Chapter Fourteen

The Purr-box Is Included

 

Metori's greeted them with the usual cheery atmosphere and busy customers bumbling around the shelves. Kataji didn't have much time to decide where he needed to go when Metori himself ran forward, waving and smiling at him as he padded on fawningly.

"Master Kataji! We were waiting for you, yes."

Kataji pursed his lips in disapproval.

"The doll my sister had been checking out -- may I see it?" His hand trembled a little when he used it to point vaguely at the door, at himself. At no one in particular. "I just wanted to assemble the general model..."

Old man Metori was the portrait of understanding. "This way."

Ach, that room, of course! How could Nekohiko forget it? The flamboyantly-dressed or better to say undressed dummies enjoying tea at a small table. The intimate quietness and tightness of the room. Kataji had to bow to enter and now dawdled in the center, hunching down so as not to hit the ceiling with his head. Yet most of his discomfort vanished the moment his eyes fell on the dolls themselves.

Nekohiko had never seen him so appalled.

"So this is the catalog," Metori was saying, leafing through the enormous, thick tome in his bony hands. Hard to believe he could even hold it without folding down. "Wooden carcass parts are all here, while the animal tissue is all..." He rustled pages, then stopped dramatically. "Here."

Kataji's brow creased, wary. "Human dolls also require animal tissue? But I thought all dummies just use energy to move. The muscle-heat of an animal -- as a fuel?" He turned to the old man, grasping his own robe at the chest in slight dismay. "At least all our Bound Servants at home use animal heat only. No tissue..."

Metori nodded on and on as though listening only barely. "Naturally, Young Master. But dummies like that are only for menial tasks. Like being porters, or sweepers, or gardeners. They don't require anything other than fuel to work. The dolls in this room, however..." He cleared his throat, tactfully. "...would be touched. By a person. They would have to be able to smile. And laugh. And move a little bit more smoothly than a Servant dummy, you understand. As well as be more flexible and soft in some... areas. For obvious reasons."

Kataji's throat bobbed in his tight collar. 

"Providing its master with companionship requires most lifelikeness out of a doll. So yes. One human doll that resembles humans not only by appearance but also to the touch and smell and behavior would need at least twenty healthy lives to die for it. Their muscle, their skin, their heat, their ability to move more or less realistically. Sacrifices have to be made, you understand."

"I haven't thought about this too much, to be honest," Kataji stammered, stricken.

He hadn't? What about Nekohiko? Nekohiko hadn't even known! He'd never paid attention to how dolls like this were made. Heavens.

"You said only animals, though?" Kataji suddenly paled even more. "Like cows and pigs... yes?"

For the first time, Metori's good-natured toothless smile appeared somewhat strained. "Well. Some customers do desire the doll to be able to speak... So... depending on how much the client is willing to pay..."

If Nekohiko wasn't just a wooden skull, he would have shrunk back in horror. He had no idea how Kataji was able to keep being so composed.

Metori nodded with a grim expression. "Personally, Metori's Lumberworks doesn't engage in these kinds of services. But for the specialized shops, the criminals on the death row, for instance, can provide some additional... more human aspects to be Bound onto a doll. Like voice, like the minimum cognition of a human, like the ability to interact with the client."

"...interact?" Kataji almost lost his voice.

"Not to reject them , of course. Why make a doll if it rejects you?" Metori now seemed extremely uncomfortable to discuss it, himself. "No. To voice out their opinion, but not actually be able to act on it. Some people do find this the most satisfying aspect of a humanoid doll." Fidgety, Metori tried to shield off uncomfortableness. "If you are truly interested, I'm afraid I cannot really fulfill your curiosity in this area, Young Master..."

"I'm not interested," Kataji cut. When he swerved away from the old man, Nekohiko could clearly see how shaken he was. "The tissue of animals only should suffice."

The crackling tension in the room dissolved almost immediately.

"Wonderful! Please touch this doll," Metori offered, stepping up to Kataji and indicating the male doll beside him. "See how smooth and tender the skin on his face is? This is calf tissue. Skin, a thin layer of fat. Lips are in particular a very fine job, and so are eyelids -- they require the tenderest lambskin and the heavy fusions of marine animal aspects for moistened, silky effect. We are very proud of our Binders' work on those. You will have to choose the firmness or suppleness of each individual part yourself."

"This is so... objectifying," Kataji whispered, still unable to move his eyes to or away from the doll. "They look too lifelike. I can't make myself touch them like that, forgive me."

Metori perked up. He chuckled delightedly. "Ah, but is there really a huge difference between how we objectify these types of dolls compared to the dolls in the Servant section? Or to the humans in these respective groups -- maids or pleasure servers? Please do not worry yourself sick with this, Young Master. It is only a feature of an object you buy. Like the color of a robe you choose. How different is it?"

"Very, if they look like that," Kataji stressed.

The doll indeed had such a serene, if slightly sad expression on its face. Nekohiko had trouble even looking it in the eye for the fear of having his gaze met, however impossible it was.

"Think of it like this -- when we walk around Servant dummies or just general strangers in the street -- do we not objectify them as nothing but a background on which we are the only being of importance? Aren't most people nothing but furniture for us to pass by? And as long as they work as they should and do not interact with us, we do not need to give them much more thought, do we?"

He patted Kataji's elbow reassuringly, then slid his tome of body parts onto Kataji's hands from which Kataji's knees buckled. He had not expected the weight the tome possessed.

"Just combine the facial model parts to form an entire face, then the body," Metori explained, hovering just above Kataji's shoulder after Kataji descended to the floor to fumble through the horrifying schemas of body parts in the book. "Don't worry. I will guide you through this."

"Actually," Kataji began hoarsely. "Could you please leave me alone for a little while? I need to... think about this more. It's too head-spinning to absorb all in one go..."

Nekohiko knew Kataji only meant that the two of them had to have a private conversation about this first. Which wasn't true at all! Nekohiko would never have such a conversation. With anyone. He was fine with the Servant dummy body. No animals murdered to give him skin and fat and muscles. No uncanny, hideous implications about why his body had to look -- and especially feel -- a certain way. No shame associated with it either.

Metori loitered about, though. "We do not normally allow clients to stay alone in this room with these dolls. For... obvious reasons."

His back rounded and shoulders tense, Kataji lifted his head at him. He was whiter than a rice-paper sheet. With a decisive slam of Nekohiko's new cat skull atop the catalog's pages, he said, "I won't touch these dolls, Master Metori. I promise you. I only need a moment to pick the body parts I like. Also, I won't be alone. My cat will be with me."

"Ahm. Yes. All right. Of course," Metori mumbled, still continuing to smile mechanistically as he shuffled out of the room. "Please call me when you've decided everything?"

Nekohiko started speaking without bothering to check whether Metori was far enough. "Kataji, NO. Please, I don't want to have a body like that. Let's just go and pick one of the Servant dummies?"

However, frighteningly, Kataji wasn't reacting. He sat as weary as before, only scanning the pages with his eyes.

"I don't want a lifelike body at all," Nekohiko lied. "Any body will do just fine for my purposes."

Gravely, Kataji nodded. "I know that you want to enact revenge on this best friend of yours. And that you really need to have a body to do it. But besides that..." Kataji locked eyes with Nekohiko's hollow cat eye-sockets. "Is this the entirety of your second life here? Just becoming a dummy to enact revenge?"

Well. Pretty much. Nekohiko hadn't had a lot of opportunities to enjoy or even plan his life beyond the point in which he had his body. Any workable body, mind you.

"Don't you want to... simply live?" Kataji asked quietly. "To have friends, to enjoy life? To... maybe, find a lover one day?"

...

Oh.

What was this questioning even about? Who asks people that?

Nekohiko's voice also gained some raspiness to it. "This is so beyond my current plans right now. Let's not talk about stuff that's irrelevant, Kataji," he laughed lamely. "All right?"

Please!

"You do understand that making you a body puts me into the position of making a mistake and giving you a subpar one, yes? And then feeling guilty about how your life turns out after that. Some people are born ugly, some are born pretty. Some are born strong, others -- weak. Some are born talented and appreciated while others are... forgotten and unnoticed their entire lives. And I, bizarrely," Kataji took in a breath as if inspired by a fresh gust of wind, "have the chance to make you -- perfect. To give you the life everyone deserves. But very, very few get."

Nekohiko stared at him, blank.

Kataji's eyes were averted. His usually red lips were now pale and bitten. "You have the chance to be something even I don't. Nobody does. How can I not use such a chance, Itsuki? I would hate myself if I didn't."

Argh--

Whatever! How aggravating! Especially when he put it like that!

It wasn't as though Nekohiko's plans would have truly changed because of this, no? A body, that was what's important. Not how it was assembled, or why, or with how many animals slaughtered to make it. And if it was a little too lifelike and a little too easily objectified by others?

So what? Another weapon for him to use. Another way to torment, or to abuse Abihiko's many weaknesses.

Nekohiko still shivered with barely restrained anger as he replied, "Fine. Do what you want."

Kataji smiled, but Nekohiko had no care for it. He began speaking even before Kataji was ready to follow his instructions.

"I had a slender, maybe even emaciated build. Slightly shorter than you. Pale. Make it pasty, actually. Eyes -- dark-brown. Hair..."

Whatever wouldn't he do to advance his plans? Even something as dehumanizing as this.

Dehumanizing. Ha.

Funny.

 

---

***

 

Joy only settled in Nekohiko when Kataji walked inside the quiet, cool office of the local Spirit Binder proficient with Bound animal dummies. Kataji slowly shut the door on the dinning outside, propping his basket with cat body parts in his arms. The Binder's office was almost too eerie with its hush and emptiness.

"Master?" Kataji called.

A head in the large, googly-fished glasses covering the woman's eyes poked from beyond the corner. A haggard, crooked middle-aged woman.

"Eeh?" She failed to slide her glasses onto her head as they broke apart in her fingers. She gave Kataji a myopic smile. "My, my, someone needs a pet friend, does he?"

Distaste rendered Kataji's tone cool. "Well. Yes. Do you take Imperial or Utsuro coins?"

"Any you've got," the woman cooed, lunging for the basket in Kataji's hands, "I'll take it. What do we have heeere? Ah, a small kitty."

The smell of the woman and the overall alchemic, foul aura of the building made Nekohiko's hollow insides roil. Most shops that bound animal matter to wood or metal weren't nice places. There were reasons why most avoided them. Not because the trade itself made people queasy, no. Only the fact that so many animal remains, innards, furs, teeth, tendons, and other real body parts were kept here for the purposes of Binding.

Metori's obviously only made the wooden parts, so they didn't have to keep all the animal Binding paraphernalia in situ. But this place here was the true ugly face of this trade. All creation of objects that moved -- dummies, carriages, flying apparati, boats, servants, and guards -- required sacrifices. It wasn't a pleasant work, sure. But people needed dummies working for them. Guarding them, serving them, driving them. And no mannequins could walk, guard, and serve on their own, could they? Some live creature had to be massacred by the Spirit Binder -- to rip away their ability to move and to Bind it over to a wooden dummy for that to happen.

Nekohiko's carcass wouldn't be much different.

"We offer the traditional set for gelatin, tendons, and fatty-layered skin," the woman was saying as she pushed the door of the small room filled with bottled and preserved animal body parts on the wall shelves. Her skinny spotted arms handled Nekohiko's basket with great care even though her unkempt looks alarmed him at first.

Kataji followed her with his eyes, doubtful, but mainly kept quiet.

She pointed to a carved wooden hanger in the corner where pelts and fur and suede hanged off the small hooks. "Pick a coat you like. Should I begin assembling your cat?"

"Please, go on, Master." And Kataji busied himself with browsing the cat hides of which Nekohiko saw several.

As far as the fur color went, he didn't have a preference. He and Kataji had both joked about Aomi's obvious preference for "enigmatic black", but themselves, they hadn't decided on anything specific. Nekohiko had given Kataji free reign, only concerned about the size fit rather than the color.

The ragged woman Binder deftly took out all of Nekohiko's wooden cat parts. Her quick hand easily assembled him into a vague body shape on the working bench covered with a velvet black cloth to see all the bright wooden segments better.

"Good foldage," she grunted as she clicked together the connections between his leg and his hip. "Very expertly crafted."

Even from afar, Nekohiko could predict that Kataji's ears slightly reddened at the comment. The young man came over to the bench, an inconspicuous fur coat of creamy white gathered gently in his hands.

"I pick this one. Only..." he lifted the pelt coat's bottom part. "It doesn't have a tail, does it?"

"Ah, yes. Most cats have their tails cut short, don't they," the woman said. She leaned over Nekohiko toward Kataji, her yellowed teeth flashing in a sneer. "Simpletons believe that cats easily become corrupted by demonic Spirits, so clipping their tails to stop their transformation is the easiest way to avert it. Ha! If that doesn't promote it instead! Imagine you had a body part removed to keep you from turning evil! Wouldn't that make you turn evil just to avenge yourself? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

Kataji's eyebrows twitched as the woman continued to roll into her creepy laughter which lasted short of a full minute until she suddenly grew still again, only peering at Kataji with a crazed smile on her face. Her bird-bone hand struck out at him coquettishly. "Don't worry. I have a couple spare ones left. Tabby or black?"

Nekohiko couldn't even muster care. Whichever, he thought. Just get this over with.

"Whichever," Kataji told her, stiff.

"Aaaaah, good choice, good choice!"

She licked her fingers and reached for the jar of muscle tissue to pick a few blobs out. "Go and browse the brains as well. Over there." She nodded toward the adjacent room that darkened past an even narrower, greasier hallway. "The resign indicators are all written at the top. Mild, tame, clingy, playful. All kinds of cat minds we have. Some dogs fit a cat body as well. But don't pick a squirrel or a bunny, will you? In a cat, those two are just... nasty." She gurned with passion. "Absolute disasters. Albeit if you like that..."

"No," Kataji began.

"Good thinking. A cat brain fits a cat's body best, as we all know."

"No. I meant -- no brain." Kataji put his hand on top of Nekohiko's torso that the woman had already started greasing up with suet from another of her jars, for better connection of the wood and the added muscle and tendon tissue. Kataji's voice was uncharacteristically firm. Even rude. "No animal cognition in this cat. No resign either. Only the tissues for motion and the connecting joints. Fur, eyes, tongue -- all that, so it can feel like a real cat. But nothing else."

The woman balked a second, then grew doubtful. "But it'll just lie around, not doing anything. It'll surely feel like a cat to the touch... but that'll be it. It will most resemble a dead cat."

Her "what the hell, you pervert"-stare made even Nekohiko uncomfortable. Kataji cleared his throat elegantly, then set his jaw firm. "Not a dead cat. A sleeping cat. I want to cuddle with one when I fall asleep at night. But I don't want it to move or to bother me."

"Ahhh. Sleeping cats are better than awakened ones, true, true." The woman stuck the index fingers of both her hands in the air, spraying some of the foul animal-jelly liquids from that motion. "Great deal for you, then! I have a purr-box. Do you want it installed into your cat?"

"Purr...box?"

"Yes. A sleeping cat purrs, doesn't it? Oooh, you've got to hear that thing!" she gushed, limping from the bench to one of her many cluttered shelves and fishing out of it a small metallic box. "It rumbles like thunder, so rich and velvety the sound is. With that purr-box, your cat will give you the sweetest dreams ever. Trust me."

"I don't think I need one..." Kataji dithered, but the woman sealed the deal already.

"If you don't get the brain or the resign -- that'll be below the market price for a dummy pet. You know that, right? I have to install some accessories in your dead cat, otherwise --" And she spread her arms out matter-of-fact "--I can't really sell you the Binding, can I? So do you want a purr-box, or do you want a meowl-tuner, or maybe a paw massage sequence, or a--"

"Purr-box," Kataji pled, getting more frustrated by the seconds. "Purr-box it is."

The woman rubbed her hands together, then hobbled over back to Nekohiko. "Great doing business with you, young man."

Sweat beaded over Kataji's pale forehead as he blotted it with his sleeve. He let out a tremulous breath, then stilled, realizing that the woman was not saying anything new or asking him to pick or decide anymore.

She was waiting. All the necessary animal parts smeared or splattered on top of a silver tray in front of her, all the wooden and bronze segments assembled in a pristine order over the velvet. The only thing that was missing was -- the client's agreement to begin.

Or, better to say -- his blood.

The ultimate meaning of all Bound dummies in existence was that they were Bound to their masters. A creature capable of movement, however dead it was inside, was still a creature capable of doing something bad. Something dangerous. To protect all the people of the realm from their dummies becoming unstable or doing some nasty things, whether by accident or by evil intent -- someone had to take responsibility for them, no?

Above all, nobody wanted their own dummy dog or carriage to murder them by mistake, did they? The infusion of blood in the core of the dummy protected against that, too. Once his wooden cat parts were Bound with Kataji's blood, never in Nekohiko's "cat life" would he be able to harm or injure Kataji in any way, even by accident.

But then again, Nekohiko didn't plan to do something like that. Why would he? Kataji was his friend.

"You are this doll's master," the Binder woman stressed. "Do you accept the responsibility for it and whatever it will do?"

Kataji didn't even have to think. "Yes."

The woman gave Kataji an inquiring look and extended her hand with a small needle in it. Shaken, Kataji rolled up his sleeve and exposed his slender, pale wrist for her to make her needle prick.

"Pray to the Spirit of the Cats," the woman slipped to him lowly, a reminder rather than advice, as she drew his blood. "Pray this thing will not be malicious and will not end up corrupt with demons. Pray, pray."

Then she began her arcane work.