The Neighbor Next Door

Assisted realization

OJ finally bit the bullet, texting Salt on Wednesday. He couldn't help but have a growing curiosity about this whole summer street party thing she was holding. He wasn't big into parties, but depending on the vibe it had, he thought he might give it a chance. As much as the conversations with Salt seemed to feel off to him, he still wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. He still didn't like what she had been saying about MePhone, she doesn't even know the guy, but he didn't want to assume she was a shitty person off the bat. That wouldn't be fair.

'Hey, this is OJ, I'm texting about that upcoming street party thing?'

Almost immediately, he was texted back;

'Oh, Hey OJ! Glad to finally hear from you!! Took you long enough lol. Anyways, yeah! Like, the party is actually this saturday. I was going to come by again and see if you were open to coming, but I can just do that over text now, which saves us both a lot of time, I'm sure.'

OJ found it a bit amusing how her speech pattern seemed to pick up in text, too.

'Yeah. This Saturday?' He really gave it some thought for a moment, before typing out the rest of his message; 'I'll probably be there. Kind of excited to see what all this is about.'

'I promise you will not be let down. It's super cool every year, and I could definitely like use this time to introduce you to more of the people on the street. Not everyone shows up, but like it's still a lot. At least, Pep and I will be there at least. I know my direct neighbor will be too. He's pretty cool.'

'Yeah? I'll definitely be glad to meet more of the people on the street.' OJ was glad texting her was a lot less weirdly overwhelming than having to talk to her in person.

'Good to hear! I'm like supes sure you'll have a great time!'

So this party was this Saturday... Already? OJ looked over to the calendar he had set up in his room, noticing it was definitely summer now. Mid May by this point. It was crazy to think about how long he had actually been living in this house at this point.

Though for now, it was still Wednesday, which meant he still had to go about today and the rest of the week normally. Which he knew wouldn't be too hard. Wednesday was one of his days off, so he didn't have anything to do, other than a bit of catch-up paperwork from yesterday, and then he'd be clear, but before he continued on that, he shot a text MePhone's way now.

'how are you today?' He obviously didn't expect a reply for a while, it was still pretty early in the morning, so he'd check after he was done with his papers. He also had a set video call with Knife and Paper today too, to look forward to. This time, one of their other shared friends was set to be there, too, and OJ was excited to hear from her again, and catch her, and the others up on everything. For now though, work it was.

...

MePhone definitely felt better in the following mornings. Like a real weight off of his shoulders, really. It wasn't everything, but talking really had helped so much. This obviously wasn't an immediate fix-all though. That was unrealistic, but just... Even the idea of finally having someone he could talk through things with made him feel a bit more optimistic as to what was to come. That, and he really liked that it was OJ. He was a really good friend. Yeah.

It was a slow Tuesday for the robot, but it was peaceful. It was nice.

Today was Wednesday, though, and he woke up a little late, but that wasn't too big of a problem, starting his day like how he usually did at this point, by checking any texts he might have gotten. He couldn't help but smile to himself as he headed down the hall to the living room as he saw OJ had texted.

'forgot to reply yesterday my bad but im doing okay today, was also fine yesterday too'

'Good to hear!'