HUMANITY / LOST.

     ❛   you are going to die in your best friend’s arms.   &     you play along because it’s funny,               because it’s written down, you’ve memorized it.   it’s all you know. i say the phrases that keep it all going, & everyone plays along. imagine: someone’s pulling a gun,                                          &     you’re jumping into the middle of it.  you didn’t think you’d feel this way.   ❜ 

Neon Rain, Ikebukuro （池袋）

     shirou & kyouko orihara, while both loving parents in their own way,   had very little to do with izaya’s upbringing. they both traveled & worked almost constantly, he was often left to his own devices as a child. because the first five years of life are especially crucial for development,  he lacked what most healthy children had at his age. any hope of social or emotional development was overshadowed by his love for knowledge & interest in observing others. his interest in observing derives from his inability to maintain any meaningful relationships,     due to the fact that he was never given proper parental love in his developmental stages as a child.   for the most part,   the only real relationships he ever had in terms of a caregiver were relationships bought for him by his parents.             this is further examined when he hires namie, more for companionship than anything else, as he truly has no use for a secretary. 

at age 10, his parents had two more children. because he’d already gone through his most critical stages of development,  he lacked the ability to truly love or care for them. or rather,  he had that ability – he just chose not to. by withdrawing as he’d done his entire life,  he was never put in the position where he would be hurt by the actions of others. having parents who are never around is damaging to any child, but by withdrawing & not allowing himself to feel any certain way about his parents, he could protect himself from the pain and disappointment of feeling unloved. this is also seen in his early years at school, where he focused entirely on being the best student & being most active in all after school activities. he was completely isolated from the teachers & the rest of the student body,  because he grew up learning that connections & bonds would only hurt him in the long run. 

however, he is noted to having had a hand in his sisters upbringing  (  a big ass mistake, honestly )       without a mother or father, izaya often took the role of guardian over his sisters. more of an obligation than anything else. cooking, cleaning, helping with homework — all things a parent should do for a child, izaya did for his sisters. this caused him to feel uncomfortably close to them,   & he would often balance this feeling by being unnecessarily cruel to them in the way he spoke. he was never taught a proper way of dealing with family,  which is why he finds them so annoying. he has NO IDEA how to deal with them.