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Boxes and Occasional Vegetables are a pair of Dragon Ball fanfics written by erithacus. They can be read here and here on Archive of Our Own.

In Boxes, Goku and Chi-Chi have gotten a divorce, and Chi-Chi isn't handling it well. Bulma comes over to cheer her up and give her the strength to deal with Goku coming over to pick up the last of his belongings from their house.

In Occasional Vegetables, it's been several months since the divorce, and the ex-spouses are all together for Goten's birthday party. This results in Chi-Chi and Vegeta being alone in a room together for the first time since Vegeta convinced Goku to leave her.


These fanfics provide examples of:

  • Amicable Exes: In Occasional Vegetables, both Goku and Vegeta have managed to stay friends with their ex-wives. Chi-Chi still occasionally helps Goku out with household tasks he struggles with.
  • Bear Hug: In Occasional Vegetables, Goku's response to Vegeta suggesting the two start living together is to pick Vegeta up in a hug tight enough to slightly fracture Vegeta's ribs.
  • Bitch Slap: In Boxes, Bulma slaps Goku when he arrives to pick up his belongings at his former home in retaliation for him breaking Chi-Chi's heart.
  • Gayngst: Inverted in Occasional Vegetables. Vegeta has been insecure about the fact that he experiences romantic attraction for most of his life since Saiyans are most commonly aromantic. He's gone so far as to consider it a disability and the reason why he wasn't as strong as Goku.
  • Giving Up the Dream: In Boxes, Chi-Chi grew up with the dream of being the perfect housewife to her ideal husband, Goku. Once they're married, she's not as happy as she thought she'd be since Goku turned out not to be what she wanted in a husband. Throughout their marriage, she keeps trying to change herself and Goku to make this dream happen. After Goku cheats on her and the two divorce, she finally has to give up on her dream life ever coming true.
  • I Can Change My Beloved: In Boxes, Chi-Chi mentions how she tried to make her and Goku's relationship into the idealized one she wanted by getting him to stop going off on adventures and be the perfect typical husband while she could be the perfect housewife. When that didn't work, she started to change herself. In the end, none of it mattered since Goku cheated on her and left.
  • Incompatible Orientation: In Occasional Vegetables, one of the reasons behind Goku and Chi-Chi's failed marriage is that Goku is aromantic and Chi-Chi isn't. This is something Goku doesn't realize until many years after they marry as a result of Vegeta's involvement. Even though Chi-Chi still loves Goku, it won't work out between them because Goku can't love her the way she wants him to.
  • Innocently Insensitive: In Boxes, Bulma explains quite clearly to Goku that she and Chi-Chi are not happy with him and Vegeta and don't want to hang out and do friendly activities together for the time being. She does so because she knows Goku tends to be "innocently thoughtless" and would end up saying something to upset Chi-Chi.
  • The Missus and the Ex: In Occasional Vegetables, Chi-Chi and Vegeta end up alone in a room together at Goten's birthday party. Vegeta finds this situation very awkward since Chi-Chi is Goku's ex-wife and Vegeta is his current lover. It's made worse by the fact that Vegeta and Goku had gotten together before Goku and Chi-Chi divorced. The situation starts off tense, but the two lighten up and are able to have a civil conversation after some time.
  • Offscreen Breakup: In Boxes, Goku and Chi-Chi, as well as Bulma and Vegeta, have gotten divorced just prior to the beginning of the story. The cause of both divorces was Goku and Vegeta cheating on their respective wives with each other.
  • A Shared Suffering: In Boxes, Chi-Chi and Bulma bond over their shared experience of getting divorced after their husbands cheated on them. Bulma has been cheated on multiple times by boyfriends in the past and tells Chi-Chi about these experiences.
  • Title Drop: In Occasional Vegetables, Vegeta says the title of the fic in reply to Chi-Chi asking if Goku has been eating anything other than fried meat.
  • Undying Loyalty: In Boxes, Bulma believes that Chi-Chi is loyal to a self-destructive degree when it comes to Goku. Despite being unhappy in their marriage, Chi-Chi pretended everything was fine for many years before Goku cheated on her and left. Despite this, she won't say anything bad about him and continues to help him out even after they're no longer married.


Alternative Title(s): Occasional Vegetables

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