Drip, drop. Drip, drop. Drip, drop.
Akeno was breathing heavily as she glanced around at her surroundings. There were so many fragile dolls that were now in pieces. The cloth ones were dismembered with the cotton strewn about everywhere, the plastic ones had caved in a little and was starting to wear down and the houses that once owned these dolls were broken into planks. But the ones that were the most unrecognizable were the porcelain dolls; the ones made out of clay and only existed to be displayed. No one really played with the porcelain dolls otherwise they would break. She glanced down at the now damaged baseball bat clenched tightly inside her left hand. Akeno needed this feeling, the rush of doing something horrible like breaking things.
Her need really began when her mother and father began to fight. At the time, Akeno really didnât know that her father wasnât really her father. He was just another puppet for her mother to have; arm candy that existed only to be displayed for the world to see.
âMy husband is actually a physical therapist. Yes, Kouta is a very stable husband to be around indeed. Oh, and our little Akeno is passing all of her classes and getting along just well with her classmates. Hopefully, sheâll become a fine young lady~â
Her mother would say such honeyed words to the public around her. Her friends werenât truly aware of just how meaningless they really were to her. In reality, her mother was selfish. Akeno wouldnât come to learn about the depths of her selfishness until she turned 16 and the truth came out. Or at least, Akeno had solid proof to show how awful her mother was. Even when she was younger, Akeno felt as though her mother wasnât exactly the nicest person.
While she didnât beat her or emotionally scar her, Akeno was still denied all of the pleasures that life had to offer her. She wasnât really allowed to eat any sort of junk food. After all, âonly the best foods can be consumed by my little girl and what better food than Mommyâs cooking?â While Akeno was sad at the time because of her friends getting to eat yummy chocolates or delicious sweets, she now considers herself lucky that her mother didnât just inject the nutrients in her body.
Akeno also wasnât allowed to be friends with certain people like boys. She was never really given a straight answer but was told simply that âboys will only be cruel to girls like you.â As such, Akeno grew to be afraid of boys since she was six up until she was ten. She was denied electronics, video games and any sort of virtual fun. âYou can have fun doing other things like reading and writing~â While Akeno did read a lot, it wasnât really that fun and Akeno wanted to just once be able to play a video game with her friends, but of course her mother refused that for her as well.
While all of those things confused her back then, it was crystal clear to her now that the only reason why Akeno was denied those things was to make a good impression for the neighbors. Her mother can show her off as a beautiful doll of a daughter; untouched by any sort of evils in the world and practically perfect in almost every single way. Akeno didnât want that kind of life. She just wanted to have friends and have some fun in her life for once.
Her father had picked up on the signs though. He knew that Akeno wasnât exactly happy with the way her mother was treating her so he took Akeno to a small room that she would sing with other people when she was ten years old. When she got there, Akeno was a little apprehensive. There were quite a few adults that she hadnât seen before and that made Akeno very nervous but there were other kids her age that were really kind to her. There were even a few boys that treated her really well. As such, Akeno was happy to be in a little safe heaven where she could be herself. She could be a happy go lucky girl with a bright smile that enjoyed singing her heart out to other people. She was free to snack on pizza that the other parents brought on important days like birthdays and celebrating a giant victory like winning a championship or performing in important areas. Her father was still a little apprehensive to show her the rest of the world but at the time, Akeno didnât care. She was just happy to have something that she could call her own; she was following her own beliefs and not her motherâs.
Of course, in order to maintain that happy place, when Akeno was at school or at home, she had to bring back straight Aâs on her report card. Otherwise, her mother might get suspicious, dig into what Akeno is doing other than her studies and find out that âfather and daughter bondingâ time was spent on doing something that guaranteed no secure future and was just a fruitless hobby at best. So Akeno had to work day and night on homework or read if there was no homework, keep on top of her classes and go on to college where she can get a job, find a nice man, marry him, bear perfect little children and live a happy little life doing the exact same shit to her children.
If Akeno was being honest with herself, the idea of doing that sickened her. She wanted to go perform on the stage. She wanted the crowd to cheer her name as she and some of her other friends from the choir practice would join her in a band. She was unquestionably the lead vocalist while another girl would take the second lead vocalist. One of the boys would take on guitar and piano while the other boy would take on drums. They never quite figured out a name for themselves but they knew they were going to be something the second they graduated high school. Akeno was completely excited for the idea. She would explore the world and discover all the things her mother never allowed her to do. Or she would have if someone didnât record her performing with her choir friends and post it on the internet.
When her mother found out, she was livid. She yelled at Akeno and her father, saying how foolish they were for doing something so completely idiotic behind her back. Akeno just shut her eyes. She was all too used to hearing her mother and father fight when the night passed on. She had nothing to say. She knew she had messed up and her father was getting increasingly angrier at his wife. Work was piling up more and more and her mother was demanding more from him to ensure her financial future. Then, the news hit. In a moment of rage, her mother confessed that her father wasnât actually her father. Akeno almost couldnât believe what she was hearing. The dam broke further when her mother confessed that she was cheating on her father with the real man that fathered her. Akeno was trying to comprehend the situation when she felt her air get cut off and her head getting hit with something hard. An unfamiliar man came in to save Akeno but by that time, she blacked out.
After she blacked out, Akeno got the news that she was hit pretty hard and suffered some trauma and it was uncertain if she was ever going to talk let alone sing again. When Akeno tried to speak, all that came out was incomprehensible noises. It was a nightmare. It was a horrible, horrible nightmare that Akeno needed to wake up from. Her father was her father and her mother and him were going to get divorced and Akeno would live happily with her father and succeed in her dream to form a band with her choir friends. It was only when Akeno sat in court to watch her father get sentenced to ten years in prison for almost killing her.
Throughout the trial, Akeno never held anything against her father. She was struggling with the news as well. How could someone lie about who her parents were for 16 years? Apparently, her mother figured out a way how to do it and showed no remorse for playing with her father like he was her second favorite doll. Two years later, her mother married the man who birthed Akeno (Akeno still refuses to call the man who birthed her âfatherâ. She knew damn well who her father was.) and forbid Akeno from any contact with her father. She withdrew her from public school to homeschool her. Well, her mother called it âhomeschoolingâ but it was reinforcing Akeno of the belief that she was just a doll and needed to be absolutely perfect to make a good impression for her mother and the man who birthed her.
For four years, Akeno had fury building up inside of her. The rage that coursed through her body couldnât easily be satiated and she only started to mutilate and destroy dolls a month ago, to try and calm down. So far, it was working. In a twisted way, it was almost self-harm. Akeno was seen as the perfect little doll that her mother could show off to see how perfect the family was. By breaking the dolls, Akeno was breaking the perfect illusion and allowing the real girl with unending rage, stolen passion, agonized screaming and fragile mindset to break free. She hated everything that her mother did to her. She hated being locked away from the real world, she hated not experiencing bad things and good things for herself to form conclusions for herself, she hated having the one thing that made Akeno herself stolen and she hated that she was never allowed to see her father again lest she somehow trigger him into a rage.
Drip, drop. Drip, drop. Drip, drop.
Tears were rolling down Akenoâs cheeks now as the memories rushed back inside. She growled angrily and looked at one of the many full body mirrors. It showed her for who she was; a husk of a girl that was deprived of any form of being due to the selfish wishes of her mother. She scowled at her own reflection.
âI-I h-ha-ate y-yo-youâŠâAkeno winced at her own words, not because of what she said but because of the stutters that got out in order for her to say it. She was teaching herself how to talk again but she still couldnât really say words without a stutter. She hated that she didnât have the strength to even speak correctly yet. She wanted her voice back. She wanted her friends back. She wanted her father back. She wanted her life back! A primal scream escaped the broken girl as she started to hit the ground with the baseball bat. She was taking out her rage on an invisible target that could never feel even a single iota of pain she felt. After a few more hits, the only sound that remained after the clutter of the baseball bat hitting the ground were the tears that hit the floor with it.
Akeno didnât have much hope for the future at all, or at least, she didnât have hope for a future that wasnât predetermined and approved by her mother. Any dorm mates she found either babied her because of her accursed naivete to the world around her, ignored her because of said naivete or just kept neutral ground with her. She didnât want any of it and she hated that her mother denied her the chance to ever truly be normal. That was all she wanted; to be normal. She wanted to have dreams, she wanted to do bad things once in a while, she wanted to make lasting friends like the ones she had in choir, she wanted to fall in love with a man she cared about, she wanted to do a job that seemed like fun for her; all of these things were things she felt she could never achieve and all that was left was the bitter taste of what could have been.
Akenoâs thoughts were cut off when she heard a small jingle come from her cell phone. She checked her phone only to realize it was the alert for her to go. It was nearing four in the morning and Akeno quickly got out her plastic garbage bag and gathered the broken dolls inside it, tying the bag to keep it nice and steady. Akeno then looked at the area on the hard wood floor that she had beaten. To her relief, nothing was damaged. She took a glance back at the choir room of St. Gabrielâs with small tears in her eyes before sneaking out of the window and closing it. She then threw the trash bag into a nearby dumpster and took a deep breath to calm herself down.
No one wanted to deal with the real Akeno, not at this early in the morning. So, when she got back to the dorm, she put on her normal and happy go lucky mask. Noa was still asleep and Akeno felt relief knowing that Noa still didnât catch on to her destructive habits. Still, maybe one day someone would discover the real Akeno. Maybe someone would try to reach out to her and give her some sense of an identity for her to grasp on to. That day was not today, nor would it be tomorrow though. As far as Akeno was concerned, she felt the idea was just a simple pipe dream. It would never happen at the moment. With that last bleak thought, Akeno closed her eyes to take a small nap. Tomorrow, she would remain innocent to the world. Tomorrow, she would still go to school and get good grades. Tomorrow, she would still be babied or ignored. Tomorrow, she would still not be allowed to see her father. Tomorrow, she would still be made of porcelain rather than flesh and blood.