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“Can we stop for ice cream?”
“No.”
“Can we stop for candy?”
“Nope.”
“Can we stop for snacks?”
“We have snacks at home.”
The sun is setting warm and languid behind the pairs of strangers to passerbys on the street—one tall and wearing a dopey smile on his face, hair dyed a warm golden in the fading light, one just a little shorter than the first wearing the tiniest of frowns on his face, and the other two elementary school girls perfect matches for each other with their hands intertwined as they skip against the pavement—and for all four of them, it’s a normal weekday afternoon.
“Can we stop for… milk?” Mairu is asking now, having to pause for a moment and put her forefinger to her chin, ostensibly wondering what would trick her brother into stopping at the store before they make it home.
“No.”
Shizuo turns his head then, dropping his arms from where his hands were rested against the back of his head. “Oh, actually-“
“No,” Izaya says again, with a breathy laugh that lets free the beginning of irritation in his face as it vanishes completely, whipping his head around to raise his eyebrows at Shizuo behind him, his lips quirked into a crooked smile that he has since adopted from Shizuo. “We have milk at home, you sweet-toothed beast. I bought it the other day just for you.”
“Oh,” he says. “You did?”
“Of course I did,” Izaya tells him, turning his head back around as if to hide the smile that has lit up all across his face. Shizuo knows it’s there anyway, and lets his own smile go crooked as he tilts in closer to Izaya. “I’m certainly not going to be drinking it.”
“Good. More for me then,” Shizuo says, watching with a fluttering feeling in his chest as Izaya tips his head up and toward the tops of the houses in order to keep his smile away from Shizuo’s gaze.
There’s a silence following that erupts between them, a comfortable encounter that is unspoken and unread that Shizuo knows is more than enough to speak to the appreciation that both of them feel of the moment.
But then there’s Mairu’s voice rising up from the quiet sweetness of the air, and both Shizuo and Izaya turn their heads to look down at her, unable to ignore her sun-blinding words.
“Can we stop for soda then?” she says, bright and bubbly as if she’s the drink itself. “We don’t have that at home already.”
“No,” Izaya says, almost at the same time as Shizuo pipes up with, “Soda’s bad for you.”
Mairu giggles, and Izaya rolls his eyes, as Shizuo huffs a laugh and ruffles Kururi’s hair as she tilts her head up to look at the two boys above her.
They’re home much quicker after that it seems, and Mairu ends up getting her wish to go the store anyway, as Izaya remembers that he forgot to get green onions for the dish he’s making for dinner.
That’s something Shizuo has coaxed him into doing lately—actually cooking real meals rather than just living on instant ramen and snacks from the convenience store.
This is what Shizuo is thinking about when they make it to the front porch of Izaya’s house, as Izaya is carrying the bag of green onions and handing it to Shizuo as he fumbles for the keys caught in the fabric of his pocket.
The twins push open the door as Izaya turns the handle, and just as Shizuo is turning to close the door behind him, both of them freeze as they see the pair of people sitting in the living room illuminated by the familiarity of Izaya’s house lights.
“Mom, Dad!” Mairu squeals, kicking off her shoes with Kururi trailing fast behind her, as Izaya’s parents stand up with smiles on their faces that Shizuo can’t help but think look nothing like Izaya’s.
The twins jump into their arms, and Izaya is frozen still, still in his shoes and still holding his schoolbag off his shoulder, his eyebrows folding down slowly into a frown that is distant and unfamiliar ever since the incident with the gang.
Shizuo nudges him slightly with his elbow, making it seem like an accident as he bends down to set his schoolbag and the green onions on the wood of the floor so he can slip his shoes off. Izaya blinks and glances at him, and ends up echoing Shizuo’s movement, as he lets his bag fall against Shizuo’s, as he leans his hand against the wall so he can pull his shoes off quickly and follow Shizuo into the kitchen.
“Izaya!” Izaya’s mother calls, and when Shizuo turns around from setting the bag of green onions down on the counter, Izaya has gone still in the doorway leading to the kitchen, before pivoting on his heels and lifting his expression into something guarded and haughty like Shizuo hasn’t seen in a while, even when they are having pretend spars.
“I didn’t know you would be home anytime soon,” Izaya says, as he steps into the living room and tips his chin up to his parents, who are now holding one of the twins each.
“We aren’t going to be able to make it for your graduation, so we decided to make a visit before your exams started,” his father says, in a voice cool and distant, and Shizuo can tell at once that he is being polite more than anything, despite the casual words.
“We didn’t want to bother you while you were in the middle of exam week, so here we are!” his mother appends, again with that distant tone. “How have you been?”
“Alright,” Izaya says with a shrug. He puts his hands in his pockets. “Nothing too exciting has happened.”
Shizuo thinks of the gang, and Celty, and Shizuo himself, and can’t help but let out a laugh from his place at the far doorway to the kitchen.
Izaya and his family turns all at once at the noise, and Shizuo can feel his face warm at the realization of how loud the sound was. But before he can say anything, Izaya’s father is speaking, grating the beginnings of irritation from Shizuo’s normally calm demeanor in this house.
“Oh, I didn’t realize anyone else was here. Who’s this, a friend from school?”
Shizuo can see Izaya’s smugness come into the light as he opens his mouth to respond, and Shizuo has to bite down a groan of embarrassment before he speaks.
“This is Heiwajima Shizuo. My boyfriend,” he says, with so much fluidity and coolness in his voice that Shizuo thinks hearing it one more time might be enough to calm the fire that lights all along his face at the words.
Izaya’s parents blink once, their eyes going wide, and Shizuo has to swallow the lump in his throat that is forming from the fear of rejection, even from a family that is almost as distant from Izaya as any stranger on the street.
“Oh, I see,” his father says slowly. Mairu looks at him strangely in his arms.
“How long have you two been, uh, dating?” his mother asks this time, with more caution in her voice than before.
“A year or so,” Izaya answers, and Shizuo realizes all at once how long it’s been since everything happened.
“Oh,” his mother says. Mairu gives her a strange look now, too. “That’s quite a while, isn’t it?”
Izaya pulls his smirk wide. “Yep,” is all he says.
And then Mairu is squirming in her father’s arms, tugging against his hands and kicking her feet as if she wants to get down, and he lets her do just that, and she drops to the floor with a puff of air in her cheeks. She reaches up and gestures for Kururi still being held in her mother’s arms, and she drops her as well, letting Mairu grab a hold of her hand and pull her away toward Shizuo.
“Did you see our new fort, Shizu-nii?” she says brightly, as Shizuo tracks his gaze away from their parents and down toward their two daughters at his feet.
“Huh?” Shizuo says, crouching down to their level. “No, I don’t think so. Have you changed it since the other day?”
Kururi nods her head forcefully, as Mairu lets out a high-pitched “Yep!” and grabs Shizuo’s hand to drag him away as well.
“Come on, we’ll show you!” she says, and Shizuo stands up and starts to follow the determined pull of her hand, even with how light and weak it is.
He bows his head and laughs embarrassingly at Izaya’s parents, as he passes right between them and Izaya in the middle of the living room, toward the stairs.
When they make it to the twins’ room, he can hear Izaya and his parents still talking downstairs, their voices low compared to Izaya’s, which seems almost deliberately louder than theirs.
“We didn’t actually change our fort,” Mairu says triumphantly when Shizuo turns around from closing the door until just a crack is left open, hands on her hips and her head tilted up.
“Smart plan,” Kururi adds, with a rare full, Mairu-level smile on her face. She’s begun speaking more clearly lately, too, though she still remains quieter than her younger sister.
Shizuo laughs. “You mean you pulled me all the way up here not to show me your new fort?”
“Yep!” Mairu says, as Kururi shakes her head with as much force as before. “They weren’t being very nice to you.”
Shizuo blinks. “Your parents?” he asks, and both twins nod. “I just think they were surprised to see me, is all,” Shizuo tells them, willing himself to believe it as well.
“Well, I guess we really can change our fort now that you’re here to help us, Shizu-nii,” she says, ignoring Shizuo’s comment altogether. “Iza-nii might be down there a while, he always talks to Mom and Dad for a long time before they leave again.”
Shizuo hums in recognition of the words, curious as to why Izaya would spend so much time talking to two parents that don’t seem to have much to talk about with him in the first place.
They spend only five or so minutes on rearranging the fort—taking away pillows and stacking them to the side, and pulling the sheets away from their place against the edges of the bed frame—before the door creaks open, and Izaya walks in with that same frown on his face he wore when he first spotted his parents in the living room.
“That was quick,” Shizuo says, as Izaya sits cross-legged next to him on the floor, eyes wandering over the destruction of the fort. “Mairu-chan was just telling me that you usually talk to them for a while when they’re home.”
Izaya huffs, and it’s not a laugh more than it is a sigh. “Yeah, but I didn’t feel like it this time.”
Shizuo frowns, because Izaya is frowning, and looking and sounding more upset than he has in months. “What did they say?”
Izaya looks up, frown easing somewhat as he sees Shizuo’s expression. He blinks before speaking. “Nothing much, they were just asking about school and such. A little about you.” He pauses. “Nothing much,” he says again.
Shizuo doesn’t believe him, because Izaya is looking straight at him, and Shizuo has found that Izaya is easier to lie when he’s looking forwardly at him than any other time.
“Oh,” is all Shizuo says for now, turning his head to watch the twins picking up the pillows and moving them to where they want them to be.
He lets the moment sit in silence for a while, as he gathers his thoughts and tilts in toward Izaya as he brushes his hand against his knee and realizes that it’s easy to get closer. Izaya looks up at him when he moves, and Shizuo can see the stress making his face unexplainably soft and tense at the same time.
Shizuo smiles at him, the expression easy—if a little tense—at the affection that is pulled from him whenever he looks at Izaya, and takes no extra time to break the silence.
“You know, my parents were talking about treating us to lunch or something before exams start, to celebrate us almost graduating high school.”
Izaya raises his eyebrows, and his lips twitch with the start of a smile. “Really? That’s a weird thing to celebrate.”
Shizuo shrugs, and it brushes against Izaya’s shoulder with familiar comfort. “I think it’s just an excuse to spend more time with you more than anything.”
That gets the smallest of laughs from Izaya, his lips finally raised in one of the first smiles Shizuo ever saw on him, making it seem like the beginning all over again. “Spend more time with me?” he says. “They see me practically every week.”
“Yeah I know,” Shizuo tells him warmly. “But they like you.” Izaya inhales sharply, as if he’s surprised by the comment, and Shizuo acts like he doesn’t notice. “I think they’d adopt you if they could.”
This seems to snap Izaya out of whatever reaction he was having on the words, as he shakes his head and chuckles breathily. “That would make our relationship a little weird, don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” Shizuo agrees with an echoing laugh. “Yeah, I think that’s why they wouldn’t.”
Izaya laughs again, this one bright and loud enough to ease the tension sitting against Shizuo’s chest that was formed into worry, and it makes Shizuo smile wider, this time the common lopsided tug of it making its appearance as well.
They stay upstairs the rest of the afternoon, and they don’t begin to make dinner until Izaya’s parents have gone into their room and shut the door behind them, and the sun has made it very clear that it won’t be making itself seen again until the morning.
It’s not an unusual occurrence to call his parents and tell them that he’ll be late getting home from Izaya’s house, but he’s more than sure that his dad can hear the happiness light on his tongue as he delivers the news, and he keeps this tone all throughout the night as he cooks with Izaya and eats dinner with him and the twins.
Even if Izaya’s parents don’t understand, the twins do, and Shizuo’s family does, and he decides with a glance at Izaya’s smile stuck on his face that his family is the same as Izaya’s.