Dlbn: We're back with another chapter! Time to pick things up a bit. I'll try and post again tomorrow and once over the weekend, but no promises. I'm almost done actually writing the fic in its entirety. Yay me!

Nbld: Shut up. Time for the Review Corner! Thank you to Promocat for reviewing! Pumpkin for you!

Promocat: Unfortunately the song this is influenced by gives away the ending, so I haven't mentioned it by name or artist yet, and won't until the last chapter or so. Onward ho!

Disclaimer: I do NOT own Loveless or anyone in it. It all belongs to Yun Kouga. I make NO money off of writing this story.

Disclaimer 2: I do NOT own the song *** by ***, which this fic is based off of. I make NO money out of referencing it.

000

It was a little after midnight when Ritsuka finally returned home from the celebration. He was going to spend the night at Soubi's, but a late night call from his new boss saying that his photos were due at six in the morning had him thinking otherwise. The blonde would have kept him up all night and they probably would have overslept. Being late to his second day on the job wasn't the kind of thing he wanted to do, even if neither of them lived very far from the newspaper building. He shut the door behind him and locked it with a satisfying click. He sighed and ditched his coat and camera on the coat rack near the door before heading into the kitchen. When he turned on the light, he shrieked and jumped back a few inches. Sitting in one of the chairs at the kitchen table was the doll from the other night. It was continuously staring at him with his one stuck open eye while the other blinked a few times.

"You're coming home late." Seimei greeted him. "Welcome home, Ritsuka."

"T-Thanks…" Ritsuka said, slowly letting go of where he was gripping his shirt off of his chest. "It's…uh…it's Founders Day. I was out celebrating."

"With that guy that was here a few days ago, I think?" Seimei wondered, shaking his head with the creak of stuck doll joints. "I didn't really appreciate hearing those noises coming from your room. Rather disgusting."

"Sorry, but it's my house now, and if I want to have a guy here overnight and sleep with him, I'm going to do it. With or without your permission." Ritsuka huffed. "If you don't like it, that isn't my problem. You don't pay for this place. I do."

The doll slowly shook his head again. "That's not very nice."

"Neither is scaring the hell out of me, but you've done that twice already." Ritsuka pointed out.

The doll seemed to focus on the box in Ritsuka's arm.

"What's that?" Seimei wondered. "Looks old."

"It's a wooden box." Ritsuka informed.

"Where did it come from?"

"A friend of mine in town gave it to me."

"A friend?" The doll chuckled. "But, you hardly know Akame-san."

"Well, yeah, I know, but…you know who I got it from…? But…how?"

The doll smiled. "I was in town, you see." He stated. "I saw him carrying something, but wasn't certain what. Now I know."

"You…you were there…?" Ritsuka paled. "But…how…?"

"How else? I walked." Seimei grinned.

Ritsuka shook his head. "Now you're just messing with my head." He stated. "Someone would have seen you."

"I'm a master of camouflage." The doll bragged.

"Sure you are." Ritsuka rolled his eyes.

He passed the doll to see if he could find something in the cabinets to nibble on. Soubi had fed him earlier, and he'd gotten some snacks at the Founder's Day party at the café, but he was still a little hungry.

"What are you doing?" The doll asked, turning in its chair without moving its limbs.

Ritsuka watched as the doll slowly rotated as if it were being turned by an invisible hand.

"I'm hungry so I'm going to have a snack." He spread some peanut butter on a cracker.

"Oh." Seimei stated. "I'd like a snack. It's been so long since I've eaten."

Ritsuka didn't like the gleam in the doll's eye. "You're a doll…you don't eat…do you…?"

"Maybe." Seimei turned his head to the side with a creak. "You tell me. You're smart enough to figure it out."

"If you do eat, I doubt it's food…but I'll make you a snack."

"Thank you. That is most kind of you."

Ritsuka nodded and made a peanut butter and cracker sandwich for the doll. "Do I just….uh…do I hand it to you or…?"

"I'll take it." The doll stuck out a straight arm.

Ritsuka placed the cracker in the doll's hand. The doll bent its harm and popped the cracker into its mouth. Ritsuka watched him chew and swallow, grimacing when his long tongue licked at his lips.

"That sure hit the spot." Seimei nodded. "Why thank you, Ritsuka."

"You're welcome." Ritsuka finished the cracker in his hand and put the plate in front of the doll. "I've lost my appetite. Enjoy."

The doll watched Ritsuka as he exited the room, running a hand through his raven black hair.

"Thank you. Good night."

"Good night."

The doll robotically grabbed another cracker sandwich from the plate and nibbled on it. Ritsuka made his way upstairs, ignoring the sounds coming from the doll downstairs. How had a doll managed to eat a cracker sandwich? And on top of that, how had he stretched his mouth that wide? It looked like if he had wanted to, he could have chewed Ritsuka to bits with those teeth, or worse; swallowed Ritsuka whole. The former neko shuddered at the thought as he passed the door that supposedly led to nowhere. It clearly led to somewhere, and that somewhere housed a terrifying living doll. Had Soubi known about this? If he had, then that meant he had lied to Ritsuka. But…Soubi loved him…right…? He said he did…so certainly he wouldn't lie to him. Maybe he hadn't known. That would have explained it. If the information had been passed onto him that it led to nowhere, who was the realtor to question it? clearly, a bad realtor, but Ritsuka couldn't blame him for relying on information he was given, even if it was false.

Ritsuka tried the door knob but found that it didn't move.

"The doll…" Ritsuka pondered. "Oh, that must have all been in my head. I'll go down in the morning and see the plate full of crackers. I must have hallucinated." He laughed, rubbing the back of his neck as he moved on towards his bedroom. "It has to be that story Kio told today. I let it get to my head. So strange. I'm not normally superstitious." He laughed.

Downstairs, the crumb covered empty plate sat on the kitchen table while the chair in the kitchen lay on its side on the floor. The doll was nowhere to be found.

000

The next morning, Ritsuka yawned as he walked down the last of his steps into his house's foyer. It was five in the morning, meaning he had about forty-five minutes before he had to leave for work. While the photos were due at six in the morning, that was just because he had a debriefing and had a time slot open for him to use the local photo shop's dark room to develop the photographs around seven that morning. He had a vague idea of where it was, but he hoped to get better directions from his boss this morning. Entering the kitchen, Ritsuka had a vague recollection of the night before. Something about the doll eating and its terrifying mouth opening to the point where Ritsuka thought its hinges might snap? He shook off the confusing memories as he noted the plate with some crackers stuck together with peanut butter sitting on the table. He laughed to himself, shaking his head at his stupidity. Of course there was no doll there. It was all in his head. But he saw the doll before the parade…so how did he know what the doll looked like and its name before Kio told the story at the parade? Maybe he'd heard the name somewhere before? That made sense. And now that he thought about it, he had black hair just like the doll. Maybe they had modeled it after Ritsuka, knowing he had bought the house? That was the only way any of this made sense. Ritsuka tried to shrug off the feeling of being watched as he sat down to eat his now stale snack from the night before. There was no one else here…right…?