Mannequin Ch. 2, Part 2
That night, after they’d closed the shop and gotten dinner from Aiba’s family’s restaurant (which was delicious, the owner and the reviews were credible), Sho felt a little strange locking the door behind the owner as he exited.
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” the owner had muttered, “I expect I’ll find everything as I left it.”
“So I can’t try to fix the lighting?”
“No. You can’t. I told you, there’s nothing wrong with the way the store’s lit,” and then right as the door was closing, Sho could hear him add, “You’ll just end up electrocuting yourself, and then what will I tell your father? He’d definitely jack up my rent if you died.”
So Sho went up the stairs, shutting off the not-broken-lights and telling himself he wouldn’t be back down until the next morning. He couldn’t stifle the sigh that rose in his chest when he looked around his temporary apartment. The walls were bare, the furniture unfamiliar and definitely more of his father’s taste, the air conditioner was loud, and he had no idea if the wifi was any good.
Oh and nothing was set up right-- he’d noticed earlier but had forgotten up until that moment. He no longer could control the television, music, and computers from his phone. That was going to take a little while to get used to.
Freshly unhappy, he checked his phone for messages but decided to ignore the ones he’d received. He didn’t feel like talking to those people anyway. Or really, he didn’t feel like explaining. After checking some stuff on his laptop and wishing he was more tech-savvy so he could get better connectivity, he flipped through channels on the television before relenting and deciding to make an early night of it.
But once he’d turned off the tv and the only sound left in the space was the air conditioner, Sho was startled when he’d walked by the door leading to the stairwell and thought he’d picked up pieces of a conversation... in his head. He pressed his mouth into a tight line. Not again.
Sleep. His brain needed sleep. Sho crawled into the bed, squeezed his eyes closed, and told himself to fall asleep. Immediately. Before he heard anything else.
And it worked... sort of. Because just as Sho felt his consciousness slipping away, he’d heard a voice saying, “Listen, his breathing is more even. He’s asleep.”
And then Sho’s mind had that horrible, cling-to-wakefulness moment where the mind tries desperately to claw at staying conscious, because he could swear he heard something thump right outside his apartment door... As if someone had been listening on the other side.
When he awoke the next morning, he was able to rationalize that no one could have possibly been outside the door. He’d thrown the deadbolts himself. It was just his mind playing tricks on him... and the air conditioner kicking back on. That’s all. So he didn’t mention a word of it to either the owner or Aiba that day during work. They just sold costumes, Sho took a look at some statements the owner begrudgingly gave him, Aiba came in around noon and worked till 3, the owner’s fedora was brown suede, and it was pretty normal. Sho didn’t hear any more voices.
Until that night. That night, Sho forgot his tablet charging downstairs. And after waking up around 2:30 in a cold sweat because he’d dreamt about thumps and creaks outside his door and in the room beneath him, he decided he wanted to use it. He wanted to run through stats and jot down which costs needed cut or bolstered until he couldn’t keep his eyes open (until he pushed himself to dreamless exhaustion).
So grabbing his phone to use as a light, Sho quietly crept down the stairs into the backroom. His tablet was charging out by the front counter. All he had to do was find a lightswitch... but when he made his way to the front, he could see that a light was already on.
Which was strange, because Sho was almost positive he’d turned all the lights off. What the heck? Sho stuffed his unnecessary phone into his pajama bottoms’ pocket, and started toward the doorway but stopped short.
He was hearing voices again. Two men. Speaking softly, as if they were far away and yet only in the back of his mind. Picking up his feet carefully, the further he stepped through the doorway, the clearer the voices became.
“...it was too dark....he’s asleep...”
“....likes you.... talk to him...you’re his favorite”
“No....I couldn’t....Sakurai”
“Hello!” Sho practically shouted, eyes wide, because he’d ‘heard’ enough, “Who’s here? Anyone here?”
Sho charged bravely into the room, heart-pumping, as he looked around.... but nothing seemed out of place, and no one seemed to be inside. All the locks were firmly in place.
Oh wait. Oh shit. Sho sucked in a cold breath: the mannequins.
The mannequins were not where he’d left them. The mannequins were closer to the zombie baseball uniforms, near the front counter. And they were together. They hadn’t been left together.
Oh shit.
Sho turned around, purposefully left the lights on-- all of them, fuck the electricity bill-- and walked swiftly back upstairs to his apartment where he turned all the lights on, and slept that way.
By the third night, he was terrified. Sho came this close to booking a hotel room, but no, his father would find out. So he debated asking Aiba to sleep over... but he couldn’t find the right moment. It was awkward, because sure, Aiba seemed to like him, but they barely knew each other. Because he didn’t want Aiba to think he was weird or desperate for a friend, he ended up not asking him at all.
So, that night, after closing up shop, he’d sat upstairs at his laptop, trying to distract himself from what he was sure was an irrational fear. Mannequins can’t move on their own. That’s ridiculous. But he’d seen it. Or he’d seen them not be in the same place that the owner had left them.
Wait.
That the owner had left them.
Sho facepalmed. Of course that was it. Either the owner or Aiba had come in that night and moved the mannequins. He’d thought he heard two people whispering, though. So it might have been both them together. Ha, it was probably because they knew Sho favored the prettier one (the owner took offense to that statement when Sho had described his favorite that way the second day, claiming both of his mannequins were very pretty) and wanted to fool around with him.
Sakurai tapped his tablet to check the schedule for the next morning. Aiba and the owner were going to be opening with him. Awesome. Sho couldn’t help the grin spreading across his face. It was the kind of smile he hadn’t given since he’d messed around in high school (he hadn’t had the time or anonymity to screw around in college).
But if Aiba or the owner, or both, thought they could pull a fast one on Sho, they had another thing coming. He, too, could play this game.
Sho opened all the locks on the apartment door, turned the deadbolt, and walked downstairs practically laughing at himself for being so stupid as to actually believe the mannequins had moved on their own.
Ha.
Stupid.
Sho reached his mannequin first. The beautiful dress-form was wearing a taboo, dark-wizard costume and while Sho had avoided the mannequin the entire day, now that he was looking at him properly, Sho couldn’t wait to get his hands on those leather leggings the mannequin was wearing beneath the ominous cloak. He wondered if they were as soft as they looked...
His eyes sparked, and without hesitating another second, Sho grabbed the mannequin around the waist and picked him up. The air around him was buzzing again: confusion, anxiety...and something else. Something exciting. This time, Sho thought it was his own energy, because he was certainly worked up. Even if it was stupid, and the thing was just a mannequin-- just an inanimate object-- Sho was getting a little heated. The mannequin was so compelling to him, but it also wasn’t alive... So Sho could do whatever he wanted to it, right?
He carried the mannequin upstairs, hands gripping the narrow hips. He was being careful, Sho didn’t want to break the thing, but he wasn’t necessarily gentle either. And he dropped it rather unceremoniously on his loveseat (the apartment wasn’t large enough for a proper couch). The mannequin’s joints creaked slightly, and Sho almost thought he heard a gasp. But no, it was probably just the AC again.
Sho swallowed as he looked down at the mannequin laying on its back on his couch, legs hanging off the edge. The cloak was hiked up, and Sakurai had a better view of those leather-clad legs. Breath hitching, he ran a single finger from the seam at the ankle up the calf to just above the mannequin’s knee.
And he was getting way too hot from touching a mannequin. Sho laughed, hair falling forward as he leaned over the mannequin and shook his head. The thing’s face was frozen in the same beautiful calm as always, but Sho felt apprehension radiating from the mannequin. He could almost swear the thing was trembling, even though it wasn’t moving at all.
It’s. Not. Alive. Sakurai.
He repeated the words in his head, and refused to think anything else. He was just going to strip the damn thing and leave it in his bed for the owner and Aiba to find tomorrow. Maybe give it a cigarette to pinch between it’s molded fingers. He’d muss the hair a bit too... It would be hilarious, and harmless.
And it served the owner or Aiba right for messing with him.
Sho looked at the skintight leggings again, but decided to first unclasp the cloak and push it from the mannequin’s shoulders. Beneath it, the form was wearing a silky black shirt with the neck open and plunging down its chest. The skin tone of the carved chest was just as deliciously, milky pale as the face and neck and... Sho was quickly undoing the remaining buttons. He wanted to see just how detailed this mannequin was.
Flicking the last button open, he peeled back the shiny material to reveal a chest that did not disappoint... well sculpted muscles, rose-tinted nipples dotted by more delicate moles. Sho thought, again, what a shame it was that such beauty did not exist in the natural world.
“Ah, if only real men could be as beautiful as you,” Sho whispered to the still form beneath him-- And there was that weird feeling again! Like the memory of a soft moan. Like the memory of foreplay he’d never had. Like a memory he wished he had, as if the man beneath him was breathing shallowly and whining ever so slightly.
Sho put both hands on the mannequin’s knees, feeling the joints beneath them as he squeezed. Leaning as he went, Sho ran his hands up the legs slowly. He took his time, all the while feeling lust starting to pool beneath his stomach. His hands climbed closer to the top of the mannequin’s thighs, and Sho moved his hands to cup the mannequin’s inner thighs before they reached the juncture...So close--
“Stop! St-Stop! Please! Stop!”
Sho scrambled backwards, nearly falling over a side table. The mannequin’s lips hadn’t moved, its expression hadn’t change-- but there was not a single doubt in his mind that the mannequin had shouted at him in his mind.
“Oh my God,” Sho muttered, eyes staring wide at the mannequin. Nothing happened for a second; he didn’t hear anything, but then, slowly, the mannequin started to move.
Sho squeaked.
The mannequin sat up, creaking as his waist and legs bent, and looked quietly at Sakurai. Sho, frozen in place, didn’t move. Wanted to move. Wanted to leave. Kind of wanted to cry. But he didn’t.
“I’m sorry,” the voice was in his head again, sounding breathless and a little afraid, and Sho’s eyes got impossibly wider, “I just, I couldn’t let you... When you didn’t know what I was. I wanted you to know.”
“Know what?” Sho whispered.
“That I’m...well, I’m not exactly a normal mannequin.”
“Oh,” Sho nodded, “I see that.”