This is another small one-shot that didn't take a long time to write, and is another (better) heartfelt apology for "Der zweite Sommer" taking so long to write ;; This fic is more of a drabble than the last one I posted, but it's a lot deeper and more detailed (even if it is only 2 pages). I wanted to go farther with this story, but I think this is as deep as it is going to be. I don't have the mind-power to go anywhere with it right now, orz ;;

That being said, I hope you enjoy reading this and that it doesn't bore you to death. It's another psycho-Mello-ish story, though in a different direction than "sick", and the tone is purposely kind of distant (and told from Matt's POV).

Perfekt

'Perfection' is nothing but an illusion, something utterly unattainable and intangible. It's nothing other than a myth, proven illogical every day by those foolish enough to try and obtain it, and who ultimately fail. 'Perfection' is not real, it is impossible to achieve and those who attempt so are merely digging their own grave. Because once you attempt perfection, once you cross the boundaries of impossibility and unrealistic goals, you can never go back. Perfection takes its hold, and corrupts those who seek it; refusing to let them rest, always pushing them closer and closer to the limit. It becomes them.

Mello sought this perfection.

Day after day, he attempted and failed.

I suppose I saw his downfall before it ever happened. I could see the way he tried to mold himself into this thing that he wasn't, endeavoring ever farther to attain this perfection that he desired. I knew it was futile, but I said nothing, knowing that he wouldn't listen. Those obsessed with perfection are never aware of the danger they are bringing upon themselves.

Perhaps I could have tried to warn him, before it became too late, before the need for perfection had rooted itself deep within his veins.

Perfection is like a virus, it eats away at your insides, corrupting you from within. It infects you slowly, poisoning your mind and body. Mello was infected, from deep inside, beyond repair. I don't think I could have stopped it. He was too poisoned by the time I knew him, that it wouldn't have done any good.

Sometimes in his sleep, as I laid in my own bed on the other side of the room, I could hear him talking in his sleep. He would whisper, softly, barely audible, and it was always the same name. It was always the same boy that he spoke of; the pale white-haired albino child that never spoke from his corner in the common room. The quiet boy who always managed to beat him, to surpass Mello to the very top, the child who had seemed to grasp this complete perfection that the blond desired so much.

I don't believe it started out as an obsession. Perhaps it was a desire to surpass Near, and nothing more; a simple want to be at the top, to be admired and respected like the other boy was. Over time this simple wish of excellence became distorted, and morphed into something more, something wicked.

Every day, I would watch quietly from my bed as Mello studied himself in his mirror, scrutinizing his every feature and touching his face and hair. The longing for intelligence was accompanied by another obsession, of vanity. There wasn't a day where Mello didn't spend an hour brushing his soft blond hair in the mirror before going to classes in the morning. He would then study his face, poking disdainfully at anything that seemed to be unwanted; he would look at himself over and over again, silently insulting his appearance with his sharp blue eyes. I always thought he was beautiful, but I knew my words of admiration were unwanted and meaningless to him. The only opinion he cared enough for was that boy's, the one who had set off Mello's yearning for perfection, had infected him with this poisonous virus that was eating him from the core.

He hated himself so horribly that it drove him insane. Nothing was ever good enough, and no matter how hard he tried every day, it never would be.

Perfect. Perfekt. Perfecto. Perfetto. Parfait. Sovershénnyj. Doskonały.

It all means nothing. No matter what language you use, there is no meaning to perfect. There is nothing in this world completely flawless; everywhere you look you see mistakes, uncorrectable errors that humans foolishly try to mend.

Mello couldn't see this.

It's quite a dolourous thing, to watch someone blindly destroy themselves day by day. I would sit and observe in silence, never uttering a word, never trying to stop him. There were nights when he would sit in front of the mirror, muttering insults and curses under his breath to himself as he drew a blade across his skin: a "punishment" for being so flawed. His blue eyes grew dull and gaunt, and his skin faded to pale. I scarcely saw him outside of the library, or our shared room, where he spent the only free hours he had studying away.

It was all for naught, such a wasted existence, spent in vain to achieve perfection that he could never come by. I sometimes felt sorry for him, such a pitiful boy, and wanted to help. But I knew that anything I did would simply be ignored, his desire of perfection overpowering any rational thought that he had left at that point.

No one else seemed to notice, no one else seemed to realize nor care that he was destroying himself.

I saw it though. I saw it every single day, only growing worse, the poison growing stronger, the virus more infectious. His thinking became distorted, and he couldn't accept his inability to be flawless. He couldn't accept not being the best, couldn't accept losing to Near.

It's such a pity, really.

It continued, on and on, and then finally … he snapped.

I suppose it was expected; it had been ongoing for such a while, that it really wasn't much of a surprise when I found him in his room that day, carving into his wrist with a knife. His need for perfection had finally brought him to the brink, shattering his mind and mixing his distorted reality with what was real.

"Never good enough..." he hissed, without even having registered my presence in the room. "Can't be perfect." The blood from his wound dripped onto the soft gray carpet; his blood, so tainted and sullied with the virus, the poison that was perfection.

I simply stood there, staring, my mind and body too petrified to act. I watched him carve deeper, digging into himself the same way that perfection had done, ripping him apart from the inside and ultimately destroying him.

Perfection is an evil thing. It is nothing but an illusion, something utterly unattainable and intangible. It's nothing other than a myth, proven illogical every day by those foolish enough to try and obtain it, and who ultimately fail. 'Perfection' is not real, it is impossible to achieve and those who attempt so are merely digging their own grave. Because once you attempt perfection, once you cross the boundaries of impossibility and unrealistic goals, you can never go back. Perfection takes its hold, and corrupts those who seek it; refusing to let them rest, always pushing them closer and closer to the limit. It becomes them.

Just like it became him.

-END-

The 'k' in 'perfekt' is to symbolise the distorted reality that Matt speaks of when talking about Mello's desire for perfection. It's supposed to represent the impurity and twisted-ness of it all. (but in reality "perfekt" is just the German word for "perfect", but I think it sounds cooler and more distorted when you spell it the German way c: ) I wanted to use a backwards 'k', but fanfiction wouldn't let me D:

Once more I hope this little drabble didn't bore anyone to death ;; I haven't written anything in a while that wasn't related to DZS, so I need to work some more u.u ;