"Darling!"
Ataru blinked as he glanced back and skyward. He instantly recognized the green-haired girl floating down to him, dressed in her usual tiger-striped bikini and boots. "Oi Lum, what is it?"
"Close your eyes," she said in a cute way as she halted, floating just so she was at eye level with him.
Ataru looked up, a suspicious look on his face. "Are you trying to secretly kidnap me to your UFO?"
Lum giggled. "I'd never do that secretly, tcha. Now close your eyes, ne ne?" With a sigh Ataru closed his eyes. A moment later Lum called out "Now open them!"
Ataru opened his eyes and looked, his eyes focusing on what Lum was holding in her outstretched hands just in front of him.
"It's one of those American comic books, right?" he asked, considering the offering's thinness and the English of its title.
Lum grinned happily. "You like manga books, and we're learning English, so I thought an English manga would be a great gift, tcha!"
"Is there any special occasion?" Ataru asked as he continued looking at the comic book, sitting in its poly bag, a white board behind it.
"I just saw it in the store and thought you'd love it. I don't need a special occasion to get my husband a gift, do I tcha?"
Ataru considered reminding her that they were not married, but instead just sighed, raised his hand and plucked the gift from her hands.
"Do you like it?! Open it up!" Lum asked, bouncing in a way that did delightful things to her bust. Ataru kept himself from staring and drooling by focusing on the idea of having to commit to just one woman.
"Uh, this is the sort of thing to be opened and read in private," Ataru responded.
Lum blinked and looked down at the comic. "Really tcha?"
Ataru nodded. "Really truly. If you don't mind, I'd like to find someplace private so I can take a look at my new gift."
Lum looked suspiciously for a moment, then with an incredibly cute smile floated upward. "Ok, I'll see you at home Darling. Bye bye!"
Ataru looked at Lum's retreating backside, sighing to himself. He glanced down at her gift. Thinking back to the English classes he tried to ignore, he read the title slowly, in halting English. "Retcon - The past rewritten."
Ataru sat at a table in the park, Lum's gift in front of him. "Might as well take a look," he commented to himself. "Besides, it might have some of those busty gals in tight clothes." With a soft lecherous cackle, he opened the flap, and pulled out the comic book.
Opening the comic, he blinked at the sight of the full page name plate "Huh." He looked at the bag and board, and blinked as he saw a mechanical pencil he hadn't noticed before. "Well," he commented to himself as he pulled out the mechanical pencil and signed his name. "Can't hurt."
Ataru turned the page. Then he blinked, and turned the next page, then began rapidly flipping through the book. Unlike most American comics, the pages of this one were all drawn in black and white; indeed they seemed to be raw pencil drawings, though of good quality. However the truly surprising thing was the fact that everything drawn was from his life. The first page was of him as a baby in the hospital maternity ward, while the last page depicted him doing what he was currently doing, that is browsing through a comic book in the park. In between he could make out scenes of him in kindergarten, elementary school, junior high and high school, which also featured his life after Lum had shown up.
"Let's see," he commented as he gave the pages a big flip, turning far more than any comic so thin could possibly hold. Halting, he looked down at the page and grimaced. There he was looking up from where he was feeling up Princess Oyuki on Neptune, because her pet yeti Be-Boy had just smashed through the wall and was attacking him. Then he blinked as he saw the panel at the bottom of the page, where Oyuki was looking toward where he had fled, with a wistful, disappointed look on her beautiful face.
'Too bad, it was just getting good.'
'Why that minx.' Ataru thought as he recalled the princess's calls of 'don't' and 'stop' at the time. 'Man if that big guy hadn't . . .'
Marking the page with his finger, Ataru flipped the book so he could look at the front cover again. The title Retcon was still in English, but the subtitle 'The Past Rewritten' had changed to more understandable Japanese. Looking beneath the title, he saw a picture of someone resembling himself writing in a book with what looked like the mechanical pencil that had been in the poly bag.
Turning the comic back over, he flipped back a page. Picking up the pencil he looked down at the picture of Be-Boy scowling in his room as he listened to the sounds coming from Oyuki's room. Flipping the pencil around, he erased the yeti's eyes, and redrew them shut. He drew several Z's in the air above the snow monster, and for good measure, he drew several empty sake bottles, and drew a hint of drunken flush to the yeti's face.
Nodding to himself, Ataru sat back and looked down at the new image. Then he saw the book quiver. It shook harder and harder as the pages began to glow, then suddenly as Ataru watched, the lines on the page he had modified smoothed and darkened, as though they had suddenly been inked. Then as color formed on the page, Ataru's hands went to his head as he felt a mental jolt.
It wasn't pain, but rather something different. The memory of his first encounter with Oyuki once again rose within his mind, but now though he knew how the encounter had once proceeded, his memory was recalling something rather different, changed by the lack of Be-Boy's intrusion.
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(Posted Mon, 14 Jan 2008 16:07)
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