Flawed perfection.
He ran his fingers over the dusty porcelain, feeling the smooth coldness of it against his fingers. Two lifeless green eyes stared upwards, blonde ringlets coated in a thin layer of dust. The dust in question seemed to collect more on the Victorian style crimson coat the doll wore, rather than the fine spun corn silk colored hair. Perhaps the one thing which marred such beautiful features, which made this inanimate creature flawed, was the single crack stretching across its cheek, dropping sharply to the left as it crossed the delicate bridge of her nose, ending at her chin.
Muraki had always found flawed perfection be enticing. It was different from the mundane, from the predictable. It was flawed, much like him. Much like Tsuzuki.
"Kuzataka. Oh Kuzataka."
Her voice no longer sent shivers down his spine. No. he had stopped fearing his mother when he was a mere child, just learning to walk. Now he could understand her way of thinking…her obsession with those perfect creatures, her dolls. The blonde corkscrewed doll whose cheek he had stroked had been one of her favorites. Another favorite would be…
Muraki shifted his gaze lower, dropping it to the lowest row of porcelain dolls. This doll was the most neglected of them all: pale porcelain skin stained with years of human oil, the aftermath of grubby human fingers pressing against it and not clensiing it with a Clorox wipe. The emerald velvet dress it wore was tattered near the hemline, the lace which rimmed the button down dress yellow with age. Locks of silver hair- his silver hair he noted with a grim kind of glee- missing from its shiny scalp. One cloudy blue eye stared up at him, the other closed in a peramant wink. His mother had loved this doll by far the most, had called it "Kuzataka." When she had turned her back on him she ran to this perfect creature, cradling it in her arms. Its hair had been black then. It had only changed color when Muraki had made the foolish mistake of tearing all the silky blackness out by the roots, in a vain attempt for her to look at him. The results…well, they had been disastrous at worst, educational at best.
Strange, how even now all these dolls had stayed here. It was only with time that they had become flawed. "Kuzataka aren't the beautiful?"
He didn't turn to face her voice. Muraki knew it was all in his head. But he couldn't help but glimpse with his one good eye in that direction. His mother was kneeling beside him, one pale hand lovingly stroking a doll, while the other curled the "Kuzataka" doll close to her breast. Her thick blonde hair fell down, hiding her face. A face so much like his own. "Oh Kuzataka," she purred, holding the doll close. "If only it could be just me and you. And no one else. Just me and you and all your brothers and sisters."
"Flawed perfection," Muraki said. His voice was loud in the old room, even to his own ears. "What you hold is nothing more than flawed perfection."
His mother's image wavered for a moment and when he blinked she no longer kneeled there. No, it was his half brother Saki. Saki, Saki, precious Saki. Perhaps at one point Muraki would have forgiven his half brother for being born. Saki was like him after all: a twisted being, created from the womb of a pitiful woman and a philandering demon. But that was before Saki had taken away her attention. Before Saki's appearance there had been at least some semblance of attention his mother had paid him. But now she had another doll.
Saki stood up: the groutqese image of what he had been in life, dolled up in a proper tux. Crimson blood trickled down his cheek, his chest red from where the bullet had come out. "Flawed perfection, flawed perfection'," he sneered. "You sad little bastard! Is that all you know how to say? Or is I'm still haunting you even now?"
Haunting him? Muraki smiled. He reached to stroke his half brother's cheek, his fingertips trembling mere centimeters from the ghostly pale flesh of Saki's cheek. "Just wait my brother," Muraki cooed. "We'll have a proper reunion yet." His fingertips dipped into Saki's cheek, going through; Saki himself dissipating into thin air.
Once more Muraki was by himself. Alone in an ancient room, in a condemned house on an unassuming street. Once more Muraki was in the company of dolls, the same dolls he had grown to both love and loathe. Once more, Muraki was reminded of the task at hand.
"A proper reunion yet…"
