'If I ever get out of this, there will surely be Hell to pay.'
Hisoka adjusted the big, red bow tying a bonnet down onto his head. The two little terrors who served as twin shinigami had caught up with him again, and they had been anything but merciful. The dress into which he had been forced was a sickeningly sweet, pastel pink confection. Little yellow ribbons threaded around the cuffs of the ridiculously lacy sleeves, and someone had managed to find a pair of shiny white shoes.
He looked like a doll. Or rather, he would have looked like a doll if not for the murderous twist in his frown and the flickering exasperation in his unnaturally emerald eyes.
"You look so cute; you really do!"
"He'll love it!"
"I don't doubt it," Hisoka snapped back, forcing a pair of delicate white gloves over his slender hands. "I look like a goddamned cake."
"A very pretty cake, at that," Watari appeared in the doorway of the office turned makeshift dressing-room. "Bon, I think your, uh, skirt might be askew."
Before Hisoka could react, the doctor had grabbed a hold on the twins' frilly masterpiece and twisted it into its proper place on the 'teenage' shinigami's hips. Still not fond of physical contact--even years after the rape that had led to his death--Hisoka pulled back, offering Watari a "no nonsense" warning glare worthy of Tatsumi.
Looking down, the empath could see that Watari's adjustment had indeed made the dress fit his frame better. He could even feel the difference.
"If you don't mind my asking, Bon—"
"I do."
"—Why are you even wearing a dress? Not of course, that I mind, but don't you detest—"
"It's Tsuzuki's birthday," Hisoka explained flatly. "And this was not my idea, but those two already told him I had agreed to wear this..." He glared at Yuma and Saya, "when I hadn't."
Watari chuckled. "Oh, I see."
Hisoka frowned, "Don't you dare start laughing, or you'll be dressing in drag too, doctor."
The other shinigami was in no way fazed. Hisoka's tone could certainly be quite frightening, but to a man who wanted to become a woman, this threat held very little water. "That's fine! I've been thinking about wearing a dress soon, anyway… So when's the party?"
"What party?!"
"If Tsuzuki's actually going to celebrate his birthday party this year—even though… we are dead, so it's sort of a moot celebration—I assume there's going to be a party."
"And yet, there's not," Hisoka retorted, grinning as Watari's face fell. "As you pointed out, a birthday's a moot celebration here. This is just an excuse to celebrate Tsuzuki not plunging Tatsumi's budget even deeper into the bowels of Hell."
'And to cheer him up…'
The last case they had worked on had all the signs of Muraki's handiwork, especially in the area of magical curses, and it had not ended well. Muraki had been careful to leave no tracks by which Hisoka and Tsuzuki could follow him. The victims' souls were still missing; all of them were young school girls, reputedly with bright futures ahead of them.
It was obvious that Muraki was bating them both, but with Tsuzuki's internalization of the guilt for the girls' unresolved murders, the violet-eyed shinigami had been left in an unpleasant frame of mind recently.
"Bon? Bon, you're thinking heavily again, aren't you." It was not really a question, and as such, Hisoka did not feel the need to reply. He only lifted a hand to the bonnet, tilting it a little, and a managed a half-hearted—if that—twirl in the mirror before marching out the office door to hunt down his ridiculous partner.
'Tsuzuki had better appreciate this…'