Boys will be boys. A tautology it may be, but the point is no less valid. The statement outright tells us several things. Boys will do stupid things. Boys will not think about what they’re doing. Boys will be drawn towards pretty girls and do anything they can to pretend even for a moment that they are able to be with them.
“You want to do what?” Ataru Moroboshi asked, staring slack jawed in surprise and awe at his classmates, who had all just suggested possibly the stupidest thing he’d heard this week! No, wait. Ten had suggested he try that bright idea of his with the pudding-fueled rocket on Monday… The stupidest thing he’d heard all day! Ah! No, he’d walked past Mendo trying to impress a girl with some of his lame poetry this morning…
Okay. Okay. It was the stupidest thing he’d heard in the last forty-five minutes. Which was still quite damned stupid if you asked him!
“Aw, come on, Ataru! You’re the only guy that she’ll let get close to her. What’s the matter, wanna hog her all to yourself?”
‘Yes, actually,’ a treacherous part of his mind whispered and was consequently ignored.
“That’s not the issue here,” he insisted. “I mean, come on! I’m the biggest pervert you’ll ever meet and I think that’s gross! And dumb! That should tell you something right there!”
“You’re the only chance we’ve got, Moroboshi! How else are we supposed to get her mask?”
“Correction: Her alien germ-riddled mask that she’s wearing because she is unwell. Unwell, mark you, with an alien disease that we know nothing about and could have any effect upon the human body. Trust me, she’s cooked for me. Her physiology is nothing like ours. Her germs could do just about <i>anything</i> to us. Got that? I’m doing this for your own good!”
“Five hundred yen from each of us!”
“On the other hand, a spot of flu might well be just the sort of thing your immune system needs to adapt to deal with later on! Especially in the face of five thousand yen.”
“… It’s one thousand five hundred,” one of the three boys pointed out, a little annoyed at the blatant con attempt.
“Keh! Trust this to be the week you finally learn multiplication!” Ataru sighed. “Alright, alright. Be back with the mask in a minute, then you can pay me the three thousand yen!”
“It’s one thousand five hundred!”
<hr>
Lum wasn’t quite used to being sick, being the pinnacle of health normally. She had hoped that her darling would be more supportive under the circumstances, maybe try to help her recover, but no. Always with a barbed tongue until directly confronted and intimidated. She sighed wistfully through her mask and looked up towards the ceiling. Why couldn’t he, just once in their relationship, say something nice? Be supportive? Why did he have to be so difficult about it all? Couldn’t he do that, just one time?
“Hello, Lum!” he said, patting her on the shoulder. “I just wanted to apologise for my behaviour earlier. It was inappropriate of me to behave that way.”
“Hmph!” Mendo chuckled to himself. “It is inappropriate of you to so much as breathe! An insect like yourself is wasting precious oxygen the rest of us could be using.”
“Ignore him,” Ataru said. “Listen. On Earth, we have a saying -”
Lum scowled at him, remembering their earlier conversation. “You mean other than ‘only stupid people catch colds’?”
“If that were true, Moroboshi would never be well!” Mendo remarked.
“Yes, other than that,” Ataru said. “You see, the quickest way to get rid of a cold is to give it to other people. So why don’t you take that mask off, and let me take a little of your burden?”
“Oh, darling!” Lum sighed as her darling’s tender fingers slipped the mask away from her face. “You do care! You really do lo- lo- loaaachooo!”
“Hey, stupid! You trying to give me your flu?”
“… Is it my imagination or did your attitude just completely change?”
“Just your imagination!” Ataru smiled while backing away towards the door. “Get well soon!”
Lum watched him leave with a little confusion, but shrugged it off. Sharing a flu… Well, human romance did seem a little weird to her at times, but she did tend to notice a theme of shared suffering being a mark of affection within their culture. Maybe she should give him her flu? It didn’t really make much sense to her, but anything that showed darling how much she loved him couldn’t be anything but helpful!
<hr>
Three boys stood within the male bathroom, huddled around a used facemask for which they had each shelled out five hundred yen. That would be a little over six dollars each, for a little context. Sure. Not too much. Eighteen dollars for a facemask overall. But they seemed rather happy with what they had bought.
“Indirect kiss,” one of them hushed.
“With Lum!” another whispered.
“Come on, let me try it first!” said the last. “This was my idea!”
Without a second thought he slipped the mask onto his face and took several deep, satisfied-sounding breaths. In truth this was the closest any of them would ever get to the cute alien chick in their class, and they knew it but they did not care. An indirect kiss! With Lum!
The mask was passed around the trio. Each took a single deep breath, while deliberately avoiding the psychological implications of indirectly kissing one another. For that single moment they wore the mask, each of them could pretend that Lum was really in front of them. Lips puckered. Eyes closed. Leaning forward expectantly. Her lips eagerly waiting for theirs…
“Hey, don’t go hogging the mask,” a fourth boy said while plucking it from their grip. “I paid for it too!”
“Same here!” cried a fifth.
“And here!” a sixth.
“Such shameful behaviour!” Mendo cried from the back of the room. “Clearly, I must stand in this line to ensure that none of you engage in any regrettable activity with Miss Lum’s mask! Certainly not because I intend to wear it myself!”
And in the classroom, Lum was rather curious about exactly where Ataru had acquired the pile of change cluttering up his desk. She was also deliberately coughing all over him…
It is here that the divergence occurred. Within the continuity of <i>Urusei Yatsura</i>, those directly in contact with this strange alien sickness would find the infected area of their skin turning yellow and pink striped. In the case of the boys in the class, the area they had worn the mask would be thus infected. In Ataru’s case, the infection would occur when Lum felt his forehead with her hand…
But in this alternative universe an entirely different affliction would fall upon them. Only then would they learn the horrors of alien biology and alien illnesses.
- Complete physical transformation: They become Lum!
- They acquire Lum’s powers, but otherwise remain
- The boys develop into a hive mind with tremendous psychic power.
- There is a strange psychological effect upon them.
- Something else
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