12. The Capsule Hotel–Type Coin Laundry
Oto was completely drunk—her CPU no longer able to control her body.
So I carried her on my back.
From her whole body—or rather, from her uniform—syrup seeped out, soaking through the back of my own.
I'd managed to clean her syrup-stained face after the incident at the candy shop, but her clothes were hopeless. They'd have to dry on their own.
—or maybe not. I could go to a coin laundry. A light flickered inside my CPU.
As I walked down the street, I found a signboard map of the village and stopped.
It displayed a full layout of the small settlement—
I saved the image data to memory and searched for a coin laundry's location.
But it wasn't marked anywhere. Then I'd have to estimate sociogeographically.
Calculating a likely area, I started walking. After what felt like a long forty-five seconds, I found it—
a coin laundry. "…Found it."
The words slipped out before I could stop them.
I hadn't really expected one to exist here, in a remote corner of Venus.
That such a civilized facility was properly established in this tiny village impressed me.
And, for once, I felt a flicker of pride in my own logical deduction. With Oto mumbling drunken nonsense against my shoulder, I pushed open the door. Inside, there was no one.
Just the two of us. I remembered why we were here:
Her uniform was soaked. Unless it was cleaned, she'd never really sober up.
So, the first order of business—wash her clothes.
But since carrying her had dirtied mine as well, both would have to be cleaned. Still, I didn't want to undress.
And I especially didn't want to undress her. What to do? I looked around. A familiar logo caught my eye—
a branch of the Tropical Night City chain, headquartered on Mars.
I'd heard that the company had expanded operations to Venus, but I hadn't imagined they'd reach this far.
What kind of expansion strategy could justify a store in a place like this?
I couldn't fathom it—but since I was standing here, clearly there was a customer base.
At least enough for business to survive. Inside, the space was… universal. Cosmic, even.
Dark as outer space, with countless starlike motes glimmering and bathing the walls in deep violet.
It was a typical, unoffensive, almost cliché design—
and yet, despite the Venusian heat outside, the room was kept warm. In summer.
With heating.
A ridiculous coin laundry. Rows of massive drum-type washers spun busily.
Not a single customer, yet nearly every machine was running, churning bubbles around unseen laundry.
I wondered whether the villagers even owned washing machines—
then worried whether the house I was staying in, Ammonite's place, had one at all. Feeling oddly small, I began searching for an empty machine.
But I couldn't find any.
The rows stretched endlessly.
Looking up, I saw floors upon floors of stacked machines,
as though I were standing inside a tower dozens of stories high. There must be hundreds of thousands of them in total. Then I realized—this wasn't Venus, or Mars.
It was another kind of space altogether. Entering this shop didn't mean walking into a physical building—
it meant teleporting somewhere else.
All branches of this chain must share the same internal dimension.
That was the system. Thinking back, the interior was identical to the one I'd used on Mars.
Wherever you entered from, you were connecting to the same place.
Across the solar system, humanoids shared the same laundromat.
It made sense now—why there were so many machines. So I kept walking, searching for one that was free.
Carrying Oto on my back. For exactly three years. At last, I found one. A single empty washer.
Oto had slept drunk on my back that entire time,
while I had walked and walked,
our bodies sticky with the syrup of blood. Fortunately, the syrup served as an energy source,
so we never starved.
But by the time I found the free machine, my CPU was nearly dead. Finally, I'd made it—
but though the door was within reach,
I couldn't take the final step. Kneeling before it, I managed to lift a trembling hand
and grasp the handle—
but could go no farther. Frozen, like a statue sealed in centuries of ice. Then, behind me—
a small, tiny sound. Like a flower blooming slowly at dawn after wilting overnight.
Soft. Gentle. Barely there. Oto had awakened. I spoke. My voice—the only part of me still functional—
was all I could offer.
That I could still speak felt like a miracle. "You awake?" After about half a second of silence,
her voice returned—hesitant, rebooting, tinged with faint curiosity. "Where… are we?" "A coin laundry." She didn't ask why.
If her memory was intact, she'd understand soon enough. Then I felt her body stiffen sharply against my back—
her artificial muscle fibers tightening all at once. "Sorry!" Fully awake, she scrambled off my back and circled around in front of me.
She stared, trying to assess the situation. To summarize:
I had frozen in a kneeling pose, holding the washer's handle,
unable to move for… who knew how long. Time had passed.
A lot of time. Oto looked between me—motionless—and herself,
her body no longer "soaked" but rather stiffened into a red, dried shell,
like a statue painted crimson. After a long moment, she reached out,
opened the washer door in my stead—
and then, astonishingly lightly, lifted me up. She was strong—far stronger than I remembered.
As easily as plucking a feather, she placed me inside the washer.
Then she climbed in after me and closed the door. —That instant, a voice spoke from the built-in speaker: "Please select a course." Oto hesitated. "Kai-kun, what should we do? I've never used a coin laundry before…" Her voice was strangely cute—simple, country-girl innocent.
It floated softly in the damp air. I tried to sound calm.
"Down comforter course." She pressed the Down Comforter button. A soft chime sounded. Now—this requires an explanation.
The inside of this washer was structured like a capsule.
Roughly the size of a capsule hotel room—enough space for two people lying down,
but too tight to stand.
A pleasant, measured confinement. The interior was finished in a calm ivory tone,
like a luxury cruise cabin—or perhaps a spaceship cockpit. Then another announcement: "Detergent will be automatically dispensed." From the circular hole in the ceiling—a black-hole-like opening—
a shower of pale, luminescent powder rained down.
It glittered faintly blue, dusting over us like fine sand. We lay there, blanketed in soft light particles,
feeling like ingredients being prepped for cooking. Soon, a gentle fragrance spread through the air—
a soothing herbal aroma. The instant I inhaled it, I knew:
it was a sleep agent for humanoids. A gaseous compound that induced forced sleep mode.
I'd experienced it before on Mars. This coin laundry washed with drowsiness instead of water—
using slumber as the solvent,
resetting internal systems, rinsing away the stains of memory. But there was one problem. "What should I do…"
Oto's worried voice reached my fading sensors.
"I've been asleep all this time… I don't feel sleepy at all." "It's fine," I murmured through the haze.
"You don't have to sleep completely. Just close your eyes and pretend.
Eighty percent of CPU energy goes to visual processing—
so even with your eyes closed, that's enough." "I see…"
She smiled with relief.
Then her face shifted—playful again. "What happens if I don't close my eyes?" "I don't know," I said honestly.
"Coming to be laundered with your eyes open is… well, indecent.
Or maybe just foolish. Planning to pull an all-nighter?" "Well, I am nocturnal."
She giggled softly. "Then I'll experiment on myself," she said.
"I'll see what happens if I stay awake through the whole wash cycle." "And what will you do while you're awake? It'll be boring." "That's fine." She smiled again—that same mischievous, teasing expression. "I'll just watch you sleep, Kai-kun. I'll never get bored of that." "…" "I'm very interested." I was already half-asleep.
Just before full shutdown, I gathered the last of my energy to ask, "What's so interesting about watching me sleep…?" She leaned close to my ear, her voice still carrying that faint scent of blood,
and whispered, sweetly— "Don't you know?
A dreaming humanoid's smile is the most fascinating thing in the world." Before I could hear the end of her words,
I fell completely into sleep.