Check out the area, maybe she'd find some other way...

(chapter originally by doragom333 on writing.com)

Although Futaba had plenty of change back at home that would satisfy the 200 yen cost for washing and drying her laundry, she was **** toward actually making the trek back home to do so. Sure, this first outing went perfectly, but what if people were now starting to get up and go outside, and thus saw her before she could get back in hiding? Would they then call the police on her, thinking that she was some kind of streaker? Or what if, while she was gone, someone else got the idea to do their laundry, found her unattended clothes, and decided to toss them out or donate them to charity or something!?

“Gah! Get it together, Futaba!” Futaba admonished herself, clapping her cheeks to help get herself out of the worst-case scenario thought spiral she was in. “Wasting time worrying isn’t going to help!”

Taking a deep breath to calm herself down, Futaba thought about it again. She still didn’t want to make the trek across Yongen-Jaya clad only in a towel again, but her thoughts were more constructive this time around. “The machine only costs 200 yen, and people drop loose change all the time,” she said to herself. “Since I’m already here, I should at least look around first. No need to run home unless I have to!”

With her mind made up, Futaba started scouring the interior of the laundromat, searching for any coin she could find. Sure enough, there were indeed forgotten coins to be found along the edges of the room near the various washers and dryers. With each piece she picked up, Futaba’s hopes raised accordingly. But after making her sweep across the floor, those hopes were dashed as she realized all the coins she picked up only amounted to 25 yen.

“Seriously? Dammit, who even carries 1 yen coins anymore?” she shouted. Feeling frustrated after that waste of time, she stamped her feet and turned to the back wall, slamming her fist into one of the dryers to blow off some steam. But as she looked into the glass of the dryer door, Futaba had another epiphany.

“Wait... maybe-!” she said, sprinting into action.

Throwing open the dryer door, she felt around with her hands. Not finding anything in the first one, she moved to the next one over, then the next. Finally, in the last dryer on the wall, Futaba’s search bore fruit, finding two more coins, worth a total of 150 yen, bringing her overall amount to 175 yen.

“Yes, jackpot!” Futaba said with a smirking grin. “Thank you people who never empty their pockets! Almost there now...”

Futaba then turned to the other washers, hoping that they would also bear fruit. Unfortunately, searching them was for naught, as they came up empty. “Well, it was worth a shot,” she sighed.

Futaba was so close, yet so far. There was only 25 yen left to cover the cost, but there was nowhere left to look inside the laundromat, which meant...

“Outside... I’m gonna have to look outside,” she uttered.

Gathering her courage, Futaba stepped outside into the outdoor hallway where the bathhouse was next to the laundromat. With a gasp, Futaba noticed the vending machine next to the bathhouse entrance and chased down one last ray of hope of not having to go back in public dressed as she was. Searching the change dispenser, she found...

“Nada patata,” she said with a sigh. “No getting out of this one.”

Her heart hammering faster than ever, Futaba crept out of the hallway onto the backstreet proper. Glancing to the left and right, she saw that there wasn’t any foot traffic yet. “Okay, you’re still good. Time to make this count!” she said to herself.

With no visible pedestrians yet, Futaba felt bold enough to search on the main shopping street. It was definitely risky, but it would be the only likely place on the streets themselves where people would’ve dropped any loose change. It was also the route she took to get here, but even so, as she edged along the walls past Leblanc and up by the secondhand shop, Futaba felt far more **** than before, going more slowly and scanning the ground for money rather than passing through as quickly as she could. It also didn’t help that she hadn’t found squat outside so far.

The irony that her choices were now putting her in a greater risk of being seen than if she had simply ran home in the first place was not lost on Futaba. But just as she was nearing the depths of despair internally as she passed the local supermarket and got to the old local movie theater, she saw them: five glinting lights shining off the ground ahead of her in the morning sunshine. “Ah!” Futaba gasped upon seeing them, and scrambled over to pick them up. “5, 10, 15, 20... 25! Yes!!!” she counted, then cheered, giving a triumphant leap on her success.

Futaba was ecstatic, she was able to find what she needed without having to run home! But as she turned around and began her sprint back to the laundromat, something happened that threw a wrench into her otherwise perfectly-improvised plan...