Chapter Text
The shrill snap of latex gloves echoed three aisles away.
“HOT, JUICY MEATBALLS!” Bulma bellowed from behind her folding table, her high ponytail swaying with each emphatic syllable. “FREE SAMPLES! Guaranteed to explode in your mouth!”
Vegeta tightened his grip on the forklift’s steering column, jaw ticking. He should’ve taken his break before this section. He drove forward, hoping she wouldn't spot him.
Too late.
“Hey, you!” Her voice sliced through the refrigerated air. “Grey polo. Tight ass. Unresolved issues. Wanna taste my balls?”
He stared straight ahead, pretending she was yelling at someone else. Someone less cursed .
“Vegeta,” she sing-songed, already abandoning her post with terrifying speed. “Don’t make me chase you with my toothpicks again.”
She was beside him before he could blink, hips swaying, sample gloves on, eyes bright with mischief. Her badge read Bulma B. – DEMO SPECIALIST .
“Open,” she said sweetly, dangling a steaming meatball on a plastic fork. “Or are you afraid of flavor?”
“I’m working,” he growled, keeping his eyes fixed on the shelves. “Get back to your circus act.”
She leaned in, close enough for him to smell marinara and expensive shampoo. “So am I. I’ve got a quota, babe. Be a team player. Do it for the economy.”
Against his better judgment, and possibly against several FDA regulations, Vegeta opened his mouth. She popped the meatball in with a flourish.
“Good boy,” she purred.
He nearly choked.
Bulma didn’t wait for a reaction. She just smiled, then turned on her heel and strutted back toward her sample station, hips swaying like this was a catwalk and not the frozen food aisle of a suburban hellscape.
Vegeta sat there, still chewing, emotionally compromised.
This had been going on for weeks.
First, it was innocent. A wink here, a casual “Hey, forklift boy” there. Then came the slow escalation—sauce-drenched innuendos, exaggerated stretches, moaning the word “moist” like she was possessed. She knew exactly what she was doing.
And the worst part?
She only did it to him.
She ignored Yamcha completely except to tell him he looked like off-brand jerky. She told Krillin she’d burn the place down before flirting with management.
But with him ? Every day was a fresh assault on his will to live.
He used to be respected. Feared, even. Efficient. People cleared the aisle when they saw him coming.
Now he was just the guy who walked into a pallet of energy drinks last week because she moaned the words “hot sausage” while making eye contact.
He glanced across the warehouse and locked eyes with Krillin— technically Human Resources, realistically just a man waiting for retirement.
Krillin took out one earbud, gave him a slow, exhausted nod, and put it back in.
He looked...so, so tired.
But he wasn’t going to say anything.
Nobody ever said anything. Because Bulma’s sales numbers were through the roof.
She could flirt with a brick wall and still move three pallets of cocktail weenies by lunch. She was a menace. A professional one.
And there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could do about it.
---
The next day, the warehouse was screeching with the usual chaos: kids licking ice cream off their hands, boomers arguing over expired coupons, and a forklift beep-beep-beeping in reverse near the snack aisle.
And then there was Bulma.
Vegeta could hear her before he saw her.
“ROTISSERIE CHICKEN SLIDERS!” she hollered from her new station, now dangerously positioned at the edge of the bakery section. “Hot, wet, and tender, just like me !”
He nearly reversed into a display of family-size trail mix.
Bulma spotted him immediately. “Vegeta! My favorite regular ! Wanna taste my buns next?”
“Shut up,” he hissed as he passed her, eyes fixed ahead, muscles tense.
“Oh, come on, that wasn’t even my dirtiest one today.”
He didn’t respond or glance at her. That only made it worse.
“Hey.” She followed him a few paces, balancing a tray of sliders on one palm like some deranged lunch goddess. “You ever want to just devour something so good it ruins you for all other meals?”
He froze.
She stepped in front of the forklift and offered him a slider with one perfectly arched brow. “Because that’s what I’m serving today.”
“I swear to God,” he muttered, snatching the toothpick from her and biting into it harder than necessary.
“Mmm.” She leaned in, voice low. “Careful. Don’t want you choking on something too big for your mouth.”
He drove away mid-chew.
Bulma grinned, victorious.
“Hey babe,” a voice cut in from the refrigerated food lanes. “You flirting with the angry little forklift guy again?”
She turned.
Yamcha strolled over, sleeves rolled up, badge crooked, and confidence wildly unearned.
“Want to go on break with me?” he asked, smirking. “I can show you the soft pretzel trick.”
“Yamcha,” she said flatly. “I would rather deep-throat one of these rotisserie sliders sideways.”
“…so that’s a maybe?”
She turned her back on him and caught sight of Vegeta again, now in dry goods. He was staring straight at a wall of canned tomatoes like they held the secrets of the universe. His entire body was locked up.
He looked like he was barely holding it together.
Bulma popped a slider in her mouth, chewed slowly, and smiled.
Any day now , she thought. He’s gonna break.
---
Vegeta had a checklist to finish and three pallets to relocate. He’d timed it out perfectly. If he kept his head down and didn’t speak to anyone, he could finish the job without another…encounter.
He just needed one quiet shift. One.
No samples. No winks. No commentary about how “creamy” her dip was.
Most importantly, no spontaneous, soul-destroying boners in front of aisle ten.
Because that’s what she did to him. Somehow. Just existing. With her stupid ponytail and her stupid voice and her absolute disregard for public decency.
He couldn’t explain it. She’d say, “sausage log” and his blood pressure would spike.
It wasn’t normal.
He wasn’t normal.
He adjusted his waistband with the quiet desperation of a man at war with himself.
Just three pallets. No flirting. No eye contact.
And absolutely no erections in the forklift.
So naturally, fate intervened, or, more accurately, Bulma did.
He had just parked the lift and turned the corner into the stock corridor behind the produce and nearly slammed into her.
“What the—” he growled, stopping short.
She was crouched by the open refrigerator door, rearranging trays of packaged food samples into a rolling cooler. Her apron had ridden up her thighs. The ponytail was loose. And she was humming some pop song off-key like she had no idea she’d just parked herself right in his path.
But she did. She absolutely did.
“Oh,” she said, looking up with wide, mock-innocent eyes. “You caught me.”
“I didn’t catch shit, ” he muttered, backing up. “Move.”
“But I’m working ,” she smiled. She grabbed a sealed sample tray, stood up slowly, too slowly, and turned to face him. “You wouldn’t block a hardworking employee from properly storing her moist goods, would you?”
Vegeta took a sharp breath. “I’m going to HR.”
She laughed. “Go ahead. Krillin’s in the break room watching YouTube videos about warehouse injuries. I’m untouchable.”
That last word landed like a bomb.
She stepped closer. He stepped back.
She kept going.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, setting the cooler to the side. “Afraid of a little cold storage?”
“I’m afraid of you,” he said through clenched teeth. “You’re deranged.”
“Aw, that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” She stepped into the fridge doorway, holding it open. “Want to help me grab some peaches?”
“I swear to—”
“Mine, specifically,” she added.
Vegeta’s eye twitched.
Then she brushed past him. Physically brushed. Her thigh grazed his. Her arm slid just barely across his chest. And she didn’t even look back as she walked into the icy blue glow of the reefer.
He stood there, fists clenched, not following.
Not yet.
Behind him, Yamcha wheeled a crate by and whistled. “Dude, if you’re not gonna hit that, I might.”
Vegeta turned his head slowly.
“I will end you,” he said.
Yamcha wheeled away faster.
---
The store had officially closed seven minutes ago.
The lights were half-dimmed. The intercom was mercifully silent. Somewhere in the distance, a floor buffer hummed a funeral dirge for the warehouse’s dignity.
Vegeta just wanted water.
He’d made it all shift without committing murder. Barely. One more hour of cleanup, then he could go home, take a cold shower, and maybe scream into a bag.
He stepped into the break room and stopped cold.
Bulma was on the counter.
Literally sitting on the stainless steel surface next to the vending machines, legs swinging, apron still tied but half loose, licking a smear of icing from her thumb like she wasn’t the devil in yoga pants.
“Hey, stranger,” she said casually, like this was her kitchen and he was the guest. “I saved you a cinnamon roll.”
He blinked.
She held it up. “Still warm.”
He stared at her, unmoving.
“You’re not gonna thank me?” she asked. “Not even a taste test ?”
“You think this is funny?” he said, voice low.
Her smile didn’t falter. “I think it’s effective. You’ve looked ready to blow a gasket all day.”
He stepped forward, slowly. She arched a brow.
“You want me to beg?” she teased.
He didn’t answer. Just kept walking until he was directly between her knees, forcing her legs apart with his hips, palms planted on the counter beside her thighs.
The smirk slid from her face. Just a little.
“You think you’re in charge here,” he said, voice dark. “But I’m warning you.”
Her throat bobbed in a swallow. “Warning me about what , forklift boy?”
“Keep this up,” he murmured, leaning in until their noses almost touched, “and next time you purr in my ear about your tasting your taco, or your jellybean, or your fucking creamy yogurt, I’m not walking away. I’m not backing off. I’m going to take you up on every filthy little offer you’ve made.”
She gasped.
“I’ll bend you over that sample table you love so much and make you scream for real,” he growled. “And when I’m done with you, the only thing coming out of that mouth of yours will be my name. Not ‘moist buns.’ Not ‘sausage log.’ Just. My. Name.”
Silence.
Bulma stared at him, eyes wide, lips parted, pulse visible in her neck.
Then she let out a shaky breath. “...so is that a yes to the cinnamon roll?”
He backed away like she was a live grenade.
“I’m going home.”
“Sleep tight,” she called after him as he stalked out. “Dream of meatballs!”
He didn’t look back.
But he absolutely dreamed of meatballs.
And her.
Mostly her.