Yamcha let out a groan as consciousness slowly returned to him. He didn't want to wake up. Not just yet. He was far too comfortable, laying there on the couch, and… His eyes suddenly snapped wide open as he recalled the events of the previous night, his face flushing a deep crimson. No… No, he couldn't have. Yet the surface he found himself laying on was warm and firm and not at all the velvet texture of the couch cushions that he'd expected against his cheek. He lifted his head slightly, looking down hesitantly as though afraid to confirm his suspicions.
Sure enough, what he found lying beneath him was a sleeping Piccolo, his chin resting on the Namekian's broad and muscular chest. A sense of panic rose up in his mind. Did they..? Had they actually..? Upon closer inspection, however, it became quite clear that nothing too serious had happened between them – though Yamcha couldn't quite decide whether he was relieved or disappointed by this revelation.
While the two of them may not have engaged in any explicitly sexual activity, it did seem as though they'd gotten quite intimate with each other. Piccolo was still fast asleep, seemingly oblivious to the compromising position he was in. His tie was draped haphazardly over the arm of the couch, the top several buttons open on his dress shirt, exposing numerous purple marks peppered all over his neck and leading down across his collar bones. Yamcha's own shirt was on the floor, but neither of them had gotten far enough to remove their pants before they'd passed out. Of course, that being said, there had been no shortage of wandering hands between them.
Yamcha was admittedly curious, and as he lifted himself up off the towering alien's body he found his eyes wandering down towards Piccolo's unbuttoned, half-unzipped trousers. He suddenly found himself extremely curious. What would he find if he just took a little peek down there? He knew Namekians were a mono-gendered species, but he honestly couldn't imagine what that would entail. Did he resemble a man? A woman? Perhaps both? Or was his anatomy so different from anything seen on Earth that intercourse between the two of them would have proven physically impossible? He resisted the temptation to violate the other's privacy on the matter. Besides, with the way things were progressing between the two of them, he was rather confident that he'd have the chance to find out eventually.
He slipped out from under the arm that had been draped across his lower back, gingerly removing himself from on top of the other man. Miraculously, Piccolo had barely stirred from the movement. Yamcha had never taken him for a heavy sleeper, especially considering his sharp hearing, but he supposed the alcohol the two of them had consumed the night before helped to keep him unresponsive. Whatever it was, Yamcha wasn't about to let the opportunity go to waste.
Yamcha found himself wandering the maze-like halls of the vast mansion, almost immediately getting himself hopelessly lost. Piccolo had never shown him around properly, though he doubted it was because the stoic giant was trying to hide something. Rather, it just seemed as though he'd never thought it necessary. Surely neither of them had expected their friendship to last long enough for him to have to know the layout of the other's home, let alone for it to have progressed to this level. In any case, he wasn't terribly worried about not being able to find his way. He was sure Piccolo would come find him once he awoke.
Eventually, he found his way to an area that he recognized, but not because he'd ever been there before. He'd stepped into a vast private library that stretched upward for at least two stories – the very same library that had been the setting of that old candid photo of Ivan that he'd seen that first day. The shelves towered overhead and were filled to the brim with elegantly-bound books.
Yamcha furrowed his brow as a thought suddenly occurred to him. Hadn't the entire mansion burned down at one point? There was no way any of these books could have survived the blaze, let alone the centuries since. Everything had to be meticulously recreated from the ground up from memory by Piccolo himself. Looking at this room alone proved just how impressive a feat it had been. He would have had to memorize, word for word, thousands of books and recreate them hundreds of years later. The sheer scale of such a monumental task made Yamcha's head spin. No, surely not! There was no way he could have replicated all of these! They had to be blank, merely empty props to fill out the library.
He approached one of the bookshelves and was instantly surprised to find that every book in sight had a unique title emblazoned along the spine, most of which were in a language he didn't recognize. It must have been Russian, knowing the owner. Still skeptical, he picked a book to examine closer, pulling it off the shelf. This particular book was well worn compared to the others, clearly having been read and handled the most. It also helped that it was one of the only books in English, which meant he could actually read it. Across the front read, "Relativity: The Special and General Theory, by Albert Einstein."
Yamcha's eyebrows rose at reading that. Was this part of the research Piccolo had mentioned becoming obsessed with as a teenager? Flipping it open to a random page, he discovered that, not only were the books not just blank props, but Piccolo had been more intelligent as a teenager than most adults Yamcha had met. The contents of the book, though he could technically read it just fine, was absolutely indecipherable to him. The concepts contained within went way over his head, and the paragraphs were often interrupted by equations that – to his untrained eye, at least – seemed complex and convoluted. Still, the original owner of the book seemed to understand just fine. He was hard pressed to find a page that didn't have elegantly scrawled notes in the margins, though these were all in Russian. There was one section in particular in the first part of the book where there were tons of underlined passages, the margins so jammed full of notes and math that extra bits of paper were stuck between the pages to facilitate the writer's thoughts on the subject.
After staring uselessly at a few more pages, Yamcha decided he should spare himself the headache and leave the book be. He set it back where he found it, turning to look around the rest of the library. The first thing that caught his eye was a grand piano that was nestled away in a large alcove at the far end of the room. His curiosity piqued once more, he wandered over to inspect the instrument. As he made his way around it, he saw his face reflected in the polished wooden surface, not a scratch on its immaculate varnish. He was almost afraid to touch it, as even a single fingerprint would have been as glaring as a splotch of red paint. Still, the temptation was too much to resist, and he tentatively reached out to lift the fallboard, exposing the ivory keys beneath.
Yamcha couldn't help himself but to reach out and poke at a few of the keys. He was pleasantly surprised to find that it was in perfect working order, a few deep tones resonating throughout the entire instrument. Of course, at this point, should he have been so surprised? After all, if Piccolo had enough attention to detail to perfectly replicate thousands of books, why would he leave a non-functioning piano there in the same room?
"Having fun, I see."
Yamcha probably would have been embarrassed by the almost-girlish shriek that came out of him when a voice suddenly addressed him from behind, but he was far too busy jumping out of his damned skin to be so concerned. He turned on his heel, coming face to face with Piccolo. He was unable to tell how long the Namekian had been awake, but it was clearly long enough for him to dress himself in a fresh outfit. It wasn't unlike what he wore the night before, though the main pieces were a charcoal gray rather than tannish-brown.
Piccolo didn't seem angry that he'd gone off on his own, so Yamcha supposed it was okay for him to be in there. Still, it was rather awkward to have been caught like that, and he found himself laughing nervously as he stepped away from the piano.
"S-sorry! I, uhh… I didn't mean to…"
"It's alright," Piccolo replied immediately, holding up a peremptory hand to stop him from rambling on any further. "I don't suppose you play at all?"
Yamcha blinked in confusion at the question. After a moment he glanced down at the piano again, realizing what he was talking about.
"O-oh, no, not at all. I never really got a chance to learn anything like that."
"Well, would you like me to teach you?"
"W-wait… you can play piano?" he asked in a slightly incredulous tone. Piccolo let out a scoff, folding his arms across his chest.
"Why would I own something I can't play? Of course I can play it!" he retorted, sounding a little more like the Piccolo he was used to. He'd always been the type to rise to any challenge that was presented to him. "I can also play the violin and the cello, for your information. Mother was very fond of music. I learned to play piano before I could string a proper sentence together."
"No kidding! Did she teach you to sing too?" Yamcha asked, genuinely intrigued. Sure, Piccolo may have been named after an instrument, but he never expected the guy to be so musically inclined. Even so, Piccolo seemed to freeze at the question, turning his head away slightly to hide the tinge of purple on his cheeks.
"E-err… Well, she tried… She'd been classically trained in opera, you see. But while I was great with instruments, I could never get my voice to behave the way I wanted. We rather quickly decided to leave the vocals to my sister or my mother herself…"
Yamcha couldn't help but smile lightly. It must have been nice, having something like that to do with your family. He would have liked to see them play together, but he knew he was nearly a millennium too late for that.
"Alright then. Teach me!"
"Wh-what?" Piccolo asked, somewhat taken aback by the response.
"Teach me to play piano! I mean, I've got nothing better to do. And hey, if I get good enough, maybe it'll lead me to my next career, now that I'm retired from baseball and all," he replied with a grin. Piccolo stared down at him for a long moment, as though trying to gauge if he was being serious or trying to poke fun at him. He seemed to settle on accepting the statement as genuine, gesturing to the bench before the piano. Yamcha followed the unspoken command, taking a seat before the long row of white and black keys.
He suddenly felt rather intimidated. There were so many! How was he to memorize what sound each of them made? He could hardly remember what day of the week it was! Piccolo seemed undaunted by the prospect of teaching him, taking a position close to the bench. He offered a small pardon as he reached out in front of Yamcha, his hand gliding effortlessly along the keys, the instrument resonating with a crisp ascending tone. In the wake of his hand, towards the middle left of the keyboard, a rainbow of small circular stickers was left on each key, each one possessing a different distinct color.
"Alright, let's get you playing your first song," Piccolo announced with a small smirk. Yamcha flinched slightly at hearing that.
"W-wait, you're going to make me play something already?! Aren't you going to teach me the basics first?"
"These are the basics," he retorted without missing a beat, "Rather than bogging you down with technical knowledge that you'll surely never understand just from a lecture, it's far more useful to have you start playing outright. Reading sheet music and developing proper hand positioning will come with time. For now, it's better to just get you used to the act itself."
Well, Yamcha supposed that made sense. At least he would be making something akin to music right away. That would get him some satisfaction, at the very least. As soon as he was ready, Piccolo began to call out colors, and he responded by poking the key that was marked with said color. It was slow going, but a tune soon emerged, and as soon as he had gone far enough to recognize what he was playing, he couldn't help but blush in mild embarrassment.
"H-hold on a second! Are you having me play 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star?!'"
"Oh, don't get so worked up over it. It's the first song anyone plays, whether you're five or fifty," Piccolo assured, though he couldn't hide the amused smirk on his face. Rather than descend further into embarrassment, Yamcha retorted with a smirk of his own.
"Alright, tough guy. Why don't you show me what I could be playing if I had as much practice as you? Surely you're good enough to be bored with kiddy songs like this," he challenged cheekily, to which Piccolo couldn't resist narrowing his eyes confrontationally. There it was – bait squarely taken. The Namekian waved Yamcha off the bench before taking a seat himself. Yamcha didn't mind, as he was quite eager to see what the other could do. Surely it had been several hundreds of years since he'd last touched a piano. How well had the skill held up in all that time?
Piccolo began playing slowly and methodically at first. As expected, he started with a classic. Some music was so iconic that it had survived even the cataclysm more than seven hundred years ago. He recognized the tune of Für Elise by Beethoven, though he probably couldn't name it as such if asked. It progressed as he'd always heard it for a short while, but then it changed. The tempo increased, and Piccolo seemed to switch to more of a swing style. Yamcha was rather surprised by the sudden shift. He'd never pegged the stoic alien for a jazz fan. Then again, given all the clues he'd received thus far, the guy would have grown up in the 1920's and 1930's. Jazz would have been the pop music of his time.
Soon enough, once he seemed to become more comfortable with playing after so long away from the instrument, Piccolo increased the tempo once more into full on ragtime. Yamcha would have never expected to find himself tapping his foot along to the beat of a stuffy old Beethoven song, but the arrangement presented was far too catchy to resist. As the song reached its climax, the tempo took a sharp dive back to the way it was classically played. It then slowed further, the notes softening until they seemed to trail off before the tune could be completed in a natural manner. Yamcha waited for a moment for Piccolo to pick it up again for some sort of finale, but when no closure to the song came, he grew mildly concerned.
"Hey, you okay?" he asked as the Namekian's hands slid from the keys. It took an uncomfortably long time for him to respond, and when he finally did, he didn't take his eyes from where they'd been fixed on the piano before him.
"Look, Yamcha…" he began softly, as though he'd been considering how to broach the forthcoming subject all day, "If you're embarrassed about last night, I understand. You don't have to try to make something of it if you really don't want to."
Yamcha was genuinely confused at first, unsure how to respond. He managed to settle on a simple, "What do you mean?"
"I mean… It wouldn't have happened at all if you weren't drunk. I know what I look like. I'm not your type. I'm not anyone's type. I'm not going to sit here and try to psychoanalyze you, but whatever reason you have for continuing this… whatever this is… it's not because you're attracted to me. You simply have nothing – or no one – better to do."
"Hey, that's not true!" Yamcha found himself blurting out before he had a chance to think about it. Perhaps that was why he found himself struggling to follow up such an emphatic declaration when Piccolo turned to stare at him. He continued on with a nervous laugh. "I-I mean… h-hey, I wasn't drunk when I kissed you the first time, right?"
Piccolo let out a small sigh at that.
"Yes, but I also looked human when you did that. I know how humans feel about me – even you. I've spent my entire adult life being looked at as though I'm some sort of Eldritch abomination. I know that look all too well. Surely you can find someone better suited to your tastes than I."
"No, I can't," Yamcha replied. Much to his surprise, it wasn't something he regurgitated automatically just to make someone feel better. It was how he truly felt. It was quite the liberating feeling; finally speaking his mind and sharing his feelings. He'd found that once he started, it was rather hard to stop it all from coming out at once.
"I'll admit, until recently, I was terrified of you. You're intimidating as fuck, and the fact that you were hell-bent on killing one of my best friends and taking over the world when we first met probably didn't paint a great picture of you in my mind, but… Just in these past few weeks, I've learned so much more about you. Your kind, you're thoughtful, you're smart as hell, and you've got a bigger heart than just about anyone I've ever met. Yeah, I used to pick my dates purely on looks before, but look where that's gotten me. I'm just as alone as ever because of that shit! I like you for who you are, looks be damned! Besides, you're a damn handsome guy, and anyone who says otherwise is just too shallow to look past your skin color!
Listen, I'm not going to stand here and try to tell you that I'm not confused by what I'm feeling, because holy shit, this is probably the most confusing time of my life. I've never even considered being with another guy before, but you know what? Fuck all that! I want to keep learning about you, I want to stay here with you as long as I'm able to! Hell, whatever it is that happened last night, I want to do it all over again and then some! I… I love you, alright?!"
Yamcha found that, by the end of his speech, his heart was pounding at a million miles per hour. He'd said it. He'd said the three words that meant there was no turning back. He'd said them before, of course. He'd said them to Bulma once upon a time, but this time… This time he felt like he truly meant it with all his heart and soul. He didn't care how others would view their relationship. He didn't care that they weren't even the same species. He simply couldn't imagine continuing his life any longer without Piccolo there with him. He'd been trying to put a word to what he was feeling for the past month, and now he'd finally figured it out. Love. He was in love.
Piccolo stared at him for a long while, shocked into silence. He'd clearly not been prepared for a reaction like that. Hell, with how low the guy's self-esteem seemed to be, having been raised among aliens who were naturally baffled by his appearance, he'd likely convinced himself he was far too unattractive for anyone to feel such a connection to him. After a while, however, it seemed to sink in, his cheeks flushing a deep purple as he turned away bashfully. For a moment, Yamcha was terrified that he was put off by his confession. Oh no… did he fuck it all up? Had he said it too soon?
Finally, after what felt like forever, Piccolo responded in a voice barely above a whisper.
"I… I love you, too…"
