"Good luck, Tarble, Zeck." Lynn said as we parted ways at the entrance to the tournament building.
"I'd probably be more lucky… if I got a kiss?" I arched my eyebrows. It wasn't some big secret that Zeck had a crush on Lynn, but clearly, being allowed to join in this tournament had made him a bit too bold for his own good.
There was an awkward pause, as Lynn shifted her feet uncomfortably. "...Good luck." Leaning forward self-consciously, I was surprised when Lynn actually chose to plant a kiss.
On my cheek.
"Oh." Zeck winced at the blatant rejection, but I was certain that some part of him had expected it.
After all, Lynn was a Saiyan. She may have been a nice person, even a people-pleaser, but her nature was all Saiyan. She was only attracted to the strong, and with as long as she'd known Zeck, it wasn't particularly surprising that he simply didn't make that cut, in her eyes.
"You know… I can still pretend to be Zeck… Nobody would notice, I promise!" Pepper offered.
Zeck and I both glared at her in silent judgement.
Honestly, that girl.
"...Fine." She gave me a little peck on the same cheek as Lynn had, "But I'm still mad. I wanted to fight."
"You'll probably end up getting more exercise than me, Pep. We'll find you two after the preliminaries, okay?" I tried to pat the girl's head to placate her, but she slapped my hand away with enough force to crush titanium, before puffing her cheeks out and spinning on her heels.
Zeck and I just shrugged and walked into the tournament building. Pepper wouldn't even care enough to remember why she was mad by the time the tournament was over… probably.
"You like them, don't you? Both of them." Zeck noted. I wasn't entirely sure whether it was a question or not, and frankly, even if it was, I wouldn't have answered.
Instead, I just grimaced as we entered the tournament building, actively avoiding answering my friend.
As soon as we got inside, I asked one of the tournament officials how things were supposed to go, as he handed Zeck and I our individual numbers, just to get Zeck thinking about something besides the girls.
But even as the official explained the simple way that the brackets worked, I found myself zoning out, my mind brought back to that stupid remark for probably the millionth time.
'You like them both, don't you?'
It wasn't that I didn't like Pepper and Lynn. Even though I hadn't had my growth spurt, my feelings for the two weren't something I… wanted to think about.
When I'd first realized that two female Saiyans came with us, I'd thought it was lucky.
Maybe there'd be a pure-blooded Saiyan or two in the next generation. I'd hoped that maybe Lynn would end up with me or Goku, and Pepper'd maybe end up with Tater, Tommy, or someone. If they had more than a few kids between the two of them, maybe tailed Saiyans would stay a thing for three or four generations. Maybe even longer.
Then, I'd realized within a week that Pepper had started to like me. A childish crush that she didn't quite understand yet, but still.
And eventually, I'd learned to live with that, as a fact of life. If her feelings stayed firm as we went through puberty, which I'd dismissed as unlikely at the time, then I'd deal with it, cement my feelings then. For now, she was a cute and energetic little girl. Thinking of her in any other way just felt wrong, but I knew that'd change.
Then, Lynn grew up. If Pepper was blunt chaos, then Lynn was the blade of calmness and order. Sometimes, the two girls felt like two sides of the same coin. Lynn didn't hide her feelings for me very well, either, but she expressed them by being, for the most part, cautious and withdrawn, the opposite of how Pepper expressed hers.
But… whatever feelings I had for Pepper, I had for Lynn, too.
Which meant that, either I'd end up liking both of them as friends, or I'd like both of them. I was pretty sure where I leaned.
Which actually made it worse. I didn't want to like both girls at once. That was worse than breaking both of their hearts.
On Planet Vegeta, marrying for love wasn't accepted. You mated with someone strong and compatible.
Doing so was the same as saying 'I want this person to stand by me.' In other words, it was putting one's pride on someone else. Despite not normally being based on love, it wasn't something that one did lightly.
One didn't take it back, either. Even upon death, if a Saiyan mated with someone, they stayed absolutely faithful. If not, it was the same as saying that 'this person cannot satisfy me.'
If you had already put their pride in the fact that your mate could stand by your side, that was the same thing as saying that you made the wrong choice. Dishonoring your mate at that point was the same thing as calling yourself an idiot. If you didn't kill yourself for the scorn you'd receive, then your cheated-on mate would probably do it instead.
Or anyone related to them, for that matter. It was stupid dangerous, and stupid stupid.
My own grandfather had attempted that. Deciding that there wasn't a female on Vegeta worthy of him, he'd mated with five women.
The next day, five women had woken up with a dismembered corpse in their bed. Luckily, one of them had been pregnant, so the Vegeta line had continued.
Now, legally, if one was strong enough, there were no laws against mating with multiple people. In fact, there were real precedents of it happening, even recently.
But still, doing so would be the same thing as saying that neither girl was enough for me by themself, culturally. That wasn't something that I could bring myself to agree to. I'd rather just stay a bachelor forever.