2. Part Two, orThe Sisters

That night, Kururi is forced to share a room with Mairu, since Izaya is in hers—his, from a long time ago, a time when Mom and Dad and sisters and brother were happy together.

On second thought though, that time is a fairy-tale in their household. It never existed in reality, only in dreams and rumors of hopes.

Meanwhile, the silence is stormy. Kururi does not say anything.

Mairu hates that her sister doesn't speak, because she wants to scream, to break something, to hurt something, and her twin is not complying at all. So. She breaks the quiet at midnight, after a good hour and a half of listening to each other pretend to be asleep. Her voice falls down in to Kururi's ears from the upper bunk, the whisper infecting the dark.

"I hate her."

"What?" Mairu hears Kururi shift in bed. She looks down and dimly sees Kururi sit up a little and rub her eyes.

"Don't what me," Mairu snaps, half-whispering. "Mom, dumbass."

"Why?"

"Because." Mairu is frustrated at her sister's calmness.

"That doesn't make any sense."

Mairu snorts in impatience.

"She's such a fucking coward."

"Well"—

"I mean really. 'I suppose he is'? What kind of an answer is that? Why doesn't she just admit she misses him?"

Mairu's really going now. There's no stopping this train. Her thoughts come out in fragments, floating in the night.

"I guess… she just pisses me off, the way she look so fucking pathetic whenever we mention him. As if it's our fault he doesn't stay here. It's like"—

—And here comes the truth, ready or not—

— "She loves us because she wants to love him. That's the reason why she's so fucking possessive and shit, you know? The reason why she's such a controlling bitch, a lot of the time?"

Kururi's silence encourages her to continue.

"I mean, it makes sense. Izaya—well, she barely even got to know him. He left—no, it's like he escaped from her control, and that's why she's always freaking out over us. Because we're her substitute children, we're her stand-in, kind of—for him. And then—and then, when he actually shows up, she can't even look him in the face until we're gone. She's too big of a fucking coward to. As if she feel guilty, because I know she loves him best."

There's stillness again, except for the sobbing of the truth.

In the bottom bunk, Kururi curls up in the suddenly cold night. She thinks of Mairu's clenched fists, the arguments, Mairu's eyes hot and wet sometimes, the way Mairu picks on Izaya every time she sees him. She thinks of Mairu's headstrong, mischievous personality, so over-done, a mask grown over her face—the face she should know best, the face she thought she knew better than her own. They are each other's image. They are closer than the ground is to the earthworm, always together. When did this distance sneak between them? She thinks of Mairu watching their mother, always watching, watching Mom look into the distance, watching Mom yearn for their brother. Is this really what she thinks? Kururi wants to tell Mairu it's not true, that their mother wouldn't be too heartless—but isn't it true? Isn't it heartless? Isn't this love? What can one small teenage girl do when faced with the crushing weight of reality?

Mairu is spent now, quickly falling asleep. She wraps up her speech, waving her hand in the cold air in attempted nonchalance.

"What does she fucking want, anyways? She should just make up her mind, really. She's a fucking adult, for God's sake, not a fucking child anymore… not a child..."

Like you? Kururi thinks. Like me, like Iza-nii, like all of us?

Kururi doesn't say anything for several long moments. Just when Mairu is beginning to think Kururi went back to sleep, her calm voice drifts up from the gloom below.

"I guess she wants Izaya to stay with us. So we can be like a"—

That word that is unholy to the Oriharas, she does not utter. The unspoken spreads itself out, fat and stupid and clumsy, in the shadows. Mairu mutters something incomprehensible, turns over and doesn't say anything more.

Family. They spend so much time pretending they are one that it tires them all.They keep looking for it, when everyone knows it was destroyed forever when Izaya began not coming home.

Kururi drifts to sleep hours later to the sounds of her sister's need.