by Panabelle
by Panabelle
"Aw, but ChiChi-"
The frying pan cut off his protest.
Howling like a large baby and clutching the side of his head, the big man dropped to the floor onto his posterior, his legs curled in front of him, nearly sole-to-sole.
The woman struggled to keep her face straight and stern. A muscle in her cheek twitched right under her eye as she crossed her arms over her chest, frying pan in one hand, ready for attack, the fingers of the other hand drumming agitatedly on the crook of her elbow.
"ChiChi!" the big man whined, his big eyes shimmering with unshed tears, his baby face welling up with hurt. "I just wanted one cookie! I wasn't going to take all of them!"
"No, Goku," she told him, straining to keep her voice even. "First it will be one cookie, and the next thing you know, you'll have stolen all of them behind my back. You protect this house all you want and however you please. I protect the food. And that includes protecting it from you."
The big man's eyes spilled over.
"But ChiChi! I'm hun-gry!" he wailed, taking his hands from his head, clutching his stomach as he bawled.
She sighed, trying her hardest not to laugh.
They'd been married but a few months, and already he'd learned that she was a master of the frying pan-not only could she cook a nasty stir fry, but she could flip pancakes backwards and upside-down without looking.
And she could inflict pain upon the hardest head she had ever met.
Not that she liked to.
The big lunk was asking for it half the time. She did her best to prepare meals that would keep him happy, supply her small need for sustenance (already she had learned to eat the majority of her meals while cooking them), and keep him out of trouble.
Keeping him out of trouble was the easy part.
Keeping him out of the kitchen was another thing altogether.
"But ChiChi!"
"No 'but's Goku."
The big man grew quiet, and reached up to rub at his head.
"Ok, but did you really have to hit me with the frying pan again? That's really starting to hurt!"
The black-haired young girl couldn't help herself any longer and was reduced to giggles.
He looked up at her, head cocked as he rubbed at the bump she'd left there. After a minute, he swept his hand across the back of her knees, knocking her into his arms.
"Ow!"
His face paled.
"Are you ok, ChiChi? I-I didn't mean to-"
She laughed again, more in control of herself this time, and subsided against his chest.
"I'm fine, Goku. You just surprised me, that's all," she whispered, closing her eyes and briefly breathing in his essence, knowing that he belonged to her and no one else. "But I need to finish dinner, so you have to let me up now."
At the promise of dinner, Goku was up in a flash, setting his young wife in front of the stove and setting the frying pan on one of the burners, retreating to the table where he sat, waiting for the food she'd promised to make him. He watched as she shook her head and went back to the meal she'd been making, alternately humming quietly and singing softly to herself.
She knew her way around the kitchen, her hands were as skilled at her craft as he was as fighting, and he was sure that she could cook just as wonderful food with her eyes closed, just as she could fight with her eyes closed.
For a girl, she knew how to fight.
But then, being the daughter of the Ox King, that was to be expected.
Well, the cooking part of that anyways.
"Goku?" she asked after a few minutes had passed and her husband hadn't moved. She had learned to worry if he hadn't attempt to steal a taste of dinner in over five minutes.
It'd been nearly ten.
She turned and looked over her shoulder to see him sitting at the farthest end of the table from her, in his chair, leaning forward in his chair and onto the table, propping his head up with one hand, blinking those big and eternally happy black eyes of his innocently, the other arm crossed so that his hand rested on his other upper arm.
"Goku?"
"Someday I'll cook you dinner, ChiChi," he told her, his voice telling her he meant every word.
She felt herself blush.
"Goku, I sincerely doubt that," she replied, knowing how forgetful he really was. "You'd eat everything before you actually finished cooking it."
He laughed, giving her that smile of his, sitting up and scratching the back of his head.
"Yeah, well, still. Someday, I'm going to make you dinner."
She smiled, hefting a platter onto her shoulder, bracing it with her hands, and carried it effortlessly to the table, setting it in front of her husband.
"Keep telling yourself that, Goku. In the meantime, you should probably learn how to cook."
She kissed his temple, the silent go-ahead that meant he could eat and that she'd steal what she could when she could.
*
She sighed as she trudged up to the small little cottage that had been her wedding present from the man who she now called husband.
"I know he meant well...but really. This little house, so far away from a grocery store or super market? Even Papa at least had the decency to build our castle-both the one on fire mountain and the one that replaced it!-near a super market!" Groaning, she hefted the brown paper bags higher in her arms, shifting the weight so that she could open the door without spilling a million grains of rice and 2 dozen fresh-picked apples all over the floor.
She froze with her hand on the door knob.
There were sounds coming from inside, strange sounds that she'd grown up on, but that she'd never actually thought she'd hear in her house unless she herself made them.
Sizzling.
And a tuneless melody being sung.
Curious and somewhat scared, she turned the knob, slowing pushing the door open in front of her, for an instant under the impression that her father had stopped by to make her dinner before she set to making Goku's.
The truth nearly rendered her unconscious as the bags dropped heavily to the floor, miraculously, nothing flying across the kitchen floor or even falling out of the bag.
There stood Goku, covered in flour and various other spices and powders, attempting to make...something.
"Go...ku?" she stammered, eyes big and face pale in shock.
He turned around, suddenly aware of the mess he'd made of her kitchen.
"Hey ChiChi! I...I was kinda hoping you wouldn't be back so soon...I was gonna clean all this up before you got back..."
She could only stare at him, before her body started to shake with the realization of the fact that her kitchen was as destroyed as it could possibly be; almost every pot and pan she owned was piled in a precarious pile in the sink, all of the others being used, most having boiled over with something. Flour was all over all of the counters and the floor, there was a sticky mess bubbling it's way down the front of her oven.
As she opened her mouth to attack, Goku jumped into a defensive stance, holding both hands out to her as if to stop her onslaught of words, his eyes big and terrified.
"ChiChi! Wait! I-I told you I was going to make you dinner someday, and I was going to..." he broke off, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head. "But I...kinda...I guess I really don't know what I'm doing."
ChiChi paused and looked at him, then started to giggle. Forgetting the bruised produce and flattened bread from her shopping trip that were now sitting forlorn and hurting on the floor, she closed the door and walked over to him, wrapping her tiny arms around his large waist and nuzzling her nose into his chest before backing away and looking up at him, a smear of flour across her forehead and down her cheek.
"I never took you seriously when you said that," she told him, smiling up at him.
He grinned again, resting his hands in the small of her petite back, his face glowing down at her.
"You know I always keep my promises, ChiChi. I promised to protect you forever and I always will. And I promised I'd make you dinner someday. And I did...well, tried...and failed miserably," he trailed off, his gaze turning to the spoiled dinner and ruined pots.
She laughed and turned in his arms, snuggling her back into his chest, oblivious to the fact that her favorite dress was now more then likely ruined.
"What were you trying to make?"
She felt him shrug against her.
"A cake...rice...fish..." he listed off about a half dozen other kinds of food, and she assessed the situation, her trained eye immediately knowing what pot held what food.
"I'm sorry, ChiChi," he told her at length, turning her around and looking down into her deep black eyes, his face so child-like and disappointed in himself that she couldn't help but kiss him briefly on the cheek.
"Don't worry about it Goku," she laughed, turning back around and pushing up her sleeves. "Now, let's see what we can salvage."
"What?"
She looked back at him with a smile that rivaled his own.
"You'll eat just about anything so long as it has some semblance of flavor. And I'm sure that somewhere in this kitchen, you actually did something the way you were supposed to. Now, let's see what we can do about this lovely dinner you made us."
He blinked.
"Lovely?"
She nodded.
"It sounds ok, which I guess if half the battle. And for what it matters, it doesn't smell nearly as bad as that stuff Bulma cooks and has the audacity to call food."
"That's not saying much..."
She smiled again.
"Are you saying that you'd rather give up on dinner completely then see if you actually succeeded at cooking?" She laughed at the perplexed expression on his face. "Let's just consider this your first cooking lesson."
Finally he seemed to comprehend, and he jumped at the task, happily reaching around her tiny frame whenever the opportunity allowed, not only to stir a pot or flip a rice patty, but also to know she was in his arms.
He'd meant it when he'd told her he'd protect her forever.
Even if it meant he couldn't be with her, he'd take care of her and make sure she was safe.
Forever.