Just shower at home.

(chapter originally by doragom333 on writing.com)

In the end, the thought of possible communal nudity with strangers was too much for Futaba to handle, even if a friend would be at her side. “Meh, I’m wasting time here. Let’s just get this over with,” she said to herself.

Despite her **** to do so until now, Futaba found the shower to be quite refreshing. Having all the time in the world in the privacy of her own house, she was able to get squeaky-clean without any issues or feeling rushed.

“Ah...! That was actually pretty good!” Futaba sighed to herself, feeling refreshed and content as she walked back to her room while drying herself off with a towel. “Now to get back to my- oh, right...”

Futaba’s brightened mood was brought down low upon returning to her room and seeing the filthy pile of clothes, again reminding her that she had nothing clean to wear. “Come on! I just got all clean!“ she whined, realizing that if she got dressed in any of these garments, she’d be back at square one! Grumbling to herself, she gathered up an armful of clothes and went down to the room in the back of the house where the washing machine was.

But just as she was setting up a load, she realized something was wrong when she saw the washing machine start to sputter and leak water! “What the-?” she gasped, quickly unplugging it before it flooded the entire floor. “Argh! If it isn’t one thing interrupting me, it’s another. What am I supposed to do about this?” she griped, and ran back to her room to get her phone, immediately calling Sojiro.

“Sojiro!” Futaba shouted.

“What? What is it?” Sojiro replies over the phone.

“The washing machine’s broken!” Futaba explained.

“Again? Geez...” Sojiro groaned. “I can call someone to fix it, but it’ll probably take a while.”

“But I need to do laundry now!” Futaba whined. “I already washed up and everything!”

“Well, sometimes life is just like that,” Sojiro sighed. “But if you can’t wait till evening, there’s always the laundromat next to the bath house, though I won’t be off work until-“

“Oh, that’s right across from Leblanc, right?” Futaba interrupted. “I can use that, no problem!”

“Really? Well, that would be good,” Sojiro said, sounding relieved. “I’ve got to get back to work now. See you later.”

“Bye!” Futaba said, and hung up. But as she made ready to get out there, she hesitated again at seeing her dirty laundry. The clothes she had gotten to wash, and were now sopping wet in a broken washing machine, were the cleanest of the bunch. Those dry enough to wear had been filthy for much longer, and were now reeking of something rather fierce. Futaba shuddered at the ambient stench, really not wanting to put them on her body, but what choice did she have? She couldn’t just walk down the street and do her laundry wearing only a towel!

But then, another thought came to her as she looked at her phone. What if she didn’t have to do the laundry herself? She again considered Joker, who always seemed to be willing to help her out when she needed it. He’d used the laundromat before to clean some various equipment that they’d find in mementos. So if he was free, he could do all the laundry for her, getting the job done without her having to lift a finger!

That thought was very appealing, especially since as she was the team’s navigator, all the thieves were used to following her advice in the field. The only thing is that it was still a few hours until Joker got out of school. That would be more time lost, gaming or otherwise. It could be faster in the long run to just stomach the filth of one dirty outfit and do it herself.

But then another idea came to Futaba. If she had time to kill anyways, why not look in to why the washing machine broke? Maybe with the power of the internet she could figure out a way to fix it on her own? Then she could do all this from the privacy of her own house, and then Sojiro wouldn’t need to pay a repairman!

After some thought, Futaba decided the best way to proceed would be to...