Anger Management 5


"Happy Birthday, Vegeta," Bulma kissed the back of Vegeta's neck and shoulders as the two of them stirred awake, "I can't believe my handsome Saiyan is already thirty six!"

Vegeta rolled over and pushed the hair away from Bulma's eyes. "You forgot "prince", woman," he found himself smirking, "your handsome Saiyan prince is now thirty six years old."

Bulma giggled and kissed him again. "I want to show you something, your highness. Wait here," she got out of bed and went into the bathroom for several minutes.

She returned to the bedroom dressed in a very skimpy, powder blue teddy, its thin satin shoulder straps straining under the weight of her bust. "What do you think, prince? Is it to your liking?"

Well damn, he thought, this is a nice way to wake up...

"Mmhmm," Vegeta threw the covers back and leaned far over to bring Bulma back onto the bed, "I think you'll lose your whole outfit if you breathe a little too deep," he gently pulled her onto his lap and tugged at a strap, "let's see if I can't make that happen."

"Happy birthday, son!" Dr. Briefs clapped Vegeta on the back, making him choke on his coffee.

Vegeta stifled his coughing and nodded, resisting the urge to turn around and slap his father-in-law. Over the years, Vegeta had to frequently remind himself that the old man was eccentric, genuinely forgetful of the Saiyan's physical boundaries, and only one of two people who could (and would) maintain and upgrade his gravity chamber, not that he used it very much any longer.

"Vegeta! Happy birthday, sweetheart," Mrs. Briefs set a cup of coffee at Vegeta's place, "you certainly have a busy day, don't you?"

Trunks took his seat at the table and beamed at his father. "It's your birthday? Cool! How old are you, Dad?"

"You first," he pointed at Trunks, "I'm thirty six," he then looked over at Mrs. Briefs, "and yes, today is busy."

"I know! You have two appointments," Mrs. Briefs sounded delighted, "so I get to spend some time with you! I'm going to take you to lunch!"

"Lucky," Trunks said through a mouthful of scrambled eggs before pausing to swallow, "Grandma picks the best places to eat!"

I wanted to be alone, he thought, so much for that... it figures she'd try to turn this day into something.

"Oh," he sipped his coffee, "alright, then."

"Vegeta, you're going to love tonight," Bulma walked into the eating area as she put on her earrings, "you are in for a surprise!"

"Uh huh," his voice was wary, "you aren't leaving for work already, are you?"

"Ugh, Mooom," Trunks heaved a raspy sigh that was reminiscent of his father, "you never stay for breakfast!"

"Big meeting at eight thirty. I'm already running late! Sorry, Vegeta- I wish I could stay for breakfast, too! But tonight will make up for it, I promise! Trunks, be good for Grandma, and thirty minutes of reading before you can play video games, mister!"

"Okay, Mom," Trunks returned to his toast, "do good at work. I love you, bye!"

"Good-bye, Bulma."

Vegeta waited until Bulma had left before finally reaching for a piece of toast. "So is anybody going to let me know what that was all about?"

"Mom's taking you to a res-tau-rant," Trunks sang cheerfully, "Mom's taking you to a res-tau-rant! A really fancy res-tau-rant!"

Mrs. Briefs gasped in disbelief. "Trunks! Why did you spoil the surprise?"

"Aw, I didn't mean to!"

"I'm thrilled he did," Vegeta rose from the table and ruffled the boy's fine hair, "good boy, Trunks. I'm getting out of here."

If it hadn't been for Vegeta's ravenous appetite, the Saiyan would have taken off after his appointment with Ramirez in order to find his way to Dr. Kim's office on his own.

The Saiyan had settled on visiting the gym on his birthday, and had spent close to two hours lifting weights, practicing calisthenics, and running around the huge indoor track. He was tired after the long session, but he showered, finished an entire bottle of milk on his own (straight from the bottle) and still met his mother-in-law for their agreed time to head downtown.

"Oh sweetie, I'm so sorry you're upset," Mrs. Briefs knew that Vegeta was very pissed off, "we don't have to be here if you don't want to..."

"It's too late now," Vegeta drummed his fingers on the formica table, "we're here and we ordered and I'm hungry."

Mrs. Briefs stirred her soda and the cherry syrup at the bottom of the glass with her straw. "Well, that's good."

A server set a large chocolate milkshake at Vegeta's place and he immediately took a sip. He could feel the cold ice cream mixture settling in his empty stomach. "What do you mean?"

"I can't remember the last time you said "I'm hungry", so it's just nice to hear. You must have worked hard in the gym."

Vegeta smirked. He hated that she was right, and when the server returned with a very large cheeseburger and plate onion rings, his stomach audibly growled. He was quick to eat, ignoring the incredible heat of his food almost entirely, and didn't speak for a long time.

"This is good. But now," he put the remaining third of his hamburger down and pushed the plate aside, "this whole "restaurant" business tonight, with Bulma? No. Fuck no. I'm not doing it."

Mrs. Briefs decided to try her grilled chicken sandwich before answering him. "Well, honey, why don't you call Bulma's office and have her secretary cancel the reservation?"

"Didn't bring my phone," Vegeta leaned back in the booth's seat and folded his arms over his chest.

"Here," Mrs. Briefs retrieved her phone from her purse, scrolled through her contacts, selected "BULMA'S OFFICE" and passed the phone to Vegeta, "call her secretary. He'll cancel for you."

Vegeta pressed the CALL button and held the phone to his ear. The phone was answered on the second ring. "Bulma Briefs office," a young-sounding man with a bored, nasal voice answered.

"This is Vegeta. Bulma made reservations tonight. Cancel them."

There was an agonizing stretch of silence before the man's voice returned. "Vegeta- you're her husband, that's right. Sorry... uh," there was the sound of typing on a keyboard, "I'm sorry, she didn't tell me about it. I have nothing on the calendar... can I take a message?"

"Yes. Tell Bulma that she is to cancel whatever reservations she'd made tonight. I'd rather eat glass than go out."

Another stretch of awkward silence. "Um, I'll be sure to pass that along, Vegeta. Can I help you with anything else?"

Vegeta disconnected the call and passed the phone back to his mother in law. "Well, that was annoying."

Mrs. Briefs silently counted to three and put her phone away. Vegeta could be so nasty with people he didn't know- she could accept that he wasn't the most outgoing or gregarious soul, but she didn't like that he was often quick to insult or condescend to those outside his small circle.

"I know Bulma wanted to surprise you, but if you want to stay in on your birthday, you stay in!"

"Hmm," he picked up his burger again and decided he could finish it, "I wonder how she'll react when that secretary tells her that I called."

"Nice to see you, Vegeta. How are you today?" Dr. Kim was dressed in a black pantsuit this time, with a soft violet scarf loosely draped around her neck.

"It's my birthday," Vegeta responded, immediately feeling stupid for having said it. Why the hell did I say that, he internally chastised himself, you sound like your damn wife!

"Well, happy birthday! How old are you now?"

"Thirty six. But I feel way older."

"Thirty six is just the beginning of your prime, Vegeta. Last week, we discussed you creating a list of goals. How did it go?"

"I'm two for five," Vegeta shifted in the chair, "as in, I managed to come up with two goals. So I'm assuming that "not good" is how it went.

"What do you mean by "assuming" that your task didn't go well? Do you mean that I think you didn't do well enough?"

"Well, I had to make a list of five things, correct? I failed to complete my task."

"Not entirely, Vegeta," Dr. Kim's pen practically ran across the page as she wrote, "you took the initiative to make a list, and you still came up with two goals you wish to reach."

"Two out of five is forty percent. Is that not failure?"

"I'm not grading you, Vegeta, and I'm not telling anybody else about this. If you hadn't done anything at all, I might be concerned, but not disappointed. That's not how this works, Vegeta. Your wellbeing is long-term and can't always be tied into hard numbers or facts."

The Saiyan loudly exhaled through his nostrils. I am not convinced, his expression screamed, why should I listen to you?

"Besides," Dr. Kim continued, "forty percent is still better than zero percent. You can boost that average much more easily than if you had nothing to show."

"Hm!" Vegeta tilted his chin up and smirked, "that's good."

"If you're comfortable sharing, what were your two goals?"

"Start eating better and get back into shape. I saw a measurement chart from a few years ago and that was enough to convince me."

"Are you celebrating your birthday tonight? Or do you prefer to celebrate on the weekend?"

"Thisfuckinday," he muttered, "I don't really care. I don't want to do anything. My mother in law took me out for lunch and that was... well, more than I wanted to do, but to be honest, I was hungry and the food was actually delicious. My wife apparently made reservations for some fancy restaurant, I don't even know where- I called her secretary and had her cancel. She wanted to "surprise" me."

"How did you find out if it was supposed to be a surprise?"

"My kid gave it away. Well, sang it away..." he almost laughed at the memory of Trunks' raspy little singing voice.

"Good for you, Vegeta. I'm glad you took that initiative. If you want to go home and do your own thing, that's your decision to make. You know, some people just aren't into big birthday celebrations."

"Oh, I've celebrated my birthday," the Saiyan almost chuckled, "but this year I don't care."

"Would you mind sharing a memorable birthday, Vegeta? Maybe this birthday is one for self-reflection."

The Saiyan sat quietly for a moment. He wasn't so sure about sharing his past- especially the stuff involving his personal life. Finally, after quietly laughing at the memory, he decided to talk first about his nineteenth birthday.

"My nineteenth birthday was memorable because of how much fun I had, and because of how stupid I was back then. At the time, I lived with two other guys who were just complete fucking animals. The living arrangement was hell, of course, because I was far younger and was more concerned with my fitness and work, while they regularly threw the most insane parties I've ever witnessed.

Anyway, after a great deal of peer pressure and goading and generally pissing me off, I agreed to go out and celebrate my birthday with these two idiots. They took me to this night club, one of them tricked me into taking drugs, and I wound up having a great time most of the night. The music was amazing and I straight-up enjoyed myself for what felt like the first time in my life. Things kind of derailed when I tried to keep up with their drinking- I wound up running out the fire exit and hurling in a dumpster, and then found myself locked out of the club. I don't really remember how I got home, but that's where I woke up, and my roommates didn't realize I'd gone missing until the morning after."

Dr. Kim took notes the entire time. "Would you want to repeat that experience?"

Vegeta scowled at the woman. "Give me a break."

"Any more recent memorable birthdays? As you said, you were nineteen in that memory."

"Thirty one. I remember that one very well."

"Much more recent," Dr. Kim kept writing, "will you tell me about it?"

"Eh, I can't remember what I did that day. I probably just trained," Vegeta shut his eyes and found himself standing on the roof of the Capsule compound, "I was living with Bulma and her family by that point. We weren't really getting along well back then, but we did have a lot of fun. I'm pretty sure we were arguing about something that day, too. Anyway, Bulma told me to meet her on the roof at night, so I went up there and we just talked for hours. She realized it was my birthday and acknowledged it and that was it."

"If you had to relieve one of those birthdays, which would it be, and why?"

Vegeta kept his eyes shut. "Thirty one," he immediately replied, "it was good. Comfortable."

"The day, or being with Bulma?"

"Her."

Dr. Kim nodded and kept writing on her notepad. "She makes you feel at ease."

That's not what I said, Vegeta thought, before realizing the old woman was right.

"Yes."

When Bulma climbed up to the roof just past ten thirty, she found Vegeta sitting on a blanket with a small cooler pushed up against the short barrier. She had sent him a text message just after four, apologizing and saying she wouldn't be home until late. A few hours later (when Vegeta had found his phone stuffed inside a housecoat pocket) Vegeta replied with instructions to meet on the roof after ten o'clock.

"What a day," Bulma sat down beside Vegeta, "I didn't expect to be working past nine at night- yeesh! Sorry our plans fell through- my secretary told me you called, I think, but I was so preoccupied that I just had him call the restaurant... oh... I was planning to take you out for an incredible dinner, Vegeta... I feel kind of bad for basically yelling at her to change my plans before he could even get a word out. I wonder what he wanted to tell me? Hm," Bulma shifted her weight slightly, "I wonder if I even told him about our plans before today?"

"Either your secretary succeeded, or we stood up the restaurant. Nothing we can do now," Vegeta shrugged, reached into the cooler, and passed Bulma a can of beer.

"So, how was your day, Vegeta?"

"Mine? Well," Vegeta pulled the tab off a can, "it was a unique way to spend a birthday."

"Which appointment is worse, Vegeta? Seeing your probation officer, or your therapist?"

"Both are a pain in the ass, in their own unique way. Turns out Ramirez used to be a boxer- so I guess we have a little common ground."

"That's good," Bulma leaned against Vegeta and smiled at him, "I'm glad you're doing this. Even if you didn't really wanna do it."

Vegeta draped an arm around Bulma's shoulders. "This is better than a restaurant. It's comfortable here."

The woman reached for Vegeta's hand, squeezed it and kissed his knuckles. "I'm glad you like it, but it's getting too chilly for me to hang out up here! When you're ready, come down to the bedroom. I've got another outfit to show you."