It was only when Chi Chi was banging on the bedroom door and hollering at Bulma to wake up that Vegeta bolted upright, straight from the kind of restful, deep sleep he was not accustomed to getting. Bulma, seemingly clinically dead, emitted only a thin sigh in response.
"Get up!" Vegeta hissed, momentarily frozen. "Your insane roommate is going to walk in on us."
She inched the blankets down her face and tried to peer up at him through glazed, half-open eyes.
"How do you even sleep like that without suffocating?" He added.
"What's your problem?" She croaked. "The door is locked. She'll leave me alone in a minute."
Alarm was coursing through him, and he kicked off the blankets and yanked on his pants in one swift movement. "Distract her so I can get out of here."
Bulma rose, fumbling, the blanket falling around her chest, her mane of hair perched to consume her face. "Why are you so worried about it?"
Vegeta clenched his teeth and tried not to call the woman a handful of insulting but apt descriptions. "Get some clothes on and distract her!" He wheezed, pulling his shirt over too-delicious muscles, the taut things plucked like strings as he jerked his shirt over his head.
Bulma rubbed her crusty eyes of the tempting afterimage before glaring at him. "In other words, you don't want her to know about us."
"Oh, so you're reiterating what I said just now?"
Bulma's sleepy mien grew suddenly stormy. She bent forward and snatched her underwear from the floor, tugging it on jerkily under the blankets and glaring at Vegeta, who buttoned up his coat without faltering and stared out her window heedlessly. Rage was building up in her chest, and she yanked a well-worn band shirt over her curls and stomped toward the door. For a second, Vegeta's stony face fell, his mouth parting in protest when he realized she was about to walk out the door in her panties, but Bulma threw open the bedroom door carelessly and stalked out of the room before he could stop her.
His indignation bolstered him and he followed after her, entering the living room just in time to see the woman's roommate and his co-worker whip around at the sound of their footsteps in the soft morning light streaming in from the skylights.
He steeled himself as his black eyes met Goku's, trying to mask his thumping heart and the sinking in the pit of his stomach. Goku stared at him with quiet surprise, eyebrows knit with puzzlement. His girlfriend's reaction was more animated, and if he'd felt more calm, he would have laughed at it. Her mouth gaping and her eyes wide as dinner plates, she gawked at the two of them, her eyes clearly understanding but her brain visibly wheeling. For once, she'd opened her mouth and didn't know what to say.
Bulma headed forward undeterred, her matted curls jutting out in several directions and her thin panties not completely concealing her backside, making him squirm, before he realized with some horror that they had little unicorns printed all over them.
She opened the front door calmly, her back to them all as she leaned on the door casually and waited for his exit. Every step was a tangle of conflicting humiliation and rage as he felt their eyes on his back, and although he wanted nothing more at that second than to walk out the front door and never look back, he hesitated. He wasn't really sure what he wanted in that moment; he needed a lot more time and patience than he had to sort through and decipher it all. And yet, he stalled as he reached the threshold, his body facing forward, wanting out, but his head tilting towards hers, wanting...wanting to accuse her of just being so ridiculous, to spew his grievances, to make it clear just how he would not tolerate not having things his way, in the future...But he didn't have the chance.
To his utter shock, Bulma slapped him right across the ass.
"Good game, player," she said to him loudly, and his gaze jerked to hers in total, utter, incandescent disbelief. "I'll see that ugly mug of yours soon."
Her gaze met his from under stormy, sea-green eyebrows with an equal amount of near-explosive fury.
And as his mouth pulled down and he sucked in air through his nose, puffing up to put her right back in her place, she stepped back...
And slammed the door on his face.
Bulma turned, yawning wide and stretching, revealing her pale belly. She regarded Goku and Chi Chi sleepily, before sinking back into a slouch and rubbing the back of her head as she shuffled back to her room. Goku and Chi Chi watched her mutely, Chi Chi's mouth moving soundlessly.
Just as Chi Chi forced her foot to move in front of the other with the slow force of a locomotive, Bulma was meandering back out of her room, tugging up her loose jeans and shrugging on her bulky work jacket. She shoved her feet into her flip flops and tied her hair back carelessly, yawning again, loudly. "I'm gonna run and grab some coffee," she told them. "Be right back."
And shut the front door firmly behind her.
As Bulma strode down the sidewalk, navigating around the Saturday morning coffee shop goers and window shoppers, she congratulated herself on successfully avoiding Chi Chi's questions at a time she was in no position to answer them. Her toes were growing numb from the lingering late spring chill, and she jiggled her keys in her pocket to an angry rhythm.
However, she had not found a way yet to calm down without making a scene, which was why she was walking around in circles. She had successfully stomped around the little urban square a few blocks from her apartment, sipping her coffee crossly until she realized it was gone and then chucking it into a trash can with an insulted huff. Bulma knew she was literally getting nowhere, so she palmed her keys and was now marching back towards her place, where she was going to hop into her bus, get the hell outta there, and do the only thing she could count on: bang on some shit.
And, so it was with great relief that Bulma pulled up to her quiet shop, gravel crunching under her tires loudly and parking lot empty.
She didn't waste any time unlocking the door and kicking off her sandals. She peeled her shirt off and knotted the handkerchief around her head with a no-nonsense familiarity. She stepped into her overalls and the zipper emitted a tinny protest all the way up to her neck. She shoved her feet into a pair of thick socks and work boots, lacing them up with exacting jerks.
And then Bulma stood in front of the old Bug, wrench in hand, surveying the rusty and battered thing with deep, even breaths.
Eyebrows and mouth relaxing as she planned her attack, Bulma began stomping on the jack before snaking under the car and beginning the tedious process of taking the whole thing apart.
B's Dubs was closed one Saturday a week. She got one weekend a month to visit her family, and that policy was firm. Today was that Saturday, and she had every intention of finishing it out there at the shop before dropping in on her parents for a late (and convenient) dinner.
So when the bell rang distantly, indicating someone had entered her shop despite the sign clearly saying CLOSED, she'd half expected it to be another douche demanding that she take a look at his car. Or even her mother with a tray full of cookies, trying to lure her out from underneath an import again.
So she didn't waste any time turning around after throwing the Beetle's front seats into the corner with a clang, and was met with a wall of surprise when she saw the last person she expected: Yamcha.
"Hello," she said uncertainly.
"Hey," he greeted her, taking her in with a growing smile. "You look busy. I hope I'm not bothering you. Wow, look at this place." He looked all around slowly, noting the old movie posters, the cobwebs, the diesel exhaust-coated fluorescents. "Wow, a juke box? Very cool." He wore a snappy leather jacket and khakis, and he smiled so warmly and sincerely that it melted a little of her shock and irritation from being interrupted by him.
"Yep." She stepped slowly towards him, where he hovered over her restored juke box in the corner. She managed a polite half-smile. "It's my baby."
He flipped through her catalog, and as she approached, leaning over him to see his selection, she got a hint of his nauseatingly familiar smell, alongside a sophisticated aftershave she didn't recognize and the cozy smell of leather.
"I don't recognize anything. Aw, nothing good in here." He sent her a smile as her face fell into a frown.
"What brings you here?" She asked cooly, wrapping her arms around her chest.
"Ah. Well." He turned back to her, running his fingers through his suavely styled hair. "Since we saw each other at the game last night, I just couldn't stop thinking about you..." He blushed scarlet and rolled his eyes. "I mean, just, what a coincidence..."
Bulma couldn't help her slanted mouth and her rising eyebrow.
"I mean, I know it's been a long time, so I thought you might wanna catch up….Pizza? I know you like pizza. Antonio's?" He stuttered.
It was cute, she thought distantly. Should be, anyway, but wasn't, her heart responding with as much emotion as she would survey a map or plunge a toilet.
"Antonio's, huh," she tried courteously. "My favorite pizza place."
"Yeah," he chuckled.
She sighed. "You know," she began, before gripping his shoulder with friendly rapport. "I love pizza. Why don't you give me a second to clean up," she gestured to the pile of car in the corner, "and then follow me to my folks? I'm sure they'd love to see you again. I'll get changed there and we can head over."
Yamcha beamed at her under thick lashes with boyish glee. "Really? Alright! Awesome. Let's catch up." The chirp of a cell phone began building from his pocket, and he smiled apologetically. "I'll just take this outside while you pick up the mess." He was already turning and heading out the door as she scowled slightly after him.
"My mess, huh." She moseyed forward to watch him strut to his car, kicking her gravel with the toe of his shoe as his mouth moved quietly next to his phone.
She frowned further with distaste, and narrowed her eyes before snorting. "What are you driving, Yamcha." She stared out at him silently, before rolling her eyes and heading toward the stripped down skeleton of the Beetle, waiting wordlessly for her to come back to it.