"Absolutely not! Fuck you." Josuke yelled into his phone. The gang had met up after school again to work on helping Kaori. They were loitering together outside of the school gates, striking cool poses while leaning against the wall.

"Oh come on," Rohan's voice crackled out of the phone speaker, his calmness only serving to further agitate Josuke. "Look, this is a simple, elegant solution to the problem. It's satisfying from a dramatic perspective too-"

"The fuck does that mean, 'dramatic perspective?'" Josuke cut him off before he could finish the thought, "this isn't your fucking comic book, asshole, I'm not about to let you draw more weird ASCII cats in my brain again because you think it'll be funny."

"Think about poor Kaori," Rohan pleaded, "this vulnerable, delicate young girl is in despair, and to save her, all you need to do is sit still for a minute and let me write in one simple phrase: 'knows everything about female anatomy.' You can even have your friends watch over my shoulder. There's no way for this to go wrong."

Josuke shot Okuyasu an annoyed, tight-lipped glance, hoping for some reassurance. Okuyasu shrugged in response. "...God fucking damn it. Fine. But if I find out you wrote anything else in there, I'll burn your house down again."

"I'd like to see you try, you cocky, stupid chi-" Josuke hung up on him mid-insult.

"Wow," said Kaori, raising an eyebrow, "I thought you said that guy was your friend. Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"We've uh, been through a lot together," Josuke replied, through gritted teeth, "He's not gonna bother you at all, and he knows I could totally kick his ass, so I doubt he'll try anything with me around." Josuke puffed out his chest a little.

"Wait, so what's the plan exactly?" Koichi asked, "Our idea won't work?"

Josuke sighed, "Yeah, I guess not. Rohan's saying that he can use Heaven's Door to teach me about girl parts, and then I can use Crazy Diamond on Kaori. Also he was saying that he could write 'everyone sees Kaori as a girl' in her, and then that would smooth things over with the school and whatever else."

"Kaori, did you make up your mind?" Okuyasu grunted.

"Yeah. I had a long talk with my mom last night. She's known about me for a while now, y'know, and she basically said the same thing you did, that since this is something I've wanted for so long, it was gonna be worth the adjustment," Kaori explained, "And then we hugged and cried a bunch. It was a pretty good talk."

"Fuck yeah." Okuyasu pried himself off the wall. "Then let's get going."

They met Rohan in the WcDonald's that moved in where the Cinderella salon used to be. Wonald WcDonald was an opportunistic bitch sometimes, Josuke reflected. Not a week after Miss Tsuji was murdered, renovations began, and before long, the characteristic yellow swooshes appeared over the storefront. Anyway, like most fast food joints, you couldn't pay someone to care if someone spontaneously turned into a book or grew boobs in the next booth over. That's just how WcDonald's was, man.

The gang piled into a stiff plastic booth in a back corner of the restaurant. The chirping timers going off in the kitchen mixed with the inoffensive pop music being piped in over the intercom to form an aphonic slurry that would probably drive one mad if they listened too closely.

"Okay, so I assume that Josuke probably fucked up conveying the plan to the rest of you, being the oaf he is," Rohan said, pausing to take a sip from his smoothie for emphasis. He made a mildly disgusted face, and continued, "So let's take it from the top."

"Oh for fuck's sake," Josuke interjected, "We're not stupid, I got it when you explained it over the phone. I know how much you love to exposit, Koichi made me read a volume of Pink Dark Boy, and it totally tracks-" *

"Hey, that's my editor's fault, take it up with him!" Rohan shot back, "Ugh! Whatever. Let's just get this over with then."

Rohan hastily sketched Heaven's door in green crayon on a kid's menu and threw it in Josuke's face. Josuke felt the now familiar but deeply uncomfortable sensation of the outer layers of the skin on his face peeling away as they turned into pages and fluttered in the breeze of the air conditioning. Rohan leafed through a couple pages, apparently catching up on local gossip, before scribbling something in. Kaori looked on in awe.

"He's not fucking with me, right?" Josuke asked, turning towards his friends so they could read.

"His handwriting's kinda hard to read," Koichi said, "but I think it's right."

"See? Told you," Rohan said with a smirk. Heaven's door closed the pages of Josuke's face.

As soon as the last page merged back into Josuke's skin, images of breasts and vulva flashed across his mind's eye. Examples of various STD infections manifested next, followed by a cesarean section operation. After what felt like a full semester of sex education classes, Josuke snapped back into reality.

"Aw, fuck," he moaned, slumping back in the booth.

"Oh come on, don't be such a baby," Rohan jeered, "Miss Kaori, are you ready for me to do you now?"

Kaori nodded, visibly nervous, but full of determination. Rohan picked up the menu again and held it out in front of her. Her face spilled open, and again Rohan read through several pages before neatly writing in his next order: everyone understands this person to be a girl. Her face returned to normal, and she inhaled sharply.

"Welp, my work here is done," Rohan said, abruptly getting up from the booth, "You owe me one, Josuke. Well, you owe me at least three, but that's beside the point."

"You're not gonna stick around for the big, dramatically satisfying finale?" Josuke prodded.

"Nope," Rohan tossed his half-finished smoothie in the garbage. "I got a conference call with some some licensing people in half an hour. I think SJ wants to put Pink Dark Boy on some razors or something stupid. See you morons later~"

Josuke tuned to Kaori. "Well, wanna go finish this up? It might be easier in the bathroom. I gotta like, actually punch you for this to work."

Kaori nodded. The rest of the gang awkwardly shuffled out of the booth to let her and Josuke out.

The bathroom was typical for a fast-food place. There were paper towels piled up in the sink for some reason, an abandoned mop and bucket was left in the corner, and a malfunctioning ceiling fan flaccidly turned back and forth. The two of them ducked into the handicap stall.

"Okay, so this is probably gonna be super uncomfortable," Josuke warned, "so be prepared for that, I guess."

"I'll be fine, Josuke," Kaori said, "It's gonna be super worth it anyway."

"Yeah." Josuke materialized Crazy Diamond, and tensed up, ready to start throwing punches. Kaori responded in kind. Then a thought wormed its way into his head and he paused. "Oh, uh, so you're gonna use a different muscle group to hold your pee after this, so be super careful about that."

"Uh, okay, thanks for the heads up."

"And if you take a lot of antibiotics, you might get a yeast infection, because there's bacteria up there that eat the yeast usually and if they die-"

"Yeah okay."

"And if you ever have a kid, make sure to take progestin-only birth control while you're breastfeeding, because otherwise you can like, fuck things up-"

"Josuke!"

"What?"

"Come on and hit me already!" Kaori said, impatiently.

And then Josuke punched Kaori in the dick. **

Notes

* Specifically volume 22, which contains the infamous gambling arc, wherein a be-pompadoured delinquent from PDB's high school challenges him to a game of craps. PDB finds out he's been using the power of the capricious cosmic being Majnun Almas to cheat, and proceeds to blast his chest open with his enchanted demon-slaying combination moog keyboard/automatic shotgun. The arc was received poorly by fans, and during its run, PDB fell to fifth place in reader polls. A pink and dark time for the comic, to be sure.

** Among other places, but mostly the dick