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In the candlelight, Shizuo dares to say that Izaya’s hair is glowing purple.
It was the twins’ idea, to dig out some dull-scented candles that Izaya’s parents stuffed away in the pantry of their kitchen for some occasion unlike this one, or some day that was less teetered in normality than the current one Izaya and Shizuo are sharing. Izaya had reluctantly lit them to flame and turned the house lights off per his sisters’ requests, with just a little help from Shizuo’s own half-teasing pleas.
“It’s too dark in here,” he’s complaining now, frowning in a light that has Shizuo too distracted with how different the shadow of his hair looks to immediately give a response.
“It’s fine,” Shizuo says, laughing a bit. They’re sitting at the dining room table, Mairu and Kururi with them, albeit more in their own little world than in theirs. “We weren’t doing anything that needed light in the first place.”
“We weren’t doing anything at all,” Izaya laments, sighing. “Not before the Twins of Horror started yelling at us make it so it our entire dining room table is a fire hazard.”
At that, the aforementioned girls look up at their brother, turning their heads in the same way Izaya does. Shizuo smiles at it.
“It’s romantic!” Mairu chirps, and Shizuo’s smile manages to falter as a blush reaches his cheeks. He catches just a glimpse of how Izaya’s cheeks do the same, but in the current lighting, it looks pinker than the usual color.
“Mystery,” Kururi appends.
“Why in the world would you two care about romance in the first place,” Izaya tells them sternly, regaining a bit of his balance, even if his face is still that same light-glowing pink. “You’re too young.”
Mairu rolls her eyes. It’s exactly how Izaya does it. “It’s not romantic for us, stupid.” Izaya frowns, and Mairu copies him. “For you and Shizu-nii!”
Shizuo has to dip his head to the wood of the table under as his face flames just as hot as the candlelights at Mairu’s words.
“And what interest do you two have in our romance, hmm?” Izaya shoots back at her, with surprising steadiness for all the embarrassment Shizuo assumes he must feel. “Actually, in that case, get out.”
“Huh?” Mairu shouts, so loud that Shizuo physically cringes.
“You said the candles were for me and Shizuo, right? So get out, you’re ruining it for us.” The banter is silly enough that Shizuo can raise his head again, though tentative against the warm still in his face.
“But Iza-nii!”
“Do you not have ears? Get out, I said,” Izaya tells her again, matching her petulant tone with mocking spirit. The attempt makes his voice sound higher than ever before, and in turn his eyebrows raise and his eyes go wide in mock of the twins’ faces in front of him.
Mairu puffs out her cheeks, and it makes her look almost as young as when Shizuo first met them. “It was our idea,” she says, but she’s taking her sister’s hand anyway, and hopping off the dining chair to turn to the stairs that will lead Shizuo and Izaya to being without the constant teasing voices of the twins for a while. Shizuo doesn’t admit that he wouldn’t mind them staying.
“False pretense,” Kururi says.
“What?” Izaya sputters, his voice amusingly high on disbelief. “Where did you learn that phrase?”
But neither of them answers him, as they disappear quickly up the stairs, and Izaya is left groaning as he lets his head fall against the flat of the table.
“They’re the worst,” he says.
Shizuo laughs. “They’re cute. They’re a lot like you, actually.”
Izaya turns his head still resting on the table to look at Shizuo, his eyebrows raising even if his eyelids stay limp. “What do you mean by that?” he grumbles.
Shizuo shrugs. “I don’t know, they just seem a lot like you. Besides all the obvious similar gestures an-“
“Similar gestures?” Izaya says, cutting in. “We do not have similar gestures.” In the context and the awareness, it makes it all that more apparent of who Izaya sounds like in that near-whining tone.
“You do,” Shizuo says, swinging his voice up with light amusement. “You did it just now too, with your voice. Sounded like Mairu-chan.”
Izaya groans again, and throws his arms out from where they were resting on his lap under the table, lifting his head as he does so. “Your observation skills are terrible, Shizu-chan, you have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Shizuo gives his lips over to lifting crooked against the glowing candlelight. “Really?”
“Yes,” Izaya tells him. He slides the chair away and out from the table, and turns toward the light switch at the far end of the room as he begins to get up. “Now that they’re gone we can turn the lights on again,” he appends with a sigh of relief.
Shizuo stops him by grabbing his wrist as he starts to detach himself from the contact of the chair.
“No, leave it, I like it like this.”
Izaya frowns. “Oh yes, I forgot, you’re on their side.” But he turns to sit down at the table again anyway, and his hair gets painted in that purple-ish hue again.
“What, don’t you like it?” Shizuo asks, still smiling.
“I don’t need another reason to be like my sisters.”
But then Izaya looks over at him, and quickly turns away as his own lips start to twitch in happiness in response to Shizuo’s own smile.
“No,” he clarifies, sounding much lighter than before. Shizuo has no doubt it’s because he’s smiling. “This is stupid. We’re just sitting in the dark with nothing to do.”
Shizuo doesn’t say anything to that, but he keeps his eyes on Izaya’s hair, and ends up trailing his gaze down to the side of Izaya’s face, as he’s turned it to the side and is looking off somewhere vaguely to his right.
Shizuo was right about the smile, because as the candlelight catches on Izaya’s mouth he notices that Izaya is indeed smiling, if trying to fight it down by pressing his lips together tightly. But it only makes it seem that much more genuine, and Shizuo can’t resist laughing and reaching out to skim his fingers against Izaya’s head.
“I think you do like it,” he tells him, as Izaya turns and lifts his head in response to the touch.
He finally gives up his attempt at suppressing the smile and lets it free as he looks at Shizuo, and laughs right after, lightly swatting Shizuo’s hand away from his face.
Shizuo lets his hand drop next to Izaya’s still resting against the table, and keeps his gaze on his still-present smile. He can see Izaya’s own gaze slide up to Shizuo’s hair, and watches as Izaya’s eyes flicker somewhat as he does so, right before he whips his head back down and is back to suppressing his smile the best he can, with that same tight-lipped attempt.
“Your hair looks like a glow stick like this,” Izaya says, and Shizuo knows that there’s no other way to interpret the comment than the obvious I like it pressing against the happy tone on Izaya’s tongue.