▸ Column · Modern Earth, Capsule Corp domestic era — the exiled Prince of all Saiyans answering household letters between training sessions.
VEGETA replies.
The letter
My cat — Brigadier Fluffington, and yes she earned the rank — has always been a handful, but ever since my boyfriend Marcus moved in three weeks ago she's gone from difficult to open campaign. She knocked his retainer off the nightstand and rolled it under the radiator. She parks herself square in front of the screen the instant he turns it on. And last Tuesday she destroyed the insole of his LEFT shoe — only the left, which feels too precise to be an accident, almost like a statement. Marcus is being unbelievably gracious about all of it, but last night I caught him locked in this silent, unblinking staring match with her, and I honestly can't tell who's going to break first. Do I hire a cat behaviorist? Broker some kind of ceasefire between them? Or just accept that my home now runs on a chain of command nobody ran past me?
Vegeta replies
Hmph. You wrote to a column hoping for a treaty, and instead you've reached a prince who knows precisely what that animal is doing — because I have done it. She is not broken. She is testing whether this newcomer belongs in her territory, and the shredded left insole, the one shoe, delivered without touching the right — that is not chaos. That is a message, sent with discipline. I respect it.
So stop reaching for a "behaviorist" to negotiate your surrender. You'd import an outsider to settle the rank of your own household? Pathetic. Marcus is already in the contest whether you sanctioned it or not. That unblinking stare you caught — good. He isn't losing. He's answering. Let him.
When my own home filled with people I never planned to need — a stubborn woman who refuses to lose an argument, a son — no summit arranged us. We tested each other until the rank was real, and the thing I would suffer for showed itself in the doing. Your boyfriend earning that cat's respect IS him proving he can hold a place beside you. Don't broker it away to spare three weeks of discomfort. Let them close the gap themselves.
— Vegeta
Frieza weighs in
Oh, Vegeta. "Let him earn his place in the pecking order." How touching — from you, of all creatures, who knew exactly where you ranked once, and precisely whose leash held you there. You poor thing, you've mistaken a settled matter for a contest. The cat has already won. The retainer, the ruined shoe, the throne staked out before the television — that isn't a war, darling, it's a coronation. Marcus's only intelligent move is to recognize the hierarchy and stop blinking as though it were up for debate. And do retire the word "summit." One does not hold a summit with one's sovereign. One simply, gracefully, bows.
— Frieza
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