Kade was hardly able to make it off of the stage, his legs turning jelly from the roar of the audience- but also partially from the head rush from being that close to Calico's face that set his own face on fire.
Calico laughed a bit at him when Kade wobbled, grabbing ahold of Calico's arm to remain steady.
Though he squatted down, pulling Kade around so he could ride on his back piggyback style.
Kade was a little embarrassed to act like that around a bunch of people, but he also didn't care enough to protest, looping his arms over Calico's shoulders and clasping them in front of his chest to keep balance.
Calico walked the two of them through backstage to where the meet and greet was.
The next couple hours, Kade had to go through the pictures and signatures with the VIP ticket guests, taking picture after picture, and getting comment after comment about his height.
"You looked taller on stage!"
"You're the size of my younger sibling."
"Did you drink milk as a kid?"
In fact, to answer the last question, Kade didn't really drink any milk as a kid, considering milk wasn't that cheap, and he preferred monster over that.
But that didn't stop him from wanting to roll his eyes at every comment about his height, though he didn't, and merely laughed them off.
Every once and a while, the two would get someone requesting them to kiss for a photo, which they politely declined because one: it would be hard to fake that on camera- and two: they said that they would rather not do that for show- and would rather kiss with meaning behind it.
Luckily, people respected their wishes about that and didn't push them about it after they declined.
That night, Calico was saying his farewells to Kade for the night when he dropped the news.
The news that his family was dragging him along on a two week vacation.
Which family meant Mr. Choi.
As in the man that they were trying to keep Kade hidden from at the time being.
So that meant that Kade had to spend two weeks, as he used too, by himself.
Right after deciding he might be ready to kiss Calico after everything that happened.
Whoever was in charge of Kade's karma- must've thought they were hilarious.
Turns out, Kade found out the hard way, that he couldn't even hardly text Calico during this time, because Mr. Choi was being a helicopter parent when it came to who Calico was talking too during the vacation, and to keep him from knowing Calico was talking to Kade, Calico couldn't talk to Kade.
Calico explained this in a brief phonecall that they had, also adding the suspicion that Mr. Choi knew Calico knew where Kade was, and was trying to catch him in the act and force Calico to tell him.
So to keep them both safe, Calico tended to only talk once or twice a day.
For two weeks.
Kade felt lonelier than when he had spent practically two months by himself- in the past two weeks. While yes he had Calico- he felt so out of reach and out of touch- it was almost like he would forget about Kade and move on.
While Kade knew that was stupid, and he knew exactly why Calico wasn't talking right now- a part of his brain seemed to feast on Kade's insecurities in himself- and loved to convince Kade that he wasn't good enough for Calico to want to be with for long.
Luckily, it only took Jamaica and Lance three long empty days to come up with a way to keep Kade distracted during Calico's absence.
And honestly, if Kade was admitting it- while yes he enjoyed the one on two time with his siblings, given he didn't have the chance to spend time with them while they were growing up- another part of him felt sad because they could have been doing this ever since their parents died- if Cyril hadn't been the one to take his siblings away from him.
