[Oneshot] The underwear was just the start.
On Monday afternoons, Ohno went down to the corner Laundromat. It was always empty, although the odd mother trying to catch up on a bad weekend would sometimes disrupt his peaceful laundry time. He didn’t mind so much though, and sometimes he would help them fold bed sheets and washcloths, and they’d tell him what a great son he must be to his mother.
It was on one particular laundry day in which he had the Laundromat to himself, that Ohno found something in a dryer. Something that was small, and hot pink. He reached in the drum of the dryer, and pulled it out. It was a pair of hot pink underwear. Men’s underwear. There was a big, bright red heart over the crotch.
“Wild…” Ohno giggled, looking them over. He looked around in case the owner had returned, but the room was still empty of everything except the coin operated washing and drying machines.
Ohno turned them over in his hands again, and marveled. He had never seen a pair quite so…loud before. They were made out of some kind of shinny satin material. He didn’t even know where to buy such underwear. He could only imagine someone flamboyant wearing them. Maybe a drag queen or a gigolo. Whoever they were, they were definitely getting laid. No one wore underwear like that unless it was going to be seen.
With that thought Ohno reflexively dropped them. Touching another man’s underwear was one thing, but touching another man’s lucky underwear was another.
The hot pink undies landed on the floor. If the owner returned, and found the underwear he had just washed on the floor…..
Cringing, Ohno picked the underwear up with his thumb and forefinger, and carried them, with his arm extended as far as possible from his body, to the washing machine that was in the middle of washing his colors, and threw them inside, adding an extra scoop of detergent. Just in case.
He returned to the open dryer, and loaded it with the load of his whites that had waited while he was distracted with the flashy undies.
All of his laundry loaded into the machines, Ohno put his basket on top of a working dryer, and wandered over to the row of waiting chairs, where he found a magazine to peruse.
After ten minutes, the door to the Laundromat opened, and Ohno casually looked up.
It was a man, probably about Ohno’s age, but maybe younger. Nice face, small body. Ohno yawned, and returned to his magazine.
“Excuse me.”
Ohno looked up, startled. “Yes?”
“I think I forgot some of my clothes in here on accident, but you’re using the machines I was using earlier, so I can’t check. You wouldn’t happen to have seen them, would you have?”
“Oh.” Ohno said, and he looked at his machines blankly. “I haven’t-“
The hot pink, heart crotched underwear.
“seen…any.” Ohno ended, before his brain could catch with his words.
“Oh really? Maybe I left it somewhere else then. Sorry to bother you.” He left. Out the door. Ohno watched him go.
Ohno couldn’t picture it at all. That guy was too average in aura, too nice looking to have that kind of underwear.
But maybe, maybe he was that kind of guy.
Ohno could sort of see it. By day, a normal, fairly attractive person with a normal job (something mundane even, like an accountant for a big firm) but by night, he was fox in the bedroom. Small of body, but lithe in love making.
The underwear was just the start. Handcuffs. Blindfolds. Sex toys of every shape and size for every orifice. Potions and lotions. Silk sheets on a waterbed. No, one of those vibrating beds.
A washer suddenly sounded the end of its cycle, and Ohno nearly startled out of his chair. Ohno went to the machine and transported the wet clothes into an empty dryer, his eyes catching on the hot pink underwear. He pulled them out, daintily with his thumb and forefinger, even though he’d washed them himself. And sighed.
“Now what am I supposed to do with you.”
There was nothing to do, except throw it in the dryer. So Ohno did. With the rest of his clothes. He put in the required change, and returned to his seat and magazine.
The first dryer ended, and Ohno went to remove and fold his load of white laundry. He loved the way they smelled fresh from the dryer, so he enjoyed folding them while they were warm. The second dryer ended, and Ohno removed the remainder of his clothes, folding each article.
He had avoided the hot pink undies, although they were a sharp, eye-catching contrast to his blue, green, grey, black spectrum of clothing. Static kept making them cling to his shirts and pants.
Finally, when all of his own clothes were folded, and neatly placed in his basket, the foreign underpants could no longer be avoided.
He picked them up. They were still warm. They gave off the familiar scent of Ohno’s laundry detergent.
Ohno shivered. There was just something wrong about some strange guy’s underwear having the same smell as his, when he didn’t even know him.
He sort of wondered what it would feel like to wear such flashy underwear.
He could put them on.
No one would know.
But to wear someone else’s underwear….
He could put them on over his pants then.
“Hey, um….”
Ohno looked up.
The person from before was back. Ohno hadn’t even heard the door open.
He was staring and the underwear in Ohno’s hands, and pointed at them with a chubby little index finger.
“Those are mine.”
“I found them in the dryer.” Ohno said, a little to panicky. “Just now. With my clothes.”
“Thanks.” He came forward. Ohno held out the hot pink undies. He took them, with a polite and grateful bow.
“Are you uh,” Ohno voice broke, and the guy smiled, tucking the underwear out of sight in his back pocket where one would normally keep a wallet, “a regular here?”
“I’m becoming one I guess? I moved around here not too long ago, and the place doesn’t have washers or dryers.”
“Yeah, the places around here are sort of skimpy on the amenities.”
“And that’s why I like them. Means the rent is cheap.” He smiled, and it was cute. The ‘kyuu’ in the heart kind of cute.
Ohno smiled back weakly. He felt like he had lost to this guy with a cute smile and flashy undies. Lost what, Ohno didn’t know, but he was ready to go home and be a sore loser.
“So uh…” The man said, “Are you a regular here?”
“Every Monday afternoon.” Ohno answered, adding, “But please don’t come. I like having all the machines to myself.”
“Do you use them all?”
“No, but I get to pick the best ones and not feel bad about it.”
The laughed, and Ohno felt a little less like a loser.
“I’m Ninomiya by the way. Or just Nino if its easier.” He held out his hand.
Ohno shook it, “Ohno.”
“Yes?”
“Ohno.”
“Yes?”
“Hey!”
Nino laughed. It was a nice, genuine laugh. Ohno tried not to smile. “I don’t see how a guy with gaudy underwear gets to make fun of my name.”
“You shouldn’t judge a man by the color his underwear.”
“Then why not wear plain ones?”
“Why not wear flashy ones?”
“Because it means you’re-“ Ohno stopped, embarrassed.
Nino seemed to have figured out the end of the sentence, “expecting someone to see it?”
“Well…yeah.”
“I think of it more like art you have hanging up in your house. It’s there, and you know it’s there, but the only other people that know it’s there are either those you’ve told, or those you’ve shown it to.”
“Aren’t there also those who happen to find it in a dryer in a public Laundromat?”
Nino smiled, “Just between us, you’re the first. I’ve never left clothes behind before.”
“Really? Well, there is a first time for everything.”
“It’s the seconds that you have to look out for. Anyway, I have to be going. It was nice meeting you Ohyes.” He held out his hand again.
Ohno shook it. “That’s Ohno.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Oh…Just forget it.”
Nino turned, heading for the door with the hot pink of the troublesome underwear just visible poking out of his back pocket. “I don’t think I want to. See you next Monday afternoon!”
“See you.” Ohno waved, then stopped. “Hey, I said don’t come on Monday afternoons!”