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№➇.➄|❝What Killed the Cat❞
#6 - NUMBER SIX
"To Be Loved"
Shortly after #5 "Attention"...
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When he had left his sister alone in the gardens, an impatient frustration hastened his steps. He had felt determined and resolute in getting answers. But as he stood outside of his mother's room, feet pausing and making him hover in the threshold of the door, there was only hesitance. The soft strum of his heart in his chest, each sickening pulse sending a dosage of apprehension into his bloodstream. The nerves in his feet tingled, something equally gross and frustrating clogging his throat and almost making him choke on his words:
"Mom," he almost stuttered. He was glad that he didn't. Mother would hate that. She would see it as weak, pathetic; two things that make a person invisible. And truly, never in his life until this very moment watching his mother continue to stare at her own reflection in the vanity and comb her hair, never did he feel invisible like this. She didn't turn her back to face him, didn't look up to catch his eyes in the mirror, pause her actions, or at least give one sign that she acknowledged him. She just continued to rake her long, elegant purple hair as if he wasn't there at all.
"Mommy's busy," she said, face so perfectly straight that he almost didn't recognize the words as her own. She didn't even blink. With her back to him and all that hair cascading down she was beautiful and cold, just another uncommonly gorgeous woman. Not a mother. Specifically, not his mother.
And she was busy again.
"You said that before," he remembered, because she was always busy. It was different now, though, because he had never needed her help before.
"And Mommy's still busy now," she said carelessly. She stopped for a second and he thought that she just might turn around and give him her attention, but instead she just stroked her marble face and decided to apply a deep rouge lipstick. Pursing her lips satisfactorily after it was done, she took up her comb again and resumed its work.
What was this feeling? Normally he didn't care much who she gave her attention to; he enjoyed the carefree spirit that his brothers could never know. Ayato was restricted by his laborious studies, Kanato burdened by his obsession with pleasing her, whereas Laito was completely at ease, free to spend his time how he wanted. As long as he didn't get in her way, that is. That's what it meant to be the youngest child, the youngest boy, his mind corrected. But until now, standing in the doorway like a trespasser, he never noticed how very little his mother seemed to care about the triplets. Disdainful and dismissive...what was it about them that was so disappointing to her? So...unremarkable. And how had they never noticed before, his brothers especially.
They spend too much time with her...his thoughts whispered.
If I were to be noticed by her, make myself too noticeable enough to grab her attention I would be just another inconsequential little boy in her way, plagued with hopes of pleasing her. If I stay around her too long, won't I be caught up in her path as well? Many thoughts along these lines ran through his mind, the chief among them being that the more time he spent around her the less free he would be.
He paused, his heels nearly on a pivot with the thought of leaving this discussion and her where they were, where they couldn't disrupt his life. One foot in the door and one out, it was as if no matter where he stepped his life would become different in the outcome.
At least, if he spoke with her now maybe he'd understand this nameless feeling.
...He couldn't let these thoughts deter him, nor the uncomfortable feeling in his stomach every time he was in her presence. It was finally time to get his answers, he needed to push on, then he could get away from her;
"I just want to know-" sweaty palms half-nervously smoothed pristine trousers. "How do I make girls like me?" The room around him fell out of focus, what would she say in return?
"What?" Cordelia blinked, hand not pausing in the slightest while in the sweep of her hair. Did she even hear him?
"How do I make a girl like me?" He repeated, more sure this time, more anxious than ever. Anxious to get away from her, anxious to get an answer.
"Do you have a particular girl in mind?" She said this in a toneless, bored manner; she was not really interested in his answer at all: the inconsequential feelings of an inconsequential boy.
"Yes."
"And?" She doubted this would be worth her time.
And then there was that curious, nauseating yet pleasant feeling in his stomach. What was it? Anxiety?
"...It's Chou-chan."
Cordelia paused.
Laito always felt like Mother was too beautiful, too striking, too magnetic and impressive. She was difficult to be around without feeling overwhelmed. And Chouko was beautiful too, but her beauty had a calmness to it, an ease. A warmth wrapping around you like a blanket, it made you feel safe and not alarmed like Mother's did. Chouko's beauty exuded from her and shone especially in her laughter and exuberance. To put it simply she was everything bright and happy and stable about the Manor. She was the freedom and joy that he loved about his life.
She was his favorite sibling.
He admired her very much. She was the coolest person he knew, even if she was a girl. But even though they were siblings and therefore spent a lot of time together, he always felt like she spent less time with him than the other two triplets. That they weren't as close. Over the years he had tried to figure out why and eventually came to the conclusion that she didn't find him as interesting, and that's why she didn't like him as much. He had no problems with his relationships with his triplet brothers, but they were guys. Maybe he and Chouko weren't as close because she was a girl. He figured that could be the case anyway.
And he wanted to be interesting to her. Wanted them to be close. She's the person who always understood him the most.
So if there was any one person that he wanted to like him, it was Chouko.
"Really?" Cordelia stopped applying her makeup, put the brush down, her devious green eyes shimmering with a wicked and perverse delight only seen by her reflection. She turned around to face Laito. And she looked at him. Really looked, like it was the first time she ever saw him before. And he looked every bit the self-conscious, youthful, unimpressive pre-teen that she knew him to be, knew that he must have felt if he came to see her like this.
But there was something in the symmetry of his face, a remnant of something almost...handsome. It was like she'd seen it before but never recognized it clearly until now. Something about his face seemed so familiar and yet the way he carried himself seemed so breakable and vulnerable. She tapped the chair with long fingernails in tainted mirth.
Oh what was this feeling~?
"That's very interesting," the woman commented, her face coming alive with every inflection in her words, detail by detail, transforming in a transfixing way. There was something so engaging and lively about her all at once that you just wanted to look and look again to find the secret of it. "Now," he had her full attention. She was animated. "Before we continue, I have to know if you'll be dedicated to this. So tell me; how much do you like her?" Her hands gripped the back of the chair with rapt interest.
The question was unthinkable. Automatic. And above all: so, so innocent. "More than anything," he said. "She's my favorite person in the whole world, well, except for you, Mom." Laito had never really felt close to her, so using such personal nicknames tasted somewhat artificial on his tongue, but they did a significant job in the way of making her seem less imposing.
There was a laugh in her smile, a poison apple sheen to her candy green eyes. "Except for me, huh?..." And the smile ended there at her lips and unfurled in her words. She was a cat, poised to get to the cream: "So you really want to know how to make her like you?"
"Yes," this he was sure about.
She looked at him carefully now. "And you'll listen and do everything I say?" That was important.
"Yes..."
What was this feeling, so similar yet different from the one he felt before?
Apprehension or anticipation?
She thought about it for a second. Contemplating animatedly as if she hadn't already made up her mind the moment she heard Little Bitch's name. "Okay...I've decided I will help make her love you," she stood from her seat, towering over his nine year old height, and took a step closer. "But you have to keep these two rules in mind. One: always listen to what mommy says," step. "Two: never disobey mommy," step. Step. "Because if you do break these rules, then I can't guarantee how successful you'll be with her. You understand?" Step. Step. Step.
She was right in front of him now, as intimidating as possible with him standing in the shadow of her superior height.
"Yes!" He would finally get the answer he wanted. And all he had to do was say yes. It was so much simpler than he thought. Why had he never come to her before? "Thank you, Mom."
"You're welcome," there was something very disarming about that fanged smile rimmed with too perfect red lips. "Now, let's begin. See, it's all about charm; girls like charming men. But more than that, it's about stimulation; you're only as appealing and interesting as you can perform. That's why an exercise is called stimulation," a hand with insidious claws wrapped around his small wrist, beckoning him forward. "Here, come in, I'll teach you all about it, and through it, you'll learn all about love~"
The door shut upon the room and the rest of his childhood.
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End
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FLASHBACK
Seconds before #7 "To Be a Lady"...
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Lightning crackled and the scene flashed upon an angry demoness, beautiful like sin and just as lethal. Before her stood a boy, young, not yet a teen, small under the towering height of the menacing woman yet not cowering. He snarled back at her with fangs of his own.
"If you don't start taking your work seriously," the purple-haired woman hissed: "then I'll kill her."
The image of an equally purple, but smaller, more innocent smiling female appeared in his mind's eye. A little girl nothing like purple demon in front of him, one whose nnocence needed to be protected. "Don't you dare!"
The clawed fingernails of a hand viciously cut through soft skin and Cordelia slapped Ayato.
A harsh, sharp, loud sound struck the air like lightning, charged and powerful, waking a formerly sleeping Chouko and bringing her attention to the disturbance outside of her bedroom door.
"Don't you dare!" The woman's face contorted into a nightmare as she whispered with perilous emphasis at the boy. Its breathiness only enhancing the life-endangering quality to the threat.
And finally his face showed the terror that she commanded, the fear that would appease only her demonic soul. And then both their eyes cut to the side as movement was heard inside the door of the girl in question.
The little girl rubbed her eyes in a sleepy manner and stumbled drowsily until her fingers were on the handle of the door.
And the mother's eyes flashed dangerously at her son. Yes, he was her son. And he saw the warning in them that told him to leave and leave quickly. And he was scared for the girl they awoke, but knew underneath that frightful fear that his presence would only worsen the situation. And so he bolted as quietly and quickly as was possible for a young vampire.
Light cut into the girl's room and she saw a tall, distressed woman with long purple waves standing with her back to the door. Mother. And the girl couldn't contemplate more on what she thought was the yelling of her dreams or the sharp sound that woke her up, because then Cordelia turned around to the newly awakened Chouko, with tears running down her face-
"What's wrong, mommy?"
And though the mother's eyes were filled with tears, there was some satisfaction, some anxious and perverse joy so unfamiliar to the innocence of the child that she never even saw it. But it was there. It was always there.
And that was the woman's cue.
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End.
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BONUS FLASHBACK
Sometime between #6 "To Be Loved" and #11 "The Big Break" (inclusive)
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She sighed with a laugh, something amused and bitter in her eyes. "Oh, Little Bitch~" she whispered to the air.
Lying down on the bed, voluminous purple hair splayed out underneath her she seemed to be at peace, but Laito knew better. At another time he might have enjoyed this rare calm that only came about after one of their particularly intense "sessions", but sometimes she said things distractedly, off-guard when she thought he wasn't listening and those things were potentially important.
"What was that?" He asked, keeping his voice somewhat neutral, to make sure he didn't sound too interested.
"Hmm?" she peeked at him, unconcerned yet unsettled around the edges. "Oh, it's just something I say sometimes." And surely she knew that now after he heard it there was no letting it fade away into nothing.
"What do you mean?" He stood, he wanted to hear it now.
"A name I like to call someone..." She spoke wistfully towards the ceiling as if he never interrupted her and she was alone.
"Who?" He prompted.
"No one specifically..." he very much doubted that. "Just a person, generally a girl, just a nuisance," her voice hardened. "A pest, inferior in every way. A toy," her eyes sharpened like a blade.
"Like the sacrificial brides?" He stretched his mind to wrap around what she was saying, to understand.
"Just like them, except sometimes you can't ever be rid of them."
That didn't make as much sense to him. But he thought he understood the gist of it.
A pest.
A nuisance.
A toy.
Inferior.
"Little Bitch," he repeated, tasting the words. There was something distinct about it.
No one ever knew where Laito got that pet name from and he never knew of course who it originally belonged to. That the name he used to torment countless sacrificial brides, was the name that his mother used for his sister.
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End.
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A/N: So because of my absence I decided to insert a bonus flashback into this flashback chapter (which btw, will occur every time the title number appears as a fraction) but I'm not completely sure if it works with the rest of the chapter. Maybe it was too early for this flashback idk. What do you guys think?