Chapter Text
Ushijima hadn’t noticed it before. It was a small laundromat at the end of a street he wouldn’t have separated from its dingy surroundings without the damaged sign above it, spelling out ‘LAUNDROMAT’ in big, block letters. He could see through the glass windows that the inside was too cramped for a dozen or so people to stand in there comfortably together, with a brown and yellow colour palette staining the walls like some long-forgotten cup of coffee. The paint was peeling off the walls as if they loathed the colours, too, whilst cobwebs were the only decoration he could see, with a huge spider taking up her residence in the corner. She watched over the few washing machines and tumble dryers present from up there and the footprints on the tiled floor. There was a considerable number despite the laundromat's current lack of patrons, a mixture of muddy imprints and others embedded in the dust there. Ushijima supposed the laundromat was busy in the day.
All in all, it was cramped and dirty, but above all, currently empty.
That’s what made it perfect.
Ushijima shifted the sack of laundry slung over his shoulder and struggled to open the metal door, considerably heavier than he expected. The cold air blew in behind him, sending some leaves as company as he stepped into the laundromat, assessing it further. It was as quiet as he wanted it to be, save for the faint hum of the dim electric lights above him. So far, this appeared to be the perfect substitute for his usual laundry facility, considering the one in his building was out of order for the next few weeks. There were just a couple more things to confirm before he found this laundromat an acceptable alternative.
Ushijima cleared his throat as he held the door open, gripping the handle.
“Hello?” He called out to the empty room.
When nobody responded, he nodded to himself, pleased. He hated chatty owners that popped up out of nowhere the most; he never knew what to say or how to act around new people even when he wanted to at the best of times, so absentee owners were right up his alley.
The wind picked up for a second, wrenching the handle from his grip and slamming the door behind him. Ushijima blinked, stepping backwards. The door opened inwards… the wind shouldn’t have been able to push the door closed from the inside.
A chill ran down his back, but he shook it off. There must have been a back door that opened when he entered, where the wind carried through from there. He tightened his grip on his laundry bag and walked over to the first washing machine he could see that wasn’t out of order or visibly dirty. Considering how few machines there were in the first place, he was fortunate to find one that looked like it worked.
He put his first load of laundry in, tossed in a couple of detergent pods, and moved to deposit coins into it for its use, pleased with how well this place was turning out to be for him. He chose his preferred cycle settings – perm press because he hated ironing his work shirts – and waited for the cycle to start. He debated whether he should remain standing or risk sitting on the only available chair in the laundromat. It was a small thing that looked like it was on its last legs, quite literally only having two.
Ushijima didn’t have time to decline that option though.
The washing machine wasn’t starting its cycle.
He frowned, peering into the washer's face. Nothing. There was no familiar rise of water, no gurgling sound, no indication at all that the washing machine was, well, washing. He stood there for a minute or so, thinking through what his options were.
He tapped the washer's face. Still nothing.
Ushijima let out a small sigh. He should’ve known this place was too good to be true.
He pulled his laundry and unused detergent out of the machine drum, piling it back inside his sack as he debated what to do. He’d already checked the five other laundromats closest to his building and written them off for being too loud, too popular, too bright, or all three. This laundromat had been his last hope for a decent place that he could bear with for the next few weeks. He briefly wondered whether Leon would mind him asking to wash his laundry at his place. Although he didn’t want to impose on him or be impolite, he didn’t have anyone else to ask. He supposed he could see if one of his closer coworkers would mind, but he shook that thought away. The last time he had gone to a coworker for help, she had given him a look he didn’t like, and he didn’t want to see that again.
He absentmindedly fished his coins back out of the machine, relieved they hadn’t been eaten up, though they were slimy and colder than when Ushijima had deposited them. He made a face of disgust as he pulled them out, the grossness running through his body in a wave of discomfort when one coin decided to be a pain and slip out of his grasp.
Ushijima watched as it rolls in a curve past him and down a tiny hallway to his right. It was darker down there; he could hardly see the slug trail the coin had left behind. Ushijima shrugged the laundry sack over his shoulder and followed the trail closely down the hallway. The hairs on the back of his neck started to stand up and he frowned. Somehow, it grew colder the further he walked away from the door.
He pulled his jacket tighter around him in an attempt to stop the cold from biting at him as he tried to keep his eyes on the coin. Luckily, the thick clumps of footsteps helped guide him, and he wondered how the owner could leave their hallway in such a state for so long if the vast number of footsteps were anything to go by. For a place that made clothes clean, the laundromat itself was anything but.
Ushijima found the coin amidst dirty footprints and a stray leaf in front of a door that matched the walls beside it in peeling paint. The door was almost camouflaged if it weren’t for the small filter of lights through the door cracks and deep, star-shaped groove at its centre. It was likely the door to the owner’s office or something similar and was currently occupied if the light chatter behind the door was anything to go by. Ushijima stooped and picked up his stray coin quickly, not wanting to be there any longer than he had to, especially if there were people in the building.
He pocketed the coin and turned to leave, but something stopped him. Or, more precisely, the gurgle and clanking sound of a running washing machine did.
Ushijima faced the door again. There was a working washing machine in this building, the laundry sack over his shoulder heavy with the reminder that he desperately needed to do some laundry today. He lifted his hand to where the handle should be but grasped nothing. He looked down, surprised to see the door lacked a handle and he ran his hand over the smooth surface where the handle should be, blinking.
Strange.
He pushed at the door instead, but it didn't budge. The chatter continued behind the door and Ushijima was almost thankful they couldn’t hear his efforts to enter. He looked around it for something to tell him how to do so until his eyes fell on a small, silver plaque above the door.
“’Laundromat 66’,” Ushijima read aloud quietly, cocking his head at the sight of it. It was strange for a sign for the laundromat to be inside.
As he thought about it, it dawned on him with some horror that this room might be the owner’s personal laundry facility he was trying to get into when the door opened.
A light cast over him, blinding him for a second. He raised a hand to shield his eyes, blinking through the light to see into the room.
It was big- much bigger than the room he had just been in. Multiple washing machines and tumble driers divided the centre of the room and lined the incredibly high walls, to the point that Ushijima wondered why anyone would stack machines so high where it would be impossible for even the tallest of people to reach. It was also incredibly pristine, with shining, tiled flooring and a soft scent of lemon in the air as if the room had been recently mopped. No, it must have been mopped - Ushijima could see how the stream of dirty footprints leading to the room ended in a clear divisional line where the new room began. The chill that had followed him to the door was also obeying this division, a warmth fanning over him gently. The place was strikingly different to the dirty, cramped one, so much so that Ushijima thought for a brief second that he might be dreaming.
Nonetheless, Ushijima blinked, adjusted to the new light and stepped into the room, a ‘thank you’ on his tongue ready for whoever had opened the door.
The door shuts swiftly and quietly behind him, nobody behind it.
Ushijima furrowed his eyebrows and looked at the door, adjusting the laundry bag over his shoulder. That was strange. Surely the door should not have opened by itself, much less closed by itself. Ushijima stood staring at the space near the door for an answer, wondering whether the door could be voice-activated, though he questioned why the owner would even want a separate laundry facility that was voice-activated. But before he could think about it further, his shoulder began to ache with the weight of the laundry bag slung over it and it pulled him out of his thoughts.
He turned and walked further into the room, scanning as he did. Only a couple of people were there, chatting in the far-left corner. He couldn’t make much out of them, only that they were too deep in their conversation to notice him or his arrival. That was fine for Ushijima – he’d rather not chat with people anyway.
He walked to an empty washing machine, scanning it for anything worrisome that the machines in the other room displayed, but was pleasantly surprised by how new these machines looked. He wondered how recently the owner had added this extension to the laundromat, slowly understanding why there were so many footprints leading to it.
He shrugged off the laundry sack and began his usual routine again: put in the first load and detergent, deposit coins, choose his preferred cycle, and press start. The machine thrummed to life immediately under his hand, a simultaneous delight to Ushijima’s ears.
He looked around for a seat, finding a wooden bench behind him in the middle of the aisle. He sat down in front of his machine and rested his hands on his lap, watching as the drum filled with water. The chatter continued on the other side of the machines, hush and softly spoken with the occasional laughter. Ushijima almost liked hearing it, able to track where the other patrons were in the room. They hadn’t seemed to notice him when he walked in, and he was grateful for it.
He looked around him now in the ease of the laundromat, liking how clean the floors were, how many working washing machines there were, how dim the lights were, and how few other people there were. With each tick to his internal criteria for what constituted a good laundromat, he relaxed more and more on the bench, becoming lost in the sound of washers in the room. This was a laundromat he could make do with for the next few weeks.
Ushijima's eyes settled back on his washing machine, watching as his clothes began to swirl around and he became lost in the hypnotic swirl of the drum. Maybe that was why he didn’t hear the chatter die down in the next aisle nor the sound of footsteps walking to his own.
No, he didn’t notice anything until he shivered and felt a weight plop down on the bench beside him.
Ushijima broke from his trance with a few startled blinks and turned his head to see two wide eyes staring at him.
“Hi there,” the man said, eyes unblinkingly wide and boring into his. It made Ushijima shift in his seat, the bench creaking underneath him. He didn’t like how close the other man sat next to him, practically leaning into him with his face extremely close to Ushijima’s.
Ushijima maintained the gaze anyway, replying simply, “Hello.”
The man didn’t seem to care for such conventional greetings though. Instead, he looked Ushijima up and down, moving to scan his back when he didn’t find what he was looking for. Ushijima’s brows furrow and he debates whether moving away would appear rude or not when the man was clearly looking for something.
Ushijima shifted, looking around him as he asked, “Have you lost something?”
The bench creaked as the man leaned back and away from him. Ushijima looked as the man’s face crossed into one of confusion, his head tilting as he stared back at Ushijima.
“Nope,” the man replied, popping his ‘p’. This answer confused Ushijima, and he copied the head tilt, wanting to ask why he was searching for something around him then.
Before he could open his mouth, the man said, “I know you’re new and all, but you can change into your other form if that’s more comfortable for you.”
Ushijima blinked, the words tugging his brows together. “What?”
The man stretched his arms up and rested his hands behind his head, smiling easily. “Your form. I know it can’t be comfortable like that.”
He moved a hand to gesture at Ushijima’s torso. Ushijima nodded slowly, unsure of what the man was talking about but not wanting to offend him.
It does seem to appease the other man though, because he continued to smile gently.
“It’s alright if you don’t want to. A few don’t or can't so you’re not alone!” The man pulled his legs into a criss-cross on the bench and folded his hands in his lap, facing Ushijima fully. Ushijima could see now that he was dressed in some sort of costume: a black suit with faint red lines, a forked tail curving onto the floor next to him, and two small horns on the top of his head, resting amidst his almost wind-swept red hair. He blinked. Halloween wasn’t for another few months yet. Who does a costume party in mid-June?
The man doesn’t seem to find the stare or lack of a response unnerving, as other people often did. Instead, he cleared his throat dramatically and moved a hand to his chest.
“I’m Tendou Satori, the owner of this fine establishment with devilish good looks to accompany it,” he said, gesturing theatrically to and around himself as he spoke. The words seemed to roll off his tongue, playful yet genuine, with dramatic facial expressions to go with them. Ushijima couldn’t stop staring at him. It finally dawned on him that the man must be obsessed with the supernatural or occult, wearing a devil costume and naming his laundromat ‘66’. He wondered if the final six had just fallen off the plaque and the owner had failed to realise it.
“And you are?” The man – Tendou, the owner, Ushijima reminded himself – asked, a hand splayed towards him to accompany the question.
Ushijima stares at the hand before him, the sharpness of the fingernails curved towards him. He resists the urge to tell Tendou that they were long and pointy, Leon's voice flitting through his mind about how people dislike aspects of their appearance being commented on. Instead, he replied simply,
“Ushijima Wakatoshi.”
Tendou grinned, moving his left hand to a handshake position before him that Ushijima was surprised by and hesitated over. He hadn’t met many other left-handed people, so it was a small shock to see at first. When Tendou raised his brows, Ushijima shook himself out of it and accepted his handshake.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ushiwaka,” Tendou said, shaking his hand firmly.
Ushijima doesn't know how to respond to that. That was also a surprise, not something people ever readily said to him. Tendou seemed to guess that, squeezing Ushijima’s hand lightly before breaking their handshake.
“So, who spilled the beans?” Tendou asked, placing his hands back into his lap.
Ushijima quickly realised that he could be pulled into a conversation that might last the rest of his cycle, with the occult-obsessed owner of the facility much less. Nonetheless, he folded his hands back on his lap as he looked around them on the floor for beans in concern, recognising that he might not yet understand the full depth of the owner’s eccentricities.
“Someone spilled beans?” Ushijima asked as he searched. Tendou's tail flicking on the tiled floor drew his eyes for a moment, and he wondered how Tendou could control it to do that. He hadn’t seen a remote in the man’s hands, though an automatically flicking tail wasn’t totally out of the realm of possibilities. This design was immaculate though, the tail almost seemed lifelike. Ushijima was impressed.
Tendou jolted before him as if physically shocked by his answer. “Eh? No, not- y’know what I mean! Who ‘fessed up, who told you about this place?”
Tendou gasped as Ushijima looked back up, the man leaning forward to his side with narrowed eyes.
“It was Semi, right? I told him to stop telling people,” Tendou muttered the last bit to himself, his tail flicking again and creating an agitated clack on the floor.
Ushijima watched it flick and almost match Tendou in anger, replying distractedly, “There’s a sign outside.”
The tail stilled. It was very red, matching Tendou’s hair, and almost scaley, Ushijima noted. The forked end could be sharp enough to slice something if he tried hard enough.
Tendou wasn't replying. Ushijima recognised the silence and looked back at Tendou to find the owner staring at him, still leaning in close in his personal space. Tendou was scanning his face, he realised.
“You saw the sign?” Tendou repeated. There was curiosity in his voice, but something else too, something akin to hesitation. It made Ushijima wonder why anyone so confident as he would falter at hearing his sign was followed.
Ushijima nodded. Tendou blinked and raised a hand to scratch his neck. Ushijima winced slightly at the sight, apprehensive to the fact that sharp nails and scratching spelt disaster, but the nails dug less into Tendou's skin than he thought they would. Either they weren't sharp enough to pierce skin or Tendou had nigh upon indestructible skin. Regardless, Ushijima had little time to think about that because now he could see that some sort of black ash painted Tendou's cuticles.
“Huh. You really saw the sign and just so happened to find a hangout. What, do you have heightened senses or something?” Tendou mused, stretching his back as his muscles let out an audible pop.
Ushijima paused. The man was even stranger than he first realised.
“’Hangout?’” He settled on repeating instead.
Tendou grinned and it took all Ushijima had to not say something about how sharp his canines were. "Yeah, you know. Where we monsters can do things in peace.”
He winked at him. It starts a flurry of something in Ushijima’s chest at the sight of it that he can’t quite name, but before he can ask Tendou more about what he meant, still not quite understanding him, Tendou perked up at the sight of something behind Ushijima.
“Ah, the crone is here. I’ll catch you later, alright bud?” Tendou said quickly as he threw his legs off the bench and stood, adjusting his suit.
Ushijima could do nothing but nod, despite himself. The man grinned again in reply and was about to walk away until he paused and turned to face Ushijima again.
“Oh, and welcome to Laundromat 66, newbie. We’re glad to have you!” Tendou chirped to him.
Ushijima nodded politely, unsure of what he could reply to that, much less as if he had understood anything the man had said to him.
Undeterred, Tendou smiled before walking to the door Ushijima had entered through. Ushijima watched as the door opened by itself, revealing a silver-haired man at the entrance. Tendou lifted his arms in greeting which the other man was apparently not happy with, instead slapping him on the shoulder. This doesn’t deter Tendou either though; he laughed, the tail behind him curving almost happily. That was the last thing Ushijima saw of Tendou as he stepped through the door and it shut automatically behind him.
He stared at the door for a moment longer whilst the air filled with the sound of the washing machines thrumming again, the warmth settling amongst him.
Eccentric, Ushijima thought. Laundromat owners are always eccentric.
He looked back at the washing machine before him, his clothes still cycling through with a gentle thrum. He thought back over the conversation he had with Tendou, snippets circling in his mind. He didn’t know what Tendou meant by ‘we monsters’, whether this was some idea he had for people in general or considered certain people by – now including Ushijima. It didn’t unsettle Ushijima though, no, it was more intriguing than anything else. He’d never been considered a monster for simply existing before. Normally, he’d have been called a weirdo or a freak, but ‘monster’ had a certain evocation to it that he liked rolling around on his tongue. Whatever was appealing about it, however, he wasn’t sure if it came from being called a monster or having someone think of him as the same as them. And now this laundromat, this supposed peaceful hangout for monsters, was glad to have him. Ushijima wasn’t sure yet how he fit in, how he was one of them– but he wanted to.
A peaceful hangout for monsters, he mused to himself. Maybe this place was proving to be better than his criteria could’ve imagined.