Chapter Text
“Hoeh~? You want to use the Pretty Girl Drug, dasu?” asked Dekapan.
Before the older man at his little white table sat the six same-faced, twentysomething Matsuno brothers. They had called him earlier in the day, saying they needed to ask him about something important, something that the fate of the world depended on. When he heard this, Dekapan was expecting something more along the lines of a doomsday device, not an appearance-modifying pill.
“Kinda, but not like the stuff you gave Iyami and Chibita,” Osomatsu said, waving his hand dismissively. “We’re trying to get Totoko-chan to date us, so we wanna be hot guys, not girls. Although…” Osomatsu immediately began to imagine himself as a buxom young woman in a skintight red dress. He drooled at the idea of having large-enough breasts to motorboat himself with, a thought that was promptly followed by Choromatsu smacking him upside the head. Though the gesture did little to distract from the blood escaping the third son’s nose, having imagined himself in a similar, albeit more idol-like, state.
“Didn’t you boys already try becoming hot-guy characters? The school setting seemed ideal, too—”
“Shhh!” Osomatsu anxiously clamped his hands over Dekapan’s mouth. “We legally can’t talk about that episode! Even if this IS just fan fiction written by an amateur American writer, if this were canon, our asses would be dragged into court for copyright infringement! We can’t get away with that stuff like that cartoon about the paper cut-out kids!”
“And either way,” added Todomatsu, “Totoko-chan has apparently developed an immunity to our charm as F6.” He sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “It’s a shame, I thought I made a very cute pretty-boy idol.”
“Hm.” Karamatsu lifted his leg and placed it on the white table, posing his hands on his chest dramatically. “I personally find myself to be perfect just the way I am, but if I or my brothers have any hope of winning the [golden prize] we call Totoko-chan’s heart—”
“Please hear us out, Professor Dekapan,” Choromatsu pleaded.
“Eh…?”
“We’ve tried everything to get Totoko-chan to date even one of us. But no matter what we do, she rejects us every time! And it isn’t as though we haven’t tried being better people, we have! It’s just…” Choromatsu cast his eyes down at the ground, pushing his index fingers together apprehensively. “…really difficult for us. So please, if you have anything that could help us, anything at all, we’re willing to do whatever it takes! Please!!” He grabbed Dekapan by the shoulders and shook him roughly, his face fixed in a tense expression. “Give us something that can make us as attractive and charismatic as the man of Totoko’s dreams!!!”
“Yeah, show us what you got!” Osomatsu demanded, closely behind his brother.
“I want to share juice with someone who could kill me,” Ichimatsu spoke up.
“Boobies!” Jyushimatsu yelled ecstatically. “Boobies, boobies, boobies!!!”
“I can’t bear the thought of someone as cute as me being alone for the rest of my life!” Todomatsu wailed.
“Let go of me, dasu!” Dekapan shouted, swatting Choromatsu away. After shaking off his dizziness, he folded his arms in thought. A few seconds later, he called Dayon into the room. “I believe I have what you’re looking for. But I can’t for the life of me remember where I put it, dasu.” Dekapan gestured for Dayon to search on the opposite end of the lab, already checking shelves himself. “I labeled it ‘Pretty Drug 2.0,’ in hopes of using it on myself so I could start dating again. I recently created a formula to enhance the amount of time the drug lasts, and…”
Naturally, by this point, the brothers were tuning out the scientific explanation. All they needed to know was that it existed and worked.
Osomatsu suddenly sneezed in Choromatsu’s direction, most of the projectile landing on his cheek.
“Ack—hey!! Cover your mouth, asshole!” he yelled, punching Osomatsu in the nose so hard that small specks of blood flew onto his hand.
Osomatsu clutched his bleeding nose. “What the hell was that for, Fappymatsu?!”
“Don’t call me Fappymatsu!”
“Then don’t punch me for no reason!” Gritting his teeth, Osomatsu kicked Choromatsu to the ground, pinning him to the floor with his foot. He stuck his fingers in his mouth, pulled them out, and shoved his spit-laced fingers into Choromatsu’s ears.
Todomatsu jumped at the sound of Choromatsu’s piercing screams, glanced over at his fighting brothers, and sighed. “They really are such unreliable older brothers, aren’t they?”
“Hey, Totty,” said Karamatsu.
Right as Todomatsu turned to face him, Karamatsu was already down on one knee, holding his brother’s hand and gazing into his eyes. What was it with Karamatsu and sparkly, colored contacts?
“This medicine may possibly be administered via injection. If you’re scared of the needle, [my brother], I can hold your hand until it’s done.”
Karamatsu was suddenly blinded by several tiny sharp objects, about five, landing in his eyes. He screamed in agony, eyes spraying out tears like a busted pipe.
“Oh, don’t mind me, Karamatsu-nii-san,” Todomatsu replied almost too innocently, gently waving a pair of clippers in his left hand as he formed a peace sign with his right. “Just clipping my toenails. Hygiene is important, you know~!”
“Why would you be doing that right now?!” Karamatsu wailed, gripping at his eyes as they continued to spray everywhere.
“Watch it, you idiot! You’re getting your shitty tears in my—” Todomatsu’s words were cut off as he began to choke, grabbing at his throat for dear life. “Oh god, it got in my mouth! I think I swallowed it!! Oh, Akatsuka-sensei, I think I’m gonna barf…”
Ichimatsu briefly stopped licking the back of his hand to glance at Karamatsu and Todomatsu. “Idiots.”
“Nii-san!” Jyushimatsu beamed beside his brother. “Can you groom me next?”
“Huh? Uh, sure…” Tentatively, Ichimatsu began licking the top of Jyushimatsu’s head.
“Wow, that feels weird,” the fifth son giggled. “I wanna groom you now!”
“Why though? Whatever, just be caref—aagh!” Ichimatsu squirmed in place as a wet substance began trickling down his face and neck. “E-easy, Jyushimatsu! You’re slobbering all over me!”
“Are you listening to me, dasu?!” yelled Dekapan.
The fight cloud dropped, leaving three frozen pairs of NEETs, one in mid-conflict, with their attention on the professor.
“Huh? Yeah, we got it,” said Osomatsu, foot in the midst of squishing Choromatsu’s face. “Don’t get it wet after midnight.”
“That’s not even close to what I said, dasu,” the professor mumbled. “I’m beginning to wonder if I can really trust you boys with such a powerful drug. I can’t help but think that you’ll use it for all the wrong—”
“We’ll give you Totoko-chan’s bondage costume.”
Dekapan fell like a domino and Dayon skyrocketed into the ceiling.
“Deal,” the professor croaked weakly. His strength immediately seemed to return to him though, as he raised his head in realization. “Oh! I remember where I put it now, dasu!” Dekapan reached into his pants and pulled out a jar of pale pink pills. “I could have sworn I labelled it, though…”
“Oh god, that smells!” the brothers choked, shielding their noses and mouths from the stench.
“As you boys probably didn’t hear,” said Dekapan, “I have altered the formula for the pill so that the effects will last however long the user desires. Now you will be able to turn the effects on and off at will, dasu! Just so long as you wait an hour between each switch, of course. You don’t want to tax your bodies too heavily, or your molecules could come undone! By which I mean, the animation studio can’t afford to draw so many transformation sequences, dasu.”
“Do jokes like that really work in a written context?” asked Choromatsu as he reached into the jar.
After all six of them had grabbed a pill, Osomatsu turned to look at each of his brothers. “You guys ready?” He raised the arm wielding his pill into the air. “For Totoko-chan!”
“For Totoko-chan!” his brothers repeated, their arms in the air as well, almost toasting each other with their pills. Finally, the moment of truth began as they each popped a single chewable pink pill into their mouths and swallowed.
“Now that you’ve each taken the drug, I would like to thank you boys for being the first guinea pigs to test out the drug, dasu~”
“Guinea pigs?” Karamatsu barely had time to question, when suddenly, the boys’ bodies began to glow.
“Is it working?!” Osomatsu yelled excitedly, his heart pounding in his chest. Then, he felt his body being pulled, as if shoved by an invisible force, towards Choromatsu.
“What are you doing?!” cried Choromatsu.
“I don’t know! I can’t stop!” Osomatsu tried to ground his feet to the floor, but each attempt ended in him tripping over himself until he crashed into a pathetically-shielded Choromatsu in an explosion of light and screams.
“[Brothers]?!” yelled Karamatsu, who felt this same pull happen to himself, but towards Todomatsu.
“No, no, not the face!” Todomatsu cried too late, Karamatsu having collided blindingly into him just barely after he got his words out.
Jyushimatsu noticed himself sliding involuntarily towards Ichimatsu and oohed as the sliding picked up its pace. “It’s like a magnet! We’re next, Ichimatsu-nii-san!”
“Oh god, no!” Ichimatsu tried to run away, but years of lethargy caught up to him—or rather, his brother did, and they were sent ramming into the floor with light.
The combined flashes overtook the room, so powerful that they even shattered and knocked over a few jars on the lab shelves. The force of it all ultimately culminated in one huge explosion, blowing clean through the roof and windows of Dekapan’s laboratory.
As the smoke cleared and he realized he’d been knocked off his feet, Dekapan stood up and surveyed the damage. His lab was in shambles, entire shelves either knocked over or cleared of their contents, shattered and culminating in toxic-looking puddles on the floor. The professor’s eyes widened when he managed to spot a few Matsuno-looking bodies.
“Th-this is…!” He ran over to check on the boys, instantly confused by the noticeable lack of bodies. “How odd. Where are the other three, dasu?”
One of the boys began to stir. He seemed to struggle with the action of flexing his fingers, and took a bit longer to open his eyes.
“Are you alright, Osomatsu-kun?” Dekapan asked haggardly.
The young Matsuno looked up at him confusedly. “Osomatsu? No, I’m—eh?!” He gripped his head and seemed to space out for a moment. Then he pulled his arms out in front of himself, his eyes flocking to his hands. He studied them intensely, as if fingers were a foreign concept he’d never encountered before.
“W-WHAT THE HELL IS—?!” he began to yell, followed by another abrupt flash of light, and straightaway Osomatsu and Choromatsu were sent flying towards opposite ends of the lab. One of the other bodies stirred as well, but immediately started glowing and split apart as well, this one into Karamatsu and Todomatsu. The final body, without even moving, glowed and divided into Ichimatsu and Jyushimatsu.
“Are you boys alright, dasu?”
“I think so,” said Choromatsu, gingerly rubbing his head.
“Did anyone else get the license plate of that Toyota?” Osomatsu asked dizzily.
“Ugh, my head hurts,” whined Todomatsu as Karamatsu, struggling to hold in his own whimpers of aching, pulled him onto his back.
“What happened?” asked Ichimatsu.
“That was weird!” said Jyushimatsu, helping Ichimatsu to his feet.
“Oh!” Osomatsu tugged on Karamatsu’s sleeve. “Did it work? Are we hot guys??”
Karamatsu pulled out his handheld mirror, only to find it cracked from damage taken during the commotion. He pulled out two backup mirrors, both cracked and ineffective.
“You look exactly the same as before, dasu,” Dekapan mumbled.
Todomatsu let out a groan. “Now I’ll be stuck with this face for all eternity!”
“You’ve lived with it for over 20 years, Totty,” said Ichimatsu. “Unfortunately for the rest of us, you’ll survive.”
“Man, what a waste!” Osomatsu complained, stomping on the ground like a child. “I knew this wasn’t gonna work. Oh well.” He raised his finger to his nose and rubbed it. “I dunno about you guys, but I’m bored and utterly devoid of hope. Wanna go play pachinko?”
His brothers all nodded in unison, Karamatsu ditching his broken hand mirrors with a single, tiny sob. They filed out of the lab together, Dekapan far too awestruck to call them back.
Dayon poked his head out from a pile of jars, spitting a few out of his massive mouth. Finally, Dekapan found his words.
“I’m beginning to suspect that was the wrong drug, dasu.”