Set two months and a week after the events of Swapped. Raditz and Kakarrot have been on Earth for nine and a half months. Also, please forgive Kakarrot his forwardness/persistence – he is an alien.

"Why, why do you do this every fucking time we meet?!" Chichi demanded, face crimson with fury, "You've been seeking me out for fucking months, and every single time you've brought me a dead animal or insulted me or chased after me or-"

"I want you to be my mate!"

"-or made that ridiculous demand!" she turned the full force of her glare on the short boy in the orange t-shirt before her. He frowned, puzzled.

"But you keep saying 'no,' so I have to keep asking! If you'd hurry up and say 'yes,' I could stop asking!"

She growled. "As if! I wouldn't say 'yes' to you even if you'd been asking nicely!"

"But I have been asking nicely!" he pouted.

'Insufferable… infuriating… monkey-tailed… BRAT!' Chichi fumed, "So, what, since I'm the Ox Princess, that's all I'm worth?! 'Oh, she's such a delinquent, bet she'd LOVE a dead boar!'"

"It's traditional! And I apologised for the boar – I couldn't find anything stronger on short notice!"

"Oh yes, how could I forget – you're not human, you're an alien," she mocked.

He scowled. "I'm not an alien, I'm saiyan! You're the alien!"

"THEN WHY BOTHER WITH ME?!" she shrieked, finally reaching the end of her tether and having had as much of this as she could stomach. "Why not go find some other alien, some cute li'l sexpot who's all sweet and acts like a real princess!"

Because that was the heart of it, beyond the casual insults, the weird 'courtship' gifts, beyond everything else. Chichi liked herself. She liked being able to crumble a boulder with a punch. She liked beating up interlopers on her father's turf and showing them who was boss. She even liked living in a castle that still smelled faintly of smoke from when the mountain had been on fire for so long a few years ago. But she didn't like people pointing out how little she fit the typical image of a princess, people in whose mouths her title contained far too much 'ox' and not nearly enough royalty. And she hated people who tried to use this to mock her, who tried to make her hate herself – people like this boy, who could not let a stupid, cruel joke go-

"You don't?"

The innocent question threw off her train of thought and knocked the wind out of her sails somewhat. "Don't what?"

"Act like a real princess." He looked so confused that, for once, instead of punching him and stomping off, she decided to hear him out. And he was looking at her so earnestly now, with none of the bravado and swagger he'd been trying to use previously, to no success. Now, he looked like he was, for once, trying to understand, too, brows knitting together in a perplexed expression. "But… you're strong! You're the strongest female I've met here, which is how it should be, because royals are royal because they're stronger than anyone! And you fight off bandits, and accept all challengers, displaying honour and prowess in battle. And- and you smell good, like fighting and dirt and winning! And because, um… yrfcisskrd."

"What was that last bit?" Chichi wasn't sure, but he seemed sincere enough, and now he was blushing and not meeting her eyes, so she definitely wanted to hear this. If only so she knew how hard she needed to slap him, of course!

"Because, when I first saw you…" he glanced at her, bit his lip, and glanced away again, blushing darker. "When I first saw you, you were fighting off those big guys, and they'd made you so mad… and you had a rage fit for a queen, and your face was sky red and- and- and I'd never seen anything prettier!"

It came out in a rush, but come out it did.

And now Chichi felt her face going red for a different reason than usual. Not many people had ever complimented her on her looks, but those who had were generally quick to sneer when they saw her after a fight, sweaty and dishevelled and still half-consumed with battle rage. Her father had always assured her that she was a real cutie, but he was her father – that was part of his job. And even he didn't usually say she looked pretty after a fight. Victorious, maybe, but not pretty. That one part, though- "Sky red? The sky's blue, dummy."

He shook his head vigorously. "Not at home. Not on Vegetasei. I've never been, because it got blown up a bit after I was born, but Raditz – he's my older brother – has shown me lots of images of it, and the sky was red like your face and…"

And he'd seen her, and she'd looked like strength and power and, most of all, home, the home he'd never seen with his own eyes but which he missed all the same. And he didn't know how to say it so she'd understand, but when he'd seen her, for maybe the first time ever, he'd wanted. Wanted to fight with her and beside her. To share food with her. To show her how to fly so he could chase her. To walk into a room and smell her lingering scent. To make her face go sky red. To prove he was worthy.

But he was only fourteen and didn't understand half of this himself, and he wasn't good with words to boot. So instead of saying all that, he finished as best he could. "…and I wanted to keep seeing it. Your face. And the sky in your face."

Because sometimes, even those unskilled with words will stumble onto the right thing to say.

Chichi looked at the boy blushing in front of her, radiating honesty with every fiber of his being even as he twisted his orange t-shirt in his hands, and came to a decision.

"So, what's your name, anyway?"

He peeked up at her shyly. "Kakarrot."

"You're awfully short, Carrot."

He stood up straighter. "My brother says I'm gonna grow soon, and then I'll be a lot taller! And my name's Kakarrot."

"I heard how you said it, Carrot." She folded her arms. "Here's how this is gonna work. Yer gonna go away and get taller, 'cause right now you don't look more'n ten, and I'm not gonna be seen going out with a ten-year-old, even if you are fourteen. And yer gonna learn how t'teach someone to fly without throwing them off a cliff." (that experience was one that was still haunting her a little – thank kami she hadn't let go!) "And when you've done both those things, yer gonna come back and bring me flowers and teach me to fly."

He perked up. "And then you'll be my mate?"

"And then I'll think about it."

"But you'll wait for me? You won't choose a different mate while I'm growing?"

He looked so concerned that she couldn't help smiling at him, just a little. "Sure, you do all that, and I'll wait while you do it."

"Deal!" And Kakarrot's smile was so wide it looked like the top of his head would come off. "I'll start right now!" And with that he leapt into the air and took off like a shot in the direction he always left in when he flew.

Chichi stared at the sky for awhile, arms folded. He had looked sweet when he smiled, and he'd been awfully persistent, and apparently more in earnest than she'd realised. He wasn't anything like the heroes in her storybooks, though, and that was a little worrying. She'd always thought she'd find someone like that to marry, someone tall and romantic and courteous. Then again… those heroes always seemed to marry sweet, docile little heroines with blue eyes and blonde hair. And it was never mentioned if these heroines could mend armor, or cook, or whether they ever joined the heroes to go off and fight bad guys when they weren't keeping house.

Maybe… maybe romance for her wouldn't be like the romances she'd always read about, that she'd always secretly dreamed of having. Maybe her life wasn't going to be a fairy tale after all.

'…and I wanted to keep seeing it. Your face. And the sky in your face.'

Chichi found herself smiling and, after a moment's surprise, adjusted her stance so she was standing strong, hands on her hips, smiling broadly.

Maybe it would be even better.

OoOoOoOoOoO

Normally I'm not a fan of the 'won't take no for an answer'-type romance, but in this instance Chichi is so often the one shown doing all the pursuing and most of the work (for better or worse) and I wanted her to be the one being pursued this time. Plus, they're both kids, and this is the sort of thing that often happens in late middle school/early high school.

Chichi might seem a little harsh on Kakarrot here, but she's always been a rather blunt go-getter in my experience, and Kakarrot has been giving her a pretty difficult time from her perspective. The common wedding rhyme in western society goes 'something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.' The saiyan equivalent is more along the lines of 'something stolen, something red, something violent, something dead.' This translates into their courtship practices as well. Chichi's used to being mocked for being a violent tomboy – saiyan courtship rituals really did feel more like more mockery than flattery to her. I would also like to emphasize that Bulma had no idea what Kakarrot was doing, but she is about to find out and give him Human Courtship and Romance 101. And also yell at Raditz for filling his head with that 'nonsense' in the first place.

Speaking of Chichi, when we first meet her in the manga, she's about 11 years old at the most and, as such, likely just starting to really notice boys while still being in the storybook romance mindset. Canon Chichi has the misfortune of actually meeting and getting engaged to Goku in rather storybook manner, at least from her POV. I don't think she really ever got over that, and this causes communication issues between her and Goku.

This Chichi never had that and, as a result, has grown up a bit more at this point and developed a slightly more realistic view of relationships and what she wants out of one, though she's still obviously a romantic. She's also much more of a scrapper than her counterpart – she hasn't had a guaranteed husband to prepare herself for, and she is her father's daughter. So the end result is Chichi and Kakarrot are both much wilder than their canon counterparts and, as a result, are actually starting off with a better understanding of each other. They are also realizing (as of this fic) that there're some cultural differences they're going to need to learn to navigate. It isn't just Chichi who's changed in this – they're both very different.

One of the things I like about Chichi in the manga is that her speech is slightly accented, which I find rather charming and think does a good job showing that she comes from a rather different background, so I kept it, even though her enunciation is perfect in the anime as far as I know.

Fry Pan Mountain never got blown up in this world because Son Gohan was accompanying Bulma instead of Goku and he put out the fire himself rather than calling in Roshi. As a result, the mountain and the castle on it stand there to this day, though both still have a rather smoky scent.

Chichi

Age: 15

Height: 5'3"

Kakarrot

Age: 14

Height: 3'0"