Title: A Day At The Beach Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tenkou, Kijin, Byakko, Tsuzuki, Rikugou, SohRyu, Genbu (Suzaku mentioned)
Prompt: 051. Water.
Word Count: 624.
Rating: G Summary: Tsuzuki wants his shiki to spend more time together, so he decided to take them to the beach. Unfortunately it isn't working out exactly as planned.
Author's Notes: Should I have posted this for Summer instead? But I'm already using SohRyu for Blue. ... Now what else could I do about Summer?

Why in the world Tsuzuki had insisted on going to the beach Touda had no idea. Okay, so the sun was burning down heating up the sand offering the best sunbath he'd had in centuries, but what good did that do, if he wasn't left in peace to enjoy it.

"Come on, play with us!" Tenkou pulled on his tail tip.

"Play what?" Maybe they'd let him sunbathe if he could claim the children had exhausted him?

"Pearl divers and pirates." Kijin stated as if that were obvious.

Divers didn't sound too good to Touda. "How do you play that?"

"Well, the pearl divers dive and bring up stones or seashells or whatever they find down there and when they come back up the pirates attack them and try to wrestle away the pearls before they reach the land," Tenkou explained excitedly. "It's great fun."

"No." Touda shook his head. "No way. You're just looking for an excuse to dunk me and splash me all wet."

"We could play water-ball." Byakko suggested. "You don't have to put your head under water for that."

The tiger liked splashing about as long as he could still breathe freely.

"I'd still get splashed." Touda frowned.

"Then lets just swim a bit." Tsuzuki suggested. "The water looks wonderfully cool."

Touda shuddered. "Too wet. I don't do wet well."

Tsuzuki blinked at him. "Huh? But I thought ... Isn't Byakko the one who's supposed to be water-shy?"

"No, that's house cats," Kijin 'supplied. "Tigers like bathing."

"And serpents don't?" Tsuzuki guessed.

"That depends," Rikugou answered. "I don't think this has anything to do with his form, though. Why do you think Suzaku volunteered to stay home and supervise the city? Fire shiki only like water for drinking. And salt water isn't drinkable."

"It cancels their powers," SohRyu said smugly.

"Not mine," Touda stated. "Not completely. Hellfire's much too strong."

"Want to test that hypothesis?" SohRyu challenged and Tsuzuki quickly stepped between the two.

"Now, now, we didn't come here to fight," he chided. "Are you sure you don't want to cool down a little on such a hot day?" he coaxed Touda. "I promise you won't need your powers today."

"Absolutely sure," Touda grumbled. "The temperature's fine with me. I'd be perfectly happy, if you weren't all dead set on spoiling my chance to enjoy it."

"Huh?" made Tenkou.

"Oh! Sorry," said Kijin.

"But if you don't want to swim, how can you enjoy the heat?" Tsuzuki asked.

"He means it, Tsuzuki," Kijin explained. "He likes heat. Snakes love baking in the sun and fire snakes doubly so."

Tsuzuki's face fell. "Oh, and I thought for once we could all do something together."

Genbu shook his head. "That won't work. We're just too different. The rest of us can go swimming, though and Touda will be just as happy alone on the beach."

Tsuzuki sighed but complied. This wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind. He'd hoped that, if he got them to play together, Touda would learn to feel more at home with the others and in time even befriend them, but forcing him into something he didn't enjoy was probably not a good start.

Maybe he'd have better luck with a camping trip? Certainly Touda would enjoy sitting together around a nice campfire. He'd try that next time he decided before running into the water after the others.

Five minutes later his worries about the serpent were forgotten as he was engaged in a heated water fight with Byakko.

Touda could hear the laughter and squealing from a distance, but was much too content right where he was to check what was going on behind him. It was indeed a perfect day as far as he was concerned.