The Neighbor Next Door

Dinner night

It was Monday now, and MePhone hadn't gotten much rest at all. It was too good to be true, really, keeping himself up with his excitement, but... At least that was one perk of being a robot-- he didn't have to really sleep, but it still felt inconvenient these days when he didn't, having gotten so used to it. But! He wouldn't let something like this ruin his day. He had something to be excited for!

It also helped that this was something new. New things were thrilling. He had been to dinner parties for his dads work before, but just like the housewarming thing, he knew this would be leagues more casual of an experience. It also helped that it was with someone he was starting to grow fond of. MePhone liked the texts the two shared. How casual everything was. How... How nice it felt to have some sort of a connection-- a real growing connection. He also didn't have to worry about a lot of people being there-- or specifically two people he felt especially awkward around, being there. That was a great part of it in itself. It was about ten in the morning when he got up for the day, not really feeling like just sitting in bed and staring at the ceiling anymore, moving into the living room and kitchen area, mostly seeing if the cat wanted outside yet. It was sitting on the couch currently, doing that loaf thing that cats usually do, its gaze moving to look at MePhone. It made no move to get up, so MePhone safely assumed it wanted to stay inside for a bit longer. After that, he made sure the little bowl he set out with water for the cat still had water in it. He'd probably give it some morning food soon, too. It'd be a slow start to the day, but that wasn't a bad thing. He would figure out something to do to kill time between now and when he had to get ready, surely. For now, he just joined the cat on the couch, flipping on the TV for the time being. Maybe he would do some miscellaneous cleaning today while he waited. Yeah! That would surely be productive.

...

OJ had his hands full. It was eleven when he woke up, having slept past his alarm on accident, and he had to get ready for his daily work video call immediately to not miss it at noon. A quick shave, styling his hair a bit, and putting on the fancy presentable work clothes he'd probably be in all day too, to look presentable at dinner, too. He'd have to get his work call out of the way, and probably start immediately on preparing the dinner itself, which would take a few hours. OJ really hoped it'd all work out. He honestly wondered why this had to be scheduled on a Monday of all days, but it was just what popped into mind first when the two had been suggesting days. It would be fine, though. OJ, overall, was excited. He just had to make sure not to overwhelm himself with all the thinking about what needs to be done, and everything would surely end up fine. So he pushed all of his worries to the back of his brain, and focused on his work for the time being as he sat down for the video meeting.

Thankfully, it didn't feel like it slogged on for too long, time passing surprisingly fast for him today, meaning he could get ready and prep the kitchen for the stuff he needed to cook. He had prepared one of the sides yesterday, it having been something that could sit comfortably in the fridge, so he just needed to focus on cooking the chicken-- though first he'd go check on the cherries, and remind them of what was going on tonight. Of course, they were aware before, but he'd have to make sure the two didn't forget. He loosened his tie, ready to take it off-- not wanting to wear it while he was cooking, as he knocked on the open doorframe to the two's room. Cher was sitting on his bed reading, while Ry was sat on the floor, drawing up a silly little character puppet. They both looked up when he knocked.

"We're doing productive stuff today!"

"I can see that," OJ just smiled, walking into the room as he fully took off his tie, ruffling up Ry's hair a bit as he kneeled down to look at the drawing, the other sticking a tongue out, before showing the drawing off with a smile. There were two characters drawn on the page that he had safety scissors on hand to cut out later, what looked like a prince, or royalty of sorts, and a knight. OJ just raised an eyebrow at the two characters One of them was a ginger, like OJ, and the other had very bright blue hair-- as Ry didn't have many blue crayon options on hand, he used what he had. Very odd to OJ, but it didn't really catch on why.