Pleasure. What was pleasure, in the first place?
This question had occurred to Muraki when he was still young and relatively innocent. Perhaps not innocent, but rather ignorant, unformed. He still smiled when his mother touched his cheek gently, still felt a warm glow in his chest when he thought about his father. His father, the man he thought to be a proud man, worthy of respect. Now, both of these sources of naive pleasure only served to make him laugh, a bitter and raspy sound, muffled by the cigarette hanging haphazardly from his lips.
Laughter. Smiles. Those were the signs of pleasure humans had to go by.
She had smiled. His mother, surrounded only by an unrelenting darkness and seemingly countless dolls, all staring back at them with glass eyes. Her painted lips turned up in a twisted look filled with admiration, her voice straining and yet empty as she whispered, "So beautiful, my good child." The feeling of her long fingers ghosting over his face returned to him. Had she derived pleasure from cradling her only son... the finest doll in her prized collection? She had, he thought at the time. Selfish pleasure. Well, what did one person care for the feelings of another for? Looking into his mother's empty eyes, Muraki had seen from his youth that caring for another only led to pain. She had loved his father once, he thought. Loved him enough to bear his child. And where had that gotten her? Pleasure was about one's own self. Not love.
He had smiled. His head tilted slightly, eyes squinting just the most miniscule fraction. His brother, another one whose veins pulsed with the same blood. Well, half of it, at least. Don't smile at me, a slightly more mature Muraki had wanted to say. Don't pretend you're pleased to see me. Their very existences proved that the other had not been meant to be born. His brother's life meant an end to his innocence, a harsh clash with the reality lurking behind his father's distance. How could Saki have felt pleasure to see his half-brother, the only legitimate son of the man who had begotten him?
Of course, Muraki now understood this answer all too well. It was because the self-righteous, pretentious youth before him had been so displeased to see him. The thought of the rage that had once burned within him towards his hedonistic father now made him chuckle. He had been so foolish.
That one smile of his never seemed to leave Muraki's mind. Eyes lowered to the ground before him, his lips had turned traitorously upwards as he marched in that mockery of a funeral procession. At that time, Muraki had still felt the pull of his blood ties to his mother. More of that useless fury had inflamed his clouded mind once his shock had subsided.
Now, again, he smiled, bitter but not regretful. He had felt the same emotions behind that enigmatic smile his brother had unwittingly shown him that day. It was death. Death was pleasure.
He had cried. His unusual friend, with those long brown locks cascading on the floor around him as he fell to his knees, had cried when he first saw the form of his roommate covered in the blood of another. Frankly, Muraki had been surprised. He wasn't sure anyone had shed tears for him before. Or were they for his victim? The young man before him was filled with so much grief for his friend, his friend he saw as having strayed from his righteous path as a doctor, but had stayed with him anyways. Now this, he could not say he understood.
Muraki had been careful not to smile until the door had closed behind Oriya that night. He could still taste blood on his tongue, and his ears still rung, now filled with an amalgamation of his victim's pleas and his friend's quiet, yet desperate sobs. Beautiful, he had thought as he closed his eyes, drifting off to a dreamless slumber.
She had cried, too, her frail shoulders heaving with the effort. She didn't even know though, she had no idea whose arms she was grasping pathetically as she let her tears flow freely. His fiancée, but perhaps not yet at that point; he wasn't sure, and he had never been particularly good with remembering such details as dates and numbers. But she had cried for herself, for her constantly approaching expiration date, for the pain that would soon make her days difficult. Muraki liked it when others weren't afraid of being selfish. He had held her as she cried, his expression blank.
Somehow, he hadn't felt like smiling that night.
The boy, though, he had screamed. Tears may have forced their way from his eyes and down his small and delicate cheeks, but they seemed insignificant compared to those screams. His entire weak body had shaken with those anguished shrieks, each successive one leaving his voice more raw, until he was forced into silence by his own failing throat. Muraki hadn't bothered to keep the smile, wide and glowing, from his face. After all, why would he not smile with pleasure when beholding the finest doll he had yet to possess?
Perhaps he would scream, Saki, with fresh cuts covering his body, with his senses on fire with agony. The thought alone sufficed to bring a radiant beam to Muraki's usually neutral face. Laughter, broken yet joyous, filled the room. His cigarette lay forgotten by his windowsill.
Looking out at the half moon, glowing with an off-white sheen, Muraki traced back his past. Yes, he had come to understand pleasure throughout his life. His pleasure had been his friend's tears he shed at the loss of his innocent trust, his beautiful doll's screams as his childhood came to an abrupt end, his target's anger at his disregard for the pathetic lives he took.
Smiling, Muraki shook his head and closed his eyes. Pleasure was simple, for him. Pleasure was another's loss, pleasure was being the one to take from someone else.