the inheritress' presence.

Neither bothered the courtesy to greet the other as it was clear to each of them they couldn't stand each other, if even only for the fact they wanted one and the same man for themselves. Mutely Hailie made her way toward a sink and drank some water to lubricate her throat before she picked up her cell phone from her loose navy jeans. The other occupant of the room turned on her heel and prepared to waltz out of the place and the evil aura that washed over her from the other girl but something subconscious made her linger at the door as she half-ignored the female's conversation with the person on the other line.

"Rain, honey, I'm really sorry to disturb you right now and I know you have lots of things to do and—" Her tirade obviously got interrupted by the guy she was talking to as her eyes darkened with a dozen emotions rising in her gut. "I know you said I shouldn't call you when you work but I'm feeling dreadfully today and I don't have a ride to the hospital for my check up…" she trailed off, feeling the familiar sickening bile rise in her throat and she instantly fell into another fit, more vicious than the previous one. "Can't you—" she choked on her cough after that; "Can't you make an exception for me this once?"

Hailie's dejected expression flashed in the mirror's reflection before her hand lost hold on her cell which collapsed in the sink in front of her with a sickening crack, but the girl was too busy clasping her hand to her mouth as she seemed to find it hard to get any oxygen to her lungs. Her knees gave in from beneath her and she crashed in a boneless heap on the floor, her fingers the only solid part of her body against her parted lips… as if hiding something…

Bulma's eye brows lifted with pity for the suffocating girl and even though she was still nowhere near liking her if she left now she'd feel bad about it later… Curse her active conscience and her good nature.

Composing herself, the lavender haired female crouched down next to Hailie, placing a careful hand on the suffering girl's shoulder. The auburn head lifted to look at the impostor of her privacy only to meet with the concerned sapphire gaze of her ex-boyfriend's new conquest that she so despised. The self-conscious smile that curved the exotically hair-coloured girl's lips made the other female feel even worse than she did already.

"I really hate to admit eavesdropping, but I couldn't help overhearing you can use a ride to the hospital?"

The emerald eyes sparkled with so many feelings ablaze and, if she didn't know any better, Bulma could've sworn she saw them well up before Hailie nodded slowly but buried her face in her hands soon afterwards as another fit hit her like a brutal punch in the ribcage.

Slowly, as if handling a glass doll, Bulma rose to her fit with the other girl's arm over her shoulders, pulling her towards the road where she de-capsulated her car and drove her patient towards the hospital of her choice…

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

As she exited the cabinet, Hailie didn't look much better than she did at school, but she was smiling. More like attempting to smile, but instead it turned out like an ugly grimace of pain.

"So?" Bulma urged as she got up and the emerald eyes of the other present female landed on her as if focusing her for the first time since coming out of the cabinet… which was quite the truth. Hailie was puzzled as to why exactly would Bulma Briefs, a girl whose life she tried her best to make as bitter as possible, was now sitting in the foyer of the huge white hospital, waiting for her to come out to make sure she was okay…

…Maybe now Hailie began to understand slightly just why Vegeta had fallen for that girl.

"It's nothing out of the ordinary, really; I just got a few additional pills to take this evening and—" Bulma's shocked expression as if she was being strangled fazed Hailie.

"'Nothing out of the ordinary'? What the hell are you talking about? You could've died of lack of oxygen there and you say it's nothing out of the ordinary?"

"It happens all the time as you may have noticed. I stopped worrying a long time ago." Hailie informed her as the two girls made their way over to Bulma's car parked in the hospital's parking lot.

"You stopped worrying? How can you stop worrying over something so huge? Do you know what it is? Do you know how to fix it?" The lavender haired girl fired question after question like a machine gun, suddenly obviously forgetting all about their feud in earlier days. The other girl smiled kindly at her feet. Bulma was truly a nice girl… maybe now she would be able to let go of it… after all, she had her darling—

"I told you already, stop worrying about me. I might start thinking you're actually nice!" She joked as she shut the door to the passenger side. Bulma creased a cocky eye brow with a skeptical smirk as she strapped herself with her seatbelt.

"You sound so much like Vegeta it can actually be scary."

Hailie laughed heartily at that. "Do I?" she asked rhetorically afterward, but the impact the girl's words had on her was far greater than what she was willing to admit to a total stranger, be it Vegeta's new girlfriend or not… It was true – they were so alike… Their fates were similar, their past was sort of similar in several aspects and… well, with the difference that Vegeta's future wasn't as clear as hers was…

An annoying high-pitched melody rang in the stillness of the car, pulling the brooding girl out of her thoughts as she realized that her cell phone was vibrating against her chest-pocket.

"Don't worry yourself," she repeated over the phone after she had seen the ID the same phrase she chorused since she got out of the doctor's office. "Everything's fine, progressing as it should." There was a short pause on her side of the line as she listened to her counterpart's words. "No, I couldn't walk there on my own, which was why I called you." Another uncomfortable pause passed with the fine eye brows furrowing over the green orbs but the malice in them disappeared in the batter of an eye lash before she said, "No, that's okay honey… A—" she paused, not really sure how to continue.

What was Bulma to her? Just a class-mate? Perhaps so, but not completely true of a statement. A school-mate? Maybe an acquaintance even? The girl in question had her ears perk up at the realization her passenger was referring to her, interested as to how she would call her…

"—A friend took me to the hospital."

Unconsciously, the cerulean-eyed girl felt the corners of her mouth curl upwards to form a breathless warming smile she directed at the road she was focusing on, being the model driver she was. What she didn't realize was that the other inhabitant of the car was also smiling in the phone, and not at the person on the other side of the line.

A friend in need is a friend indeed…

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

The days passed after the incident and Bulma and Hailie proved to be quite better at socializing with each other than either would have admitted if asked. However, theirs was a friendship borne out of treason and lack of help when one most needed it, and after helping the girl out of feminine solidarity, the receiver felt obliged to return with the same, keeping contact with the lavender haired vixen, yet staying as far away from her boyfriend as possible, knowing what Vegeta's reaction to her presence would be. Although avoiding him wasn't really all that hard – the two were hardly together at school, if they even shared a "good morning" at the beginning of the day… It seemed truly puzzling and disturbing from the side and the whole gang was beginning to worry for the lavender head's feelings… as was the girl herself worrying about her relationship and what it was coming to.

Sure enough she should've been used to the constant ups and downs, but this was a down she had the dreaded feeling they wouldn't overcome. Over time, mere weeks, Vegeta had become more distant than ever, the circles beneath his eyes no longer ignorable. There was a vice around Bulma's heart and it clenched it in its iron grip every time she met those ghostly onyx orbs, devoid of any emotion other than exasperation and utter exhaustion of life in general.

Yet no matter how obvious his treason, he still wouldn't speak a word to her though, thankfully, kept coming back to her, her room that held this absorbing smell of wild flowers that she often adorned herself with and to her presence, which seemed in an hour's time to soothe his raging mind and spirit from whatever was worrying him. But as time progressed, he stayed for less and less time with her, a fact she couldn't possibly fathom… If she helped him that way, without even 'bugging him', as he liked to refer it as, why wouldn't he at least stay with her, if he wouldn't open up to her?

She was getting more and more confused every following day… and soon her sleepless nights increased greatly in number as well…

Something had to be done… She had to help, help him, so she could help herself too, even though her 'selfish-o-meter' was running really low the last month or so.

But she didn't have a clue what was worrying him… She didn't have clue what was going on in that thick skull of his and he looked like he didn't plan on telling her any time soon either…

Great, just great… There went her peace of mind, utterly out of her grasp…

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"Yellow is so not your colour! I, the almighty Princess Hailie, forbid you to wear this top ever again, low-class!" The auburn headed girl laughed mirthlessly at her attempted joke but noticed that her interlocutor's eyes weren't even focused on an object in the hall, if not her. "What's wrong with you? You look out of it." Her voice switched to its usual stern serious mode. Bulma shook her head when she realized she had been found out and she smiled apologetically.

"Sorry, I was just spacing out and—"

"That may slip with your goofy goons of friends, but not with me. Come on, just spit it out, it will make you feel easier." The female slurped of her machine-made cocoa. Thank goodness for that thing… Before, even considering buying a drink from the canteen lady was considered utter madness when you just so much as imagined what it would taste like…

Bulma surprised herself by not minding the 'goofy goons' remark, knowing that Hailie just plainly didn't accept any of her friends at all… as they didn't accept Bulma's newfound friendship with the auburn head. But they had no say in her personal life or who she associated with, so none of their feuds really mattered to her…

"I don't know if you'll want to hear this, because if I was you, I would certainly feel awful if I had to consider a matter such as this one with my ex's new girlfriend which I hated at the start…"

"Quit the noble act already and just say what's up your ass so we can get this over with…" Used to that sort of talking from her boyfriend already, the lavender haired minx released a pained sigh.

"Vegeta's in the thinnest state I have ever seen him, without turning into a 'wimp state', like he called it, his clothes reek of cigarettes and he no longer stays in the same place for more than half an hour… He skips classes, drives teachers insane without even amusing himself by doing so and I have no idea why he has those heavy rings under his eyes." The heiress buried her head in her crisscrossed hands on the table and let out a strangled tearless sob. "I don't know what to do anymore, Hailie! I'm losing him… And I was thinking that maybe… maybe you could help me; give me an advice why he's acting that way, or something. Has he ever done something like that before?" The cerulean eyes glazed with a thin sheen on salty liquid that the stubborn inheritress refused to let flow freely down her snow white skin. Her desperation was so heart-wrenching and so easy for Hailie to relate to that she had to avert her gaze from the pathetic sight the proud Bulma Briefs had been reduced to… just because Vegeta was too cocky to admit—

"Yes, I'm afraid it has…" The emerald orbs caught sight of a painfully familiar erect jet-black tresses and a muscle under her eye lid convulsed when she noticed that Bulma's whole crew was approaching the lunch table that the two girls were currently residing. "I'll come over at your place tonight and talk to you about it, okay?" She got up just in time to brush past a very annoyed spiky-haired teenager. He looked… truly insane at that moment and it was very intimidating in all honesty… "Vegeta, can I—"

"Shut up and get out of my sight before I decide full moon is not necessary for me to kill you without a goddamn regret." He dropped himself heavily onto the bench next to Bulma as the others blinked weirdly away, hoping that "kill you" was just a figure of speech.

As the girl's sulking form retreated out of earshot in a mad coughing fit again, Vegeta growled and threw his girlfriend a glare.

"I don't like you associating with her. I forbid you to talk to her anymore!"

Bulma's eyes narrowed dangerously at his words and a vicious argument unfolded from that demand of his, but it was a malignant one, not the usual sport-like bickering.

It was clear – a dark cloud had settled sternly above the couple's relationship with no intention of leaving any time soon if it depended on the male…

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Bulma's foot tapped nervously against the floor of her comfortable house which was considerably emptier than usual with her chirpy mother out for groceries (it was an enigma to the teenage girl as to why her mother would want to do it herself when they had servants that could take care of that) and her father probably asleep over his latest (greatest as was every single one of his inventions) blue-print.

Something slammed against her front door – definitely not the sign she expected to know she had a guest. Dashing for the door, she gasped loudly when she saw the condition the female beyond it was in.

"Oh my God, what happened? You're bleeding!" She exclaimed in complete panic, helping the other girl in the nearest seat possible, about to search for a First Aid kit before her wrist was caught by Hailie's hand.

"I'm sorry I'm late… but this time it was worse than usual… couldn't see where I was going…" She coughed so hard her throat throbbed with pain.

"What are you talking about? Let me go! I have to go and get the kit to fix up your wound—"

"There isn't a wound you can actually see, Bulma… Just relax and sit down…" The blood smeared over the light blue top of the auburn headed female was a cruel urge for the girl at her front to get to her feet anyway, no matter what the delirious chick meant, and find that damned First Aid kit! "I'll get to that part once you start listening to me… It's nothing you can help…"

"What do you mean?" All of a sudden, Bulma's hear started swimming into a helpless state. Hailie just chuckled at her expression.

"I'll get to that… So… Where should I start from? The very beginning perhaps would be the best choice…" She pushed herself up a bit, making herself comfortable in the love-seat in the middle of the Capsule Corporation living room. If someone had told her months ago that she would be sitting here, about to do what she planned, she would've laughed in their face and labeled them mad. But she didn't find it funny now… It was far from funny… Her small fists were clenched tightly to keep the gore in her palms from smearing over the expensive cushion seat. "I'll just warn you now – I'm just going to tell you about my and Vegeta's past, and nothing about his personal one. That I'll leave for him to unveil, even though I promised I wouldn't open my mouth about our relationship either."

"Why?" Bulma couldn't stop herself from asking, causing a weird joyless smirk to appear on the other girl's face.

"Because he's still embarrassed from what happened, he's still bitter and dwelling over it, subconsciously looking for resemblances to what had already happened to him and what is currently happening."

"Is that why he's straining from me?"

"Let's not ask any questions, okay?" Bulma nodded self-consciously, realizing that she was getting ahead of herself in her nervous state. It had all been too much for her for the last few days.

"I'll keep quiet until you finish." She promised obediently, making Hailie smirk in superiority, a smirk Bulma recognized well…

"That's a good girl…" Her triumphant expression evaporated in thin air as if it had never been and she adopted a thoughtful frown. "First of all, I should begin with the fact that my mother never really wanted me, even when she had given birth to me. All she used me for was a tool to get the child-support money the country offered her as a compensation for the fact she was a single mom. And so, to her, I was just a money-making machine and she treated me as such. My wishes and dreams didn't matter to her, the fact I was famishing was of no importance to her and it seemed as if my existence was only a burden to her, even though she could've ended my life before it even began…

Even so, I never gave up on trying pleasing her as much as I could, to be of some help to her – I had specialized on doing chores at the mere age of four, forced by the circumstances I was raised under… Anyway, what she did to me with her ugly hateful words to my labile psyche doesn't have relevance in the case. What matters is that she soon started drinking all the money she got away, turning to even hurting me physically. I would've lived that way, even if I would grow into an unhealthy, quiet and mentally damaged child… but the authorities had another thing in mind. They stripped my mother of her custody over me, hence taking away her only tool to make some money… She didn't take it well. She even tried to fight an officer in her drunken delirious state…

But even though that, I was taken to an orphanage the very same day, thinking that, at last, I had found salvation for my wretched soul, a soul my mother always claimed foul and impure whenever she saw me with her blood-shot eyes… But soon my transfer seemed to only make things worse… I was treated equally as horribly, but I had to do a whole lot of chores – those of thirty or so children that resided the place, all bigger and stronger than me at the time – and for just a tiny glass of juice, a slice of bread and a porridge dish every day. I was humiliated, taunted and picked on by practically ever single one of those retards. I spent quite an amount of time there, three entire years, and at the age of twelve when I was quite ready to put my misery to an end a kind old man had mercy upon my soul, adopting me…

That time was perhaps the happiest, most content year of my life I had ever felt… The man was so considerate, affectionate… He treated me as a child of his own since he had no children…" Hailie sighed for a pause, her eyes fluttering closed, perhaps to imprison the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes. "Anyway… We lived in poverty, which I was quite used to at the time, but at least, for the first time in my life, I realized that… perhaps I wasn't as unlovable as my mother had always screamed at me… Perhaps I wasn't as dreadful of a person the women at the orphanage claimed me to be… Maybe I was a good child… Maybe the curse had lifted from me, left me to finally have a decent life.

But I had been too soon to feel grateful and happy… Grandpa passed away a month after my birthday, leaving me just enough money to live for a few more years without starvation and lacking anything vitally important. But I couldn't just leave him there, to rot in the ground… The man meant the world to me, he was the greatest person I had ever encountered, someone whom I met understanding in.

And so, I buried him properly, made a funeral, chose a coffin and sent him off to a better world, as I knew he had deserved going there…

By the time, I was already in my first school, in a high school near the apartment I lived in with Grandpa, and I met a gang of the greatest three boys you can ever think of." She beamed at the thought, making Bulma's tension face turn into a slight smile as well. "Vegeta, Goku and Rain – the most troublesome trio you could think of when you hear "high school bad boys"."

"Goku had a "bad boy" attitude?" Bulma laughed at the incredulousness of the statement. Despite herself, even Hailie chuckled.

"Yes, well, he was more like trying to put up with Rain and Vegeta more than anything. The three were barely separable, what with them all being together since kindergarten, even though Goku went to a different high school than the other two. They had some sort of pact, I think – if Goku didn't come see him every day, they'd go visit him… All in all, it was the most perfect picture of friendship you could've ever seen, considering all of those boys' childhoods and all…" Bulma's eye brows furrowed. Life was truly a bitch… "Anyway, they accepted me in their clique, little by little, all of us being the outcasts of our class. We were just plain different from all of the rest of them – independent, loyal and truthful amongst each other. We did everything together: threw private parties only for the lot of us, organized different activities to all have fun together – skiing, clubbing, things a normal teenager would enjoy. We always, always together; each knew the other better than anyone else in the entire world. Our little community was tidy enough for us to be considered one being rather than three different people that had united together to form a group.

But the money I had spent for a funeral instead of myself proved to have a vicissitude difference… My stomach refused to accept food before long and I was in bed for the whole summer vacation before the tenth grade. Both Rain and Vegeta whom I was more befriended to visited me, but when my case worsened only Vegeta remained a permanent visitor. It was clear – I would soon die… but he refused to believe it, tutored me when I stopped going to school when the year began and even decided on getting a part-time job to fund my stay at a hospital, where they would take decent care of me…

…And so, with our funds combined, I managed to get into the hospital. And even in my exhausted state while in there I could see the light and hope in his eyes, the desperation of his for me to stay alive, to stay at his side… And I took the lessons he gave me, memorized every little thing he did. He barely parted with me for a few hours for school, where he slept too," she laughed at the memory, "before he came back again. In no time, we had covered the whole tenth grade material, and, not having anything better to do, he continued on, towards the eleventh, the last of high school and I even managed calculus before I exited the facility! I couldn't even grasp the thought at the time… I was eternally grateful to him… But things only began to mess up in a global way from there…

I was mad at Rain for not even seeing me at the time, for not even caring enough to come and see me for the last time when I thought I was dying… since he was the boy I had my eyes on from the three of them ever since I saw them all sitting on a bench in the front of the school building… His character was slightly different than Vegeta's… He rarely smiled truly, but he did, while it seemed that his best friends' face was doomed for eternity not to show such an emotion… Rain was caring and considerate too, though he was more open to people he called friends than Vegeta was… Minor things like that which make a huge difference when you see the overall result in attitudes and personality, as well as the general view of the individual over life. Anyway, my relationship with Rain doesn't really matter right now… What mattered was the thing I suspected when he first suggested his help – Vegeta wanted us to be together. He was tenderer than ever after I exited the hospital, kind and caring." She noted Bulma's dropped jaw. "It sounds incredible how much a girl can change a boy, doesn't it?" She smiled… it was a sad pained smile. "But my health problems didn't cease there…

Anyway, soon Vegeta and I became an item, but I never really expressed the same feelings he did for me… I played haughty, hard-to-get even though we were already together but that seemed only to encourage him more… He just couldn't let go… I wanted to make him forget about me, that I didn't want to hurt him… And at the same time, he made me feel ever worse, dirtier, because my thoughts couldn't part from his best friend whom I knew I had fallen for at first sight… What's worst is that I neglected all our emotions selfishly, staying together with Vegeta for two years straight… Two years until I couldn't stand the pressure and told Rain about how I felt, which was at the end of eleventh grade… What hurt me even more was that he shared the same feelings… and I couldn't make it, I couldn't stay faithful to my man and cheated on him with his best friend…

I felt like a whore for doing so, realizing that I have delivered a huge blow to Vegeta's personality… He had been lurid, brooding and perpetually angry before, but perhaps he had seen the light when he met me, a straw given to a drowning man to hold onto, thinking that maybe if he opened up his heart to me and accepted someone, he could mend the scars of his pasts… Bulma, he even told me about his deepest secrets, gave me a perfect view to all his internal turmoil, suffering, happiness and made me know of the things that pleased him… only to have all of them thrown back in his face by two of the people he trusted most in his entire life, seeing how great a mistake he had made with choosing us to entrust a tiny burden of his life with…

He was ready to spend the rest of my life with me, giving me as much as I was willing to take, to make my days happy and content… only to have those feelings unrequited by a selfish wench who couldn't think of anyone but herself… I hated myself, I hated the way my mind functioned, and I hated myself for making him like this… He became completely distrustful of everyone, never again said a nice thing to anyone but Goku, and didn't even find a reason to smirk for a whole year, refusing himself any sort of amusement, never again helped anyone because he made no friends in fear of being hurt again… He became more paranoid than ever, hated the world more than ever… and I made him hate and lose belief in love forever… He swore he would never again be swindled by a "witch's charms", like he put it, and so… he couldn't look at either of us – Rain or me – and just transferred to your school. And, well, I guess that's most of my story. After he fled, I wanted to make things up to him, perhaps, refusing to believe that love could be shattered so easily… in a day's time… But, obviously, blinded by my stupidity at the time and lost in my own little world, I had forgotten what Vegeta was like – thick-headed, determined, showing absolutely no weakness for you to use against him, stubborn and a perfect model of what people call a loner…"

Once Bulma recovered partially from the initial shock, she recoiled, "It weren't selfish!" Her words surprised the other girl obviously. "What you did was stupid, true… You should've talked to him about it before you jumped in bed with his best friend… but you all couldn't deceive each other by saying you were all fine with the situation you were in. If one doesn't have a peace of mind, one has nothing! It is better for you to be separated rather than have yourself crucified by your own mind for not acting upon your feelings…" After the thought submerged, the inheritress recalled another fact in the girls' speech that had puzzled her. "Did you mean that Vegeta proposed to you?" She couldn't believe it. Her Vegeta, proposing marriage? Hailie's emerald eyes blinked in incomprehension.

"What did he propose? You mean marriage?" A curt nod followed her question. "By heaven's name, no. We were only seventeen, for goodness' sake." She tittered mirthlessly, making Bulma quirk an eye brow.

"Then what did you mean till the end of your days?" The sapphire eyes scrutinized the other girl, making her smirk strangely.

"You're quite the observant one, aren't you? I hoped I could skip that part…"

"Was it something about your health that you mentioned earlier?"

"Yes, quite so; in fact it is the same thing because of which I didn't let you go get the kit." She looked at her palms which now only held the dried crimson liquid from earlier. "A month or so after I exited the hospital, I started having those coughing fits that you can recognize too by now. It was odd, it hurt like hell and it seemed quite permanent. So Vegeta made me go check and see what was wrong with me, thinking it was some flu which I only had to buy the right medication for to fix it… And so I went, but the results I received were far from what we expected…" She took a deep shaky breath, her nervousness speaking of her flashback to that exact moment she was referring to. "My tired body had been the perfect environment for any virus to live in… but the anorexia was a quite different case…"

"Elaborate, if you please?" Bulma urged when the next pause the girl took was too long for her cliff hanging state of mind.

"The seemingly cureless anorexia that I had suffered had made my organism the perfect prey for one of the many deadly diseases I had never received vaccine against. Bulma, the blood you see on my hands and top isn't from a wound… I cough blood, and recently it has become worse than ever as the illness is fast progressing to a critical state…" Her listener's eyes were wide as she stared at the story-teller, whose eyes were devoid of emotion, a vacant stare in her emerald orbs as she raised her eyes to meet the other girls' gaze. "I have tuberculosis, Briefs… and I have a certain ticket for the next dimension… The last check with the doctors you gave me a ride for assured me that I won't make it to my twentieth birthday…"

The only audible sound after the statement was made was a sharp gasp Bulma cut short with her hand clasping her open mouth, as if the action could preserve the tears from cascading down her cheeks…

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

There you have it, folks, all you Hailie haters. Lol; I bet none of you thought that when you said "Die, Hailie, you bitch!" I'd literally kill her. I hope that now you don't hate her as much as you did and see why I don't hate her either. Sorry if the writing was sloppy… I just can't wait till I get to Vegeta's entire life story… It's going to be a long chapter and I don't know when it will be. Probably next one or the one after it… Either way, please be so kind and review again and tell me what you think!

Yours sincerely, Dark Hope Assassin.