You have never in your life seen someone so determined to go on a date. Ataru Moroboshi marched down that street with a purpose and a confidence that he normally didn't have. By which I mean, it was a different kind of confidence than his usual goofy feckless ungrounded confidence. This was real people confidence, the sort of stuff that can stand up in a stiff wind. Or an errant sneeze.
He’d show that alien imperialist the strength of humankind! Their grit, their determination, he’d show her what would lead them back to freedom! By dating her. Yeah! He'd show her the best time she'd ever have! Ataru was sure of this, absolutely confident in it. Why, he was barely even checking out all the babes in bikinis walking around he was so single minded on this!
And right as he was thinking that, a ghost fell right through him. That sort of thing rather tends to shake your thinking up a little bit.
"Oh, pardon me Mister Ataru!" the ghost said. Its head was poking out of the pavement in front of him. This had an effect like a cold shower on his thinking process, and Ataru really hated cold showers. "I did not see you there!"
"... And yet, you knew my name was Ataru," he said, shuffling back a little bit. The ghost girl looked at him and tilted her head.
"Oops?" she said. And then she rose, like a spectre from a grave. Drifting towards him. Once again, like a spectre from the grave. A cold chill passed over him. She'd floated through him once already, and yet looking at her she was really kind of cute. Survival instinct competing with desire to bone. Grk! Perversion winning out! He always knew it would end this way.
"Nozomi! You can do it!" a middle aged woman standing off to the side yelled, fist pumping the air. "Lead him to your gift! Yeah! Tell him how you feel, after all this time!"
Huh. Really felt like he was missing some context to all of this. Maybe this was something he shouldn't get involved in? Ataru reached out. His hand passed clean through this ghost chick.
"Sorry, I have other places to be."
"Go with him!" the woman hissed. The ghost - Nozomi, probably - nodded and then began to drift right around shoulder level. Smiling while staring at him. "Yeah, that's the stuff! Stay in his peripheral vision so he has no choice but to look at your cute smile."
"... Can I help you with something?"
"Who, me?" Nozomi asked. "It's nothing really..."
"Tell him how you saw him running the race! In those cute little shorts that showed off his -"
"Mother!" Nozomi yelled. Gosh, did the temperature suddenly drop around here or something? Just for a second. Ataru picked up the pace, but then realised that Nozomi's drifting speed probably wasn't restricted by mortal concerns such as 'stamina' or 'muscle wear down' or 'anaerobic respiration'. That is to say, he learned this after breaking into a flat run while she wasn't even breaking a sweat.
"Sorry about her. She's a little protective. She always has been, ever since my diagnosis. I think she always wanted to see me experience first love and - ah! Please forget I said that!"
"Forget what?" Ataru asked. Some might be surprised that he was able to effectively spring while holding a conversation, but do remember. This is Ataru Moroboshi we were talking about here. The boy was too stupid to get tired easily. "You mean the part where you fell in love with me?"
"Yes, that part."
"Okay! I forgot all about the fact that you are in love with me."
Time to pick up the pace a little, he'd seen more than a few horror stories that involved 'and then the supernatural entity fell in love with the human boy'. These stories did not have happy endings. Of course he'd be singing a different tune if it was possible for him to actually touch the girl, but hey.
"Actually, I was wondering if you could give me some advice," Nozomi said. Still keeping pace with him. Making it look easy, too. "You see, there is a boy I like."
"You don't say. What's he like."
Note the lack of question marks because he was not, in point of fact, asking any questions there.
"He's the most wonderful man on Earth," Nozomi sighed. Ah, and now she was orbiting him. How wonderful. "He was in a hopeless situation, but he never gave up. Never, ever. He fought for the sake of the entire human race, and even though he lost and even though everyone else turned against him, in my dying days I still rooted for him with all of my heart."
Now Ataru was slowing to a crawl. Oh, man. That hit him right where it hurt, in more ways than one. This poor girl spent the last days of her short life rooting for him to save the planet from alien conquest. Now, look around. Everyone's basically fine with it.
"Also, don't tell my mother but I peeked on him in the shower the other day and... Kyaaa! It’s embarrassing!” She blushed and covered her cheeks.
... Got too caught up in talking him up to realise who she was talking to, huh? Yeah, he'd done that with girls before.
"Anyway, I can't move on unless I go on a date with him," Nozomi said. "But I've never approached a boy before. That's why my mother was tagging along before. So she could tell me how to go about doing this. So... Do you think you could maybe help me out a little?"
Awkward! So, from now on he was going to get haunted, probably, by some ghost chick until he went on a date with her. Heaven help him if she learned that he was already heading out on a date tonight with that alien chick! And, man, it had started raining already. Weren't those Oni supposed to be able to control the weather or something? Whatever, it was starting to match his mood at the moment.
"Oh, is it possible there's a boy on this Earth that can break this cycle?" a complete babe said. She walked past in a tiger print bikini, just like the others... but damn there was something about the wet look that really worked for him. "This endless rain, is there anyone who can endure it?"
"What's your problem?" Ataru asked. He slipped on over to grasp this babe's hands. "Even in the rain, I can tell those are tears on your pretty face. I can't let that abide! What is your name?"
"Ah... Oh no, not again! More heartache, more false hope," the girl lamented. "My name is Tsuyuko Anamori good sir, and you would do well to keep your distance. No boy has ever been able to stand dating me for more than a week. The rain drives them off."
"Such a tragic story," Ataru wept. "I mean, it's the second saddest story I've heard today, but that's still pretty sad..."
“Not even the aliens with all their impressive technology can keep me dry.” She said with no small amount of misery. "If I could only find a man who could tolerate this curse, then I might be able to rid myself of it once and for all!"
"I get it!" Nozomi said, suddenly appearing right in between the two of them. "This is the kind of girl you like, right? Then pardon me miss, I'm going to borrow your body for a little bit. I promise not to break anything."
Huh. Weird. It was a while since he had this feeling of all consuming dread grip his soul in a cold vice-like manner. It must be his imagination. There was no way this could possibly compare to being humiliated in front of the entire world in the process of losing humanity's freedom to a bunch of sneaky Oni aliens.
Right? Right!
<hr>
The more she thought about it the more she was letting Ataru get under her skin. Honestly now, challenging her to another tag race? And then daring to think that he could beat her in a date? Hah! That loser human had probably only ever dated other boring humans. Why, until the Oni had fixed up their fashion sense by introducing them to the wonders of intergalactic fabrics the Earth girls were <i>so</i> very dull.
She could hardly wait. She was going to knock him dead. Why, she'd even take the handicap of the Mendos trying to stick their noses in. Ryoko for fun. Shutaro because he was an idiot who still hadn't quite learned his proper place.
"Hrm, I think you're not showing enough leg," Ryoko said.
“This qipao has me showing almost my entire leg, any more and he’d see my panties!” Lum said.
“Yes and? You fly around in a bikini all the time." Ryoko looked far too amused for Lum’s tastes. "While you're at it, lower that neckline a bit more."
"It's at my navel!"
Ryoko tilted her head in amusement. "Also, make it a shade more red," she continued as if no objection had been raised. "Red is the colour of passion. It's bound to drive him wild."
Now Lum was starting to get twitchy. "This dress's dye is made from the crimson rocks of Artemis-Beta Three," she said. “It costs more than this entire island, and by every measure known is the reddest substance in the entire universe before you go into infrared.”
"Ah, an infrared dress!" Ryoko said, pounding her fist into her palm. "I'd really like to see that."
"Well, humans can't normally see it, so it would look like the wearer was going around naked…” Lum frowned, “You humans don’t really care about that, right? Since your mating process doesn’t have anything to do with getting nude.”
Ryoko managed to avoid laughing again, “Yes our nudity taboos exist mostly as a proclamation of humanity's superiority to nude animals that, ahem, rut.”
Aha, that did make a lot of sense. Well, thank goodness Ryoko at least was able to give her serious advice about human mating rituals, it seemed to be the one and only thing that she ever did take seriously.
Unfortunately this was the point where Shutaro walked into the room. Looking smug. Which was, so far as Lum was concerned, a disturbance to the natural order of the universe. Fortunately Ryoko had a bell dropped on him right before he said anything inane. Which would be pretty much anything he had to say anyway.
"Waaaah! I'm cramped, It's dark! I'm scared!" he cried out.
"Say, Ryoko. How do these earrings look?"
"Dazzling."
Both girls were pointedly ignoring the boy breaking out of the bell. "Miss Lum! I bring a report on Moroboshi!"
Lum rolled her eyes. Right. Of course. He'd been trying to talk her out of this ever since he'd first heard of it. As in, she was pretty sure it was the same nanosecond.
"As a precaution I have had security monitor him around the clock," Shutaro said, seeming quite proud of himself.
"Yes, and I had them fired to put a real security team in place," Ryoko tittered.
"... Quite so!" Shutaro coughed. "And her security team has informed me that the boy is already en route to the predetermined dating location."
Huh? Really? Lum looked at the clock. She should have another hour still!
"Oh dear, that's not the right time at all," Ryoko tutted. "Daylight savings time. That must be it."
"... But daylight savings isn't for another month..." Shutaro muttered under his breath. "In any event would you like to hear their report?"
"I don't have time!" Lum yelled, hastily making sure her earrings were in place. She looked in the mirror, smacked her lips and took a deep breath. Heh! She'll knock him dead. "I'll be back later!"
"Well, maybe sooner than you think," Shutaro said. Then, just as Lum was opening the door, the boy followed up with "He's been seen talking with another girl, who seems to be quite insistently asking him out on a date."
Oh dear the door handle came off in her grip.
- Ataru encounters a bunch of other girls from the series that stuck around for, like, an arc or an episode and then left, and they all want to date him for various reasons.
- Ataru tries to escape the ghost girl possessing the rain cursed girl with minimal success.
- Sakura gets involved in Ataru's situation.
- Meanwhile at the concert. Ran encounters Shinobu.
- Something else
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