A month can pass slowly or quickly, depending on how a person lives it. That January ended up going by fast for both Vegeta and Bulma, who spoke to each other every day as he traveled. He was in Malaysia, India, then Dubai, and other middle eastern countries. He traveled to Europe, passing through Berlin, Munich, Paris, Luxembourg, Bern, Milan, and Amsterdam, and ended up in Madrid and Lisbon. All this took about twenty days. It was time to go to America, and he went through São Paulo, Santiago, Bogotá, and finally Washington, Boston, and the last city, New York.
He called her for a video call right after his last business meeting. It was six in the morning for her, who complained: i
"Vegeta... I look awful. I just woke up."
She stretched out on the bed, trying to get the best angle with her cell phone.
"You look beautiful to me," said Vegeta, grinning at her in front of his laptop. Behind him, it was getting dark in Manhattan. He was in a corporate office and then going to his hotel to sleep. He needed to travel the next day and prepare for jetlag. "How was the day
yesterday?" he asked.
"Busy. Boring. Sad without you around," Bulma said sincerely. "I miss you."
"I missed you every day around here. This guy I brought is super professional, but his massage is nothing like yours."
She laughed and said:
"If we keep this up, you may have to change masseuses. After all, it's going to be hard to get my hands on you without thinking about other things..." she laughed maliciously.
The distance had uninhibited them both, and now their conversations were full of suggestive references. Vegeta called her from hotels more than once, and the conversation ended with her naked before his glazed eyes. Then, two of them touched on a preview of what they would soon have. That day, however, he was in an office and could be interrupted at any moment, so he said:
"I can't wait to get home... I think we'll have at least one day before Kakarotto's wedding..."
"What about work? The wedding is on Saturday, and you arrive on Friday, isn't that right?"
"I'm the boss, remember?" he laughed. "I'll leave you to stay with your boyfriend, who came home from a trip."
"Boyfriend?" she laughed, leaning her face on her chin and asked." When did you actually propose to me?
He looked at her, realizing the joke, and said:
"I didn't ask. I just picked you up for myself, didn't I? But if you insist, I can ask you to go steady."
"Ask!" she said, laughing.
"Will you date me, Bulma?"
She smiled and didn't answer, just enjoying his voice saying her name.
"Aren't you going to answer?" he asked.
"No need. You are already my boyfriend, right?"
The two of them stared at each other for a moment. Even though they were not close at that moment, the words came out of Vegeta with the greatest naturalness:
"I love you, Bulma."
She smiled and moved her face closer to her cell phone to answer in a whisper:
"And I love you too, Vegeta."
They hung up and went, each to their next appointment, certain they loved and were loved.
As the old saying goes, everything with a small chance of going wrong goes wrong. Vegeta's plans were to sleep early, travel light to get to town early enough to beat jetlag, and finally spend his first night with Bulma. But a terrible late winter storm, later known as the "Valentine's fury," closed all the airports on the east coast of the USA.
All that remained was for him to grumble about global warming and spend an uncomfortable night in a hotel far worse than the one he was in before and with accessibility problems paid for by the airline. That was the paid-to-believe to be a tough guy and travel business class even though he could afford first class.
At least the weather improved so he could arrive in the early hours of Saturday morning, sleepy, cranky, and dying to see her. Instead of going home, he rang the doorbell of her apartment at seven o'clock in the morning, and she answered, in her bathrobe and slippers, but already awake to get ready for the wedding, which was at half-past nine in the morning.
"Vegeta!" she said and nestled into his lap, giving him a kiss filled with longing and amplified by the anguish of not knowing if he would make it in the time since New York had been having cell signal problems since the day before, thanks to the storm damage. When they parted, he said:
"Who gets married in the morning in winter? I should kill those two!"
She smiled and said:
"I'm getting ready. The car will be here at eight to get me. I'm one of the bridesmaids, remember?"
He gave a resigned sigh and said:
"Good thing I always have suits lined up and ironed in my closet. I'll meet you there, okay?"
They exchanged one more kiss, and he went back to his apartment to take a shower and get dressed for the wedding. After all, he was the best man. It would be good to cope with the jetlag. After all, he couldn't sleep before nightfall.
"Oh, Chichi," said Bulma, smoothing the delicate veil over her friend's trapped hair, "you look so beautiful!"
Chichi wore a long, tube-like dress with a sweetheart neckline and long lace sleeves, not white but pearl-colored. Her hair was tied up in an elaborate braid, and a delicate arrangement of small, delicate artificial pearl flowers and a diaphanous gauze veil completed the ensemble.
As maid of honor, Bulma handed her the delicate bouquet of camellias that looked like the flowers in her arrangement but were also natural and ivory in color. Chichi's father was waiting outside to take her to the altar, set up in the restaurant's center. Chichi looked at Bulma, smiling, and said:
"Thank you for everything."
She returned the smile. It was good to be part of it.
At the altar, Goku fixed his tie for the tenth time, wanting to take it off his neck. He wore a light gray suit and scratched his head nervously now and then. He sometimes looked at a table on the side of the altar, where pictures of his parents, Chichi's mother, and Grandpa Gohan represented the presence of those who had left. Suddenly, Goku said:
"Only you and Chichi make me wear something like that, Vegeta!" he said, trying to loosen his tie.
"Don't play my grumpy role," said Vegeta, "a little longer, and you can take off your tie."
"I never thanked you, man." Said Goku.
"You did, plenty of times... but not verbally."
Goku laughed and said:
"And Bulma?"
"What about her?"
"Are you guys...?"
"What do you think?"
"Yes?"
"Of course."
Soon, they had to stop talking because Chichi came walking slowly after a procession of bridesmaids joined the groomsmen at the altar. Arm in arm with her father and little Gohan in front of her, carrying the rings, to the sound of an instrumental version of "Unforgettable," She looked beautiful and smiled, looking directly at Goku.
Bulma stood next to Vegeta, who lightly held her hand and smiled. In the end, he was actually feeling quite happy.
The plans of Chichi, who had organized the whole party, which had started so early, included breakfast before the ceremony, cocktail, and lunch right after, and a whole afternoon of music and dancing before the cake. Bulma was in the greeting line with Vegeta when she was shocked: her sister Tights and Raditz arrived together, out of breath, completely late.
"Oh, guys, we miscalculated our way from Satan to here," said Tights as he stood next to Bulma.
"Were you invited?" asked Bulma, laughing with certain mockery.
"Uh... Ditz called me to accompany him, right?"
Raditz approached and greeted Bulma, saying shortly after to Vegeta:
"What's up, dwarf?"
"You are very abusive. You forget that I'm your biggest client, aren't you?"
"Has Turles shown up yet? Kakarotto swore he would come."
"It's been about ten years since I've seen the rascal..."
A motorcycle stopped at the restaurant door, and a man jumped out. He looked like the prototypical bad boy, with a black leather jacket and spiky hair. He had not dressed appropriately for the dress code suggested in the invitation, but he was Turles, a rocker and a tattoo artist. Conventions did not apply to him.
"Who summoned the demon?" laughed Vegeta.
"Kakarotto said he was going to reunite the band," joked Raditz, "maybe we can have a piece of cake."
"Only if it's at the end of the party," Vegeta joked. "To make people go away and end the party."
Turles joined them and greeted Raditz and Vegeta, saying:
"What's up, dudes?"
Soon they were chatting animatedly, and when it was their turn in greetings, Raditz and Turles held Goku by the arms and suspended him. Amid laughter, he said:
"We have to play today! By any means!"
"Convince the rich guy," Turles said, pointing at Vegeta, who growled.
When they sat down around a table for eight, Tarble and Caulifla joined them, and she said:
"Turles, you around here?"
"What's up, girl? What will be your next tattoo?"
Turles kept talking to Tarble and Caulifla, who had several tattoos done by him, talking about what they could tattoo some symbol for each of the "over 8000" they would conquer. Since there was an extra seat, Goku brought a very tall, strong, handsome boy with black hair to their table.
"Guys, remember my cousin Broly?"
"Hi, Broly!" said Raditz.
"How long, Raditz? How's that strength?"
Broly was handsome, but when he opened his mouth, he was such a redneck that it was funny. But soon, their table was the liveliest, perhaps even because of the unusual composition. With breakfast being served before the ceremony, the cocktail food and drinks soon began to be served. Just before noon, Goku and Chichi took to the center of the dance floor to open it with their first dance as a married couple. Bulma held Vegeta's hand, delighted to see them dancing to the same "Unforgettable" that had played at Chichi's entrance.
After that, everyone went dancing, and only Vegeta, Broly, and Bulma stayed at the table. Bulma unwittingly said:
"Oh, I would so like to dance..."
She regretted what she had said as soon as he saw the look on Vegeta's face. He then replied:
"Call Broly, I don't mind. I like to look."
"Do you want to dance, Ms. Bulma?" asked Broly, with a heavy accent. "I'm just warning you that I'm a bit clumsy about these things..."
Soon they were on the dance floor, and Bulma's feet were massacred by Goku's cousin's footsteps. Vegeta, from the table, was watching the whole thing and laughing with gusto. Bulma squinted her eyes in his direction, irritated, and he laughed even harder. At the end of that song, she thanked Broly, who had gone after a girl from Chichi's staff at the restaurant, and sat down next to him, laughing his ass off.
"You owe me a dance, you know?"
"Men in wheelchairs don't dance," he said good-humouredly."
"I'll make you dance... someday!"
After they served lunch came the traditional godfather speech, and Vegeta said:
"When Chichi came to me, wanting to know where that useless worm was, I didn't know that I would be getting involved in this forever and ever!" People laughed.
"But I realized these two loved each other and were made for each other, despite all their stubbornness. And when this bastard finally got the courage to tell her how important she was to him..."
Chichi and Goku laughed, looking at their friend, who continued, "well, things finally seemed to fall into place for both of them." And I have to thank this guy forever, "he pointed to Goku, who scratched his head absentmindedly, "because he is the one who brought into my life the woman who put things in place for me."
There was a brief pause, and everyone looked at Bulma, who smiled awkwardly, "and I'll never be able to reciprocate his enough."
At that moment, he pulled some airline ticket cards from his jacket pocket, "but since I am a rich guy, I can help with something that is not as amazing as love or friendship, but sometimes it can help..." He looked at the audience cynically and said: "...money! I took the liberty of giving you a little upgrade on your honeymoon!"
Chichi and Goku looked at each other, surprised. "Tahiti is nice. I know that your plans were to escape the winter here, which is snowless and cold, and I support you... so I changed your economy class tickets to first-class and your hotel reservation to a five-star. And since you two, in separate conversations with me several times, have talked about... what is the place's name again?" he pretended to consult the other ticket card and said, "Oh, yes, Paris. It is a bit far from Tahiti, so you will be forced to take a short break" he looked at the third ticket he had in his hands and said, "Dubai. Since 15 days was not enough for all this, I will have to take care of things for you to stay away for a month, on my own."
Chichi and Goku looked stunned at Vegeta, who continued:
- I haven't forgotten about you, Gohan! - the boy, who was sitting between his parents, widened his eyes - since you are already in classes and your parents can't take you on a honeymoon - laughter broke out at that moment - I have a trip to Disney for you in the middle of the year, okay? But only if your grades are good.
Since he couldn't stand up for obvious reasons, he just raised his glass and said:
"Here's to Chichi and Kakarotto. The best friends one can have!"
After this and the toast, Goku came to him with Chichi. Goku threw himself on the chair and almost choked him:
"Stop it, Kakarotto, you are embarrassing me!"
"You are the best friend in the world, man!"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm just a rich guy..."
"If you were broke, you would still be our godfather," said Chichi, coming closer and giving him a kiss on the cheek, which blushed, "make Bulma happy," she whispered in his ear.
The two exchanged a complicit look as she stood up, and he said:
"You got it!"
"Vegeta," said Goku then, a little embarrassed, "I was talking to the guys and..."
"No way," said Vegeta, "I'm not going to join the band here and play without rehearsal. We'll be embarrassed and..."
"Come on, Vegeta, it'll be fun," Bulma said, putting her hand over his.
Half an hour later, he was on stage, complaining about the guitar they had arranged for him and saying that if he had known, he would have taken his Fender. Turles was tuning the other guitar with a straight face. He had never been Vegeta's best friend. Raditz approached and said, making Turles laugh:
"Vegeta complaining about everything... man, that takes me back to 17 years old."
Vegeta raised his middle finger to Raditz, who blew him a kiss. Soon they were arranged on the stage. They hadn't rehearsed and hadn't played together in over 12 years, but when Vegeta began the first chords of "Sweet child o'mine" it was as if not a day had passed. Each of them knew exactly the right moment and tone to enter. After all, this had been the song they had played together the most when they were younger. As Raditz began to sing, Tights faked a faint by falling on top of Bulma, who laughed.
They couldn't play many more songs. After splicing Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" with only a reasonable rendition of Peter Frampton's "Breaking all the Rules," they moved on to a very bad version of Kiss's "Heaven's on fire." None of them had been as assimilated by everyone as the old guns n' roses anthem, but when they were about to give up, and Raditz said
"We'd better play a little pep talk for the night out."
"One moment," said Vegeta, "I want to play the one I always liked to sing, remember?"
Raditz looked at him and gave a cynical smile, saying:
"You really want to win this girl..."
"I've already won, moron. Now what I want is just to sing for her anyway."
"Okay, but I won't let you close. You sing this one, and we'll finish with "Highway to hell."
"Okay, you always had that ego bigger than your hair," Vegeta laughed and lowered the microphone to sing the song he always sang when they were a band, but that he had never imagined would one day mean so much to him.
"Ladies and gentlemen," announced Raditz solemnly, "at this moment, we are going to have a romantic ballad break with our friend Prince Vegeta."
Vegeta just said a grumpy interjection in response before introducing the song, which, luckily, the others could also reasonably remember:
I'm alone, yeah, I don't know if I can face the night
I'm in tears, and the cryin' that I do is for you
I want your love
Let's break the walls between us
Don't make it tough
I'll put away my pride
Enough's enough
I've suffered, and I've seen the light
Baby, you're my angel
Come and save me tonight
You're my angel
Come and make it all right
After singing the first stanza with his eyes closed, to circumvent his insecurity, Vegeta opened them to see Bulma holding his face with both hands, with a beautiful expression of enchantment. He smiled as he began the second stanza because now he was singing only for her:
Don't know what I'm gonna do about this feeling inside
Yes, it's true. Loneliness took me for a ride
Without your love, I'm nothing but a beggar
Without your love, a dog without a bone
What can I do? I'm sleepin' in this bed alone
Baby, you're my angel
Come and save me tonight
You're my angel
Come and make it all right
He remembered so many times he had thought of her, lonely when she was still his nurse, and in the long month rotating around the world and wishing he could be just for one more moment with his Bulma. In the end, he felt like he was truly declaring his own love when he sang:
You're the reason I live
You're the reason I die
You're the reason I give when I break down and cry
Don't need no reason why
Baby, baby, baby
You're my angel
Come and save me tonight
You're my angel
When he finished, and Raditz took over the vocals again, he played the next song on autopilot, thinking only of the moment when he had his Bulma in his arms. The woman who had saved him. When they finished the "show" and the real band hired for the party took over, she came up to him and gave him a kiss on the lips, sitting on his lap, leaving him a little embarrassed by such a show of love in public.
Fortunately, a moment later, a commotion formed on the other side of the hall when Lunch found the ring Tenshinhan had hidden in the wedding cake he handed her, and he got down on one knee, asking Bulma's young nurse friend to marry him. Vegeta felt more at ease as people stopped looking at him and looked at the other scene.
"And you still owe me a dance, boy," she said, her forehead pressed against his.
"I already said I don't dance."
She glued her face to his and whispered:
"Just move your chair a little and surrender to the rhythm of the music..."
He let out a sigh and actually began to move the chair in an attempt to dance with her on his lap, her face pressed against his, to the tune of "I can't stop loving you" by Ray Charles. It wasn't his style of music, but it was what was on at the moment, and he quickly realized that it was, in fact, a beautiful song.
Bulma seemed light on his lap and arms, and he desired her. He desired her as he had never desired any woman, not even when he had a full neurological function and no fear of failing at sex. Knowing he was made of pure will, he said in her ear:
"Shall we go home? I want you now, Bulma, all of you, and only for me."
He felt her smile forming next to his cheek and felt happy and relieved when she said:
"I was just waiting for you to ask."
They kissed again, then looked into each other's eyes and went to say goodbye to everyone. The day had been their friends' day, but the night would be theirs and theirs together.
Notes:
1. Finally, together. I wanted to do the wedding party first as a fun interlude and reunion of the most important sayajins in the franchise, but Broly didn't fit in the band.
2. In the next chapter, they finally give in to their feelings.
3. Angel is the theme of this chapter, so it's in the clip above. Below is the translation. It was written as a tribute to the woman who helped Steven Tyler through a very tough time in his life and then gave birth (without him even knowing) to his oldest daughter, Liv Tyler.
