Just as Aeris was about to go eat, she suddenly collapsed without any warning at all.
Cold sweat immediately started breaking out across her body.
Bulma's face changed at once, and she rushed over to check Aeris's condition.
She checked her over, but at first didn't find anything obvious.
At most, it looked like Aeris was… hungry.
A foodie really was a foodie.
Still, Bulma carried Aeris over to the machine and ran a proper scan.
And that was when she found the problem.
There were all kinds of strange internal injuries inside Aeris's body.
The other cells in her body were actively fighting to repair the damage, constantly patching up the wounds… only for new ones to appear again almost immediately after.
Her sudden collapse was probably related to those internal injuries.
That left Bulma at a complete loss.
Aeris didn't look like she was in good shape at all, and there was nothing Bulma could immediately do. For a while, all she could do was panic in circles. It was like the usually brilliant Bulma had suddenly gone stupid and forgotten how to do anything except worry.
So she could only keep staring at the monitor and reading Aeris's live medical data.
Then Bulma noticed something.
Those strange cells inside Aeris's body seemed to be slowly repairing her injuries on their own.
"W-What is this…? These cells are this strong? At this rate, it looks like she'll be fully healed before long…"
That good news made Bulma incredibly happy.
At least now she knew Aeris wasn't in danger of dying.
The only thing Bulma forgot was that Aeris was not a normal person.
About half an hour later, Aeris suddenly sprang upright from the bed.
That scared the hell out of Bulma, who had been watching her the whole time.
"Are you trying to scare someone to death, you idiot?! Do you have any idea how terrified I was just now?! You really don't know how worried I was about you, do you? And then you pull something like this—!"
Bulma ended up crying from sheer emotional whiplash.
"Do you even know? For a second, I really thought you were going to die! You idiot!"
As she said that, she started punching at Aeris in a flustered mess. Aeris could only pull her into her arms and gently pat her back to calm her down.
"It won't happen again. Don't cry…"
"Then promise me. If you ever do this again, I'll… I'll ignore you. And I'll never make vanilla pudding for you ever again."
"Mm. I promise."
Aeris had no choice but to agree.
After all, she was the one who made Bulma cry.
At this point, whatever Bulma said went. If she didn't soothe her properly now, there might never be pudding again.
Still…
Bulma's reaction felt strange.
It felt a little too much like the way Chi-Chi acted around Goku.
Weird.
But Aeris couldn't be bothered to think about it much longer because—
"Hiss— B-Bulma… why are you biting me?"
"Aeris… don't scare me like that again, okay? I was really afraid…"
"Mm. I won't scare you again. Don't cry…"
It took quite a while, but eventually Bulma calmed down.
Then she asked,
"Alright, explain. What was up with those injuries?"
Aeris answered honestly.
"I got them after being sucked into some weird vortex. But later I realized the injuries were actually helping temper my body, so I didn't heal them right away."
Bulma narrowed her eyes.
"Fine. I'll forgive you this time. But if there's a next time, I'm biting you to death."
She even licked her lips after saying it.
For some reason, Aeris's face turned red the second she saw that.
She had no idea why.
Bulma noticed and smiled faintly.
"You really are a dull little idiot…"
Then again, being slow on the uptake was still better than being genuinely stupid.
Bulma hugged Aeris again and stayed quietly in her arms for a while before finally pulling away.
Aeris scratched her head, completely baffled by Bulma's weird behavior. No matter how she thought about it, she couldn't quite make sense of it.
It just felt strange.
A kind of strange she couldn't explain.
Bulma ignored her confusion and went into the kitchen in an unusually good mood to make pudding for her idiot.
Yes.
Her idiot.
She'd understand what that meant eventually.
Meanwhile, Aeris sat on the couch and started replaying Bulma's actions in her mind.
The more she thought about it, the more it felt like the way Chi-Chi acted whenever she talked about Goku. Especially when she brought up things he had done before.
It really was similar.
Could it be…
No way.
Girls didn't act like that toward girls, did they?
…Did they?
Or was she overthinking it?
Probably.
The more Aeris thought about it, the more irritated she felt.
Then she touched the place Bulma had bitten earlier.
For some reason, when Bulma bit her just now, it had felt like her heart skipped half a beat.
And that feeling…
It had almost felt a little happy.
Did that mean she also had these weird thoughts about Bulma?
Well…
Maybe a little.
Otherwise, with her current battle power, there was no way she would've just let Bulma do all that without reacting.
In the end, Aeris decided to keep things the way they were for now.
Because she still wasn't sure if she was just imagining things.
And if she misunderstood and made things weird enough that Bulma started distancing herself from her, that would be a total disaster.
After a while, Bulma came back out with the pudding and saw Aeris sitting there, frowning one second and shaking her head the next.
It was honestly kind of entertaining.
So Bulma sat down beside her with the pudding and just watched her.
Aeris snapped back to reality and found Bulma staring at her.
Her face reddened again for no reason she could explain.
Bulma felt a little pleased when she saw that.
Because that reaction meant Aeris had probably started noticing something.
And more importantly, it meant she wasn't rejecting it.
That was a good sign.
The more Bulma looked at Aeris, the cuter she found her.
So cute, in fact, that she suddenly wanted to bully her a little.
A lot, actually.
And judging by how Aeris was acting, it really didn't seem like she'd resist much.
In that case…
Maybe it was worth testing.
With that thought, Bulma leaned in close and blew lightly against Aeris's ear.
"Ah— what are you doing, Bulma? That tickles…"
"Hehe… Aeris is blushing."
"B-Blushing? No way."
"Oh? So… Aeris, you're pretty brave then?"
"Obviously. I'm super brave. Super amazing, okay?"
"Then let me see."
"No."
"I can't help it. Come on, let me see."
"No."
"Come on, let me see."
"No way, Bulma… no…"
That half-refusing, half-not-really-refusing attitude of Aeris's only made Bulma bolder.
So she pounced.
After a whole little symphony of chaos, Bulma looked down at the Aeris in her arms.
"Who would've thought Aeris would be this shy…"
"Bulma, you're bad. I'm ignoring you."
"Hehe. Sorry, but you don't get to decide that."
Heh.
Just some daily nonsense for fun.