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No. He was absolutely not afraid to be alone with her. He just didn’t want to be. Vegeta sat stiffly on the couch in the living room that had always seemed a lot larger than it felt today. Bulma had gone into the kitchen, the kids were off doing who knew what, everyone else had scattered in the wind, even Kakarrot had disappeared. That left Vegeta and Chi-Chi alone together.
Great, and now she was looking at him. Waiting for him to say something. But he didn’t have anything to say to the ex-wife of his lover. Why should he?
It was Goten’s birthday and they hadn’t all been together like this in a long time. They had come to Muten Roshi’s place for some sun and quiet. But that quiet was feeling more and more like asphyxiation. The clock on the wall ticked the seconds and with every passing one, Vegeta felt his temper getting closer and closer to snapping.
“Well, your conversation skills haven’t improved,” Chi-Chi finally broke the silence. At least she wasn’t trying to make small talk about the weather. “Just tell me he doesn’t live off fried meat alone.”
Vegeta quirked an eyebrow. Really? She wanted to talk about dietary routines? Vegeta was annoyed that she kept talking even though he clearly wasn’t interested. And yet, he was also stricken by how much she still cared. Even after everything, she was still worried about Kakarrot. It made him shift in his chair a little.
“There are occasional vegetables,” he said. He decided no one got anything out of this weird deadlock. And if he gave her the silent treatment, it would only make him look weak compared to her.
“Good.” She sounded relieved as they fell back into their anti-staring contest, where they stared at anything but each other.
At first Vegeta had been annoyed at Kakarrot’s insistence on remaining friends with his ex-wife. Vegeta didn’t understand why. But Kakarrot had always been better with people than him. Vegeta preferred to have a very tight circle of important people, but Kakarrot had a wide range of friends. They were the reason he had always cared so much about Earth, the universe, and what happens to it. Everyone was a potential friend to Kakarrot, but his real friends were the people he had grown up with. And maybe Vegeta didn’t love the idea, but one of Kakarrot’s oldest friends was his ex-wife.
Vegeta supposed if Kakarrot felt so strongly about keeping her in his life, Vegeta wasn’t really in a position to argue since he had managed to stay friends with Bulma. Though he personally felt he had more to lose since he could count his friends on one hand.
“You know, I don’t think we’ve had a single conversation in all the time we’ve known each other,” she said. Was she still talking to him? When he was sitting there, arms crossed, completely closed off? He was happy to wait in silence until someone came back to save them, why couldn’t she do the same?
“Did you have something to say?” he snapped. Had they ever had anything to say to each other? Back then and even now? What would they have ever ‘conversed’ about?
Chi-Chi regarded him coolly, “Several things come to mind actually, but I promised Bulma I’d behave.”
Vegeta allowed himself a small smirk, he’d promised Bulma the same thing.
They were looking at each other now, staring each other down. Vegeta couldn’t remember a single Earthling besides Bulma being able to glare at him this way. Even the other so-called ‘Heroes of Earth’ couldn’t take Vegeta’s glare head-on. But this woman wasn’t scared. She wasn’t even intimidated.
Vegeta remembered a story he’d heard about the time when Buu was still evil and running around Earth. Chi-Chi had walked right up to him, an evil that had killed so many including Vegeta himself, and smacked him in the head. She must have known there was nothing she could do to protect herself and she had done it anyway without a second thought.
Vegeta was confident in his own strength but part of that was knowing when he was beat. He didn’t typically pick fights with anyone he knew could beat him. He wondered what it would be like to not fear anything, like that. If that were the case, he was sure his life would have been very short. He realized, rather belatedly, he’d sort of admired that about her. Maybe this was what Kakarrot had always seen in her.
Surprisingly, Chi-Chi seemed to soften a little. Maybe she had come to a couple conclusions of her own. “I hear you’re a decent cook. So that’s something, I guess. He always loved food the most. Cooking for him was always fun.”
“Fun? Isn’t it that he doesn’t shut up until he’s fed?” Vegeta tsked and then realized they were having an actual conversation and nearly bit his tongue.
They stared at each other for a second, both wondering where they were going to go from there. Then Chi-Chi laughed, her cheeks turning a light shade of pink, “Ah yes, that too. But don’t let him get away with it too often. He’ll never stop.”
Actually, there was something he wanted to ask her. “Does his stomach always make those ridiculous noises in the middle of the night?”
For a moment he thought he’d offended her because she stared at him with her mouth open. Maybe he shouldn’t have brought up the imagery of them sleeping together so soon. But she must have just been surprised because the next moment she burst into laughter.
Vegeta didn’t think it was all that funny, he rarely got a full night’s sleep anymore.
Chi-Chi wiped tears from her face, “Make him eat something before he goes to bed, otherwise he’s hungry half way through the night. I’ll tell you, I certainly won’t miss that.” She started laughing again.
They fell into surprisingly easy conversation after that, mostly about Kakarrot’s horrible manners. Vegeta had never had anyone to rant to about that before, even Bulma never humoured him there.
Watching the way Chi-Chi’s eyes crinkled with mirth made Vegeta remember something Kakarrot had said the day they had left together. And he thought about how this woman was laughing with him even though it had to be painful.
Before he could stop himself, he said, “He wouldn’t have been with you for as long as he did, if he didn’t want to be.”
If his instincts were right, Chi-Chi wasn’t sure what Kakarrot had been doing with her all these years. But Kakarrot was wilful and there was no way he would have stayed in any relationship for longer than a second if it wasn’t where he wanted to be.
Chi-Chi was staring at him now. The expression on her face unreadable.
Vegeta continued, “When he left all those times, it was because he knew he had a home to come back to.” Really? Vegeta thought bitterly. Why did he have to be the one to say this? They were things Kakarrot should have told her himself. Vegeta shouldn’t have to comfort the ex-wife… and yet, he knew it would’ve been easy to just keep silent about it. He told himself this was because he didn’t want to lose to her. He didn’t want to give Bulma any reason to say he didn’t at least try.
And as much as he didn’t want to think about it, he and this woman were more alike than he cared to admit. They both always said exactly what was on their minds. They had both fallen in love with the same man and they both considered Bulma their best friend. Vegeta liked to limit his personal connections but anyone could see that their lives were intrinsically linked. She was strong and patient and probably the only person on Earth suitable to handle Kakarrot’s strength and immense stupidity… he wondered what that meant about himself.
Despite their limited interactions, he supposed he’d always held a begrudging respect for her, when he hadn’t been burning with jealousy.
And Vegeta found that he sort of liked this. He liked it better than sitting in icy silence anyway, waiting for one or the other of them to finally snap.
The silence stretched a little thin and Vegeta let it. He could tell that she was taking her time to tell him something. Maybe something she wasn’t sure she should say at all.
“Every time he left,” she started slowly, “I felt like he would always love adventure and fighting more than he loved me.”
“Yes,” Vegeta said, too quickly. He panicked at the way her eyes shook, “No. I mean…” he swallowed, “That has nothing to do with-” why couldn’t he be eloquent about this?
He felt himself tense in either embarrassment or frustration. He crossed his arms, his natural defensive position. “What I mean is,” he amended, “Kakarrot has a Saiyan mindset. His way of thinking is difficult for you Earthlings to understand but it’s a mindset that was completely natural to our home planet.”
He saw the small wave of confusion cross her face. He had to remember that she didn’t know anything about Kakarrot’s Saiyan lineage. Even though she had grown up with him, spent so much time with him, there were parts of him she would never understand.
“Kakarrot doesn’t value romantic attraction. But that is no failing on your part.” He managed to turn his words around enough to effectively take the blame off of her. He wasn’t trying to be mean, he was just stating the truth. Though it had come out sounding more defensive than he meant it too and he immediately regretted his wording because in a second, he knew she had figured him out.
Chi-Chi was smart. Not Bulma-genius smart, but people-smart in a way Vegeta envied and feared. He could tell the moment it clicked in her head. He was suddenly nervous, giving her all these potential weapons to use.
“Do all Saiyans feel that way?”
He felt like a butterfly pinned to a board. He bit his lip and then said resentfully, “No.”
It was something of a family curse, as far as Vegeta was concerned. Something in the royal bloodline that rewired the way a Saiyan’s mind was supposed to work.
It had always been something Vegeta was desperately insecure about. For the longest time, he was convinced his ‘disability’ was the only reason Kakarrot had gotten stronger faster.
It wasn’t fair that Kakarrot didn’t have these other emotions to cloud his judgement, to distract him, to keep him up at night wanting. Kakarrot was blissfully unaware of the trials and tortures those emotions brought. Kakarrot was a true Saiyan, warrior class, excited by blood and the promise of a good fight. He didn’t get punched through a wall once because Vegeta’s mind wandered and started daydreaming about what that spot just under Kakarrot’s ear would taste like…
Eventually Vegeta had caught up in terms of strength and power. And he’d learned to ignore all the unwanted emotions. He’d reached every plateau Kakarrot had, disability and all. He’d told himself his victories were possible because he’d managed to kill off all those pesky emotions. But then Bulma pointed out that that wasn’t actually the truth. Despite his insistence, all the emotions were alive and well. He’d only succeeded in ignoring them, temporarily redirecting them. Bulma had cut down to his soul with her sharp and accurate statement, “It’s always about him isn’t it?”
They’d been vague enough words that he might have been able to continue ignoring them if he’d really wanted to. But she had awakened something in him and he could no longer let it rest.
Chi-Chi cleared her throat and brought him back to the present. “Then aren’t you the same as me?”
He knew exactly what she meant. They both had feelings for a man who could not have those same feelings back. But she still wasn’t looking at this from the right angle. The angle that probably would have saved her marriage.
“At first, I was annoyed,” Vegeta said. This was a definite understatement. Vegeta had been a mixture of resentful and rage. He hated the idea of being in love with the giant idiot knowing full well Kakarrot was incapable of feeling the same. He’d taken his frustration out the only way he knew how. By antagonizing Kakarrot at every turn, punching him as hard as he could during sparring matches, taking every opportunity to feel his fist against flesh. And slowly, something had begun to change.
“We started to talk,” Vegeta wanted to be vague about this story. There was no point in torturing her with the details of how he had stolen her husband from her. Or, in another sense, the essential failings in their marriage. Because while Kakarrot hadn’t been fulfilling her needs in their relationship, she hadn’t been fulfilling his either.
“About what?” she said softly. Vegeta was still unsure how much he wanted to reveal.
He settled on the kindest detail he could think of, “He told me I was the only one who understood him.” That would be relatively easy to swallow, wouldn’t it? They were both aliens living on Earth after all.
He watched her carefully, she seemed to be considering this statement seriously.
At the time, Vegeta had still felt occasionally inferior for having the blasted romantic notions to begin with, but he had made peace with the fact that it wasn’t anybody’s fault. It wasn’t Vegeta’s fault for having the feelings and it wasn’t Kakarrot’s fault either. And though he hated his own feelingsfor Kakarrot, he never once hated Kakarrot for it. The one and only thing that had sealed all their fates was that Vegeta had never once wanted Kakarrot to change.
One day Kakarrot had missed an easy block and Vegeta knew something was wrong. Instead of asking, Vegeta had yelled at him, but that was more or less the same thing. Then Kakarrot had said the words that lit Vegeta’s soul on fire. Kakarrot’s innocent, heartfelt statement that Vegeta was the only person in the universe who accepted him as he was.
It was then that Vegeta realized that loneliness looked like all sorts of things. And that Kakarrot felt very alone. He felt guilty that he couldn’t feel for people, even his wife, the way they wished he would. He could never love them in the way they idealized. He loved with his fists, a warrior in every sense. He loved with his declarations of protection. He loved with the way his heart soars and his body quivers in anticipation when he gets ready for a fight. Those things weren’t valued on Earth as they once were on Planet Vegeta.
It was the day that Vegeta realized Kakarrot did love him back. Vegeta had just been blind to it because it didn’t look like what he thought it would.
Of course it hadn’t been as easy as all that. There had been a lot of hesitation on Vegeta’s part while he considered whether this was a power imbalance if Kakarrot could not return Vegeta’s feelings in the same way. But through their long discussions and even longer battles, he came to understand that those feelings were returned, Vegeta just hadn’t been looking for that affection in the right places.
Kakarrot’s love wasn’t any less worthy because it was different. Vegeta had been worried his romantic inclinations would put him at a permanent disadvantage, but he could see now that Kakarrot had his own insecurities. But they had worked it out together. As long as Kakarrot didn’t find Vegeta’s romantic needs disgusting, what was the problem?
There were fiery battles that got them both hyped and there were also quiet, sweet moments. And just as Vegeta made certain to never make Kakarrot feel bad for something he couldn’t help, Kakarrot did the same for him. He never made Vegeta feel bad for needing romantic interactions.
It had been difficult for Vegeta to learn to communicate when he needed attention, but he was getting better at it. Kakarrot was also getting better at being able to tell when Vegeta was actually mad or if he was just feeling frustrated.
“Is that all?” Chi-Chi asked, an unknown amount of time had passed between them.
Really, it all came down to one stark and incredible difference between Vegeta and Chi-Chi. “I believe him when he says he loves me.”
Chi-Chi had never been content in their relationship because she couldn’t comprehend a love that didn’t involve the things she expected. And they had never talked about it enough to reach a compromise or understanding. That was why she always felt like Kakarrot loved other things more than he loved her, and she would have continued to feel that way. She would have continued to doubt Kakarrot’s love no matter how often he said it. She simply couldn’t interpret Kakarrot’s way of loving. But she deserved to be loved the way she wanted to be loved and Kakarrot was not that person. He would always rather punch things than kiss, but with Vegeta, they could do both.
And if there was ever a single moment Vegeta had doubted Kakarrot’s love, it was only because Kakarrot had stared at him for far too long when Vegeta suggested they live together. Vegeta had chosen not to voice what he was really asking, leave her, be with me. So for an agonizing minute, Vegeta had panicked, had wondered if maybe he’d misinterpreted this. For a mortifying moment he’d thought, what if this is a huge misunderstanding? Kakarrot fought with and sparred with all sorts of people, what if Vegeta wasn’t special. But then Kakarrot’s smile had spread wide and brighter than any sun in any universe. He scooped Vegeta up in a hug so tight he’d fractured Vegeta’s ribs just a little.
Vegeta watched a cluster of unreadable expressions cross Chi-Chi’s face. That was the nicest way he could have phrased it.
Vegeta was determined to play nice with Kakarrot’s ex, but a part of him was still angry. He knew Kakarrot’s occasional bouts of self-loathing were in large part thanks to his failed relationship with her. Kakarrot had wanted to love like an Earthling, but continually failed. This ill-match had been hard on both Kakarrot and his ex-wife. Vegeta reminded himself that she too had loved the only way she knew how. She had loved with food and chores and all the things Kakarrot had no doubt been grateful for, but would not necessarily have translated as love. Though Vegeta was sure some of it had, otherwise they wouldn’t have been together for so long. He was just going to have to be content in the knowledge that Kakarrot had trusted Vegeta enough to talk.
Bulma had been eavesdropping from the kitchen. Only because she didn’t want any bloodshed today. She was afraid that this might have been too soon. But Goten’s birthday was the perfect chance to bring them all together. She worried that the silence now was festering so she broke it for them.
“Chi-Chi!” Bulma sang and walked into the living room, “Son-kun is having trouble with the laundry.”
Chi-Chi resisted the urge to slap her forehead with her palm. How Goku managed to survive fighting evil stronger than everyone in the universe but never figured out how to use spray detergent was some kind of cosmic joke. If he were a normal person, she would worry about how he was surviving adult life.
She took the shirt from him. “Hang it like this,” she said, “and spray it like this.”
She could tell she was boring him by the way he scratched his head. “But I can just use my ki to dry my clothes.”
She crossed her arms. “That’s fine sometimes but it won’t smell very good.”
Goku looked a little sheepish. “Oh yeah.”
Chi-Chi sighed and turned back to the laundry basket.
The wind blew through the trees and almost took one of the sheets before Goku grabbed it in time. He handed it back to Chi-Chi who secured it more tightly on the line this time.
They were quiet for a moment before Goku said, “This stuff is a lot harder than it looks, huh?”
Chi-Chi didn’t quite know what to say to that. He had never shown any kind of interest in it before. He had never had to before. She steeled herself because she knew what he was going to say next.
“Chi-Chi, I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “Don’t apologize.”
It hurt that it had taken all this time for him to recognize everything she had always done for him. But she didn’t need his apologies now. She was getting along just fine without him. And more than that, after her talk with Vegeta, she knew she hadn’t been able to accept him as he was.
“You always did all these things for me. I didn’t even know.”
Chi-Chi concentrated on the basket of clothes. “I did it because –“ she stopped short. She had been about to say, because I loved you. But that wouldn’t be fair to throw in his face right now. While he had always tried to show his love in ways she didn’t understand, she had done the same to him, trying to convey her feelings in things he couldn’t grasp. It was like they spoke a completely different language. “Because I didn’t want you running around with smelly, ripped clothes all the time.”
Her heart ached, but it didn’t feel like it was breaking. It felt like it was healing.
It had been painful at first to learn that the person she loved didn’t love her back. But it was more complicated than that. They did love each other, just not in the way either of them had thought. And they had spent so much time trying to understand each other but not ever once getting to the reality of the situation. It hurt to realize that he’d been able to figure it out with someone else, but she was past dwelling on that now. Vegeta was a lot of things, many of them unkind and unflattering, but he was honest and he loved Goku in the way she had never managed.
Goku looked torn for a moment. She wasn’t sure she liked that. He usually looked so clueless and happy, these complicated emotional things made even Saiyans look like they were getting old. But she knew what he wanted to say. He just couldn’t. She had known all along that he had loved her in his own way. Not the way she would have liked, but as much as he was able. It just hadn’t been enough in the end. They couldn’t say that now, of course, but she thought they both probably knew. And that was fine.
She smiled at him. Probably the first real smile she’d given him since before he’d told her he was leaving. This new maturity looked good on him. She didn’t have to shelter him anymore. And he didn’t need to feel guilty or ashamed for not loving her like she deserved. She was amazed at how free she felt.
Slowly he returned her smile.
She handed him a sheet and he put it up the way she’d shown him.
Bulma had been watching them from the house and she felt completely relieved. Goku and Chi-Chi were working together now, putting the laundry out, and Bulma felt so happy she could burst. She sighed and turned back toward the living room.
She noticed Vegeta watching the pair outside just as closely as she had been. Bulma smirked, “Oh? Nervous?”
He glared at her and crossed his arms, “No.”
“Relax you big dummy, he left his wife for you.”
“I know that!” Vegeta hissed. He looked pissed, but Bulma had always been able to tell when he was just acting tough.
“They’re still going to need each other, even after all this. So leave them alone,” she warned.
For a moment Vegeta looked like he was ready to fight her about that, but then he deflated, “I know that too,” he said moodily.
Well, that was a strong start, Bulma decided.
Dinner was a happy affair and all in all it had been a good day. The rainy days that had seemed to crowd above them appeared to be over. Chi-Chi and Goku seemed to have fallen into a routine of sorts, they looked comfortable, happy.
“Hey Chi-Chi, I want to take Goten to this planet I found-”
“Well it’s going to have to wait until next month because I’m taking the kids on vacation. I already talked to Gohan and Videl about it.”
“What? Vacation?”
Chi-Chi grinned at him, “You won’t believe how much money we have now that I don’t have to feed two Saiyans.”
Goku groaned, “We never went on vacations.”
Chi-Chi rolled her eyes, “You were always on vacation. Training here, training there. I can count the number of days you worked on two hands.”
Goku looked sheepish and rubbed the back of his neck, “Heh.”
This made the table burst into laughter. The tension from the start of the day was completely absent.
As everyone was getting ready to leave, Goku was being obnoxious and Vegeta sent Chi-Chi a look. Help me. She returned it with a smile so warm, it almost made Vegeta want to smile back.
They hadn’t had a party where something terrible didn’t happen in so long that it felt like everyone was waiting for whatever was out there to come and get them. Another God? Another enemy? But there was nothing. Just them. No world-shattering realizations, just some mundane ones. No eminent danger, just their quirky family and friends, faults and all.