No POV:
Balloon jolted awake, looking around the place only to remember that he was sleeping in his car. He yawned and rubbed his eyes, still tired after just waking up. He put his hand in the cup holder and pulled out his phone he had previously put there.
He pressed the power button on his phone, only for nothing to happen. It was still a black screen. He groaned in annoyance, realizing his phone was dead. He crawled to the back of the car and zipped open his backpack, taking out his wallet and placing it in the right pocket of his salmon colored hoodie. He needed to buy a charger now, and he didn't want to wait to do it since he'd probably forget and get distracted by something else.
He made his way out of the red car and walked into the corner store that he had parked near. There was the sound of a bell ringing as Balloon opened the door, and he looked at the cashier at the register.
The woman looked back at him, most likely from hearing the bell at the door. She immediately perked up and stood up straight, smiling at him from a distance. Balloon walked up to the register. "Hi there, do you sell chargers here?"
The woman looked at the computer on the desk and then back at Balloon. "We do! What type are you looking for?" She responded happily. Her british accent certainly wasn't something Balloon expected, but he could deal with it.
"Just a MePhone charger, thanks." He responded, trying not to let his tiredness show through his voice. The woman opened a cabinet that was implanted in the table and pulled out a greyish-blue charging cable with a block.
"There you go young man, you can have it on the house!" She said, placing the charger on the table. Balloon was quite perplexed on why she was giving it to him for free, and why she was so happy, so he asked her a question.
"Oh, I appreciate it but... why? If you don't mind me asking." The woman smiled at him in response. "Oh I happen to know a friend of yours! He's told me a lot about you, y'know." She twisted a lock of her blonde hair in her finger, resting her elbow on the table while doing so.
Balloon thought about who she could be talking about. It couldn't be Nickel, he'd never consider them friends. Maybe Baseball?... No, that doesn't sound quite right. He looked at the woman and observed her appearance. She had dark skin and blonde hair, which wasn't a combo he'd see often, though he had seen it once before. He felt a sense of Deja Vu wash over him as he looked at the woman, but then something clicked.
"Wait, are you talking about Cheesy?" He asked. He tugged on one of the strings of his hoodie unconsciously and his face warmed up at the thought of the boy. "Bingo!" The woman chuckled. Her ponytail swayed with her head movements, and she had perfectly white teeth. Balloon thought she was beautiful. Not in a romantic way, though... more like a "wow she's conventionally attractive" way.
"He talks about you a lot, y'know. All good things! I just think that letting you have this tiny thing for free is the least I could do for someone who's as close to Cheesy as you." Balloon couldn't help but smile at the simple gesture. He grabbed the charger and put it in the left pocket of his hoodie. "Thank you, ma'am. I really do appreciate it." He thanked the woman, waving at her goodbye and walking out the door.
"You're welcome! Oh, and you can call me Mozzy!" She waved back, her smile ceasing to fade. Balloon left the store, smiling as well. Her happiness was like a contagious disease, but he didn't mind getting sick for a little while. (A/N OMGA SYMBOLISM?! LETS GOOOO)
He waltzed back to his car, opening the door and sitting in the driver's seat. He shut the door and plugged his newly bought charger into the outlet in his car. He pulled out his phone and inserted the charger. After a few seconds the low battery icon flashed on the screen, making Balloon let out a sigh of relief.
He just had to wait until his phone had enough battery to be used.
~Meanwhile...~
"WHERE IN THE FUCKLE CHUCKLE IS HE, NICKEL??"
Cheesy's yells echoed through the halls of Hotel OJ, his voice sounding panicked and worried, but extremely mad at the same time. He shook Nickel with both of his hands on Nickel's shoulders.
"I already told you, I don't know! The only thing that I do know is that he ran away, nothing else!" Nickel responded, pushing Cheesy off of him. Cheesy almost fell back but regained his balance after grabbing onto the wall. He stood back up and looked at Nickel with anger. "Well you're probably the reason he left! OJ tried calling him, even I tried calling him, but he isn't answering the phone! Why aren't you more worried about this?!" Cheesy was petrifyingly worried for his best friend, afraid that he'd never get to see him again. He was mad and confused that Nickel didn't seem like he was concerned at all.
Nickel rolled his eyes. "I'm sorry that I have difficulty expressing my emotions, but I am worried! He's fucking gone, he left! He just got up and left, with no warning!" Nickel tried to express his concern, but wasn't doing a very good job at doing so. Cheesy opened his mouth to say something, but stopped. He averted his gaze downwards, still looking worried and anxious.
"But... what if... what if we did have warning? What if he was hurting, and he tried expressing that, but we didn't notice? What if we just ignored his cries for help? This... this is all my fault." Cheesy buried his head in his hands, on the brink of tears. Nickel couldn't help but feel pity for the guy. He reached his hand out to Cheesy.
"Cheesy, I-" Before Nickel could finish his sentence, Cheesy ran off, out the hallway and down the stairs. Nickel felt a bit guilty for the whole situation. He knew that he probably had something to do with Balloon running away, and he felt like he wanted to throw up. The guilt was really settling into him.
He knew that he hated Balloon, and he knew that Balloon probably hated him back. He didn't want Balloon to be in danger, but that's what this situation was suggesting, so it left Nickel feeling worried and helpless. He was concerned for both Balloon and Cheesy. He knew that Cheesy has had a crush on Balloon for a while, so he couldn't imagine how distraught (A/N at the sight of her missing infant /ref) Cheesy must feel right now.
He only hoped that they could someday, somehow find out Balloon's whereabouts, but for now he supposed that he could only wait for something to happen.
~Time skip: 1 hour later~
Balloon looked at his phone and pressed the power button. The percentage flashed on the screen, saying 89%. He unplugged his phone from the charger and turned it on, waiting for the booting up sequence to finish. After probably about a minute, he unlocked his phone, only to be met with probably a bajillion notifications from his Contacts app.
He opened the app, only to see 47 new messages from Cheesy and 6 missed calls. Plus 8 new messages and 2 missed calls from OJ. He opened Cheesy's messages and saw how the texts were typed. It was frantic and jumbled, just barely decipherable. Balloon knew that Cheesy's messages only looked like that when he was desperate for a response, and seeing how quickly it seemed to be typed, he could tell that Cheesy wasn't very happy right now.
He felt bad for leaving, and how it would affect his friends, but he didn't have that many friends in the first place so he figured it was for the better if he left. He didn't want to leave Cheesy hanging, so he typed out a reply.
"yo"
Short and simple. Though it may seem a bit rushed or lazy not to respond with something with a little more care put into it, he thought it was fine. Only a few seconds later he got a reply.
"BALLOON OMG WHERA RE YU WERE ASLL SO WORRED WJERE DID IU GO WHAR MADE WYOU THINK RTHAT THIS WAS A GOO D IDEA????"
He didn't know what he expected, but it wasn't that. It wasn't often he saw Cheesy having a brain aneurysm, but here we are. He snickered to himself a bit. Though this was supposed to be serious, he couldn't help but laugh to himself. Eventually he typed out another reply.
"srry I left lol"
...Informative.
Balloon cringed at how dry his texts were, but he didn't know what else to say. What? was he just supposed to go "Hey sorry I literally ran away but I'm TOTALLY fine now"? That would probably just make things worse.
He sat in his car, typing away with Cheesy, explaining everything that had been going on. He kept on apologizing for running away, but Cheesy kept on reassuring him that it was fine. Balloon didn't want to give any indicator of his whereabouts just yet, until Cheesy texted him again.
"hold on my mom's texting me"
1,592 words, longer than last time!
Shout out to for the name "Mozzy" (nickname for mozzarella lol)
Part 3 is coming! Stay tuned!