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Izaya lay awake in his hospital bed, the room silent and nearly pitch-dark. It was just past two a.m, but considering he'd slept through most of the day, he didn't feel tired. Even if he did, the excitement of the possibility that at any moment, one or more of the many people he'd given a reason to seek revenge on him might break into his room to carry it out was keeping him awake.
A rational person might assume that given Izaya's fear of death, he'd be dreading this possibility. A rational person would be proven wrong, as was typical of Izaya's contradictory, extremist love of everything around him. An attempt on his life proved that he'd made enough of an impression on another person to motivate them to kill, and that thought thrilled him.
While he'd cherish the occurrence at any time, he currently had good reason to expect it might happen tonight. His name and the hospital he was recovering in were announced on the news that morning, giving quick-acting types adequate time to pay him a visit.
Who might it be? he mused to himself. An Awakusu hitman, one of those Russians, maybe Anri’s here to stab me. Even Namie, he threw out there. But certainly not Shinra.
Naturally, Shinra wouldn’t want to kill him, unless in the case that it was necessary to protect Celty, or gain her favor. He’d even be charitable enough not to harm him more than necessary if he could help it. After all, he thought, Shinra only has one other friend besides myself. He’d ought to value me dearly.
Considering there were currently no ultimatums in which Izaya’s life could be exchanged for Celty’s, it was out of the question for Shinra to pay him a visit as an attempted murderer. However, Izaya had also ruled out the possibility of him doing so as a friend. Shinra had disregarded him when he’d called from the hospital phone hoping for the comfort of another’s voice, or at least some attention or concern thrown his way. As much as he craved a distraction from the constant unfamiliar buzzing of a hospital, it simply wasn’t happening.
How ironic that Shinra would choose to ignore me now , the same boy who’d thrown himself in front of a knife for the other nearly twelve years ago. Now Izaya bore a mirror of his wound, a stab to the stomach. Maybe Shinra’s forcing me to pay retribution for the favor . A month’s suspension from school wasn’t enough.
Shinra did say he’d done it to paint himself as a hero so Celty would praise him. But considering the momentary nature of the action, perhaps he hadn’t had time to consider that. Perhaps he had jumped in front of Izaya as a split-second decision, thinking about neither the consequences nor the ensuing praise, and recontextualized his choice to revolve around Celty, as all his choices did. This interpretation neither served nor disserved Izaya. Shinra had neither disregarded Izaya's safety after consideration, nor consciously chose to protect it by risking his own. An empty-headed, flip-of-a-coin reaction with no deeper meaning behind it besides Shinra’s own justification of stupidity: love. Not that Izaya was one to judge; he himself let an unconditional love dictate his decisions. Izaya loved humanity, and Shinra loved Celty. That’s just the way it was.
But really, did all split-second decisions happen with no weighing of sides or emotions behind them? If that were true, would a person throw themselves in front of a knife for just any passersby? It seemed unlikely. Perhaps there was a conscious decision being made there, to endanger himself for another's sake. Not to protect Izaya, but maybe Shinra had developed an usually quick ability to weigh decisions and choose whichever option gave him the best chances with Celty. I wouldn't put that past him; he is an anomaly after all, Izaya laughed to himself.
Really, anomaly was an understatement. Shinra was so irrationally detached from human logic and morality that he may as well be considered alien. He was an exception from Izaya’s whole worldview, a rare outlier to his indiscriminate love of humanity.
Of course, not being loved in this way didn't mean he was hated. Rather, Shinra was an object of Izaya's fascination, and perhaps more significantly, irrefutable envy. While Izaya adored all of humanity, Shinra was only so enamored by one, non-human, person.
That’s not the part I’m jealous of, he assured himself. I could never love a single person. I want to keep loving all humanity .
It wasn’t even that Shinra was more dedicated to his love than Izaya was to his; Izaya regularly endangered much more than Shinra had for the sake of human observation. What he envied was simply his detachment from the rest of the world, his satisfaction with everything else in his life being destroyed except Celty.
Izaya was just as human as the humanity he loved; Shinra, however, was inhuman. Free from what flaws held humans down, wanting more, fearing death, Shinra was able to stand on a higher pedestal than Izaya could place himself on. Alien, separate from the rest of the world, angelic, the man in white.
Izaya could only hope that he was an exception to Shinra's philosophy, as Shinra was to his. But judging by how quick he was to ignore a call from his closest friend in the hospital in favor of his holiday with Celty, that likely wasn't the case. Foolish, he dismissed his desire. No matter how he categorized Shinra’s decision all those years ago, it was for Celty’s sake, not his. I’ll simply have to mirror Shinra’s indifference right back at him. He'd already created some artificial consequences by sending the police to investigate the back-alley doctor.
“I thought it’d be funny,” he’d explained to Shinra. “Did the thrill rekindle things with Celty?” He tossed out a reference to a psychological phenomenon, misattribution of arousal.
“I wish you’d rekindle your body and burn to death,” Shinra had shot back, an insincere threat, though not entirely sarcastic.
That’d been too mild.
If Shinra ever ends up in my place, severely wounded in the hospital, and tries to call me, I’ll hang up immediately. Serves him right, he declared. He imagined Shinra’s face, pale, bloodied, miserable, betrayed. A terribly amusing thought, he laughed, bringing a splitting pain to the wound on his side. He pressed his hand to the wound as he continued to cackle to his empty hospital room. He imagined Shinra seething in this kind of pain, tears welling up behind his glasses, as he clawed at the wound with his fingers, indulging in a nearly sadomasochistic enjoyment of his own affliction projected onto the other man. If Shinra will leave me like this, I’ll make him feel the same way, he swore as his eyes began to water, prickling with pain.
He was pulled out of his schadenfreude by the sound of footsteps approaching his room. The wound on his stomach throbbed. He wiped his eyes, pushed down the desire to torture himself further. Looks like something more interesting is happening, he mused.