Bulma flipped onto her stomach and kicked her bare leg out over…
Nothing.
Her own surprised and throaty snore rocked her awake, her eyes springing open to blink at the unusually cold space beside her.
Bulma abruptly sat up in bed, smearing hair from her eyes and blinking groggily. "Jerk," she grumbled, batting his pillow onto the floor with the back of her hand, then kicking it further away for good measure. "Jerk, jerk, jerk." She dragged herself out of bed, peeling the panties from her butt.
She managed to find Vegeta's kitchen by running her hands along the wall, unable yet to pry open her eyes at the early hour.
Then made a mess trying to pour water into the coffee maker with barely cracked lids. "Thanks a lot, jerk," she whined as spilled water ran in tendrils over the counter and soaked the front of her nightgown.
She pressed her finger to the button, and the coffee pot ticked on, gurgling as she rummaged through the cupboards for her favorite coffee cup. It was thick, heavy, with a solid handle and the sad face of cartoon character Droopy, complaining, 'Is it Friday yet?'
"Great for bashing over jerk's heads," she muttered.
Bulma's phone began to vibrate on the kitchen counter, and her eyes slid sideways.
It was the tenth time this week, and yes, she'd been counting.
She snorted. "Yeah, right, jerk."
And let Vegeta go to voicemail hell.
Eighteen didn't allow herself to be anyone's punching bag.
That didn't stop her from closing the door to her office and beating herself up this afternoon.
She fingered the engagement ring on her desk, flipping it with a long, neatly manicured finger, watching it spin on the smooth wood.
It's not you, it's me. I need to understand myself, and then I can come back to you.
Krillin had taken it well enough. Given how good-natured he was anyway, she was not surprised. Though it just made her feel worse.
I'll always love you, Juu. Please know that I'm here for you, if you need someone to talk to. Meanwhile, keep the ring until you come to a decision.
There was something wrong with her. Something that made her feel tangled up and breathless, as if she were stuck on a tilt-a-whirl, blinded by stage lights and black sky spinning out of control. And Eighteen was not a woman who tolerated a breach of control.
He'd patted her arm, and then made his way slowly out of the restaurant, a crestfallen resignation on his face. She watched him walk away from her, excuse himself as he wound through the crowd, with jealousy for the life she may no longer be a part of. Of all things to feel at that moment. Jealousy.
She put her chin in her hand and contemplated the sleek wood of her desk.
"Take that!"
Bulma threw her toothbrush down on the sink.
"And this!"
She threw this week's clothes on the floor.
"And that!"
She opened Vegeta's nightstand drawer and tossed in the last remaining symbol of her singledom: her vibrator.
Bulma folded her arms over her chest and surveyed the damage.
If this is what moving in with a boyfriend felt like, it was really disappointing.
She sank onto the bed and rested her chin in her hands. "This would be way more fun if you were here, and we could be excited about it together," she said softly. She fell back against the coverlets, watching the ceiling fan turn sluggishly. "I wish you would argue with me about where I put my panties, and how I leave hair in the shower drain. And bitch at me about how my coffee cup always leaves a ring on the counter, or how I drank the last of the milk." The corner of her lips pulled downward, and she sighed one last time. "This doesn't feel like home without you," her small voice objected in the empty condo.
Bulma was at a point mentally that Chi Chi was calling 'denial' but Bulma was branding 'optimism.' Chi Chi was still in Yamcha-Regret-Mode, a weird line she refused she was straddling where Chi Chi understood principally that Bulma's ex was no good, but wanted to build a boyfriend effigy in his likeness anyway. Did Vegeta give Bulma flowers, buy her jewelry? Did he strew rose petals from the front door to the bath before she got home from work? Well, then, what good was he?
Sure, Vegeta had abruptly left to take care of some business. The correctness of his action was up for debate, absolutely, and Bulma could acknowledge that. But the man had asked her to move in, hadn't he? And what had changed? This was the same proud man who'd given up a golden court case and a promotion he'd been waiting on for years for her before they'd even began dating. So she would have faith. After all, relationships required a bit of work, and a bit of faith.
But homes required a bit of…homeyness, too. Her brows knit, considering. Even if Vegeta couldn't be here, a home should still feel comfortable and comforting, warm and inviting. Vegeta's home was impossibly clean, which was weird, and too-perfectly decorated, which was kind of alienating. Her parents had money, and even their home wasn't decorated so...competently, like someone had used a protractor to calculate the room's geometry on a piece of graph paper before hanging the banal black and white picture of a city horizon over the bed just so. Bulma made a sour face.
But even if all her things weren't there, lying in shambles, even if the cupboards weren't full of cake mix and chips instead of protein powder, even if Vegeta wasn't there to entertain her, the damned place should still feel like her own, if she was going to shack up with him. Right? And yet, still, there was something missing.
Bulma snapped her fingers.
And she knew just what it was!
Scratch was missing!
Bulma rolled off the bed and tugged on her jacket one more time for the night. She was going to head over to her parent's, scoop Scratch into his cat carrier, cooing as he hissed furiously, and beg him to forgive her as they made their way back to Vegeta's. And maybe she'd bring some of her work, too, to give her something to take her mind off of this oppressive condo. And she'd bring some of her unimportant crud for good measure. Maybe she'd throw some junk here, and leave some trash on the floor there. If that's what it took to help her adjust to the life without Vegeta that had been imposed on her, then, by gosh, she'd commit.
She was going to treat this home like a home. That would be a test of Vegeta's faith.
Goku knew he'd lost before the game had even been called.
"Goldfish!" Chi Chi squealed.
He folded as his fiance sniggered, gathering up all the cards and shuffling them, preparing to deal again.
"I think I'll pass, Cheech." Goku stood up from his chair, bent and downcast.
Chi Chi blinked up in surprise at him. She knew Goku was a competitive game player, but he wasn't typically a sore loser. This beaten man schtick seemed a bit out of the ordinary for Goku. She frowned, puzzled. "Uh, Goku, honey? Where you going?"
"I'll be back," he called as he pulled on his jacket at the door, his broad back to her.
She sprang from her chair. "Is something wrong?" She watched his slow movements with concern.
He turned back around with his winning smile, but it was small and subdued. "I'll be right back. I'm just gonna go for a walk." He squeezed her arm affectionately, and then opened the front door and walked through it.
The breeze ruffled Goku's hair as he shrugged his hands in his pockets, tensing against the autumn chill, and started walking.
As he made his way down the street, the wind blowing leaves under his feet, he watched with detachment the lively neighborhood unfurl before him in the dusk.
To his left, the dry cleaner glanced up and then waved at him through the storefront window, before turning away to continue tagging and hanging up bagged outfits. And then Mai Lee, sweeping the front steps, who happily let him know her youngest had paid back his gambling debts, and then called Goku her sweet boy endearingly in Chinese.
A woman and her young son stood patiently outside a food truck as the man inside assembled their gyros, and the boy bobbed up and down in anticipation. His hands finally closed around the stuffed pita with joy. Catching Goku's eye, he smiled big, and Goku lifted his hand to congratulate him with a two fingered sign of victory.
Two city blocks, a few crosswalks, a few more times he was stopped by a neighbor to talk. Goku gave time to them all, smiling genuinely despite his feeble mood.
He hopped up the steps of the temple grounds, lanterns, aglow under the eaves of the shrine, beckoning. Taking a step inside, Goku spotted his grandfather's urn familiarly.
He bent to his knees respectfully.
"Grandpa," Goku called softly, his eyes drawing upward to the familiar orange and yellow urn in the little locker. Someone had recently visited his grandpa's neighbor; a spring of star anise and the ashy remains of incense lay at the foot of the woman's photograph.
"Grandpa, what should I do? I want to make Chi Chi and our fathers proud, but each day is a fight I don't want to win. I follow Dad's lead, but I am increasingly skeptical of where it leads. Please give me direction."
When he stepped out of the doorway of the shrine, he glanced quietly around the yard, at the few people and the families who were leaving the temple, at the horizon at the foot of the city, its lights painting the belly of the night sky a brackish violet.
A child was skipping around his parents legs across from him as they hurried to their car. The man placed his hand on the child's collar, stilling him, as the mother smiled beside them. Goku watched them make their way across the yard.
And then was astonished to see the back of the little boy's baseball uniform, a name writ above his number.
Gohan.
"To remain like a child, and to always choose friends and family," Goku spoke under his breath, becoming straight and tall as he regarded the family now growing small across the yard.
Bulma worried her lip, staring at the blank face of her phone. "Stupid, stupid," she berated herself waspishly, but it didn't stop her from checking her email just once more.
Day 16 of self-imposed isolation, and it was taking its toll.
Status: Still holding out. Condition: Fair to poor. Her sunny strength was beginning to fray, and clouds were billowing from the north, bringing chilly winds of doubt and total, utter self-depreciating misery.
No one could say Vegeta was an idiot. At least, not the "It's been several years since my last oil change why did my car blow up/ I didn't pay my water bill why did they shut my water off/ I kissed another woman why is my girlfriend so mad" kind of complete nincompoop. Blinded by a relentless stubbornness and snobby self-absorption sometimes, absolutely, but not a complete idiot, not in the way where he couldn't perceive the consequences of his actions. The question with Vegeta was, rather, would he accept responsibility for his actions, or completely bypass the given logic and try to secure another route?
But know the terrain of consequences, he would, which was why his refusal to accept her motorcycle and his taking off for two weeks without preamble were just so frustrating: precisely because he was a man who knew better, but made the wrong decision anyway in an attempt to rewrite the logic of his given universe. He demanded things go how he wanted them to, and everything was just supposed to lie down and be that way. He was a man who could read the wind and ascertain the tea leaves, but not a man who would just accept that the answer they'd given was the only way. And she admired him for it, even as it made her want to whap him upside the head.
Bulma had dutifully played her part of strong-willed-woman-who-didn't-take-no-shit by not answering Vegeta's phone calls or texts for a week and a half. And finally, because Vegeta wasn't an idiot, he'd left her alone. But the last few days of no texts or calls—despite how unheeded they had been in the first place—had been painfully, tortuously, traitorously discouraging! Why hadn't anyone warned her that his silence would have the opposite effect on her? It wasn't punishing him; it was punishing herself! She was starting to entertain the idea of calling him and demanding to know why he hadn't called, like a clingy, crazy girlfriend.
She glanced over at her phone one more time.
And it rang.
She fumbled as she snatched it, almost dropping it before mashing the button and answering in a rush. "Hello?"
"Hey, sweet cheeks. I'm gonna need your help with something."
She growled in frustration. "What do you want, Raditz," she barked.
"Woah, there." She could practically see him hold up his hands in placation, his chumminess suddenly dampened. "Did I call at a bad time?"
She huffed dramatically. "Yes," she admitted, and then recanted. "No," she corrected firmly. Raditz felt like his head might spin off. "Things are actually slow today," Bulma tried to assert brightly, as if to convince him of how well she was doing without Vegeta. "Slow," she clarified, "and quiet," she snarled.
"Uhhhhhh." Raditz paused. "I think I know what this is about. So let's change the subject. I need some help." She heard him straighten, the chair squeaking with his weight, his voice suddenly turning polished. "If you could spare a moment, we would be exceedingly grateful if we could get your mechanical expertise on something here at the office."
"Oh yeah? Like what," she snit, even as Raditz was quite cleverly smoothing down her hackles with his submissive customer service tone.
"I'm afraid we're in need of a handyman—" he cleared his throat as Bulma's eyes narrowed dangerously—"a handy woman, rather, who could help us resolve an issue of both some crumbling plaster and computer network troubles. So not mechanical at all, but it's all the same to me. I thought it'd be easiest to kill two birds with one exceptionally beautiful stone such as yourself."
"Flatterer," she chided, refusing to be wooed and folding her arms over her chest.
She felt bad for taking her frustrations out on Raditz, who was making every effort to appease her. It wasn't like he had been the one to confess his undying love for her with the solid weight of his body on top hers, his gracious mouth on her thighs, his ripped abs pliant under her hands before promptly dumping her at dawn. No, that had been another idiot. Fuck it. He was now an idiot.
She sighed roughly, massaging the bridge of her nose. "Look, I'll be there about three. I can leave the shop in the hands of my assistant without it going up in flames for about two hours, but that's all I have to give today."
"Our partners send their deepest gratitude. Wow, Ms. Briefs, you are just so generous, and wonderful, and great—"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she issued dismissively before hanging up on Raditz. "He better not be sucking up because he thinks he doesn't have to pay me," she muttered.
She didn't bother changing into something more, uh, clean. Vegetas' staff's stuffy, virgin lawyer eyes would just have to deal with her oil-stained everything and ratty head scarf. Who was she looking good for today, anyway, if not her idiot boyfriend? Besides, she thought, stilling. She didn't even know that she'd get to meet them in a more dignified fashion, if this was Vegeta's way of breaking up with her...Or if she chose to break it off with him.
She clamped down on her panic and stuffed her tools into her red backpack. They weren't over, she assured herself. What were sixteen days apart in the how-many-ever-thousands-of-days-of-a-serious-relationship's-life? Vegeta was just an idiot. Just an idiot, that's all. She hefted a wrench, turning it over in her hand and pondering just how it might feel to whack him over the head with it.
The idiot.
As she shrugged on her jacket against the cool fall weather, calling out to her assistant to hold down the fort, the front door dinged and a man in a plain blue uniform strolled in backwards, blocking the view of the package in his arms.
Bulma slung her backpack over her shoulder and strolled over to receive him when he turned around with an oversized bouquet of dark red roses. No spray of frothy carnations, no, but silky, creamy white "forgive me" tulips against blood-red rose petals.
Bulma's jaw worked stupidly.
"Delivery for Bulma Briefs." The errand boy winked at her, setting a card beside the fat vase. "Enjoy."
She didn't even bother watching his retreating back, instead gazing at the extra large bouquet in astonishment.
"Can you believe this?" She spat, sending the roses a withering look with her arms crossed. "He thinks this fixes everything." She waved her hand contemptuously at the enormous bouquet.
Her assistant gawked helplessly at her.
She snatched the card from the counter and flipped it open.
Soon.
Her face went slack as the anger seeped from her.
Her assistant crept away, giving her some space with a healthy mixture of respect and fear.
"Idiot," she mumbled, unable to help the smile curling on her face, before shaking it off with a self-conscious scowl.
The muffled din of an office at work was reaching its climax at about three, with just an hour to go until the last day of the work week. This would be their first proper day's end since the firm opened, an unprecedented 4 o'clock dismissal, and they were all chatting away with excitement and relief in anticipation of the weekend. Mr. no'Ouji wasn't in the office again, Raditz was leaving early for a 'meeting,' and Nappa's door was closed tight, only a brave individual peering in between the blinds discovering that he was hard at work losing a game of Solitaire. The staff was pretty sure his unofficial job description was no more complicated than simply to field the phone calls of snooping reporters anyway. Anyone who'd been on the receiving end of a phone call with Nappa could commiserate.
The staff quieted and looked over as the bell to the front door dinged, and then gaped as a small woman in stained, shapeless coveralls and a handkerchief knotted atop her frizzy head sidled in.
One of the paralegals reluctantly stood to field her. "May I help you?"
The staff watched curiously as the woman put her flattened hand to her temple and saluted with a slanted smile. "I'm here to fix the internet."
She knelt over her backpack and drew a sledgehammer from its bowels, straightening as Raditz drifted out to receive her.
"It's in Vegeta's office?"
Raditz nodded, slipping his hands in his pockets.
"Then I'm going to tear the wall out and reinstall new drywall," she explained. "I'll doink around with your network once that's been done."
"Uh," Raditz said dumbly. She might as well have told him to fuck off in Swahili. "I have no idea what just came out of your mouth. Can you just get it done by the end of the day? I have a date to meet soon."
Blazing blue eyes turned slowly to meet his, and Raditz froze in place.
"Are you serious?"
Raditz balked. "Why are you being so mean?" He leaned in close, whispering. "Did you start your period or something?"
To the office's shock, Bulma grabbed Raditz by the neck tie and yanked the much taller man to her much shorter level, snarling in his face. "Ask me that ever again and I'll answer with my chainsaw."
To the staff's shock, Raditz bowed his head to the greasy little woman and replied meekly, "Yes, ma'am."
The woman let him go, ambling over to Vegeta's office and surveying the wall. She pushed up her sleeves and put her hands on her hips.
"It figures," she began to mutter, yanking out a tape measure and a pry bar. "The man just won't quit. Vegeta no'Ouji, when you get back, you're dead, you hear me?" She sent the sledgehammer careening into the plaster. "Dead!"
The office, hushed, watched her work for the last half hour of their day in fascination.
The whole apartment reeked of vinegar and cabbage.
"I'm just so mad and confused. He makes me feel stupid for liking him. Like, who would put up with his shit, except for a big dummy?" Bulma slurped noodles. "But he's just so gosh darned cute that I worry I'll swoon and fall right into his arms when he shows up again." She set the bowl of noodles with dismay on the nightstand.
Chi Chi chewed her kimchi with an open mouth and cocked one droll eyebrow at Bulma. "Frankly, I don't see the appeal."
Bulma languished on Chi Chi's bed, banging her head on the side of the mattress, hair spilling down. "I've had over two weeks to consider how I'll act when he gets back, and I still don't have a solid plan. I've avoided him with sheer pride and gumption so far, but as soon as he shows his handsome, well-cut face," Bulma lamented, "I know I'm just going to cave. I'm just going to say, 'It's okay,' like I used to with Yamcha, and then beg him for his forgiveness. It's just pitiful."
"I know," her friend reinforced flatly through a mouth full of cabbage.
"And it's not just that I miss him terribly, because I do—"
Chi Chi tried not to roll her eyes as she slathered both hot mustard and oil and vinegar all over a generous helping of fried hotdogs.
"—but I miss…I miss…." Bulma pinned Chi Chi with a harrowing look, upside down. "I miss the D."
Chi Chi's face screwed with incredulity. "Is he really that good in bed?" She balked with disbelief.
"Oh, ho ho ho ho." Bulma bellowed. "So good." Her voice got small. "Sooooo good."
"I think you need to experiment more with other men and then come back to compare." Chi Chi put her nose in the air as she said it, reminding Bulma how she was perfectly content without an older sister. "He's, like, your second. He practically rebroke your hymen. He's probably not even that good," Chi Chi argued. "He just seems like a firework show compared to zero-on-the-Richter-scale-Yamcha."
"He reciprocates." Bulma stared pointedly at Chi Chi in the way that only two women openly talking about their sex lives do and that was known to intimidate less-than-confident men. "Yamcha didn't. Yamcha wanted and wanted but never gave." Bulma made a sullen face, but then a smile stretched her cheeks. "While Vegeta has a black belt in tongue action," Bulma disclosed in a whisper, winking suggestively. "Uuuuughhhhhhh." She fell onto her back, hands over her heart. "I never get tired of it."
"You have some questionable priorities," Chi Chi chided.
Bulma swatted at her friend's foot. "I like this guy. Deal with it."
"I am. This is me dealing with it."
"I just worry, that, you know, if I try to talk to him about how he hurt my feelings, it will go like it always does when we talk about feelings. Either it will implode," Bulma's arms flailed wildly, miming an explosion, "because Vegeta's inability to process, you know, feelings. Or we will end up without any pants on." Bulma sighed dramatically, then righted herself on Chi Chi's bed. "I'm beginning to see a pattern."
"He's trying to pull the wool over your eyes." Chi Chi tsked, watching Bulma cooly. "He has you under his thumb, right where he wants you."
"In the heat of the moment, I don't care what's blindfolding me so long as he's in between my legs," Bulma contradicted.
Chi Chi choked on her kimchi and hotdogs. "You've got it bad," she finally managed. "I think I'm going to have to commit you."
Chi Chi snickered as Bulma lunged to pull Chi Chi's hair but just fell off the bed.
"You can't just let him get away with this!" Chi Chi asserted suddenly, mashing the last bite of hotdog into her face and turning back to the tv as the commercial break of her favorite drama ended. "You have to keep your dignity, B," Chi Chi declared through a mouth full of food, slapping her hand on the nightstand, "unlike these weak-willed, meek women who get trampled on by their man like it's their life's purpose." She waved her hands at the corny, soapy drama on the tv screen, and suddenly Bulma didn't think Chi Chi was referring to just her anymore. "You have to put your foot down and pull your big girl panties up. Tell him: 'You can't just treat me like a side thing. It's all or nothing. I'm either a woman you show respect and dignity or peace out. Treat me like I'm your woman or g.t.f.o.'"
Bulma was nearly sliding off the bed into a puddle on the floor. "Why is he so bad at emotional intimacy?" She asked the floor.
"End it and I'll set you up on a blind date tomorrow night." Chi Chi wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.
Bulma sent her a horizontal look of horror from the ground. "I reject your offer. This is my last attempt at putting myself out there. If this doesn't work, I'm gathering up my cats and my Garfield the cat figurines and I'm calling it good."
Chi Chi's eyes were glued to the characters arguing and weeping in turn on the tv screen, even as she polished off a final plate of macaroons that she'd hidden under her chair. "Well, then, it's time to pull out the big guns and lock him down." She licked crumbs from her fingers. "Get knocked up."
She jumped, spilling food, as Bulma let out a screech.
"Are you crazy?!" Bulma crawled over to Cheech and shook her by her shoulders. "I'm not having a baby just because misery loves company!"
"Being the only one looking forward to motherhood in our group is lonely." Chi Chi pouted, before turning away, indifferent to the levity of Bulma's possible sacrifice. "I'm just saying, you could forget to take a pill or two, and I wouldn't hold it against you."
Bulma looked at her friend in dramatic shock. "For shame," she finally whispered, shaking her head slowly. "You have really sunk low."
Chi Chi snatched pillows off the bed from her perch on the recliner and started chucking them at Bulma's head. "You shut up!" She beat the last pillow against Bulma's head over and over, muffling Bulma's shrieks. "You don't know what it's like, getting fat on enough food to satisfy a whole football team and feeling my face ache from all the hormonal crying and smiling I alternate between all day! Go ahead, complain about your perfect sex life some more! Go ahead!"
The pillow beat into the side of Bulma's head before she managed to rip it out of her friend's hands and pull Chi Chi by her ankles to the floor. Chi Chi landed with a thump, crying out in surprise, and Bulma's hands descended to her sides, tickling as Chi Chi squealed in laughter and distress.
"Stop! Stop!"
"Suggest I get knocked up again, bitch!"
Chi Chi couldn't respond through her painful cackling. "Stop! Stop! You're torturing a pregnant woman! Gokuuuu! Gokuuuuu!" Chi Chi jerked, her face crumpling. "Ow! Ow! My stomach!"
Bulma froze, hands hovering. "Ohmygod," she breathed in alarm, the mood suddenly killed. "Chi Chi, are you hurt? Are you okay? Do we need to go to the hospital?"
"No, you idiot," Chi Chi complained, looking sourly up at Bulma and rubbing her side. "I just get all these aches and pains as my belly grows. I think you made me pull a muscle."
Bulma's face fell into sympathy. "Aww, you poor thing. C'mere."
Bulma helped her friend sit up and began kneading her narrow back companionably. The pair quietly watched the characters on the tv screen.
"I haven't told my father," Chi Chi finally said softly.
The hands at her back stalled.
"WHAT?!" Bulma's face peeked over her shoulder. "Why the hell not?"
Chi Chi sighed. "We got pregnant before we even got married," she explained forlornly. "I don't want to disappoint him!" Her voice rose, and she was practically wailing now. "I don't want my father to think less of me or be mad at my poor Goku!"
She sniffled in a way that was so utterly pitiful that Bulma began squeezing her stiff neck, earning a little satisfied groan.
"You should just get pregnant so we can be miserable together," Chi Chi complained.
Bulma couldn't mask her look of horror. "How about we don't and say we did."
"You're so selfish!"
Annoying author's note: Happy 20 chapters! *blows kazoo, throws confetti, its happening gif* This is the first time in my five years as an author that I've broken twenty chapters. That's either an accomplishment or a sad profile of my productivity.
Thank you to all those who have followed, favorited, reviewed and held out hope for this fic as it limbo'd in un-updated purgatory. While you waited, it won 2nd place in the humor category in the We're Just Saiyan awards, so that's exciting.
I haven't gotten many reviews since I published the last chapter, and it makes me nervous. Did the last chapter suck? :''( I don't need Hookups to be a masterpiece, but I need to know that it's engaging you. I try not to ask for feedback (that's not always the point of writing), but if you like something or it made you feel some way, I wouldn't mind if you let me know. It would make me feel less like a sad sack failure writer.
The next three chapters have already been written and are just waiting for some spit shine, so keep your eyes peeled for them as soon as this weekend.