Goku knew that Cherry Island was a place for rich people, simply by the fact that Bra had a beach house on it. He hadn´t expected it to be quite so beautiful. The weather was mild, a soft breeze from the ocean and the vegetation was rich and cared for. It reminded him a bit of Kame Island. Though more… understatedly pompous.
The house itself was white of course, lots of windows. The front door wasn´t even locked. He felt her on the other side, but if she still hadn´t learned to sense ki he could just as well use it. A black cat was lying on a white couch, not the one he remembered. Bigger. The whole room seemed too big, too little furniture, too little colour. His house had always been full and cramped and… he frowned, walking a bit quicker.
He pulled the thin curtains away, stomping on the veranda. Bra looked up, confused for a second before the tablet or whatever it was she had been holding fell from her hands and she screamed. Shortly. The next moment she threw her cup at him and he barely dodged, some of the tea spilling on his face. The glass door shattered behind him. Well, some things never change.
“You fucking bitch!”
No, not at all.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Bra tried to calm down her beating heart, staring at Goku who stood next to her broken door like he owned the place. Kondo had hopped down the moment the glass broke and was hiding behind one of the chairs. Poor thing, he had a weak heart. If he died, she would kill him.
“Are you fucking out of your mind? Have you ever heard of using the doorbell?”
“The door wasn´t locked.” He grinned, all smug.
“The door…” She took a deep breath. “Okay, whatever, I don´t… Son Goku. Is the time between running away and coming back getting exponentially longer every time? I don´t know if I live long enough to do this again.”
He wiped the tea from his face, shaking it from his hand. “You still look good for your old days, Bra.”
She huffed, leaning back in her chair. Not that he looked any different. “What do you want?”
“Oh, you know…” He looked around the veranda, slowly walking towards her. “Thought I could stay a bit?”
“Don´t you like your crap mountain anymore?” Who knew what happened to the house. She hadn´t gone there again, maybe the other´s kept it intact…
“It´s more like holiday. And Cherry Island seems to be a nice place.”
She stared at him, unblinking, unyielding, but she couldn´t figure anything out. Some things never change.
“First floor got a guest room. And Goku, stay away from my couch.”
He shrugged, a wide grin on his face. She would die to know why he really came back to her. Then again… she picked up her tablet, Kondo was carefully peeking out from under the table as well. He would tell her sooner or later anyway.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Two weeks, or three… they hadn´t really talked, besides some necessary conversation about the state of her house, the treatment of her cats and the amount of destruction allowed on the beach. It was her beach after all.
Bra had talked with Trunks, as usual, but she hadn´t mentioned Goku. If they didn´t already know that Goku was back again, he probably had a reason. It wasn´t her business.
“What have you been up to? It´s been quite some years, eh?”
“What?” She stopped chewing, her mind blank. Was he… trying to do small talk? Was the world coming to an end? Were they all going to die and he wanted to be pleasant for her last minutes? She swallowed, still not sure if she should answer or not.
“I don´t really keep track, so… oh, Chichi is gone. Maybe I´ll see her again, her incarnation, but I´m not sure if I´d recognize her. `s not very likely anyway, right?”
“I… uhm… no.” He was serious. She picked on her chopsticks, trying to think of something to say.
“I saw Bulma, too. Said hi. I think she´s gonna stay somewhat longer than Chichi, had a good time.”
“Hope she´s not gonna hang around for dad.” Goku actually looked shocked. Bra tried not to laugh about it, it seemed indecent. “We all live so long. He´s probably still around when she´s dead next time.”
“Ah.” He looked away, shortly. “So how much time has passed?”
“What do you even care? Forty years.”
He nodded, slowly, thoughtful. “And your company´s gone? Got a new one?”
“Okay, what do you want? Your questions are weirding me out!”
“They are normal. I guess.”
Exactly the reason why she wasn’t sure if she should freak out or not. He didn´t do normal. That was his thing. She picked up her chopsticks again and continued eating. No need to waste a perfectly good lunch. “Do you really wanna know or do you just want to be polite?”
He laughed, a loud, hearty laugh. She hated it instantly. Too extroverted.
“I´m not sure I know how to be polite, Bra. If you don´t want to talk, fine. The food is good.”
She huffed, shoving some curry into her mouth.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Cherry Island was about to enter rain season. The wind was picking up and clouds were dulling the day. When she stepped on the veranda, Goku was sitting there, sweaty, out of breath, staring at the heavy rain.
“My niece got the company when I couldn´t justify looking so young anymore. Trunk´s granddaughter, Noushka. She´s very smart. I thought I deserve some time off, so I´m staying here. Got two smaller companies though, internet based, I manage them online. Don´t want to be bored.”
He took a deep breath, flexing his back muscles. Bra let her gaze wander over it, stopping at the tail. So it was back.
“Happy now? You wanna know more?”
He turned around, his face indifferent. “Sounds like you know what you´re doing.”
She stared at him for a long time after he already went upstairs.
It was already evening when she stomped up the stairs, not able to contain her irritation any longer. When she ripped open the door, he wasn´t there. She should´ve known it, probably just wanted to shower before he went to a nicer place to train or whatever and now she was standing there like an idiot. Frowning, she started pacing the room, kicking some stray clothes out of the way.
Bra didn´t like the way he behaved. A long time ago she had wanted to figure him out and now she was farther away from it than ever. She wondered what he had done in space. Wondered if he maybe had visited Earth and just didn´t stop by her, but then why had no one told her? Didn´t anyone think of her? She didn´t keep close contact with… with anyone, but that didn´t mean…
“Where you waiting for me?”
She spun around, completely caught off guard. Her heart was hammering in her chest wildly and it took her a moment to realize that her mouth was hanging open.
“I… no, I expected you to be here.”
Goku shrugged, picking up his underwear next to her foot and throwing it into the other corner of the room.
“What is it? Why do you pretend to care what I have been doing?”
“I didn´t pretend, Bra. Stop accusing me of things that aren´t true.”
Her eyes narrowed. It couldn´t be that there wasn´t anything… maybe he wanted to distract her. He did look somewhat exhausted and tired, sweaty, his clothes had huge dirt stains on them… or maybe not. It was driving her insane!
“I can accuse you of whatever I feel like!”
“If that makes you happy, I guess.”
He stared at him, unsure what to make of it. When he started to undress, she left. But it wasn´t over yet.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Goku couldn´t sleep for a while now. Something that had been a minor inconvenience at first turned out to be a huge problem. It was one of the reasons he decided to visit Bra after all, after he ran out of options. And she had helped him getting over Chichi, as much as he didn´t want to admit it. He would never tell her anyway, she would be smug and proud about it and he really couldn´t take it.
Rolling over, his exhausted mind ran in circles. He had made her suspicious, but he didn´t want to tell her why else he wanted to see her. She was too good at shutting people out of her life apparently. She didn’t seem to know that he had travelled with Vegeta for a while, more or less if it counted that Vegeta took a ship and Goku just teleported. She also didn´t seem to know that he had visited his family regularly, hadn´t missed one marriage, not one birth. He wouldn´t have considered it weird that she didn´t know all of those things if it hadn´t been for…
He rolled around again. There was no delicate way of addressing it. Seems like you know what you´re doing, right, he should´ve just shut up. He rolled around again, got up, picked up some dirty pants from the floor and flew the short distance to the other side of the beach. The whole island was hers, how fitting. Perfect recluse for the princess. When the sun got up, he went back to bed, to catch at least an hour of sleep.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Aren´t you lonely?”
Bra looked up from her coffee. She had heard him open the veranda door, but decided it wasn´t worth turning around. She had slept horribly and felt irritable and her huge headache wasn´t helping much.
“What now? Do we have to have deep conversations in the morning? Can´t you just go blow some sand up?”
He slumped down in the chair opposite of hers. He looked a mess, hair all over the place, bags under his eyes. She wondered what had kept him awake. Probably the fact that he was a fucking asshole.
“I just thought you´d have a family by now. Everyone else does.”
“I´m fine on my own!”
He huffed, looking over the foggy beach. It made her mad. She put down her cup with a bit too much force, breaking of the handle. She didn´t care much.
“Listen, not everyone needs a bunch of people around to feel happy! Why don´t you go and judge someone else´s life?”
“You don´t look very happy with it, that´s all.”
If she would storm off now, she would admit that he was right. But he wasn´t. She just had a rough night, that was perfectly normal. Everyone had those. “Daily inconveniences are not a proof for the state of my mind, asshole. Oh, and since you´re so damn nosy, I have been married three times. Guess I don´t need a fourth time to know that it isn´t the right thing for me!”
She picked up her tablet and wiped away the coffee stains from it. She ignored him until he left.
He came back three days later, just in time for lunch. She still felt miserable, the headache hadn´t gone away with another few sleepless nights, but at least she couldn´t find it in her to be angry anymore. She didn´t even know about what.
“What happened with those three people that you didn´t stay with them?”
“Goku, why do you even bother? Do you want to marry me?”
He smiled, a tiny tiny smile. “I´m just curious. And it got nothing to do with Vegeta.”
She closed her mouth, already about to ask exactly that. Curious, hm? “`s not that interesting. Rather normal, I guess. First they idolize me and when they realize that I`m just a person they all…” She waved her hand. “Walk away.” The risotto started to look like vomit. She pushed the plate away. She was so tired of fighting, maybe she should just tell him. Whatever. “I met Victor pretty soon after you left. He was a junior manager at my brothers. We were introduced when he interrupted us during our weekly lunch. Still have those, don´t ask. So first I snatched him away to work for me, he was very good at it. And then I married him. I liked his ruthlessness, but he couldn´t handle… I don´t know. He thought I would be more in love, warm up to him during our relationship, show him my soft side or whatever. Couldn´t handle that I didn´t hold anything back. That´s all there is.”
She shrugged, feeling pathetic. Hadn´t intended to sound like that. “Anyway, afterwards I was alone for a while. Victor quit his job, went to another company, nothing from my family. Heh. I met Amir, he treated me like a normal person and well. Didn´t last long, just two years. Wanted children, I didn´t, wanted me to work less and live more and yeah. I don´t like living all that much without working. I… was glad when it ended. I actually had to break up, he didn´t have the balls for it. I had a thing with Pan for a year, I think… we, well, we fucked when I was still in my twenties, just something meaningless, but the second time had been something else. I thought…” She looked away, trying to ease the constricted feeling in her chest, the feeling as if she couldn´t breathe. It was fine. “I thought it could work out, you know? Finally. But she didn’t take it very seriously. I don´t know, I told her that I wanted to focus more on my company, it had grown so much, it wasn´t even that much of a lie, and ended it. It´s always the worst job and she didn’t seem to want to do it.”
Pushing the hair out of her face, she took a deep breath. It didn´t help much. “There was… Eri. She was so young… I couldn´t actually tell her how old I was, she wasn´t even thirty. I kept her at distance, didn´t want it to get too emotional, but she… she was better than the rest. Didn´t want me to be someone I was not, respected that I don´t like to show my feelings, at least not like in some lousy movie like everyone else did. It lasted seven years. Guess it would´ve been even more, but she had an accident and died. Humans are so fragile. It´s better not to bother with them.”
“So you´ve given up?”
“It´s not as if I´m gonna die soon. Have you given up?”
Goku shifted, folding his arms over his chest. “Actually, I haven´t. I just don´t care, about relationships and all that. I liked it with Chichi, and I´m glad I had her but I´m not interested in seeking it out.”
Bra smiled. She didn´t feel like smiling. “Well, sometimes it´s enough to just have a few meaningless fucks, right?”
“I don´t care about that either. Y´know, if it happens, fine, if not… whatever.”
So that was it. It explained why he hadn´t reacted so many years ago when she stood naked in his kitchen. Asexual or gay. No one else would´ve… been so utterly unimpressed.
“You don´t have to be alone forever, Bra.”
He left shortly after, left her on her veranda, pondering if it had been some kind of proposal. Another night went by, sleepless, going over it again and again, but she couldn´t figure it out.
The headache was killing her.
