Despair's Insanity - an II x DR fic

KEC - FTE 2

Oj had to be in his office, sulking or yelling about something, so I went right upstairs to the third floor, where his office was. I went down the hallway to his door, knocked, and didn't get a reply.

I turned the knob, getting an easy twist and opening the door up no problem. The office definitely looked boring, with a pale orange wallpaper, maroon carpeting, and bookshelves along the side walls. The back had some portrait photos, mostly of him and Paper building the hotel, or him celebrating Cherries' birthday, but there was one in the middle...

It had only Bomb and Oj, and was clearly a selfie made by Bomb. The two looked very young, had to be from season one, and they were taking a photo by a tree full of candy? They seemed normal enough regardless, but then my eyes moved down to the current Bomb and Oj.

They sat at Oj's white office desk, with Bomb sitting on the desk chair and Oj sitting in his lap, practically hunched over as he did some paperwork. Paperwork? During a killing game? Bomb looked as drained as before, but at least noticed me since he nudged Oj and gestured his head toward my direction.

Oj glanced up from the desk, but didn't give me wave or anything. He just said a quick "hi" before going back to his writing. I took that as a cue to stay, and closed the door behind me.

"Hey... you two doing ok?" Oj looked back at Bomb, who shook his head.

Oj sighed. "I- I've been having a bit of a dilemma, honestly, but I can't fix it until Bomb's able to talk again." He finally seemed somewhat genuine, with the now visible bags under his eyes, and constant tapping of his pen. "What are you doing here, anyway? Is something broken?"

"Oh- no. I just wanted to talk to you."

"You wanted to talk to me. Oj."

"...do you not believe me?"

"Not really, no." Oj sat up fully and stretched, his back making this crackling sound that made me shudder uncomfortably. I do not have an affinity for those noises! Regardless, Oj flipped through a few more sheets of paper, and I glanced at them.

"What are you doing?..."

"Oh, just some basic rundowns of hotel stuff. I have to fill out stuff about the state of the hotel once a week, or else I get in legal trouble."

"Do they check it?"

"Once a year, but they go through every single thing I have. That yearly check is like the damn apocalypse- I make everyone clean top to bottom, I check the appliances for anything misfiring, I go to the storage areas and lock them up to say it's for renovations... it's a whole thing." Bomb's eyes went wide as Oj explained it all, shaking his head a bit as Oj gestured for me to sit on the chair across from them.

I did as Oj suggested of course, just so I could get a better look at the papers. It was nothing more than a bunch of sheets with questions about how the hotel's doing. "This looks very tedious."

"It is. It's not due today, but if I don't do it I forget about what all I monitored for the week. And since I can't do much else, I figured I'd catch up on all that." I looked at Oj for a second, but my gaze shifted to Bomb behind him, who just sat there and looked off in the distance, his eyes shifting to different places rapidly. I pointed to him with my thumb.

"What about Bomb? Does he have anything to do that you could do too? Maybe?"

Oj looked back at Bomb again, and Bomb stayed silent, not even making an effort to communicate with hands, gestures, or lip movement. They sat there for a few more seconds before Oj awkwardly turned away again, only mumbling "I don't know," to me.

Did they hate each other now? I glanced back up to the picture right above them, but couldn't help frowning a bit. Fan was so stupid... and yet- he clearly knew what he was doing here.

Oj cleared his throat and went back to writing, and I hesitated for a second before turning to leave the office. As I got to the door, I glanced back to see Bomb's arm nub reaching toward me, practically begging me to stay, but I couldn't do that. There was far too much tension for me to handle, so I mouthed a quick "sorry", and closed the door behind me.

They'd figure it out eventually. I didn't know what their issues were- how could I have been the one to fix them??