Ever since dying and receiving some measure of freedom, Kurosaki Hisoka had had his morning routines. He maintained firmly that morning was the most important part of the day. When he wasn’t able to go about his usual morning routines, it threw his whole day off.
Generally speaking, this happened while he and Tsuzuki were staying on Chijou for some mission or another. He needed no alarm clock, and woke up with the sun every morning. But he didn’t sleep well in strange surroundings, and after hours of tossing and turning, it was much harder to extract himself from the blankets.
He had woke up many a morning in the same room as Tsuzuki, in some cramped hotel that Tatsumi’s meager budget barely paid for, and he had long ago noted that the reason Tsuzuki was so disorganized was clearly because he had no morning routines. Sometimes Tsuzuki was up before Hisoka; sometimes Hisoka was unsure he had ever even gone to bed. At other times, he slept until the very last minute possible before falling out of bed, into his clothes, and out the doorway.
Hisoka disapproved of this with intensity.
The early morning hours were the best hours of the day, in his opinion. He was up with the sun, and had time for a leisurely bath and breakfast. It helped relax him, calm him after what was often a night filled with horrible dreams. He walked to work while there was still mist on the ground and the air was silent.
The only person that beat him to the office was Tatsumi, although Watari was sometimes there because he had worked overnight. Hisoka did not drink the office coffee (for obvious reasons), but being there so early enabled him to get another strong mug of tea ready before anyone arrived. He organized his paperwork, and sometimes tried to organize Tsuzuki’s, although this was usually a lost cause.
It was in this way that he put himself in the proper frame of mind to deal with whatever the day brought.
He wondered sometimes, having seen Tsuzuki’s non-routine in the hotel rooms, if the older Shinigami had any sort of routine on his own. He suspected not, but Tsuzuki was so hard to read, so hard to predict.
About three weeks after the incidents in Kyoto, Hisoka found himself sleeping on Tsuzuki’s sofa. He wasn’t sure exactly how it had happened. He had wandered over after dinner to check on Tsuzuki, who had just been released from the hospital. Tsuzuki had just gotten dinner, and had talked Hisoka into staying (mostly due to the fact that he had not cooked it personally).
They had talked for a while, and it had gotten late, and Hisoka had been yawning wide enough to split his face. He had not been particularly anxious to go home, and after some blushing on both their parts, eventually it had been agreed that he would sleep on the couch. It was a restless night, and he had to forcibly quell the urge to go crawl into Tsuzuki’s bed on a couple of occasions. They had been close in the hospital; it was odd now to stare at the ceiling and think of Tsuzuki, sleeping on the floor above him.
After some tossing, some turning, some hot milk tea, and some more tossing and turning, Hisoka eventually fell into a restless sleep. He woke around dawn the next morning as he always did, feeling like he hadn’t slept at all. He got out of bed and began to engage in his morning routines. Permission to use the bathtub and the kitchen had already been obtained before they had gone to sleep, but Hisoka felt strange, tip-toeing around Tsuzuki’s house and belongings. He knew that his partner wasn’t going to be up for several hours, so he wasn’t worried, but it was still awkward.
He always bathed in the morning; it helped relax his muscles and clear his mind. But Tsuzuki had a Western-style bathroom with only a shower, and Hisoka scowled as he entered. His morning karma was already being disturbed. The shower he took was quick, and he wondered what it would be like to wake up at Tsuzuki’s every morning. He felt like a stranger in the house, but it was strange to think about how things could be different. He could picture his towel hanging next to Tsuzuki’s, his toothbrush in the same cup.
Hisoka shook the thoughts off as romantic, sappy, and above all else, impractical. There was no point in daydreaming.
He went into the kitchen after he finished toweling his hair dry, fully dressed and looking (if not entirely feeling) ready for the day. He made rice and miso, because he didn’t feel comfortable rooting around in Tsuzuki’s kitchen, but those two things were easy to find. He made enough for two, and covered Tsuzuki’s portion. He did not seriously expect the other Shinigami would eat it; as far as Hisoka could tell, the only breakfast he ever ate were the donuts that sometimes got brought into the office. But still, since he had made it in Tsuzuki’s kitchen, with Tsuzuki’s food, it would have been quite rude to only make enough for himself.
He ate quickly and had two strong cups of tea. Then he checked his watch. It was just after seven thirty. Normally, at this point he would have walked to the office. Tsuzuki lived closer than he did, but it was a nice morning, and a leisurely pace would get him there at eight o’clock, a full hour before most of the others would arrive.
Since he had stayed at Tsuzuki’s house, however, he knew he should stay until Tsuzuki was ready to leave. To do otherwise would be impolite. So Hisoka glanced diffidently through Tsuzuki’s book collection and settled down to read until Tsuzuki was ready to leave.
He got absorbed in the book quickly, and jumped a little when he glanced at his watch and saw that it was half past eight. They had to leave in fifteen minutes if they wanted to be on time to work. Surely Tsuzuki was awake by now . . .?
He tilted his head slightly, listening for signs of life. There was no noise from upstairs. Hisoka sighed heavily and decided to give him five more minutes. Tsuzuki could get ready – and had, on many an occasion – in five minutes or less, but it had a tendency to make him very flustered, and thus fluster Hisoka.
After a few moments, though, he realized he could no longer concentrate on the book. He shelved it neatly and went upstairs. Tsuzuki was still sound asleep, the blankets everywhere, but Tsuzuki curled near the center. Hisoka sighed and leaned over him. “Tsuzuki,” he said, shaking him gently. “Tsuzuki, wake up. We’ll be late to work. Wake up.”
One purple eye opened and blinked at him fuzzily. “Hmmmph?” Tsuzuki managed.
Hisoka was feeling impatient. “Work. Get up.”
“Unngg,” Tsuzuki replied eloquently, and rolled over onto his side.
Hisoka leaned over him, one knee on the mattress now. “Tsuzuki! We’re going to be late, and I refuse to be late to work because of you. Get up, or else I’ll leave you here to oversleep and Tatsumi-san will dock your pay.”
“Uhh . . . ‘kay . . .” Tsuzuki reached up and grasped Hisoka’s wrist, and the next thing the scandalized teenager knew, he had been pulled down onto the bed and was resting quite firmly against Tsuzuki’s chest, his cheeks a bright crimson color.
“Tsu – wha – you – ” Hisoka stammered unintelligibly for a few moments.
Tsuzuki yawned and pulled Hisoka closer against him, his eyes closed as he fell back to sleep quite rapidly. Hisoka doubted he had really been awake at all. He started to protest, but he knew that waking Tsuzuki up was a lost cause. He would just extract himself, go to work alone, and make some sort of excuse to Tatsumi for being late. He was fairly sure Tatsumi would accept ‘I was late because I was trying to deal with Tsuzuki’s idiocy’ as a valid excuse. Hisoka wondered off-handedly if Tatsumi had ever had to use that excuse himself while he was Tsuzuki’s partner.
Hisoka sighed and began to get up, but Tsuzuki’s arm wrapped around his waist and he found himself quite thoroughly trapped. He blinked at the older Shinigami for a few moments, wondering if he was really asleep.
He tried to disentangle himself, but Tsuzuki just held him tighter, like an oversized teddy bear, and after a few moments he subsided.
This really was not in his morning schedule.
Still, he was tired. He had not gotten much rest. It wouldn’t do any harm to wait for a few moments, to relax. Tsuzuki would fall deeper into sleep and release his hold if he was patient.
And if he was going to wait and relax, it wouldn’t hurt to shut his eyes. He did so, resting his cheek against Tsuzuki’s chest. He felt warm and comfortable, and the rise and fall of Tsuzuki’s breath was comforting.
It wouldn’t hurt to relax for just a few minutes.
As Hisoka slid back into sleep, he was aware that he had thoroughly ruined his morning routine, but he found a small, irrational part of his brain hoping that perhaps this could become a part of it.