Chapter Text
Any warrior, even a human one, could explain how important the various senses were for fighting. Sight was obvious – being able to perceive your opponent as they attack was the simplest form, but it also encompassed everything from infinitesimal muscle twitches to the slightest shift in gaze. An observant fighter with a sharp eye could anticipate an opponent’s moves almost before they themselves did, just from watching closely.
Hearing was equally important. Grunts and breathing were frequently a sure giveaway of a next step, a kick, or a strike. A devious opponent might learn to use that to their advantage – grunting with the effort of a strike where none is intended to land in the same way that a fighter might feint through a shoulder twitch. But even the rippling of sound as a limb moves through the air could give warning where a visual cue might not.
Touch might have seemed obvious the way that sight and sound did, but it could be intensely subtle in a fight. True, touch was also a gateway to pain, where the sensation of neurons registering a strike might immediately report damage from a poorly blocked attack, but it could also be the most potent defense in an arsenal. Air currents moving across incredibly tiny hairs along the body, each reporting changes in the wind and noting little disturbances such as the displacement building around a fist as it comes hurtling through space were at the heart of any true battle between similarly matched opponents.
Humans tended to collectively delude themselves into believe that there were only five senses. In reality there were dozens of senses that worked in concert to make a body function. Even taste could be broken down into several types of perception between temperature and sweetness and acidity, and touch had many layers such as understanding pressure and gauging dampness. Even a human body had balance and proprioception, however limited they might seem, understanding its relative location in space to other objects and itself, and fundamentally knowing how those things should interact.
Scent was truly an unappreciated sense by many, especially in battle. The scent of smoke on the wind, warning animals about impending fire coming to sweep away their homes. The musk of a predator in the air, inspiring fear in the hearts of all creatures who were anything less than an apex predator. And in battle, the scent of first blood. The feeling of standing across from an opponent, the coppery scent of their blood wafting up from one’s own hands, kickstarting an adrenaline reaction that poured ice from the middle of the back into veins and arteries as the heart speeds even as the perception of time seems to slow down.
Even outside of battle, scent played a pivotal role in memory. Memories could be tricky and fickle. They were stories that people told to themselves about their past, and they could get confused and changed in the retelling. But there were few memories stronger than scent memories – where even years later a recognizable scent could evoke powerful imagery and transport the subject across time and space with only a whiff of the familiar.
Saiyans, naturally, were created of much finer material than humans. Their senses were sharper and deeper, and they had a much more complete understanding of the input being provided from their senses due to their more complex minds and wiring. That was part of what made them superior fighters – a human might have to rely on their terrible eyesight to see a foe coming, but a Saiyan might hear the air leaving their lungs as they snuck up behind. For a Saiyan living in a human world, this was both an advantage and a curse.
Humans had noise everywhere, loud and constant. Devices that were always chirping and chiming, vehicles that grumbled and honked, and the incessant chatter some of them seemed to be unable to survive without. Humans walked about drenched in perfumes and oils, and everything was a riot of light and color. It took a lot of adjustment from the cold, empty void of space to survive the onslaught every day and retain some semblance of sanity.
Vegeta found himself gritting his teeth as he stood in the hallway of Capsule Corp that led to the dining area. His choices were limited – he could head outside where Dr. Briefs worked on the now-damaged spaceship he had been using for training and put up with a lot of angry grumbling and clanging about Vegeta overdoing it and destroying his technology…or he could go into the kitchen and deal with her.
She was absolutely vexing. He had returned from his search for Kakarot empty-handed and angry, and he had insisted on training right away. What fault was it of his if the supplied technology was inadequate to handle his current power level? If anything, it was the fault of the ridiculous humans for insinuating that they could make something to keep up with his needs in the first place. He had blown the place to pieces, and next thing he knew he was in a hospital bed and being bossed around by that blue-haired banshee who didn’t seem to give a damn how important his training was.
Even if she didn’t care about how much he needed to surpass Kakarot and now this new brat who had shown up, he had thought she would at least care about the fate of her own planet. Most people seemed to care about the rock they were standing on when it came down to it. “No, Almighty Prince Vegeta,” they would wail at him, “Please don’t destroy our home!” Yet this one seemed to care more about how much sleep he was getting and insisted on him taking breaks to eat and shower like he was an infant who couldn’t be trusted to manage his own routine.
With a grunt, he decided that at least an attempt to eat would be better than listening to Dr. Briefs complain about restoring gravity generators or whatever he had been on about this evening. There was only so much arguing he could do with the man – he just didn’t listen and prattled on about technology. He could try to drown out the woman with the sound of his own chewing, or perhaps she would be too busy with her own projects to bother him. He entered the kitchen and braced himself for the onslaught.
There she sat at the table, books and notebooks spread out in front of her, along with some sort of electronic device that she kept tapping. She would refer to her books, and then tap the electronic device, and then make notes in her notebook. She sat with one leg tucked under her, and one foot propped up on the edge of the seat portion of the chair. Her bright teal hair was in a ponytail that had partly fallen out and obscured her vision from time to time, but she just kept tucking it back behind her ear, where yet another pencil was also tucked.
She wore a green long-sleeve button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled back to her elbows and unbuttoned in front to reveal a tight white tank top that hugged the curves of her chest, and tan shorts that showed off the paleness of her legs as they sat at awkward angles while she wrote. Some sort of device covered her ears and loud, tinny noises came from it. She glanced at him and smiled a little when he came in, but largely ignored him as she kept moving between her various piles and making notes. Her blue eyes re-focused on the text in front of her, and he tried not to stare at her mouth as she silently mouthed words to herself.
It was just as well. Sometimes she would get so absorbed in whatever she was working that she ignored him entirely, and he greatly preferred it that way to listening to her prattle on. She had even been so intent on whatever she was working on that she had fallen asleep on her books while she was supposed to be taking care of him after he had been injured. Clearly she struggled with balancing the appropriate amount of training and rest, something she had accused him of several times. He snorted and went to start putting together leftovers from the refrigerator.
When he sat down several dishes at the table and started eating, she looked up once more and nodded in approval, turning to go back to her books. Just before she did she reached over and snatched an apple off a bowl of him he had set down and he made what he felt was a very dignified noise to indicate his displeasure.
“What do you think you’re doing? First you’re always harassing me to eat properly, and now you’re stealing food from my plate?” He glared at her, and she took a bite of the apple thoughtfully, and then made a note in her notebook. He could hear the loud screeching from the device covering her ears and realized she couldn’t hear him. He raised his voice. “Woman! What are you doing?” She looked up at him and blinked, and noticing his glower she pulled the device from her ears and let it dangle around her neck, making the noise much louder, and he winced.
“What?”
“I said, what are you doing, taking food from my plate?” She stared at him and boldly took another bite of her pilfered apple and raised an eyebrow.
“I think you’ll find that it’s my plate, actually. This is my house, remember?” He glared more fiercely as she spoke around her mouthful of apple. Those eyes, so focused on him, that mouth, twisting into a grin. She was absolutely infuriating.
“When I compiled the food I clearly was staking my claim over it. Besides, you offered it to me, and you constantly yell at me to eat, and what is that awful noise?”. She looked surprised and then looked down at her device. She looked over the flat electronic pad where she had been tapping and tapped something else, and the noise stopped. She looked back at him.
“That?”
“Yes that. What sort of awful noise are you pouring into your ears? No wonder you can’t ever hear anything. You’ve clearly damaged sensitive internal organs with it.” She rolled her eyes.
“That’s music, Vegeta. And my ears work just fine, but thank you for your concern.” He scoffed, face turning slightly red.
“I wasn’t concerned, just annoyed by its presence. What is music?”
She was halfway into another bite, holding the apple to her mouth and her teeth had just started to sink into the tender flesh of the apple when she stopped to stare at him. She fixed him with brilliant blue eyes wide, mouth parted and teeth bared in a gesture that was decidedly appealing. She finished her bite, watching him closely. She chewed and swallowed before speaking.
“You don’t know what music is? Don’t Saiyans have singing or dancing, or art of any kind?” Although he would never admit to being uncomfortable under her scrutiny, he picked up his own utensils and started eating to avoid looking at her.
“I don’t know what that is, but I’m assuming it’s some human frippery. Your kind seems to waste time on leisure activities far more than you ever seem to put into progressing as a species.” He chewed swallowed his food mechanically, ignoring her peal of laughter.
“That ’frippery’ as you call it is pretty important to the development of a species. It has helped form the way we look at everything from science to math, and it’s part of our everyday lives. I just can’t imagine a whole culture that…doesn’t have any culture. No painting, no dancing, no singing in the shower. What does your race even do for pleasure?” He looked up at her, chewing the bite he was currently working on with very deliberate thoroughness. He stared directly into her eyes and swallowed and he slowly grinned as she grew redder and redder and then looked down at her apple with cheeks that matched its bright pink flesh. He looked back down at his food as she cleared her throat.
“Yes, well, I suppose I walked right into that one.” She shifted around in her chair slightly, apparently uncomfortable. She took a small nibble from her apple and shook her head. “Still, art is something that we apply to a lot of our advancements. You can see the Fibonacci sequence in art and architecture going back thousands of years, for example, although perhaps that’s sort of an example the other way around. But art is pretty important.”
“What does this have to do with anything and why is it important enough to be interrupting my dinner with it?” She rolled her eyes.
“You’re technically interrupting me, not the other way around. And right now I’m applying art to science by listening to loud music in order to occupy that part of my brain so I can focus on this technological problem I’m trying to overcome. There’s an issue about resistance that I’m trying to sort out so we can improve the sensors in the ship my dad is rebuilding. Listening to music helps me concentrate.” He frowned.
“How could listening to that aural nightmare help you concentrate?” She stared at him and mouthed the words “aural nightmare” before laughing again.
“It’s…hard to explain. It’s like listening to music when you work out. You should try it sometime. I can set you up with a playlist for when you get back to training. Which will not be for at least two more days. You’ve still got bandages on from your most recent training accident.” She eyed him warily as he stood up, collecting his dishes from the table.
“Nonsense. I’m ready to begin training now. And I don’t see how damaging any of my senses is supposed to improve my focus rather than be a distraction.” He turned to walk away with his dishes and she glared at him.
“No, you’re not, and if you try to start exercising before the day after tomorrow I will deliberately sabotage all the hard work my father is doing right now and then we’ll both be in trouble.” He whirled around and returned her glare with fury.
“You wouldn’t dare! I need to begin my training immediately, woman!” She folded her arms beneath her breasts in an appealing way and tilted her chin up in the infuriating manner to which he had come to interpret as the stance of immovability, where she would not back down no matter how he threatened. The woman was notoriously stubborn.
“Two days. Take two days off to rest your broken body before I go grab a wrench and break it for you more.” He growled and stalked into the kitchen, only to throw his dishes in the sink with a sharp clatter. He knew exactly how much force he could use to throw their dishes without breaking them, which had taken a slight calibration on his part for the first few days. Her sharp voice carried in from the next room. “You’d better not have broken anything, or I’m gonna break you!”
He shook with rage, trying to ignore the bait as he stalked out of the kitchen and past her, but she unfolded herself from the chair she was sitting in and stood up, deliberately standing in his way. He stepped closer to her in an effort to intimidate her into moving, but she just reached up and poked him in the chest with one finger.
“I mean it, mister. If you don’t rest, you’re going to seriously hurt yourself. Sometimes a body needs more than just fighting all the time.” He looked down at the tiny finger poking him in the chest and then back up at her, eyes narrowing. He had never been so close to her. She had never touched him before, and he didn’t like the precedent this was setting. Then he made his first big mistake.
He inhaled.
He had meant simply to take in a breath to retort angrily at her that he was in charge of his own body, but he had foolishly breathed in through his nose. The scent of her was…overwhelming. She smelled like strawberries and sunlight, and a little like grease and the sweat of hard work, as though she hadn’t yet showered this evening. But he could also smell the faint scent of the floral soap she had used yesterday, and then there was just so much that was her alone. It was intoxicating and perplexing, and he found himself just blinking at her as she had fixed him with her glare that indicated her stance would not be changed.
“Okay. Two days of rest.” She opened her mouth to argue with him but seemed to realize he had agreed with her belatedly. He recovered enough to roll his eyes and stepped to the side to go around her. “I’m well aware of how to care for my own body, woman. Maybe you should get some sleep yourself.” There was a roaring in his ears, and he didn’t hear if she replied. He also didn’t see the confused look on her face as he passed her, or the hint of blush on her cheeks.
~~~
Back in his own quarters he sighed. It was calm, and quiet, and not filled with the racket of ‘art’ or women telling him what to do with his own body. He knew his own limits and didn’t need to be harassed into rest, although privately he did acknowledge that he was still quite sore from the explosion days before. He busied himself with a concentrated effort restore order to his room, exactly how he preferred, straightening and tidying. He didn’t have many possessions, but he liked to keep them arranged efficiently. It helped calm his mind especially when he found himself otherwise distracted.
Still, his body was recovering quickly, and perhaps he would train a little tomorrow simply to spite her, even though he had just agreed that he wouldn’t. That made him smile. She would hate it immensely. He paused when he realized the gravity of that thought. He enjoyed their verbal sparring. Sure, she couldn’t actually injure him in any meaningful physical way, but she was perhaps the one human who had ever actually made a real effort to stand up to him. Even the ones who had fought him were clearly terrified of him, but she regularly fought back and showed no fear when confronted with someone as strong as himself. It was intriguing.
If he didn’t know better he might suspect that she was simply unaware of his strength, but she had seen him fight on a few occasions, and his prowess was legendary. He also might have thought that she was simply too stupid to know better, or otherwise mentally unwell, but he had seen her working on complex technologies and come up with strategies that all indicated she likely was quite intelligent for the animals that claimed to be in charge of this planet. If she wasn’t ignorant and she wasn’t stupid that just left…bravery? She was willing to stand up in the face of a superior foe and believe that she could overcome the odds. Foolishness, perhaps, he thought to himself. But still, her response to him was commendable. She was a strange sort of warrior, but she had the spirit of a warrior regardless.
He shook his head. No, he would not be training tomorrow. He would simply have to find some other way to annoy her into another sparring match. He laid down in his bed, the smell of her still lingering in his nose and the memory of her penetrating blue eyes floating in his mind.