Returning to Midorijima was relatively easy, much to the surprise of Kain. There weren't any mobs of policemen ready to whisk him away back to Toue's hands or any men in metallic upon his arrival. The hardest part of moving back was dealing with the memories that accompanied the island. Memories of people that were no longer with him. The deviant finally found out about the reason behind his grandfather's unusual silence: He had passed away over a year ago. The masked man was incredulous at first as he processed the news, but eventually this gave way to anger – "Why didn't anyone fucking tell me that Gramps passed?" – which in turn gave away to sorrow. The grieving deviant was inconsolable for weeks, mourning over his caretaker and how he didn't even get to say a goodbye.

Soon a month had passed. Athan and Kain had, more or less, become settled in in their apartment (The arrival of the duo must've been something that had been expected for quite some time since the place came fully furnished). However, Kain's dismal disposition had continued over into the month, and the Australian living with him was completely out of options as to what to do about his roommate/best mate. Seeing Kain hurt, hurt Athan as well, but the fact that cut to the bone was no one told him. More specifically, the person who promised to tell him didn't! Athan was livid. After all this time, Kain didn't know about Mr. Hide. He could've swore that Manzo said that he would tell him. After a phone call with said man, the Australian's accusation was proven correct. Their conversation made the Aussie feel even more discontent with Manzo's decision to stay silent.

"I didn't want Kain to grieve over his Mr. Hide's death alone," he had said calmly, as if he was explaining something simple to a young child, "We talked about this Athan. I wanted someone close to Kain to be there with him."

"That makes no fucking sense, you bloody dumbass and you know it!" Athan shouted lividly, "It doesn't take a year to tell someone about-" he man lowers his voice to an angry stage whisper, as if he didn't want the deviant to hear, "-the passing of their loved one!"

"There were many things that needed to be seen about and I couldn't take anyone off of their assignments for they were time sensitive, Athan," Manzo explained, maddeningly calm in the face of Athan's ire.

"Ugh! This is Kain we're talking about, not some random member of the DO! You still could've sent one of us to deliver the news to him...!"

(Their argument will continue well into the night, only to be interrupted by one of their coils shutting off unexpectedly of a dead battery.)

Kain could hear Athan fussing over the coil with Manzo, making his already terrible mood become even fouler. Athan and Manzo's relationship was already filled with tension, and he felt pretty shitty for causing more rifts between the former friends. But, at the same time, he was pretty mad at Manzo for not telling him about Gramps. He's been gone for a year and he didn't even know about his passing until a month ago. What the ever living fuck? How can you keep such news away from your friend for a year?

The deviant let out a sigh and burrowed deeper into his bed, covering his head with his duvet in hopes that he could block out the Athan's enraged shouts and Manzo's calm words.

It didn't, and Kain felt like crying.

DVT~~~~

After a month and a half into their stay, the deviant couldn't stand being holed up in the apartment any longer. Between the almost constant arguments between two of his close friends and the atmosphere of foulness that he conjured up, Kain was slowly going insane. Thus is why he is taking a late night stroll of Midorijima. He had no destination, so the young man was aimless in where he was going, being too caught up in his thoughts of his grandfather and friends to be bothered to think of somewhere to go. Which was a big part of why he ended up bumping into a wall.

"Ow," he said, more out of habit than out of actually pain. Which was rather strange since he walked into a wall- oh.

It wasn't a wall. It was a man. The aforementioned man was silently looking behind him at Kain with a neutral expression, showing no signs of being upset with the deviant bumping into him, thankfully. The man was very tall (just about the same height as Kain who was about 6'2) and wore a long navy green trench coat. That's all that he could see of the man's clothing, other than the boots that the coat didn't hide. The intimidating man had long dark-brown dreads that gradient into red, and the one cool blue eye that peeked over his shoulder seemed to bore into him with an unusual intensity. Kain drew his arms up and held his elbows, suddenly feeling self-conscious about the amount of skin he was displaying.

When they first came back and Kain was still unknowing about his grandfather, Athan had demanded a wardrobe change, taking away his dark clothing that hid everything and replacing it with light-colored and exposing clothing. The contrast was jarring to the deviant. He wasn't even allowed to wear his mask – the horror of it all. The Australian even tried to cut his hair, but Kain drew the line at the idea. But due to Athan's needling, he did replace his ever present bandanna with a headband. Kain still felt strange whenever he looked at himself; it was almost as if he was staring at an entirely new person. But the strange feeling wasn't unwelcomed. The deviant needed change from the constant state of hiding. However, he still felt overexposed at time, especially when people began to stare at the black markings covering the grey skin he showed.

The paled haired man gave a cough before giving a broad, yet sheepish, grin.

"Uh, sorry for bumping into you!" the deviant apologized, letting go of his arms.

The man remained silent, much to Kain's consternation. Was the man actually hurt? Fucking hell–

But, suddenly, the man turned around with low hum and walked away without a word, leaving the deviant blinking at his retreating back. Kain frowned at the rather strange behavior but he decided that he couldn't really judge – he's seen weirder things. With that, he continued on his way to nowhere, hoping that his excursion remained uneventful. And it did. However, the following days didn't act according to his wishes.

DVT~~~~

AN: Surprise? I dunno. I guess I can tentatively say that Deviant is on a semi-hiatus? Again, I dunno. It's going to be really different from now on, I can tell you that for sure. A big reason due this story being previously discontinued was due to the fact that I kind of fell out of the DMMD fandom, and so I have a feeling everyone knows how that goes. That falling out affected my writing and I didn't want to slap something together and give you a load of shit. But I still love the story that I had written out as well as my dear Kain and friends. Most importantly, I love writing for you guys and I hate to stop that due to my own selfish reasons. However, I'm not going to force out anything, so update will be sporadic.

Thank you for sticking through with DVT.

KM~~~~