A/N: Goku/Kakarot will be integral to this story. ;)
Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Ball Z or anything affiliated with it.
-MalRev
DEEP - SIX
4 - How To Make Enemies
Mercifully, my Tuesdays were only occupied by an introductory art class that didn't include any of Owen's older friends, who were getting closer to graduation. I took a seat toward the back of the classroom and settled in comfortably for the three hour lecture while more and more students shuffled in with groggy expressions, clearly not morning people like I was. Art was interesting to me and a 101 class would consist of tons of notes instead of practical application.
The professor arrived a few minutes late—she was an older woman with curly grey hair and a frazzled disposition. She began the lecture around nine and I found myself drifting off in deep thought, mulling over the strange occurrences from the day before.
Owen still hadn't called me or texted me, but that could be attributed to the nasty hangover he undoubtedly had. I gnawed my pen absentmindedly and fingered my phone jutting out from my pocket, considering ditching a few minutes of class to get in contact with my parents. They wanted me to watch over him, after all, and part of that meant tattling like a good little sister. If he crashed and burned I would be the one paying out the nose for it.
Then there was the whole thing with his friends, whom he seemed to have in spades. There was Chi-Chi, who gave me a strange, unsettling vibe, and the two nice martial artists from calculus: Yamcha and Tien. They were both very polite. Raditz had been a miss after he knocked my food out of my hands but Krillin was just as polite as his two buddies from math. His girlfriend (Anatye?) was kind of standoffish.
They were all fairly cut-and-dry people. I thought I could file each of them away neatly in my memory bank, carefully categorizing their personalities and recalling what I needed to. I'd never found a person perplexing before, even though I kept to my small circle of friends as a general rule.
The reflection of Goku's beaming smile when he admitted he didn't understand slope was sticking to my forebrain no matter what I did. Something about him had been… well, appealing. Sure he was physically attractive—I wouldn't had to have been blind to not notice that fact—but the rest of Owen's group weren't exactly hit with the ugly stick. No, there was definitely something about Goku himself; something in our time together that had piqued my curiosity.
All I had to do was figure out what in the hell it was.
Class was dismissed around 11 and I left with my new syllabus neatly tucked in the appropriate binder. I returned to my dorm to put my things away and was getting ready to head to the cafeteria when there was a knock on my door. My thoughts immediately turned to Owen and I pulled it open.
Bulma was smiling at me. She was wearing a pair of grease-stained overalls with a baggy red shirt but still managed to look absolutely radiant. Her blue hair was pulled back, also black in places from her work in the technology lab, and a wrench was jutting out from her pocket. I smiled back, grateful for her offered friendship. She seemed like Owen's type.
"I saw you walking back," she said. "Want to go grab lunch with me?"
"Oh, sure! I'm done with classes today so I'm up for anything."
My insides winced nervously. The last thing I needed to do was sound desperate for friends.
We walked through the uncharacteristically empty hallways to the main hall where the cafeteria was, and Bulma chattered away about how sick my brother was. She didn't even leave it open for me to ask in the first place and I half-heartedly accepted her excuses. It wasn't like him to be that sick.
The cafeteria was likewise empty and I got my food without any problems. Bulma wrinkled her nose in distaste at the salads before settling on chicken fingers and fries, and I followed her through the checkout line into the deserted sitting area. She walked like she owned the place, escorting me around a set of garbage cans to a table where a few very intimidating guys were sitting.
The biggest one was bald and had a creepy moustache that made my skin crawl a little. There was a scowling man sitting beside him who was much shorter—probably around my height—and he had spiked black hair that looked ridiculous. On his other side sat a guy who was also about my height, but had shorter black hair and seemed terribly uncomfortable. They were all wearing black shirts.
Bulma set down her tray and leaned across the table to kiss the guy in the middle on the forehead, causing his face to flush red. He jerked back and folded his arms angrily while she pulled me into the chair beside her, in front of the awkward guy. I blinked stupidly. Who the hell were they?
"Ellie, this cutie is my boyfriend, Vegeta," Bulma said, gesturing to the pissed-off short guy. "That's his brother, Tarble—" She pointed to Mr. Uncomfortable "—and the big brute on the end is Nappa. This is Owen's sister, everyone. Say hi and play nice."
Vegeta scowled so deeply I thought his face would implode. "She shouldn't be here, Bulma." His voice was rough and cold, like black ice.
My blue-haired friend rolled her eyes. "Relax. I'm just introducing her to everyone I can so she can make some more friends. It's hard moving to a new place."
Nappa crossed his arms as well and I suddenly felt very unwelcome.
"It's okay," I said quickly, grasping my tray, "I can sit somewhere else."
"No, no, you'll stay right here." Bulma popped a fry in her mouth, smirking wryly at the men across the table. "They're all throwing a hissy fit. Except Tarble, but he doesn't do much of anything."
"Leave my brother out of this!" Vegeta snapped.
The two of them began to bicker fiercely and I resigned myself to eating small pieces of my salad. Well, all of Owen's friends couldn't like me. That was kind of demanding for me to expect they would. At least the really nice ones were genuine; it was just too bad that the mean ones were seriously nasty.
Their argument escalated until they both left the table, yelling all the way out of the cafeteria and attracting the eyes of everyone present. I shrank low in my chair and peered up at Nappa's angry eyes before deciding it was time for me to have my lunch elsewhere. I gathered my food and hurried back through the main hall to the dormitory, quickly shutting myself inside to eat in peace.
I dropped into my desk chair and ate while checking emails and answering my friends back home who were curious to know how school was going. It was still too early to accurately judge but I only told them "well enough" before digging voraciously into my lunch. It was a good thing I brought an entire tote full of snacks or I would've starved by the end of the first week.
I'd hardly started my calculus homework when there was another knock on my door, but I recognized this one. I leapt out of my chair and flung open the door to hug Owen tightly around the neck, forcing him to swing me around or risk falling over. He awkwardly set me down and people muttered to one another but I didn't particularly care. I was more concerned with the ugly bruise on my brother's eye.
I gasped and grabbed his face between my hands, horrified. "Owen! What the hell happened?!"
"It's nothing, Ellie. I was drunk last night and tripped."
"You're so full of shit! Who punched you? Tell me and I swear to god—"
"Amelia," he said firmly, invoking the power of my full name, "please drop it. I wanted to come down and let you know I'm fine. I was puking a lot."
The people shuffling past us seemed to fade away as I stared into my brother's shifting eyes, one of which was a hideous purple. What was West University doing to Owen?
He was quiet for a while, then grasped my wrists to pull my hands away from his face and set them neatly back at my sides. I watched him stuff his hands in his pockets and nod stiffly at me before vanishing into the throng of students, once again leaving me with a million questions.
It was impossible to focus in my dorm. I threw my books in my bag and hurried back to the main building to visit the library, where things felt a lot less confusing. It was quiet there as well—the new feeling of college was dying down for the freshmen—but I still stole upstairs to sit in the back where I had tutored Goku. There was no need for me to risk more confusing interruptions.
When I turned around the corner of a bookshelf, I came to a halt.
Raditz was standing at the other end with his arm in an elaborate sling. His eyes looked exhausted until they fell upon me and immediately turned hostile, burning with distaste and hatred. I blinked in shock and took a step back, prompting him to curl his lip in a bestial grin. He was wearing a black shirt.
"Wondering what happened to me, little girl?" he sneered.
"Um… no, not really. But I know you don't care for me, so I'm waiting right here until you leave." I shifted my weight to one side and narrowed my eyes. "I'm not afraid of you."
The tall, indisputably frightening man turned toward me. "Man, if my arm wasn't broke…"
"Do you mind? I need to pick out some reference books for biology."
"I'm not stopping you. Come right over here and pick them out, little girl. You're not afraid of me, right?"
"Did you touch my brother yesterday?" I demanded, temper flaring. "He has a black eye."
Raditz set his hand on his hip and bent over so we were eye level. He looked even more unpleasant. "How d'you think I broke my arm?"
I blanched. What?! Raditz had to be lying—my brother wouldn't break a guy's arm because he pushed me! That was way over the top violence for him, and he would've owned up to it when he saw me. No way. Had Raditz attacked my brother as retribution for me mouthing off?
It wasn't even my third day of classes and I already had a mystery on my hands. It felt like there was a conspiracy swirling around me that wasn't quite tangible. People knew what they were supposed to.
Someone sighed behind me. "Raditz, how'd you wind up in the library?"
When I spun around I came face-to-face with Goku's chest and the familiar scent of pine needles and body spray he carried with him. He was literally inches behind me and I took a quick, awkward step back, clutching my books to my chest while he smiled across the rows of books to his older brother. He was relaxed; one hand was in his pocket and the other was holding a binder under his arm.
"S-sorry," I stammered. "I didn't mean to bump into you."
"It's so nice to see you, Goku," Raditz said, immediately bristling like an angry cat. There had been a sharp inflection when he said his brother's name, as if he wanted to call him something else. "I was getting some research materials for my project and ran into your new little friend."
"You seem to be bothering Ellie. Maybe you should leave."
"No, he's not going anywhere," I said. "He punched my brother in the face yesterday because he and I had words in the cafeteria, and that's not okay. Go apologize to Owen."
"Oh, I'll give him an apology," Raditz hissed. "My right is my punching arm but I can still throw him a mean left hook. As a matter of fact, I owe you an apology, Ellie."
Goku stepped closer to me and I was keenly aware of his presence: my scalp prickled nervously. He was awfully warm. And tall. And he could've killed a man with his bare hands, judging by his biceps.
"That mouth of yours is always getting you into trouble," Goku said in a quiet, restrained tone. He was standing behind me so I couldn't gauge his facial expression but I imagined it was terrifying. "Now, Raditz. Go home and stay away from Owen. You've proven your point."
The older brother scowled but did as he was told. His eyes flickered from his damaged arm past me, up to his brother's eyes, and he left while shaking his head.
The upper floor was plunged into stiff silence—Goku and I were utterly alone. I swallowed and put some distance between us before turning to smile up at him. He was already gazing down at me, dark eyes unreadable under the harsh fluorescent lighting. His shirt wasn't damp was sweat but it was a bit tight so I could see the vague outline of his musculature underneath.
No, Ellie. Don't think about your tutee that way.
"Thanks," I said, rubbing at my face to hide my blush. "I have to go apologize to Owen for dragging him into this whole thing with your brother. Still, I can't believe he broke Raditz's arm!"
Goku shrugged, an impassive enigma. "We all do crazy stuff for the people we care about. Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you were alright. I can't have my tutor getting into fights in the library, right?"
I laughed. He'd already put me at ease again.
"Of course not," I said, "that would be bad press."
"Mhm." He tilted his head and took a piece of paper out of his pocket to hand to me. "This is my number. Text or call me if anything comes up, okay? I told Owen I'd keep an eye on you."
"I'm more worried about him than myself. He's always getting into trouble like this."
"…Yeah, I guess he is. I've gotta go help Bulma with some stuff. See you tomorrow, Ellie."
With a conspiratorial wink, Goku left, and I was standing between the shelves clutching his cell phone number. I blinked owlishly before sitting at the quiet table in the back and sending Owen an apologetic text. What a strange, strange group.