Disclaimer: This is what I shall tell my teachers tomorrow: "I swear I meant to do my homework, but there was this lynch mob after me, so..."
A/N: If I get anymore nasty anonymous emails about how I'm a cold heartless bitch for writing a story and not finishing it, I'm going to track your ass down and flog you. I'm neglecting my hmwk for you guys - and have I mentioned that I'm at school from 10 am to 8 pm two days a week (with -on average- 15 minutes between each class), and that kmart owns my ass? No? Ok. I'm at school fulltime - literally. And Kmart owns my ass. Damn you Martha Stewart!
But really...I have no intention of abandoning Grow Up or any of my stories. At all...that esca fic I have going and ToB? Remember those two? I'm still working on those...slowly. Anyways, please...to the anonymous emailer who told me I was a big meanie head? Unless I've been dead with no activity here, at the shrine, or the blog (ie, a nice big note saying 'buh-bye now'), for at least six months, don't assume I've left? I can't really write on the fly, and that's why updates take so long. And if I really had to leave it unfinished, I'd stick around long enough to beg someone who I felt capable to finish it for me *turns to look at Taryl-chan and sensei* But we all know I'm not gonna do that, now am I? Anyways, enough bitching. I have hmwk to get to.
*******************************************
GROW UP!!!
chapter 8::surrogate
She was in shock; complete, utter, irrational shock.
Pan wheezed quietly, coming up short of breath and all-too-understanding of what Tasuki went through during an asthma attack; she felt like she'd just walked in on her parents.
Her boyfriend looked wildly back and forth between her, and the couple in the backseat, not sure who to be more worried about. No. Not couple-Bra and Soshiki. Who were in an embrace the likes of which Pan had never thought she'd catch them in-separately or apart. For one thing, they shared an extreme dislike for each other, though they did try their damnedest to get along, if only for her and Tasuki's sake. For another…
Tasuki cleared his throat, dispelling the terrible memory of her screech. Soshiki responded as if there'd been words, sliding his thumb down Bra's face and curling his arm around her waist, pulling her tight against his chest. The blue haired girl didn't fight him, laying her cheek against his shoulder, gripping his sleeve with both hands and wiping at her tears with her fingertips.
Blue eyes met bluer, and Pan's chest tightened to the point of physical agony as Bra quickly averted her gaze, sinking deeper into Soshiki, hiding her face in his bicep.
She'd been replaced.
Pan swallowed thickly, the paper bag she still cradled in her arms slipping to the ground.
She'd been replaced as Bra's most trusted companion and the only soul alive allowed to see her cry.
Tasuki silently closed his door as the bag hit the pavement, cans spilling out onto the ground, warm cocoa and coffee staining the snow.
Replaced by Soshiki.
His boots crunched quietly through the snow as he moved towards her.
Replaced by Bra's arch nemesis.
"Br…Bra?" Pan choked out, unable to hide the hurt and betrayal in her voice as Tasuki stooped to pick up the spilt drinks. Bra winced, lowering her eyes to the floorboards.
Soshiki lifted his face from Bra's blue locks, setting his chin on her head. "It's alright, Bee," he soothed quietly, breaking the silence with what Pan prayed would be an explanation. "It's not your fault you smell like vomit."
Pan watched, detatched, as Bra turned her eyes up to Soshiki's grey gaze, her face growing from "distraught" to "destroy" in a fluid sweep that Pan had only ever seen once before.
On Bulma's face.
Right before she'd broken three of Vegeta's ribs by hurling a fullsized refrigerator at him.
Bra's hands tightened around Soshiki's arm, a growl rumbling in her chest.
Self-preservation beat back self-pity and Pan snapped back to reality, spinning and launching herself at Tasuki who was crawling through the snow a few feet away. She drove him to the ground and shielded his body with hers-earning a mouthful of blond hair for her efforts-seconds before the car was engulfed with white hot light from the inside out. Over the screams of rage and self-defense, over the cries of the green Hyundai's shocks, the only audible sound was Tasuki's hysterical laughter.
Pan blinked and uncovered her head, peering back over her shoulder out of sheer curiosity.
Silhouetted in the car was Bra, crouched over nothing but flailing arms and legs, her shoulders moving as if she were throttling something.
Pan smiled meekly, still not entirely sure what to think or how to react, but all the same more than mildly entertained.
"Joke! Joke! It was a joke!"
"BASTARD HALF-BREED FLUNKIE! Everytime you start to prove you have ANY sense of decency, you go do something SO utterly BRAINLESS, IDIOTIC, and completely STUPID-not to mention CRUEL-that you make my FATHER look like the DENDE DAMNED EASTER BUNNY!!! I hate you! Hate HATE HATE!!!"
Bra sat in her corner of the car, fuming angrily, glaring a hole into the middle of the driver's seat. Pan shook her head, watching her out of the corner of her eye. Something was going on between the two in the backseat-and by the way Tasuki kept peering at them via the rearview mirror, he was probably figuring his brother into that "preggie Bra" theory of his.
If it weren't for the fact that Bra was still wearing Soshiki's leather jacket, pissed as she was, Pan would have beat him for it. But she didn't exactly have anything that she could use to prove Bra's innocence.
"You're an ass, you know that? A real ass."
"Said the bitch to the dog in heat."
Bra growled, making choking motions with her hands. Soshiki sniggered and faced her, chomping his teeth with his arms firmly crossed over his chest.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Pan registered the fact that her best friend was somewhat back to normal. But beyond that, she was still having a hard time trying to get any sort of grasp on reality. Reality was being a slippery little bastard tonight.
"Turn left here, right?"
Pan blinked and shook her head quickly, flinging her thoughts into separate corners of her mind. Still blinking, she turned and looked over at Tasuki. Brown eyes peered at her from beneath blond bands. He nodded to the intersection beyond the stop sign when she failed to comprehend him.
She shook her head again, trying to get her bearings. She'd been so preoccupied on the fact that neither Bra nor Shoshiki had refused to offer even a shitty excuse as to why they'd practically been lip-locked, that she hadn't even realized they'd reached Satan City. She chewed her lip as her gaze landed on the dominating presence of Orange Star High School off in the distance.
"R…right," she drawled slowly. "Wait! No…"
Tasuki took his hands from the wheel, cracking his knuckles. "Well? Which is it? Right or left?"
"Luh….no…" Pan's mind was as about as useful as the french fry grease it was steeped in: overused and overcooked.
"Next left, Bro," Soshiki piped up, pulling his arm into his shirt to nurse his bleeding nose with the sleeve of what had once been a white teeshirt. Despite the bruise under his left eye and the welt along the right side of his head, he looked rather amused and quite pleased with himself.
Pan slowly nodded in agreement, trying to bludgeon the little voice in the back of her head that demanded to know why he knew how to get to the Briefs'. Rationally, she knew that he'd dropped her off there after work at least two or three times and that unlike his brother, he had a thing about remembering directions.
But Pan didn't really feel like being rational right now-being rational might mean she had to admit that Bra and Soshiki had probably been hiding a relationship from her.
Or was that irrational?
"Yeah…take the next left, and then it's a straight shot to Capsule Corps," she mumbled, yanking absently on one of her pigtails.
Tasuki nodded and drove onward. "You know, that will always confuse me."
"What will?" Pan asked absently, consoling herself with the fact that he sounded just as bewildered as she felt. She tightened her hand around the chicken strap hanging from the roof as he took the corner, feeling the car scramble for footing on the icy road. Tasuki smiled, probably grateful for the meek attempt at conversation. Ever since she had pried Bra off of his brother, nothing much had been said much beyond the search for the first-aid kit that wasn't, and Soshiki's bitching about how if Bra hadn't tried to murder him in cold blood, their drinks would have still been hot. Other than that, the closest thing they'd had to conversation was the insult slinging in the backseat.
"How Bra's house is called Capsule Corps, when it isn't the Capsule Corps building."
"But it is the Capsule Corps building," Pan corrected him, pulling herself out of her detachment long enough to devote herself to the conversation. There'd be plenty of time once Tasuki dropped her off with Bra to figure out what the hell was going on.
"But-"
"My house is the original Capsule Corps building," Bra piped up, sounding tired but normal, despite the way she glared at the blond and green haired boy beside her. Pan couldn't help but notice Bra fidget nervously. "It's only been the last ten years that we've had the offices. And that's because the demands for capsule products exceeded what my mom and her private staff could produce in our home. So we built the offices and moved production and the rest of the business there."
"But it's still called Capsule Corps," Tasuki protested. "And that's what confuses me."
Pan smiled, poking at a wet spot on the knee of her jeans before cupping her hands behind her head, taking comfort in the shift of focus. "That's because it still is. Bulma and Trunks use it as a primary lab for their own inventions. It's also where Bulma does her own share of paperwork and presidentialness."
"But isn't Trunks the president of the company?" Soshiki sputtered through his most-likely broken nose. Bra squirmed visibly this time. She seemed to be growing more and more uncomfortable the closer they got to her house.
"My brother's just the public face. As Mom's gotten older, sales have gone down. But when we put him up as the public spokesperson and president, sales skyrocketed. My brother never really wanted the company, he wanted to be able to play in the labs as one of Mom's personal staff and let me take over, but she's been looking forward to retiring now-ish, so she told him that the face time would help him ease straight into the presidency of the company. So, I guess he is in charge, always has been. But Mom's so attached to her baby that she can't quite let go."
Pan looked back at Bra worriedly; she was way too quiet. Normally she took so much pride in her family's legacy. But tonight…
"Lady Bra, your mom ain't that old," Tasuki piped up. "She's spoken at the university more than enough times for me to tell you that. Your brother can't be much older than I am. So how in the hell-"
"Let's just say that Trunks is thirty-two, Tats," Pan coddled, patting his head.
"Was," Bra mumbled dejectedly from the backseat.
Pan blinked and turned around, peering back at her best friend. "That's right, he had a birthday a couple weeks ago, didn't he? Guess I'll have to say happy birthday to him…"
Bra shook her head, hiding behind her hair and glaring out the window. "Something like that," she muttered, slouching down in the seat and crossing her arms firmly across her chest.
Pan took her cue to keep her mouth shut and turned back around, looking out her own window at the familiar houses whizzing by. Bra could be as stubborn as she wanted, but the second they were outside of the car, Pan wasn't going to let her brood like this any longer. She'd been a bad best friend long enough; she had to fix this while she could.
It wasn't long before Tasuki pulled into Bra's drive, and Pan hastily unbuckled her seatbelt as Tasuki put the car in park, getting out of the car and turning to look back in at Bra before she closed the door. But Bra was already disappearing out her own door, one hand locked tightly around the collar of Soshiki's shirt, dragging him with her.
Her voice lodged in her throat, as if she'd caught a bad upper cut to the stomach, and she could only watch, destroyed, as Bra waved good-bye and hauled her sworn enemy up the front steps.
****************************************************
A/N: Please excuse the angst. And for everyone confused on why there is so much angst, please just be patient with me. I know I'm slow with the chapters *conceeds that dbzobsessed was right back in july*, but I'm getting there. Really. I have a doodle class this semester, so I'll try and get some writing done then, but I can't promise it. I really am trying to update on a normal basis again...I mean, miracles happen, right? ;P
-Panabelle ;P
www.angelfire.com/dbz/storytellers :: Shrine of the Saiyan Squirt: searching to fire angels