A Place in the Sun

by RockyKelboa

Just when high school summer break was about to go his way, Vegeta's forced to accompany his baby brother on a weekend playdate with their cousins at the remote, Northwoods cabin of the prestigious Briefs family—an endeavor which, for the notorious social outcast, is complicated by more than just unsolicited attention from the Briefs' vivacious daughter. For VBO Summer Prompts.

5. Street Fair

Chapter 5: Street Fair

The lift motor whirred as Bulma raised her prided hunk of fiberglass from the water. She'd spend all afternoon fixing it, she assured him, with a hint of contempt in her voice as if he ought to feel sorry, but regret certainly wasn't floating among Vegeta's odd mix of emotions. As he crossed the lawn toward where Raditz and the boys were circled around an Oak tree, his fingers brushed over his swollen bottom lip ruminating on its tingling numbness, for which he was certain, and surprised he wasn't repulsed to admit, had nothing to do with the heiress's elbow.

Everything about her was irritatingly prurient, yet when she kissed him, she seemed wholly herself, a momentary lapse in her careful roleplay that even if the outcome was the same misguided vulgarity, in that instance, he found it somewhat amusing. But more than that, he couldn't unknot the vulnerable rush of anxiety from the strange thrill, and he looked back for a moment to watch her unlatch the jet ski's hood and bend over the engine. She was a kami-damned sorcerous, and he knew that, especially now, if he wasn't careful, he'd be hopelessly spellbound to a complicated distraction he lacked the time, energy, and quite frankly, the reputation to afford.

Vegeta met Tarble at the foot of the tree. His brother's hip was cocked against a bright orange Wiffle bat staring up to where Kakarot dangled from a branch ten feet off the ground. Their cousin was red-faced and straining with heavy grunts as his thick arms flexed in an attempt to pull himself up. He must have been at it for a while, because his arms slacked straight for a moment to hang and catch a breath before he frowned back up at the branch above him, and with a second wind of determination, swung his lower half up to wrap his legs around the limb for leverage, spooning his body around the thick branch like a baby sloth.

"Come 'on Kat! That's cheating!" Raditz scolded from below, folding his arms against his chest as if he were some disgruntled referee itching to blow the whistle on foul play.

"Is not!" Kakarot scoffed. He flipped himself up to straddle the branch and stood, bracing himself against the tree trunk as he stretched his chubby arm above his head to swat the Wiffle ball off the twigs, a little monkey gunning for fruit. He knocked it back to the ground, and Tarble whooped and chased the ball down the lawn before it could roll into the lake.

"Okay Rad, comin' down!" Kakarot signaled his brother from ten feet above. Vegeta felt his heart jump up his throat, his well-honed parental instincts thrown into sudden panic as Kakarot leapt from the tree with his limbs splayed out like a flying squirrel toward his brother, who had barely uncrossed his arms in time to catch him.

"Oh fuck!" Vegeta doubled over, trying to cleanse his mind of the thought of Kakarot belly-flopping the lawn, much less the lip he'd hear from his aunt, who would undoubtedly hold him personally responsible for the actions of her idiotic sons should they injure themselves under his watch. "You sure you moron's weren't adopted?"

Honestly, besides the fact they looked like their father, Kakarot specifically, there was no familial resemblance beyond that, especially not on Aunt Gine's side. His cousins were careless, monkey-brained dolts, the opposite of both of their parents. Aunt Gine was cunning and conniving, as much as her older brother, Vegeta's father, and she was just as cutthroat when it came to advancing their family's position—the reason she pushed her husband into the role of his chief of staff, or campaign manager when elections were in season. If she wasn't willing to work for her brother outright, she was going to ensure that her husband held a position of power in his political matrix.

Uncle Bardock was smart too and entirely qualified for the jobs with which he'd been tasked, but compared to Gine and his father, Bardock was a beta in a pack of vicious wolves. He seemed like a caricature of a mob boss's consigliere, the one with less balls and a hint of conscience who still did the dirty work when necessary and could manipulate and threaten with the best of them, but always seemed a bit nervously haunted, like he was being chased by a virtuous ghost. And maybe he was. Vegeta's own mother had been close to Bardock, and despite his faults, Vegeta quite liked him too, still to this day. Of all the adults in his radius, Uncle Bardock always seemed the most human. Maybe his mother's spirit was the one that sweated him because he was proportionally the weakest link with the most power, the only adult that could, and if pushed far enough, perhaps would make a bit of difference in her sons' lives. But that bet was based on Bardock having the spine to be virtuous, to balk his wife and brother-in-law and take a stand. Unfortunately, as far as Vegeta could surmise, both his aunt and uncle were clueless of the monster they enabled and truly believed the official story of his mother's death. They never hinted that they knew, or even suspected, what his father had done or what he was doing to them still.

"Hey, Geta," Tarble was at his side tugging on his hand. "I'm hungry, but um, after lunch can we go to the fort to bring the stuff? Remember, like you promised?"

Tarble never could let a viable promise go to waste; the kid was thrifty, which is why Vegeta was careful to dole them out. More than not wanting to appear a liar, he preferred to avoid at all costs the pathetic, puppy-dog pout his brother had perfected from the moment he could recognize the effect of his own expressions on the people around him. His brows pinned upward at the middle over his wide, chocolate eyes and puffy bottom lip. Even if the only person he wasn't fooling was Vegeta, it didn't lessen the boy's power, as if the whole world owed Tarble a debt that Vegeta would carry out personally. In a way it did, and his brother never asked for much that was beyond reason. Unlike himself, Tarble didn't inherit their father's short fuse, and Vegeta could count on one hand the amount of times he'd thrown an irreconcilable tantrum.

Yet when he agreed to let them sleep in the fort, he hadn't realized it would be a hot afternoon's endeavor spent, begrudgingly, pack-muling sleeping bags, and games, and snacks, and anything else the two could think of as unquestionably necessary to have on hand. It took two pointless trips back and forth through the woods considering the odds of them actually braving the night there were slim to none. If Raditz had helped they could have managed in one, but instead, he chose to sit on the edge of the dock to admire the heiress's backside and hand her tools like some love-drunk assistant.

The sound of the jet ski rumbling back to life could be heard through the trees as they made their second trip back, and above it, Bulma's self-congratulatory squeals, gleeful as Dr. Frankenstein animating a monster. The bikini-clad heiress skipped up the lawn toward him grinning in the bubbly, illustrious way she had when they were kids with her hair tangled into dreadlocks and grease streaked across her forehead, chin and chest where she'd carelessly wiped at her sweat. Vegeta tried to ignore his body's anxious riot—a visceral kick of his heart, as if it'd been launched into his mouth, and if he weren't already flushed from hiking in this heat, he'd be classically gunning to get away and hide his face. But for once, he didn't want to brush her off when she'd hooked an arm with his to extol her own success, chatting rapidly about spark plugs and engine cylinders and oil changes without bothering to translate, as if he too were a mechanic capable of grasping her babble. It floated over his head, but not just for lack of understanding; had he really been trying to follow, he could have caught the gist. It was the hypnotizing speed and ease with which she spoke that turned his brain to goo, and he was unable to focus on anything but the brilliant energy in her smile, radiating and unnaturally white below the apples of her dirty cheeks and her blue eyes that were popped wide with cheerful revelry—a far departure from the earlier way they'd been pinned by her sociopathic schemes and calculations.

Maybe she really was Dr. Frankenstein and he was her monster, because it felt as if she was reviving some lost part of him: the free-willed, irresponsible teen he'd smothered long before he'd ever had the chance to awaken. And now he found himself to be the one calculating ploys as he wondered how and under what conditions he could compel her to kiss him again on her own accord while he disguised it's what he really wanted.

But as they stepped into the house, all of his unusual fantasies that fanned a precarious delight were evaporated in a puff of smoke when she said, "Yamcha wants us to meet them in town. There's a street fair on Main."

Us was quite the overstatement. Yamcha didn't want to see anyone but her, and she wasn't stupid enough to not understand that, which meant maybe she wanted Vegeta to come, or maybe she just wanted to include them all like some team-spirited cheerleader. Regardless, as annoyed as he'd be with her bounding off to meet that intellect-throttling, drawal of a douchebag and his moronic friends, Vegeta wasn't about to suffer in their presence. Hell, he'd be happy, anxious and annoyed at first, but happy to spend the night alone. He'd drop the kids in the tree fort, and who gave a shit what Raditz did, to an extent—a curfew, if the jackass wanted to putz around at a street fair with the douche-troupe. And if Raditz wouldn't abide, they still had the morning to buffer any problems. Vegeta didn't give a shit what his cousin did, as long as the ingrate didn't puke in his car on the drive home or somehow tip-off his parents.

He was about to bid good riddance to the lech, but she was back to her manipulative ways as she made sure to force his hand, turning to Tarble who dawdled behind them asking, "Doesn't a street fair sound like fun?"

"What's a street fair?"

"Seriously? Kami, Vegeta! Don't you let him do anything fun?" She scolded. "Well kid, you see, it's like a theme park, but just smaller."

When Tarble's eyebrows furrowed further, Bulma tore her arm from Vegeta's and used it to shove him. "Oh my god! Vegeta, you've never taken him to a theme park?"

"He's barely six. It's not like he can go on any rides," he muttered with more shame in his tone than defense. He knew he should've been introducing the kid to more worthwhile experiences, but he only started driving last year, and with their schedules, at least during the school year, and the stress of those types of places anyway…

"Kid, you're brother is a stick in the mud, and you're gonna have fun today with or without him. We're going, and we're gonna eat shit tons of—err, I mean—tons of candy and play tons of games, and there's probably live music. Do you know how to dance?"

Tarble scrunched his nose before he cocked a hip and crossed his arms like a diva. "I don't wanna dance! Can't we just play the games?"

"Nope. You have to dance with me once." Bulma mirrored his posture, which, unable to grasp the heiress's breed of sarcasm, just flustered the poor kid. He turned to Vegeta with an indignant huff that failed to hide his distress, desperate for his brother to resolve the situation and quickly.

"She's just kidding, T. Come on, let's go change." He waved a palm at the boy, who gave Bulma a wide berth and a suspicious eye as he passed her.

The four cousins had been dressed and waiting in the living room, with three-quarters of them itching to go by the time Bulma waltzed down the staircase in a mini jean skirt and a crop-top tank that somehow drew attention to the gemstones of her pierced navel more than her previous bikinis. Maybe because her tank top actually covered her boobs, his eyes were left to wander over her midriff. He felt like a dog, slack-jawed and drooling over some tramp, and the dirtiness that accompanied the feeling made him the first to charge outside toward the car.

"Shotgun!" Bulma shouted.

"Ugh, bullshit! That's so fucking bull! You're short!" Raditz whined, realizing he was about to be stuffed into the backseat of Vegeta's coupe with the kids.

"I called it, so you're ridin' bitch, bitch!".

It was amusing to see Raditz fold himself into the back of a BMW between two half pints who were excitedly screaming and batting each other across his lap that was already nearly stuffed into his chin.

"Hot ride, Vegeta. When'd you get it?" asked Bulma.

"I dunno, a year ago or something."

He knew the exact timeframe—early January more than a year ago—because the car was another so-called gift, a birthday present, technically, two months too late after his father forgot his sixteenth. The manner in which his old man tried to celebrate, once he finally recalled the event, was to summon him into the kitchen and pour him a glass of scotch in a crystal tumbler. It was a school night, and it was the only time Vegeta had ever drank the vile petrol at his father's asinine insistence, as if trying to bro-down with his underage son when he was already, not just wasted but clearly high, running his mouth about their family legacy and Vegeta becoming a man. In reality, the car was a bribe for his silence over another concussion that resulted from that evening. And the worst part was that Vegeta couldn't even remember what infraction triggered it; he only remembered in fragments the way his father fisted the hair at his nape and smashed his forehead against the marble counter.

"I don't have my license yet. Just a permit." the heiress went on. Her face brightened as an idea lit into her head, and she turned to Vegeta with an excitable tenor. "Hey, you can teach me!"

"I'd have to be eighteen to let you drive, and not in my car." Kami he'd suffer far more than a concussion if he let the heiress scratch his precious Beamer.

"Okay so, when's your birthday?"

"November 9th," Tarble piped from the backseat when Vegeta didn't immediately answer, eavesdropping on his brother's every interaction with a girl because they were so rare; he seemed to find them fascinating.

"Perfect! It's a date!"

It wasn't. Driving lessons aside, by the time November rolled around, she'd be plenty indoctrinated into the Shenron Academy shitshow to know that Vegeta was not a person she would want to associate with if she cared at all about her reputation. There was no being friends with Bulma Briefs, not even on a cursory level. His reputational plague was the academy's version of a Black Death. They all hated him because he was dark and sullen and pretentious, and his only redeeming quality besides his GPA was his father's clout. As giddy as she seemed about the prospect of the two of them cutting down the West Coast Highway in his Beamer, she'd forget long before his birthday came around that it was something she'd even requested.

Parking was difficult with the way the small town bloated with summer tourists, and all of them had convened at its center for the festival which stretched down the eight or so blocks of its main avenue—brightly lit with carnival rides and booths of game vendors, food trucks, and the sounds of a country band that were muffled over the din of the crowd.

Once they'd found a spot, Vegeta sensed it would be difficult to reign-in the boys as they clamored over Raditz's lap and each other in a race to exit the car. Kakarot lunged to cross the street, but Vegeta caught his wrist in a flash, pulling him back to the curb. It seemed Raditz had other plans than to help with the kids, as his head darted around the congested street in search of their classmates, but Vegeta wasn't about to be left to supervise both boys alone, suspecting that Bulma would ditch them the moment she spotted the dumbasses.

"Raditz! He's your brother. Take him!"

The dunce whipped around to scoff at the idea of sticking around to babysit his brother, but he managed to lower himself to the task and took Kakarot's hand. It was hard to tell if it was out of fear that Vegeta would rat on him for his behavior thus far, or maybe he was capable of discerning the appropriate time and place to be responsible. Despite all of Raditz's faults, Vegeta had to credit him because he'd always been a decent sibling, at least Kakarot thought so. As much as the asshat would rather spend the night sucking up to Yamcha, every once in a while, Raditz could surprise him.

Bulma, however, was predictably texting the others and lifted her head from her phone to squint down the street and take in the throng of people and activity swarming around her. There was something regretful beneath her casual tone when she turned back to them and said, "I'll meet up with you in a bit if you guys want to go ahead. I just want to say hi real quick."

Yeah right, quick. Vegeta wasn't sure what other course he'd expected the heiress to take—actually hanging out with him and the kids, feeding his brother enough candy to rot his teeth and playing games to rot his brain? Even if Tarble probably preferred Bulma wasn't around to demand a dance off him, it was the principle of the fact that the only reason they were at this stupid street fair at all was because she insisted. That stoked Vegeta's frustration more than anything else, knowing that it was just another ploy to sucker them into bringing her to the destination where she truly wanted to be. So quick was Bulma to renege her promises, and worse, manipulate them all into tagging along on trips she disguised as being for the kids' benefits when they were really just meant for her to parade herself before his classmates. She was no different from his father in that way, scheming to get what she wanted by lying through her pretty white teeth.

Vegeta shrugged, feigning indifference over the anger he'd internalized, buried away in the pit of his stomach like a lost relic, which he knew would resurface, one way or another, when he least expected.

He and Raditz left her to weave through the crowd with their brothers in tow toward the game booths, all of which were the bullshit carnie variety that were rigged to take their money, but it didn't matter. It was their parents' cash, and it was worth the entertainment value witnessing the wild gestures and boisterous shouts from Tarble and Kakarot as they tried their damnedest to win a prize, claiming with comradely cheer at every failed toss of a ring or shot of a water gun that the other was so close and maybe next time. The organic way they lent one another encouragement was so oddly foreign in Vegeta's world that it was mesmerizing, like observing an alien species interact in simulated habitat while their overlords watched from above their little globe and wondered how the hell they were so happy.

In between each game, the kids stuffed their maws with shitty carnival fare that Raditz too seemed to enjoy, and was licking his fingers free of powdered sugar from a funnel cake when Kakarot pointed at a punching machine to exclaim, "Raddy, look!"

"Oh hell yeah! I'll take you on, cus!"

The greasy carnie running the booth perked up and put on his best sales pitch to beg them over. "Come on! You look like you could bust apart this machine with a finger tap!" he said to Raditz, who smirked back at Vegeta with a smug, rapturous air.

"I want the big monkey!" Kakarot cried, pointing a cotton candy coated finger at the giant, red-eyed stuffed gorilla that was the ultimate prize for breaking 900.

"I'll get your damned monkey. Easy!" Raditz professed, cracking his knuckles. "But only if Vegeta plays too."

"Tch, pass. These stupid machines aren't accurate. Besides, your height gives you an unfair advantage."

"Bullshit! You're just scared I'll win."

Vegeta smiled humorlessly, perhaps spitefully, at his cousin as he realized that once again, Raditz had successfully goaded him into competition by poking at his prideful, often irascible, nature. "Not a chance."

Raditz paid the slimy carnie and stepped up to the bag. His stance was all wrong, his feet set too wide apart and his elbow too high, poking out to the side. Vegeta wasn't about to correct the linebacker, yet despite his piss-poor posture, leaning into the jab that he threw from his shoulder instead of using his core, he still managed a score of 680, the highest won that day. Raditz spun back to the three to gloat, all pumped up on his own ego and the carnie's vapid, gimmicky praise.

Vegeta let go of Tarble's sticky fingers and waited for the carnie to reset the bag. After that amateur display, he was confident that he could easily best him, if the machine wasn't rigged of course.

"Let's see if the small fry has what it takes to toss the reigning victor from the throne!" the carnie cried, trying to incite an air of rivalry by throwing fuel at the one characteristic Vegeta had, after his entire life spent being ridiculed, more or less gotten over thanks to taking up this very sport.

Save for his opponents, nobody called him small anymore, at least not to his face unless they were masochists or dim-witted football players with something to prove, or—and it wasn't as uncommon as he once believed—just an over pressure-cooked asshat desperate to postpone an exam. What better excuse to escape a test than to have your lights punched out by instigating a fight with the school's resident psychopath? It was moronically clever of them and the only time he felt a bit bad, not for hitting his classmates, of course, because they deserved what they had coming for the shit they said. The hint of empathy he felt was for the drastic lengths some kids went to attempt to cover their failings, opting to face his fist over their parents' abject scorn. It was a bit poetic considering Vegeta could ace the same tests without needing to study and would undoubtedly face his father's fists for hitting them in the first place.

He stepped up to the machine and took a professional stance with a kind of outward lazy grace; though inwardly, he found himself unseemingly nervous, glancing at Tarble from the corner of his eye as he stood at Raditz's side intently watching with that faraway look he donned whenever he was overthinking.

The kid knew he boxed, but it was a facet of his life he preferred not to advertise. There was enough violence in their lives that Vegeta was uncomfortable with his brother witnessing more than necessary, even under the guise of controlled sportsmanship. It would only beg questions that Vegeta knew Tarble wasn't developed enough to understand their answers.

What those questions would be, if they happened to surface, Vegeta assumed would be the same ones that he asked himself with nauseating repetivity. Like why did he choose, out of the fifty fucking sports the school offered, this one? And why, after obsessing over it for three years, didn't he use it to defend himself, because Vegeta never did defend himself against their father with anything beyond his improved reflexes to duck or block a swing. By now, he could probably bring the man to his knees with a few well-timed hits, but instead, he cowered, tried to cut and run every fucking time. For as many knockouts as his legendary reputation boasted, and there were more outside the ring than in it, Vegeta still never gained what he'd wanted from the sport—defense of course, confidence, technique, an outlet, spiritually seeking a way to control the parts of him he knew had to be tamed.

Tarble was far too insightful and mature for his age not to draw the comparison.

"Today would be nice dude," chided Raditz from his periphery.

Vegeta scoffed and, just to spite him, made a fast right hook at the bag without any fanfare, one and done. He didn't even glance back at the machine to see the result, knowing a hook was faster than whatever the hell Raditz's had tried to throw, and acceleration more than power was all these dumb carnie machines were capable of sensing anyway.

"It's over 900!" the carnie cried with the same overzealous tone used by match announcers to entice the cheers of an annoyed crowd of parents that weren't interested in applauding their own sons' losses to the five and a half foot son of a famous senator.

He wasn't used to the sound of applause, and the celebratory claps and hollers from the two small kids that broke the air felt far more stifling and displaced than they should have. He much preferred to enjoy the gaping bafflement expressed across Raditz's slackened face. At least that look he was used to.

"Just give me the damn gorilla," Vegeta said and immediately handed the overstuffed ape to his little cousin's outstretched arms, ignoring the jealousy that hung from Tarble's open mouth.

"It's dumb, Kat! It's not even a gorilla. They don't have tails you know!" he heard Tarble spat at his cousin as they shuffled along behind him and Raditz.

"Hey, T! Don't be like that," he warned over his shoulder. Tarble was clearly overtired and overstretched in his capacity to socialize, and it was easy to tell that Kakarot's inexhaustible stamina was now testing his nerves. He'd done a one-eighty in the last hour, and instead of the cheery support he'd lent his cousin before, he was being jealous and petty over a cheap stuffed monkey that he'd never expressed a desire to own in the first place. On top of being tired, Vegeta knew that Tarble wasn't used to sharing his brother's attention, and the moment he gave Kakarot his winnings, the brotherly love between Tarble and his cousin had been compromised. Envy was an odd look on his little brother, and one Vegeta wanted to nip in the bud. Yet as much as Vegeta knew socializing by force was good for him, because that's all life really was, at the same time, he understood Tarble's frustration. Vegeta himself had been keen to disengage before they even fucking got here.

"Tilt A' Whirl?" Raditz asked, spinning around with the question. "You tall enough, T?"

Monkey forgotten, Tarble's gaze followed Raditz's finger toward the contraption that was spinning like an off-kilter merry-go-round at their local park, except for the tin dwellings that sat atop it that were thrust in their own random circles. Tarble turned to Vegeta, eyes pleading with the hope that he was qualified to ride it, as if he was an authority on the matter.

"You guys can go if you want. I can't stomach that shit."

"Guess titanium nerves come from our side of the family." Raditz wagged his eyebrows and gestured for the boys to follow to take their place in line. "Kat, come on! Vegeta'll hold your stuff."

Kakarot glanced between the ride, the monkey he'd dragged under one arm, and the cotton candy cone he held in the other, debating whether it was worth giving everything up for a minute on a carnival ride. His little debate pittered out when Tarble ran to meet Raditz in line, and he turned to hand Vegeta the monkey. But before he gave up the sugary treat, he stated with a severe look that was all his mother's, "You can't eat it though! It's mine, and I'll be back for it."

"We'll see about that, Kakarot." Vegeta goaded the little turd who was already committed to the ride as he watched Tarble and Raditz inch closer to the front and could only pout over his shoulder as he ran sideways to meet them. Vegeta was half inclined to toss the sticky shit into the nearest dumpster. Why anyone wanted to invent, much less ingest, some synthetic garbage that tasted like fruit but wasn't and held zero nutritional value, he was one-hundred percent certain was proof of the doom of the human race. Fucking morons.

Tarble barely measured up to the peppermint yard sick the ride operator held out to measure him, and the rapturous grin he tossed back through the crowd at Vegeta to signal that he'd passed the bar nearly ruptured his heart, squeezed and twisted it at opposite ends with joy and regret. Maybe Bulma was right and he was in over his head, because never once did he consider bringing Tarble to a place like this, and he wondered what other staples of a healthy childhood he'd inadvertently deprived his brother of by virtue of his own inexperience to these kinds of things, or his aversion to people if he was being honest. It was hard to watch him, listen to him scream with jubilance as the ride spun and jerked them round-and-round. Just witnessing it was making him nauseous.

He meant to look away, but before the thought was moved to action, his attention was wrenched from the ride for another reason entirely when he heard her familiar laughter. Vegeta spun to see Bulma and the others in the crowd standing not even thirty feet away. Yamcha pulled a flask from his pocket to, not so indiscreetly, dump booze into their cups. The arm he slung over her shoulders was so maddeningly casual, so prevailing in his claim that Vegeta inched away to disappear himself behind a throng of people, as if cowering in defeat, hoping desperately that his classmates wouldn't spot him.

He hadn't realized the ride was over, zoned-out and staring absently and defocused through the happy chaos of strangers around him. He only heard Tarble shout "That was awesome!" and felt Kakarot pull at the hem of his shirt to retrieve the ape and cotton candy. Vegeta came back to himself, blinking, and handed his cousin his contraband while he listened to Raditz and Tarble's shrieking exultations over the thrill of the ride.

"What's next?" Raditz asked him.

"I dunno, but my feet hurt."

"Come on, T, you don't need your feet to go on rides!" Raditz exclaimed.

Vegeta glanced down at the oddly missing voice in their rapture to see Kakarot holding his cotton candy before half-masted eyelids, puffed out cheeks, and pouty lips.

"You okay, Kakarot?"

The boy gave a slow shake of his head in reply before his eyes suddenly widened, popped open in a split second as his feet pivoted in a wobbly step toward his brother, and he vomited a bright, bubblegum pink spray of bile across Raditz's shoes.

"Ugh! Kakarot! The fuck!"

"Okay, it's time to go," Vegeta stated, unwilling to rub in Raditz's failed theory on one-sided familial ties to motion sickness because he didn't want Kakarot to worry that he'd done anything wrong. But for the record, he was keen to file the incident away for a later, more timely moment to prove that Raditz was an idiot.

"Just take them back to the car, will you? I'm gonna go find Bulma."

Raditz nodded without a fuss, looking pretty green himself now that he was covered up to his shins in his brother's puke.

Without knowing what he was going to say to her, Vegeta still felt a kind of annoyed obligation to the heiress to save her from Yamcha's boozy come-ons. That's what he told himself was his rationale as he waded through the mob in the direction he'd last seen them; though if he'd been faced with the same predicament before she'd kissed him, he surely would have left her to fend for herself. Now he wasn't certain how much of his obstinate need to recover her was couched in blatant jealousy, unwilling to accept the idea of leaving Bulma here to cuddle up to the asshole more and more as the night dragged on and her inhibitions took a dive into the bottom of a red plastic cup.

That kiss was real. It was the only honest thing she'd done or said all weekend. She told him he was a good person, which meant she could still recognize what that was, and to let her fall back into the sick charade she'd already become painfully good at spurred a kind of desperation, catching a fool before she stepped off a cliff into a socio hell pit and reemerged as one of them.

The moment he'd spotted that mass of blue hair at the base of a Ferris wheel, frizzed like Kakarot's cotton candy in the sticky air—with Yamcha's arm wrapped around her hips and his palm practically brushing over her ass—Vegeta's mind skipped ahead of the track. Like all the unsanctioned fights he'd been in, the ones spurred by chastising and instigated rage, he blanked out and didn't realize what he'd done until the reactive shouts of bystanders woke him from a hot, angry fury to realize that he'd yanked Bulma so hard that she'd nearly stumbled off her feet, dropping her cup to spatter its contents over the pavement as she caught herself against his chest.

"What the fuck! Vegeta?"

"We're going home," was all he could manage to say. He couldn't read her expression as she stared up at him beyond the wild surprise to find herself suddenly caught in his grip.

"Watch it, Bulma, the fun police is here to arrest you," chided Launch with a merciless laugh.

Yamcha had gotten over the shock of the situation faster than Vegeta or Bulma, and the heiress was jerked back toward him in a kind of tug-o-war as the quarterback pulled her other arm. "Listen freak. Bulma wants to stay with us! If you want to take your little invalid brother and go home, go fucking home!"

Before Vegeta knew what he was doing, he'd dropped his grip on her wrist and knit his fingers into a tight fist that he hooked, harder than he'd anticipated, into Yamcha's unsuspecting face. The shriek Bulma let was enough to jolt Vegeta back to reality, to realize that he'd dropped his classmate with a single swing, laid him out flat so fast that Yamcha didn't even have time to catch his fall and landed awkwardly on his shoulder. The quarterback immediately threw a hand over his face as he wailed and thrashed against the pavement in pain and tried to catch the blood that was oozing between his knuckles from what was likely a broken nose.

The voices that followed rang between Vegeta's ears, in and out and almost all at once.

"Vegeta! What the hell is wrong with you!?" the heiress cried as she bent to Yamcha's aid.

"He's fucking crazy! I told you, Bulma, didn't I tell you!?" Launch said as she grabbed Tien by the arm to keep him from retaliating, likely knowing that if he did, he'd face the same fate as his friend.

Vegeta absorbed it all in a rush as he mindlessly backed away in small steps, regret hitting him faster than he'd hit Yamcha with a sickening, sinking shame, but it was nothing compared to the effect of hearing one voice he didn't anticipate to make a show, and once he recognized it, his stomach plummeted like a heavy stone, dropped straight through the soles of his feet and drilled into the core of the earth when Kakarot shouted, "Whoa, cool!"

Vegeta spun to see the three of them, Kakarot staring with his mouth wowed in a circle, and Raditz next to him with a similar expression. What Vegeta couldn't see behind his cousin's thick mane was Tarble—nothing beyond the wide chocolate eyes that peered meekly from where he piggy-backed over his cousin's shoulder.