It was painful to have to spend the night without her sleeping beside him, or to feel her cool hands touch his face as she said goodnight to him, like she always had before. It was painful to wake up and not have her still beside him, wide awake, but still waiting for him to wake up before she got out of bed and went on with her day. It was painful to take a shower and not have her in the bathroom too, fixing her hair or applying makeup to her perfect face while he sang, ‘You Are So Beautiful’ to her, shampooing his hair.

And it was painful to walk into Marron’s room and not find her still sound asleep, buried beneath a mound of soft pink covers, with her blond hair in sloppy pigtails, surrounded by stuffed animals, or not see her at the breakfast table, demanding a second helping of her favorite cereal and more juice.

Kuririn sighed and banged his head against the side wall of the Capsule Corporation building. And it has only been a day! What is going to happen if she leaves me for good? What am I going to do?

After Juuhachi-gou had left yesterday, he had spent not one moment in sleep, still standing in the exact same spot, shocked at what had just happened to him. He knew that she was unpredictable, and that she was surprisingly very sensitive despite the fact that she was an android. She often had fits of anger, threw things, and had threatened his life more than a casual number of times.

But she’s never left before. Never. She’s never even threatened it.

It was a lonely drive to Capsule Corporation that morning, with no one to talk to in the car, and no one to fight over which radio station to listen to, or what the speed limit was. He had actually been dreading the drive over since she left, because he knew it would make him miss her. Actually, everything made him miss her, from the car, to the kitchen sink, to not being able to iron his own shirt that morning.

And now that he was leaving….There was a possibility that he might never be able to see her again. What if I die and she never knows how sorry I am?

He opened his eyes again, trying to fight back tears, when he saw the most lovely woman he had ever lay his eyes on saunter across the yard of Capsule Corp. and speak to Bulma, her beautiful face showing no expression. Whatever she said to Bulma, it must have been rather shocking because Bulma almost fell over, but quickly gathered herself and wrote something down on the clipboard. Juuhachi-gou was wearing a simple, yet classic outfit that looked well put together, and combined with the soft ice blue of her eyes, and the short cut of her blond hair, she looked perfect. As usual.

Juuhachi-gou! His heart thudded in his chest as he raced from his spot next to the wall and headed over to talk to her, scared and excited at the same time. And when her ice blue eyes flicked over to meet his, he let out all his breath in one big ‘whoosh’, and suddenly felt more nervous than he had in a long, long time. Though she showed no real expression, her eyes hinted at anger, and she didn’t look like she had forgiven him at all.

“Juuha….Juuhachi. I didn’t think you were going to come.” He said in a wavering voice, forgetting that Bulma was standing right next to them, a clipboard clutched in her hands. She looked at them with confusion, because the last time she had seen them, they seemed perfectly fine, but now it looked as if maybe the relationship was on the rocks.

Juuhachi-gou looked at Bulma and stared without a word. Bulma’s expression quickly changed from curious to uneasy, and gathered the clipboard in up closer to her chest and backed away towards the doorway of Capsule Corp., not saying anything at all, but wanting to so badly that she had to bite her tongue.

“I said I was coming.” She said evenly, her eyes boring into his, making him even more nervous.

“I know….” He stammered. “But that was….was before we….Before you….”

“You have nothing to do with this, Kuririn. I was going. With or without you.”

The statement was harsh, and although it kind of hurt --- the fact that she wasn’t going for him, he didn’t say anything to her, for fear that she might get angry again and stalk off. He noticed for the first time that Marron wasn’t with her, and opened his mouth to ask her, but she beat him to it.

“Marron is inside with the Brief’s. They are showing her the room she will be staying in.”

“I thought you wanted her to come.” He said in confusion.

“I thought you were different.” She shot back, and turned on her heel, stalking back to towards the building, not wanting to talk to him anymore. Though she felt like blasting something to bits and ripping someone’s head off at the moment, she refrained easily, no longer overwhelmed by Gero’s programming. It was moments like this that made it easy to return to her old habits, but she had a daughter now, and things to think of besides herself. She just couldn’t run off and try to destroy Earth anymore. She had responsibility.

“Juuhachi! Please!” Kuririn whined, and his short little legs ran to catch up with her.

He suddenly felt a huge and overbearing pain as a hand reached out and gripped the back of his neck like a vise. He turned around to see Juunana-gou staring at him with the same cool blue eyes as his wife’s, only his eyes looked a lot less friendly.

“Neechan doesn’t want to talk to you. Got it?” He threatened, releasing Kuririn’s neck and following Juuhachi-gou into the building.

“Juunana-gou?! What are you doing here?!” He cried in confusion, then quickly shook his head. “Wait! I don’t care. Just…I need to talk to Juuhachi, please, I just want to say I’m sorry!” Kuririn begged, running after them.

Juunana-gou stopped suddenly, and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and hauled him off the ground until they were nose to nose. Juunana-gou’s eyes narrowed into an icy glare and Kuririn’s eyes were wide with fright and shock.

“Leave her alone.” He snarled angrily. “I mean it. Stay away or I will not be responsible for my actions.”

Then he dropped him to the ground easily and continued towards the building, not noticing his shocked and defeated brother-in-law sitting in the grass, feeling very lost and very alone, and scared.

Trunks stood outside his house, to the left of the spacehip loading area on top of a large box, staring at the house with unblinking eyes. Very slowly, he turned around in a full circle to survey the area around him, and took special care to watch all the entrances of the space ship, but keeping Tayhei’s bedroom window in the corner of his eye at all times. He had seen various people arrive already, including Gohan, Videl, and Pan, Kuririn, Juuhachi-gou, Gokuu, and even Juunana-gou was around somewhere. No one had gotten by him, and no one was going to.

That girl is NOT getting on this ship.

Ever since Vejiita had ordered him, he had become intensely paranoid about Tayhei sneaking onto the ship. He knew that she was not likely to just give up and not even try for it, even though Vejiita had told her ‘no’, and he knew that she was probably going to try something. He just didn’t know when. She was like that all the time --- unpredictable. He never knew when she was going to pull another trick on him, or alienate another one of his friends or family members towards him.

He had been keeping watch since early that morning, and before he had left to go outside, he had verified that Tayhei was still in bed by peeking in through her door and seeing a mess of blond hair under a mound of white covers. Her whole entire room was decorated in white, and she often wore white, which made him wonder because Tayhei was the least most ‘pure and innocent’ girl he knew, and white usually symbolized something to that effect. It was probably another one of her tricks and lies. He didn’t know if he would ever be able to believe that girl, or even trust her enough to turn his back on her.

“Still keeping watch?”

Trunks jumped up into the air and turned around quickly, panting in surprise. Tayhei stood beside him, dressed in a white (of course) strappy dress, with her hair done up in it’s usual ponytail. She smirked at his surprise and held up her white leather purse.

“I am going shopping. I decided that Sukuashi, while it may be adventurous and fun, does not over power the beauty of this nice credit card your Kaasan just gave me.” She said smoothly, holding up a gold card, as Trunks jumped down from his position on the crate. “So you won’t have to keep watch anymore. I’m leaving.”

“How did you get out of the house?!! I was watching your window the whole time! There’s no way you could have snuck out!” Trunks insisted, still not getting past the idea of it.

“I didn’t go out the window, I went out the front door, you idiot. Why the hell would I go out my window?” She asked while rolling her eyes. “I’m not Peter Pan, you know. I just can’t fly out my window and dash around all inconspicuously.”

Trunks folded his arms. “You would have tried. I know you.”

“You just go ahead and think that.” Tayhei smirked. Then her face lost a little bit of it’s arrogance, and was replaced by what almost looked like a blush. “Look, I’m not going to see you for awhile….”

“Weren’t you going shopping or something?” Trunks asked, looking at her with a bored expression. “What are you waiting for? Get out of here.”

She frowned at him, and flipped her ponytail over her shoulder, glaring fiercely. “Hmph. Fine. I’m leaving, then.”

“Good.”

“Well, I have to say goodbye to Goten first.”

“GET OUT OF HERE!” Trunks howled, and took a threatening step towards her. Just when he thought she might be going away and getting out of his hair, she had to bring up Goten again. He didn’t understand why Tayhei seemed so interested in Goten anyway. Sure, he was a nice guy, but he wasn’t that cute. At least, not as cute as he was. Girls like Tayhei weren’t supposed to fall for guys like Goten. It was just so….wrong.

Tayhei smirked again, and brought her beautiful green eyes up to his for a lingering moment, waiting for him to get more angry than he already was. But Trunks held his ground and glared right back at her, fighting off an angry twitch and trying desperately to control the vein in his forehead that always seemed to want to pop out when he got mad at someone. When she saw that he wasn’t going to crack, she held up her hands as if to say, ‘surrender’, and turned away, still smirking.

I hate that girl.

Chapter 11
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