A key.

He stared at it for a long moment as if the key would suddenly start speaking and tell him what he was supposed to do with it.

Alas, no such thing happened.

He was still sitting on the couch he fell asleep on last night -still confused and still staring at the little box.

A few pedestrians scrambled out of the way as a couch came flying their way from the apartment across the street.

"THE HELL IS THIS, FLEA?" The yell was so loud, a certain black biker on the other side of the city heard it and sweat-dropped.

She quickly finished her delivery business and tracked the source of yelling down. Sure enough, she found him sitting in front of his apartment - well...

More on the remains of the wall that once stood there before the couch flew right through it.

He was smoking a cigarette, as cool as a mid winter breeze.

Celty got of her bike and slowly approached him, typing on her PDA.

'Shizuo?'

At first, he didn't even register her being there. Let alone trying to get to him.

He just sat there, smoking the cigarette, deeply in thought.

Celty found it rather...odd...

The mobile phone back in Celty and Shinra's apartment vibrated, signalizing it's owner he got a message. The doctor stood up from his seat, mumbling something about his love sending him sexy images and acted like a teenage girl waiting for her crush to call.

He flipped the phone open and frowned slight.

He typed in a reply and went out.

Shizuo was still deep in thought, and Celty was now very worried. She was about to place him on her bike and simply take him to Shinra to get him examied when she heard a familiar voice.

"Black rider-sa~n!" The sight of the otaku duo and Dotachi- uh, Kadota, made her relax for a bit.

'Everyone!' She typed panicky. 'Something's wrong with Shizuo!'

They all stared at the PDA, then at Celty, and finally at Shizuo, who was still motionless.

"Wrong? As in?" One of them asked.

Celty started typing again.

'He's been like that for almost three hours. What should I do? Call Tom? Shinra?'

As Kadota tried to calm her down, the otaku duo decided it was a perfect opportunity to snoop around Shizuo's place. They were sure he wouldn't mind. They were looking around when Walker noticed the gift box and the card underneath it. He motioned Erika to come over.

Otanjoubi Omedeto, Shizuo.

Erika and Walker looked at each other for a moment.

Suddenly, Erika's face gained pink blush-spots and a smug grin graced her features.

"Arara...could it be~?" She nearly sang, barely containing the fujoshi in her. "Is this Iza-Iza's handwriting I see here?"

Yumasaki turned blue at her beaming, but quickly snapped out of it seeing Karisawa was right and the observation wasn't just fujoshi imagination/wishful thinking.

"Dotachin, look at this." He called Kadota, who turned to them along with Celty. "Is this Izaya's hadwriting?" He asked.

"Of course it is! It-"Yumasaki handed the note over to Kadota nad Celty while containig Erika from exploding into colorful confetti, like the one they popped last night at the party.

At this point, the oblivious man decided it was enough brain storming - he couldn't come up with any explanation that wouldn't end up in him tracking down the flea and killing him on the spot for messing around like this.

He then noticed people in his apartment.

"...What are you all doing here?" He asked, genuinely surprised to see Kadota, his gang minus one and Celty gathering in his living room.

Seriously, sometimes he wondered if they had any consideration of their surroundings at all.