Work Text:
Goku stared at the red circle on the calendar, marking November 3rd.
“Tomorrow’s that big day.” He turned around and saw Bulma come out the kitchen, clad in plaid cotton pajamas with a cup of tea in her neatly manicured fingers, the wisps of steam reaching out and dissipating in the air. She leaned against the marble bar counter and nonchalantly cast a glance at the calendar on it. Goku blinked.
“What big day?”
“Oh, you know. The day you got the shit beat out of you, Vegeta too.” She blew the still water, watching the hot air fan away. “The first time you guys fought,” she huffed, rolling her eyes when there was a lack of response.
Suddenly the man’s eyes brightened in understanding. “Oh! That day.” Bulma made a short “mm-hmm” and his eyebrows scrunched. “How do you even remember the date for that?”
“Actually I’d think everyone-“
“Why is it special?”
“Because-”
“Man, how many years has it been?”
“About-”
“What do you guys do?”
“Goku.”
Goku bit the “who” on his tongue in midsentence and clapped his hands together immediately in apology, ducking in fear. No matter how long he’d known his childhood friend, she was always the scariest when she was mad. Well, maybe second, falling just slightly behind his wife. Shudder. His wife, angry. What a horrible mix.
“As I was saying,” she glared, “Today’s the 2nd. Tomorrow would be the 20th anniversary of that day. Vegeta insists on marking it every year. He used to be obsessed with it, but now it’s just a “tradition” we carry on, y’know? He couldn’t get over his “royal defeat” for a good decade or so, but when he had, we’d just gotten used to it. So, that day is pretty much dedicated to thinking about you, training, still thinking about you, and me telling him stories of when you were younger. Still thinking about you.” Her expression turned dry. “I know, it’s creepy. Wish he could be that obsessed with me.” She paused, red lips pursed in thought. “Actually, no, that’d be a nightmare too.”
His eyes had widened to the size of dinner plates when she finished, and he laughed nervously along with her, absentmindedly. Vegeta, thinking about him all those years. That is kind of abnormal, isn’t it? But there was some strange pleasure at hearing those words come from the lips of someone who’d known him so long, someone who’s also close to the saiyan prince.
It was no secret that Vegeta had been consumed by the desire to surpass Goku, but what shocked him was that he actually wanted to know more about him outside of his strength…Or were the stories told just so he could analyze them to discover what made the third-class warrior so strong? But did it matter? Once a year, he dedicated a whole day just to him, without Goku even knowing. He felt his stomach flip. It was also no secret that he deeply admired the older saiyan for his strong will and self-control.
…Among other things. And he also deeply wished Bulma didn’t know about it.
He scratched his head, his age-old habit resurfacing as he tried to clear his head. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Bulma shrugged and raised the mug to take a sip. “It’s a personal thing. But you should be with him tomorrow, I think he’d appreciate it.”
“Yeah? So I’ll just ask him out. Right?”
“Pppffftt,” she choked, and hot tea dribbled down from the corners of her mouth onto the marble despite her efforts to catch them in the mug. “Ow ow ow. Oh my god Goku, did you just say you’ll ask him out?” She blinked the tears out of her eyes as she wiped the dripping tea off her chin. Note: Wipe the counter later.
“Err, yes. Because you said I should?”
“Okay, okay. Okay. Nevermind. What do you plan on doing?” Bulma suddenly seemed a lot more interested, an amused smile gracing her lips. Her cyan eyes sparkled with excitement. “Dinner? Movie? Theme park?”
“Huh? I was just gonna say hi and maybe spar a bit.”
“Under the stars in the countryside?”
“Uhh-”
“Aww, that’s so romantic.”
“What’s romantic?”
“You.”
“Me what?”
“Oh.”
“Did you just call me stupid or something? Cuz Chichi used to say “that’s so romantic!” when she saw some people do weird things. Like, kinda useless things?”
“Oh.”
“What? What am I missing? Bulma you’re being mean, tell me!”
Bulma took a breath and sighed out, “Son Goku, we’re going to learn about dating.”
It was the midday of November 3rd and Goku was tapping his foot wildly as he sat in front of a mirror with a list of things he and Bulma had covered yesterday. The unspoken rules: brush your teeth and take a shower before the date, wear clean clothes, compliment the other but not excessively, remember SELF CONTROL, get the hell out of there if things get bumpy…
He skimmed past the rest and whined, watching the reflection in front of him instead. His gi was newly washed and the folds were sharp. He had no reason to be nervous. It was just an outing with a friend. If he was going out with Krillin or Yamcha or Tien, he wouldn’t nearly care so much about his appearance. It’s all Bulma’s fault for projecting foreign ideas into his head! He just needed to go over some things with her and he’d be totally fine.
Raising two fingers to his forehead, he concentrated and vanished.
“Bulma, I’m still confus-EEP!” He landed in a bedroom with his friend sitting on a clothes-strewn bed next to a half-naked Vegeta.
“Oh hey Goku.” Bulma’s nimble fingers flipped the collar of a dress shirt up and pushed the buttons through the slits that hid Vegeta’s toned and tan chest one by one. The loose piece of fabric wrapped around muscles and skin and Goku quickly realized the shirt was too tight, way too tight, as in the he-needed-to-stop-staring-or-else-he’s-going-to-burn-up tight.
“Hi Bulma! Hi Vegeta! Nice to see you! Bye!” Goku chirped, and disappeared within the next instant. The two left in the room looked at each other.
“What’s he doing?” Vegeta asked.
The woman shrugged. “Just Goku things. Lift your arms.”
“Uh, no, you’re not putting me in that ugly thing.”
“…It’s a sweater, Vegeta.”
“Whatever. It looks bad. It’ll make me look soft.”
“Are you saying you’re worried it’ll make you look fat?”
“I didn’t say that…”
“Are you serious? Wow. Never would I have guessed in a million years you’re so picky with clothes.”
“Bulma.”
“Vegeta, the prince of all saiyans, all powerful and stoic, demanding “does this make me look fat?” God, you won’t be hearing the end of this—put the coat hanger down. Alright, let’s get you into something more skin tight then…”
So there Vegeta was, leaning by the frame of the main door of Capsule Corp., waiting for his supposed date in a stretchy black dress shirt with a stupid red tie around his neck, wrapped in dark skinny jeans and the offensive white sweater dangling on his arm. Date. Ha. Such a funny concept described by such a funny word.
His train of thought got cut off when wind whipped up around him, and there landed Kakarot by his doorstep, in a fluffy looking sweater and a loose striped scarf around his neck, puffing out at his chest around a half zipped mud-green parker. He looked grand in those clothes paired with slightly oversized pants that created too many folds just like his gi, but somehow looked just right. He looks like a dog, actually, Vegeta thought. A really happy, downy, loyal, intimidating dog.
Vegeta pushed himself upright and stepped outside, and only then did he realize how cold it was. And shit, it was cold. “You’re early,” he noted, and watched his breath puff out in front of him.
You’re hot. “You too.” Goku grinned at the implication but nudged his head towards a vague direction. “Let’s go?”
Vegeta smirked and felt the ki surge through his body. “Always one step ahead, Kakarot.” He promptly shot up in the sky and left a faint blue streak in his wake, leaving his rival and date to follow.
His mind raced as he sped up, unable to move off the fact that they were going to actually eat at a restaurant together, just the two of them, instead of pounding the crap out of each other. And it wasn’t like eating at a gathering they usually did, the times the Z fighters’ families and friends celebrated, but just them. Full blooded saiyans with huge insatiable appetites and a pride as big as their stomachs. Enemies to rivals to acquaintances to friends to...what? It made him giddy and nervous, but somehow the feeling was familiar enough to be able to recall memories of this emotion. It wasn’t the first time they would spend time together alone like friends, but of course it wasn’t so intimate either.
But when did it become intimate in the first place? It hadn’t, and he was getting ahead of himself. He needed to stop, right now. It was real life, not a daydream, and the things he hoped for would be too good to be true.
So he stopped, right then, and landed in front of the sushi bar they’d agree to go to, but the younger saiyan touched down half a second earlier. “Beat ya,” he laughed, cheeks flushed from the cold and adrenaline rushing through him, and lips parted and panting, out of breath. Breathtaking, almost ironically. Vegeta looked away and muttered, “Because I let you.”
Goku’s grin didn’t fade, and asked for a seat for two to the waitress. The girl, who looked somewhere in her twenties, lead them to two empty seats in front of the sushi conveyor belt, the table decorated with chopstick boxes and dainty wooden containers for tea bags. “Reunion?” she asked.
Vegeta opened his mouth to reject, but his partner just nodded eagerly. Vegeta felt his face flush. “20th anniversary!” he blurted out happily, and pulled Vegeta down to sit.
“What!” Vegeta yelped.
The girl looked at them curiously then left, wishing them to enjoy their meal.
“Why would you say that Kakarot what’s wrong with you don’t project our relationship to strangers who don’t need to know!” The prince angrily folded his arms and tried to bury his face into his shirt in vain. He huffed in vexation and filled up his cup with hot water, mumbling “idiot, idiot” under his breath as he ripped open a tea packet and threw it into the cup. “She probably has the wrong idea now.”
Then there was the hand. Warm, big, soft, on his shoulder. Vegeta shuddered, and turned to glare at it despite how comfortable it felt. “Don’t be so worked up over something so small.” It lingered for a bit, but before he could shrug it off, it was gone. Vegeta turned to look at his companion’s face but he’d already turned away, reaching for plates of sushi. His eyes were practically sparkling from seeing all the appetizing food, and his table space filled up in ten seconds.
Idiot…
Minutes of silence were broken when Goku stopped chewing and leaned back, watching the smaller man quietly. “Hey, ’Geta.” Vegeta grunted and tilted his head a little towards the other as a sign that he heard. Vegeta turned all the way when there was no response. “I ah…Thanks for letting me join you today.”
This raised an eyebrow from the other. “You didn’t have to join me.”
Goku was about to defend himself when he realized Vegeta was thanking him. His hand reached behind his neck and rubbed awkwardly, unsure what to say. “I guess not.”
“And you didn’t have to dress up,” Vegeta said, stuffing a second slice of sashimi in his mouth.
“Says the person who’s dressed more formally than me.”
Vegeta didn’t reply. He hoped he didn’t come across desperate for taking this date thing too seriously. He reached for a plate of salmon fish roe sushi.
Thankfully, the other had already started on a childhood story about salmons, distracting him from the unpleasant thought. “When I was a kid I liked to play around with them, but one afternoon the rocks by the lake were too sharp and I cut its belly open…and it really surprised me because it was like this orange pink, just like the sky when the sun was setting. So for a long, long time I always thought their flesh changed to the color of the sky.” He paused and laughed, and he looked so genuinely into the memory, like he was so young again, Vegeta couldn’t bring himself to tell him to shut up or that he didn’t care. “Then when I was older and on an adventure with Bulma, I saw zebras for the first time and I thought they were a different form of salmons because of the stripes! She thought I was crazy. I’d think I’m crazy too.”
“We didn’t have any animal that resembled the fish on Earth.” Goku cocked his head: Why? “It was too hot for most species to live and not enough water, I suppose. The closest were what you’d call lizards.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Miss what?”
“Your planet.”
Vegeta paused and watched the warm yellow light reflect off the fish roe, its dark, viscous red color vaguely similar to Planet Vegeta. He rolled a single one around on his spotless plate, then burst it with his chopstick, watching the fluid stain the dish. “Not really.”
Dark eyes watched the peculiar act. “Why?”
“I hadn’t even been able to stay on it for more than a few years. The memories weren’t that great.” Goku nodded, and kept quiet. I’ll ask about it later, he thought.
A few minutes later, Vegeta was fuming, and Goku was laughing his butt off. The older man could not reach a dish in time and the taller of the two teased him for his height. Customers and waiters watched incredulously as they watched the plates stack up. Goku’s nose was set on fire when Vegeta added wads of wasabi into his food. Chocolate cake and pudding were wiped on each other’s noses and eyebrows, and they laughed and jabbed at each other like old friends at a reunion as the sky grew dark.
Once they’d paid and left the restaurant, Goku took his companion’s hand and took to the sky. They flew to the city’s edge and landed on a thick, tall tree that overlooked a small portion of the city as well as the small park on the opposite side.
“What’s this for?” asked Vegeta.
Goku stared at the horizon with a calm smile. “Dunno, just somewhere to relax. Away from the people.” He shrugged, then sat down on the rough bark that smelled of damp autumn rain. “It’s nice, huh?”
Vegeta quietly watched his friend and reluctantly sat down. “I suppose.” He hugged his knees to his chest and took in the scene – bright city lights, moonlit leaves, chilly breeze, and a faint smell of detergent from the clothes Bulma provided. The satisfying meal left his core burning a controlled and comfortable fire, but the persistent wind was already beginning to cool his fingers. He glanced at the still unworn sweater in his hands in disdain and ignored the cold, and turned to study Kakakrot in content silence. Bright eyes of innocence and pink nose from the weather, Vegeta felt his limbs turn a bit into spaghetti.
Then, a sudden biting gust swept past and the prince felt his skin sting and heart burn from stopping for a beat, the only thought on his mind was fuck, I want to eat his hair. The way those raven strands whipped against his flushed cold cheeks were so heavenly it felt almost profane to witness something so perfect. The only thing missing was a glowing halo atop his head, and that wasn’t so hard to imagine despite its banality. His teeth chattered, giving away his position, and he snapped his neck towards the scenery as Goku turned to him, like rusty clockwork, a million thoughts running through his mind and stumbling over each other. I did not just say I want to digest his hair.
“Man, Vegeta. You should really put that on! It’s getting seriously cold and you’re barely in anything warm.” Vegeta shivered despite his efforts to keep it back. “Hey, gimme your hand…” Vegeta almost sighed. His rival was so, so warm…he didn’t want to let go. “Holy heck! You’re freezing! Come on-” Taking the sweater from his friend, he pulled Vegeta close and held him still, sliding the soft fabric over his thin shirt. It wasn’t the most graceful thing given they were on a tree branch, so Goku ended up being much closer to him than he anticipated, face lowered to the same level as he pulled the sweater’s hem down to cover Vegeta’s shivering torso.
“Oh. Haha, hey. Better now?” Pull away, Goku, pull away, he thought.
He didn’t.
He couldn’t.
Not when Vegeta was staring into his eyes the way he was, the way when somebody saw through your physical being and reached your soul, piercing through the darkest parts of your mind without ever changing his awed expression. He was so beautiful.
“Kakarot.”
Rigid tension.
“I’ve been thinking.”
Silence.
“I didn’t think I’d be telling you this but it seems…the time is best now. I believe the term is, ah…”
His heart pounded.
What? What didn’t he want to tell? Why is it the best time? Did he do something? Did he forget to do something? Gods, what if he did something wrong? But then…
“…I like you?”
Goku let out a shaky breath. He held himself still, as if moving would break this fragile dream, and he slowly opened his mouth, each syllable tumbling out clumsily like he’d forgotten how to speak.
“Yeah. You, I…Yeah. Same. I-I mean, I like you too.”
Then his lips stretched in a grin all by themselves, and he, the strongest man on earth, could do nothing to stop them. And he wanted to laugh, to laugh at how strange they took these emotions and expressed them. Chichi had not took so long to only say “I like you” uncertainly when they first met, but the confused way Vegeta said it did not mean insincerity. And it was adorable.
“That’s…good.” Vegeta smiled. It was one of his rare, pure smiles that were not sarcastic or taunting. Genuine. And Goku placed that smile on his striking face.
“Yeah. That’s really cool.”
Don’t rush this, Goku warned himself, but he could barely stop his fingers from trembling, and it was not from the cold.
Calm down, motherfucker, you just did it and he just said “same” and you just need to calm the fuck down, Vegeta hissed silently.
“So, you, uh. What do you want to do? Now?” the earth’s savior finally said. He nearly hyperventilated when strong fingers that weren’t his own firmly caught his shoulders, buried into the heat of his scarf. And he probably choked on air when the hand wrapped around the cloth, pulling him even closer to the other, but he couldn’t tell what was even up and down anymore, so how would he know?
“Kakarot,” his rival said, snapping him out of his restless thoughts, and he paused deliberately, his gaze intense, heart slamming, breath stifling, with a nervous purr padding his voice…“Close your eyes.”