Hello again! Look at me, updating on time. This makes me very happy.

I'm currently stuck on chapter thirty of this and I haven't written any more of it for a while. But that gives me a few weeks to struggle before I have to post that chapter, anyway. I'd like to publicly thank all my reviewers and those silly (amazing) people who have actually stuck with this story since the beginning. This story was actually published on February the tenth, so it'll be running for a whole year! That's sort of insane for me to think about... Oh! And a special thanks to CluelessLeaf, who offered very good insight into my characters. I'm sorry I have yet to reply to your latest PM; I've been working on writing my stories (not this one, admittedly) so I'll try to reply soon. There, I've said it publicly and now I have to.

Well, I'll shut up now. You have a chapter to read!

Mikuo and his friends did their best to get in contact with Kaito over the weekend. As much as they really didn't feel like seeing their friend in such a state, it might be best if he had people to lean on. After all, he had been there with many of them in hard times.

Kaito didn't pick up the phone. He did not answer the door and he did not come to school on Monday. Or Tuesday. Or Wednesday. By this point, Mikuo was fairly sure he'd be gone the entire week.

No one was very spirited. Even those who did not know Kaiko understood that those in their group who did would not be up for anything. Mikuo found Rei clasping Rin's hand under the table at lunch on Monday and couldn't even bother feeling awkward. Teto, for all her cheer and never ending energy, could not make it the full day Monday. She had honestly been the closest to Kaiko, buying her little trinkets and even managing to convince her parents to let her go shopping once. She adored Kaiko as the younger sister she had always wanted. Seeing her break down in the middle of third period just made everything all the more real.

Mikuo really wanted to see Kaito. He wanted him back at school, if only for reassurance that his friend would be okay. Len, who seemed to have temporarily made up with Rin, agreed.

"Kaito's our best friend," Len had confirmed when they met up on Wednesday morning before school. "I miss him, too. Besides, he can't miss school forever. He'll have to suffer eventually."

For a motivational speech, it could have been better. But it got the point across. Len and Mikuo would do their best to get Kaito back to school. After all, it's what seemed to be in their friend's best interest.

Len remembered the first time he had met Kaito. But more importantly, Len remembered the first time they had properly decided to be friends. It wasn't really a decision, more like an obvious conclusion they reached after a few days of being around each other. Ultimately, it was his sister and Mikuo who made the final decision for him. After all, they're the ones who befriended him first.

Kaito had been the quiet kid growing up. From what Len gathered, he was shy and preferred to stay inside and work on art projects while the other kids ran out for recess. He didn't interact much with other people, which was pretty much opposite of Len and his sister. So even though they ended up in a few of the same classes up through elementary school, their paths never crossed much. Len grew up to hang out with the louder, popular characters while Kaito stayed in the shadows for the most part.

Then, in middle school, he grew up a bit and started an interesting friendship with his sister and her two Hastune friends. Despite their immense differences, they got along well (and yes, Len would admit to the slightest bit of a crush on Miku during their seventh year of school. But he would never admit it out loud.)

Kaito came along a little while after. He had never been shy, as it turned out, but held his tongue more often than not to avoid the retribution he had faced at his first elementary school. Kaito was a rude little twerp with an attitude and Len loved it. Unfortunately, he grew out of it a bit, but Len had already learned his lesson about friends. Keep the good ones, even if they change a bit.

Len remembered his first meeting with Kaiko, who reminded him so much of Rin in a way he couldn't name very well. Maybe it was her smile, which was fairly similar to Rin's; large and pure and bright. Their eyes were similar in this respect, too. So alive and taking in as much as they possibly could. There was a light in both of them that couldn't be extinguished. Except it had.

Len couldn't imagine losing Rin. And Kaito shouldn't have had to lose Kaiko. But at least he wouldn't be alone.

Going to school again would be a start. He didn't even have to make it a full day. Hell, Len would be great with having him hang out during lunch. But seeing Kaito was important, and not just to him. To everyone, especially Kaito. So Len would have to convince him.

He figured it would be better for his friend if he didn't have a bunch of people crowding him. So Len went alone, first knocking on the front door. No one answered, as was typical lately. Len took the alternate route, which had been his plan all along. This would mean sneaking up the tree in the back, edging along one of the longer, sturdier branches, and crawling onto the roof, from which he could gain access to Kaito's room. Foolproof. Of course, Len was a bit of a fool, especially when it came to complicated(ish) plans.

Len made it to the roof before he almost threw in the towel. He had a scrape on his elbow and three long scratches on his brow from the leafless tree in the Shions' yard. Not only that, but he was sweating a bit. Len Kagamine did not sweat. Sweat was unattractive, which was the antonym of "Len Kagamine." In addition to all that horror, his hair was a mess, coming out of his ponytail and falling in his eyes as he attempted to scoot across the rooftop to Kaito's window.

Len managed to get to the spot above Kaito's window and slowly (very, very slowly) reacheda down to knock on the window. Two sharp raps on the glass before leaning his face down to pear into Kaito's room. The curtains were closed, but he could hear the bed inside the house creak as Kaito stood and supposedly crossed his room to his window (supposedly, since Len couldn't actually see him, of course.)

The curtains were thrown open and a furrowed brow came into view. Kaito did not look very well. And this was coming from the boy hanging upside down on his roof. His eyes were sunken and bloodshot, obviously from crying over the past few days. But it didn't look like he had been crying recently, which was good because Len was absolute crap at the consoling thing. Apart from his face, his hair was a complete mess and Len doubted (hoped, but doubted) he had changed clothes in the past two days. Len had never really seen Kaito like this before, even after knowing him for a long time. He didn't like what he saw.

He saw Kaito's jaw twitch as he resisted a comical jaw-drop. Releasing the curtains, the navy-haired youth unlocked the window and pushed it open, nearly decapitating Len in the process.

"What the hell, Len." It wasn't even a question. Just a statement. "You are insane."

"Of course I am," Len confirmed. "Please let me in. All the blood is rushing to my head."

Kaito shook his head and helped Len in, taking one of his hands to steady the shorter boy as he carefully lowered himself from the roof onto Kaito's windowsill and into the boy's bedroom from there.

"Great, thanks," Len commented, trying to smooth out his wind-swept, tree-attacked blond hair. "I've always wanted to do that." Not.

"I didn't ask you to," Kaito replied irritably. "There's a reason we aren't answering the door, you idiot."

"You might as well have issued a public challenge," Len said. "Do you actually remember any of the people you're friends with?"

Kaito ran a hand through his hair, knitting sharp eyebrows together. The expression on his face was caught somewhere between a glare and a look of desperation. Obviously, he had not been expecting this.

"I'll show you the door. It's an amazing way of getting in and out of my house without ending up as a Len pancake," Kaito told him. His wit was unusually sharp today. That was okay. Len could handle it.

"Come on. After I went to all that trouble to see you? I'm not leaving yet," Len stated stubbornly.

Kaito certainly did glare this time. Len was actually a bit worried for his own safety when he saw Kaito's full on angry glare. He'd seen his "annoyed" glare and the "I've got things to do so quit bugging me" glare. The angry glare was something Kaito had maybe unleashed once or twice (or never, come to think of it) in Len's presence. He really didn't like it.

"I don't want to deal with you," Kaito said firmly. "Just… leave. I'm not in the mood."

"Don't do that."

Kaito's expression loosened a bit, revealing confusion. "Do what?"

"Don't shut me out. We're friends. We haven't seen you in days."

"I don't want to see anyone."

"Bullshit," Len declared. "Maybe sitting up here alone all day might be what you think you need, but I'm pretty sure you're going to regret it. Since when has bottling things up ever helped any of us? Have you seen the mess we've been in lately?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Kaito said pointedly, glaring straight at Len, who was now glaring back.

"I don't care if you don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it, either," Len told him. "I have a girlfriend to Skype and homework to ignore and a sister who I'm pretty sure might hate me at the moment. Don't freaking check out because you 'don't want to talk about it.' You don't have to talk about it. Just show up, for God's sake. We're worried."

Kaito's resolve held. "I don't care. Don't you get that? You have no idea how hard it's been."

"Don't you dare," Len snapped, advancing on Kaito and standing right in front of him, glaring up at him from his shorter height. "Don't use that line. Teto went home crying on Monday. We know how hard it's been. We'd know even better if you'd bother to see any of us."

Len was hurt, he had to admit. Kaito hadn't bothered to contact him at all. And weren't they supposed to be friends? He was pretty sure this whole friends thing didn't work like that. Maybe he wasn't so good at communicating, especially about feelings and emotions, but he sure as hell knew well enough that Kaito was the type of person who was better off around other people.

"If we all mean that little to you, then why have you even bothered at all?" Len demanded.

There was an uncomfortable silence. Len was left pondering his own words and hoping Kaito wouldn't punch him. After all, it was probably a sin to ruin a face as nice as his. And there was the added "bonus" of pain, which he had to admit he wasn't fond of.

"You really don't understand," Katio repeated. "It's like… missing a part of yourself. Like my leg or my arm was taken away."

Len released a breath he had kept bottled up inside of his chest. There was relief in that breath. Kaito was talking (and not punching.) This was a great first step.

"And not having you around is the same thing," Len informed him. "Your spot at our lunch table doesn't look so great empty."

Kaito shook his head. "How can I keep going to school?" he asked. "How can I get a job and move on when she'll never get the chance? It's horrible that her life amounted to a permanent dent in her bed."

"She made a group of high schoolers completely lose their minds," Len said. "I think she amounted to more than that."

Kaito couldn't disagree with that.

"I wish… well, I wish a lot of things. But I wish she had been able to go to school with us," Kaito said quietly. He looked on the verge of tears. Len did not like the idea of comforting his friend, especially if he started crying but if he had to he would.

"Nah. We would have teased her endlessly," Len said. "She should've gone to SeeU's high school. Less embarrassment from her brother's friends."

Neither Kaito nor Len was much of a hugger. Nonetheless, Len found himself being forced into a hug all the same. He was short enough to rest his head on Kaito's shoulder (God damn it) and the other boy's ars were fixed around his back tightly. Len sighed inwardly and raised his arms to wrap around Kaito's lower back in order to return the hug.

Why the hell did I choose such emotional friends? he asked himself as Kaito buried his face in Len's hair, which was bit too close for Len's comfort. All the same, he was glad Kaito was talking to him. Though if the other boy happened to mention this emotional moment to anyone, he would most definitely deny it.

Then again, they probably wouldn't believe him.

Review if that's your thing! If not, see you next chapter!