Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Too Close for Comfort ❯ Nostalgia ( Chapter 7 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Disclaimer: I don't own DBZ.

A/N: Thanks for the reviews, they've really helped me speed this along! I'm sort of changing my writing style a bit for the sake of the story to help things flow a bit better, so I apologize if the difference is too obvious.

Lots of things to cover, so let's get to it! Hope you enjoy. Please review!




Too Close for Comfort




Chapter Seven: Nostalgia




Putting her pen down with a frustrated sigh, Bulma stopped writing to shake her hand wildly for the second time after starting to fill out the mountain of paperwork Vegeta had given her. While it didn't provide much relief mentally, somehow it gave her the feeling of loosening up the tightened muscles in her hand. Was she holding the pen too tightly? She knew she had a habit of doing that, so it was hard for her to write for a long period of time. This is what computers are for! Bulma was starting to get a little irritated with the monotony. Writing down the same information over and over was quite tedious, even though each form she filled out was for a different purpose. It was mostly personal information, a couple questionnaires about job integrity, and mandatory employee safety forms.

Strangely enough, she had been in his office for forty-five minutes and he had not spoken a word to her, and she dared not even breathe wrong in his presence due to his scrutiny. His previous display of nitpicking her outfit left her a little unnerved. She knew he was just trying to intimidate her and see how eager to please she was, and while she was eager to please him for the sake of her job, she wasn't about to go around at his bidding and wait on his hand and foot, let alone dress the way he specified. What was she supposed to do, offer to take it off? She had found his behavior weird, and it had caught her off guard for a moment when she considered how quickly she had gotten dressed that morning in her failed efforts to make it to work on time, but she simply didn't see why he had felt the need to mess with her like that. She could play that game if he wanted, and he obviously wanted her to. He seemed to be underestimating her brain power. What a stupid thing to do, especially to a Breifs. Bulma smiled to herself, in spite of the dull pain in her hand, picking up the pen with vigor to fill out the rest of the papers quickly so she could get started working on something more interesting.

Vegeta quickly glanced up at the woman in his office filling out paperwork on his own desk. It was odd for him to be around another person in such close proximity for so long in a single day, except maybe for Kakkarott, whose presence was seldom desired in the first place. He seemed to grow upon Vegeta's very existence like a barnacle. He just couldn't get rid of that guy. Was he trying to watch him or something? He'd have to look into that a bit later. He wasn't always unpleasant to talk to, though, and Vegeta supposed that could be considered a plus. In contrast to Kakarott's intrusive presence, Bulma was easy to dismiss. He could kick her out of the office any time he pleased, but for some reason he hadn't, and had instead tolerated her presence, which was surprisingly not difficult at all. He had not spoken to her even once since she began writing. He somehow enjoyed the silence. It was like he was alone, even though he wasn't, but for a rare moment in his daily life, he was okay with that, existing in that moment. A comfortable quietness.

For some reason, since the girl had entered his office, people who had passed by his door with an intent to speak with him had suddenly veered away and busied themselves with something else. Ah, the benefits of a glass wall! Vegeta had developed a sense of self-satisfaction in that his employees would take any excuse to not bother him, even if it was a lame one. Any other office and they would be scrambling in with lame excuses to meet the new recruit.

Suddenly, Bulma cleared her throat and he quickly turned his head towards her.

"I'm finished!" She claimed victoriously, a large smile of accomplishment gracing her features. He gestured with his hand and she passed him the clipboard.

He checked his watch. Almost an hour, and it had felt like no time at all. She had completed the papers rather quickly. He chuckled a bit. "I'm surprised you've lasted this long."

She was flooded with an uncomfortable, sour feeling of confusion, but it was quickly replaced by that of smugness. Messing with me again, eh? "What do you mean by that?"

"Well, not just job-wise, but staying in my office for this long without being ordered to leave or leaving voluntarily." He casually flipped through the papers she had just painstakingly filled out, checking for any inconsistencies or spots that she had missed.

Bulma almost rolled her eyes but quickly stopped herself. "Pff," She shook her head. "If anything, that's a great accomplishment on my part! Quit trying to scare me off. You couldn't be that intolerable."

He looked up at her briefly, his face branded with a scowl. She returned it with one of her own for a split second, but then gave him a sweet smile in replacement. Charmingly forced, of course. He rummaged around for his pen and clicked the end of it, at the ready to mark out anything just in case she had made the slightest mistake. She knew he wouldn't even have to use it. There was yet another silence, but free of the discomfort and awkwardness that had permeated it just the day before. Suddenly, his face twisted into a smirk.

"That's a challenge if I ever heard one."

Bulma allowed herself a short laugh at his late reply. She smiled, yet said nothing, watching him continue to read things over. It was probably wrong to imitate familiarity with someone so unpredictable. Why was he messing with her like that? He was definitely an odd one.

She leaned back in her seat, relaxing a bit as she listened to the almost inaudible tick of the clock. After spending some time together, even if they said almost nothing to each other, the air of uneasiness had almost dissipated yet she was left with a light, butterfly-like feeling in her stomach. She was unfamiliar with that form of anxiety, as she had never felt nervous talking to people she didn't know well before.

Is this how you feel around your boss? She had never met someone that she had wanted to impress, or needed to prove herself to. She wasn't even sure that he would become that person to her, as that would verge too much on admiration for her liking, but wasn't that what a boss was?

She was sure that there were bosses out there who got along with their staff famously. Ones who attended staff parties, had a desk out among their peers despite their superior positions, or even maintained close friendships with those they employed. Bulma examined Vegeta carefully, from the stiff way he sat himself in his comfortable-looking chair to his deeply furrowed brow. Indeed, he was not that type. What type was he, then? Would be scream at her if she made a mistake? She hadn't seen him raise his voice above a level appropriate for indoors, but from the stories Chichi had told her, he was quite capable of such abilities. She wasn't one to doubt his potential for meanness or cruelty, even though she hadn't yet encountered such behavior herself, at least not to an extreme level. Bulma couldn't imagine herself being yelled at by someone she didn't know very well and not saying anything back for the sake of her future employment. Would she even be able to keep her mouth shut, if the time came that he yelled at her? Probably not. She couldn't imagine what she would do if she was fired for being insolent. She'd probably laugh, but Chichi probably wouldn't find it too funny. If he were older than her then it might make sense, but... A sudden question struck her thoughts and it slipped out with little thought.

"How old are you?" After the words escaped her lips, Bulma wanted to close her eyes and chide herself for not even thinking before speaking, but for the sake of her pride she kept her gaze steady.

He didn't even look up. "Very."

"Haha. Very mature answer."

Vegeta's unexpected glare shot down Bulma's high spirits, making her think she had been a bit too playful with him. I guess he can dish it out but he can't take it. He softened the intensity of his scowl and returned his attention to her paperwork.

"That was a rude question to begin with." He said casually, not sounding offended.

She felt a bit irked at that comment. "Well if that's the case, you were rude to ask it in the first place!" His subsequent confusion pleased her greatly. He doesn't remember.

"I didn't ask you-"

"You did. During my interview you asked me how old I was." She crossed her arms. He slowly looked up at her. "You aren't even supposed to ask that as a question, right? To someone being considered for a job, anyway, right? With equal opportunity and whatnot." She thought she saw his eye twitch, but she wasn't sure.

"Hn." He looked back down.

She was met with yet another silence. Fine then, be that way. She didn't expect him to answer, but it would have satisfied her curiosity. Why had she asked that in the first place? She couldn't remember. The whim had probably just struck her very suddenly, as things often did. She turned her head towards the glass wall that separated his office from the department. People were making quite a fuss about something, everyone was getting out of their chairs and either hurrying to finish a task or walking out of the office area into the break room. She saw the tall guy she had met in the elevator the day before making his way over to the office with a silly grin plastered on his face. She remembered him very well, and his name sprung to her mind like that of a familiar friend.

"Ah, it's Goku!" She said with a degree of excitement as he approached the door, opening it without knocking. His eyes lit up with recognition as he greeted her with a smile, while Vegeta didn't make any notice of his presence at all in his office.

"Hey, it's Bulma!" She gave him a sugary smile in return. "So, I see you've finished the legendary pile of paperwork?"

"Haha! It certainly was tough, but-"

Vegeta cut her off, his eyes still scanning the paperwork. "Take her on break with you. I've got other things to do and you can carry out your small talk elsewhere."

Goku teasingly feigned anger, crossing his arms with a pout. "Yikes, someone's grumpy today!" Vegeta growled at him with impatience and Bulma struggled to muffle a giggle, yet she wasn't without a sense of urgency, so she stood up quickly. "Bulma, let's go, we should leave the boss man to do...Whatever it is he does in this office all day long. I'll show you around." She delightfully acquiesced and let him lead the way out of Vegeta's office.

Once she exited, it was like a massive pressure had been lifted off her shoulders and the muffled sounds from the outside returned to her now in full volume, like she had been shocked back alive after being in a state of semi-consciousness. It was like she couldn't think correctly or clearly as long as she was in that room.

"So how was your first trip to the dungeon?" Goku asked her playfully as they walked toward the elevator. Bulma allowed herself another smile, but she didn't want to appear too giddy to finally be out of there.

"I somehow managed to escape unscathed! Thanks for your early rescue." He gave her a corny thumbs up with a wink, welcomed with Bulma's laughter, and they stepped inside the elevator. They somehow managed to squeeze themselves inside along with more than ten other people. Bulma found herself noticing that there were mirrors in the elevator, as if to make it seem like there were even more people than there actually were. She felt slightly claustrophobic for a moment, but thankfully they weren't in the elevator for long. As they stumbled out on the bottom floor, they lost each other in the confusion for a moment as everyone who had been in the elevator rushed outside to have a smoke, but Goku dramatically maneuvered himself out of the way of the stampede and over to Bulma. He shook his head.

"Do you smoke?" He asked.

"Well... sometimes. I don't think I'd ever smoke at work. I don't want my clothes to smell all nasty from being around so much smoke outside with everyone." She said. Goku nodded and led her over to a small cafeteria on the first floor with a glass door that she had somehow failed to notice on her way in, probably due to the rush she had been in. That morning she just about broke the heel of her shoe off, running like a madwoman through the parking lot to the elevator. As she saw the security guards at the front desk, she gave a small wave and an apologetic smile, since she hadn't gotten the chance to greet them that morning, either. She hoped that in the hopefully unlikely circumstance she were to be let go in her first week that they wouldn't remember her as the one girl who ran in the building running late on her first day, slamming the button for the elevator repetitively until it arrived without so much as a hello. To her relief, they waved back with a smile. Goku opened the door for her and she stepped in.

The cafeteria was flooded with natural light, shining crisply through a wall of very large floor-to-ceiling windows. Tiny little booths were squeezed up in front of them, back to back like they were placed inside a little family-owned restaurant, along with free-standing tables and chairs for people to maneuver around as they wished, either to group up with their coworkers around a small table or to sit by themselves. The connection was undeniable, it quite vividly reminded her of how her high school cafeteria looked, with cliques sitting together in the school lunchroom, large windows and all. 'Where was I, during those times?' she wondered as she gazed around the room at people chatting amicably with one another. It had been forever since she had last thought of high school. She remembered all of the time she spent in the hallways goofing around between classes (and sometimes during), yet somehow with little effort getting the best grades in her class, even graduating as the valedictorian two years early. To those students who worked harder than her yet couldn't manage to surpass her, this was her most annoying trait, however she had always remained blissfully unaware of those outside of her social circle, which was, in her own opinion, the greatest fault of her younger years. Being inconsiderate of others to an extent was what fueled her 'spoiled rich girl' image in high school, yet her smarts were what made her even more of an enigma among her peers.

Looking out the large windows of the cafeteria, she realized that there was a beautiful courtyard outside, covering the expanse between the few massive buildings that made up Seiya Corp. The burst of green reminded her of how she spent most of her afternoons, watching Yamcha during baseball practice, sometimes while reading a book. Rain or shine she would wait for him, and watch him play. She considered that to be one of her most dedicated practices, as his girlfriend. She may not have gone to all his games, or she may not have always been available every weekend for them to go out on a date, but every school day she would wait for him there, sometimes only parting with a wave goodbye and no other acknowledgment of her presence. Bulma suddenly realized that there was never that sort of dedication, even halfheartedly, from Yamcha. Sure, he would always wish her luck on her exams, which she took only so that she would be able to graduate in the same year as him, but he never went out of his way to establish that sort of rapport with her like she had struggled to maintain with him, day after day, even if she had something else to do. The blinding green struck her eyes sharply and she flinched a bit, a heavy, tugging sadness suddenly flooding her chest.

Goku looked over at his counterpart, her eyes worrisome. "You okay, Bulma?"

She snapped out of her reverie and looked at him sheepishly. "Sorry, I don't know what's been going on with me lately. My mind has these odd tangents and I get stuck on something. Just one thing, I keep thinking about it, and mulling it over and over in my head until it gets to a point where it just never ceases to depress me, no matter what the beginning thought was."

He nodded, putting his hands in his pockets and adjusting his stance a bit so he could stand closer to her. "I get that sometimes, too. It's a sort of negative cycle that your mind gets trapped in."

Bulma nodded as well, looking down in slight embarrassment. 'Why did I have to say it like that to him?' At that moment, she decided that she would have to establish a sort of filter in her mind for what she would consider work appropriate. First with asking Vegeta his age, and now this? It was like her brain was setting her up to sabotage herself. Not to say that she and her brain were disconnected in any way, but at that moment she wondered if maybe that was what was going on. Crossing wires. She was very grateful he was being kind to her, though. There were a lot of things he could have said that would have pointed out her strangeness but he somehow avoided it. Did he do that on purpose, or was the nicest thing he could possibly say the only thing that happened to pop up in his mind? She looked over at Goku, and he had a super serious look on his face, catching her off guard.

"Maybe you need some vitamins or something."

"HA!" She snorted, then covered her face. I can't believe I laughed like that. Goku was such a funny guy, she couldn't help but laugh. She felt like she had known him for a long time even though they had only met a couple times. It was an odd feeling that she hadn't experienced before. It was completely unromantic, which wasn't what she had figured she would be feeling if she could say she felt like she had known someone forever, but she was all right with that. Unfamiliar, but pleasant. He smiled at her, glad to have brought her out of her funk, and she smiled back. "I think I'll be okay."

"Must be psychological or something," He said, leading the way back out of the cafeteria with no explanation. Everything in the room was pretty self-explanatory anyway, so she didn't feel like she was missing out on any vital information.

"No, Goku, it must be related to food. That has to be it." Her sarcastic tongue didn't escape Goku's perception as he grinned in spite of himself.

"Man, how did you know I love food?"

"It was the comment about vitamins. I can picture you using that as an excuse to eat any day!" She giggled.

"Aw, man." Leading the way out the door, they stood waiting for the elevator and he straightened up for a moment in realization.

"Oh! I almost forgot to tell you. Pretty much everyone takes their break upstairs in the break room, for right now. Everyone who was just in the cafeteria has a different schedule than ours." He pushed the elevator button again impatiently. "They can't have everyone taking the same lunch otherwise the place would be swamped with people. So they're the unfortunate ones who have an early lunch. We rotate that spot every once in a while so that it isn't unfair on one particular department. There's a lounge upstairs by the little kitchen in our break room on our floor so it's okay to spend your break there, just don't stay at your desk. Someone passes by and sees you're not doing work..."

"Yeah, that's understandable. Cool."

They stood waiting for the elevator for a while, neither saying a word. It became a mutual understanding that the elevator was taking too long, so neither of them took the initiative to say anything about it.

"How long have you been working here?" Bulma asked.

He thought for a moment. "About two years. I remember it was around when Vegeta became supervisor of our department."

"Oh, so he's been here since before then?"

"Yeah. Vegeta's been here forever. He's like part of the woodwork. It's scary."

Bulma laughed. That made her wonder, again, just how old was that guy?

Goku continued. "He hasn't always been in our department, of course, he used to work up on the 49th floor with the bigwigs, but now he's with us."

"Oh, so he..." She decided to end her sentence right there. She didn't want to make any suggestions and have them turn out to be untrue, only for Vegeta to hear about what she said. Not that she didn't trust Goku, she just wanted to be careful. Her brain filter was now in action.

"No, no, nothing like that. From what I heard, Vegeta chose to come work in our department. He wasn't demoted or anything." He stretched his arms a bit, reaching them up high above his head then swinging them back down.

"Why would you do that, though? If you've worked so hard to get yourself into a top position, why would you throw that all away and work in a lower-branch department?" Bulma's reasoning was spot-on, she knew it was, but there was some unknown motivation on Vegeta's part that she was quickly becoming very curious about uncovering.

"It's a mystery, I guess. We haven't really talked about it. Maybe you could ask him? I'm not responsible for what happens after, though."

"Ha ha. I'll be sure to keep that to myself, then. That's one question I won't ask."

The ding sounded, and the elevator finally arrived, again with people rushing out towards the exit. She and Goku had the whole elevator to themselves, and this time the mirrors seemed open and inviting. She was starting to get all prickly in her stomach, like she often felt when she rode elevators.

"So, how long have you and Chichi been friends?" He asked suddenly.

Bulma was confused for a moment. How did he know they were friends? She thought for a moment then remembered when he first took her up to the office she had told him that Chichi had gotten her the interview there. "Oh! Since high school, I think. Ninth grade. We hit it off right away, and we're still great friends. So, you guys have been working together since... Probably since you got the job here, right?"

"That's right. I remember her from the very beginning."

"So what are your impressions of her? Since I'm her friend I guess I only know her... innate personality? Is that what you'd call it? I'm just curious about what sort of image she projects for her professional personality."

Goku was quiet for a moment, and when she looked at him he seemed lost in thought.

"Do you guys talk often, or...?" Bulma probed. She noticed he was starting to get a little fidgety.

He scratched his head. "Well, no, not really. I mean... Since I started working here, we haven't really talked. It's weird because I've talked with everyone else in the office, but I haven't spoken a word to her. I mean, we are aware of one another, of course, but we haven't talked."

Bulma snickered. "So, she keeps her tough personality at work, as well?"

"Oh, definitely. She's very headstrong. We haven't talked but I get these really strong vibes about her personality and how she is. I've seen enough interactions between her and Vegeta to know that she's not afraid of anything."

Bulma nodded, feeling a vicarious form of pride bringing her mood up a bit. She really admired Chichi's strength, so she was glad that she was able to display that side of her in the workplace also without being too overbearing. Or perhaps she was, and Goku just didn't want to tell her that? Smart move.

The doors opened, and they headed straight for the break room. As they were walking towards the back, they could see Vegeta in his office, and he beckoned her inside. She sighed. Great.

Goku laughed, almost in ridicule, but Bulma didn't take it in a malicious way. "That sucks. So it's back to the dungeon, huh?"

Bulma nodded. "I guess. I'll get out alive, though, don't worry." Looking at Vegeta glowering at her on the other side of the glass, she was hoping she hadn't spoken too soon.

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A/N: This is a short little chapter, isn't it? Thanks for reading. Please review! :)

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