Death Trio's Day Off (Yami no Matsuei)

[1]

Hisoka found himself exploring a beach in light blue pants, a thin shirt under a sweater and sneakers. A nice break from their hectic schedule and continual cases at the office. He found himself having fun, not at all intruding in Tsuzuki and Ruka's yearly vacation time. In fact, Ruka and Tsuzuki insisted on accompanying them a month in advance. This gave plenty of time to complete their work in a timely fashion, leaving their sector without worrying about their jobs.

As he stared back at the Tsuzuki siblings, they finished an order of fried pastries they bought at a nearby stand. Tsuzuki wore an unbuttoned shirt, green swim trunks, sunglasses, and sandals. Ruka dressed in a sundress which reached her knees, a tan sunhat, and wedges. From the sight of the young women, he saw earlier, he thought she would go out in a swimsuit.

He regretted commenting on it when Tsuzuki teased him on trying to see his sister in a swimsuit. Ruka concealed a laugh, but Hisoka caught the amused waves coming off of her. Ruka and Tsuzuki enjoyed teasing him but stopped at a respectable limit. Sometimes.

At some point during their walk, Ruka placed her sunhat on top of his head to block away the sun. He tried returning it, but Ruka waved it off, explaining how the sun didn't affect her too much, she wore it to complete her outfit. Without shame, Hisoka continued on wearing it. His sensitivity to hot weather couldn't be ignored because he disliked wearing a sunhat.

All in all, their first day on vacation passed, no issues came up to ruin their day. Ruka snapped various photos of everything and themselves with her new camera. She managed to get the locals to take pictures of the three of them together in front of different places.

Tsuzuki bought too many cones for him to eat and handed one to Ruka. She accepted, licking the sweet flavor with delight. He tried giving one to Hisoka, but he declined his offer. Hisoka found his unsweetened iced tea more than enough to cool him down. As he walked in between the animated Tsuzuki siblings, he felt himself relax from the sounds of their voices.

Their soothing auras blocked away the mashups of people walking through the nearby perimeter. His settlement between the both of them gave him a proper shield against anything.

Once the sun started to set, Hisoka placed the sunhat back onto Ruka's head. "It's not too hot anymore. Thank you for lending it to me."

"No problem!" Ruka reached up her hands and smoothed down his hair. Hisoka flinched from the sudden contact. Ruka explained with a small smile. "Hat hair."

"Oh."

Tsuzuki finished the last crumble of his ice cream cones and declared. "I'm going to get boba tea! I'll be right back."

Ruka told him. "Hurry back! We still haven't explored the less populated areas of the beach." She licked her ice cream and inspected the area. "Where should we wait for him, Kurosaki-san?"

Hisoka shrugged his shoulders. "I vote for staying put."

Tsuzuki returned a few minutes later, a large boba tea in his hand. "I'm back!" He lifted his sunglasses on the top of his head and sighed. "They didn't have a bigger size."

Ruka shook her head. "Asato, you need to slow down on eating so much. What about dinner?" Tsuzuki's horrified face brought a chuckle out of Ruka, Hisoka rubbed his temples. "Anyway, we can built up an appetite through continuing our walk. I don't think we will encounter anything weird, there's not a lot of people."

They resumed on the concrete path until transitioning onto the sand. Tsuzuki cared little about sand getting in between his toes while Hisoka took care in where he stepped. Ruka removed her wedges and slipped them into her bag. She took out her camera and snapped photos of the scenery. Balancing her ice cream and the camera wasn't much of an issue.

"Let's take a photo right here." Ruka pointed to the palm tree in front of the crisp blue ocean. "I'll ask someone to take it for us, stay right here." She spotted a young man walking past their area and she hurried up to him. Holding her ice cream cone, she handed him the camera, asking him to take a picture of them. He agreed without much fuss.

Standing in front of a fallen palm tree, Tsuzuki stood to Ruka's right side, Ruka in the middle, and Hisoka on her left. The civilian held up the camera, waiting for the camera to focus before alerting them of pressing the button. Once he alerted them on taking the photo, Ruka almost bounced to him and received her camera. Handing her ice cream to her brother, she grabbed her carrying case from her bag.

Hisoka noticed Tsuzuki taking a bite of Ruka's ice cream. Tsuzuki placed a finger against his lips to silence him. Rolling his eyes, he turned his attention toward the ocean.

"We need to make copies of every single one of these pictures." Ruka shuffled her camera back into the carrying case. "One set for the album and the other to show others."

Tsuzuki snickered, nuzzling his cheek against Ruka's face. He hid the ice cream from her sight before she caught his nibble. "You'll embarrass my partner with such comments Ruka." His comment caught Hisoka's attention, winking at him, Hisoka turned bright red. "I have to agree with you though, we should pin his pictures against the bulletin board."

Flustered, Hisoka snapped at Tsuzuki. "Don't you dare! I'm not having the others see pictures of me,"

In his old life, his family limited photo taking, even worse after his gift surfaced. He didn't remember ever seeing a baby picture of himself in his parent's possessions. He grew used to seeing little to no photos of himself where his last photo ended up becoming his funeral portrait.

Ruka assured him. "Kurosaki-san, we won't do anything that will make you uncomfortable." She gave her brother a playful pinch and motioned to the ice cream in his hand, "We tend to keep our photos in family albums. Back then, we had no funds to pay for portraits, those were for the rich, so we're making up for it. We'll show your photos with your expressed permission."

Tsuzuki piped up. "We have almost one hundred years' worth of family photos and videos! Ruka keeps them in her apartment." He stopped trying to hide the cone and started eating it.

Hisoka furrowed his brows. "I'm not a part of your family though."

Ruka tilted her head. "Who said that? You're an honorary Tsuzuki. The Summons Section is our family."

Tsuzuki agreed. "Yup! The moment you became a guardian, we welcomed you into the flock. You'll always have us to look after you."

Hisoka hunched his shoulders, a thrilling sense of happiness coursed through him. Without using his gift, he believed in their sincerity. They never gave him a reason to doubt their words. "Ah...well...then I'll take the copies of this trip then."

"Excellent." Ruka curled a hand around Hisoka's arm, she propped her shields before making contact. "C'mon, we're going to eat dinner. Buffet style. Asato only had five ice cream cones, four boba teas, and a box of pastries for today."

Tsuzuki huffed. "Everything looked delicious!" He went on ahead and grinned. "I found this amazing restaurant throughout our walk. The menu was mouthwatering. I'll lead you there!"

Hisoka and Ruka followed behind him. Hearing him retell the numerous items on the menu and an eating challenge advertised at the front end. "We're going to get stares from all the food he's going to eat." He gazed down at Ruka. "How do you manage to feed him?"

Ruka placed her finger under her chin. "Hmm...I have no clue. It helps that I cook huge portions and he ends up with leftovers for lunch. When we were alive, we had to grow our own vegetables, but his appetite wasn't this big."

"I see." Hisoka glared at Tsuzuki's back. "He's paying for his portion."