Chapter 4: Cabin Days

The birds had been chirping since four in the morning. Vegeta never could sleep through the night and laid in the dark listening to them, his mind lazily ruminating from one preoccupying thought to the next until seven—the time he usually sloughed out of bed to fit in a jog, which was as good of cure as any to level his head before the day, bit by bit, wore him down.

Here, there was only one path to run, the Briefs' cabin being the very last property at the edge of a national forest where the hardwoods of the south met the boreals of the north. Vegeta ran up the long gravel drive and down the single, lonely road they'd driven in on. It was beautiful, premium real estate, remote as they came, with dense woods lining either side of the road so thick he couldn't see more than a few yards into them before their details all blurred together like staring too closely at a Monet.

Already, the day was hot and muggy, much worse away from the lake where there wasn't a breeze, and the rich scent of foliage hung in the air like a thick fog making it difficult to breathe. After just two miles, he was slick with sweat and turned back, which was probably for the best.

Tarble, he never worried about, and most days, he could fit in eight or so miles while the boy slowly roused himself from bed to sit cross-legged in front of the television watching nature programs on the Discovery Channel or National Geographic.

It was the idea of Kakarot waking up unsupervised that worried him, and justifiably so. When Vegeta entered the cabin, the boy was standing on the kitchen counter, leaping for a box of pancake mix on the cupboard's top shelf.

"Kakarot! You're gonna break your damn neck!" Vegeta shouted as he darted across the room to nab the kid around the waist and yanked him from the ledge.

"But I want the pancakes!" Kakarot exclaimed in a cartoonish tone of mock outrage, and hopped to hoist himself right back up the second his feet had touched the ground. For such a stout, compact little beast, he certainly was agile, as if his chubby limbs were just lean muscle hidden under puffs of air.

"Yeah, I got that," Vegeta said as he was forced to pull the boy down again. "You smell like piss, man. Both of you go clean up, and I'll make your damn food."

Kakarot whooped and charged down the hall, feet thundering chaotically beneath him. Tarble only turned to rest his chin on the back of the couch and watch Kakarot go, the droop of his eyelids suggesting he wasn't yet prepared to deal with the menace.

While the boys ate, Vegeta went to work changing Kakarot's bedsheets before he showered and hastily readied, unable to ignore his cousin's harassment from outside the bathroom door, who after inhaling a dozen flapjacks, was already bored and begging to visit his esteemed tree fort.

The hot stick in the air grew worse the higher the sun climbed, and not even the shaded density of foliage provided relief. Their shirts clung to their backs as they followed Kakarot through the wilderness, trusting that his purposeful stride was leading them in the right direction, not having a path to go on.

Aside from the unbearable heat and humidity, Vegeta couldn't help but admire the almost otherworldly beauty of the place. The trees had a mystical glow about them where thin jets of light streamed through the canopy, like spotlights at the play theater, to illuminate their subjects in bright contrast to the surrounding shadows. The mossy forest floor gave under his feet, springy in a way that was reminiscent of the boxing ring, only softer, and each of their footsteps kicked up spores that glittered when they happened to pass under a spotlight.

"Told you!" Kakarot shouted, and sprinted towards a thick Maple that was least five feet around and sixty feet tall, maybe more. It appeared as if two trees were siamese twins conjoined at the trunk, and where they split a third of the way up was perched a house, a real house, just as the boy had described without the embellishment he'd assumed the kid had lent it.

Two levels of chocolate-stained deck circled among the branches, and in the center sat a four-walled structure that looked as if it was a girl's dollhouse fantasy—its pointed frame was topped with dark, polygonal shingles which contrasted against the beveled siding that'd been painted a creamy white. The home was complete with little, projecting dormers that blinked prettily atop the grills of its cottage windows, which had been stained to match the deck.

Wooden two-by-fours were drilled into a spiral latter around the trunk, and like the decks, they were stained and glossed to a polished effect that, just as much, protected them from the elements. The boys climbed ahead of him, their feet already shuffling across the deck before Vegeta poked his head from the opening, admiring its beveled edges that were as practical as they were decorative, preventing one's skin from scratching as they emerged at the top. The sturdy railing that surrounded the deck was made of two-by-twos placed inches apart so that the kids could never fall through them. And above that first platform was another short ladder that extended to the main deck where the small shed sat. Its pointed roof reminded him of the Briefs' own cabin, but a miniature version in the sky.

"This is mine, you know," Kakarot boasted once they'd reached the upper level, flicking his hand around the inside of the sturdy structure with a kind of unaffected pride, showing it off in the same manner as the owners of all the self congratulating mansion tours Vegeta had endured as a child, toted around vast estates as his parents feigned strategic interest in the assets of their compeers. "Me and Bulma and Dr. Briefs made it last summer," he clarified.

"Bulma helped build this?" His surprise at the statement felt tainted in a way, if only because it forced him to remember what Bulma used to be like back when he'd known her, always getting her hands dirty… always fucking dirty if he was being completely accurate. She loved to concoct something out of nothing, whether it was busting apart expensive, remote-controlled collector model cars and boats to hot-rod with her own engines that they raced in her dad's hanger and the swimming pool behind it, or her goddamn homemade smoke bombs and fireworks that Vegeta learned, quickly, were best to observe from a distance.

According to Kakarot, Bulma not only helped build the house, but she designed the whole structure and even had its original, hand-drawn blueprints specially framed and gifted to him, which were now hung in his bedroom at home.

"Me and Bulma sleep up here sometimes," said Kakarot, a declaration that prompted Tarble to jump up and down, begging and pulling at Vegeta's arm to do just that tonight.

Vegeta ignored him, hoping the request would just wear off with the kid's attention span as he continued to inspect the space.

Once inside, there wasn't much to it, just a ten by ten open room, minus a cut out in one corner for the tree to continue to grow through—not that its simplicity detracted from the high quality of its craftsmanship. It was tastefully simple in a way that forced him to notice the flawless details that were there, constructed with immaculate consideration and attention. The floors were perfectly level, four inch wide glossed planks, and a white colonial baseboard circled around them to give the space a homey feel. In the picture windows, where they extended out beneath their dormers a few inches, were figurines, collector action figures that'd been placed on plastic pedestals. Kakarot ran around the room to tell a story about every damned one, mostly Marvel and DC figurines he'd somehow gathered in his short life and had a strange expert knowledge of their values, down to the damn penny.

"Geta, please!" Tarble continued to tug at his arm, whining about sleeping in the place. What if he had a nightmare or needed Vegeta and he wasn't there?

"You have a phone, duh," Kakarot stated as if his doubts were plainly visible.

"Alright, fine. If that's what you really want," Vegeta agreed, knowing that when the time came, his brother would chicken out anyway.

They trekked back to the cabin to find it in the same quiet state they'd left it, except more so when they realized that Bulma and Raditz were gone. Vegeta changed into swim trunks in the empty bedroom where Raditz had been sleeping and was mildly curious of their whereabouts, but the mystery was quickly solved when he met the boys in the yard. The jet ski lift was empty, and he was relieved to not have to deal with either of them for the time being. A normal day tested his patience, and in this weather with those two morons, he didn't stand a chance.

Escaping the nearly unbearable heat had one easy and obvious solution, and they took turns leaping off the deep end of the dock to find relief in the cool water. Unfortunately, the peace didn't last long.

Bulma and Raditz returned with the jet ski, tearing into shore at a speed that destroyed the calm, lapping waves where the young boys had been treading.

"Whoa, cool!" Tarble chirped, bobbing up with the cresting water. He swam toward the back of the watercraft where Raditz had jumped off to drag it to the edge of the dock. "Can I ride on it, please?"

"Sure kid! After your brother, though," Bulma said.

The heiress caught Vegeta's eye where he stood on the dock, smiling at him like nothing had happened last night, or maybe the whole episode, she'd more or less forgotten. Either way, he wasn't going to pay her attention and adopted a rather haughty kind of stance, crossing his arms with his chin tipped up, refusing to meet her gaze.

"Not interested."

"Oh, come on, Vegeta! This is part of the cabin experience. You have to!"

No, he didn't. And like hell would he let Tarble ride the thing with her—though now, thanks to the idiot telling him otherwise, Vegeta was going to have to play the bad guy and let him down.

A soggy life vest landed on the tops of his feet. "Don't be such a pussy, dude." Raditz teased as he hopped onto the dock to shake out his hair like a mutt.

They just couldn't resist. It seemed like belittling him was some kind of game, and they were taking bets to see who could snap him first. While he could brush off the routine mockery of his social peculiarities, or at least his cousin's to an extent, they were berating him in front of Tarble. On top of it being embarrassing, it forced him to play along, begrudgingly, if he didn't want the kid to turn out just like him, or worse, like them.

"Ugh, fine. One ride. But get them out of the water. I'd prefer they don't drown while I'm gone."

Reluctantly, Vegeta plucked the life vest from where it dripped over the wooden planks and climbed onto the back of the jet ski to sit behind the girl putting as much space between them as the short bench would allow. The engine rumbled to life and vibrated the hull between his legs, and as Bulma spun it to face the open water, she turned towards him over her shoulder with a sly grin. "Hold on tight."

He hadn't yet buckled the last strap of his vest when she blasted off like the flag had dropped in some goddamn Formula One race, and he was nearly launched off the back, forced to quickly close the gap between them as he threw his arms around her.

"You could have warned me!" he scolded.

"I did warn you!"

After a few minutes without her talking, just driving, the wind whipping their faces as they tore across the lake at fifty miles per hour, Vegeta tried his best to relax and enjoy the ride. The wind felt good on a day like this, but being forced to straddle her, have her backside pressed up against him with their thighs brushing together, her damp hair blowing in his face, and his nose so close to her neck that he could smell the coconut sunscreen, enjoyment was becoming mission impossible, and he prayed that the trip would be a quick one.

He didn't know how she did it—how every conscious neuron in his head could loathe her, yet every time she touched him, his body would rebel against his better judgment. She was a goddamn siren, and the longer he was forced to remain in her presence, the dumber he became as if lulled into some strange hypnosis. Twice he jerked his head up from where he felt his chin dropping against her shoulder.

The ride was smooth, and the water glistened off the sunlight as they carved across its surface disrupted only by the occasional waves churned up by passing boats. Bulma cut way too close to a group of fishermen trolling off the coast of an island, prompting the old men to curse at her as they teetered on unsteady legs and grabbed the hulls of their dinghies that rocked in their wake; though Bulma didn't seem to notice.

She drove straight, for the most part, parallel to the shore until they'd passed the islands; then she veered toward the open water. Vegeta wondered what her path was, at first assuming she'd ride the circumference of the entire lake, which even at max speed, would take an eternity. The lake was six times as long as it was wide at its center. From its aerial portrait in the Briefs' living room, it resembled the thin pupil of a cat squinting up at the sun. Their cabin was on the northernmost edge where it narrowed, and he was relieved as she left the coast to cut their trip in half.

When they reached the lake's wide middle, Bulma suddenly released her tight hold on the throttle, pitching him forward, flush against her back as their momentum dramatically slowed. But before he could ponder her motive, his stomach violently lurched, left behind as they were both catapulted into the air, as if the hand of God had come down from the sky to yank them off the watercraft and chuck them in the opposite direction from which the thing had violently turned. They skipped across the surface like rocks, but less elegantly with the way their limbs detangled as they each instinctively tried to brace their own fall and soften the blow as they hit the hard water. Bulma had nailed his jaw with her elbow at some point in their tumble, and the irony taste of blood filled his mouth from a badly busted lip. She'd whacked him so hard that his teeth ached worse than when he'd been jabbed in the mouth by some fat catchweight in the ring playing down his weight class.

"What the fuck was that?" he shouted once he'd coughed the lake water from his lungs and regained his bearings enough to see the girl swimming toward him.

"A donut," she laughed like it was the funnest thing in the world and continued to do so even as she observed him spitting blood from between his teeth. "Might have been going too fast though. Only you were supposed to fall."

"That's fucking hilarious. Thanks."

He didn't know why he was so angry when he'd expected something to go awry on this little adventure from the moment she demanded he come along; though being thrown from a jet ski at thirty miles per hour wasn't exactly what he'd imagined. Bulma Briefs was a goddamn wild card, more so now than ever before. When she slowed the thing, a spark zipped through his head that wondered if she wasn't going to cut the engine in the middle of the open water, hold him hostage under the unbreathable heat of a high noon sun to torture out his feelings. In a way, he was glad this train of thought hadn't proven fortuitous, because he'd rather suffer a busted lip than her terrorizing mouth.

The jet ski was capsized and floating away from them. Vegeta reached it before she did and quickly tipped it back upright, all the while, tuning out her shrill voice as she screeched at him to wait, as if she thought he'd leave her.

"That was the wrong way! You probably flooded the engine!" she griped. All her earlier laughter inverted as she pointed to a sticker on the back with an arrow that he didn't notice before. Indeed, he'd flipped it the wrong direction.

Bulma hoisted herself back onto the jet ski and tried to start the engine, but it wouldn't turn over and only coughed and sputtered the waterlogged contents of its mechanical lungs.

"Nice work, Vegeta! Gonna have to swim it back!"

The way she sat on the thing, arms crossed and a pout on her lips, implied that she thought he would push it back while she posed atop it like a princess. Fat fucking chance. This wasn't his fault; it was hers and her childish obsession with practical jokes.

"Screw you. I didn't even want to come in the first place." With that he did find the resolve to leave her and began to swim back to the nearest shore, abandoning the heiress to her throne in the middle of the lake.

"Wait! Where are you going? Vegeta, you can't leave me out here! Come back!"

A splash sounded over his shoulder, and Vegeta didn't have to look back to know she was swimming to catch him. The idea of her dog paddling frantically, leaving her jet ski behind to float in the tide touched a nerve of guilt, and he found himself turning around.

"You're an idiot."

She huffed and ignored him in the childishly stubborn way of a person who knew full well that she was wrong but couldn't bring herself to admit it, and instead, opted for silence as they began the long journey back to the cabin, pushing the jet ski ahead of them. But with Bulma, of course, the silence could only last so long.

"What do you mean you didn't want to come? Did you mean to the cabin or just the jet ski ride?"

"Both," he answered honestly.

"Come on, Vegeta. What the hell is your problem? Do you have to be so stuck up and insufferable all the time? Isn't it exhausting? Don't you get sick of fighting everybody? Can't you just relax and have fun every once in a while? You don't need to be so perfect and serious and..." She made sure to lay him out flat, to list off every kami-damned fault before she tacked on the million dollar question with some hesitancy. "Vegeta, why don't you have any friends?"

It was the question everyone wondered, as if by law, the son of a powerful, popular and attractive senator who was esteemed for better or worse by everyone in the state, should have grown to wear the same shoes and walk on water like a demigod. But they didn't understand the lengths his father went to become that way. And it wasn't like the man had any friends either, not real ones like she thought. Friends was a dirty word in Vegeta's purview. Friends were just clever jargon for useful assets, things rather than people, whose sole purpose was a mutual trade of favors that could advance a mutual goal—the unending, unsatiating quest for power.

His father was so far gone that he'd go to criminal lengths to further his position, to level-up another rung in the shitty latter of politics, a real-world popularity contest that people used as a yardstick for their own self worth. His quest was an addiction at its core; attaining the next position never made his father happy but only made him plot and fiend for a better one. He always wanted more. It was a sickness, and worse was that he used their family as justification, claiming that he was doing it all for them, and if not them, then the voters and their needs. Perhaps, he was so delusional that he really believed the garbage he publicly promised, even as he sold-out his constituents behind closed doors, and even, maybe, when he came home to his so-called beloved family every few weeks to tear their peace apart.

The people Bulma wanted so desperately to impress were just like him. It didn't take a genius to understand that she was different now not because five years had passed, but because she was acting out of some belief that she needed their approval. For some reason she was playing a chameleon, morphing herself into a person she thought they'd like because she was desperate for their so-called friendship. Why she was, he didn't know. What was certain was that Bulma would eventually forget that she was ever the strange, dirty tomboy who liked to break things, rebuild them into her own or blow them up—a girl who was so confident, she didn't care what anyone thought as she trudged through fancy parties smelling of gasoline. Back then, she tried to impress him not because she wanted his approval, but because she was proud of her work, and he was the only one, in an estate that was always buzzing about with people, that would pay her projects the attention they deserved. But now, she didn't deserve any of it. She offered nothing but a pretty face the way she carried on.

"Friends?" he spat. "You think those assholes are your friends? They're not!"

"Ugh, you don't know them. Maybe this is all a misunderstanding. You know you're kind of an asshole too, right? You don't make it easy for people to like you."

"But that's the thing, Bulma. I don't give a shit if anyone likes me."

True as it was, she only scoffed in frustration because she didn't understand. Her life was one of leisures, with every pampered whim instantly fulfilled by a horde of tutors, housekeepers, chefs, nannies, drivers, gardeners, pool boys, all of it—where his house was in a state of consistent decay. Sure, his father kept the groundskeepers to maintain outward appearances, but inside, their home was falling apart in more ways than one.

"This isn't just about me," Vegeta went on. "I don't have the luxury of fucking off all day with some dipshits and pretend that they're my friends. I have Tarble to think about." Somehow he felt the urge to enlighten the heiress, if even just a little, to help her understand that he wasn't being an insolent jackass for the fun of it. He was prioritizing his time and energy into the one thing that truly mattered. But even that, she was unwilling to validate.

"Is that what this is about? Your brother? Why doesn't your dad just hire a nanny? This shouldn't be all on you, ya know."

If she was trying to test his patience, she was succeeding spectacularly. The mere mention of sloughing off Tarble to some nanny, if she were anyone else, would have triggered him to rage, but somehow, ironically, he was still dumbly attached to the thought of her as an ally, in its basest of forms.

"Are you fucking kidding me? I'm not gonna let my brother be raised by some stranger that's getting paid to take care of him. You all can call me fucking crazy, go ahead. But I want to do it."

"But what about when you go to uni? You're gonna have to get one eventually, so why not start looking and-"

"I'm not going."

"What!?" She snapped her head to look at him as she swam, causing his ears to burn under the scrutiny. "But you're the valedictorian! You're the senator's son! That doesn't make any sense. You can't skip college just to babysit until… When? How old is he?"

"Six next week."

"Kami, Vegeta! What does your dad say? Somehow I don't see him approving of his eldest son, and his namesake, skipping uni for this."

"He's not a this, he's a person. And I'll be eighteen. I won't need my father's approval or his money. I'll get a job. Work when Tarble's in school."

At that, the heiress stopped swimming completely. She'd traded her ignorant reproof of his social abstinence and was looking at him deeply with her brows turned together like he was some kind of human enigma. Academically the girl was a damn genius, and socially she was confused, but personally, he sensed he'd said too much because the puzzled, cross expression with which she examined him felt a bit prophetic.

"Is there something going on at home that you're not telling me?"

"No, of course not. I just… I care about him is all."

"But that doesn't explain-"

He spun to face her, internally pleading yet attempting to slough her off the topic by adopting a casual tone, relaxed in the extreme. "There's nothing to it, Bulma. I like the kid. Is that not good enough for you?"

She nodded once, but her overscrupulous gaze wouldn't let up as she tilted her head like an inquisitive puppy and continued to stare at him; when suddenly, before he had time to react, she'd grabbed him by his hair, pulled his face into hers and pressed their lips together, kissing him clumsily with their noses bumped together.

Vegeta was stunned for a moment as he felt the wet pressure of her lips smash firmly against his, so quick and unexpected, he didn't have the time to digest the act before it was suddenly over. She'd already pulled away, her expressionless stare either testing his reaction or, perhaps, hinting a bafflement of her own motive.

The feelings that finally rushed back to him were piqued and panicked by the awkward, boyish way his voice inflected when he unconsciously spat, "What the hell was that?" It pitched so high, it sounded as if someone else had asked the question.

"I dunno! Nothing!" she snapped. Her face had gone redder than his felt, stiff with genuine embarrassment, a look so curiously foreign on her that Vegeta forgot his own nervous insecurity, and was instead forced to bite his busted lip between his teeth to stifle a self-vindicating smirk at the off-chance she'd mistake it for something more. For once he'd gotten under her skin, and even if it was unintentional, he reveled in watching her suffer the discomfort.

She tore her gaze away to stare past him at a fishing boat that was trolling towards them, as if relieved by the distraction. But at the same time, she was woefully unfulfilled by her own deferment, never being the type to brush a feeling under the rug, and found the humility to mutter, "I didn't mean to… I just think you're a really good person, Vegeta. Your brother is lucky."

"Hey lovebirds!" the fishermen shouted, the very same they'd rocked back at the islands. "Looks like you could use a tow!"