A Chance Meeting

by Agent Malkere

Disclaimer: Still not mine.

Krillin sat down on the steps outside the temple with a sigh. He was starting to think that the life of a monk really wasn't for him. Krillin had come to the temple when he was eight and it had become abundantly clear that his family had far more mouths than his parents could ever hope to feed. At first, Krillin had been happy at the temple. He was a middle child and used to being overlooked. Besides, he was getting to learn martial arts which was amazing and fun! Sure, he got teased a bit, because he was a little on the short side and didn't have a nose, but it wasn't anything bad. Then Krillin had turned eleven, and while the other boys his age had started to shoot up one by one, Krillin had stayed… small. That's when the teasing had turned from friendly to mean.

Krillin kicked at a pebble and rubbed at the bruise forming on his shoulder from when one of the older, favored students of the temple had casually shoved him into a wall.

"I thought monks were supposed to be nice to people."

"Huh?" Krillin blinked and looked up. A small girl in a lavender sundress was staring at him intently. She looked like she was a few years younger than Krillin – nine, maybe ten? – and her short blonde hair was pulled into two bristly pigtails at the back of her head. She put her hands on her hips.

"I saw that monk shove you and call you 'turtle face,' and that wasn't very nice, and I thought that monks were supposed to be nice to people." She sounded incredibly indignant.

"Yeah. I guess he's not a very good monk." Krillin was fairly certain that he'd seen the kid around before. Maybe at the market. "I'm not that great at being a monk either," Krillin admitted. Krillin's tendency to steal extra rice cakes made the elders cross, but even after almost five years at the temple, Krillin was still working on breaking his habit of hording food.

The little girl considered this with a very serious expression.

"Then why are you a monk? Do you like being a monk?"

"I like learning martial arts," Krillin shrugged. Someday he was going to be such an amazing martial artist that pretty girls his own age wouldn't care that he barely came up to their waist and didn't have a nose. What was wrong with not having a nose, anyway? Nobody else in his family had had a nose either.

"But you don't like the rest of being a monk," the little girl concluded. Krillin side-eyed her. She was being way too perceptive for a kid her age.

He glanced around to make sure that no one from the temple was within earshot and then reluctantly mumbled,

"Yeah."

"You're stupid," the girl told him.

"Hey!" Krillin squawked indignantly. He got enough insults at the temple without this kid helping out.

She rolled her eyes.

"If the only part you like is the martial arts, then go learn them somewhere that isn't a temple." She crossed her arms and grumbled to herself, "Boys are so dumb."

Krillin blinked at her in surprise. That was… actually a really good idea. Why hadn't he thought of that?

"Lazuli!" shouted another young voice. The little girl turned as a young boy, who bore a striking resemblance to her aside from his black hair, came running up. "I've been looking for you everywhere! Mom is going to be so mad if she finds out that you were talking to strangers again!"

The little girl, Lazuli, looked like she wanted to stick out her tongue at her brother but refrained.

"Dad said that holy people don't count as strangers, just like policemen, and he's a monk."

"Whatever. Let's just get back to Mom before we're both grounded."

"Fine." Lazuli left with her brother without at backward glance.

Krillin watched them go, his mind buzzing with new possibilities.