They say that there's no other place to go than up after you've been knocked down to the ground. Izaya wasn't sure if he felt better even though he was being treated like a king, albeit the action only came from apologetic hearts than them actually worshipping him. He let himself get pampered nonetheless. Well – it wasn't much, just Kururi feeding him bites of cakes while Shinra tended to his wounds (finally!). Oh, and Kadota passing him the gifts he'd gotten for the special day. He wasn't all that interested in looking at the ones from the girls at school, but he did anyway, after Shinra insisted that it was better to build up to their gifts. As he'd expected, majority of the gifts were chocolates and letters that he barely skimmed over, knowing full well that his exhausted mind wasn't registering any of the words written on the piece of paper.

Funnily enough, what he needed wasn't a validation from his so-called beloved humans, but his inner circle of friends, who knew his true worth.

At the sight of another box of chocolate upon unwrapping, Izaya didn't even bother to tear the rest of the shiny, pink wrapper before he chucked it at Shizuo's back, who seemed very into a conversation with Celty, both seated on the floor in front of the coffee table. Huh. At least someone's enjoying himself in this situation, while Izaya's here stuck with undesired hospitality. That left a hint of distaste in his mouth.

"What the hell is your problem?" Shizuo shot a glare over his shoulder - so dramatic and sensitive, true to that character of a disturbed monster. Izaya could bet on Mairu's secret yaoi magazine collection that Shizuo felt a total of zero ounce of pain from that hit.

"I'm tired of all these sweets! I don't even like sweets! It's as if today's Shizu chan's birthday instead."

"And what am I supposed to do about that? Tell that to your stupid followers!"

"Don't you have a gift for me?"

"I think I've given you plenty of gifts today."

He knew what Shizuo was hinting at, despite the many looks of confusion thrown their way, hoping Shizuo to further elaborate on that sentence. He didn't, and Izaya wasn't about to tick Shizuo off. Granted, Shizuo and him had both agreed to a truce just for the day, but if Izaya was good at anything, it was at making Shizuo lose his cool.

He definitely didn't want to argue and risk breaking his bones. Shizuo wasn't someone he could punch his way through with like in the alley earlier. In his current state, he'd be hospitalized! Besides, Izaya wasn't an ungrateful person. So he merely pouted, huffed (as if that'd bring Shizuo's attention back on him, who went back to talking to Celty, with the new addition of chocolates that he freely consumed), and accepted the next streams of gifts – this time from the attendees of the party.

The first gift was from Mairu and Kururi, whose gift was a silver chain bracelet that they'd bought during the festival at their school. The bracelet didn't particularly seem expensive per se, but if Izaya had known that they'd get him something, he'd have given them extra allowance money so they could buy more things for themselves.

"Iza-nii like? (Do you like it, Iza-nii?)" Kururi asked, and Mairu stopped stuffing her mouth with cake to gauge his reaction.

Izaya twisted his wrist around, scrutinizing the design of the bracelet. It wasn't like he'd be wearing it all the time, since there'd probably an unforeseen circumstance where the bracelet snags his switchblade during a fight. Still, he liked how it was a perfect match to the pair of rings he donned on his index fingers. They must've had that in their thoughts when they decided to make the purchase, because knowing how odd his twin sisters were, they could've gotten him anything.

"Yeah, thanks." He spared them a soft smile.

The second gift was from Kadota. It was a novel in the genre of psychological horror. Apparently he came to a realization that he had no knowledge of what kind of genre Izaya would be interested in, which he should've assessed way before he even went to the bookstore. At the last second, he opted for something he thought was closest to Izaya's personality. Shizuo chirped in agreement, earning an eye-roll from Izaya.

He still thanked Kadota, despite the slight offense he felt from Shizuo's response. Rather than being into mind torture games, he'd like to think of it as simply helping to steer one's thoughts into realizing something in regards to themselves. Putting aside the moral compass, even if most people preached about how he'd 'ruined' their lives, it was thanks to him that they managed to delve deeper into understanding the fears and desires they harbored inside.

Next came Celty's gift. Unlike other gifts, which were all wrapped in wrapping papers, Celty's took form of a black box made of her shadows. Of course, after choking a bit on her home-cooked steak (if it could even be called steak, because it was in no way resembled a steak, if Izaya was to be honest), he wasn't surprised to learn that Celty couldn't wrap a gift either. Really, other than Celty's magic qualities, Izaya deemed her to be of nothing special. And he knew that that was the only reason Shinra was so entranced by her, too. If she was a normal human girl attending school alongside them, Shinra wouldn't care to give her a second look.

"If someone could remember, not all of us are monsters." He announced it, having attempted to tug the black lid off, but to no avail. Celty merely stared at him for a moment, confused, until she remembered and quickly typed something in her PDA.

[ Sorry! I'll undo it for you now! ]

The shadows in his hands dissolved into thin air and left behind a long-sleeved shirt akin to the maroon one he often wore underneath his gakuran. However, it was black and its material was far different than cotton. In fact, the whole shirt was actually made of her shadows, upon further inspection.

"It's a shirt! How wonderful, Celty!" Shinra beat him to providing a reaction, as if the gift had been for him instead.

[ I heard that you got injured a lot today, so I thought you could wear this as an undershirt! It'll protect you from anything next time! Though it won't last long away from me… I'd give it a few days at most. ]

"See, Orihara-kun! Celty is not a monster! She's a loving angel!"

"I guess it'll be helpful if I run into trouble with the yakuza – or Shizu-chan," at the last bit of his sentence, Izaya glanced at Shizuo, watching any sign of vein popping on the forehead for the comment.

"If I was hurting you, it'd be because you deserve it."

Shizuo didn't add any more than that.

He was left to mull over the weight of those words, gaze following Shizuo's every move, while the blonde went to the balcony to light a cigarette. For a second, he had half a mind to make his way there as well – but with the way they'd been practically attached at hip all day today, he really would like it if he didn't appear like a puppy running after Shizuo.

"Now, for the last gift! A grand gift for Orihara-kun, from your beloved friend, me!"

Right.

The last gift.

Shinra's gift.

It would be a lie to say that he didn't feel any nervousness creeping up on him when his finger traced the outline of the rectangular box. This was the finale. There was no way that he'd pull another prank, and come on now, the box was way too small for it to be something that could harm Izaya. If he could take a postal box to the rib (courtesy of Shizuo), surely he could withstand this!

He managed to keep a steady hand opening the box up, revealing a set of knives, which he could guarantee literally no one in the room anticipated.

"What…?" Izaya breathed out.

"Don't be disappointed! That's not all. I called Chihaya-chan up and told her that I'll be working on that Russia project with you, so you don't have to sulk anymore!"

Shinra voice seemed to take a higher pitch with each sentence he uttered. At one point, Izaya couldn't tell how it became so, but he had Shinra's arms embracing him. And if they were back in the classroom this morning instead of it happening now, he would've punched Shinra in the face. But at this moment, his body was compliant towards the affection; he could feel himself practically melt into the other, despite how his ears began to hurt from all the shouting.

He could see Shizuo's figure leaning against the balcony railing from this angle, puffs of smoke released up into the night sky.

"And since I know Orihara-kun craves intimacy, even if I have to be away from Celty tonight, I'll stay with you until the morning comes!"

Maybe he did deserve some kindness, sometimes.