Story: LU Ataru

 

For the benefit of those of you who missed the memo, Ran (no last name given) is kind of a sneaky bitch. If you told her, she'd agree with you. Internally. Then she'd conspire to send one of her remote control bombs to blow your butt up, or perhaps sneak an energy draining smooch as an act of petty revenge. That's the kind of girl she is.

Try not to blame her. Blame her mother. She did! When she wasn't blaming Lum. In all honesty, those aren't bad targets to aim at. Her mother is, was, and forever shall be genuinely abusive while Lum is - How to put it... Scatterbrained? Easily distracted? Calling her a ditz is perhaps a bit cruel. Not entirely inaccurate, but all the same, cruel.

Ah, but then again Ran might also give the impression that she was a bit of an airhead, herself. That was the persona she portrayed to the public. The nice, cute, bubbly girl who wore flowery dresses, has long curly hair, likes having tea and making cakes, and is cute as a doll don't you know~

While her true personality? Devious. Easily angered. Spiteful, sneaky, manipulative. With all her ire aimed squarely at Lum, Lum, Lum, for reasons that are... only about half Lum's actual fault when you get right down to it.

Now, you can call it a product of paranoia if you like, but when a girl like Shinobu Miyake expresses sudden interest in alien technology, that's the kind of thing that makes a girl like Ran go 'huh!' Of all the humans around, she's the one that is the least interested in alien technology. By a lot. Except maybe Onsen-Mark, who generally didn't like nonsense to start with.

If your average human was at least curious enough to be ranked a 10 for an arbitrary score for interest in alien technology, Shinobu would be a -20. She seemed to be of the position that alien technology was 'not normal', which might be true for Earth, but was certainly not true for Ran.

Oh dear, that's quite a long way around the block isn't it? Let's get to the point: Li'l Ran was oh so concerned about why, oh why, normal human girl Shinobu all of a sudden seemed absolutely fascinated by an intergalactic toy for children.

The very first thing Shinobu had done after getting it was flirt with the rich jerk. Which about tracked. While he wasn't Ran's style at all, a lot of the girls seemed to like him. Probably because (by human standards) he's obscenely rich, and they want in on that action. Blegh. Ran has more wealth in her own little bank account than there is on the entirety of the planet - and Lum has even more than that. That Mendo creep did not impress her at all.

Still, it was lunchtime, and Shinobu had made her a promise to keep Lum distracted. Which created the perfect, ultimate opportunity for her to head off after Darling and seduce him! She was ready. She was prepared! She was following after him at a distance while Shinobu did... whatever it was that she was doing!

Kukuku! He was heading off to the gym storage, was he? Fine by her~ That was the perfect place to make out. Obviously, he'd noticed her already and was heading in that direction for that very explicit reason.

Her body was already anticipating it. Getting some quality alone time with that boy. It hardly even mattered to her what, exactly, Shinobu was doing with Lum to keep her busy. It didn't matter. It didn't matter at all. Cuz Ran was gonna get -

She threw the door open to the gym storage room, and found... Ataru making out with Ryoko Mendo. The total bitch of a little sister of the aforementioned Shutaro. Ran stared at them both for a long, long moment. Unable to process what exactly she was seeing. But then...

She closed the door behind them and slowly walked forward, not quite sure what, exactly, she was going to be doing next.

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Would it surprise literally anyone to learn that one of the more common ships in Urusei Yatsura is... Lum/Shinobu? AKA Lumnobu! There's a certain logic to it. It's the same sort that ships Naruto with Sasuke or Light with L. Something about the antagonistic relationship between them makes the imagination alight.

Why not Ataru/Shutaro? Eh, it exists, but let's be real here - they're too damned similar to ship together, so it feels weird. Besides which, does anyone really like Shutaro Mendo, outside his apparent hordes of fangirls in universe?

You see, this kind of shipping only works when there's a contrast, right? Ataru and Shutaro are often remarked as being the same kind of person. THe only difference really is their wealth levels, and the fact that one of them has an absolutely crippling phobia - but let's not pick nits here, they're structurally very similar people.

Naruto and Sasuke? Naruto and Sasuke are rivals—but they’re also opposites in temperament, upbringing, and emotional expression. Light and L? Ideological opposites locked in a chess match. Justice vs. justice. Ego vs. ego. But their methods, aesthetics, and personalities sharply diverge.

Lum and Shinobu? Both are cute girls, to be sure, but that's about it in terms of common features. Alien vs. human Supernatural chaos vs. “normal” girl Openly possessive vs. socially grounded Outsider vs. insider They’re rivals, yes—but they’re also fundamentally different kinds of girls. That creates narrative electricity. You can imagine growth, tension, misunderstandings, attraction born from clash. The imagination has room to play.

Thus people would most likely be naturally drawn towards imagining what was happening on the roof of the school at that very moment. Namely, the two girls snogging like their lives depended on it. For Lum, this rather came out of nowhere - Shinobu had very generously offered to help 'train' her in kissing, so that her attempts to 'train' Ataru would prove more successful.

What Lum had not expected was how effective the Level Upper had made Shinobu at slipping a girl some tongue. It had only been meant to be a thirty second smooch to get them warmed up, but that had been five minutes ago now. At this point, if you asked her, Lum couldn't tell you her own name. Not least because there was a girl in the way, and a tongue in her mouth besides her own. That would make any answer come out rather muffled. But if you assume Shinobu was poofed out of existence for just long enough for you to ask the question and expect an answer, she'd likely just turn to you and threaten you until you gave her smoochy girl back.

When they did part, Shinobu was on top. Their fingers were interlocked together, and Shinobu was absolutely in the dominant position here. She looked Lum up and down, and smirked in total triumph.

"Looks like I came out on top for a change," Shinobu teased. "Ever since you entered my life, you've pushed me out of my regular position."

She kissed Lum again before she could do or say much of anything.

"You became the most popular girl in school." Another kiss. "You took my boyfriend." Another kiss. "Hell, apparently you took my role as lead girl! But now, I'm gonna take that all back as the proper Queen of Ataru's harem~"

Lum took exactly none of that in, but she did react a bit to hearing her Darling's name. Oh, but then, Shinobu descended upon her once again - and every so often, if you listened really carefully, you'd hear something going 'ding' 'ding' 'ding'...