Ningenkakushi: Lord of the Desert

Waiting

While Yamcha's not fond of it, school is a welcome distraction after the... events of the last match of the Budokai, right up to the point where Bulma decides to mention that he'd been one of the competitors, modestly admitting her boyfriend had made the final eight.

He's busy giving her a stunned look (because, up until now, she's been berating him for not doing better (Bulma is confusing (all females are confusing (Pu'ar is the only sane one (and maybe Bunny (...nnnope, just Pu'ar)))))), so he doesn't see the world change.

Apparently, many high school girls in West City find martial artists 'dead sexy,' especially handsome ones like him.

Apparently, many high school boys don't like it when one guy hogs all the girls' attention, but aren't brave enough to do anything about it.

So now he has a fan club of girls (and some boys), who follow him around or bat their eyelashes at him or try to stroke his arm. Now none of the boys in school or men in the nearby dojos (word seems to have gotten out) will spar with him.

"I only made the quarter-finals!" he protests.

"So impressive," the fan club and dojo members say, "To do so at such a young age."

"The runner-up was only twelve," he desperately points out.

They fail to stop being impressed or to start sparring, and Bulma gets mad at him over his newly increased popularity with the other girls.

"They won't stop," he says, and if he ever cried (if he could cry (what? (nothing))), he'd be doing so right now, from sheer frustration.

"Don't pretend you don't enjoy it," she snaps.

"But I don't enjoy is," he responds, and he doesn't – girls still make him extremely nervous for the most part, and all this unwanted attention isn't helping him to get over this problem at all – if anything, it's making it worse.

"A likely story," Bulma huffs before spinning on her heel and stalking off, and Yamcha sighs and wishes for the millionth time that Dr. Briefs wasn't quite so... honest about certain magazines he enjoys, because between them and Oolong and Roshi, Bulma seems to have developed some pretty strong prejudices against men. The ex-bandit doesn't think he's ever been so miserable, and is pretty sure that there's no way this can possibly get any worse.

Then Bulma leaves.

Apparently Goku came by, hunting dragon balls again, and Bulma went off with him. She didn't wait to ask Yamcha if he wanted to come too, or even let him say 'hi' to the boy he so admires.

It hurts.

And worse, now he has absolutely no buffer from anyone at school, and half his fans are convinced that all this means that Bulma's dumped him, which means he's available, which means he obviously wants to date one of them.

He's seriously considering grabbing his stuff, grabbing Pu'ar, and giving civilization the finger when the phone call comes – Goku's in trouble and he needs back-up.

Yamcha says something flippant about all the men in the city being cowards and being excited for some proper fighting again. And it's true, but... he also wants to see Bulma, ask her why she went without him.

Ask why she won't trust him.

OoOoOoOoO

He doesn't end up asking any of these things, because the 'minor trouble' Goku has found is, in fact, the entire Red Ribbon Army. Which... really is actually kinda of exciting, to be honest, this is the first decent challenge he's heard of in ages. Except Goku has single-handedly defeated the entire army by the time Yamcha, Bulma, Krillin, and some woman called Lunch show up (it had taken a lot of time for him to pick the rest of the group up where they were stranded on Kame Island).