Rain pelted the taxi in rolling waves, the windshield wipers screeching across the glass, pushing precipitation away to create a single second of clarity before rain shrouded the glass again. The cabby, a scruffy dog-man in his late thirties, pulled lightly on the cigarette sticking out from between his furry jowls. He steered the taxi boredly, his mind likely somewhere else with his body on autopilot, taking him through the busy streets of the Tournament Grounds of Papaya Island. The taxi bobbed over a pothole, eliciting an angry grunt from the blue-haired woman in the back.

She looked away from her compact mirror to the driver. She felt the smudge of makeup near her eye and it infuriated her. "Watch where you're going! You smudged my makeup!"

"Maybe you should have done your makeup before you got in, sister." The cabby said.

"Maybe if you paid as much attention to the road as you did on that cigarette, I wouldn't be shouting at you."

The dog-man ignored her and continued onward to their destination.

Beside her, the anthropomorphic cat and pig sat, looking up at her. The car seemed concerned, but the pig looked annoyed.

"Oh, Bulma, you can fix it, right?" the cat asked.

"Of course I can, it's just annoying," Bulma said, wiping the excess away before starting anew.

The woman, Bulma Briefs, had woke up late, rushed through a cold shower, dressed herself in a tight, blue, sleeveless dress that came down to her knees and barely had time to drink a coffee before just making it to the airport to catch her flight out of West City to Papaya Island. She had no time to put on makeup between a rushed morning and making sure Pu'ar, the cat, and Oolong, the pig, didn't bitch at each other. Doing her makeup in the cab had been her plan since her ass met the passenger seat of the plane. She hadn't seen Yamcha in three years, as he'd gone off training somewhere in preparation of the World Tournament, leaving her behind. Though incredibly pissed at him, she couldn't help but want to doll herself up for his arrival and remind just what he'd left behind when he went off training.

Putting the finishing touches to her face, Bulma traced her lips with ruby red lipstick and smacked her lips together and slipped the lipstick away, watching her reflection in the compact to look for any unwanted blemishes that she could do away with.

"Honestly, why do you even put that stuff on?" Oolong asked with an irritated glance her way.

"Even someone as good looking as me likes to enhance their features every so often," she said, smirking.

"Pathetic."

"Don't listen to him," Pu'ar said, looking up at Bulma with a wide smile, "I think you look lovely!"

"Thank you. At least someone understands!"

Content with her makeup job, she snapped the compact closed and readied her umbrella as the taxi pulled up to the curb outside the entrance to the World Tournament. She paid the driver and pulled open the door and stepped out, opening the umbrella in the same motion. With her two companions under the arcing umbrella with her, she stepped onto the curb to be greeted by two familiar faces.

"Look at how you've grown!" Master Roshi said, his long, bushy white beard and 'stache creased upward in a joyous smile, Launch, the dark blue-haired woman that could change personalities with a sneeze, stood by him.

"Yeah, yeah," Bulma said, glaring at the old man, "Just keep your dirty hands off of me." She came to expect the old man to try to get his hands on her, and always prepared to retaliate violently if need be. How Launch stomached living with the old man, Bulma would never know.

Before the old perv could reply, a friendly voice greeted them, and Bulma whipped around to see a tall young man wearing a deep blue robe, with a tightly wrapped turban around his head and an umbrella in one hand. His young eyes looked upon them all with familiarity, she noted, and yet she couldn't place him.

"He a friend of yours?" Roshi asked in a hushed tone.

Bulma merely shrugged, despite feeling like she had seen him before somewhere.

"Man, you all look great," the mysterious young man said.

Roshi's voice startled Bulma: "My boy, is that you?"

'My boy'? Bulma thought, does Roshi know him? But then it hit her. She knew him too. Her bright blue eyes widened with disbelief as she regarded the young man once more, "Goku?"

He quirked a brow at them, a mild look of irritation crossing his face and he said: "Yeah it's me! Don't tell me you guys can't recognize me because of this stuff on my head."

Bulma watched as the man who claimed to be Son Goku (little Son Goku, the boy who but three years ago had only come up to her waist) began to unravel the wrap on his head. Wild black hair began to poke out from the wrap until the unmistakable hair of Goku could be seen. Bulma couldn't believe her eyes.

Firstly, Goku was so tall, taller than her! Secondly, she realized he'd become a man during his three year absence! Finally, he was so incredibly handsome! His boyish features were all but gone. His rounded, cherubic cheeks had thinned out to form a more angular, stronger jaw. He stood before her, a foot and a half taller than her, his body looking a little firmer and more defined.

"There," Goku said with a smirk, "obvious now right?" he took another step toward her and the others, he peered down at her, "Did you guys shrink?"

Bulma laughed and said: "Idiot! You're huge!"

He grinned as he rubbed the top of his head sheepishly, "I guess I did grow a little bit…"

Goku had become quite the man, in a physical sense, at least; his mindset was still far too innocent to be mature. Bulma knew how shallow she was to be ogling her friend the way she was, but she couldn't help it. He'd become a piece of eye-candy! Dare she even say that he was hot?

Even when Yamcha showed up in the company of Krillin, Tien and Chaozu, she could hardly care about her plan to make her on-again off-again boyfriend regret leaving for so long. Her eyes always darted toward Goku, looking him up and down.

The loudspeakers all over the tournament grounds crackled: "The World Martial Arts Tournament has been delayed until tomorrow due to the heavy rainfall. All combatants and guests are instructed to check into any of the grounds' many hotels where you will receive complimentary lodging for the night. However, rooms are limited, when we're booked, we're booked. We're sorry for any inconvenience."

"Aw, man! I was really hoping t' fight!" Goku said.

Bulma looked to the others, "Anyone have a Capsule Car on them?"

Krillin snickered and smirked at her, "I thought, as the heiress to the Capsule Corp. throne, you would be the one carrying a Capsule Case."

"I didn't expect to need Capsules." She huffed at the short, bald man, crossing her arms over her chest.

Before she could get too upset at Krillin's comment, Roshi tossed a Capsule into the street where it erupted into a large puff of smoke, and from the smoke a small Capsule Car appeared.

"Everyone pile in," the Turtle Hermit said, "Those rooms'll fill up fast."

He slipped into the driver's seat, with Launch entering in on the driver's side. Oolong squeezed between them, wriggling a bit close to Launch.

Tien peered into the backseat of the car and shook his head, "Uh, I think Chaozu and I will just fly on over to a hotel. We'll meet up with you guys tomorrow," he said and without another word, he and Chaozu took to the sky.

Into the backseat went Yamcha, with Pu'ar eagerly plopping down into his lap. Krillin entered and squeezed close to Yamcha to make room for Goku and Bulma, but, as big as Goku had gotten, he took up the last bit of the backseat. He looked out of the car at Bulma, a sheepish grin on his face.

Bulma let out a rough sigh, her arms still crossed over her chest.

"Just sit in Goku's lap, or something," Yamcha said.

The woman felt her cheeks burning at the suggestion. Couldn't she just sit in Yamcha's lap? With closer inspection, she realized it was impossible, considering Pu'ar had claimed him. Stupid cat. With mild hesitation she climbed into the car and sat in Son Goku's lap, draping her arms around his neck to secure herself.

"You better hold onto me," Bulma told him, looking him directly in the eye, "if I go crashing through the windshield, I'm blaming you."

He laughed, "Don't worry. I got ya."

She looked over to see Yamcha giving her a weird look and she tried her best not to make her smirk obvious.

Rivulets of rain came down in endless waves over the window of Bulma's hotel room that she shared with Launch. Fresh from a shower, the other woman changed into her nightgown as the sun set behind the dark clouds that cast a heavy shadow over Papaya Island. The only light illuminating the streets were the streetlamps as well as the occasional bolt of lightning.

The rooms booked fast, and the gang had to bunk up. Yamcha offered to bunk with Bulma, but she denied him the privilege, offering instead to bunk with Launch so she didn't have to stay with the Turtle Hermit. Besides, she wanted to play with the ex-bandit's feelings; after all, that was her original plan. One might call her cruel, but the jerk deserved it after leaving her with no one for three years.

Her mind did not linger on Yamcha for too long, as the thought of the new, handsome adult Goku crept into her mind. In all seven years of being his friend, she never once thought that she'd ever look at him the way she did at the moment. The feeling dominated her mind, driving her thoughts into unexplored and awkward areas of her conscious. Her body went hot as she thought of her delicate hands gliding sensually over his thick, muscled arms. His imagined arms felt smoother than Yamcha's hard, dry skin that even years of living in the city couldn't fix. She imagined Goku's skin was smooth and yet tough, the kind of skin she'd love to feel agai—

"Are you okay, Bulma?" Launch asked, "Your breathing is awfully heavy."

Bulma turned and saw the other woman slipping into bed, her dark, innocent eyes on her. She blushed and raked a nervous hand up through her blue hair, "I… Yeah, I'm fine."

Launch smirked, "No, no, what is it?"

She laughed lightly and looked back out the window. Launch, as innocent as she was, was pretty perceptive. What a time to find that out, Bulma thought. She focused back on the woman and curled her tongue up under her front teeth, trying to figure out how to articulate her thoughts. "Girl-to-girl, do you ever fantasize about someone you're not sure it's okay to fantasize about?"

The woman didn't respond right away, but, tucking her legs up to her chest, she wrapped her arms around her knees and smiled shyly. "Tien sometimes."

Hardly surprised by that, Bulma smiled knowingly. She was well aware that Launch's other, more deadly other half was helplessly in love with the brutal tri-clops. "He is pretty handsome; third eye and all."

Launch's smile sweetened, but spoke no more of Tien, instead she asked: "Who are you fantasizing about?"

Though she expected the question, Bulma still felt blindsided by it. "G-Goku."

"Really? He did grow up to be quite the stud, didn't he?"

Bulma laughed, "It caught me off guard! Last time I saw him he was a little shrimp, now he's, like, six feet tall and hot."

They both giggled, Launch placing a hand over her mouth and nose as she snorted, and Bulma just smiled wide. But it was short lived, fading away as her thoughts shifted some, and instead of keeping the thoughts to herself, she spoke them aloud to her audience: "Yamcha and I are practically over. He left to go train three years ago without my consent, and, truthfully?" she paused, "I expected to fall right back into his arms today, but only after teasing him, after showing him that I've become more of a woman over the last three years."

"But then you saw Son Goku, right?" Launch said with a grin.

"Yeah," Bulma nodded and lowered her gaze, "I saw Goku and thought 'wow, look at him all grown up, wouldn't it be nice if I could just drag my fingers over his body?'"

The other woman laughed empathetically, "That's not such a bad thing. It's something new and exciting."

"It is," she blew a big sigh and peered back up at Launch, "but he's an idiot. He saw my lipstick on the ride over here and asked if I was sick. This is the same guy who tugged my undies down while I was sleeping because he thought I'd lost my balls."

Launch laughed and covered her mouth, "Oh, dear, I'm so sorry. He really did that?"

"Yeah, it's a long story," Bulma waved a hand dismissively, "but I really don't think he'd understand what it meant to be touched that way, to be touched intimately."

"Well, perhaps maybe it's about time somebody taught him what it means."

That caught Bulma by surprise, and she felt her mouth hanging open in near shock as she looked at the sincere smile that was being sent her way from the dark-haired woman in the bed. The thought of becoming romantically involved with Goku scared her a little, especially considering he likely couldn't grasp the basics of romance. It'd be hard to make him understand. Maybe she ought to try?

Launch yawned and lay back, curling onto her side, "Just think about it, Bulma, and turn out the light before you go to bed."

"I will," she said and turned her gaze back out the window, noticing the rain had ceased. If I'm really going to do this, I'm going to need to prepare how I'm going to explain it to him.

Apparently, Goku had risen early and had gone down to the preliminary rings, eager to get things started, so Bulma figured she would wait until after the tournament to speak to him. But in the first round, Goku came up against a mystery fighter, a girl, a cute girl who looked to be about his age. She claimed to know him and claimed that he had agreed to marry her. Bulma figured the chick was nuts, especially considering Goku's ignorance to romance. If he had agreed to marry anyone, he likely would have done it without knowing what it was. But to her surprise (and horror), he remembered the proposal and it was revealed the girl was Chi-Chi, daughter of the Ox King. Innocent Goku, poor, sweet, dumb, idiotic, innocent Goku proposed marriage on the stage, saying: "Since I made a promise, we better get married."

She had little time to dwell on the fact the guy she was crushing on was getting married, as the matches following kept her distracted, especially when the mysterious Majunior turned out to be the son of the Demon King Piccolo and destroyed the ring in a longwinded fight that ended with Goku's victory. And at the end of the tournament, Goku went off with Chi-Chi to go get married, and Bulma went home alone.

Capsule Corp. felt empty, despite it crawling with employees. They hardly mattered, their greetings went unheard as she dwelled on the crush that was now eating her alive from the inside. She missed her chance, and now the dumb idiot was going to get married and live with this woman he won't know how to love.

She found her room, entered, closed the door and slumped onto her bed. She peered over at her nightstand and saw the picture frame she'd put there six years ago after the tournament before last. The picture was of her, little Krillin and little Goku, with Master Roshi just off frame. The three of them were all making faces.

Bulma's lip trembled and she reached for the frame and slapped it face down on the nightstand. She took in a sharp breath and narrowly avoided crying. Why should she cry? She didn't lose anything. You can't lose things you never had. But the pressure to cry remained as she plopped back on her bed and stared up at the ceiling. She took little comfort in the fact that she'd eventually get over this crush. Part of her didn't want to get over it. She wanted to see if she could somehow get Goku to want desire things he'd never thought about before. The thought excited her, but it was immediately replaced with a painful, nauseating knot in her stomach when she reminded herself that Goku was somebody elses.

"Damn it."