lol yeah sorry I wanted to be detailed so you could what i was going for. Your way definitely makes sense and I was overcomplicating it, but I'm still having the same problem.
Even though the object becomes visible when the cursor goes over the briefcase, it's not interactable. So the object text doesn't appear, the assigned commands don't appear, and even the arrow buttons will show up like they should but they don't work. I think maybe the action to make the interface show just makes it visible, but the buttons won't function.
Another problem is, for some reason, the object will show up on top of the closed briefcase and it's not until after the first time I hover over it that it has the desired effect of disappearing when the briefcase is closed. This only seems to happen most of the time but randomly sometimes it works the way it's supposed to.
p.s. I'm assuming the inventory_bg should be below the main inventory interface. Should I be creating an interface area for the buttons or just an object area?