Of the two people in this picture, which one is the alien? The sexy half-naked catgirl yawning and stretching on the bed, or the teenage boy who is calmly sitting at his desk reading?

In discussion at Ubu’s place, I settled on “baffled” as the best way to describe Kio’s lack of response to the three beautiful young women who want him. He clearly likes girls, he has an extensive stash of girlie mags under his bed, he enjoys the sight of poorly-concealed girl parts, and always gets a good look before turning away embarrassed. He just doesn’t understand how they could possibly be interested in him.

But what the hell is he doing in this scene? He’s known her for less than 24 hours, she’s curled up on his bed in his dad’s favorite shirt (well, it is now!), and he’s calmly reading. Not sweating and shaking from the effort of not turning around, not nervously sharpening pencils until they’re worn down to nubs (not a euphemism), not reacting at all to the sound of his bedsheets rustling as she stretches, not thinking about the fact that she was perfectly happy sleeping next to him last night in that same outfit. Twelve hours earlier, the sight of her glued into that shirt freaked him out, and now it doesn’t even rate a peek? The boy’s not human.