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30 : Messages

"Are you sure you're okay? You don't have to put this much pressure on yourself."

Paper's hands were lifted right below his face, clasped together in worry. Although OJ couldn't see Paper's bothered expression or body language, the thin object's voice was perturbed enough for OJ to get the hint.

"I understand your concern," OJ said, his voice weakened, "but I brought this upon myself. I should fix what I've done first."

Paper's expression didn't get any better. If anything, it plunged deeper into the concern OJ had mentioned. "It's almost been three weeks now. I'm sure everybody's had time to accept that you regret what you did."

"It's not my reputation I'm worried about." OJ said. "I mean, I am worried about my reputation, but that's not why I'm doing this. If I fucked up this badly, then I need to fix it. At the very least, I could try to get us a lead to follow."

Paper sighed. OJ kept his back turned, hunched over the laptop. Although neither objects saw each other's faces, Paper already knew what expression OJ would be wearing. His tired, worn out scowl that happened every time he overworked himself like this.

"I know you want to help, but at least take care of yourself. You're not going to get anywhere if you don't put your health first." Paper said.

Just by the way OJ's figure froze, Paper could tell his words had struck some sort of cord. Whether good or bad, he didn't know, but it hit something inside of OJ. Before Paper could figure out what it was, OJ spoke up again.

"I can rest once we have a clue to where Test Tube is." He croaked, his watery eyes almost tangible in his voice. Paper opened his mouth to argue, though he couldn't find the words.

"Just... We're here for you if you need anything, okay?" Paper said. Although OJ gave a stiff nod, the message still didn't feel like it got through. But with nothing else to say, Paper could only leave OJ to his own.

The ever familiar sound of the door shutting echoed through the room, leaving OJ alone once more. The air felt stale to his lungs, a feeling he couldn't quite word but could most definitely feel. With a sigh, he forced himself to ignore how awfully familiar Paper's words had been and continue the search.

Fan's laptop was... interesting, to say the least. It took OJ a good week or so just to understand how the thing worked. God knows how Fan navigated through the laptop with all of the tabs and websites open. But regardless of how complicated the laptop felt to OJ, he forced himself to continue searching through it for some sort of hint. Plus, even if he was hungry, if he ate anything it would just come back up again due to what he was reading.

For the last few days of the search, OJ had been looking through the lab files. The ones Test Tube had made herself, disgustingly enough. Looking back on the lab incident was an uncomfortable experience for OJ, to say the least, but he didn't let the tightness in his chest keep him from searching through the logs.

From what he had gathered so far, there were five objects apart from Test Tube in the lab. Lightbulb and Mephone4 were expectable, as was Fan. Soap had come as a surprise to OJ, though with Soap's mentioning, Bow should've been anticipated as well. All in all, there was a lot to read through, and not a lot of it was enjoyable.

Still, OJ should consider himself lucky. Fan had taken only the bare minimum of safety precautions, leaving everything open to access now that he was gone. Test Tube also hadn't cut off Fan's laptop to the files, so they were once again still available. Even if it rubbed salt into the half-healed wound of the lab, he was lucky to even have this opportunity.

Cautiously, he read over the next note available. Maybe he could get lucky once more and have this note be one of the few that didn't make his stomach churn. Or maybe it'd be something that would actually lead him somewhere for once, that'd be the real gold.