Work Text:
Bulma absently tapped her nails on her office desk as she sat in front of her computer screen, her phone pressed up against her ear, hitting the refresh button every thirty seconds just in case that email she was expecting would come in.
“Ah, yeah. That’s great, Chi…”
She hated the feelings of jealousy that stirred inside of her as she listened to her friend gush over her husband on the phone. Happy for her, sure. But feeling a sting of disappointment in herself? Definitely.
Chichi was just the latest of her friends to finally tie the knot to the person the universe deemed her soulmate. It seemed like everyone except for Bulma at this point was finding theirs. Even Krillin found his – some smoking hot model way out of his league.
“Oh, don’t worry, Bulma,” they’d say. “You’ll find him soon, I can feel it!” Please. This tired conversation was happening every month for the past decade now, but nothing ever changed.
With her ridiculous working schedule, it was impossible to find the time to get out and socialize. Her nine-to-five left her drained from constant meetings and deadlines, and that didn’t even include the side projects she had to work on with her father on the weekends. By the end of each day, all she wanted to do was curl up in bed.
She wasn’t some super young woman anymore, and waiting for prince charming to walk through the door was feeling more and more like a pipe dream. What if he was on the opposite side of the planet? What if he was dead? Maybe “the one” just didn’t exist!
She sighed, her eyes straying to the time at the bottom right hand corner of the computer screen. 8:52pm. Still nothing.
Screw it. The email could wait, anyway.
Hastily, she shut her laptop and excused herself from the call. Her tired eyes felt a surge of relief when she hit the lights in the office and stepped into the darkened hall, making sure to quietly pass her parents’ room as she made her way across the house.
Her feet automatically took her to the bathroom attached to her bedroom, and she stopped to stare at herself in the mirror. God, she looked like a hot mess. Those bags under her eyes were doing her no favors.
Like she often did when she looked at herself for too long, she could feel a faint itching sensation coming from her soulmate mark, and she took off her blouse, turning around to see the mark in the mirror’s reflection.
Every day, she would listen for the words that had adorned her upper back since birth, the first words that her soulmate would ever say to her, in hopes that she would find the one. Everyone had this natural tattoo, and each mark was different. By all accounts, the marks were a work of art.
The words were masterpieces of calligraphy, decorated with intricate, looping curls and fine lines created from the most perfect of brushstrokes, as if the task of writing them was bestowed unto an otherworldly painter. Some people carried words of greetings and warm welcomes, others spontaneous compliments, evoking daydreams of their eventual meeting with the person who was destined to speak them.
On Bulma’s upper back, just below the neck and about the same width, sinuously designed and inked in black in the most beautiful cursive, read the words:
Fuck you, asshole
Yep. That’s right. The three most romantic words to ever be spoken, nice and pretty on her skin.
In what context would someone ever say that to her? It sounded like something she would open up with! It came as no surprise that this posed all sorts of problems as a kid.
“Mommy, what does that mean?” she would ask.
Her mother would wrap a big scarf around her neck and hush with a nervous laugh, “It’s nothing, sweetie...”
Her father was no help either, giving her dismissive, lazy answers, and at some point, the mark would never even cross her mind. But as she got older, with knowledge came realization, and the mark became a source of total embarrassment.
Scarves, turtlenecks, and hoodies were her go-to for any occasion. She wouldn’t be caught dead wearing her hair up without them. Only at home did she have the confidence to wear a blouse and ponytail combo.
Bulma scratched at her back. Chichi had told her that an itching mark was a sign of finding her soulmate, but this was typical behavior from it. Other home run advice she had been given by her friends included the suggestion that she needed to try harder to “feel the magic”, whatever the fuck that meant.
But tomorrow was another day, after all. She’d give it another go.
Later that week, Bulma found herself sitting at the kitchen table with a hot cup of coffee in hand. Work on the car repairs with her father took up most of the day, and now that it was well past sundown, it should have been time to hit the sack. But not tonight.
Tonight was the perfect night for a night stroll, one of her favorite activities and something her mother vehemently disapproved of. Not the safest activity for someone like her, but she never let things like that stop her. She threw on her nightly disguise – a pair of sweatpants, sneakers, and a gray hoodie, pulling the hood over her luxury headphones and swiping her keys and phone from the counter as she made for the front door.
The air was chilly, but not unbearably so, just the right temperature for a walk around the city. Traffic was nonexistent, but the smell of exhaust and cigarette smoke still permeated the night air. She took a right turn at the corner of West Avenue and 23rd Street, where the sidewalk narrowed and the streetlights bathed the path in soft, dim light.
This time of day was when she truly got to relax and get away from the stress of her projects. The music took over, and she would get so into the zone that she occupied the whole sidewalk, walking as if the only two things in the world were her and her music.
After a few minutes, her ears picked up external voices coming from somewhere behind her. It almost sounded like someone was trying to get her attention…?
She lifted the left side of her headphones from her ear to listen, but just as she did so, she was taken off guard when someone bumped into her left shoulder, making her almost lose her footing.
A man glared at her as he trudged past, his face stricken with annoyance and pure, unfiltered rage. He was dressed a bit heavily for the weather, but his tall, flame shaped hair drew more of her attention. A dark colored backpack was slung over his right shoulder and he looked to be in a rush.
“Fuck you, asshole!” he snarled and ran ahead of her down the sidewalk.
Bulma gaped in shock. What was that about? No one spoke to her that way! She couldn’t help it, couldn’t control it. Her middle finger lifted on its own accord, and the words just spewed right out of her:
“Up yours, bitch!”
Maybe he heard her, and maybe he didn’t, but he didn’t do anything to react if he did. All Bulma could do was watch on in burning anger as his silhouette disappeared from her line of sight. Her nails bit the palms of her hands as she made fists at her side.
Dickbag. Shitwad. Did saying that make him feel like a big, tough man? He couldn’t have been much taller than she was. Now this whole incident was going to bug her for the rest of the week. The night really did bring out the worst in people.
She continued along her typical route, allowing herself plenty of time to calm down, and looped back around when she felt that she was getting tired.
Mindlessly clicking the walk button at the crosswalk despite the light traffic, she had to stop and think. What was he trying to tell her? It kind of looked like he had been trying to get her attention for a while. Was she in his way, or something else?
Wait.
Fuck you, asshole?!
Bulma bolted down the crosswalk without waiting for the walk signal.
The moment her foot was inside the door, she didn’t waste a second ripping off her hoodie and ran for the bathroom. Her back was itching like crazy, way more than it normally would. This was something different. Before she could turn the light on, a faint, blue light emanated from where her mark would be.
She was glowing.
And she knew what that meant. That rude guy was her soulmate.
She groaned with mortification. What did she call him? A bitch? Oh god, she was such an idiot! Now she really was living up to her soulmate mark, wasn’t she!
On instinct, she reached for her phone and began to dial Chichi’s number, but she stopped herself. No, it was too early to tell anyone. Even her parents. She didn’t even know this mystery man’s name. First, she would try and find him, and only then would she tell anyone.
If her glowing back didn’t give it away first.
The next morning, Bulma hit the pavement after breakfast in pursuit of the precise location that her encounter with the man took place. It had been on 23rd Street, just down the road from the Chinese restaurant but before the bar and grill. She didn’t know what she was expecting to find. She just needed a sign.
She searched the ground near where she remembered being for even the tiniest traces of her soulmate, even as the weather went from cloudy to a drizzle. It was starting to look like a lost cause before a small object wedged between two sidewalk tiles caught her eye, and she bent down to take a look. It was a business card with an address and number printed on the front.
Sure, it could’ve been a piece of trash that had been sitting there for a week, but such a perfectly placed clue seemed too good to be a coincidence. Maybe. But she would see it to the end, because if she lost sight of her soulmate for good, she was going to go insane.
With a spring in her step, Bulma headed back home to enjoy a rare Sunday to herself.
Her sleuthing was put on hold with the coming of Monday, and when Friday night rolled around, she was ditching her office and back to bringing out her inner detective.
The address on the card brought her to a seedy part of town with several neon-lit businesses and run-down buildings lining the street. As she stood out front of an unmarked building with an alleyway leading to a side door, she still couldn’t believe she was here and doing this.
It was a mystery what kind of people would be hanging out here, but as she’d found, all sorts of zany characters prowled the streets at night. Perhaps her soulmate was one of them.
Taking a large breath of air, Bulma forced herself to open the door and cautiously peek in. She was greeted with the faint drum of bassy music, poor lighting, and a large, tattooed older man at the counter.
“Hi, maybe you can help me with this,” Bulma said, approaching the counter. “I’m looking for a guy with a tattoo that says, um, ‘up yours, bitch’ on his upper back. Does anyone like that work here?”
The man pulled at his beard pensively. “Hmm. I can’t say I’ve ever seen any of my employees with a tattoo like that. Did he get this tattoo recently?”
She felt her cheeks color. “Well, it’s actually his soulmate mark...”
He made a noise of acknowledgment and called for one of his buddies in the other room. As the man got up and turned, Bulma could see his soulmate mark. How can I help you? it read, and she couldn’t help but feel that it was very fitting for him.
When he came back from the other room and shook his head, she knew she was out of luck. She thanked him for his time and promptly left the building.
Dejected, Bulma began her slow walk home down the sidewalk. The business card lead was a bust, and she was out of clues. Stumbling across her soulmate was a chance encounter and one that she wouldn’t be able to replicate. West City was a big town – the odds of finding him without a name was literally one in a million.
If only he knew she was looking for him... She didn’t even know him yet, but both her heart and her mark ached at the thought that she would never see him again.
She wiped a stray tear from her cheek with her sleeve and pulled out her phone. Maybe it was time to tell her friends. Her fingers typed out a message, and she moved to hit send. But instead, she walked right into someone and it clattered to the ground.
“Oh! Excuse me, I...”
The person picked up her phone and handed it to her, and the moment their eyes met, she almost couldn’t believe it. He had the same eyes, the same hair.
“It’s you!” She couldn’t stop staring. He was more attractive than she remembered. “Sorry, where are my manners? I’m Bulma!”
“Vegeta,” he answered, but then his face flushed. “I need to apologize. I did not mean to say those words to you.” He glanced at her ill-fitting night outfit. “If I am being honest, I mistook you for a man.”
She laughed and pulled down her hood. “That means my disguise works! I shouldn’t have said what I said, either. It was kind of a heat of the moment thing, you know?”
He nodded and cracked a smile. “No moving past it. Those words are stuck with us for life.”
“Yeah,” she nodded awkwardly. As if it was the most natural thing to do, Vegeta snaked his arm around her and pulled her closer to him. A comforting sensation came from her soulmate mark and it made her feel at home.
“Would you like to go get drinks?” he asked. “I know a place not far from here where we can sit and chat. Or if it’s too late, we can do it another time?”
Bulma hugged him back. “Lead the way. I’m down for anything.”
She didn’t want to lose sight of him ever again.