Chapter Text
Shizuo ends up barely having time to do any babysitting while Kasuka is home. The girls alternate between watching him from a safe distance just out of arm’s reach and bombarding him with every question under the sun. Not to mention playing princess and dragon—Kasuka spends half of Sunday doing his homework while occasionally asking brave knights Mairu and Kururi to save him from increasingly unlikely kidnappings. Shizuo barely has time for half of the activities on Izaya’s schedule.
He tries to send Izaya a couple of updates, the girls are having fun and Kasuka says he did well on his test and you okay? But he never receives a response. The messages don’t even say that they’ve been read. Probably that just means Izaya has his phone off, or something. Maybe he left it behind so it wouldn’t distract him. There are a thousand innocent explanations that don’t imply Izaya dead in an alley somewhere while Shizuo twiddles his thumbs and sends unread texts.
There’s nothing Shizuo can do about it. He has to have faith in Izaya.
He gets the girls ready for bed and grabs one of their picture books, and he’s quickly shooed to the center of the bed so they can curl up on either side of him.
Shizuo lets them get comfortable, occasionally elbowing him while they wiggle around. He’s trying not to disturb them as they settle in. They’re wearing cute little onesies and murmuring in excitement over their picture book, while Shizuo tries not to bump them too hard, hyperaware of how fragile their little bones are next to him.
He can almost imagine the Orihara family’s usual bedtime routine, the twins snuggled around Izaya while his voice comes clear and soft over the words of a children’s rhyme. In his mind they’re comfortable and safe, tucked away in a moment alone that someone like Shizuo has no part in.
But Shizuo’s here now, for a couple of stolen days. Mairu traces the pages from his left and Kururi leans into him on the right. He starts on the first sentence.
He reads quietly to the twins as they start to droop, and their little hands relax around his sleeves. They cling even in their sleep, shuffling close and leaning into him like he’s a part of their comfortable nest. Kururi lets out a quiet buzz of a snore and shifts to be more directly in Shizuo’s lap.
Even though they’re completely asleep, Shizuo keeps reading to the end of the book. He lets one hand drop to delicately stroke Kururi’s hair between pages. It’s silky-soft and fine under his fingers. He doesn’t think he’s ever touched something so fragile and for a wild moment he can’t understand how Izaya can pry himself away even for a second.
But it’s for the twins that Izaya is out there right now. The whole complex web of deals and understandings that constitutes Izaya’s criminal history is built on how much he loves these two kids. It’s impossible to understand, but Shizuo feels like he gets it, here and now. How two little lights can make a world of darkness worth facing.
Maybe after this, Shizuo can try to take Kasuka somewhere. Or even stay in, just doing something together. They used to do movie nights all the time, but it’s been years since the last one, hasn’t it? Even if it’s just the two of them, it would be nice to do something as a family.
Shizuo is quietly extracting himself from the girls when his thoughts are dispelled by the sound of the front door.
Immediately, adrenaline pulses through him. Kasuka is already inside, Izaya isn’t coming back until tomorrow, and no one else should have the key. He closes the girls’ door quietly, hoping it will be enough to muffle any confrontation. He’d hate it if they woke up to see something violent.
Shizuo moves quietly down the hall, his socks silent against the floorboards. Kasuka is in his room, the light is on and the door is closed. Someone is moving through the living room with light steps. He can’t see her face from the shadows of the hall, but it looks like a young woman who just came in from a night out—her skirt is short, her tights under it are dark, and she’s in a tight-fitting blouse that shows off more than it conceals.
Shizuo relaxes. Probably not a robber, then. Maybe he left the door unlocked and she just came into the wrong house by mistake…?
He steps into the living room, clearing his throat, and she jumps.
“Oh! Shizu-chan, you could have given me a heart attack,” Izaya complains, putting a hand to his chest.
It is certainly Izaya, Shizuo would know his face and his voice anywhere, even if the former looks softer than usual and the latter is higher and lighter. Izaya coughs a little and returns to his normal register.
“That is, hi, Shizu-chan. I trust the girls have been angels while I was out?”
Shizuo is still reeling from Izaya is crossdressing? He’s done something to give himself the illusion of breasts, and he somehow looks even shorter and smaller than usual, almost delicate. He’s wearing makeup for sure. His lips are redder and shine with gloss, and his eyes look bigger and softer, lacking the keen edge that follows Izaya everywhere he goes.
Try as he might, Shizuo cannot see a single thing that breaks the illusion of a pretty young woman in front of him.
“What did you…?” he gestures helplessly at all of Izaya.
Izaya looks down and seems to realize that he still looks like a completely different person.
“What, all this? Trade secret.” He gives Shizuo a secretive little smile. “Just gives me a bit of an edge over people who are looking for Izaya and not Kanra. I told you they wouldn’t see me coming.”
“So you got home early? You got everything you needed?” Shizuo grasps at the part that’s easiest to understand.
Izaya grins. “More than. They sang like canaries, I barely had to work for it.”
Shizuo breathes a sigh of relief. He has the urge to give Izaya a hug, which he immediately squashes. “I’m glad,” he says instead.
“You’ll be gladder once you hear what I’ve found, but that’ll have to wait until tomorrow. I’m starving.” Izaya throws his purse on the couch and pads into the kitchen. Shizuo follows, walking in to him rifling through the freezer.
“So, what havoc did Mairu and Kururi wreak while I was out? Did they manage to get glitter on all of their clothes?” Izaya asks idly as he upends a bag of dino chicken nuggets onto a plate. “Just kidding. I’m not stupid enough to keep glitter in the house. Not after last time.”
“No, they were great—are you eating chicken nuggets for dinner?” Shizuo asks.
“I’m hungry,” Izaya repeats. “I’ll make real food tomorrow or something.”
With what groceries? Shizuo doesn’t ask. A weekend at Izaya’s house was more than enough to discover that they don’t have much besides childhood staples and easy snacks. Just a bag of frozen vegetables that’s been in the freezer presumably since the dawn of time, and maybe some rice or something.
Still, Shizuo can’t just let Izaya eat chicken nuggets and call it a day. “Let me make you something.”
Izaya huffs a laugh, moving to put the plate into the microwave, but Shizuo stops him with a gentle hand on his wrist.
“What, you’re serious?” Izaya asks, tugging at his wrist as if to test Shizuo’s sincerity.
Shizuo lets him go, of course. “I’m serious. I can do fried rice with what you have. It’s not that hard.”
Izaya eyes him skeptically, seeming to weigh something in his mind, but ultimately he shrugs. “If Shizu-chan wants to play housemaid, who am I to say no?”
He slides his previous ‘dinner’ back into the bag and puts it neatly in the freezer. “Go on, impress me.”
Shizuo does his best, trying to remember what in the house could possibly constitute a balanced meal as he goes. Frozen vegetables, definitely; and rice, soy sauce, garlic powder and onion powder in place of the real thing…it won’t exactly be glamorous.
Izaya watches him pace around the kitchen with amusement, giving idle commentary and intermittently confirming that no, he doesn’t have eggs or a reasonable source of protein in the house, and how silly of Shizuo to expect that Izaya would make attempts to feed himself. Shizuo salvages what meat he can from the chicken nuggets for some pretense of a balanced meal under Izaya’s indulgent eyes.
Finally, he’s left with a heaping plate of fried rice with chicken. There’s enough for leftovers, even, if Izaya isn’t too starved. Though that looks unlikely, given the ravenous look on his face as he fixes the meal with a hungry stare.
Still, Izaya doesn’t start eating when Shizuo places it in front of him. He looks around as if expecting something else.
“What?” Shizuo asks. “Do you need some water, or something?”
“Aren’t you going to eat?” Izaya asks.
“I already ate. This is for you.” Shizuo explains as clearly as he knows how. “You can eat it.”
Izaya looks at him in some bafflement, but readily enough tugs the plate close and starts to dig in. “Thanks for dinner.”
Shizuo watches the work of a half-hour steadily disappear into Izaya, who curls one arm around his plate like it’ll be taken from him and uses the other to eat with an endearingly focused determination. Conversation grinds to a halt as Izaya consumes fried rice as efficiently as possible. It’s only when the plate is nearly empty that Izaya seems to remember Shizuo is even here.
“I didn’t know you knew how to cook.” Izaya says, finally stalling long enough to talk.
Shizuo shrugs. “A little. I learned.”
“Happy to benefit from it,” Izaya says. “I’ll invite you over for dinner more if you can promise to keep making this.”
Shizuo huffs a laugh. “I think I can manage that.”
Izaya looks sated and a little sleepy, now, at odds with his makeup and going-out outfit but perfectly at home in his kitchen. Shizuo’s heart twists with an echo of earlier—like he’s witnessing something precious and infinitely fragile—before he stomps down on it hard.
“Anyway. You should go to sleep.” It comes out gruffer than he intends, and Izaya seems to sense a shift in his attitude, cocking his head and giving Shizuo an assessing look.
“Well, I would, but it seems my bedroom is taken,” he drawls. “Whatever shall I do?”
“I can sleep on the couch, if you wanna…” sleep in your dead parents’ bed. Great.
Luckily, Izaya just laughs him off. “No need. I can survive the couch for a night, I’ve certainly done it before. Besides, I don’t think you’d fit on our couch.”
It’s a valid concern. Shizuo would definitely be hanging off the end if he tried.
He doesn’t press, just collecting Izaya’s plate when he seems to be done eating.
“Go clean up, then. I can take care of this.” It’s the least he can do, really, and he’s already half-turned away when he glimpses a real, crooked smile on Izaya’s face.
“Thanks, Shizu-chan,” Izaya teases, but the warmth in his eyes is unmistakable.