Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Orange Star High School ❯ Drawing the Lines of Interaction ( Chapter 1 )

God, everyone seems to be doing one of these nowadays, but if you're here, then you're obviously interested, so I won't continue my bitch.

Warning: Author is a pathological liar, I own Dragonball Z. Or do I?

Orange Star High School,

By Sakuya Katsumara

Chapter One: Drawing the Lines of Interaction

Vegeta smacked the alarm on his bedside table off with a sharply. He quickly tumbled out of the small bed and made his way towards the chest of drawers. He grabbed absently inside the drawers, confident that what he blindly chose would match. After all, black never clashed with black.

He made his way into the tiny bathroom, a quick glance in the mirror told he'd chosen one of his tight turtlenecks and a pair of bondage pants. He nodded in agreement with his choice absently, before setting to the task of brushing his teeth.

After spitting out the last disgusting remnants of the minty toothpaste from his mouth, he tried futilely to run a comb through his hair. He needed to get it cut again, unless he wanted to endure `bush-head' comments from the scum at his High School.

Throwing down the comb with disgust, he made his way into the living room slash kitchen of the apartment, absently reaching down his shirt and pulling out an array of pewter necklaces from underneath the cloth.

The clock told him that the bus he needed to catch was going to arrive in ten minutes. Noticing that his stepfather was not around, he forwent breakfast, grabbed his sack and headed towards the door. He scowled at the note he found stuck there.

`Meet customer at 5 o'clock in the Garden vase, $50'

He sighed deeply and tore the note to shreds, leaving them on the floor. He'd have to vacuum today anyway, no use in wasting the effort of putting it in the trash. He'd hoped to escape this weekend. His stepfather really didn't care what he did, as long as it didn't interfere with business.

He headed out into the hallway, locked up behind him, and made his way to the elevator. He could hear voices grouped around the elevator, and he sent out a silent wish that it was just a bunch of old biddies yakking. He cursed when arrived and saw that it wasn't.

Adam and Micheal were two jocks at OSHS, the same school Vegeta was cursed to attend. They were the lowest of the low in Vegeta's opinion, and he was sure he didn't rank very high up on any of their lists either; except as a victim. He forced his unconsciously hunched shoulders to straighten themselves as he neared them and their noxious prescence.

"Look, it's Vegeta." Adam sneered, running a hand through his black hair.

"The fag decided to come out of his hole?" Micheal shoved him roughly into the elevator cabin as the door swung open.

"Fuck off." Vegeta growled, shoving his way out of the elevator and heading for the entrance to flight of stairs. He wouldn't be able to avoid the twin dip shits for long, they still had to ride the bus together, but any way he could cut down on his actual contact with the two assholes was looked upon favorably.

He ran down the staircase, he lived on the tenth floor, leaving him a lot of stairs to descend. He was sweating slightly as he came out the side exit of the building and made a dash for the bus stop. His watch told he'd have a minute to spare.

He arrived as the bus was just beginning to pull in. Adam and Micheal were engrossed in copying answers off each other (They were trying desperately to make the C honor roll), and thankfully paid no mind to him.

He slid into the seat just behind the driver. His fellow classmates were piled in the back, thinking that being farther from the bus driver made it harder for him to catch what they were doing. The only blind spot the driver had were the seats directly behind him, and with the all his attention divided between the racket behind him and the traffic in front of him, he paid no mind to what was going on right behind him.

"Can I sit here?"

A pretty girl with Mediterranean blue hair smiled at him. She dressed like a model out of a teen magazine. Her hair was cut with the latest trend, and her make up was perfectly applied.

He felt himself flush at her very prescence. He could detect a hint of a smirk, and he knew that she must be used to boys blushing and drooling all over her. She had to be, with all that cleavage she was exposing. What confused him was why he was blushing.

"Sure." He said coldly, his instinctive reaction to any situation he was unfamiliar or uncomfortable with. This fit into both categories.

"B!" An annoyingly high-pitched voice screamed from the back. He cringed involuntarily, his hands coming up instinctively to cover his ears.

"B! Why didn't you IM me that you were transferring!" A dark brunette girl whom he recognized as Chichi, chattered.

"I wanted it to be a surprise!" `B' said. Vegeta found himself absently trying to determine what the `B' was short for. ** Barbara, Barbie,… Bethany, Beebe, Beatrix,… **

"C'mon, you don't want to sit here, Bulma," Chichi couldn't hide the way her lip unpleasantly curled. "You'll catch a disease."

Bulma looked at him with alarm and allowed herself to be led away. Vegeta felt heat rise higher in his cheeks from humiliation. He cursed Radditz mentally, before pulling out his journal. It was tattered and looked about ready to fall to pieces. He'd have to re-duct tape it soon.

He idly flipped through his various ramblings and drawings. The images distracted his attention from the hissed whispers of his fellow students. They were undoubtedly about him. The worst of it was that they were probably true. He probably was a diseased. He was a fag.

Anger surged through him suddenly, his fists clenching, and the fragile binding of his journal split, sending his private thoughts flying. He jumped out of his seat and began to frantically retrieve them from the floor.

He ignored the lewd comments he received as he bent under seats, satisfying his urge to strangle them all with growling as he snatched at the papers.

He froze as he felt something warm press onto his backside.

He heard the jeers change. "He likes it!" "Way to go, Mike!" came, instead of the customary "Fag!" or "Fairy".

And someone in a panting voice said into his ear: "Oh you're such a tight little whore. Take it, bitch, take it!"

Self-protective instincts kicked in and he wrapped his legs around his assailant, much to the crowd's delight. Then, using his forearms and weight as leverage, he flipped him over his head and the assailant onto his back. He was on his feet instantly, and it was mere seconds before he had his hands around Mike's neck.

"If you **ever** fucking touch me again, I'll break your puny dick off and make you eat it." He snarled, his hands involuntarily constricting slightly.

It seemed to make his point, however, because Mike paled and nodded, and there was not a noise from his classmates.

He threw Mike back down and took a breath to calm himself. Gathering up the pieces of paper he'd found, he left for his seat. He didn't care if he didn't have the rest of the papers. There was nothing too important in them worth going back there and tempting fate again.

He didn't see a blue-haired girl pick up a sheaf of paper and slip it inside her binder unnoticed by her friend.

***(-I-)**(-I-)***

"The story is he tried to jump Radditz, a senior three years ago, at a post-game party. That's when he `came out of the closet' so to speak. Don't mention him to Goku."

"Why?"

"Radditz was his brother, and he and Vegeta were the best of friends before the incident. He gets upset when people talk about."

"That would suck, your best friend trying to get into your older brother's pants." Bulma sent a sideways glance at the boy sitting in front.

"He's trouble, Bulma." Chichi said in a warning tone.

"I don't know…" Bulma drawled coyly, fluttering her eyelashes in Vegeta's direction. Chichi's face tightened with exasperation.

"He's unconvertible, he's president of the `Gay club' here. Of course he's the only member." Chichi huffed.

Bulma made a non-committal sound as the bus pulled to a stop.

She looked to the building, quashing down any trepidation she had about not being accepted. She was Bulma Briefs; her father was owner of Capsule Corporation, one of the largest technology-based companies around. If the money couldn't buy her popularity, then the fact that she was semi-professional model (she'd only had one national ad campaign) would certainly guarantee it.

Sauntering up the steps she made her entrance into the school with Chichi by her side. They'd been best of friends when they were young, before Bulma had to move with her father's business. They'd come in contact again through a chat on AIM a year back.

She gave a dazzling smile to the boys that stared at her, and headed towards her locker.

Yes, she was most definitely not going to be unpopular.

***(-I-)**(-I-)***

Vegeta scowled at the school counselor that was following him to his locker. Mr. Carey was a skinny ex-hippie, who was thoroughly into outdated pop psychology. He was OHS' expensive school psychologist.

"So, did you find a boyfriend this summer?"

Vegeta gritted his teeth.

"No."

"That's perfectly alright, many people are late bloomers. You have a good year, alright?" Mr. Carey said cheerfully, patting him on the back before wandering off pretending to be chummy with some other students.

Snarling to himself he yanked on his broken locker door and tossed his extra textbooks into the locker. For an expensive private school like OSHS, he would have thought that they could afford decent lockers. Of course, they probably didn't give the good lockers to those who came on scholarship.

Scowling he checked his new schedule, and groaned. He was in Drama III, when he'd specifically requested metal shop. Mr. Carey must have thought he'd made a mistake, again. It was useless trying to change that prick's mind, so he merely sighed and resigned himself to yet another year of drama as he made his way down to the auditorium.

Miss Simon was not that bad of a teacher. She was very cheerful and bouncy, not to mention naturally blonde. She was young and unmarried, and therefore her class was populated with a good portion of other young **straight** guys. Not that Mr. Carey ever seemed to notice; he thought as a queer, Vegeta would be struck with an undying love of Gilbert and Sullivan. If the son of a bitch asked him to sing `I am a Modern Major General' one more time, he would not be responsible for his actions…

***(-I-)**(-I-)***

The cafeteria at OSHS was always noisy. Bulma found that noisy environments were the ones she survived best in; especially for what she was going to do next. She'd already put herself firmly in place in the popular group. Just flashing her brilliant smile, and introducing herself worked like magic.

She focused her attention to a lonely corner of the lunchroom. There sat her next challenge. Wild ebony hair, dark eyes, pale olive skin, and Spanish soap opera star eyes. He had good dress sense for a guy, of course that might have been because he was gay.

She turned her attention back to Chichi and her boyfriend Goku. Goku was captain of the basketball team, and an adorable jock. She smiled and with deliberate rudeness asked:

"So what's between you and Vegeta, Goku?"

Chichi looked as if she were being strangled. Goku went pale for a second before his face became slightly hard.

"He made out with my brother," He said flatly, before picking at his salad.

"Come on, Bulma, I'll show you where the rest of your classes are." Chichi gritted out.

As soon as they were out in the hall, Chichi turned on her.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?" She hissed like an angry cobra. All she needed was a rattle.

"Getting information, I wanted to see if the rumors were true."

"It was cruel, especially since Radditz died this summer. He found out he was HIV positive and then blew his brains out." Chichi looked grim, and Bulma flushed with embarrassment. "He's more than a little upset at Vegeta right now, that's why I told you to bring it up. It's also why I told you to avoid Vegeta, he's bad news."

"You think he gave Radditz…." Chichi nodded grimly.

"I'm sorry, Chichi…" Bulma flushed with shame.

She re-entered the cafeteria, slightly humbled. She'd not thought it'd be that bad.

"I'm sorry, Goku, I shouldn't have pried."

Goku beamed up at her.

"That's okay you didn't know."

To this she gave no comment as guilt curled tighter in her stomach.

***(-I-)**(-I-)***

Vegeta returned to his apartment after school, and found it blessedly stepfather free. He didn't have to go out until five, which was three hours from now. He headed directly to his room, and grabbed his copy of Les Miserables, and began to read.

He used to go to the Boys and Girls club downtown with Goku and study karate in the afternoons. He'd given up after the incident in his freshman year. He'd spent more time in the library and with literature since.

His eyes drifted to the framed photo on the dresser. He should have thrown it out… It was the photo of him and Goku, after the final soccer game of the season. He was still dressed in his bright orange uniform, and sweaty from coming off the field. Goku had hoisted him up on his shoulder in celebration for the block he'd made against the opposing team, securing their victory. It wasn't until later that night that they'd cease to be friends.

He looked at his watch, and had found that in all his navel-gazing, time had moved forward. It was now four-thirty, and he had to be in the park in another half-hour. With a sigh he climbed off the bed, kicked on his shoes, and slid on his black trench coat. He went out into the table by the doorway, on which sat his mother's blue china vase. He pulled out the garish false silk flowers, and pulled out the packet of white powder. He snarled at it with disgust before tucking it into his inside coat pocket, and heading out.

The park was a moderate distance from his apartment building, and by the time he arrived it was a few minutes after five. He sat down on his usual park bench. Out of the corner of his eye he could see a young woman with large sunglasses on, dressed in an expensive tan coat, and wearing a red headscarf coming towards him. He did not look at her as she came to sit beside him.

"The fifty," she said and he realized her voice was familiar. He looked down could see the edge of the fifty-dollar-bill underneath her leather-gloved hand. He made a vague nod, reached in his pocket and pulled out the pouch, and set it near her coat pocket. She moved to stuff it in her pocket, as he grabbed the bill.

"Thank you." She said before walking off.

Vegeta blinked as he realized whom the buyer was. It was Chichi Mau, Goku Son's girlfriend, his ex-best friend. He should tell him what his girlfriend had gotten into, cocaine only led to a very dead end. Not that Goku would believe him. He hadn't believed him when he'd claimed that he hadn't kissed Radditz, that he hadn't given Radditz AIDS, why should he believe his perfect, popular, girlfriend would ever do smack?