Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Hookups And Hangups ❯ Chapter 1 ( Chapter 1 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: springandbysummerfall 
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Comedy / Romance | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 07.19.2013 | Updated On: 08.01.2015 | Pages: 4 | Words: 5.6K | Visits: 571 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Comedy / Romance | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 07.19.2013 | Updated On: 08.01.2015 | Pages: 4 | Words: 5.6K | Visits: 571 | Status: Work In Progress
Hi there, new reader! This story has received a lot of attention, so I guess I will go ahead and tack on an author's note and let any new readers know that this story uses a much more casual prose than some of my stories, and if that's not your thing, you might want to go ahead and hop off the wagon. This story is also not meant to reflect any DBZ characters accurately—that is to say, I exaggerate some qualities of each character and reimagine the rest, and if that's not your thing, let’s retouch on hopping off the wagon. I wrote this story for fun. The prose is wacky; the plot is silly. It is irreverent, it is juvenile, it touches sometimes on intimacy and relationships. At its worst, it's fan service. Enjoy!
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Chi Chi groaned and gently tugged the last curler from her silky black hair before smothering it in a cloud of hairspray. "Bulma. Your expectations are too high. You are never going to find a man like that. Don't think of it like lowering your standards. Think of it like being effing REASONABLE!”
Bulma let out an unladylike snort as she haphazardly applied a bright shade of red lipstick to her pursed lips.
Chi Chi yanked it from her fingers. "Give me. You truly are terrible at being a girl. Flatten your lips.”
"If I have to be an old maid for the rest of my life while the rest of you are changing dirty diapers and complaining about your husband's man boobs, then I will," Bulma grumped as Chi Chi drew red stain over Bulma's parted lips, earning herself a little slap on the arm.
"Wow, Bulma. You are a piece of work, you know that," Chi Chi griped as she threw the lipstick back onto the vanity and sat on the bed to slip on her heels.
Chi Chi watched, beleaguered and amused from out of the corner of her eyes, as Bulma shot herself a few winks and thumbs-ups in her full length mirror before grabbing up her coat. Bulma didn't make it far, promptly falling on her back onto Chi Chi's bed with a big "hmph," blowing her hair out of her eyes as she stared at the ceiling.
"First brains. Then beauty." She put her counting fingers in Chi Chi's face. "Then class. That's all I'm asking for in a man.”
Chi Chi rolled her eyes and stood dismissively, adjusting her cleavage before throwing on her own knee-length wool coat.
"What were your exact words? You want a man that is 'stunningly handsome, chivalrous—‘“
"Don't forget filthy rich.”
“—with a, what was it? Benevolent mouth, whatever that means," she griped, "and a 'sweet and whispering adoration’—oh my god, Bulma, what, did you fail poetry class?—a whispering adoration in the bedroom—“
"That rivals his success in the field of neuroscience and mechanical engineering. What? That's not too much to ask. Just because it's not your type of man, as evidenced by your goofball of a boyfriend—“
"Too far, Bulma, too far!" Chi Chi warned.
Bulma smiled and wrapped her scarf around her neck, leaning against the front door of the women's shared apartment. "I love Goku. He's great. Seriously, you guys are really good for each other," she gushed sincerely. Chi Chi looked touched, until Bulma continued. "Surprisingly. But really, you have my blessing.”
"Couldn't just leave it at the compliment, could you, Briefs," Chi Chi complained before bumping Bulma out of the way with her hip and jerking open the front door. "Goku is sweet, and talented, and amazing." Chi Chi swooned against the screen door as Bulma locked the wood door and pocketed the keys.
"Not to mention he makes the best wontons," Bulma added.
"Aw. Yeah," Chi Chi smiled wistfully, cheeks pinkening. "My Goku loves to eat. It makes sense he'd love to cook. But no. He leaves the cooking to me. Except the wontons, for whatever reason," she grouched.
"Oh, admit it, Cheech, you love taking care of him. Just like you love taking care of me," Bulma said brightly.
Chi Chi cut her a chagrined look. "It'd just be nice if someone cooked for me once in awhile.”
"Better you than me," Bulma responded dryly. "My dream man's going to make me breakfast and dinner every day, served with a little flower in a vase on the side. No cooking for me, no way.”
"That's because you couldn't fry an egg if your life depended on it.”
Bulma scoffed playfully. "Yeah, well, I could use a man who'd cook for me." She glanced away sheepishly. "The Thai Place down the street is starting to ask me how my mother's bunions are doing.”
"Why on earth are you talking about your personal life with them anyway?" Chi Chi balked.
"I'm lonely," Bulma responded with exaggerated heartache, clutching her friends arm and resting her head on her shoulder.
"That's why we're trying to get you to go out with us," Chi Chi cajoled.
"Oh, not this again.”
"Goku says he thinks you'll really like this guy!" Chi Chi gave her friend a pleading look that Bulma translated as 'You are absolutely pitiful.’
"Oh, whatever," Bulma snapped. "He just better be cute. And filthy rich. And extremely intelligent. Oh, and doting. He better be willing to rub my feet. In fact, I'm now making that a requirement for potential boyfriends. I expect it to be in bold on their resumes.”
"It's decreed!" Chi Chi exclaimed, giggling.
"For realsies. Or Goku owes me a carton of pad thai. And have him ask how Mai Lee's cousin is doing, you know, the one who gambled all his wife's savings away.”
"Oh, Bulma, you're sad.”
The women sauntered down the city street, the Saturday nightlife muffled by the din of traffic and a violet sky that threatened snow.
"Make sure he tells them to leave the vegetables out. I don't like vegetables.”
"Yeah, sure, Briefs," Chi Chi groused, sighing. "At this rate, you're never going to get a man.”
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The women entered the noisy restaurant and bar, their hair settling around their faces as the door shut stubbornly against the wind.
Chi Chi searched the room until she found Goku's familiar wild hair and pulled Bulma towards him by her coat sleeve with barely restrained excitement.
Bulma was already snoring. The people crowding the bar in this upscale neighborhood frequented by lawyers and accountants were raucous this Saturday night, and she scrunched her nose up in contempt.
Chi Chi threw her arms around Goku, squeezing his chest tightly. "Hey! I missed you.”
"But you saw me last night!" Goku smiled brilliantly, and Bulma tried not to upchuck at their display of affection.
Though she truly did approve of Chi Chi's beau. And despite Chi Chi's admonishments of Bulma's love life, Bulma had seen her no-nonsense, purposeful friend tear through a dozen boyfriends since they'd decided to roomie together sophomore year, so Bulma was sincerely happy she had finally found a man that satisfied her.
Broadly alike, they were both hard working women in male-dominated fields that weren't afraid to make a decision that somebody wouldn't like. They only appeared to be opposites. Well, they also kept house differently, in the small way that Chi Chi was totally neurotic about keeping a neat and tidy house while Bulma wasn't ashamed to admit she'd slept in Dorito crumbs the other night.
Chi Chi was slim, almost wiry, with a gymnast’s build and a bird's appetite...albeit an organic, free-range only type of bird, Bulma considered sourly. She kept her long, straight hair neat and smooth, and her closet was full of very chic skirts and tailored shirts. In fact, Bulma was wearing one of her outfits (trying to), since her own wardrobe was full of grease-smeared sweaters and holey jeans. ("Just because you're a mechanic doesn't mean you have to dress like one," Chi Chi had chided her when Bulma suggested skipping the shower before going out tonight). She even wore these absolutely elegant nighties to bed—who wears nighties to bed in real life?—in beautiful creams and olives and sapphire blues….Whereas Bulma woke up with hair sticking every which way, one side of her boxers stuck a little too far up her butt and her eyes firmly closed until she'd had her fourth cup of coffee. Bulma didn't know how Chi Chi did it. Magic, she guessed. Bulma tried to mimic her friend's self control when they first became friends, only to have given up a few minutes in, once she decided it was just something people were born with.
Yes, while both women were dedicated to their careers and got along swell (in the sometimes catty way that girl friends do), there was a stark lifestyle difference between them that was noticeable to everybody.
Bulma was also shorter, with a rounder face and curvier body that wasn't half as model-esque as Chi Chi’s. She was often mistaken to be much younger than she was, but not when it mattered like when she was getting carded. Chi Chi was impressively, unquestionably, a lady, and Bulma...well, the only thing she had going for her was her chest, and it just wasn't enough to seal the deal after she'd mouthed off a few times too many.
Chi Chi had tried to set her up with some of her and Goku's high profile friends, but it had been a nuclear fallout. A few had been interested, in an amused way, upon hearing her profession, but none of them amused her. Bulma found them all particularly stuffy, and conceited, and typical, and for all that she went on about finding a rich man to take care of her, Bulma had very limited patience for rich men. Once she'd snidely remarked to a date that she'd use his MBA for toilet paper for all she cared about laissez-faire capitalism, and that had been the last time Chi Chi tried to set her up on a date.
Bulma smiled suddenly, indulgently at her friend, who was trying to convince Goku that they should have sushi Monday night and go see a film, though Goku look pained as he tried to—carefully, very carefully—suggest eating takeout and watching a movie at home instead. Bulma smirked as Chi Chi oscillated between wanting to override Goku and being plainly flabbergasted that he didn't want to go. After all, even Bulma was civilized enough to get out and about sometimes, visiting the indie theater every Tuesday night to shovel popcorn into her maw and enjoy some sort of poorly-funded film with subtitles. Bulma put her hand on Goku's shoulder and gave them both a dazzling smile, overcome suddenly with love for them both, before insisting that there was a place right next to the theater that had the best Indian cuisine that they would both enjoy.
She had watched Goku, of all people—a sunnily cheerful, laid back, unambitious lawyer in a top firm—open Chi Chi up and bring out an affectionate, patient (well, nearly patient) side to her friend, a side that no one but Chi Chi's half-cracked single father and Bulma could get out of her. Bulma was grateful for Goku, that a man so good natured and happy just to be alive could so be so appreciative and committed to her severe and ostentatious friend. Together, they were well balanced, and Bulma suspected their relationship would go the distance.
Bulma, on the other hand…
She surveyed Goku's sharp dressed co-worker buddies, wondering which hee-hawing lawyer was her unfortunate date tonight with quickly diminishing enthusiasm. They leaned their elbows on the bar, expensive bottled beer and scotch in their grips, paying no attention to her as they laughed boisterously at some terrible, lewd joke.
She knew a few of them. Krillin, the shortest one, was Goku's good friend, and he'd been over to their place a few times for drinks and dinner. Bulma found him pleasant enough and harmless. He wasn't her type, though, and she was glad that he was polite enough to maintain his distance. Well, Bulma's smart mouth probably helped, too.
Then there was Raditz, a cousin of Goku's, one of the few men she'd ever seen who could pull off a pony tail without looking sleazy. He was handsome, sure, his suit stark against his alabaster skin as he rolled his eyes at something Nappa had said. His lips pulled up in a vainglorious smirk as he winked at the woman bartender like a strutting cock. They hadn't spoken since the last time one of their arguments had gotten out of hand and Bulma had told him that his priggish, haughty attitude and his holier-than-thou fashion sense was only a coverup for his obvious desire to eat a cock.
He had avoided her since.
Not that Bulma was complaining.
Even Chi Chi had berated her for turning Raditz down on a night that they'd had too much boxed wine, laying out a carefully plotted and considered agenda for why Raditz and Bulma would be good for each other. Once Bulma had picked her jaw up off the floor, she replied with deadly seriousness, "If you're havin' problems setting me up with some douche, I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems and Raditz ain't one." And shortly fell off the bed from a kick to the hip.
Sure, she had her fair share of teasing her best friend. Chi Chi had pounced to tickle her, but Bulma had wisely licked the rest of the unspilled chocolate ice cream off her spoon and asked if she wanted to go make fun of the contestants on West City Idol. Poor Cheech, she just couldn't resist it. Every Wednesday night, she hate-watched West City Idol, and even Goku couldn't get her off the couch between 7 and 8 as she yelled at the TV and alternately dabbed her eyes at an underdog contestant's angelic voice.
But truly, Raditz was full of himself and entirely self-interested, and he just reminded Bulma of a particular scar-faced ex from college that she hoped was cursed forever to experience excruciating pain in his groin whenever he thought to bring a girl home to the apartment they'd once shared.
No, not even Turles, the older, ruggedly handsome man who acted as a mentor to Goku, could turn Bulma's head.
She watched Nappa down a pint of cheap ale and grimaced. Nevermind that meat head, even as ripped as he was. (Though Chi Chi had said that Goku had said that Nappa consumed nothing but frozen salisbury steak and fruit gummies. Also, way too much Red Bull.)
She'd been through all this before, and if this was the best Chi Chi and Goku could do, she'd rather die an old maid with her carton of pad thai and ice cream clenched to her chest and Scratch on her lap.
Why couldn't Chi Chi understand the appeal of that?
"A Pepsi, please," Bulma instructed the bartender as he approached the women, and they peeled their coats and scarves off as Goku nudged a bar stool towards Chi Chi with his toes.
It wasn't that Bulma was too high maintenance that she couldn't 'find' a man, it was just...she was...different. Chi Chi had worked hard throughout college, pouring herself unapologetically into her textbooks and practice cases with relentless ambition and single minded focus. Bulma, on the other hand, increasingly shirked her homework, skipping class to do...what? Chi Chi had wondered. Or rather, hollered. Why wasn't she taking law school seriously? This was a very serious matter! "You're not my mom!" Bulma had yelled back juvenilely before stomping out of the house...and then turned around to poke her head back around the corner to inform Chi Chi that she had dropped out.
"You what?" Chi Chi had choked out.
"I dropped out. I'm a small business owner now.”
"A what?" Chi Chi's eyes looked like they were soon going to roll into the back of her head.
"I opened up my own shop.”
"Doing what, pray tell?”
Bulma smiled dazzlingly. "Fixing Volkswagens.”
Bulma, as her mother affectionately put it, was a hands-on kind of girl and a teensy bit of a daydreamer, and it wasn't until Chi Chi had called Mrs. Briefs (being something like a second daughter at this point) to tell her (shout at her) the news that Chi Chi finally calmed down and accepted this new event as something-that-was-actually-happening in Bulma's life.
The ever cheery, spacey Mrs. Briefs had actually revealed her excitement at her daughter's plan, and explained that she had always known an orthodox, high profile career was just not in her daughter's acumen.
"Honey, she was accepted into a doctoral program in mechanical engineering when she was 16, and offered a tenured position at 18," Mrs. Briefs had told Chi Chi moonily, as relaxed about the situation as her frustrating daughter. "It's not like my little girl hasn't finished college already!”
"What?" She'd gasped. "Then why the hell did I meet her as a freshman in college?!" Chi Chi screeched.
"Well," Mrs. Briefs mused slowly into the phone, "Bulma didn't like feeling like she'd missed all these important milestones, I think. She was lonely. She thought law might be a good way to balance her intellect with her argumentative nature. So she quit Capsule Corp and went back to school!" Mrs. Briefs chirped summarily.
"Yeah, she seem to has a habit of quitting," Chi Chi muttered fussily. She sighed.
"She just has her own way of doing things, hun," Mrs. Briefs assured her. "But don't you think that she doesn't need you. You have been very, very good for her.”
Which was why Chi Chi had been biting her tongue, trying to have as much patience as possible for the mess of a woman she called her best friend, and why, eventually, she thought maybe a man was the piece Bulma felt was missing from her life. Except, expectantly, Bulma's stubbornness was getting in the way of finding her someone.
Bulma was content with her line of work and her cat and her romance books and her barely there social life. So why was Chi Chi pushing her to be different? A man wasn't going to make her any happier. She had tried that route in college. No, picking up a man's dirty underwear, staring at her watch as she waited for him to cum already and finding him in their bed with another woman was definitely not going to make her life any more meaningful.
Goku pulled out a stool for Bulma and turned his contagious smile to her. "What's up, Bulma? How are you?”
She forced a smile and draped her coat and scarf over the stool. "I've been better, honestly, Goku." Chi Chi elbowed her in the ribs. "Just kidding," she corrected her previous statement with poorly disguised dishonesty, and Chi Chi rolled her eyes and pulled a lock of Bulma's hair.
"So where's this man Bulma must meet?" Chi Chi interrupted with over-effusive cheeriness, glancing over the group of men guffawing behind Goku. Her face pinched with distaste.
"You know what," Bulma interrupted, holding her hands up placatingly, "I'm going to go use the little super girl's room. If I can find it through all these accountant bros and all this bad cologne.”
Chi Chi looked like she was about to rip off Bulma's arm in an attempt to make her stay put.
"I'll be back," she promised. Bulma turned on her heel and hurriedly made her way through the crowd to avoid being hauled back to the spot by her ear.
As soon as she entered the restroom she assured the valet she could wipe herself (to his silent horror) and slammed the bathroom door shut, falling onto the cold toilet with a sigh. She loved her friend, she really did, but these kinds of circuses where the boys club of West City came to throw money around and wait for women to dote on their job titles wasn't her idea of a good time.
Once she exited the spacious stall, her heels tapping on the slate tile, she tried ignoring the valet as she kind of patted whatever it was Chi Chi did to her hair back in place. She smoothed the front of her tailored shirt, the buttons really stressed as her chest threatened to pop them clean off, and awkwardly wiggled in the pencil skirt, wondering if it was supposed to fit so snugly at the knees that she felt like she was taking little baby steps everywhere. She glanced up at the valet, who glanced away in mortification.
Surely this was the twenty first century, right? Surely a woman could wear pants out without scorn from her peers? Chi Chi had nagged and nagged at her this evening for not having anything appropriate to wear for a night out…at least until Bulma hollered, "There! I put on some deodorant! Does that make you happy?! Yeesh!" as she untucked her work shirt from her trousers and pushed her stick of deodorant into her armpit maniacally.
"Bulma," Chi Chi had sighed, resting her forehead in her hand. "I refuse to believe you're a lost cause," assuring herself more than Bulma.
Bulma blew air sharply through her nose and readied herself in front of the bathroom door. Maybe if she just buried herself in a basket of nachos this blind date guy would leave her alone. This was that kind of bar, wasn't it?
She was relieved when the valet didn't offer to open the door for her, and the sound of glasses tinking, men laughing, and jazz floated toward her. The restaurant had somehow gotten even more crowded in the few minutes she had used the restroom, and she tried finding her way back to the bar, slinking through the crowd. It didn't help that she was a petite woman. Her height, she had theorized, made it not only difficult to see Goku's big head but made it nearly impossible to be intimidating, as she finally resorted to pushing people out of her way.
A man's shoulder knocked her chest as she barreled through, her breath escaping in a rush and her brows knitting furiously. "Watch it, jerk," she growled.
"You're the one who bumped into me," countered a deep, amused voice, and Bulma's mouth thinned as she glanced up into the eyes of the prick getting sassy with her.
Rich dark eyes regarded her from a chiseled, tan face with the assured hunger of a predator assessing its prey. His expression, however, was reserved, despite his full black lashes and his debonair suit. His sharply angled jaw tightened with disapproval as he took her in.
"What's your problem?" Bulma's eyes narrowed. "A classic case of short man syndrome, I'll bet.”
He stared down his nose at her with straightforward contempt. "Rather a Napoleon than a trifling, frothing Marie Antoinette.”
"Excuse me?!" Were her eyebrows about to rip at the seams? "I am a Marie Curie, get it right!" She snarled.
"I'm sorry," he smiled impishly, "did all that radium exposure hinder your wit as well as your height?”
"Listen here, bud," she seethed, inching closer to him and gritting her teeth upwards in his face. "I don't have the time or the patience for a Backstreet Boy wannabe like you," glancing distastefully at the man's long, upwards styled hair. "Now mope back to your miserable bloated life on Wall Street and spare me the odor of your hair gel.”
The man’s—extraordinarily handsome, she had to admit—face turned dusky and he closed the gap between them, chest heaving with restrained irritation.
"Take your ridiculous blue curls and the extra padding from all that cake and get out of your superior's sight, Mademoiselle Antoinette," he crooned into her face.
Can steam legitimately come out of one's ears? Bulma thought there might just be a first time for everything.
"Ohhh, you pompous, arrogant, self-absorbed, facetious bastard," she drew through gnashed teeth.
"Take up more of my time and I will have to charge you at an advanced rate," he smiled cruelly, before walking past her, though not before knocking her back lightly with his shoulder. "Besides," he called over his shoulder, "I like my Wall Street whores with a little less padding from all that cake.”
Bulma's nails dug into her clenched fists and she let out a little sound like a shrieking tea kettle as she watched the man walk off leisurely into the crowd. Her mouth opened once, twice, like a fish out of water, and it wasn't until she was able to pry her shoulders down from her ears that she managed a tight, "Yeah, well, the 90's called, and they want their bad hair back! Argh!" She wheedled, and stomped towards the bar, marching in the wrong direction twice before finding her friend, who was trying to maintain a conversation with Raditz and failing to look interested.
“--and that's why my agent said I should hold off on the modeling career to wait until after I become a full partner at the firm."
"Uh huh. Well, I'm sure your other partners will at least admire your beauty until you're able to make money off of it. Bulma, hello," she said dryly, turning towards her with wide, harried eyes and a tight smile. "Let's go for a smoke," she said through grit teeth, gesturing towards the door leading outside with her eyes. She pulled her friend with jerky little tugs towards the terrace, where the bar boasted a balcony, closed until warmer weather, that had currently been adopted by smokers.
"Ohmygod, what is wrong with Raditz lately? Some schmuck put it into his head that he should model underwear for Kami's sake, and now it's all the man talks about." Chi Chi pulled a pack of cigarettes from her coat pocket, her tone changing as she frowned with concern at her friend. "Jeez, Bulma, you're tense. What's wrong with you?”
"I'll tell you what's wrong with me!" The blue haired woman all but yelled, eyes wild as she struck the match and put it to the tip of her cigarette. "You drug me to this awful Wall Street swingers club where I'm pretty sure some freak show just CALLED ME FAT and said I was MARIE ANTOINETTE, when clearly I am Marie Curie! I have never heard something so insulting in all my life!”
"Bulma Briefs, you need to get out once in awhile! Scratch can live without you a few hours!”
Bulma blew smoke angrily and looked pleadingly at her friend.
"And what are you talking about," Chi Chi continued. “Some guy accosted you on the way to the bathroom?”
"He accosted me after the bathroom. The guy was a total nincompoop! And the valet thing. What is that? It's just weird!" Bulma looked up at the cloudy night sky with frustration, her face lit softly by a string of lantern lights that scored the outside patio railing. "I don't know. It's just, that's why I hate these places. Goku is so sweet, Cheech, don't get me wrong. He's in a league of his own." Chi Chi snorted at that affectionately. "But these are the kinds of assholes I have to prove myself to everyday. They come in driving their brand new BMW's or their restored Porsche's and they're like 'I'm having a carburetor problem, fix it' and I'm like 'No you're not, I'm the professional, and I say it's a transmission problem,’ and then they're like 'Well I don't feel like paying you after all this work because you're a woman and are unable to comprehend anything beyond the color of your nail polish—‘"
"Okay, enough car talk, I'm drawing a blank with all this car stuff.”
“—Okay, but these are just the kinds of assholes, the kind of rich kids who think I'm just a pair of tits, I'm just the fucking secretary or something that somehow blundered into this industry. Well, I'm not. And I'm not scared to tell them off! And they just can't stand being proven wrong by a woman!”
"We all know you're not a pair of tits, Briefs," Chi Chi smiled warmly at her friend before snuffing her cigarette out. "Believe me, you've made that very clear, to everyone you meet, unfortunately. For being a shut-in grease monkey, you have a mouth on you the size of a dinner plate.”
"Shut up," Bulma complained, before drawing her friend in for a grateful side squeeze.
"The better to give a blow job with," Chi Chi whispered suggestively, opening the door and letting Bulma go first.
"Not interested," Bulma reparteed, already feeling better. "Please tell me this is the last time you're going to bring me to one of these places to set me up with someone?" Bulma's eyes wiggled encouragingly.
"You need a man who's husband material," Chi Chi mused. "Someone happy to put up with your soda pop swilling and weekend-long pair of pajamas. That's why you're here, remember? Us older ladies, we're not 21 anymore. We gotta work to meet men now.”
Bulma groaned.
"Goku left to go find your date. He'd taken a phone call or something before we got here. I bet they're waiting for us now," she encouraged Bulma sweetly, pushing her friend ahead of her in the crowd and giving her a light tap on the behind, which Bulma swatted away with affectionate irritation.
"Goku says he thinks you guys will really get along. The man is ambitious, well-respected in the industry, rich," Chi Chi whispered alluringly, "and, I'm sure, a total fireworks show in the sack.”
"Yeah, well if he's a Raditz or a Krillin, I'm out.”
"Don't be like that," Cheech snapped, pushing her toward the bar, which bobbed in their sight between the mass of bodies. "This will be good for you. And Goku was adamant that you guys would really get along." Finally the crowd broke, and Bulma saw Goku's characteristic hair (that Bulma had watched, giggling, as Chi Chi try to slick down with her spit more than once).
Raditz was smirking into his beer behind him as, to Bulma's rapidly escalating dread, the same sharp-tongued, well-dressed nincompoop who'd run into her on the way out of the bathroom stood suavely against the bar, all perfectly contained savagery, listening to Nappa ramble with little attention.
"Chi Chi! Bulma! I have someone I'd like you to meet!" Goku was pulling Bulma to his side, grinning idiotically as he gestured at the stranger…
..."Bulma, Vegeta, meet your date tonight!”...
whose eyes met Bulma's with an equal amount of dismay.
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Chi Chi groaned and gently tugged the last curler from her silky black hair before smothering it in a cloud of hairspray. "Bulma. Your expectations are too high. You are never going to find a man like that. Don't think of it like lowering your standards. Think of it like being effing REASONABLE!”
Bulma let out an unladylike snort as she haphazardly applied a bright shade of red lipstick to her pursed lips.
Chi Chi yanked it from her fingers. "Give me. You truly are terrible at being a girl. Flatten your lips.”
"If I have to be an old maid for the rest of my life while the rest of you are changing dirty diapers and complaining about your husband's man boobs, then I will," Bulma grumped as Chi Chi drew red stain over Bulma's parted lips, earning herself a little slap on the arm.
"Wow, Bulma. You are a piece of work, you know that," Chi Chi griped as she threw the lipstick back onto the vanity and sat on the bed to slip on her heels.
Chi Chi watched, beleaguered and amused from out of the corner of her eyes, as Bulma shot herself a few winks and thumbs-ups in her full length mirror before grabbing up her coat. Bulma didn't make it far, promptly falling on her back onto Chi Chi's bed with a big "hmph," blowing her hair out of her eyes as she stared at the ceiling.
"First brains. Then beauty." She put her counting fingers in Chi Chi's face. "Then class. That's all I'm asking for in a man.”
Chi Chi rolled her eyes and stood dismissively, adjusting her cleavage before throwing on her own knee-length wool coat.
"What were your exact words? You want a man that is 'stunningly handsome, chivalrous—‘“
"Don't forget filthy rich.”
“—with a, what was it? Benevolent mouth, whatever that means," she griped, "and a 'sweet and whispering adoration’—oh my god, Bulma, what, did you fail poetry class?—a whispering adoration in the bedroom—“
"That rivals his success in the field of neuroscience and mechanical engineering. What? That's not too much to ask. Just because it's not your type of man, as evidenced by your goofball of a boyfriend—“
"Too far, Bulma, too far!" Chi Chi warned.
Bulma smiled and wrapped her scarf around her neck, leaning against the front door of the women's shared apartment. "I love Goku. He's great. Seriously, you guys are really good for each other," she gushed sincerely. Chi Chi looked touched, until Bulma continued. "Surprisingly. But really, you have my blessing.”
"Couldn't just leave it at the compliment, could you, Briefs," Chi Chi complained before bumping Bulma out of the way with her hip and jerking open the front door. "Goku is sweet, and talented, and amazing." Chi Chi swooned against the screen door as Bulma locked the wood door and pocketed the keys.
"Not to mention he makes the best wontons," Bulma added.
"Aw. Yeah," Chi Chi smiled wistfully, cheeks pinkening. "My Goku loves to eat. It makes sense he'd love to cook. But no. He leaves the cooking to me. Except the wontons, for whatever reason," she grouched.
"Oh, admit it, Cheech, you love taking care of him. Just like you love taking care of me," Bulma said brightly.
Chi Chi cut her a chagrined look. "It'd just be nice if someone cooked for me once in awhile.”
"Better you than me," Bulma responded dryly. "My dream man's going to make me breakfast and dinner every day, served with a little flower in a vase on the side. No cooking for me, no way.”
"That's because you couldn't fry an egg if your life depended on it.”
Bulma scoffed playfully. "Yeah, well, I could use a man who'd cook for me." She glanced away sheepishly. "The Thai Place down the street is starting to ask me how my mother's bunions are doing.”
"Why on earth are you talking about your personal life with them anyway?" Chi Chi balked.
"I'm lonely," Bulma responded with exaggerated heartache, clutching her friends arm and resting her head on her shoulder.
"That's why we're trying to get you to go out with us," Chi Chi cajoled.
"Oh, not this again.”
"Goku says he thinks you'll really like this guy!" Chi Chi gave her friend a pleading look that Bulma translated as 'You are absolutely pitiful.’
"Oh, whatever," Bulma snapped. "He just better be cute. And filthy rich. And extremely intelligent. Oh, and doting. He better be willing to rub my feet. In fact, I'm now making that a requirement for potential boyfriends. I expect it to be in bold on their resumes.”
"It's decreed!" Chi Chi exclaimed, giggling.
"For realsies. Or Goku owes me a carton of pad thai. And have him ask how Mai Lee's cousin is doing, you know, the one who gambled all his wife's savings away.”
"Oh, Bulma, you're sad.”
The women sauntered down the city street, the Saturday nightlife muffled by the din of traffic and a violet sky that threatened snow.
"Make sure he tells them to leave the vegetables out. I don't like vegetables.”
"Yeah, sure, Briefs," Chi Chi groused, sighing. "At this rate, you're never going to get a man.”
````````
The women entered the noisy restaurant and bar, their hair settling around their faces as the door shut stubbornly against the wind.
Chi Chi searched the room until she found Goku's familiar wild hair and pulled Bulma towards him by her coat sleeve with barely restrained excitement.
Bulma was already snoring. The people crowding the bar in this upscale neighborhood frequented by lawyers and accountants were raucous this Saturday night, and she scrunched her nose up in contempt.
Chi Chi threw her arms around Goku, squeezing his chest tightly. "Hey! I missed you.”
"But you saw me last night!" Goku smiled brilliantly, and Bulma tried not to upchuck at their display of affection.
Though she truly did approve of Chi Chi's beau. And despite Chi Chi's admonishments of Bulma's love life, Bulma had seen her no-nonsense, purposeful friend tear through a dozen boyfriends since they'd decided to roomie together sophomore year, so Bulma was sincerely happy she had finally found a man that satisfied her.
Broadly alike, they were both hard working women in male-dominated fields that weren't afraid to make a decision that somebody wouldn't like. They only appeared to be opposites. Well, they also kept house differently, in the small way that Chi Chi was totally neurotic about keeping a neat and tidy house while Bulma wasn't ashamed to admit she'd slept in Dorito crumbs the other night.
Chi Chi was slim, almost wiry, with a gymnast’s build and a bird's appetite...albeit an organic, free-range only type of bird, Bulma considered sourly. She kept her long, straight hair neat and smooth, and her closet was full of very chic skirts and tailored shirts. In fact, Bulma was wearing one of her outfits (trying to), since her own wardrobe was full of grease-smeared sweaters and holey jeans. ("Just because you're a mechanic doesn't mean you have to dress like one," Chi Chi had chided her when Bulma suggested skipping the shower before going out tonight). She even wore these absolutely elegant nighties to bed—who wears nighties to bed in real life?—in beautiful creams and olives and sapphire blues….Whereas Bulma woke up with hair sticking every which way, one side of her boxers stuck a little too far up her butt and her eyes firmly closed until she'd had her fourth cup of coffee. Bulma didn't know how Chi Chi did it. Magic, she guessed. Bulma tried to mimic her friend's self control when they first became friends, only to have given up a few minutes in, once she decided it was just something people were born with.
Yes, while both women were dedicated to their careers and got along swell (in the sometimes catty way that girl friends do), there was a stark lifestyle difference between them that was noticeable to everybody.
Bulma was also shorter, with a rounder face and curvier body that wasn't half as model-esque as Chi Chi’s. She was often mistaken to be much younger than she was, but not when it mattered like when she was getting carded. Chi Chi was impressively, unquestionably, a lady, and Bulma...well, the only thing she had going for her was her chest, and it just wasn't enough to seal the deal after she'd mouthed off a few times too many.
Chi Chi had tried to set her up with some of her and Goku's high profile friends, but it had been a nuclear fallout. A few had been interested, in an amused way, upon hearing her profession, but none of them amused her. Bulma found them all particularly stuffy, and conceited, and typical, and for all that she went on about finding a rich man to take care of her, Bulma had very limited patience for rich men. Once she'd snidely remarked to a date that she'd use his MBA for toilet paper for all she cared about laissez-faire capitalism, and that had been the last time Chi Chi tried to set her up on a date.
Bulma smiled suddenly, indulgently at her friend, who was trying to convince Goku that they should have sushi Monday night and go see a film, though Goku look pained as he tried to—carefully, very carefully—suggest eating takeout and watching a movie at home instead. Bulma smirked as Chi Chi oscillated between wanting to override Goku and being plainly flabbergasted that he didn't want to go. After all, even Bulma was civilized enough to get out and about sometimes, visiting the indie theater every Tuesday night to shovel popcorn into her maw and enjoy some sort of poorly-funded film with subtitles. Bulma put her hand on Goku's shoulder and gave them both a dazzling smile, overcome suddenly with love for them both, before insisting that there was a place right next to the theater that had the best Indian cuisine that they would both enjoy.
She had watched Goku, of all people—a sunnily cheerful, laid back, unambitious lawyer in a top firm—open Chi Chi up and bring out an affectionate, patient (well, nearly patient) side to her friend, a side that no one but Chi Chi's half-cracked single father and Bulma could get out of her. Bulma was grateful for Goku, that a man so good natured and happy just to be alive could so be so appreciative and committed to her severe and ostentatious friend. Together, they were well balanced, and Bulma suspected their relationship would go the distance.
Bulma, on the other hand…
She surveyed Goku's sharp dressed co-worker buddies, wondering which hee-hawing lawyer was her unfortunate date tonight with quickly diminishing enthusiasm. They leaned their elbows on the bar, expensive bottled beer and scotch in their grips, paying no attention to her as they laughed boisterously at some terrible, lewd joke.
She knew a few of them. Krillin, the shortest one, was Goku's good friend, and he'd been over to their place a few times for drinks and dinner. Bulma found him pleasant enough and harmless. He wasn't her type, though, and she was glad that he was polite enough to maintain his distance. Well, Bulma's smart mouth probably helped, too.
Then there was Raditz, a cousin of Goku's, one of the few men she'd ever seen who could pull off a pony tail without looking sleazy. He was handsome, sure, his suit stark against his alabaster skin as he rolled his eyes at something Nappa had said. His lips pulled up in a vainglorious smirk as he winked at the woman bartender like a strutting cock. They hadn't spoken since the last time one of their arguments had gotten out of hand and Bulma had told him that his priggish, haughty attitude and his holier-than-thou fashion sense was only a coverup for his obvious desire to eat a cock.
He had avoided her since.
Not that Bulma was complaining.
Even Chi Chi had berated her for turning Raditz down on a night that they'd had too much boxed wine, laying out a carefully plotted and considered agenda for why Raditz and Bulma would be good for each other. Once Bulma had picked her jaw up off the floor, she replied with deadly seriousness, "If you're havin' problems setting me up with some douche, I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems and Raditz ain't one." And shortly fell off the bed from a kick to the hip.
Sure, she had her fair share of teasing her best friend. Chi Chi had pounced to tickle her, but Bulma had wisely licked the rest of the unspilled chocolate ice cream off her spoon and asked if she wanted to go make fun of the contestants on West City Idol. Poor Cheech, she just couldn't resist it. Every Wednesday night, she hate-watched West City Idol, and even Goku couldn't get her off the couch between 7 and 8 as she yelled at the TV and alternately dabbed her eyes at an underdog contestant's angelic voice.
But truly, Raditz was full of himself and entirely self-interested, and he just reminded Bulma of a particular scar-faced ex from college that she hoped was cursed forever to experience excruciating pain in his groin whenever he thought to bring a girl home to the apartment they'd once shared.
No, not even Turles, the older, ruggedly handsome man who acted as a mentor to Goku, could turn Bulma's head.
She watched Nappa down a pint of cheap ale and grimaced. Nevermind that meat head, even as ripped as he was. (Though Chi Chi had said that Goku had said that Nappa consumed nothing but frozen salisbury steak and fruit gummies. Also, way too much Red Bull.)
She'd been through all this before, and if this was the best Chi Chi and Goku could do, she'd rather die an old maid with her carton of pad thai and ice cream clenched to her chest and Scratch on her lap.
Why couldn't Chi Chi understand the appeal of that?
"A Pepsi, please," Bulma instructed the bartender as he approached the women, and they peeled their coats and scarves off as Goku nudged a bar stool towards Chi Chi with his toes.
It wasn't that Bulma was too high maintenance that she couldn't 'find' a man, it was just...she was...different. Chi Chi had worked hard throughout college, pouring herself unapologetically into her textbooks and practice cases with relentless ambition and single minded focus. Bulma, on the other hand, increasingly shirked her homework, skipping class to do...what? Chi Chi had wondered. Or rather, hollered. Why wasn't she taking law school seriously? This was a very serious matter! "You're not my mom!" Bulma had yelled back juvenilely before stomping out of the house...and then turned around to poke her head back around the corner to inform Chi Chi that she had dropped out.
"You what?" Chi Chi had choked out.
"I dropped out. I'm a small business owner now.”
"A what?" Chi Chi's eyes looked like they were soon going to roll into the back of her head.
"I opened up my own shop.”
"Doing what, pray tell?”
Bulma smiled dazzlingly. "Fixing Volkswagens.”
Bulma, as her mother affectionately put it, was a hands-on kind of girl and a teensy bit of a daydreamer, and it wasn't until Chi Chi had called Mrs. Briefs (being something like a second daughter at this point) to tell her (shout at her) the news that Chi Chi finally calmed down and accepted this new event as something-that-was-actually-happening in Bulma's life.
The ever cheery, spacey Mrs. Briefs had actually revealed her excitement at her daughter's plan, and explained that she had always known an orthodox, high profile career was just not in her daughter's acumen.
"Honey, she was accepted into a doctoral program in mechanical engineering when she was 16, and offered a tenured position at 18," Mrs. Briefs had told Chi Chi moonily, as relaxed about the situation as her frustrating daughter. "It's not like my little girl hasn't finished college already!”
"What?" She'd gasped. "Then why the hell did I meet her as a freshman in college?!" Chi Chi screeched.
"Well," Mrs. Briefs mused slowly into the phone, "Bulma didn't like feeling like she'd missed all these important milestones, I think. She was lonely. She thought law might be a good way to balance her intellect with her argumentative nature. So she quit Capsule Corp and went back to school!" Mrs. Briefs chirped summarily.
"Yeah, she seem to has a habit of quitting," Chi Chi muttered fussily. She sighed.
"She just has her own way of doing things, hun," Mrs. Briefs assured her. "But don't you think that she doesn't need you. You have been very, very good for her.”
Which was why Chi Chi had been biting her tongue, trying to have as much patience as possible for the mess of a woman she called her best friend, and why, eventually, she thought maybe a man was the piece Bulma felt was missing from her life. Except, expectantly, Bulma's stubbornness was getting in the way of finding her someone.
Bulma was content with her line of work and her cat and her romance books and her barely there social life. So why was Chi Chi pushing her to be different? A man wasn't going to make her any happier. She had tried that route in college. No, picking up a man's dirty underwear, staring at her watch as she waited for him to cum already and finding him in their bed with another woman was definitely not going to make her life any more meaningful.
Goku pulled out a stool for Bulma and turned his contagious smile to her. "What's up, Bulma? How are you?”
She forced a smile and draped her coat and scarf over the stool. "I've been better, honestly, Goku." Chi Chi elbowed her in the ribs. "Just kidding," she corrected her previous statement with poorly disguised dishonesty, and Chi Chi rolled her eyes and pulled a lock of Bulma's hair.
"So where's this man Bulma must meet?" Chi Chi interrupted with over-effusive cheeriness, glancing over the group of men guffawing behind Goku. Her face pinched with distaste.
"You know what," Bulma interrupted, holding her hands up placatingly, "I'm going to go use the little super girl's room. If I can find it through all these accountant bros and all this bad cologne.”
Chi Chi looked like she was about to rip off Bulma's arm in an attempt to make her stay put.
"I'll be back," she promised. Bulma turned on her heel and hurriedly made her way through the crowd to avoid being hauled back to the spot by her ear.
As soon as she entered the restroom she assured the valet she could wipe herself (to his silent horror) and slammed the bathroom door shut, falling onto the cold toilet with a sigh. She loved her friend, she really did, but these kinds of circuses where the boys club of West City came to throw money around and wait for women to dote on their job titles wasn't her idea of a good time.
Once she exited the spacious stall, her heels tapping on the slate tile, she tried ignoring the valet as she kind of patted whatever it was Chi Chi did to her hair back in place. She smoothed the front of her tailored shirt, the buttons really stressed as her chest threatened to pop them clean off, and awkwardly wiggled in the pencil skirt, wondering if it was supposed to fit so snugly at the knees that she felt like she was taking little baby steps everywhere. She glanced up at the valet, who glanced away in mortification.
Surely this was the twenty first century, right? Surely a woman could wear pants out without scorn from her peers? Chi Chi had nagged and nagged at her this evening for not having anything appropriate to wear for a night out…at least until Bulma hollered, "There! I put on some deodorant! Does that make you happy?! Yeesh!" as she untucked her work shirt from her trousers and pushed her stick of deodorant into her armpit maniacally.
"Bulma," Chi Chi had sighed, resting her forehead in her hand. "I refuse to believe you're a lost cause," assuring herself more than Bulma.
Bulma blew air sharply through her nose and readied herself in front of the bathroom door. Maybe if she just buried herself in a basket of nachos this blind date guy would leave her alone. This was that kind of bar, wasn't it?
She was relieved when the valet didn't offer to open the door for her, and the sound of glasses tinking, men laughing, and jazz floated toward her. The restaurant had somehow gotten even more crowded in the few minutes she had used the restroom, and she tried finding her way back to the bar, slinking through the crowd. It didn't help that she was a petite woman. Her height, she had theorized, made it not only difficult to see Goku's big head but made it nearly impossible to be intimidating, as she finally resorted to pushing people out of her way.
A man's shoulder knocked her chest as she barreled through, her breath escaping in a rush and her brows knitting furiously. "Watch it, jerk," she growled.
"You're the one who bumped into me," countered a deep, amused voice, and Bulma's mouth thinned as she glanced up into the eyes of the prick getting sassy with her.
Rich dark eyes regarded her from a chiseled, tan face with the assured hunger of a predator assessing its prey. His expression, however, was reserved, despite his full black lashes and his debonair suit. His sharply angled jaw tightened with disapproval as he took her in.
"What's your problem?" Bulma's eyes narrowed. "A classic case of short man syndrome, I'll bet.”
He stared down his nose at her with straightforward contempt. "Rather a Napoleon than a trifling, frothing Marie Antoinette.”
"Excuse me?!" Were her eyebrows about to rip at the seams? "I am a Marie Curie, get it right!" She snarled.
"I'm sorry," he smiled impishly, "did all that radium exposure hinder your wit as well as your height?”
"Listen here, bud," she seethed, inching closer to him and gritting her teeth upwards in his face. "I don't have the time or the patience for a Backstreet Boy wannabe like you," glancing distastefully at the man's long, upwards styled hair. "Now mope back to your miserable bloated life on Wall Street and spare me the odor of your hair gel.”
The man’s—extraordinarily handsome, she had to admit—face turned dusky and he closed the gap between them, chest heaving with restrained irritation.
"Take your ridiculous blue curls and the extra padding from all that cake and get out of your superior's sight, Mademoiselle Antoinette," he crooned into her face.
Can steam legitimately come out of one's ears? Bulma thought there might just be a first time for everything.
"Ohhh, you pompous, arrogant, self-absorbed, facetious bastard," she drew through gnashed teeth.
"Take up more of my time and I will have to charge you at an advanced rate," he smiled cruelly, before walking past her, though not before knocking her back lightly with his shoulder. "Besides," he called over his shoulder, "I like my Wall Street whores with a little less padding from all that cake.”
Bulma's nails dug into her clenched fists and she let out a little sound like a shrieking tea kettle as she watched the man walk off leisurely into the crowd. Her mouth opened once, twice, like a fish out of water, and it wasn't until she was able to pry her shoulders down from her ears that she managed a tight, "Yeah, well, the 90's called, and they want their bad hair back! Argh!" She wheedled, and stomped towards the bar, marching in the wrong direction twice before finding her friend, who was trying to maintain a conversation with Raditz and failing to look interested.
“--and that's why my agent said I should hold off on the modeling career to wait until after I become a full partner at the firm."
"Uh huh. Well, I'm sure your other partners will at least admire your beauty until you're able to make money off of it. Bulma, hello," she said dryly, turning towards her with wide, harried eyes and a tight smile. "Let's go for a smoke," she said through grit teeth, gesturing towards the door leading outside with her eyes. She pulled her friend with jerky little tugs towards the terrace, where the bar boasted a balcony, closed until warmer weather, that had currently been adopted by smokers.
"Ohmygod, what is wrong with Raditz lately? Some schmuck put it into his head that he should model underwear for Kami's sake, and now it's all the man talks about." Chi Chi pulled a pack of cigarettes from her coat pocket, her tone changing as she frowned with concern at her friend. "Jeez, Bulma, you're tense. What's wrong with you?”
"I'll tell you what's wrong with me!" The blue haired woman all but yelled, eyes wild as she struck the match and put it to the tip of her cigarette. "You drug me to this awful Wall Street swingers club where I'm pretty sure some freak show just CALLED ME FAT and said I was MARIE ANTOINETTE, when clearly I am Marie Curie! I have never heard something so insulting in all my life!”
"Bulma Briefs, you need to get out once in awhile! Scratch can live without you a few hours!”
Bulma blew smoke angrily and looked pleadingly at her friend.
"And what are you talking about," Chi Chi continued. “Some guy accosted you on the way to the bathroom?”
"He accosted me after the bathroom. The guy was a total nincompoop! And the valet thing. What is that? It's just weird!" Bulma looked up at the cloudy night sky with frustration, her face lit softly by a string of lantern lights that scored the outside patio railing. "I don't know. It's just, that's why I hate these places. Goku is so sweet, Cheech, don't get me wrong. He's in a league of his own." Chi Chi snorted at that affectionately. "But these are the kinds of assholes I have to prove myself to everyday. They come in driving their brand new BMW's or their restored Porsche's and they're like 'I'm having a carburetor problem, fix it' and I'm like 'No you're not, I'm the professional, and I say it's a transmission problem,’ and then they're like 'Well I don't feel like paying you after all this work because you're a woman and are unable to comprehend anything beyond the color of your nail polish—‘"
"Okay, enough car talk, I'm drawing a blank with all this car stuff.”
“—Okay, but these are just the kinds of assholes, the kind of rich kids who think I'm just a pair of tits, I'm just the fucking secretary or something that somehow blundered into this industry. Well, I'm not. And I'm not scared to tell them off! And they just can't stand being proven wrong by a woman!”
"We all know you're not a pair of tits, Briefs," Chi Chi smiled warmly at her friend before snuffing her cigarette out. "Believe me, you've made that very clear, to everyone you meet, unfortunately. For being a shut-in grease monkey, you have a mouth on you the size of a dinner plate.”
"Shut up," Bulma complained, before drawing her friend in for a grateful side squeeze.
"The better to give a blow job with," Chi Chi whispered suggestively, opening the door and letting Bulma go first.
"Not interested," Bulma reparteed, already feeling better. "Please tell me this is the last time you're going to bring me to one of these places to set me up with someone?" Bulma's eyes wiggled encouragingly.
"You need a man who's husband material," Chi Chi mused. "Someone happy to put up with your soda pop swilling and weekend-long pair of pajamas. That's why you're here, remember? Us older ladies, we're not 21 anymore. We gotta work to meet men now.”
Bulma groaned.
"Goku left to go find your date. He'd taken a phone call or something before we got here. I bet they're waiting for us now," she encouraged Bulma sweetly, pushing her friend ahead of her in the crowd and giving her a light tap on the behind, which Bulma swatted away with affectionate irritation.
"Goku says he thinks you guys will really get along. The man is ambitious, well-respected in the industry, rich," Chi Chi whispered alluringly, "and, I'm sure, a total fireworks show in the sack.”
"Yeah, well if he's a Raditz or a Krillin, I'm out.”
"Don't be like that," Cheech snapped, pushing her toward the bar, which bobbed in their sight between the mass of bodies. "This will be good for you. And Goku was adamant that you guys would really get along." Finally the crowd broke, and Bulma saw Goku's characteristic hair (that Bulma had watched, giggling, as Chi Chi try to slick down with her spit more than once).
Raditz was smirking into his beer behind him as, to Bulma's rapidly escalating dread, the same sharp-tongued, well-dressed nincompoop who'd run into her on the way out of the bathroom stood suavely against the bar, all perfectly contained savagery, listening to Nappa ramble with little attention.
"Chi Chi! Bulma! I have someone I'd like you to meet!" Goku was pulling Bulma to his side, grinning idiotically as he gestured at the stranger…
..."Bulma, Vegeta, meet your date tonight!”...
whose eyes met Bulma's with an equal amount of dismay.