Note: I detest being sick. So, of course, I make Izaya sick :D Sorry Izaya.

I apologize for any inaccuracies involving the Orihara family. I tried to envision raising a child like Izaya in order to characterize his mom and dad.

To Try Again, or The Tale of a Family

1. The Beginning,or The Siblings

Izaya's sneeze shatters the peace like a gunshot.

It is the morning, and they are bathed by the white-blue sunlight of the depths of winter. We are in the kitchen of the Orihara household. It is around 11:00, and all three siblings are slumped in various poses of half-sleep around their worn kitchen table. Birds chirp sharply outside the window. The air is bitingly cold. The parents are not home, leaving the children alone, as much as Mairu, Kururi, and Izaya can really be called children—that is to say, both completely and not at all. Mairu's breakfast plate is quickly being stripped of its contents. She chews viciously, ripping the food with her sharp teeth. Kururi swallows contentedly, slowly. They're happy to ignore the dark presence of their older brother, a black blot somewhere in the shady corner of the table.

At some point, though, a response of some sort is requested of Izaya, and what comes instead is a sneeze. The twins pause, and properly glance at Izaya for the first time since he came wandering home at 2 in the morning. He appears not to have heard them at all. His eyes are glazed, gazing somewhere in the distance. His nose is running copiously.

Mairu leaps on to the table violently, crushing her heel in to half of Kururi's plate of eggs as Kururi sighs in disgust. "Oi. Iza-nii! Are you fucking listening to us?"

"Hmmm?" Izaya turns his head slowly to her. Too slowly for Mairu's demanding taste. She grabs his face in her small fingers, pulling his nose to hers, squatting on the table like a savage monkey. Izaya winces a little as her sharp fingernails slide cruelly into his chin.

It's just too obvious. She feels instantly that his skin is hot, burning like an iron in the cool air, and is mildly surprised that he's not giving off steam. He's pastier looking than normal. His fingers are limp, devoid of movement, cased quietly in the long black sleeves of his shirt. His mess of crow's-wings hair is glued to his forehead with small beads of sweat. Mairu releases Izaya's chin abruptly, grinning, her conclusion reached. Kururi raises an eyebrow, looking up from her contemplation of the ruined breakfast before her.

"Iza-nii is sick!" She spits it at the air like a dagger, an accusation.

He speaks for the first time all morning. "Mairu… chan… could you please be a little quieter?" Izaya lolls to the side, sliding farther on to the table. "And I'm not sick… just tired… from hearing you two bicker all morning…"

Mairu is not fooled for an instant. "My ass you're not sick."

He closes his eyes in response, the lids sinking like twin white flags. Kururi thinks to herself that he must really be at his limits.

Mairu is very, very pleased. Unlike herself and Kururi, who constantly manage to catch the flu from their classmates, Izaya only gets sick once in a very long while. But when he does, he goes full out. It is fun stuff for Mairu, who—like all siblings—enjoys seeing her brother suffer. As a last piece of insurance, Mairu forces an old-fashioned mercury thermometer down his throat. He takes it almost mildly, and Kururi giggles because he looks ridiculous with it sticking out of his mouth, the glass glowing in the clear light. When the (inevitable) results come a few minutes later, Mairu waves the one-hundred-and-three-degrees-Fahrenheit reading in front of Izaya's eyes. He chooses to sigh and look away, knowing the battle's half lost already.

Mairu scampers off to fetch the medicine while Izaya mutters obscenities at the table. He blearily shoots evil looks in the direction of Kururi, whom Mairu has posted at the table to make sure "Iza-nii doesn't try and escape the delicate ministrations of his angel sisters!" When Mairu returns, there is a brief struggle of half a minute or so, but really, Izaya doesn't stand a chance. Kururi, occupied in pinning Izaya's hands behind his back, wants to laugh as her sister deposits load after load of the stuff in his mouth, purposefully ignoring Izaya's pained facial expressions. He is such a child sometimes.

Afterwards, they allow their poor brother to move again. Mairu is delighted with herself, laughing evilly with one egg-covered sock planted on a chair and spoon in hand. Izaya accidentally sways against Kururi as he gets up, and she can feel the heat of his ribs burning through his thin black clothes. So she silently pulls Izaya towards her bedroom—which used to be his, until he left— instead of the couch where he habitually sleeps on his rare visits to home.

When they get in the door, she pushes him forward, almost gently. He falls obediently in to her fluffy bed, pulling up the ridiculously cute bunny-printed blanket, his body ordering him to rest for once in his dynamic life. Kururi chooses to remain in her room, hearing Mairu turn on some loud reality TV show that she doesn't like downstairs. Izaya falls asleep quickly, exhausted, ignoring with ease the drama that erupts on screen below him. He's forced to curl like a cat in the imprint his sister's body has made over the years, because he's far too big for her bed—for his own bed from a childhood a millennia behind. His breath is light and hot in the air. There is something about his face when he's unconscious, Kururi thinks. There's none of the usual pretention, none of the arrogance or self-assurance. He looks a lot younger when he's asleep. Sleep washes the sin away, makes him a child again.

Dad's gone on one of his perpetual business trips for a few days, so Mom is the first to receive the news that the eldest child of the Oriharas is back. It does not go well.

She walks in the door, carrying groceries in one hand and shedding her shoes awkwardly with her feet. In her movements is none of the litheness that Izaya embodies, none of the quickness the twins operate on. She is just an ordinary, harassed, middle-aged mother of three. Mairu stares at her, eyes wide and fierce. Lately Mom and Mairu have been on worse and worse terms with one another. It can only be a matter of time before Mairu moves out, and when that time comes Kururi knows she will go with her sister.

"Mom."

Their mother is distracted, unaware of the danger above her, in the very atmosphere, waiting to strike. "What is it?"

"Izaya's home."

The silence is deadly. Kururi holds her breath. Their mother places the groceries slowly, carefully, on the countertop, like objects made of hot glass. Her attempts to act casual make Kururi want to cry for her, to bathe in those unshed tears.

Mom hasn't seen Izaya in nearly two years, hasn't received a single text or call or e-mail in all that time, and now he is home.

After a moment, she speaks, not looking up, her badly-cut bangs hiding her face. "I suppose he is." She pulls out a chair, the squeaking painful in this awkward silence, slumps over the table.

Mairu's fists clench white underneath the table, and Kururi can smell the fight coming. "I suppose?"

Mom gives her a look, like she doesn't know what Mairu's talking about. Kururi wants to scream. It's starting again, starting again, and it's only been a minute—

"What kind of a reaction is that? Why do you have to pretend like it's no big deal?"

"I'm not pretending, Mairu." And now Mom has that sickeningly patient tone in her voice, the one she uses whenever they fight. "I mean, what did you expect me to"—

Mairu stomps over Mom's words. "We never see him, for God's sake. He never calls, never comes back except when he's sick, and that's 'cause he can't take care of himself. And the last time was two years ago." She props her feet insolently on the table around which their mother hunches over, and every word is a stab to their mother's heart. Kururi watches their mother bleed. Mairu did always take after Izaya—she's able to aim where it hurts the most.

Their mother looks up with injured eyes. "Mairu"—

The two sets of eyes clash for half a second, woman versus girl, defender versus challenger, mother versus daughter.

"Never mind. Forget it." Mairu slams her homework done on the table, takes out a pencil and starts violently making mistakes in her make-up essay, leaving Kururi and her mother in silence in the kitchen.

Their mom makes soup in the wake of Mairu's anger, the fragrant smell wafting through the kitchen like an apology. Mairu scratches away angrily, mumbling to herself and erasing so hard that the table quakes in fear. Kururi sits there and pretends to work, instead watching her mother through slanted eyes, watching Mom's reaction to the news of her son's return. Mom stirs each ingredient in with a frantic sort of hastiness, re-measures the spices three times before she can convince herself it's the right amount. Her fingers shake, and she spills the water twice. Her feet jitter against the floor. Kururi wants to run up and grab her shoulders, shake her, tell her to slow down, calm down for God's sake. Izaya's not going anywhere, this time. He's not running away again.

Eventually, the soup gets itself done. Kururi sees Mom taste it once, twice, making sure it's not too hot, not too cold, not too salty. Making sure it's perfect. Kururi sees Mairu watching as well, sees Mairu's eyes seeth with anger at their mother's nervous attempts at love.

Their mother looks up at Kururi, ignoring Mairu. "Kururi, can you take this up to your brother?"

Kururi glances at Mairu. They've just watched her slaving away in the kitchen—when they both know Mom doesn't like cooking and makes Dad do it half the time—to make this soup, they know Mom hasn't seen Izaya in two years now, and she wants Kururi to take it up?

She's afraid, they realize together. That's the answer. Their mother is afraid to see Izaya, afraid to see what stranger he's morphed into this time.

Mairu opens her mouth to comment, and Kururi stands up abruptly, the scraping of the chair closing Mairu's lips. "Yeah." She grabs the soup awkwardly and lurches up the stairs, leaving the storm brewing below. She saves the fragile woman she calls mother from the violent words of Mairu, for the moment. But Kururi knows that this is the end of nothing.

Izaya is half-lucid when Kururi gets there. He smiles groggily at the blurry face of his sister, and mutters something about how he shouldn't have come here. "Mairu's way too happy, probably," he whispers in to the bed frame, blazing up like a fiery angel and still managing to look happy.

There is a pause.

Kururi hates Izaya in that moment. He's barely been back a few hours and already their carefully patched sanity is flaking, the mask of normalness their family wears in his absence being ripped away by his presence. The wounds are reopening; the bandages Mom applied to herself in the dead of night are falling. Stability is being lost fast.

"You're right."

"Hm?"

"You shouldn't have come here."

"What?"

"I said you shouldn't have come here!"

She shoves the soup on the bedstand, spilling it a little, and all but runs out the door. She can't stand looking at his feverish, confused face for another second. How can he not know? Doesn't he know what he's doing to them?