1999/Ye Olde Haunted Doll Gag

Ye Olde Haunted Doll Gag
Date of Scene:	13 June 2024
Location:	Dorms #1
Synopsis:	Mamoru scares the shit out of Kazuo.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Kazuo Saitou

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Mamoru Chiba has posed:
When Kazuo comes back from kendo, there is an otter scampering away from his door, and a doll tucked in the corner of that door, sitting up. It's a porcelain doll, exquisitely made, with glass eyes the perfect color -- dressed and painted like Tuxedo Kamen, fluffy perfectly-styled hair, pocket watch, perfect little gloves and all. Its head-shape is the standard-ish French style doll, but somehow it's painted to resemble Mamoru almost uncannily well. Its clothes are hand-sewn with tiny, tight little stitches, and they fit absolutely perfectly. The cape is bunched up a little behind it, presumably so that it doesn't slide on the silk into lying down. Given Cora the Otter was guarding it, it's quite possibly an inexplicable present from Coco-- or she might just be in on it. But whoever it's from, it can live with the stuffie Kunzite that Setsuna made for Kazuo, right?

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Well. An otter was guarding it.

Kazuo has never heard of Cora. That could have been any otter.

He eyes the escape sidelong, but doesn't attempt to intercept, since the otter does not stop to try to shoot him with lasers. Instead, he looks at the doll.

And looks at it.

And then digs in his bag to extract the unused towel, not the one destined for the laundry, then unlocks the door and, before opening it, warily picks the doll up.

With the towel. To avoid any actual contact.

It is carried into his room. The desk would be the perfect place to set it down, except that the desk is across the room, set under the window officially for better light and unofficially so that any Zoisites opting to come in that route have a convenient place to set their feet should they so desire. He is not putting it on his bed. Couch. The couch will work fine. The doll is set down there, folded towel beneath it so it can be scooped up again if need be (and also to provide a little friction to avoid the silk-sliding issue), and Kazuo steps back to close the door and re-lock it. Without ever taking his eyes off the doll.

... it is a couple of minutes of regarding the doll quietly, in relative privacy, before he transforms. Kunzite can read energy signatures; Kazuo cannot. If the doll is going to try to shoot him with lasers, he'd like to know.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The doll is lightweight -- delicate, with a cloth body -- and still utterly normal, porcelain presently painted painstakingly perfectly, silk and wool and cotton garments all still ridiculously carefully tailored, white gloved hands still wearing real removable gloves and everything--

--it's a doll. It's a totally normal not-at-all haunted doll. When Kazuo eventually henshins, it's... still a doll. There's some magical energy that's part of it, somehow, but it's not dark energy, it hasn't even got the ghost feeling that was associated with Mamoru's little shadow when she was still here.

It could even just be magic left over from its construction. After all, it does almost uncannily resemble Kazuo's Prince. And there was also an otter in the dorm hallway, guarding it.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Not dark energy. That's something. Or at least not ambient dark energy. Kunzite doesn't reach out to try to absorb it. He just reaches out with one hand, pulls out the desk chair, reverses it, and sits down, leaning forward against the back and letting the end of his cape pool on the floor around its legs.

And watches.

There is no convenient clock ticking. There is someone down the hall listening to K-pop very loudly, so there's more or less a way of tracking time passing.

Around twenty songs later, maybe forty-five minutes, Kunzite exhales, and when he breathes in again, he's getting up as Kazuo, pacing to the door, and momentarily disappearing. About long enough to walk down the hall and inquire whether anyone's noticed how noisy it's getting up there. The K-pop eases down to less battering levels at last before he steps back into the room.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The absolutely adorable doll still hasn't moved. Kazuo would be able to tell if a single crease were out of place. There's nothing whatsoever, no changes, nothing at all.

Just a silent room in a dormitory building full of other kids.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Okay. Doll, relabeled into the same wariness category as cafeteria food. (Look, it's an easy target to take out large percentages of the student body, but he's still got to eat something.) Kazuo glances at it again; pauses; leans and reaches to touch a fingertip to the back of the doll's gloved hand. (The unscarred one, on the real boy.) And then ruffles the doll's hair lightly with that fingertip, little enough that even a doll's will fall back into place on its own.

No. No, homework, while the cafeteria runs up to and gets through the first rush. Kazuo turns to start pulling out notebooks and arranging the desk for its secondary job.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
(It is so tempting to move when the hair gets ruffled. SO tempting to just reach up and hug the ruffling finger. But the opportunity's lost while Mamoru's still making up his mind whether or not to take advantage of it.)

The doll is carefully touched, then ruffled, and makes no indication that it is anything but a doll.

It waits. It waaaaits.

It lurks in wait on the couch until Kazuo has actually actively relaxed into doing his homework and stopped paying attention to inanimate objects.

Then it blinks. And then it turns its head to look directly at Kazuo. The sound of bisque-on-bisque sure is a sound.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
So is the sound of the chair clattering over and the "WHAT THE F--"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The doll starts to pick itself up carefully, wobbling on the soft surface, keeping its face turned toward Kazuo.

Then-- then it falls down and clacks against its own porcelain, and it laughs and laughs and laughs, and it sounds just like Mamoru--

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Kunzite, because yes, the chair clattered over from being swept with the sudden reappearance of a cape, pokes at the laughing doll. With the same finger "I am going to drop you out the window," he informs the doll, in one of the least convincing threats ever. "What did you manage to do to yourself this time?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The doll is rolllllling laughing, and gets poked, and that just makes him laugh even more, until he's gasping for breath. Hoo, hoo, hoo...

"Ahhh," he finally sighs, "it was Thetis and some other weird doll-making youma-- Puella Red is a doll right now too. Thetis was trying to catch me but I was smart and didn't go offcampus alone! And thankfully there were more people there that helped defeat her, too... including the Back Street Slasher, believe it or not--"

But then he's picking himself up again, wobbly and cute, and he reaches his arms up. "My lets are short, pick me up!"

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"Well." Kunzite narrows eyes down at the doll, then sighs. Theatrically. "I suppose if you didn't go offcampus alone..."

The temptation to set the doll on his shoulders is strong. So strong. But ... porcelain. Instead he picks the doll up in the crook of an arm, cape over cape, and rights the chair so he can settle back down in it, where the doll has the option to go perch on the less slippery desk if it's so chosen.

"I am not taking you down to the cafeteria like this," he informs the doll. Because clearly that's the most important problem at hand.