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Pyeknu: Funny you said that... only it's not just her, but rather people nobody ever realizes, too.
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The Final Straw ch.2: Darling's Stress - Perils and Parent's Day
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Ataru Moroboshi merrily strolled down the small roads that spanned their network across town. Merrily mostly because he could catch a glimpse of the beautiful girls that seemed to be abundant around here, making up a higher percentage of the population than anywhere else across the whole of Japan.
'Well except for maybe the beach...', he thought aloud. But what was any different than usual?
Well, it was early February. The days were getting a teensy bit warmer, longer, the air still had that crisp wind of winter in it before spring started. But for one Ataru Moroboshi the greatest joy was for the jackets to (at least in his head) become, ever so slightly, thinner again, showing more and more curves of the hodt bodys of the girls wearing them.
He let out a content sigh. Then his typical lecherous giggle. He considered 'girlhunting' for a second, but stopped himself, muttering. He actually had somewhere to be!
"Stupid Mendo, I have my pride and hobbies as well! He can't just call me up and expect me to come..." he stopped irritated in his tracks, "Gosh, the city should really cut down the ozone to clean the water in the pool... wait!" It was February. The pool wouldn't be open until April or May... But before he could even turn around he heard that horrible sound.
That was the other thing that the citizens of Tomobiki had gotten used to. Despite sunny weather and already warm temperatures as well as in winter in the deepest cold there could always be a sudden lightning, blinding the entire area, blasting holes the size of a van into the ground.
He would never be a friend of it.
"DEVINE RETRIBUTION!"
Seconds later the charred remains of a teenager could be seen smoking in the pavement. An angry Lum bowed over him; "Why. Why do you keep doing this to me!"
At that the boy got up from the ground. "What have I done now!", he scowled at the Oni, as if the pain had never been there.
"I don't know! But I'm sure that you did do something when you run away without even telling me! You always are up to something!", she spat annoyed, "This is getting tiring, you know!"
Ataru chose to, as always ignore the last part. "I regret to inform you", he started calmly, but lost his temper anyway,"THAT MENDO REALLY INVITED ME OVER! He and the Stormtroopers want to beat me up, apparently."
Lum squeezed her nose between her fingers, having learned that that is what humans do to signal mental exhaustion. "Why are you going then?"
"Because the original purpose of his call was that his dad had just gotten him his first own car and he wanted to show off! I would look rude if I didn't go have a look and break something or orther...", silently adding "and I don't want that to happen in front of you..."
Lum gave him a deadpan look. "Since when do you care about that anyway? And why can't I come along?" She did have a point in that. "I mean, you never talk about being interested in cars before!" She was joking, right? He was a human being after all! Of course he was interested in other things except girls and food! Maybe not as much as other guys, but still he had a poster of the Mercedes C111 concept car on his wall. He also wanted to go on a vacation in China and trough Europe, to see the Grand Canyon and walk on the Moon. He couldn't talk to her about it though, or anything for that matter, because she would always state that they had better ones that her planet makes, all that were pathetic, boring destinations, that the pathetic human tech or bodies would force him to be content with and either take him to some place that almost kills him, or just kill the conversation with a, though well meant, resolute, but naive statement. Doesn't matter if it was the bodies themselfes, cars, houses, spaceships (obviously), food, frickin' water and even their rats were more agreeable than the ones on Earth, apparently!
He decided to just drop it. He didn't have time for that right now.
"Whatever. I didn't do a thing. See you later!" And with that he decided to crawl out of his hole, turn around and head onwards to the Mendo estate.
But Lum, being, well, Lum, decided not to let it go. "Why can't I go?"
"Because they're gonna beat me up for having destroyed your purity... again..."
"What?!" Lum yelled at him. "Why are you always behaving like this! You shouldn't do this!" Ataru felt somehow flattered by this "You are not able to fight to what I could, being your normal self! You don't have the skill to win against anything, that's facing me! And why do you mess in those affairs of mine anyway!"
He once again turned around and left, triggering an angry "DAAAAAARRLING!", but, without looking at her again he just told her: "Go home, already! I don't want you around right now, okay!"
"YOU ARE GOING TO GET YOUR LAZY, SELFISH BUTT ALONG SO I DON'T HAVE TO WATCH YOU ALL THE TIME LIKE A LITTLE KID, SO YOU DON'T FOOL AROUND WITH OTHER GIRLS!"
This time he didn't even consider answering, now royally pissed. He would often pretend to be pissed, just to make her feel guilty for being rude herself, before, but lately he really was pissed off!
So he just left a fuming Lum hovering in the middle of the road and went ahead.
'
'
When he returned back home about two and a half hours later he already took a bad omen in Cherry sitting in the vacant, lot looking at him in his usual 'I'm going to have to inform you that I read a bad future in your hideous face' speech-mood. So he went along not paying attention to the tiny monk who looked irritably at the kid in question. "The world is at an end," he stated, "'tis fate!"
The next ominous sign of bad events to soon occur was the laughter that rang through his street and was already heard from a few houses down the road. It was rough, but not particularly low. It had a bit of an odd sound to it and it's owner was clearly recognizable. Not by the voice itself of course, but rather by the enormous tiger-striped UFO floating over the whole town. "How the Hell did I not notice that!"
Now the third thing that he should have noticed was the queasy feeling he had in his gut as he reached for his keys telling him to run away as quick as possible. Well he didn't listen to it.
As soon as he shut the door behind him he was already assaulted by his mother. "Ataru, where in the name of all that's holy have you been? You look awful! Go take a shower or something and then come downstairs! Dinner is ready in 20 Minutes and don't you dare be late, we have guests..."
"Hello to you too, Mom.", he told his mother irritated. He waited for her to go on insulting him, as she always did, but before she could there was a certain green-haired girl stomping into the hallway to take over screaming at him.
"Darling no baka! Why did you leave me in the middle of the road! Just like that! I've never done a thing to make you think bad of me so why!"
Ataru just thought he heard a bad joke and couldn't suppress clenching his fists, only to force himself breathe a few times to regain his temper. He could feel his head throbbing, not only by rage but rather by some different aspects of his psyche that seemed to clash inside of his head.
He managed to calm down a bit. "Lum", he asked, "do you notice anything different about me from before."
She took a closer look at him, leaning in, but other than disheveled hair, a footprint square on his face, a few small holes pierced through his shirt, complete with little bloodstains, a medium sized one in his left trouser leg and a few red scratches and bruises all over his visible skin and face, she didn't notice anything bad.
"No, I think you're just fine!", she answered naively, having been told a thousand times that he couldn't actually get hurt, being a human cockroach and all.
His right eye twitched. "I'm going to take a shower now.", he openly stated with a cracked voice and then, zooming upstairs, accidentally slapped an unsuspecting Ten against the wall, effectively making a Ten-shaped imprint in it.
'
'
In the bathroom, dressed with nothing but a towel, he took the big mirror on the wall.
He couldn't believe what a heap of misery was looking at him.
"It can't go on like this. It simply cannot! I won't survive this much longer, and they're actually getting worse. And (incoherent misery) more and more (more suffering noises)." He fell down to his knees, touching the bruise, that Megane's morning star had left on his shoulders. Where did he get a medieval weapon from anyway? "Sure, I can handle a lot, but this is really getting ridiculous!" Then he thought of the big man sitting in his living room. Another choked sob. "And now that guy is here again! Can't he mind his own business for once!"
Her father was of course the person in question. Ataru was, to be fair, never a big fan of his, conquering the planet (or at least trying to) and all, but after the last time... that he stayed... Ataru stepped into the shower, trying to forget the madness that his life became more and more each day. He was sure that this couldn't go on for much longer. He couldn't have that much bad luck. The water that flowed over his scratches made them burn slightly. It was a good burn nonetheless. He felt it was at least not damaging him, as opposed to a bad one. He thought of Ten. A shiver ran down his back.
'
'
Ataru came strolling into the living room with his hands casually placed behind his head, hair disheveled just as usual. He wore his best orange T-shirt and a pair of clean blue Jeans (and white tennis socks, thanks for asking!), pretending to have already shrugged off the horrible day he had.
This became a lot more difficult as he was taken into an ambush by his father-in-law.
"Son, it's good to see you after all this time!", he shouted enthusiastically, proceeding inquisitively "Why do you never talk to us when Lum calls, hm? Don't you want to see us?", becoming more vicious with each word. 'Man, what an emotional man!', Ataru thought as he looked over his arm (at elbow height, actually being too small to look over his shoulders), seeing his mother shaking her head, undoubtedly thinking her catchphrase that he heard everyday since he was five. Then Lum looked at him questioning, tilting her head, apparently having cooled down a bit, while he was in the bathroom, only to give him a bubbly smile.
"Actually," he finally continued laughing nervously, "I can't be there most of the time simply because I don't have access to Lum's UFO." Which, of course, was a blatant lie, since the Oni was right. At this the head of the biggest armada in the galaxy and in what was (then) the known universe, turned his head to his daughter, along with his wife.
"Really, sweetheart? Is that so?", recalling all the times she told them that he couldn't be there because of some silly thing. Mostly something about extracurricular activities or something.
He seemed to have quite a lot of them. Those earthlings sure were a strange bunch, actually allowing their kin to enhance their grades by something not related to learning the basic essentials taught in an intergalactic empire's education system, much less their own, was beyond him, so he let it go.
"Daddy, you see, it's... like... er...", she smiled sheepishly at her father, only to shoot a short glare at her 'husband'.
Mrs. Invader exclaimed something in Alien gibberish to Ataru, obviously shocking her own man, and causing for her daughter to get pale. Despite not understanding a word, he knew that he had just been insulted openly in his face, yet behind his back, so the smaller man tried to wiggle himself out of the situation yet again.
"Actually I just can't get up there. I can't fly, unlike you guys, remember?" Invader visibly relaxed again, his wife smiling again and his daughter releasing a breath she didn't even realize she was holding.
They finally all settled down at the dinner table.
Ataru decided that it would be better to change topic. "A-anyways," he stuttered, "what brings you here on Earth?"
"Darling, have you not been listening in class?"
"Sure he hasn't forgotten parent's day! Right, son?" Invader asked him, his actual father hiding behind another newspaper. He realized that he should no longer sleep in class, since it was doing well for neither his grades, especially English, nor these peculiar situations he kept getting in, long ago. Doing that was another thing actually not being that easy, since he was by now more often mentally tired by Ten's attacks and Lum's antics in the morning, already before school even began, than not. And on top of that he couldn't do anything in school with those two around. The whole class had to stay back a year already and blamed him for it.
'Sigh'. He found himself on that train of thought again.
"Of course he has! He never does anything he is supposed to! Always trying to manipulate the situation for his own advantage!" his mother exclaimed, hoping to... why was she doing this anyway? Luckily the Invaders didn't notice the nodding heads around them, thinking it was a joke. The one who noticed the insult everyone, except his in-laws, was giving him, was Ataru himself. He started wolfing down his rice.
'I really am too good of a human being, actually sparing the two of them the exposure of their schemes!', he thought in his 'noble voice'. At that some very, very, very masculine voice popped up in the forefront of his mind.
'
'
"Mr. Moroboshi! You are only fooling yourself!" His vision went black for a moment, shining obstacles illuminating a figure dressed in some sort of kimono about 20 meters away from him. He could, howeve, tell, that it was not a girl. He'd recognize it.
"You shall be the one who will lead your world to the everlasting enlightenment!"
Nope, this was actually a guy, a slender, tall one. Very peculiar, this being the mind of Ataru, who other than that had encounters almost solely with female ghosts (not counting Kotatsu-Neko). 'Very peculiar, indeed.', he thought to himself.
The figure stretched out his hand towards him, the boy expecting a hurtful electric shock, even in this head, but found a soft purple glow flowing towards him instead. It had a fuzzy, warm feeling of sunshine and cats, rubbing against his entire body, to it. He was caressed by it. Then a thought struck him.
"Who are you anyway?", he distrustfully demanded.
"We are the gods to create and steer life as you know and imagine it." The figure said in his droning, booming voice, "But more of that at a later time."
Then the glow forcefully made its way into the poor boy's head, for a moment he felt like drowning, as reality reappeared before his very eyes.
'
'
At the table everyone looked at a desperate Ataru, coughing and gasping for air. Then he suddenly stopped mid-movement and looked straight into the round, giving a perplex giggle. "Son-in-law, are you alright?"
"Yeah of course, I just got something stuck in my throat."
"Darling, you shouldn't always pig out so much while eating!"
"I'm only eating this much out of grief," Ataru muttered.
"Very well," Invader smiled, obviously missing this comment just as much as everybody else, "tell me, Ataru. How are things going between my precious pumpkin", he kindly looked at his daughter," and her 'Darling'."
"As always, I suppose...", he thoughtlessly told the large Oni, missing an all-saying worried look that the two alien women exchanged,
"I see. And how is school treating you these days?
"Actually, just as bad as usual. I got extra homework from Onsen-Mark, because I supposedly started yet another destruction of our classroom the other day."
"You really did start it, Darling! You tried peaking under Shinobu's skirt!"
"I had dropped my pencil, that was all! And still, you didn't need to electrocute me so much that my desk caught on fire!"
Mr. Invader suddenly popped up. He actually just heard that, right?
"Still, it would fit you!"
"Anyway," he decided not to bother with his own personal Devil-Alien bride for now, "now I've got to translate twenty pages of 'Pride and Prejudice' into Japanese until tomorrow," he growled
"You're not even thinking about doing it in the first place, are you, Darling?"
'She's really pushing it today', Ataru thought to himself, then turned to the girl and told her in a firm voice: "Just so you know, Lum, I was already finished before I left the house earlier."
"Left me in the middle of the street you wanted to say!", exclaimed Lum, "Why, Darling!"
"You sometimes really deserve to be left alone," Ataru stated aggravated. There was a deadly silence in the room. Nobody dared to say a word.
Lum cooked.
Mrs. Moroboshi was getting furious as well for him doing such a 'horrible' act.
Ten tried to be a good boy and stifled a laugh.
Mrs. Invader closed her eyes and covered her ears, already knowing how her daughter reacts to that kind of answer.
Mr. Invader wondered...
Only Mr. Moroboshi was actually so tense that he couldn't not say a word. He didn't want this conversation to be any tenser, so he tried to find another topic altogether, put down his newspaper and started to speak.
"Beautiful weather we're having, isn't it?
'
'
A very charred Ataru slammed the door to his room shut behind him. Furious at his alien bride – or whatever she declared herself to be.
"I won't make it through today and tomorrow if this goes on! This overreacting all the time, this false attitude that they all have", he growled to his empty room.
He was hurting in every spot of his body. Every single one! Ataru sighed and slumped onto his office chair. He rested his head, that felt like a million tons of dynamite exploded, in his hands. "I need a miracle to..."
Suddenly the dark figure flashed into his mind once again. That was indeed very peculiar. He was almost exclusively visited by female ghosts, picking up his earlier train of thought. What was that supposed to mean anyway?
"Enlighten the world?", he said and chuckled sourly, "Yeah, right. I'm lucky if I'll pass the next English exam, much less..."
He stopped mid-sentence, as he looked at Ten's creation before him. There was a very detailed model of a jet-fighter of some sort, probably one of the Devil Star, made out of paper maché. Ataru was throwing his head back in annoyance yet again. Firstly, his desk now was a mess of pieces of paper and glue, sticking to the top of the working area. Secondly, there were roman letters on the paper used for it.
The boy grabbed the plane and got up.
'
'
Ataru's mother was on her knees, picking up the pieces of what formerly was her table. Her face looked defeated and a bit annoyed, but mostly blackened by the ashes that everything flammable always seemed to disintegrate into when her son was around. Her husband sat there, shivering tremendously, nod as badly charred as his son, but with a ripped newspaper in his hands.
Ten was laughing loudly, his aunt just sitting there with a content smile on her face, as was Lum. The only one who was alarmed by something seemed to be Invader, THE Lord of the Galaxy, himself, looking more than just shocked by what had just happened.
In the midst of this confusion Ataru came back downstairs to blast into the middle of it.
"Lum," he asked matter-of-factly and held the model up into her face, "what is this?"
"That's my plane!", Ten exclaimed triggered, "Put it back!"
The bigger boy looked at Lum calmly, despite his obviously clenched jaw. "This is my homework, you know."
"That's right Darling, now go put it back," she told him sweetly.
Ataru stared into her face, his every muscle tense, his eye twitching.
He spontaneously rushed back up only to push through the crowd a minute later with his futon and an extra blanket under his right arm, and his English book and a flashlight in the right hand, open the door, turn around and mutter "I'm going to sleep in the shed tonight, if that's the case!", so that he makes his anguish clear and slam the glass door shut behind him.
Mr. Invader was cursing his life for that he knew he was lied to all this time.
'
'
Ataru was at about page 5 of his second translation, when the door to the cowshed he once built for Lum opened.
Mr. Invader peaked in, looking helpless. "Ataru," he said, "come back inside. It's winter here on earth. You are going to die here like this."
The boy looked at the head of his father in law, which was the size of his whole upper body.
"With respect, Mr. Invader, no. I need to finish this or Onsen will give me hell until the end of the year, which I will surely fail then."
He glared at Invader empty, awaiting an insult. Instead the big man crawled in, holding a bottle of sake in his one hand, and two cups in his other. "Then I have to talk to you for a second, if you don't mind."
"I don't drink alcohol."
"Come on, just one little cup."
"No."
"Aw, you're no fun!", the Oni lamented, "Anyways, Ataru. You know why I'm here?
"No, not really, but it probably has something to do with Lum. Correct?"
"About, yes. Is she often like that? To you?"
"Like what?"
"Blowing everything up for a very nonsensical reason?"
Ataru sighed. "Now that you mention it...", Ataru said sarcastically.
"Oh. In that case I'll take Lum and Ten with me tonight to my spaceship, so you can have your peace and quiet."
"Somehow that won't go well," the boy stated, "I don't know"
"You're going to freeze to death out here!"
"I'm not going!", he shouted; he sneezed. "Fine."
"Very well," Invader proclaimed, satisfied that he'd brought everything back in track so quickly.
'
'
Ataru felt positively dead. Which was a paradox, since he actually was feeling something, which could only mean he was alive.
"Shit!", he mumbled to himself as he realized that fact.
His chest was feeling like it was about to cave in, his teeth hurt and his head was well working on the aforementioned. He was plainly miserable.
'
'
Ryuunosuke Fujinami was looking at Ataru slightly baffled. She had seen him nervous before, sure but this was taking things to a whole new level of ridiculous.
To the right sat the Mendo family, complete with their servants and the 'porta-thrones', as her dad says they were called, they would get out for such occasions, waiting for a reason to sue Ataru off his last pair of clean underpants. To the left the Invaders, chatting merrily amongst themselves in their weird alien language, her dad accidentally and unknowingly scaring the shit out of the other parents, in the back were his own parents obviously not amused by their son's 'social life', in front of him Mr. Onsen, aggravated.
Most of the other students, most notably the Stormtroopers and Shinobu, were glaring daggers at him.
And in the middle of this mess, ripping the hair out of his head, which was currently located on his desk, with gritted teeth in a guge, false smile, was poor Ataru. If he wasn't such a damned lecher, she would really have envied his patience for not losing it right now. And she was feeling with him, having such a horrible parent's day. Luckily, Mr. Onsen already came over to her place this morning, since they lived at school, sadly, and got it over with a punch in his face.
So she could only watch the show take it's course. The stage was, after all, set for great entertainment.
This occurred when Mr. Onsen asked Ataru for his assignment that he had to do last for last Wednesday's disturbances. Ataru got up and held up a few pieces of paper and a model plane.
"I'm very sorry about the form of my work, but the firebug made a jet fighter out of it. I stayed up half the night to try to fix it, but I'm afraid it hasn't had the wished results."
That was certainly a new one. He'd had his dog, that he didn't have, eat his homework, he had Ten burning it, but this was an excuse he hadn't used before. Ryuu-chan chuckled to herself.
"MOROBOSHI!", exclaimed the fat teacher, snatching the plane, being in a bad mood since this morning. "How stupid do you even think I am!"
"B...b...b...but...!"
"You really are the most disgraceful excuse of a student that I have ever heard of! I want the whole thing redone until Friday, do you understand me!"
"But Mr. Onsen, Ataru really did do the homework," Mr. Invader interfered.
"Don't take the side of this slacker, Mr. Invader!", he exclaimed, "That's not helping anyone here at all!"
"Yes, daddy. Darling probably really didn't do anything for school, he usually never does!", Lum cheeped cheerfully. Invader turned his head an incredible speed that shouldn't be possible at all, to stare holes into his own daughter with big, round,surprised eyes, who rolled her own eyes at him for that.
Ataru himself was even paler than he seemed before, he tumbled back, one hand clutching his chest, the other his desk. SOMETHING was off today.
'
'
Ataru heard a loud sizzling in his head, getting louder by the second, his chest was imploding by now, he had a heavy heartburn and his legs were suddenly giving in.
"Ataru Moroboshi!", his mom shouted at him, "How dare you make us look like raising a slacker such as you! Idiot!"
"Yes, dearest Lum-san hasn't deserved such a raw, depraved failure like you!", Shutaro chimed in, only to be backed by Megane.
"Yes, the fair Lum-san will never be able to be with such an abomination of the otherwise cultivated and peace-seeking population of this green-blue-ish marvel in space, as such Lum should not let her perfect and flawless individual be dragged down by scum like him!"
"Excuse me!" Ataru's mother practically yelled at the boys, "if you were to mind your own business for once in a while, I wouldn't have this problem whatsoever!"
Mrs. Mendo's Butler stepped in at this point, relaying a message, "DO YOU ACCUSE OUR SHUTARO TO BE AT THE SAME LEVEL AS YOUR MONKEY BOY?!"
Ataru's vision got blurry at this point. He hardly heard what Megane said, but his head was loud as hell. He needed to... to...
"Well, at least I tried to raise my kid in the first place instead of letting him do whatever he pleased!"
"I need to get out of here!", Ataru suddenly manifested out of nowhere, slipping trough the wall of parents, building up to fight here, in a speed humanly really not possible.
He rushed down the crowded hallway, passing mostly parents and pretty girls, all looking disgusted at seeing him.
He then had to slow down considerably, suddenly feeling very sick, the ringing becoming unbearable.
A flash of long shining, black hair caught his eye. The salvation!
"Sakura-SAAAN!", he cried out of reflex in a suggestive tone. In a just as reflexive move Ataru was kicked out of the window by the school nurse, some kid screaming "Blue Impulse!", after him.
Ataru meanwhile was flying all the way to the street in front of the building only to crash down in the middle of the sidewalk. He got up with a loud groan (or at least tried to, needing three tries to actually succeed) and was immediately assaulted by a screeching girl with her purse, thrown further into the street, just in time for a black limousine to rush at him. Too late for the driver, having only human reflexes, to react, Ataru's body, very battered and his psyche weak as well, did something, that would have never happened in a million years if it didn't come to these exact events. It shut down completely.
'
'
Credits:
Well, Ataru's in some shit now, is he? Usually this couldn't happen to our favorite human cockroach, but he seems to be terribly stressed out lately, doesn't he? (author whistles inconspicuously)
And yes, Lum would say that. She regularly gives debasing comments about humanity. I wonder why nobody ever notices.
And no, she doesn't make these because she's evil. Not because of that...
Let me hear what you think. I might consider it if I like it...
I'm also introducing a song text that I find fitting somewhere in each chapter from now on. This one will be in the credits as I only just announced it.
'
'
Riding on a long, blue paper plane,
Getting seasick, sorry, once again.
Landing strip is getting nearer,
Hope the fog lifts, makes it clearer,
Then I realized my paper plane
Wasn't really up there with me
We all make mistakes, forgive me
Would you like to ride my paper plane?
-Status Quo – Paper Plane
'
Next time on The Final Straw:
"Why, did you expect someone else?"
Well, yes. Actually he was expecting Lum and his parents to show up when he was in hospital and not his [censored for plot development]. But she would, for her being a girl, make do.
"I was sorta expecting my mom and the girl that thinks she's my fiance," he joked.
"I would also have thought that at least Lum would show up one of these days..."