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OJ was in dreamless sleep leaning on his desk when the pain in his lungs started again but the dull aching did not disrupt his rest as it was only a little more painful than the constant ache in his back, it was the hot itchiness and the small but sharp stabbing pains that shocked him wide awake. He let out a surprised and pained yell as he awoke before slumping into his chair and clutching his chest, he had been experiencing small moments of pain for the last couple of days but nothing he had dealt with before came anywhere close to this level of pain, it felt like someone had set a hive of bees loose in his lungs.
He suddenly began to cough painfully and he ended up falling off his chair trying the hack up whatever was lodged in his throat, soon a silky petal fell from his open mouth and he gently picked it up to examine it, it thought it was naturally red at first but when the felt the wetness of it and saw the red liquid that remained on his fingertips he realized that the red colour was because it was soaked in blood and when that realization hit he began to cough again violently. His coughs were raspy and he could feel drool and blood dripping uncontrollably from his mouth, the coughing soon became complete choking as his through became completely blocked; he eventually managed to get the unknown object out of his through and he watched in horror as a white, blood-soaked rose with not stem fell from his mouth but he could not stare for long as his rasping coughs continued even more painful than before. He could feel the plant tearing his throat as he managed to hack it up, he soon stuck his hand in his mouth to pull the stem out of his throat which continued to be torn and stabbed by the thorned stem which caused the tears in his eyes to finally succumb to the gravity that pulled them. More coughing. It was not a rose this time but a few leaves that he did not recognize to be that of a rose, maybe a nettle? Bomb talked about those sometimes.
OJ stopped coughing and he took the small moment of peace to rush over to his desk to open his laptop, it was only at 7% but surely that would be enough to be able to figure out what the hell was going on so he quickly typed in the passcode and opened google, he managed to type "Why am I coughing fl" before his lungs began to spasm again and he was sent into another horrible fit of hacking a choking. The roses tore his throat and lungs while the nettles left hot itching and painful blisters on any remaining space, he quickly became very scared of the thought that he may die from this. The moment his coughing stopped he pulled himself up onto the desk and found his computer at 5% but he did not let it stop him for even a second as he finished his search and desperately looked for answers, his computer slowly dropped in percentage as he opened more and more tabs trying to figure out what to do until his screen finally went black and he was left without a solution to his problem. OJ finally allowed himself to sob, all the pain and fear had finally built up enough to destroy the wall, that hid his true feelings, which he'd built up years ago, he wailed until his raw and bleeding throat made it impossible,
His breaths started to gurgle as he collapsed onto the ground with blisters developing in his mouth, throat, and lungs. He tried to make noise. He tried to yell. To cry. To scream. No-one came.
He knew it was a nice day outside so he could only assume that anyone whose rooms were close enough to hear his cries for help, which were being muffled by the walls, was out doing something with their lives instead of sitting in a stuffy office coughing up the result of their poor decision making. What he had discovered on his computer was that he was literally love-sick. Hanahaki.
He loved Paper. Whose favourite flower was roses.
And he loved Bomb. Who loved all sorts of plants, OJ would have never pinned down a favourite but he could take an educated guess that it may have been nettles.
He was now surrounded by bloodied flowers and leaves, he was thrown into more fits of coughing until the point that he threw up. It burned. It fucking burned. He found it within himself to scream again, loud, and filled with agony that only grew worse with each second.
His screaming was cut off with more plants getting stuck in his throat. It was a clump a rose stems and nettle, he could feel it.
He just wanted it to stop. Why couldn't it stop? Why him? What had he done?
He coughed and hacked and choked and he even tried to swallow the painful plants but they wouldn't move.
OJ had had enough.
He crawled across the room back to his desk and pulled himself up once more, he opened his drawer and grabbed his pocket knife. He dug it into his throat with no hesitation. He created a long cut down his throat, he dug the knife as deep as it would go but he still could not remove the plant life caught in his throat. He couldn't breathe. He was drowning. In his blood.
He needed help.
The world began to waver and he could see blackness around the edges of his vision but he tried to ignore it as he leaned over his desk for his phone, his hand touched the cold device but he only managed to knock it off the desk. He was losing feeling in his body. He was stuck dying with his body halfway on his desk. He tried to gasp for air one more time before he finally allowed himself to fall into the pit of death. The embrace was neither cold nor warm and it offered no comfort to him but there was nothing he could do to avoid it so he unwillingly let the last of himself go.
And that was it.
OJ. The winner of Inanimate Insanity season one. The owner of Hotel OJ.
Was gone.
He was dead.
Bomb and Paper walked through the hallways of the hotel in a comfortable but nervous silence, neither of them had seen OJ for the past couple of days and this usually meant that OJ had locked himself in his office with limited food and water again and then Paper and Bomb would have to practically wrestle the taller man away from his desk. The two men made it to the office and Bomb noticed a rather foul smell, he could see from Paper's expression that he smelt it as well but neither commented on the strange odor, Paper unlocked the door and the moment it opened the smell grew incredibly worse. Bomb turned away without even looking inside as he tried to push down his growing nausea, which had to be the worst smell he's ever experienced, maybe even worse than crappy cliff. Maybe.
He turned back around and noticed that Paper was completely frozen, he looked further into the room and gasped in horror, not even reacting to the mouthful of disgusting air he inhaled. He ran over to the desk. "O-OJ!?" He grabbed the body of the love of his life without thinking but was quick to let go when he saw the full extent of the body's condition; nettle and roses sprouting from the dead man's mouth and a large wound in his throat which Bomb could now see the glint of a knife poking through the plants. Had OJ killed himself? Then how had the plants grown so quickly? And why roses and nettles? He couldn't piece it together until Paper walked over and plucked a petal off one of the roses.
"I love roses" He murmured "Especially the white ones" Bomb wanted to yell at him, now wasn't the time to talk about favourite flowers. Their best friend was dead! But as Paper's words turned in his head he thought about the nettles, he wouldn't say nettles were his favourite but they were up there. How could Bomb be so stupid!? It was obvious what killed OJ! Bomb had always been fascinated that someone's love could turn against them in such a way, allowing beautiful flowers to mark someone as unloved, even if it wasn't true.
Bomb clung to Paper and cried, he was practically shrieking, he could only imagine the pain of having thorns and stinging nettles grow out of your lungs and then to cough them up? It wasn't fair. OJ had done nothing to deserve that.
Bomb pulled away from Paper and grabbed the knife from OJ's throat, he clutched it tightly but Paper snatched it from him and placed it on the bloodied desk. Paper wordlessly grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the room, Paper closed the door and hugged BOmb who sobbed and wailed into his chest,
"F-fuck! Why h-h-h-him?!"
"I don't know" Paper tried to stay calm but he could hear the pain in his voice
"I l-l-l-loved h-h-him! I-I loved him s-s-so m-much!"
"Me too"
...
"D-d-d-don't leave me"
"I won't"
OJ was dead. Neither of them could believe it.
Their best friend. Their mutual crush.
Gone.
Just like that.
OJ was fucking dead.