"...so I was thinking it would be best if she stayed in my UFO, at least for a little while."
Ataru blinked, only vaguely realizing he was awake. For a moment he looked around in a panic, wondering where he was and why everything looked different, before vaguely remembering that he had fallen asleep after… ugh, right. He groaned. The umeboshi nonsense. Lum must have taken him to her UFO to sleep and sober up. And that was definitely her in the other room, he realized as he calmed down, though she sounded different in a way he couldn't identify.
"Lum, dear, if you're asking my or your father's permission to share a bed with your spouse, I'm afraid the time for that is well passed." came another voice, one that Ataru was having trouble placing. It was feminine, older, and familiar while also being someone he was sure he'd never heard speak before. "How is she doing, by the way?"
She? Ataru wondered groggily. Who're they talking about? After a quick stretch, he shifted his legs over the side of the bed and shuffled his way out the door, which gave a pneumatic hiss as they unclasped and separated along their diagonal seam.
When he entered the next room, he saw his wife in front of her video screen, with the massive face of her mother looking back at her.
"Oh!" Mrs. Invader said, shifting her attention over Lum's shoulder to where Ataru now stood. "Well I suppose that answers my question. Lum, can you ask her how she's feeling for me?"
"Oh, you don't have to," Ataru said, just as Lum turned around to greet him. Yawning, he noticed that Lum was staring at him with a shocked expression, but he put her out of his mind as he gave the beautiful woman on the screen his best smile, saying, "And can I say, your Japanese is getting very good, ma'am. I mean, aside from the whole 'kanojo' thing… wait," As Ataru finally began shaking off the last vestiges of sleep, it struck him that what his ears were hearing and what his brain was hearing weren't exactly lining up. As his still-groggy mind hammered away at what exactly was wrong, he absentmindedly scratched his…
His, his, his, his, his…
With a feeling like ice water dripping down his spine, Ataru looked down to see that he'd been dressed (presumably by Lum) in a very loose sleep shirt of hers. What he couldn't see were his feet, or stomach, or really anything over the top of his, his, his, his-
"What was she saying just now, Lum?" Mrs. Invader asked her daughter as Ataru began screaming. "You know how I am with Earth languages."
"Um," Lum answered, dragging her eyes from her spouse as he began to calm down and experimentally give his breasts a few hefts. "A-Ataru says that he-" Lum made sure to stress the masculine pronoun, her eyes making a silent plea to her mother to understand, "...could understand us perfectly."
Whether due to her own screen not being large enough to properly convey Lum's hint, or if she simply didn't notice, Lum's mother evidently did not understand the meaning behind her daughter's words. "Why are you calling Kokomi 'he', Lum?" she asked innocently. "Surely you know better than to misgender your own wife."
Lum heard a gasp from behind her as she started to deeply regret telling her mother about that particular detail of what had gone down the other day. She turned to face him to apologize and found her darling's face, pale and panicked, with the corners of his eyes beginning to fill with tears (though to be fair, that may simply have been from the fact that he had just unceremoniously dropped a generous amount of chest that hadn't been there previously.)
"What did you just say?" he asked, eyes flitting between the guilty visage of Lum and the politely confused one of her mother. When several seconds passed without a response, he shouted while walking up to the video screen. "What did you just SAY?"
The silence that followed had the length and tension more generally associated with the strings of an upright bass, and Mrs. Invader looked nervously from Ataru to her daughter.
"Lum, dear…" she asked with a small amount of trepidation, "What did she just say?"
"Lum, how does your mom know that name?" Ataru demanded, grabbing his wife by the shoulders. "How do you know that name? What did I say during… during that whole thing, at school?" His eyes widened, somehow communicating an even more rarified tier of sheer terror than they already had been. "Whatever I said, it's not true, okay?!"
"Darling, please calm down," Lum said, holding her hands palm-outward as if she were trying to approach a frightened animal. "The only thing you said to me before you fell asleep was that you'd like to be called 'Kokomi'. And, well…" She wrung her hands nervously as Ataru ran his hands over the surface of the door of her UFO. "Darling, there's something I need to talk to you about, and to tell you."
"Damn straight!" Ataru said, whipping his head around. "You need to tell me how to open this door so I can find Kurama's lackeys and beg them to change me back so this body stops making me… feel like this!" He then proceeded to make a valiant attempt to wedge his fingers into a crack that was meant to keep the yawning vacuum of space firmly on one side and air on the other while grumbling to himself.
"Okay, this is exactly what I meant." Lum said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Luckily for you, you're trapped here until we work this out, because that hand scanner-"
Before she could say anything else, the gently-glowing panel in question was frantically slapped by Ataru, who jumped out of the doors before they could fully open and flew off as fast as he was able.
"...only reacts to Oni DNA. Right." Lum sighed as her hair blew in the high-altitude breeze. "Damn it."
"Mind telling me what that was all about?" Mrs. Invader asked. "Why did Kokomi seem so upset?"
Lum jolted, realizing that there was no way out of explaining to her mom that she had taken it upon herself to give her Darling what she was certain she wanted more than anything. As a particularly strong gust whipped her hair into her face, she gave a guilty look out the open doors.
Well. 95% certain, for sure.
"Well, mother," she said nervously, "Let me begin by reminding you that you agreed with me about the signs?"
As Lum went about explaining the finer details of her plan, she would have had an excellent view of her mother's face slowly morphing from an expression of "pleasant attentiveness" to "the most angry anyone has been or will ever be".
Would have, if she weren't so busy staring at her own feet and refusing to look up.
"Lum Invader," her mother growled, in a voice that rooted Lum to the spot. "What in the world were you thinking?"
It was a primeval sort of voice, a maternal growl from the dawn of time that made the electric pores on the back of an Oni's neck crackle. It was a voice that had been honed over the course of a thousand generations, independently on hundreds of different inhabited worlds, for the sole purpose of letting progeny know that this time they were really going to get it. If Onis had taken the same evolutionary path as humans had, Lum's hindbrain would currently be searching for an isolated tree on the savannah to scramble up.
"In all my years of being a mother, never could I possibly have imagined my own daughter, after everything she's been through herself, could possibly do something so irresponsible! Of all the boneheaded, idiotic, dull-horned, moronic moves I've seen in my day, this one really takes the cake! Just the most shortsighted, half-baked-"
Ataru floated lazily over Tomobiki-cho, having slowed down once he realized that he didn't actually have a destination in mind other than "as far away from Lum's UFO as possible. The sky, as far as he knew, did not ask any invasive questions of him.
"Heyyyy, gorgeous! Those things real, or what?"
Ataru, half-convinced he was hearing things, gave a passing bird an interrogating look before realizing that the voice had in fact come from below him, on the ground.
And because the universe seemed to delight in nothing more than his personal torment, Ataru realized that he recognized his catcallers.
From class.
A tall boy with a mass of styled curls jutting out over his forehead and a straw-haired teen who was small enough to be mistaken for a child. Perm and Chibi, one half of the self-proclaimed "Lum's Stormtroopers". Megane wasn't with them, thankfully; Ataru had to assume he actually bought his own line about Lum being some kind of avatar of perfection. His followers, however, were clearly not so picky.
"Oh, no," Ataru muttered to himself as he clutched the tiger-print fabric of his loaner shirt to his abdomen in an effort to prevent a free peepshow. "Oh no no no no no. This is bad, they're going to recognize me, and then everyone will know what happened and it'll all be over-"
"You a relative of Lum's or something, baby?"
"Dude, come on! You can't just ask a random Oni girl if she's related to Lum."
The bickering was enough to break Ataru out of his own thoughts, as he found himself oddly fixated on the fact that they thought he could possibly be related to Lum?
I mean, that's just ridiculous, he thought as his hands acted of their own accord and began to nervously grab bunches of the hem of his shirt. Lum, she's, well… she's beautiful, and I'm… More fabric joined the fistful as the billowing top began to cling tightly to his midsection.
("Oh my god, Chibi, do you think she's-")
("I think she is! Holy shit!")
I'm not… Ataru's hands continued to work on their stressed autopilot, bringing the crumpled mass of shirt up to his mouth. It was a bad habit from his youth, and one that he had mostly grown out of, but sometimes when you're stressed you just have to go with what works. I'm just some poor schmuck who got given some tits. If he'd been less frazzled he might have noticed that his fingers brushed against a rather larger pair of canines than he remembered possessing yesterday, but as it stood he simply contented himself with chomping down on the soft fabric.
*Plap!*
It took a few seconds for all the information to arrange itself properly in Ataru's brain. His breasts, which had previously been being squeezed by the shirt like it was a makeshift bra, were suddenly being allowed to breathe, and he could feel the breeze blowing over them raising goosebumps. And, well. There were the sounds coming from street level.
"YEAAAHHHHH!"
"Oh my god? Oh my god. Perm, PLEASE tell me you have your camera."
Immediately, Ataru spat out the wad of fabric and covered himself up. He could feel the warmth of the blush on his cheeks, and he was sure the blood pressure in his face would soon make him look like a bursting thermometer.
First things first. He had to get out of there. Flying off as fast as he could, an idea struck him. He adjusted his course slightly and set off towards Tomobiki high, knowing that even if it wasn't a school day he'd be able to find someone there who could help.
After all, Ryuunosuke always had been good at keeping these sorts of things under wraps.
"...no-current, lamebrain, airheaded, crack-fanged, STUPID thing you've ever done!" shoutedMrs. Invader, having finally finished her tirade. Her video signal had actually distorted quite a bit from the levels of electromagnetic radiation coming off of her during her more heated moments towards the end.
"Yes, mom." Lum mumbled. Even in the middle of her castigation, she couldn't help but be impressed by her mother's considerable lung capacity.
"I assumed that you, given the fact that you're trans yourself, would know not to do this!"
Lum flinched, but again responded with a soft "Yes, mom."
"And you're going to find Kokomi, or Ataru as the case may be, and explain everything to them, right dear?"
"Yes, mom."
"Good girl." Mrs. Invader said, with an air of finality. It was clear that there would be no further need for Lum's contributions to the "conversation". As she was reaching for the power button beneath her own monitor, Lum could hear her mother mutter "I swear, I will have to talk to that Doctor Kei…" before the screen went dark.
Lum stood there, alone in front of her massive view screen, as she tried to marshal her thoughts. She… she needed to talk to someone about this. In person, preferably. Besides, her video call screen probably needed a degaussing after what her mother had put it through. She picked up her simple voice-only communicator (which took some digging in her bag, during which she grumpily wondered why nobody had bothered combining the functions of some of her myriad devices) and dialed a number as she stepped out of her UFO and flew off.
"Hey, Benten…" Lum immediately held the communicator at arm's length as her friend's voice blasted out of the speaker, shouting her name. "Y-... Yes, it's been a few days. Please calm down… Yes, I know you told me to let you know how-... I'm getting to that! …Yeah, she's-... Well no, not actually going by them, yet… L-listen, I need to talk to you. You want to meet up? …I was thinking that café that recently re-opened? …Yeah, them. I hear they've been doing pretty well after darling got banned, actually. …Alright, see you."
Lum breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. Benten had always been such a huge help with this sort of thing, whether it helping Lum herself to realize who she really was, or even orchestrating this whole plan with darling-
…Hm. Wait a minute.
It's not that she thought Benten might give… biased advice, Lum reassured herself as she pulled up another contact and hit the call button. It was just important to get as many opinions as possible, right?
"Hey, Oyuki…"
Lum entered the cozy café, the tinkling sound of the bell above the door alerting both the owner and Benten to her presence. The owner glared over her shoulder as he gave the counter a white-knuckle grip, but visibly relaxed when there was no sign of Ataru behind her. Benten waved, greeting her friend with a simple "Yo!"
"Benten!" Lum said with a bright smile as she sat down with her friend. "You made it!"
"You bet, Lum! You know I've been itchin' to talk to you about…" she gave a sidelong glance at the owner, who was coming over to take Lum's order. "Well, you know. That."
"Right… listen, Benten- oh!" Lum gave a sheepish grin to the owner, whose thin mustache was twitching with suppressed irritation as he cleared his throat. "J-just a latté, extra foam please. Anyway," she continued as he left to prepare her drink. "I wanted to talk to you about darling, about… well, about if we did the right thing."
"What?! 'Course we did, Lum! You said yourself that Ataru was the biggest closet case you'd seen since, well." Benten gave Lum a smirk. "Since you. So what the hell's the deal with you second-guessing yourself?"
Before Lum could answer, an arctic wind blew into the store, whipping stacks of napkins into the air and depositing a rather large mound of milk and espresso foam onto the shirt of the café owner.
Oyuki, ice princess of Neptune, stood in the doorway, looking down at her two seated friends.
"I believe it has something to do with the fact that from what I've been told, it seems Ataru has not been reacting positively." she said.
As Oyuki sat down with them, Benten looked from her, to Lum, and then back to her again. "You invited her?"
"Benten!" Lum gasped. "Oyuki is our friend!"
"Yeah, and she's also a huge killjoy." Benten grumbled, crossing her arms. "She tried to talk us out of this!"
"And I was right." Oyuki responded, before beckoning the café owner over and requesting a tea.
"Right?! Listen, I don't know if you've heard all of the signs Lum's noticed about Ataru, frankly it's clear to me that-"
"That we should be forcibly feminizing him?" Oyuki cut in. "Yes, Lum gave me the rundown in her call asking me to come here." She took a sip of her tea, making a small noise of satisfaction before lightly dabbing at her lips with a napkin. "For what it's worth, I think you two are most likely correct." As Benten sputtered in her attempt to come up with a response that properly expressed her frustration, Oyuki looked past the two of them for a moment, and then at Lum and asked, "By the way, did you invite Ran as well?"
Lum blinked. "Ran? No, I didn't. Why do you ask?"
"Because I noticed she was following me here, and now she's currently pressed up against the window to the café, glaring at you."
"What?" Lum swung her head around, just in time to see a mass of pink curls disappear behind the window frame. Before long however, Ran poked her face out again, and Lum saw her oldest (and worst) friend's face go from embarrassment to anger as she glowered at her. "Ran, what are you doing here? I didn't call you!"
The ludicrously feminine girl strode into the café, slamming the door open so hard that the bell announcing her presence was yanked out of the door frame and clocked the owner directly in the center of his forehead. "That's right!" she snarled as the café owner keeled over behind the counter with a minimum of fuss. "Ya didn't, DID ya? Yer always leavin' me outta stuff! An' I wanna know why! What's too important fer Ran t'hear?!"
"This doesn't have anything to do with you, Ran!" Lum shot back. "How'd you even find out we were meeting, anyway? Did you bug my communicator or something?" Fishing out the device, she began attempting to remove the back panel before Ran swiped it from her hand.
In a flash, Ran's expression changed from barely-contained rage to almost a parody of unassuming cuteness. "Whaaaat? Noooo, Ran wouldn't do thaaaaat~!" Pocketing Lum's communicator, she smiled sweetly and said, "Please, allow me to fix this for you! It's the least Ran could do!" As Lum sighed and made a mental note to buy a new communicator, Ran's personality moved just one tick back towards the "angry" end of the spectrum. "Now, what are you all talking about all secret-like, hm~?"
"We were talking about the… rash actions that Benten and Lum have taken in regards to Ataru's well-being." Oyuki explained diplomatically.
"Rash nothin'," Benten said. "Her spouse is as much in denial as she was, back in the day. I'm just repeating what worked!"
"You… you mean…" Ran said haltingly, as the gears of her brain clicked away dutifully behind her forehead. "You mean t'say he's gonna steal my Rei away from me, too?!"
This was sufficiently out of left field to earn a confused look from the other girls.
"...Nnno?" Lum ventured, cocking her head. "What are you talking about, Ran?"
"Don't you play dumb with me! I remember how it all went down when we were kids!"
Lum sighed again. She was all too familiar with Ran's tragic tales involving wrongdoing at her hands. And in her own defense, Lum maintained that most of the incidents were probably not entirely her fault.
"Alright, Ran. I'll bite. How did what all go down when we were kids?"
"Oh, like you don't know!" Ran spat, pulling out a chair with a horrible screech of wood and stone and sitting on it like it had offended her. "It all happened back in grade school," she recollected, rage abating momentarily as she took a few steps down memory lane. "Rei and I were simply inseparable…" Her features clouded once more as memory lane took an unpleasant turn. "...Until you went and started gussying yerself up jus' t' woo my Rei! He never gave half a care 'bout you when y'were jus' another boy in his class!"
Lum, Benten, and even Oyuki just stared at Ran, utterly dumbfounded.
"You… you think I started transitioning just to spite you?" Lum asked.
"Sure do." Ran answered simply. "Don't even try to deny it, I know those horns a' yer's've got some kinda pheromones in 'em! Y' plumb done an' hoodwinked my poor Rei!"
Lum pinched the bridge of her nose. She felt a headache coming on, which was a common response to trying to contort your mind in the right way to navigate Ran's twisted logic. "Okay, one: they supply me with hormones, not pheromones. And two: the only thing I did as part of my transition back then was grow my hair out and wear dresses! I was six!"
"My point stands, weren't enough t' become a girl yerself to sway his fickle heart, now yer draggin' yer darlin' into it too for extra firepower!"
Lum considered once again reminding Ran that she had even less interest in Rei than she did in most men, but thought better of it. She'd never listened before, so why would she start now? Instead, she took this as a sign that it was time to go.
"Benten, Oyuki," she said, turning to her friends. "Would you mind helping me find darling? I think I need to talk to her."
