[audio]

[deathof4thwall]

The message starts with a sharp squeal of static, as if the COMP is a badly tuned radio or something, before it dies down a little and a cheerful voice starts babbling.

"Hiii~! So I was wondering something, and I thought I'd just throw it out on the network like this to get an answer and all."

There's the sound of fabric rustling, as if whoever's on the other side of the transmission is shifting nervously.

"So I noticed a bunch of people have, like, clean clothing, and I was just wondering what's up with that? I mean, how does it happen? My clothes are still covered in scorpion goo, and I don't have any spares or nothing, so it'd be super nice if someone could tell me how all you other folks are getting clean things."

There's a slight pause before the voice lowers to a whisper and hisses out,

"is it witchcraft?!"

With that, the message ends.

Comments

[action]

[deathof4thwall]

"Hiii~!"

...

...why are his arms covered in duct tape. How did he even get that stuff.

Re: [action]

[demifemme]

Shura just... stares for a minute.

"What are you doing?"

[action]

[deathof4thwall]

He looks down at his arms for a moment before glancing back up and grinning.

"Improving my skin!"

With absolutely no hesitation, he grabs the end of a piece of tape and yanks it off in one smooth motion, not even flinching as he does so.

Dumping the piece of tape on the floor, he holds up his arm for inspection.

"See? Baby smooth!"

Re: [action]

[demifemme]

Shura cringes and grits her teeth when Minato rips out the duct tape. "Minato, you... you don't need to rip out your arm hair, shit. That's for weirdos."

[action]

[deathof4thwall]

A thoughtful look.

"Really? Hu~uh."

Looking back and forth between his arms now.

"How do I get this off, then?"

Re: [action]

[demifemme]

That's actually a good question, Minato.

"Well... rip it off for this one time, but don't do it again, okay?" This is going to be horrible won't it.

Re: [action]

[deathof4thwall]

"Okay!"

His smile doesn't flicker even once as he commences pulling off all of his arm hair, strip by strip.

Re: [action]

[demifemme]

Shura has to look away after not even half an arm. She felt too much sympathetic pain, between the sight and the noise of the tape ripping out.

Once Minato was done, she finally let go of a breath. "Ready to go do laundry now?"

Re: [action]

[deathof4thwall]

BEAMING.

"Sure thing!"

Re: [action]

[demifemme]

"Grab your clothes and your money then, we're gonna go to the laundry room." With that said, she headed out for the laundry room at the end of the hall, where she waited for Minato.

[action]

[deathof4thwall]

When he follows you out, he's not actually carrying anything.

Re: [action]

[demifemme]

Oh right, he only has the clothes on his back, but... "No money? No soap?"

Re: [action]

[deathof4thwall]

"Uhh...no?"

This is unexplored territory for him, sorry.

[demifemme]

"Okay." Good thing there is a laundry soap dispenser on the wall.

"Put your dark clothes in this machine, and your light clothes in that machine," she said as she opened two washing machines for him. Luckily, no one else was using them at the time.

[deathof4thwall]

Okay, first he strips off his jacket and pants and shoves them into the first machine, and then the rest of his clothes go in the other.

He pauses, looks down at his body, and picks up his pants to go through the pockets, eventually pulling out what looks like a Speedo, which he pulls on.

His exposed chest is covered in various scars of all kinds - claw and sword marks, a few puckered craters that look something like bullet holes, burns...it seems he's been through the wringer at some point, but all the scars have the look of things that have been with him for a long time.

[demifemme]

She is rather thankful he has a speedo to cover himself. She can't help but stare at his chest for a bit, though. "Saving the world is hard, uh."

[deathof4thwall]

He looks down at the patchwork of scars and blinks in surprise.

"Wow, I had no idea those were there!"

He sounds cheerful about that.

[demifemme]

Shura looks at him in utter confusion before shuddering and deciding to focus on the laundry. It would be safer.

"A-anyway... each little bag of soap is ¥20. You put the coins in the slot here and you turn the handle to the left..." One tiny pouch of laundry soap fell into her hand, then she repeated the operation for a second one. "You put one bag in each machine without opening the bag, all right?"

[deathof4thwall]

A salute and he throws the bags in.

"Now what, oh captain, my captain?"

Seems you're the captain now.

[demifemme]

That's good. Shura likes being the captain.

"Now, you see those buttons on the machine? You can pick the water temperature for the washing and the size of the load. It's a small load, so we press small, and you can never go wrong with cold water.

"After that, you put two ¥50 coins in the slots on the handle, you push it in..." and the sound of water filling the laundry machine began. Shura gave Minato two more coins. "You start the other machine."

[deathof4thwall]

"Ooooo."

Very carefully, he does as you did. When the washer starts up, he looks in your direction, beaming.

"Coool!"

[demifemme]

Shura grins right back. "Cool indeed! Now we wait for the machine to clean up your clothes. After that, we'll dry them. Then you'll be able to wear clean clothes!" Minato was not so bad, in the end.

[deathof4thwall]

He punches the air in sheer TRIUMPH.

"Woo!"

[demifemme]

About half an hour later, the washing machine stopped, done washing the clothes.

"Okay, we can transfer the clothes into a dryer now," she told Minato.

[deathof4thwall]

Eyes shining brightly, he starts dumping clothing in the nearest dryer, humming under his breath as he does so.

"Does this one work the same way?"