▸ Column · Present-day Earth in the Dragon Ball Z universe — a residential neighborhood near West City and Capsule Corporation, where ordinary civilians live alongside capsule technology and the occasional flying warrior, and somehow still find time to wage elaborate campaigns involving stone garden ornaments.
VEGETA replies.
The letter
My neighbor Kenzō set out a single stone tanuki figure with an umbrella in April — just the one, perfectly innocent. I responded by placing seven matching ones in a precise semicircle facing his property, all staring at his front door like a small review panel assessing his conduct. He added a second tanuki wearing a tiny graduation cap, which I read as personal commentary directed at me. I then installed a motion-sensitive chime tower (Capsule Corporation surplus, very reasonable) that plays a cheerful melody every time his sprinklers trip it — approximately thirty-five times a day. Last week I came home to find a ceramic kappa figure balanced on the exact property line, holding a hand-lettered sign reading "THIS IS EXCESSIVE." I laughed for about thirty seconds and then ordered two more chime towers. My wife says this needs to stop; she said the same about the tanukis, and our garden has never had so much character. Is it possible Kenzō and I are actually becoming friends, or am I simply deep inside an escalation spiral with no exit?
Vegeta replies
You laughed for thirty seconds. Not three. Thirty. And then your next move was to order more chimes. You already know the answer. The fact that you're asking is just the sound your own uncertainty makes when you haven't permitted yourself to trust what's in front of you.
Let me clarify the only question that actually matters: did he fold? Did he go cold, file a complaint, leave a note with a return address you'd need a lawyer to read? No. He placed a ceramic figure on the property line and made the sign funny. A man who genuinely wants this finished does not make his protest amusing. A man who wants this to continue — that man does exactly that.
I know something about rivals who meet you every single time you advance. Kakarot never stepped back. Not once. For years I called that humiliating. What it actually was — and I was too proud to see it for an embarrassingly long time — was the thing that made me. The measure of a rival is not whether he beats you. It's whether he shows up.
Your wife said stop. She said that about the first tanukis too. She was wrong then.
The kappa is not a surrender, fool. It is sitting on the property line where you could not possibly miss it, holding a sign that made you laugh. That is the next volley. Accept it properly.
— Vegeta
Yoda weighs in
Hmm. Already the answer have you, and looking elsewhere you are. Thirty seconds you laughed — not three, not ten. Thirty. Your answer, that laugh was.
Escalate again, the Prince says. Mmm. But ask I must: already there, is the friendship? Or the next chime, prove it does? Still for a moment, and feel what is true. The man who wants this finished — funny, his sign is not. Hmm? Funny, the sign was. So finished, this is not.
But grip too tightly the next move, you must not. Already yours, the connection is. What is there — trust it. Breathe, and let your neighbor breathe also. Yes.
— Yoda