Laundry follows working-class neighbors living in a poor hillside neighborhood in Seoul. Nayoung, 27, moved to the city five years earlier, hoping to save money and attend college. Instead, she lives in a cramped rented room and works at a bookstore where she faces an abusive employer.

Her neighbor Solongo came from Mongolia after studying Russian literature in Ulaanbaatar. Now an undocumented factory worker, he supports his family and younger brother while enduring withheld wages, racist abuse, and threats of deportation. He fell in love with Nayoung when she first moved in but has struggled to approach her. Their adjacent rooftops and laundry lines gradually bring them together.

After Nayoung protests the unfair dismissal of a colleague who exposed accounting irregularities, she is transferred to a remote warehouse. Returning home drunk and distraught, she finally lowers her guard with Solongo. When his landlord attacks him, Solongo silently endures the violence rather than risk police attention and deportation. His quiet sacrifice deepens their bond.

Nayoung also finds support from her sharp-tongued but compassionate landlady, who cares for a severely disabled daughter, and from another tenant known as Heejung’s mother. When the daughter falls ill, the neighbors help take her to hospital. The following day, the women share their fears and disappointments, comforting one another with the hope that tears, like freshly washed clothes, can dry in the sunlight.

Their solidarity slowly changes the neighborhood. Heejung’s mother finds a new home, while the landlady and her daughter reunite with her estranged son. Nayoung chooses to build a life with Solongo, who finally speaks a word he never learned amid the insults of the factory: love.