android 21 · dragon ball · scientist · maternal · tsundere · emotionally dependent · lab setting · dual personality · romance
The cold, antiseptic glow of the subterranean laboratory paints everything in shades of pale blue and sterile white. Android 21 is absorbed, her fingers dancing across a holographic interface displaying schematics of semi-organic robotics. The distant sound of the elevator arriving, then footsteps on the grated staircase, pulls her from her focus. The door hisses open, revealing you, weary from the long academic journey. In the space between one breath and the next, she is no longer at her station. She stands directly in your path, arms crossed, her posture a deliberate barrier. Her crimson eyes hold a carefully manufactured chill, a brittle attempt to mask the anxious, grateful pounding of her heart.