Ichigo and Rukia came to pick up Hitsugaya and Hiromi at exactly six in the morning. Drowsy, Hitsugaya made his way out of his room and met Ichigo, Rukia, and Hiromi at the pavilion.
"Why do we have to go so early?" Hitsugaya grouched as he rubbed his eyes, wishing he savored his five hours of sleep more.
"We need to get you a tuxedo and Hiromi a dress," Ichigo explained.
"What's a tuck-seedo?" Hitsugaya wondered.
"It's a dress suit," Ichigo clarified hastily.
"That's vague," Rukia commented. She turned to Hitsugaya. "Don't worry, Hitsugaya Taichou. You'll look cut-handsome in one, I know it."
"If he doesn't end up looking like he's from Blue's Clues," Ichigo muttered under his breath.
Hitsugaya was too tired to scream out his classic trademark, so he pretended not to hear.
"Well, group, let's go!" Rukia exclaimed as they stepped through the Senkaimon.
"Wait!" someone cried.
The group turned around. Matsumoto and a thrilled-looking Hisagi were heading toward them.
"We want to go, too," Matsumoto gushed. "The old man let us."
"Oh fine, fine." Ichigo waved his hand. "Let's just go already."
"This is too big," Ichigo sighed as he and Hitsugaya sifted through the sales rack. Hitsugaya needed a XXS tuxedo.
"I don't there's anything here." Hisagi rubbed his back from kneeling, looking for Hitsugaya's apparel.
"I'll go to Armani," Ichigo sighed. "Maybe something will be there."
Hitsugaya nodded. "I'll go to Ralph Lauren. It's right across from here."
"Ciao." Hisagi waved his hand as he strutted out the door after Ichigo.
Hitsugaya looked down at his sneakers and sighed. At the moment, he loathed his slender and small build. It stopped him from buying any nice suit. When he walked into stores with Ichigo and Hisagi, clerks would ask how much money the babysitting fee was. Ugh. While Hisagi got to borrow Ichigo's clothes for the trip, Hitsugaya had to wear attire that looked suspiciously like one of Karin's boyish outfits. Now it had extended to preventing him to buy a tuxedo he liked, like Hisagi had the minute they entered Calvin Klein.
Pushing back the glass double doors, Hitsugaya Nordstrom and proceeded onward to Ralph Lauren. As he stood by the entrance, he pondered over the idea of heading to the food court and getting some ice cream (a deliciously cold dessert Ichigo had introduced to him) with the money Ichigo had lent him. No, he thought. Then he set his jaw and squared his shoulders. He was doing this for Hiromi. He would not go to Kakura High's prom in Karin's reject clothing.
As soon as Hitsugaya entered Ralph Lauren, a red-lipped woman who seemed to appear out of nowhere popped up beside him. She smiled through pursed lips (or was that just a result of all the lipstick piled on?) and asked, "Can I help you find your parents, little boy?"
"I'm not a little boy!" Hitsugaya snapped. "I'm… I'm…" He knew well enough that he couldn't say that he was over a hundred years old. "I'm sixteen."
The woman sighed and shrugged her shoulders. "Like I said, all those youths nowadays are like Justin Beiber. Hitting puberty when they're twenty-one." She sighed and shook her head, as if lost in thought. Then she turned to Hitsugaya and blinked a few times, as if she had forgotten that he was there. "Right. So what do you need?"
"A tuxedo for prom."
"Wait here." The woman came and sashayed off to the men's department, her black stilettos clacking on the marble floor.
Standing there, a wave of loneliness swept over him. This was nothing unusual. He was used to the feeling. But today, something was different. A strange warmth pulsed in rhythm to his isolated emotions.
"Neh, Taichou, it's called love!" Matsumoto's voice singsonged in his head like a monotonous bell.
"So I brought a few stuff that I think you might like. Um, hello? Are you, like, listening?"
Hitsugaya snapped out of his thoughts. "Yeah. Um, where are the dressing rooms?"
"There." The woman gestured to his right, where a brass-plated sign reading Dressing Rooms hung ceremoniously from the tile-edged ceiling.
"Great. Um, thanks. You've been a great help." With that, Hitsugaya raced off.
After he claimed a dressing room, Hitsugaya laid out the woman's selections. They all looked the same to him, but after a moment's of inspection he realized that they came in slightly different cuts and styles with different details, like ruffles or buttons.
He tried all three of them on, and surprisingly, they all fit like magic. After looking at himself at the mirror from different angles, he opted for a black one (the others were dark and navy blue) with rounded lapels, a left chest pocket, and gold buttons. The dress shirt was silk, and the pants had gray pinstripes. Hitsugaya didn't see how it matched, but miraculously, it did. It made him seem taller.
He headed out the door with a white shopping bag in hand and a smile (a smile!) on his face.
"Either Matsumoto is on a sake ban or you found something!" Ichigo exclaimed when Hitsugaya walked into Armani with a big grin on his face.
"I found something."
"Well, we found you something." Ichigo handed him a gray and silver striped tie in black shopping bag and an embossed shoe box. "You're a size five, right? We got you loafers."
Hitsugaya opened the lid of the shoe box. A pair of black dress shoes lay nestled in a thin layer of tissue paper. "Thank you, Kurosaki."
"Hey." Hisagi elbowed Ichigo and Hitsugaya. "Look who's there. He motioned out the glass store window.
Rukia, Matsumoto, and Hiromi were laughing outside of Armani. They were sipping espresso lattes in recycled coffee cups and clutching paper bags with designer names stamped all over them. Hitsugaya gazed at Hiromi's shopping bags. She had a simple white SEPHORA bag in her palm, and she smiled wistfully at Matsumoto and Rukia.
Hitsugaya stared down at his belongings, at Hiromi, and at Kurosaki and Hisagi. He was privileged to have all of them with him.