Disclaimer: The characters in this story belong to Rumiko Takahashi, not I. Some characters are from my imagination, but not many. Do not use this story without my permission.
Yukata of Invincibility! Ataru's Great, Tacky Defender!
It was hot weather. Far too hot for a Dappya-monster to be standing in the street, fanning his fogged-up helmet with a paper fan. Another Dappya, a smaller and younger one, came out from the back door of a shop followed by a cloud of cool mist grinning.
"It's cold in there, Dappya!" it said to the hot Dappya. The hot one looked back and saw the smaller one wearing tiger-striped yukata robe. The fan-wielder smashed his fan against the coat-Dappya's helmet and knocked him over. "What was that for. Dappya!?"
"It's too hot out for a Yukata, isn't it?" the Dappya asked. "Throw that away, Dappya! It's tacky!"
"I like it" the Dappya admitted, looking at his stylish little robe with a big, fish-lipped grin. Suddenly the waves of heat beat against him and he realized just how hot it was. Panting already, he disrobed from the yukata and tossed it into a trash can. "It's too hot...Dappya."
"Just like I said, Dappya!" the other one said, still fanning himself. Serendipity intervened just then. Walking down the road in his bow-legged, goofy gait was Ataru, on the prowl for market-street girls who were too tired from the heat to argue against him. Finally, he saw one, yawning tiredly with a bag full of food on her arm. The moisture from the bottles of water and juice she carried had condensed and poured away into the bag, weighing it down. Ataru watched the plastic straps of the bag as the heat expanded them and forced them even further toward the ground. She didn't notice, however, until the weight of the bag had completely left her arm. She looked down and watched her groceries fall down to the ground.
"MIIIIISSS!!!!" Ataru shouted, sliding to the rescue. He leaped in just in time, grabbing the shortened bag by the flimsy edges. Suavely, he stood back up with the bottles, one in his grinning mouth, and handed the bundle over to the girl.
"Oh, thank you!" she said gratefully. "Thank you so much!"
"Oh, no problem" Ataru said, throwing his voice expertly until she took the bottle from his mouth and let him grin and giggle. She sighed her heavy mouth and hunched over. "It's so hot! What's with this heat? It's barely even summer yet and we're already in this huge heatwave...eh?" Ataru had already made his move, and she had just now noticed. He was pawing at her shoulders from behind and giggling in a low, lecherous voice.
"Ah, yes" Ataru began, making her shiver from the perverse twistedness in his voice. "It's quite hot indeed. You know what we should do to beat the heat? Let's go on a date, it'll take you mind off the heat!"
"Uh..." the girl groaned awkwardly, keeping him in the cautious corner of her eye. "I don't know...isn't it kinda hot for a date?"
"Nonsense!" Ataru protested jovially. "We'll go get a snow-cone, some shaved ice, you know they'll be selling that! We can just take our clothes off if it gets too hot, or-" A nasty red hand-mark was placed on his face soon thereafter, and he was left alone as the angry, far-too-hot-for-comfort girl stomped away with her bottles awkwardly clumped together in her arms. "Hey, wait! Come back! You don't have to strip entirely, just down to your underwear!" Now he got a sternly-thrown bottle of water to his face that exploded and soaked his clothes. He fell over, half tripping and half being pushed back by force, and looked down at his soaked clothes.
"Aw, dammit" he cursed as he stood up. At first the cool moisture against his skin felt alright, even refreshing, but then it just dragged him down even further in the hot summer heat. He started panting and staggering around as the water in his clothes evaporated and shrunk his shirt in too tight. "Gukh! Too tight! Can't breathe!" Ataru struggled around chaotically for a while, trying to tear his shirt off or lift it over his head or some how remove it, but the fabric had been woven too tight around him to be easily removed. He gasped and panted while crawling around and finally his shirt burst open as it rubbed against the searing hot ground. Now, without a shirt, Ataru was destined to have his bare skin burned.
"Ah hell" Ataru moaned, planting his face on the sidewalk and perking his butt in the air. "It's too hot today...geh..." His last, hot breath out signaled his utter defeat. Even for Ataru it was too hot to girl hunt. That meant it was lethal heat. He listened to the cicadas, most of which sounded just as tired of buzzing as Ataru was of living. He slowly scooted himself across the baking asphalt and lifted his head up to rest his chin on the ground as his cheek was already turning red. In a nearby trash can he spied a strange, tiger-striped garment, and in the heat all he could visualize was Lum leaning against the can as a seat, her knees up and cupped in her hands, her eyes batting innocently, provocatively.
"It's too hot to deal with you..." Ataru moaned. He reached out and pushed the trash can, hoping to jar her and topple her off, which she did and fluttered right down onto him. Clarity resounded through Ataru's mind as his head was covered with the tiger-striped yukata robe from the trash. He got up on his hands and knees, turned around in confusion like a dog, and finally stood up and carefully took the yukata off to eye it down. "What a tacky looking thing" he observed. After a moment or two he decided, against any other reason, to put it on and keep his back from getting baked any further. He stretched a few times, working his back and squatting, leaning and reaching with his arms, and made a happy decision at last. "I like this thing! I think I'll just take it. No reason to let it get dirty in the garbage!" And so Ataru walked back home, full of energy and life, wearing that mysterious alien garb over his back...
"Huwaaaaahhhh...." sighed a weary, baking Ten. He wore comically big shades and a little sun hat on his head to protect himself from heat stroke and sat in the shade of Kotatsuneko in the lot where he hung out. This weather was perfect for a cold-hating cat like Kotatsuneko, but due to his own preferential hang-ups, he still sat under a working kotatsu. In utter pleasure, the ghost cat gave his own sigh and took out a pipe from under the table. "It's hoooot out, huuuuh?" Ten asked. Kotatsuneko nodded as he lit his pipe and waved the fire from the match away.
Just as all seemed calm and right, as the clouds became static and peaceful overhead and the cicadas all chirped harmoniously with the glee of the hot, summer sun, something terrible happened.
"Haaaah" Cherry sighed as he emerged from his tent, clad only in a thin red loincloth. "Such a blessedly hot day. Surely this is an omen...of what I can't say." He took his ugly face to the sky, shading his eyes with a hand, and got seared by a sudden blast of light from the sun. "GAH! Wickedness! Something flashy and disastrous is on its way!!!" Just then, from one of the lot's openings, Ataru walked by in a happy, long-stride gait wearing his tiger-striped yukata robe. Technically, that was the prophesy being fulfilled, though Ten just hovered up over the kotatsu and turned to chide Cherry.
"It's too hot for prediction!" Ten shouted as Cherry knelt down in pain, begging for mercy of the sun as he rolled and retreated back into his tent. "Idiot. I hope he roasts in there..." Kotatsuneko was in no mood to disagree. He liked it when it was hot. He looked around for a moment and blew a smoke ring away from Ten's space and caught a glimpse of a staring Gen Takamura wearing an undershirt and boxers, wielding a cold plate of freshly prepared sushi. Gen knew fine eating, cold sushi on a hot day. Kotatsuneko shrugged him off with a quick turn of his head and Gen, though miffed, went on his own way eating the sushi. On the first bite, unfortunately, he winced and began sweating. Nothing quite as disappointing as spicy sushi on such a hot day...
Getting back to the star of the story, Ataru finally made it home in an exponentially greater mood than the one he left in, all bright and cheery, a skip and a twirl in each step, and not a bead of sweat across his brow. It was as if, during this intense heat, he was whisked off and away into his own air-conditioned world. He opened the door and hopped out of his sandals and announced his presence in a rising sing-song voice.
"I'm hooome!" His mother leaned out, her hair stringy from the heat, and watched him happily move around, shifting from foot to foot.
"Ataru" she said tiredly, "it's too hot to dance."
"I'm not dancing" Ataru defended. He then began hopping from foot to foot, staying on his toes, feeling light enough to float. "I just can't stop moving! I'll be up in my room! Seeya!"
"Wait a second" he mother halted. Ataru simply ran up the steps and entered his room, ignoring his mother's calls. "Ataru, where'd you buy that tacky yukata in the summer? Was it on sale!?" She blinked twice, shaking her son's financial affairs from her mind, and returned to trying to work in the kitchen once more. It was far too hot to cook, obviously, and her lettuce for chopping had already heated up past an appetizing point. "Who sells yukata's this early in the year...?" she wondered. Upstairs, Ataru ran inside his room and shut the door with a quick spin. Lum was slow to notice, the intense heat even making her lethargic. She was just sitting against the wall reading a magazine full of 'helpful' romantic tips.
"Hi Darling" she greeted, mustering up as much sincerity and care as she could in her lazy attitude. "Poor hunting conditions, eh?"
"I guess so" Ataru said as he sat down with a grin. Lum looked at him, uneasy over his seemingly uncharacteristic good mood. He was never, or at least rarely, that happy to see her first thing. Then she noticed the robe and hovered forward with a grin. Ataru noticed her and held out the fabric for her to touch. "Neat, huh? It's a little tacky, I guess, but wearing it feels so good!" Lum came over and started running her hands on the outside of the yukata, feeling its silky-smooth fur and looking over its slender tiger stripes that mimicked the patterns on her own clothes.
"Darling, it's so handsome on you!" she said excitedly. She bounced around to his front and sat in front of him, leaning in unexpectedly for a sneak-hug that Ataru allowed. "Where'd you find it, anyway?"
"A garbage can!" Ataru proudly admitted. Lum retreated into the air, her arms drawn back and her face plastered with disgust. "It was clean!" Ataru argued. "Perfectly clean, okay? I looked it over, front and back, and there weren't any spots on it at all!"
"Well..." Lum said, "as long as it wasn't dirty, then I guess it's okay, but Darling isn't it too hot for a yukata?"
"What'dya mean?" Ataru asked, fanning the front brim of his coat to blow a refreshingly cool air off his body. "It's not half bad wearing this. I think it's air-conditioned."
"Let me check" Lum said, sneaking in and looking around the back of the robe. Ataru tried to push her away in protest but didn't avail to moving her. Lum found a slim, paper-thin packet on the back with faded alien script that she struggled to read.
"Get outta my coat!" Ataru exclaimed. He continued pushing on her but that only provoked her to fly around and circled his back to come out holding her shoulders and shivering.
"Yeah" Lum confirmed, her breath visible at his face, "it's air-conditioned."
"Took you long enough" Ataru said, glaring her down.
In time, as the day wore on and the heat continued to drag down the morale of the noble citizens and the Dappya-men retreated in panic to their cooler climate-controlled rooms, Ataru and Lum found themselves in their own comfortable positions. Unfortunately, for Lum's comfort there was a necessary sacrifice of Ataru's comfort, as she refused to leave his yukata which he refused to take off. So he had his arms crossed in protest while she cuddled up close, head in his chest and arms wrapped behind his neck.
"Hey" he said flatly, his face full of irk and annoyance.
"Hmm?" she cutely cooed. Ataru suddenly stood up and started flailing his body back and forth, trying to heave her off him. She thought it was funny, her mood elevated by the cool-air yukata, and giggled as he scornfully threw his back and neck and arms around to try and loosen her.
"You have your own tiger-stripe crap!" Ataru protested. "Get outta my robe!"
"Oh, silly Darling!" Lum said, laughter coating her words. "But I love snuggling with you!"
"No one asked you!" Ataru raged. He reached around his back, trying to wrench her hands apart with all his might, but her stubbornness was far too much of a force for him, a rivaling immovable object to Ataru's impassible and domineering perseverance. Eventually he had grabbed both of her hands in his own and brought them back over his head, holding them in front with a tightly-constrained face of anger. Lum just smiled and held his hands as well, loosening them with her soft, gentle nature, and leaned in to give him a surprise kiss. This surprise he did not accept and pull away at the first sign of her advance.
"Come on" Lum cutely whined.
"No way!" Ataru protested, hopping away from the flying alien's pursed lips.
"Come o~~n" she hummed tauntingly. Ataru's lips were moistening with devious thoughts.
"N-never!" Ataru argued, his brow and lips twitching together. He continued inching back while she inched forward, ever determined to give him a kiss. Suddenly, just as spontaneously as it had begun, the battle stopped as Lum drew away to Ataru's arm length and giggled.
"I'm sorry Darling" she said, letting go of his hands and closing her eyes innocently. "I didn't mean to cause you any discomfort. I'll just get out my climate-control blanket." Lum walked toward the closet, unaware of the precarious predicament she had left Ataru in. Not noticing in her good mood, Ataru was teetering, trying to keep his balance as he stood with his toes on the edge of the rail of his balcony that led straight down into the side-yard. He began stuttering cautious nonsense, swimming his way back up so his hands could latch onto the roof ledge. Then his feet gave way, and with a sharp yelp he slid down, saving himself by the single graceful hair of god by catching the rail with his hands. Now he dangled down over the hard, hot ground below.
"Uh..." Ataru groaned worriedly. He tried to pull himself up with sheer strength, finding it incredibly difficult without any motivation, and his hands began accumulating sweat from the heat of the metal rail that he desperately held. Lum turned around with a blanket in her arms, promptly dropping it and zooming to the window in a hurry.
"Darling!" she exclaimed. "Don't fall!"
"Sure, easy!" Ataru raged back. The heat of the metal rail finally gave its way to Ataru's sweat and he fell down. "UWAAAHH!!!" he shouted, ending suddenly as his back smashed into the ground.
"DARLING!" Lum shouted. She nearly had an anxiety attack and flew down as quick as she could to recover Ataru's body. She first pulled it up out of the ground like a stubborn root and placed him gingerly in her arms, keeping his head in her hand and his surely bruised, or possibly broken, back in a gentle embrace. She was already tearing up. "Darling...no, Darling. Are you alright? Darling!?" Ataru tiredly stirred, sending a warm surge of relief through Lum. She buried her head back into his chest and began breathing deep breaths. "Thank goodness, Darling. I was so worried!"
"Huh?" Ataru groaned. He sat up, stood up, rubbed his head and then stood with his hands on his hips. He tilted his head swiftly from side to side and shrugged his shoulders, cracking his neck joints and then rolled his head around twice. "That...that didn't hurt at all. I didn't feel a thing, it's like I never stopped falling...except for the gravity." Lum got up from her kneeling position and grappled his arm lovingly, letting her tears of sadness show as tears of joy. Ataru was too busy watching his fingers twitch in perfect health to care about her proximity. His mind was already working itself in full gear to make sense of his painless action, and finally he realized what had happened. In that moment he detached Lum from his arm and began running away into the streets.
"Darling?" Lum asked, watching his swift dust trail. She floated up and watched him weave his way through the alleys with an excited speed invoked only from the twisted motivation of- "Darling!" Lum roared. "Get back here! You might be hurt! It's too dangerous for you to go girl hunting! DARLING!!!" Her angry, concerned roars flew to deaf ears. Ataru was too excited to care. He had to test it out, he just had to!
"Excuse me" ataru politely asked with a perverse face, "but how about a date? It's nice and cool inside my yukata!" He got slapped so hard that he was lifted off the ground and spun around while the girl he asked made an angry huffing exit. Ataru landed on his feet and nearly lost his balance, keeping himself standing upright and smiling by continuing the spin he was launched into. Then, with the girl gone, Ataru began a triumphant laugh that drifted away from his regular, goofy voice and trailed into a serious, borderline Mendo-imitation of cackling.
"I get it!" Ataru proclaimed, aiming his head and fist high up to the heavens. "The heavens have blessed me today!" He let his fist bloom open into a gracious open palm and continued reaching. "Finally, after an entire lifetime of punishment without warrant, I have been given compensation! A yukata of invincibility! I feel no pain, I suffer from no injury, I am an immortal man, and this magical, heavenly, still tacky yukata has delivered me such power! AAAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!"
"Darling!" Lum shouted.
"Gah!" Ataru shouted in recoil. "A demon in the sky!" Lum was hovering clearly overhead, her hands on her hips and an angry, toothy scowl across her face.
"I knew you'd be up to no good" Lum said.
"Of course you did" Ataru smugly said, crossing his arms. "I always do this. If it took you all this time to realize what I do daily then, honestly, I've lost a lot of respect for you. I thought you were naïve, but not entirely stupid."
"You want to die, DON'T'CHA!?!?!?" Lum roared. She charged up a glaring ball of jagged lightning, wound up her pitching form and threw a heavy bolt of pure electricity at Ataru. "Take that! DIVINE PUNISHMENT!!!" Ataru just looked at the lightning, squinting slightly from the brightness, waiting for it to ineffectually strike him. A crater full of smoke and noise surrounded Ataru, the proclaimedly immortal man. Lum hovered down, still fuming with rage but uncertain to her Darling's fate, and waited. The smoke continued to clear, slowly revealing the blurry standing silhouette of a man.
"Hehehe" Ataru laughed. Lum squinted to try and peer through the thick cloud, but still her vision was impeded by the slowly retreating dust she had blasted up. The first thing visible was Ataru's upwards-pointing finger. "I guess you heard already, Lum. This yukata has made me immortal!"
"Don't let a little cool air" Lum chided "get to your head, Darling. You're not immortal. Obviously your cheek's just numb from some other girl slapping you earlier and your back didn't break because you have the devil's luck."
"Oh?" Ataru said. The smoke finally cleared and revealed Ataru, standing straight in a taunting disco-pose and cocking an eyebrow at Lum, untouched by the lightning. "Then how do you explain this, eh?" Lum was dumbfounded. She shook it off, however, as it was unbecoming of her.
"Obvious" Lum said. "You've gotten used to my high-voltage attacks. I just needed to make a bigger lightning bolt, that's all."
"Oh, sure!" Ataru yelled sarcastically. "Blow up everyone's houses while you're at it!" Lum turned in a huff and crossed arms in anger. Her cheeks puffed up from her aggravation as well, and she set her sights away from her obnoxious husband. "Anyway" Ataru said, regathering himself for a more pleasant tone, "I'm off to hit on more girls. It's what the heavens mandated by giving me this cool-suit, after all." With that strange logic in mind, Ataru skipped off out of the crater and down the remaining, intact street. Lum, glanced to the side, hoping to catch a regretful look back from Ataru, but instead found a likely source of his acclaimed immortality. She hovered over and went down into the crater, looking at its sides.
"Wait a second" Lum said. She saw her handiwork in the form of arcing streaks of lightning jumping from thick-metal circuit to circuit just under the layer of roasted asphalt. Her scientific mind easily deduced the logical end of Ataru's survival and she gasped. She was right on both previous occasions, and her mind filled with dread over her further being right about her Darling's dire situation. She gasped and, without hesitation, began to give chase desperately after Ataru.
Ataru, meanwhile, was hitting on and being hit by every girl he approached in the park. It was a simple exorcise of repetition and rhythm. He walked up, made a remark in less that three syllables, the girl would get appalled, slap him hard while he giggled and held the mark while she fled. This pattern repeated many times, Ataru simply taking the blows, ignoring the pain of slap-stacked-upon-slap as it wasn't there, and marched through the park in search of a perfect beauty.
"Darling!" Lum called. "Darling, you aren't immortal! You're just lucky! Incredibly stupid and lucky! Please give up before you get seriously hurt!"
"Shut up!" Ataru called back, his cheeks puffed out and pulsing red. "I was given this robe by the powers of heaven itself! It's serendipity! No one else but me can use the powers of the mystical tacky yukata correctly!!!" Lum hovered down to the ground, looking more seductively beautiful than usual in Ataru's eyes, and started walking with swaying hips towards him.
"Who's to say" Lum said, getting right up to press her chest against his "that your way is the best way?" Ataru's eye twitched, not with danger but with excitement. "Why don't you let me try it on...I'm sure I could find another, much more heavenly use for it." With that she winked and turned around. "A girl shouldn't bare too much skin, you know?" Leering out of the corner of her eye with her head turned just over her shoulder, Lum reached behind her back and untied her top. Ataru was salivating. "Can I borrow that...Darling?" Her inflection drove him wild. Billows of steam arose as she turned to accept the robe.
"NO WAY!" Ataru shouted. "This...this is a way better use for it! HEHEHE!!!"
And that's how Ataru found himself uncomfortably resting in bed, a wet cloth on his head and his head on Lum's folded knees.
"So he just passed out?" Ataru's mother said with distress. Lum nodded and stroked his sweat-soaked bangs.
"It must have been heat stroke" Lum said regretfully. "The air-conditioning module on the back of the yukata must have broken Darling's fall from the balcony. After that I'm surprised he was in just the right place to avoid my shock.
"Well" Mrs. Moroboshi began "that's Ataru for you. No one ever said having the devil's luck is a good thing. And don't worry, Lum. He'll be fine with enough rest and cool water."
"Alright" Lum affirmed. Ataru's mother got up and left the room, knowing Lum was responsible enough to handle an unconscious Ataru on her own. She simply sat, gazing down lovingly at his sleeping, steady face, smiling over her great fortune. "I heard you call my name a few times, Darling" she said with a short titter. "I wonder what you could have been seeing in your heat-induced hallucinations that left you so vulnerable?" As Lum mused Ataru dreamed, dreamed of his future, magnificent Harem where all the girls wore nothing but the sexiest of modern lingerie and tiger-stripped yukata robes.
"Guhahahah!" he laughed atop his silk-spread throne, surrounded by the enticing beauties of Lum and Sakura and Ran and Shinobu and Ryoko and Benten, all exposing the valleys of joy between their buxom bosoms as they leaned in to seductively stare him down. "I love these tacky things!!!" And so Ataru harbored a new-found appreciation for tall things tiger-striped...