The drive to the hotel in the back of the limo was made very chatty by Lay. He was a chatterbox and was always more than capable of carrying on a conversation with himself and anyone who cared to listen.
They arrived at the hotel and headed to their suite. Xavion went straight to his room and pulled his phone out, just in time to receive a phone call from their manager, Manager Choi.
“Kai was not on stage with the group, for your last performance of your tour,” Manager Choi stated quietly.
“No, he was a bit under the weather,” Xavion replied in the same quiet tone.
“A bit under the weather or drunk?”
“Which do you think it is, Manager Choi?” Xavion kicked off his boots and tossed the phone on the bed. He slipped his Bluetooth earpiece into his ear and shrugged his black leather jacket off.
“You are the leader of YNO, Xavion. You cannot lose your grip,” Manager Choi said curtly. “A group member cannot be going wild and partying moments before a concert to end a tour!”
“So he can go partying at the middle of the tour?” Xavion thought out loud. He was trying to lighten the tension but the humor was lost on Manager Choi.
“This is no laughing matter, Xavion. The tabloids were splashed with photos of a wild Kai all through yesterday and today. And this night alone, the pictures of his wild partying have been flooded with pictures of the group performing on stage tonight with him missing.”
“I can see that they certainly work fast,” Xavion was saying as he pulled his laptop closer to him. He typed in ‘YNO’ into the search engine and hundreds of results popped up, all updatedless than an hour ago. “YNO splitting? The wild Kai out? Really? What mad captions are these?”
“Well, what do you expect when you cannot pull the house together. These speculations are bound to continue if Kai cannot put his act together and we don’t want them to become reality now do we?”
“Manager Choi, with all due respect, isn’t Kai simply living up to his role in the team, I mean, you designated him the party boy, right? The one the fun girls and boys out there would like to date and party with. Why complain now?”
“Xavion…”
“Yeah, yeah, I hear you, Manager Choi. We will be available for a press conference tomorrow and...”
“No, that will not be necessary. You were supposed to begin your vacation there in Texas right? Go on with it. Do not come back to South Korea now. We will handle all the press on this end. All I ask is that right now, you stay away from social media. But first before that, you five will release a jolly video with you all together where you will state how much you are looking forward to your vacation and fun bonding time and how you are still a team. Let your fans know that you will be taking some time off to bond and work on new music. It should be posted across YNO’s and your personal social media handles tomorrow and then, from tomorrow till a month from now, stay away from social media. You get two months of vacation. Please spend the first month offline. Let the public forget this and miss you all. And when you resume the second month, we can put to good use all the fun pictures I expect you all to take during the first month of your vacation. I also expect that you will work on new hits aswell. On that front, I trust you all. Now, even if you have to take Kai’s phone away, do so. But ensure he stays off social media.”
“I hear you Manager Choi, loud and clear.”
“All the same, congrats on a successful tour, you’ve certainly increased YNO’s fan-base and established your position. Despite tonight’s hitch, it was a success and feedback from the fans across all social media platforms have been lit but of course they worry about your future due to Kai’s absence. This is why we need that video released ASAP.”
By the time he was hanging up, Xavion was suppressing the urge to scream.
*
“Am I reading this right? We are going to be spending our vacation at some dude ranch?” Kai choked as he stared at the website on the screen of Chan’s laptop.
“Exactly what you are seeing there. What else do you think?” Zane asked as he walked into the living room of the suite. Zane eyed Kai and his blue eyes darted towards the door to his room which was flung open. His still unpacked suitcases were strewn all over.
Kai got the message and hurried to the room. From his room, he called out, “But sunbae, we cannot spend two months in some ranch here in Texas. How about somewhere cooler, like a...”
“Like a casino?” Lay asked as he sidled over to Kai’s door, his hands crossed. “Didn't you just promise us this morning that you were going to try to tame your party ways?”
“Uh…” Kai blushed. He quickly turned back to his packing and Lay laughed as he headed to Chan’s computer.
“Hmm… ranch life, huh. This better be fun.”
“Well, I think the managers are less concerned with us having fun and more concerned with the pictures and stories that we will be presenting for the fans,” Chan said thoughtfully. He looked around and back at Zane. “Where is Xavion sunbae?”
“Oh, he went to make arrangements for a car to Menora. It’s about an hour from Austin so we don’t need to fly.”
“Menora, where’s that?” Kai scoffed.
“That’s the town we are heading to for vacation, Kai. Do you even know anything about our trip?” Lay laughed.
“Well I do know that it is going to be torture...” Kai sang.
