"He got you good, didn't he?"
Goku winced as Chi Chi tended to his injured face, holding a package of freezer burnt vegetables to his nose. The Saiyan's eyes continued to water as he tilted his head back towards the ceiling.
"I didn't even see the punch coming, I was to preoccupied with showing him the picture," Goku attempted to speak as if his nose was stuffed and his wife sighed, a hint of guilt in her eyes.
"Well if I knew this would happen I wouldn't have recommended it. That man is so nasty. Honestly, what did Bulma see in him? It feels wrong even trying to get these two together."
"If it prevents our future from being destroyed, then I say it's the right thing to do." Piccolo countered.
Chi Chi nodded, "And this Trunks boy sounds like a decent kid. Hard to believe considering who his father is. What was Vegeta's reaction to him, by the way?"
Piccolo smirked, "About what you would expect. He didn't even believe the kid was part Saiyan. I'd pay to see his reaction when the current Trunks is born without black hair or eyes."
The room was silent, everyone absorbing that piece of information. Chi Chi gently handed her husband the frozen bag and rushed to grab her cellphone that rested on a counter at the opposite end of the room.
"Do you think this might move along a bit faster if Bulma looked a bit more Saiyan?" the earthling asked as she made her way back to the table, dialing a number into her phone. Goku leaned forward.
"Who ya callin there Chi?"
"Honey, keep holding your head back. Also, hush you two."
The table listened intently as the phone rang before someone on the other line picked up. Chi Chi donned her most convincing "nice" voice.
"Oh hi Bulma! It's Chi Chi. How are you? ...I'm good! Hey, this is random, but does Capsule Corp. have a gym? …Really? Would you ever be interested in going with me sometime? …Great! How about in an hour? …No that's not too soon! What better time to start than now? …Exactly. I just feel like I've gained so much weight recently and want to get rid of it… Alright, I'll see you soon!"
Chi Chi hung up, smiling smugly. Goku, on the other hand, looked rather confused.
"Chi Chi, you don't need to go to the gym. I think all the weight you gained is cute!"
"I don't know if I want to slap you or kiss you, Goku. And I'm not going because I'm trying to lose weight. I'm going to get Bulma some muscle like Saiyans have." She crossed her arms and scowled at the warriors at her table, "I don't know if you two have forgotten, but I used to be a martial artist too, you know. I can train Bulma to be stronger and that should get Vegeta's attention."
Piccolo looked shocked, "Do you think you're going to have enough time to do that?"
"Well does anyone have any better ideas at the moment?" When nobody answered, the Ox princess stood up, "Exactly."
Bulma's existence was pain.
Or at least it was while she was on a treadmill.
The scientist gasped for air, struggling to keep up with the ground moving beneath her; an overly peppy Chi Chi jogged on a machine next to her own, not expressing a hint of exhaustion.
"Come on, girl! I know you can do it! We haven't even made it to half a mile!"
The blue-haired woman wheezed a sentence that Chi Chi could only pick her name and the word "murder" out of. Something told her this would be their last time exercising. So much for that plan, she thought to herself.
In another part of the Capsule Corporation compound, Goku, Dr. Briefs, and Scratch the cat were sitting in a traditionally decorated library, watching a ball on the end of a string swing back and forth.
"So you see, Goku, the Foucault pendulum represents the rotation of our very own planet."
"Cool!" Goku had no idea what the scientist had just explained to him, but he did wonder if matching a punch with the rotation of the Earth would do any extra damage. The warrior stood up and moved around the space, looking at the different trinkets, books, and novelties that cluttered the library. His eyes landed on a golden pen sitting on an oversized desk.
"Ah, that dip pen belonged to King Furry's ancestor! He used it to sign historical documents honoring Master Mutaito as a hero of planet Earth. That right there is a very important piece of history. Would you like to play with it?"
"Uhhh…" Goku hesitated as Dr. Briefs pulled a sealed jar of ink from a desk drawer. Before they could continue, a saccharine voice interrupted the trio.
"Snookums, dear, I'm having trouble with the cappuccino machine again. I swear, we have the tech to go to Namek and back, but not to make a simple cup of-" Panchy Briefs paused as she noticed the Saiyan, "Oh Goku! I didn't notice you there! You look more and more handsome each time I see you- a true lady-killer!"
"I haven't killed any ladies, Mrs. Briefs."
Dr. Briefs chuckled, "Don't worry, dear, I'll go see what the issue is. I'll be right back, Goku. Help yourself to whatever!" With that, Bulma's parents left the warrior alone. He turned back to the delicate inkwell on the desk, picking it up and popping open the lid only to have a few drops fall and stain his gi.
Oh crap, Chi Chi's gonna to kill me if this doesn't come out.
Goku paused and stared at the stain on his clothes, recalling something his wife had said earlier:
Do you think this might move along a bit faster if Bulma looked a bit more Saiyan?
"Chi Chi, I will never forgive you."
The two women sat on a bench in the gym, having just completed their run. Bulma was hunched over; skin flushed and hair matted with sweat; Chi Chi looked as poised as ever, smiling sympathetically.
"Does this mean you're not going to want to spar with me?" The housewife received a glare as a response, "Okay! No sparring today!"
"No sparring ever."
The two ladies walked back to Capsule Corp.'s main building and then departed; Chi Chi going to look for her husband and Bulma going to take a much-need shower.
Meanwhile, in Bulma's shower, Goku was opening every product he could find with the word "hair" labeled onto it and pouring black ink into it. Screwing the cap back onto a bottle of conditioner, the Saiyan sensed a small power level approaching the room and rapidly Instant Transmissioned to a startled Chi Chi.
The princess squeaked as she was scooped into his arms. "Ready Chi?" She nodded, blushing, and Goku took off towards Mount Paozu.
I'm sorry Bulma… The warrior couldn't help the guilt tugging at his conscience. It was for the best, he tried to rationalize.
"What the hell do you call this?"
A heap of metal and other burnt materials was dropped in front of Bulma, who was painting her nails in a bathrobe and hair towel. Only when she was satisfied with her work on a particular nail did she looked up at the prince, unimpressed by his rude behavior.
"What's your problem now?"
"My problem is these pathetic bots you keep building me. You said you would improve the intelligence of these things, and yet I destroyed it without breaking a sweat once again."
"Did you manually change the level on the side of each bot?"
"Change the level-" the prince paused, staring at the scientist as she sighed and carefully dug through the pile of debris so to not mess up the fresh coat of polish on her nails. Eventually she pulled out an instrument displaying a scale of levels one could choose from, had the machine still been in working condition.
"Maybe if you pulled your head out of your ass you might have noticed such a thing."
"You didn't say a damn thing about any manual level change. Why wouldn't you adjust the AI to be automatic-"
"Don't push the blame on me just because you're apparently blind and didn't bother to look for a switch before destroying my work like a barbarian-"
"Maybe I assumed you were smart enough not make something so absurdly pointless, but you're right, I made a mistake in believing you weren't a complete idiot-"
"Oh, I'm the idiot?! You almost burnt the house down when you put a fork in the microwave. Did they not teach you "heat plus metal equals hot" in space?!" Bulma was breathing heavily as the towel fell off her head. To her surprise, Vegeta didn't have any snarky response. Instead he stared at her, eyes wide. She raised an eyebrow, "What the hell are you looking at?"
"I just… wasn't expecting your hair to look like that."
Bulma's eyebrows furrowed as she walked over to a mirror and felt her heart sink at her reflection. Staring back was the same face and eyes with a crown of black curls framing her head.
She ran her fingers through her hair before rushing to the bathroom and turning the shower on to rinse the leave-in conditioner out of her hair. She scrubbed each curl with shampoo as Vegeta watched from the bathroom door, curious as to what was going on with the strange little human. Using the handheld showerhead, the heiress frantically cleansed the ink from her hair, leaving a black swirl of water to flow down the drain.
Glancing in the mirror once again, Bulma's hair was still stained a deep gray color. The scientist pouted as tears developed on the rims of her eyes. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't stop herself from beginning to bawl in front of the prince.
Vegeta suddenly wished he had never entered her room in the first place. "W-What are you doing?!"
Bulma scowled at him through her tears, "What does it look like I'm doing?! I'm crying you dummy!" she screamed through her sobs. "Did you do this?! Is this some sort of joke to you?!"
"What?! No!" Vegeta shook his head nervously, unsettled by the reaction the woman appeared to be having. For reasons unknown to him, he disliked being on the receiving end of anger he didn't actually deserve. "Why would I do something like that? I don't care about your stupid hair! Stop crying- it's irritating!"
"You know, when you tell me to stop crying it just makes me cry harder!" the woman began to wail even more and the prince had never been more confused. The same human that wanted to get a front row seat to Frieza destroying her planet was now crying over hair that would grow back for her. The Saiyan didn't understand it. "And my hair isn't stupid! I just got a perm and I was really into having the curls, okay?"
"Look I-" Vegeta sighed. Comforting humans was probably among the things he was worst at, "would you just stop crying? At least your hair grows back. If you were me you would be screwed. The black doesn't even look... awful... on you."
Bulma blew her nose obnoxiously into a wad of toilet paper and the prince had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. "You only think that cause it's the hair color of Saiyans or whatever."
"Well that's true, but your blue hair would have been prized on my planet," Vegeta looked away, reminiscing about his home world, "Our world was a giant desert and the sky looked like fire. Blue was a rare color and was reserved only for royalty. You would have been treasured there and… um..."
The Saiyan hadn't talked about Planet Vegeta in decades; the words had fallen out of his mouth before he could even think about it. The human woman stared back at him with wide eyes, tears dried up and a hint of pink dusting her face. Vegeta, embarrassed, started to backpedal.
"Of course, you would have been crushed by the gravity like a weakling, so no one would have paid you any mind, o-obviously." The prince turned away from the human, hands clenched as he began to march away, stopping only when Bulma spoke up.
"Hey Vegeta?"
He turned around to see her smiling slightly.
"I'm going to make an appointment to get this crap out of my hair tomorrow."
"I don't give a damn what you do, woman," he scoffed at her insistence that he would care, "just make some better bots so I can be the one who destroys this mud ball of a planet."
Bulma giggled at the Saiyan now stomping out of her room, "Sure Vegeta."