Mason had spent the past thirty minutes struggling to get out of bed. He had to leave for work in about an hour and anticipated his executive dysfunction, opting to set his alarm for an hour before the average neurotypical would probably wake up for work. Meanwhile Domino, who was asked to sleep in the living room recently, patiently waited in front of Mason's door for him to come out and prepare breakfast for them. Another fifteen minutes passed before they decided to speak up.

"Hey, uh... Mason?" He cautiously began. "I'm kinda hungry. Are you alright in there? Depressed?"

"Nah," Mason half-shouted. "Just tired. Give me a sec, Domino"

     After about five minutes of muffled shuffling to put on clothes, the door opened, revealing a surprisingly awake looking Mason, dressed in the same clothes he'd been wearing since Domino met him. Domino had to step back in order to endure the odor as they witnessed Mason finally begin their understanding of a human morning routine. He prepared two bowls of what he usually made, taking extra care to remove the raisins from the granola in Domino's bowl, as he had learned to do thanks to the mess they made on Tuesday. He sauntered over to the couch and Domino followed suit as he pushed the raisin-less bowl to Domino. 

"Morning. Sorry I took so long," Mason greeted bluntly between bites. "How are you doing?"

 Domino picked up their bowl and held it in their paws. "I'm alright! Just hungry."

Domino delivered this in a very casual way and then proceeded to shove their face into the bowl, nearly causing granola to spill out onto the table. 

Mason chuckled. "Heh, I see that. How's it taste? I realized that I didn't actually ask you last time."

Domino lifted their head from the bowl. "It's weird! It's really good though, just not something I got to experience. Tristan always fed me these weird-ass triangles."

Mason chuckled again and smiled. "I like how you're starting to copy the way I speak. It's... Cool. I guess."

Domino blinked. "Alright...? You're just the closest human I can emulate, and you're nice and I wanna be nice, so yeah! You kinda smell though."

Mason scooted away from Domino and cut the rare eye contact he made. "Ugh, sorry. I just can't find a way to get into a routine with stuff. I'm trying, I promise."

Domino began to move closer to Mason to keep the same distance as before, but hesitated when they inhaled again. "It's okay! It's just that usually, Tristan would be up and clean by now and I'd have had my food a while ago. I don't wanna rush you but it's also my understanding that human jobs demand that you're clean enough to work there, right? I say that based on how Tristan would-"

Domino's ears perked up and they jumped, their sentence interrupted by the clacking of Mason's fork onto the glass table. "I don't like this either, Domino. I feel like shit all the time and I know I smell bad and I already told you that people prodding at me doesn't help." Mason snapped, his words seemingly being forced out. He took a deep breath. "I just... I don't know how you could help me, but I know how you could stop making it worse. That's all."

Mason checked the time on his phone and immediately shot out of the couch. "Oh damn, I gotta go! Probably gonna have to save this for lunch."

Domino shrunk in their seat. "...Sorry."

Mason paused and a pang of guilt hit him. "I should be the one apologizing. We can talk about this when I get home, okay?"

Without thinking, Mason reached over and scratched Domino behind the ear before hesitating and pulling back. "Uh... Yeah, see you later."

As Mason rushed out the door, Domino got up, noting that Mason had in fact completely forgotten his food. The thought of rushing outside to get Mason's attention about it came to mind, but they'd risk running into Tristan, who lived a couple doors down. Domino instead picked up the bowl and placed it on the kitchen counter. They decided that after finishing their food, they were gonna find Mason's laundry.

***

     About an hour later, Domino waltzed into Mason's room and was able to immediately locate the dirty laundry, not because it was in a convenient bin, but because it was all over the floor. Although Domino had seen Mason's room in this state before, it was still an unfamiliar sight, generally speaking; Tristan was always cleaning something in his room. Nonetheless, Domino powered through the stench and began to gather all of the clothes before realizing that they had never actually seen where Tristan would take his clothes, and they weren't mentally prepared to ask around, so the sink was the next best bet.

     They haphazardly and somewhat frantically dumped all of the laundry into the kitchen sink. The cat stood for a moment, reassuring themself of their knowledge on faucet handles before turning the handle for the cold water, which they believed was the right one to use. The only thing they could think to use to actually properly clean the clothes was dish soap, and it was right in front of them, so they somewhat slowly picked up the bottle, opened the cap, and got to work, their head tilted slightly in uncertainty as the soap began to form a stringy coat over the clothes. At this point, Domino's brain was firing off every signal telling them that this was incorrect somehow, so they stopped, turned off the faucet, and stood there for a moment, staring down at their creation. 

Well I mean, I can't smell the clothes anymore at least. This definitely isn't correct, but I'm just gonna leave these here for now. Maybe I can explain to Mason when they get back.

***

     Roughly seven and a half hours later, Domino was taking a nap on the couch when the front door opened to a surprisingly milder stench than this morning. Something artificial was masking Mason's familiar scent. Domino opened their eyes and turned to face the door.

"Mason! You don't smell as bad!" Domino began. 

"Yeah, my coworker lent me some deodorant." Mason responded, putting his backpack in the same familiar spot before turning on the laptop and pulling up Jargon's self titled album once more, as per routine. "How's your day been?"

"Boring, but I tried cleaning your clothes."

"What?" Mason inquired sharply, shooting up before taking a deep breath and resetting his composure. "I mean, did you find the washing machines at least? Did Tristan see you? Domino, I have a certain way I wash my clothes and if-"

"Mason, calm down! They're over there!" Domino replied, pointing to the sink. 

Mason looked across the living room and didn't respond for a moment. "Okay, well at least I know you didn't shrink my clothes or anything."

Domino tilted their head. "They can do that?"

Mason poked at his clothes and then looked at how empty the dish soap bottle was and sighed a bit. "Yeah. I'm just glad that didn't happen."

Mason walked over and motioned for domino to make room on the couch before sitting next to them. "Sorry about this morning. I appreciate that you wanna help, and I think it's really cool."

Domino lit up at the apology. "It's okay!"

The two sat in silence for a moment, the only noise coming from Mason's bluetooth speaker at a low volume.

"I uh, need to go and actually wash these," Mason began, getting up off the couch. "I can teach you how to properly wash clothes sometime if you want."

"That'd be nice! I also wanna wear clothes sometime, I think. They felt soft!"

Mason smiled weakly at Domino and got up. "Well, I'm gonna wash these properly. See you in a bit."

As Domino saw Mason go to his room to grab a pillowcase, put the clothes in it, and head out the door, they slowly closed their eyes. They were at least happy to see him doing laundry.