Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Their Assignment ❯ Chapter 4

Someone is going to die! Was his first coherent thought when he realized that it had been just another dream from which he was being rudely roused from by the banging on his door. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed he quickly put on his black, and thankfully baggy, pajama bottoms. He dragged a hand through his spiky hair before he yanked open the door to snarl at the beaming moron on the other side.

He sighed and reluctantly corrected himself. The beaming guy who acted like an immature moron. After all he was in the same advanced classes he himself was in and made almost as good grades in most of them and even better grades in one of them so far. A thought that reminded him that he needed to remedy that.

He glowered at Goku, demanding to know why he was bothering him at the ungodly hour of 5:30 in the morning. His cousin gave him a quick grin before responding.

"Training, duh! Remember what you told me yesterday? You wanted to start training even earlier in the morning since our homework load has been steadily increasing and that would cut into our afternoon training."

"I did say that didn't I?" Vegeta grumbled to himself, "Alright I'll be down in 15 minutes."

He slammed his fist into Goku's stomach, dodging the uppercut launched toward his chin in retaliation. Blocking his cousin's reaching hands with his own forearms pushing them out away from his body. Goku quickly crashed his knee into Vegeta's abdomen. They fell back from each other, circling warily.

"So what's bugging you man?" Goku asked softly.

"Nothing's wrong with me Kakarott!" the shorter man snapped.

"Come one Vegeta, you know this isn't like you. You're way distracted when you're normally focused. What's up?"

"I don't know, and even if I did, I wouldn't want to talk to you about it!" with that announcement he launched a series of punches and kicks. A couple of them landed before Goku recovered and began to block and dodge them until he went on the offensive himself.

He knew his cousin had to work out whatever it was bugging him and that he'd ask for help when he was ready. Or demand it. The thought caused Goku's grin to widen as he lashed out with a roundhouse that sent Vegeta careening into a wall. Vegeta slowly picked himself up off the floor and was about to start in on his sparring partner once more when they heard a voice shouting to them from another part of the house that breakfast was ready.

They looked at each other, measuring. Both of them were breathing heavily from their exertions as sweat glistened over their perfectly chiseled chests, over the corded muscle of their necks and shoulders. "Looks like you got lucky Kakarott. Otherwise I'd have had to wipe the floor with your ass."

"Yeah sure, big talk Veggie!" Goku ribbed him before hightailing it toward the food and relative sanctuary, ignoring the indignant yells following him.

"Good morning class! Now as you know, we usually have students do what we like to refer to as a gender unit in which we compare male and female roles within literature. However, this year we're going to be doing things a bit differently. This year since there are an equal number of boys and girls, you are going to be assigned a partner whom you will work with all year long. You will each give your perspective and then analyze the work together. You will do this on every story you read, starting with Wuthering Heights that I'm going to give you this morning." Their teacher Mr. Chaisson ignored the groans that accompanied his announcement. "I would allow you to choose partners, but I don't feel like being nice today. So instead I placed all of your names on a slip of paper and then drew the names out. Now to let you know whom you're working with." Their teacher grinned at the sudden tension in the silent classroom. As soon as he started speaking more groans were heard.

"Arnold and Fatima. Sarah and Darren. Chichi and Goku," Chi latched onto Goku's neck with a small delighted squeal. "Frank and Lisa. 18 and Krillin." 18 rubbed an affectionate hand through her boyfriend's hair, giving a small satisfied grin. "Monica and Roy. Carina and Yamcha." Yamcha flopped back in his desk before he took a closer look at Carina and brightened. Vegeta heard Bulma's tiny sound of protest when she realized who her partner was going to be. "And Vegeta and Bulma. Now go get a book from the back table and then come tell me your numbers so I can write them down."

"Well looks like we're stuck with each other aren't we?" Vegeta leaned over to murmur as he rose from his desk and proceeded to get his own book. He felt her eyes following his progress as he joined the other students and he noticed her approaching Mr. Chaisson at his desk. He grabbed his book and hurried over to the desk, quickly getting close enough to where his sensitive ears could pick up what they were saying.

"So you're saying you have a problem with your partner?" their teacher asked, running a pencil through his fingers.

"Well not a problem, exactly. I would just rather not have him as my partner is all," she spoke softly, fiddling with the hem of her sweater.

"So you aren't trying to get out of this because of a lover's tiff or something are you?" he asked with a knowing expression on his face.

"What- Oh no, we don't even talk to each other very much! It's just…" she didn't say anything else, just looked at her teacher with pleading eyes.

"I'm sorry Bulma, but unless you can come up with a solid reason not to have him as your partner you're stuck. He's not a bad student and he won't expect you to do most of the work, unlike some of the other students you could get stuck with if that's what's worrying you."

"Trying to get Yamcha as a partner?" Vegeta drawled, swaggering up to the desk with his book.

"I have to sit next to you guys for 8 hours a day, I was hoping to get a break from the both of you!" she snapped back, her eyes glittering dangerously and her face flushing slightly. I wonder what's really going through that pretty head of hers…