Title: Tricksters
Author: Kamel
Theme: Joker
Genre: General
Version: Anime
Rating: G

Words: 570

Notes: Written for the April 1st prompt at an LJ community called smmonthly.

Saturday mornings were reserved for sleeping in, for everyone's sake, but today was an exception for half the members of the outer senshi household. Haruka quietly snuck into their adoptive daughter's bedroom where she gently shook the peacefully sleeping little girl awake. At first, out of gut reaction, Hotaru swatted away at her papa's hand. Had she not realized what day it was? Hotaru had no reason to be up this early, she did not want to wake up this early, that is, until the realization of what today was came back to her: today was the day the Western countries celebrated what they called April fools. Hotaru sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes from the sleep.

Today was their day, though Hotaru never really understood the concept – why where their fools in just April? She was pretty sure there were also fools in May and even November. It was a Western cultural thing, perhaps, and she did not want to try to make any sense of it. Today was a day were she could prank her mamas and she, nor her papa, would get in trouble. After all, it was a holiday, marked on calenders. April Fools. It gave them permission to be realistically naughty for one day; Hotaru would definitely take it.

"Is everything ready?" Hotaru murmured, stifling a yawn that was tugging at the corners of her mouth. Today was worth getting up a bit early on a Saturday for. If she had not, then she would not have been able to hear for herself her mamas' reactions and that was always the best part. Today, she would allow being awoken early to slide by, but just for today.

After taking a peek at her watch, Haruka nodded. "Setsuna-mama should be waking up and getting ready to shower right now."

"Do you think she'll have an afro?" Hotaru asked, trying to suppress a giggle caused by the mental image of the time guardian with a massive hair dilemma, but the giggles escaped. Hotaru covered her mouth with her hands as her shoulders shook slightly.

Haruka chuckled along with her as she sat down at the foot of the bed. "Maybe," she answered, fueling the child's sense of amusement. "You remembered to swap the shampoos, right?" she asked. Yes, she had left the responsibility of swapping the shampoo within the bottles to Hotaru, she had wanted to do it.

"Yup!" Hotaru nodded, thought she did not understand why Haruka had given her an extra empty bottle for – swapping the bottles had been really easy.

XX

The drastic color change of her shampoo bottle caused the time guardian to be a bit more alert this morning. What day was it? The idiotic 'holiday' had been approaching, but the date in question had slipped her mind. Bringing the bottle closer to confirm the change, Setsuna rolled her eyes before draping on her bathrobe – this was such a nuisance. Every year there was always something, a tradition between Haruka and Hotaru. Steppig into the hallway from the bathroom, Setsuna was face-to-face with a robed Michiru. The sea goddess held up the foreign to her bottle of shampoo. Setsuna shook her head as they quickly exchanged.

"They are losing their touch," Michiru remarked.

End