Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Garrulous and Gritless ❯ I, 24: Bulma ( Chapter 24 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: ShiningMoon 
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Action / Comedy / Drama / Psychological / Romance | Type: Divergence | Uploaded On: 02.28.2011 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.9K | Visits: 249 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Action / Comedy / Drama / Psychological / Romance | Type: Divergence | Uploaded On: 02.28.2011 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.9K | Visits: 249 | Status: Completed
NOTE: Sorry again for the delay (compared to my usual rate). My computer dying seriously killed my momentum. To be honest, the first part of this chapter is the only part where I really had any idea where I was going. I hope it’s okay! Hopefully I can get back on track with this story, slowly but surely, and hopefully also feel a little less rusty. Reviews are much appreciated!
…
Naturally, the moment I get the scouter to work and get all excited because I can now not only find Raditz’s location in the universe, but also communicate with him and ask him what the hell he’s up to, he crushes all my dreams. This is about how it went: after I filled Gohan in on the news (his uncle is somewhere out in space, so apparently he didn’t actually wish for his tail; that I’ll be able to talk to him—Gohan wanted in on the conversation but I figured it’d be best to avoid that trainwreck, given that Raditz might be feeling…lonely), I scurried back down to my lab to turn the scouter on—the moment of truth.
“Hello?” I spoke into it, hoping that the numbers I’d copied down from Raditz’s scouter back when I was trying to figure out how it worked were right, that I got the right frequency to communicate with him and not some other crazy space-pirate.
He says something like, “Bulma?” and then, “Shit.” Tired.
“Where are you? What are you doing?” I ask him.
“Stop bothering me,” he says—like I’ve been doing this all along, or something.
“God,” I say, “can’t I be just a little bit curious? A little bit concerned? Huh? Or am I supposed to just assume I’m never going to see you again, or what?”
It’s quiet on his end for a good long while. Then he says, “Don’t be stupid; I wouldn’t leave a Saiyan with as much potential as Kakarrot’s brat on your sorry planet to rot away like the rest of you.”
“I thought we were all going to die painful, violent deaths?” I ask helpfully. Something’s eating at him, I can tell, but I just have no idea what. If I could see his face, maybe…
“Right,” he says, “that.”
“So I take it by that answer,” I say, “that the other two Saiyans are going to get here before you get back.”
“No,” he says firmly, and I can’t tell if he’s disagreeing with my logic or with what I suggested. Damn scouters just aren’t as good for communicating as an old-fashioned videophone. Naturally, I get a bit of a warm fuzzy feeling thinking that he actually feels pretty strongly about defending us. I mean, I know that was his plan all along, for whatever reason he was making up at the time, but it’s nice to hear it.
“By the way,” I say, “the spaceship you stole from me?”
“Borrowed,” he grunts.
“Yeah, whatever. You realize it’s not finished, right?” I ask.
“Aw, shit,” he mumbles. About then the realization settles in that if he can’t get back to Earth, he can’t help fight the Saiyans off, and I think everyone else (or at least Piccolo and Gohan) really was figuring on him helping. Panic strikes.
“How are you going to get away in time?”
More quiet. “I’ll manage,” he says. “Dammit.” If his voice could reveal any more clearly the fact that he’s conflicted about something, he’d be out-and-out telling me so.
“How?” I ask, again, like it’ll work better the more I say it.
“There’s dragonballs here,” he finally says. “It’s Namek. The planet your green friend hails from. Now leave me the hell alone.”
“Raditz, I—” I start to say something or another, but what it is, I’ll never know, because right then everything goes quiet. Bastard blocked my frequency.
And here I am, trying with all my willpower not to crush the stupid thing in my hand. I can’t do that yet—maybe once I calm back down I should try to get more information about when the Saiyans are getting here. I don’t know if he was kidding—about the dragonballs, about being on this Namek place, but—if it’s a lie, it seems a little too elaborate for his style. Maybe it’s true…maybe he really is on this planet full of a bunch of people like Piccolo.
That’s enough to get me right back into the lab to keep going on the spaceship. Maybe it’s good Raditz stole the other one—this remade version is much better, anyway. I don’t know if it’ll be done before the Saiyans get here, but I’m doing everything I can. I’ll tell Gohan about the conversation later. For now, I roll up my sleeves and head back into the other room, with all my blueprints and tools littering the floor and one half-finished spaceship reaching up toward the ceiling.
…
I trudge downstairs late in the morning—it was a rough night last night; convinced myself I’d stay up until I could finish the all-important engine, thought I was almost done. I wasn’t, as it turned out—but I stayed up until I finished it anyway. Frankly, I’m impressed I managed to pull myself out of bed before mid-afternoon. With all this business of the Saiyans coming, I admit I’ve kind of put my other duties on the backburner, but Dad’s been more than happy to pick up the slack so long as I let him come look at my progress on the ship every now and again. I could really do without comments like, “But this is only a regular coffee maker,” but I guess it’s worth it.
Just as I’m dragging my sorry ass into the kitchen to get some caffeine, I glimpse someone on the living room couch. “Chi-Chi?” I ask. Mom must’ve let her in earlier. How long has she been sitting there?
“Bulma,” she sniffs out, her voice quivering in that almost-crying way. When I approach the living room I see that she has that girl Lunch with her, patting her on the back and mumbling to her in a soft voice.
I sit down on the couch beside them. “What is it, Chi-Chi?”
“Gohan and Goku came and visited me yesterday,” she says, shoulders hunched.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” I ask.
“Yes, but…” she sniffs, “but Gohan is so old! He grew up without me!” and now she really is weeping; pulls a tissue out of her pocket like it’ll be enough to stop the torrent of fluids running down her face. Lunch and I exchange glances and for just half a second I feel like I know her better than I actually do.
I wrap one arm around her shoulder. “That can’t possibly be true, Chi,” I tell her, though I know she’s right. I think I’ve seen Gohan more than she has—his visits to me with news from Piccolo, news from Son, his own guesses about what’s going on, asking for more training weights for Son and the others—and he’s become…something that a little kid like him shouldn’t be. How old is he? Seven? And he’s so heavy sometimes. It’s because of Piccolo; I know it. The kid loves him, and so far as we know, Piccolo and Kami are going to die. Piccolo himself has gone from “creepy evil guy I can’t stand” to being somehow older and wiser…the few times I’ve seen him in recent months, it’s like those constant thoughts of his death have made him realize he has to change. I doubt he’s overlooked what he’s doing to Gohan in the process.
“He still has plenty of growing up to do,” I finally add.
“All he talks about,” she goes on as if she didn’t hear me, “is how he’s going to beat the Saiyans before they can hurt Piccolo. He’s going to jump right in there and fight!” she cries, and I jump back at the sudden loudness of her voice. “And I can’t do anything to stop him!”
“I doubt Son will allow it,” I say. I don’t know if it’s true, but at least it sounds nice. “And you know what? I think if Raditz gets back in time, I don’t think he’ll allow it, either.”
Which was, I guess, the wrong thing to say, because her shining, wet eyes turn to me full of fire. “That monkey of yours,” she spits, in a way that manages to make my guilt about Yamcha resurge, filling my gut, “is not going to have anything to do with any son of mine.”
“I just meant…” I start saying, but her eyes silence me. Shit, I guess bringing up the guy who killed her husband was kind of an asshole move on my part. I sometimes forget I’m the only one around here who seems to have mental problems like getting over the fact that the guy I’m sleeping with killed one of my best friends. Don’t think I haven’t thought about it, about how the hell I live with myself. I don’t particularly like thinking about what that means. What kind of person is the sort of person who just gets over things like that? Did the dragonballs warp my idea of what death is, now that we’ve used them to bring back two people? Gods, I hope so; hope it’s not something else, something that was always in me. If I’ve thought long and hard about all the shit Raditz has done, all the people and things he’s killed, and I still want him over Yamcha—what does that make me?
She looks me over and stands up. “I’m going to talk to Goku about it,” she finally says, like she can’t stand to say what she has on her mind about Raditz or me or whatever else she was thinking about. Then she huffs out, and I hear a car starting up.
“Uh-oh,” Lunch says. “Now how am I going to get back to the island?”
“I’ll take you,” I offer. “But would you like some lunch first?” It is decidedly way too late for people who get up at normal hours to be having breakfast. She giggles, and then I realize why, and snicker too.
“Okay,” she says. “Thank you!”
I motion for her to follow me into the kitchen, almost sort of hoping she’ll get a whiff of pepper or something and sneeze. I could use a little something to distract me from what just happened. Not that Chi-Chi and I were ever really close, but I feel awful. I should have realized that Raditz would be a sore spot for her. At least I didn’t say anything about the fact that Raditz and Gohan were exchanging techniques and all that other fighter stuff on a regular basis, meeting up to spar and so on. I don’t think she’d hold up well knowing that not one, but two of the people who have or at least had an obsession with killing her husband are now her son’s best friends.
After some silence (oh god, was I just standing there spacing out?) Lunch looks up from where she’s seated herself at the table. “What…what’s going on?” she asks, and her wide eyes make me think of a child’s.
“I’m out of my mind, that’s what,” I say, shuffling over to the fridge. It is too early in the morning…or…afternoon…or…whatever it is now…for this.
“I mean,” she clears her throat politely, “um, I mean, all the boys are training, and everybody’s so worried.” Then she glances down at her hands. “When I wake back up, you know, from…” she trails off, “well, my chest feels all funny. My…my other side is so…so upset, and nobody will tell me why. Muten Roshi just says it will worry my poor little heart,” she giggles nervously, “maybe it’s true.”
Aw, damn, that’s right—that other Lunch she turns into when she sneezes, the blonde Lunch, is obsessed with that guy Tenshinhan. (Well, I can’t blame her, I guess. Creepy extra eye aside, he is pretty hot.) This one, though? I don’t know, with her. She doesn’t seem to care, or maybe it’s that she loves everybody who’ll pay attention to her (which, unfortunately, includes perverts like the turtle hermit). “Some Saiyans—these aliens—are coming to Earth soon. I guess,” now I’m glancing at my own hands, “it’s going to be a tough fight. So Raditz says.”
“Raditz?” she asks.
“Never mind,” I say. Who knows if she’ll ever meet him properly anyway—maybe we’ll be turned to dust before he gets back. I shiver at the thought. Maybe ending everything with Yamcha was a bad idea. Call me whatever you want, but there is something really depressing about thinking that I might not get another single hot makeout session with anybody before I die. Well, imagining what Raditz might do to the poor guy on the other end if he does get back in time is enough to keep me from it. He seemed in a pretty bad way when I talked to him…who knows what the hell has happened to him.
“Is that something too grimy for my ears too?” she asks, which catches my attention straight away. At first I’m sure she was kidding, but…she actually looks offended. Well, hell, if I were her, I would have strangled some answers out of somebody by now.
“Not at all,” I assure her. “Just too long a story for how little sleep I got.” She smiles at that, and fiddles with the napkins at the center of the table before apparently realizing what she was doing and folding her hands in her lap. The sight, somehow, saddens me. “Lunch,” I say, at the same time she says my name. “Go ahead,” I say.
“Do you think…I could stay here for a little while?” her eyes are pinned on her hands, still clenched together against her legs. “You could…tell me what’s bothering the other me so much…and maybe…help her.”
“I’d be happy to,” as if to commit to it, I plunk two plates down on the table, and then two glasses. Truth be told, I always wondered what exactly makes her change, anyway…then again, maybe there are some things science isn’t meant to poke around in. For instance, never will I ever try to understand how the dragonballs actually work. “I’d be happy to help you, too.”
“Help me?” cute little head tilt and squeaky little voice.
“You get walked on too much,” is all I say. Not like I’d know, really, but, “or at least, that’s the impression I get.”
She giggles and readjusts the ribbon in her hair as it begins to slip—looks like it’s had about as rough a morning as I have. “I guess it depends on how you see it,” she says. Huh. Something to mull over—I admit that I might not have been giving her enough credit, to have the kind of mental capacity for, you know...introspection.
“When we’re done eating,” I say, “care to help me work on the ship?”
“Ship?” she asks. “Like a spaceship?” I nod. She looks back down into her lap, face scrunching up. “What if I, um, you know, if I—ah—”
“You don’t need to know anything about—”
“—choo!”
Converti ng /tmp/phpNcz0yE to /dev/stdout
…
Naturally, the moment I get the scouter to work and get all excited because I can now not only find Raditz’s location in the universe, but also communicate with him and ask him what the hell he’s up to, he crushes all my dreams. This is about how it went: after I filled Gohan in on the news (his uncle is somewhere out in space, so apparently he didn’t actually wish for his tail; that I’ll be able to talk to him—Gohan wanted in on the conversation but I figured it’d be best to avoid that trainwreck, given that Raditz might be feeling…lonely), I scurried back down to my lab to turn the scouter on—the moment of truth.
“Hello?” I spoke into it, hoping that the numbers I’d copied down from Raditz’s scouter back when I was trying to figure out how it worked were right, that I got the right frequency to communicate with him and not some other crazy space-pirate.
He says something like, “Bulma?” and then, “Shit.” Tired.
“Where are you? What are you doing?” I ask him.
“Stop bothering me,” he says—like I’ve been doing this all along, or something.
“God,” I say, “can’t I be just a little bit curious? A little bit concerned? Huh? Or am I supposed to just assume I’m never going to see you again, or what?”
It’s quiet on his end for a good long while. Then he says, “Don’t be stupid; I wouldn’t leave a Saiyan with as much potential as Kakarrot’s brat on your sorry planet to rot away like the rest of you.”
“I thought we were all going to die painful, violent deaths?” I ask helpfully. Something’s eating at him, I can tell, but I just have no idea what. If I could see his face, maybe…
“Right,” he says, “that.”
“So I take it by that answer,” I say, “that the other two Saiyans are going to get here before you get back.”
“No,” he says firmly, and I can’t tell if he’s disagreeing with my logic or with what I suggested. Damn scouters just aren’t as good for communicating as an old-fashioned videophone. Naturally, I get a bit of a warm fuzzy feeling thinking that he actually feels pretty strongly about defending us. I mean, I know that was his plan all along, for whatever reason he was making up at the time, but it’s nice to hear it.
“By the way,” I say, “the spaceship you stole from me?”
“Borrowed,” he grunts.
“Yeah, whatever. You realize it’s not finished, right?” I ask.
“Aw, shit,” he mumbles. About then the realization settles in that if he can’t get back to Earth, he can’t help fight the Saiyans off, and I think everyone else (or at least Piccolo and Gohan) really was figuring on him helping. Panic strikes.
“How are you going to get away in time?”
More quiet. “I’ll manage,” he says. “Dammit.” If his voice could reveal any more clearly the fact that he’s conflicted about something, he’d be out-and-out telling me so.
“How?” I ask, again, like it’ll work better the more I say it.
“There’s dragonballs here,” he finally says. “It’s Namek. The planet your green friend hails from. Now leave me the hell alone.”
“Raditz, I—” I start to say something or another, but what it is, I’ll never know, because right then everything goes quiet. Bastard blocked my frequency.
And here I am, trying with all my willpower not to crush the stupid thing in my hand. I can’t do that yet—maybe once I calm back down I should try to get more information about when the Saiyans are getting here. I don’t know if he was kidding—about the dragonballs, about being on this Namek place, but—if it’s a lie, it seems a little too elaborate for his style. Maybe it’s true…maybe he really is on this planet full of a bunch of people like Piccolo.
That’s enough to get me right back into the lab to keep going on the spaceship. Maybe it’s good Raditz stole the other one—this remade version is much better, anyway. I don’t know if it’ll be done before the Saiyans get here, but I’m doing everything I can. I’ll tell Gohan about the conversation later. For now, I roll up my sleeves and head back into the other room, with all my blueprints and tools littering the floor and one half-finished spaceship reaching up toward the ceiling.
…
I trudge downstairs late in the morning—it was a rough night last night; convinced myself I’d stay up until I could finish the all-important engine, thought I was almost done. I wasn’t, as it turned out—but I stayed up until I finished it anyway. Frankly, I’m impressed I managed to pull myself out of bed before mid-afternoon. With all this business of the Saiyans coming, I admit I’ve kind of put my other duties on the backburner, but Dad’s been more than happy to pick up the slack so long as I let him come look at my progress on the ship every now and again. I could really do without comments like, “But this is only a regular coffee maker,” but I guess it’s worth it.
Just as I’m dragging my sorry ass into the kitchen to get some caffeine, I glimpse someone on the living room couch. “Chi-Chi?” I ask. Mom must’ve let her in earlier. How long has she been sitting there?
“Bulma,” she sniffs out, her voice quivering in that almost-crying way. When I approach the living room I see that she has that girl Lunch with her, patting her on the back and mumbling to her in a soft voice.
I sit down on the couch beside them. “What is it, Chi-Chi?”
“Gohan and Goku came and visited me yesterday,” she says, shoulders hunched.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” I ask.
“Yes, but…” she sniffs, “but Gohan is so old! He grew up without me!” and now she really is weeping; pulls a tissue out of her pocket like it’ll be enough to stop the torrent of fluids running down her face. Lunch and I exchange glances and for just half a second I feel like I know her better than I actually do.
I wrap one arm around her shoulder. “That can’t possibly be true, Chi,” I tell her, though I know she’s right. I think I’ve seen Gohan more than she has—his visits to me with news from Piccolo, news from Son, his own guesses about what’s going on, asking for more training weights for Son and the others—and he’s become…something that a little kid like him shouldn’t be. How old is he? Seven? And he’s so heavy sometimes. It’s because of Piccolo; I know it. The kid loves him, and so far as we know, Piccolo and Kami are going to die. Piccolo himself has gone from “creepy evil guy I can’t stand” to being somehow older and wiser…the few times I’ve seen him in recent months, it’s like those constant thoughts of his death have made him realize he has to change. I doubt he’s overlooked what he’s doing to Gohan in the process.
“He still has plenty of growing up to do,” I finally add.
“All he talks about,” she goes on as if she didn’t hear me, “is how he’s going to beat the Saiyans before they can hurt Piccolo. He’s going to jump right in there and fight!” she cries, and I jump back at the sudden loudness of her voice. “And I can’t do anything to stop him!”
“I doubt Son will allow it,” I say. I don’t know if it’s true, but at least it sounds nice. “And you know what? I think if Raditz gets back in time, I don’t think he’ll allow it, either.”
Which was, I guess, the wrong thing to say, because her shining, wet eyes turn to me full of fire. “That monkey of yours,” she spits, in a way that manages to make my guilt about Yamcha resurge, filling my gut, “is not going to have anything to do with any son of mine.”
“I just meant…” I start saying, but her eyes silence me. Shit, I guess bringing up the guy who killed her husband was kind of an asshole move on my part. I sometimes forget I’m the only one around here who seems to have mental problems like getting over the fact that the guy I’m sleeping with killed one of my best friends. Don’t think I haven’t thought about it, about how the hell I live with myself. I don’t particularly like thinking about what that means. What kind of person is the sort of person who just gets over things like that? Did the dragonballs warp my idea of what death is, now that we’ve used them to bring back two people? Gods, I hope so; hope it’s not something else, something that was always in me. If I’ve thought long and hard about all the shit Raditz has done, all the people and things he’s killed, and I still want him over Yamcha—what does that make me?
She looks me over and stands up. “I’m going to talk to Goku about it,” she finally says, like she can’t stand to say what she has on her mind about Raditz or me or whatever else she was thinking about. Then she huffs out, and I hear a car starting up.
“Uh-oh,” Lunch says. “Now how am I going to get back to the island?”
“I’ll take you,” I offer. “But would you like some lunch first?” It is decidedly way too late for people who get up at normal hours to be having breakfast. She giggles, and then I realize why, and snicker too.
“Okay,” she says. “Thank you!”
I motion for her to follow me into the kitchen, almost sort of hoping she’ll get a whiff of pepper or something and sneeze. I could use a little something to distract me from what just happened. Not that Chi-Chi and I were ever really close, but I feel awful. I should have realized that Raditz would be a sore spot for her. At least I didn’t say anything about the fact that Raditz and Gohan were exchanging techniques and all that other fighter stuff on a regular basis, meeting up to spar and so on. I don’t think she’d hold up well knowing that not one, but two of the people who have or at least had an obsession with killing her husband are now her son’s best friends.
After some silence (oh god, was I just standing there spacing out?) Lunch looks up from where she’s seated herself at the table. “What…what’s going on?” she asks, and her wide eyes make me think of a child’s.
“I’m out of my mind, that’s what,” I say, shuffling over to the fridge. It is too early in the morning…or…afternoon…or…whatever it is now…for this.
“I mean,” she clears her throat politely, “um, I mean, all the boys are training, and everybody’s so worried.” Then she glances down at her hands. “When I wake back up, you know, from…” she trails off, “well, my chest feels all funny. My…my other side is so…so upset, and nobody will tell me why. Muten Roshi just says it will worry my poor little heart,” she giggles nervously, “maybe it’s true.”
Aw, damn, that’s right—that other Lunch she turns into when she sneezes, the blonde Lunch, is obsessed with that guy Tenshinhan. (Well, I can’t blame her, I guess. Creepy extra eye aside, he is pretty hot.) This one, though? I don’t know, with her. She doesn’t seem to care, or maybe it’s that she loves everybody who’ll pay attention to her (which, unfortunately, includes perverts like the turtle hermit). “Some Saiyans—these aliens—are coming to Earth soon. I guess,” now I’m glancing at my own hands, “it’s going to be a tough fight. So Raditz says.”
“Raditz?” she asks.
“Never mind,” I say. Who knows if she’ll ever meet him properly anyway—maybe we’ll be turned to dust before he gets back. I shiver at the thought. Maybe ending everything with Yamcha was a bad idea. Call me whatever you want, but there is something really depressing about thinking that I might not get another single hot makeout session with anybody before I die. Well, imagining what Raditz might do to the poor guy on the other end if he does get back in time is enough to keep me from it. He seemed in a pretty bad way when I talked to him…who knows what the hell has happened to him.
“Is that something too grimy for my ears too?” she asks, which catches my attention straight away. At first I’m sure she was kidding, but…she actually looks offended. Well, hell, if I were her, I would have strangled some answers out of somebody by now.
“Not at all,” I assure her. “Just too long a story for how little sleep I got.” She smiles at that, and fiddles with the napkins at the center of the table before apparently realizing what she was doing and folding her hands in her lap. The sight, somehow, saddens me. “Lunch,” I say, at the same time she says my name. “Go ahead,” I say.
“Do you think…I could stay here for a little while?” her eyes are pinned on her hands, still clenched together against her legs. “You could…tell me what’s bothering the other me so much…and maybe…help her.”
“I’d be happy to,” as if to commit to it, I plunk two plates down on the table, and then two glasses. Truth be told, I always wondered what exactly makes her change, anyway…then again, maybe there are some things science isn’t meant to poke around in. For instance, never will I ever try to understand how the dragonballs actually work. “I’d be happy to help you, too.”
“Help me?” cute little head tilt and squeaky little voice.
“You get walked on too much,” is all I say. Not like I’d know, really, but, “or at least, that’s the impression I get.”
She giggles and readjusts the ribbon in her hair as it begins to slip—looks like it’s had about as rough a morning as I have. “I guess it depends on how you see it,” she says. Huh. Something to mull over—I admit that I might not have been giving her enough credit, to have the kind of mental capacity for, you know...introspection.
“When we’re done eating,” I say, “care to help me work on the ship?”
“Ship?” she asks. “Like a spaceship?” I nod. She looks back down into her lap, face scrunching up. “What if I, um, you know, if I—ah—”
“You don’t need to know anything about—”
“—choo!”
Converti ng /tmp/phpNcz0yE to /dev/stdout