Time went on, months had passed. By now, Vox had stayed at the hotel for almost three months.
While everything at the hotel could be described as happy and stable, things weren't so good outside the rest of hell. When Vox left, the repercussions of leaving the Studio life had affected everyone else.
When Vox left, he took all those he had under contract with him, meaning they had no obligation to help Val legally with anything. Once this became clear, Val was beyond furious with this news. He was still not over the punch to the face, but to know Vox had pretty much removed himself from his affairs was a step too far in his book.
It didn't help the media had noticed Vox had pretty much vanished and nobody knew where he was. Questions and rumors flew around, and everyone was looking for answers, but nobody could get them.
Headlines like 'Triple V broken' and TV Overlord mysteriously absent flew around, all the demons in hell had their eye on the remaining V's, both of whom were about as uniformed as the rest of hell was of Vox's whereabouts.
Since Vox wasn't here to take his anger out on, he decided to give the sum of his bad mood to his employees instead, all of whom were confused why the hell Val was in a terrible mood since none of them had done anything and it lasted for months.
At the moment, keeping Val in a neutral state was pretty much the best they could do. Even that was considered a trouble for most as Val's mood had taken a massive plunge and was easily irritable in comparison to how he usually was.
Velvet was at the studio, boredly scrolling on her phone. Ever since Vox left, things had gone south for everyone. Nobody expected Vox's disappearance to have such a negative effect, and with him gone everyone was miserable and bitter.
Val was in a mood, and everyone else was miserable, or at least more miserable than before.
Even Velvet had a hard time keeping up her clownish upbeat attitude. Vox hadn't contacted anyone in the studio for ages and nobody knew where he went. At first, Velvet thought this was just another break-up that got a bit more violent than usual.
However, as days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months, it was getting clear that this was no ordinary breakup. Usually whenever they fought like this, they'd get back by the end of the week or two at most, but it had been THREE MONTHS and Vox hadn't stepped foot in the studio.
By now, even Velvet couldn't deny the obvious…It was unlikely Vox was ever coming back.
Attempts to contact Vox ended with her getting nowhere. Vox likely blocked her number and he wasn't active on Vox-stagram, so Velvet had no clue where Vox could be. From what Val said, this was the same reaction he got, so it was likely Vox had cut contact with them to avoid any trouble.
'Where the hell could he be!? It's like he disappeared off the face of hell! This breakup must be something serious if he ran off like this and didn't even give us a call!'' She didn't get too many details about what happened, all she knew was that a fight broke out and from the looks of how messy the studio was, it got bad.
Suddenly, Vark came up to her on the couch.
"What is it Varky?"
He nudged her, looking at the photo of Vox and giving her a sad look.
"I know boy, you miss him too. Maybe he'll come back…." Velvet doubted that, but she was trying to cheer up the shark despite Vox having been gone for months.
Vark didn't seem so sure, looking down. Velvet tried thinking of a way to cheer him up, grabbing on his snacks and saying,"Hey Vark! Fetch!"
Vark stared at the treat. Instead of going after it, he just slumped over and boredly laid down.
Velvet frowned, she tried this before and she got the same result. Vark was pretty much depressed when Vox left and rarely left his post at the door unless it was for food. Sometimes not even that could get him to move. It was like the shark was barely functioning without Vox Time he was at the door, he just stared and waited for Vox to come back.
"Come on Vark, eat something!" She wasn't good with pets and basically had to take care of Vark for the time Vox wasn't there. With Vox gone, she had to do everything with Vark, as Val didn't like the shark in the first place and told her it was her responsibility."Come on! Eat!"
Vark boredly looked at the treat, sniffing it before taking it in his mouth...and tossing it aside.
Velvet huffed, this always ended up happening. Vox barley ate nowadays, she had to practically force him to do basic things. Vox was usually the one who ended up doing these things, like taking Vark out for a walk and feeding him, so with him absent, Vark was forced to rely on Velvet to do these things…
Granted Vark was smart and tall enough to reach the shelf, but he was in such a mood that Velvet had to do it herself.
Hell, Velvet was the only person who bothered trying to take care of him and she wasn't the greatest. She had to follow SPECIFIC instructions to make sure she didn't accidentally kill him. Velvet had killed tons of her pets before because of how chaotic she was, thankfully Vark was more durable and far less likely to be injured, but still Vox had given her a list on how to care for him in a way where she couldn't possibly mess up.
Velvet made a face, whenever her 'dad's fought, it was usually over something minor and they'd get back together sooner or later. However, it seemed like Vox was serious this time and wasn't coming back home. His absence pretty much caused hell itself to stop functioning the way it usually did and with no one aware where he had gone, things weren't looking good for the time being.
'You know, I knew Vox was important, but I didn't know it'd be this lonely and boring without him around…' Val was busy with his work affairs and Velvet's only company was Vark, but even then, it wasn't like he could talk or was a person.
Velvet boredly reached for the remote and turned on the TV, normally she didn't care about watching it but honestly she had nothing better to do.
Velvet suddenly noticed an advertisement playing, she'd probably ignore it if it wasn't about that weird hotel.
"Hm? Vark, remember that crazy girl with that stupid idea of redeeming people? She actually managed to get an ad on TV. Wonder if it's a disaster like how her interview went." Velvet and Vark listened, the former being shocked to see that the ad didn't include any singing or anything about rainbows.
Instead, it appealed to demons who were unsatisfied with their afterlife and wanted to try changing for the sake of an escape. Velvet was no smartie, but compared to how Charlie's laughable idea sounded, she had a hard time believing that Charlie was the idea-man behind this ad. It seemed too...mature and well thought out for her.
Velvet always considered Charlie a spoiled child whose head was in the clouds, so she doubted that Charlie came up with this, as there were no rainbows or songs inside whatsoever. T
The longer Velvet watched, the longer she realized there were multiple ads and posters, Charlie apparently had kick-started the hotel and while they didn't have any new clients she had heard about, her reputation was a lot more positive than it was earlier, much to her shock.
'Where the hell did she get the support for this stuff? There's no way after how she bombed the last interview anyone would take her crap seriously! This redemption stuff is a load of crap and now people are listening to a word she says?'
Everyone considered Charlie's hotel a joke, now, while there were reasonable doubts and mockery, it had toned down to the point some geuneily started considering its potential. As crazy as Velvet was, she wasn't dumb, she knew Charlie wasn't the type of person to think things through or at least be able to plan things out.
Sure, she could believe someone helped her, but to the extent of making an ad palpable to the general populace? And not being kicked out of a new station for her atrocious form last time? Something was up, and Velvet had a feeling she knew why.
She stood up and said,"Don't worry, Vark. I'm just gonna go check out that hotel, I promise I'll be right back."
Vark watched as she left, looking at the photo of Vark and lowering his head.
