Though you annoy me, I'll take your hand in mine any day

Departure.

It was a surprisingly quiet week at Hotel OJ, OJ himself being confined to bed for most of it, as per Paper and Soap's orders, while others stepped in to fill in his shoes. By the end of the week, OJ was finally feeling mostly better, the only lingering symptoms of his cold being a runny nose. It was weird to OJ, essentially having a week off of the work he had been doing almost non-stop for several years now, but as the week went on, and he was able to spend time with MePhone, who wasn't worried about catching anything from him, only ever making distance between the two when OJ were to sneeze-- he remembers vaguely being told about what happened with getting sneezed on by Tissues all those years ago-- so he understood. Overall, despite feeling lousy on most days, it was nice. Today though? He was ready to get back to work. He woke up early today, for once before MePhone had. So he was going to let him rest, as he carefully pulled the covers off of him, grabbing the tray that MePhone had brought him of last night's dinner to take back to the kitchen.

Thankfully the lobby was mostly quiet this morning, the only two around being Soap preparing breakfast, and Paper sitting at the table, reading a newspaper.

"Good morning guys," The both of them looked at him as he moved over to the sink, setting down his dishes.

"Morning, OJ. I take it you're... feeling better if you're out of bed I hope? And out here?" Soap subtly stepped away as she kept most of her focus on breakfast.

"Yes, Soap. I promise I'm feeling better. In a few days my sniffling will be gone too, but I'm well enough to start helping again-- and speaking of which, thanks you two, for stepping up. You know I always appreciate it." He looked at Paper with a friendly smile, the sheet returning one of his own.

"Glad to hear you're feeling better, but don't even hesitate to go take a break if needed. I'm sure your energy is probably still going to be low today considering you've been in bed all week, okay? Take it easy."

"Of course, Paper," He leaned over the counter a bit to look at what Soap was preparing, before joining Paper at the hotel to read the news with him.

The morning was calm, and nice, but throughout this entire week, that feeling of lingering dread had not left him, it only seeming to grow more prominent as the days passed-- but he couldn't just tell anyone, he was sure Paper would think he were just stressed and have him stuck in that room longer, which wouldn't be good for anyone-- and he didn't want to worry MePhone about something that probably didn't matter. He kept hoping the feeling would go away, but it wouldn't'. At this point, he promised himself that if it wasn't gone by tomorrow, he'd talk to someone about it, but for today, he couldn't spend all his time worrying about it.

...

The week had been... Eventful for a certain short, mischievous object. Not eventful in her doing much, but in the information she gathered. An object coming back from a walk, or jog, or hanging out outside just to feel unnerved, or like they were being observed, or the occasion of last night, where the hotel door had been unlocked long after Paper had locked it for the night. Something just wasn't right, and Taco wanted to get to the bottom of it. If someone was plotting something, she wanted to know what. She just had to figure out what, or who it was that was causing all this.

After breakfast, as she was heading out, she took the newspaper-- they didn't need it anymore anyways, as she sat down in the hallway, reading through it. Sure, this wasn't part of looking for anything notable for her suspicions, it was just reading the paper, always finding interest in keeping up with the latest news because well, what was she, if not informed on everything happening. Towards the end of reading it, having looked at almost everything, a single paragraph-- something about the latest tech company rising to take Meeple's place after what had happened-- just a sentence caught her eye. Oh, this could be bad.