Toni's story - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The next day Toni woke up noticing that he was almost late from work. He cursed his cell phone as it hadn’t waked him up earlier. He would have to return the rent van to the car rental before work as well. He dressed up quickly and rushed to the van. 

It seemed that it was his lucky day. The traffic wasn’t very bad that morning, possibly because most people were having their summer holidays. Thus he could return the van in only ten minutes and as the clothes store was located fairly near to the car rental, he got to work just in time. He found out that his boss, a middle-aged woman called Helena, was waiting for him on the counter.

“Ah, hello! You must be Toni,” she greeted him.

“Yes, I am Toni. Nice to meet you,” Toni replied.

“Let me get you your working outfit. What sizes do you need?”

“Well, my shirt size is S and I use size 28/32 jeans.”

“Here you go. The locker room for men is over there,” Helena said and pointed towards a door next to the front door after getting the clothes from a cupboard under the counter.

“Thank you. How did you know it was me and not a customer, by the way?”

“Well, there’s somebody you know working in the store. I hope that you get along well,” Helena replied with a smile. “I think you will find him in the locker room. He will guide you on your first day and tell you about our rules and other basic things.”

Toni was a bit surprised as none of his friends had told him that they’d be working in the same store but he managed to smile back either way. As he walked to the locker room, he inspected the store more carefully. The store was small but stylish, decorated with bright colors. It sold clothes mainly for young men and women; in fact it was Toni’s favorite clothes store.

When Toni entered the locker room, he noticed that it was more like a cupboard than a room. There was hardly space for three lockers, which made the room quite intimate as he would have to change clothes in a very narrow space if his co-workers were there at the same time. One of the lockers was open and Toni heard some rumbling behind it. 

“Erm… Hello?” Toni said unsure whether he should just remain silent and wait.

“Oh, hello!” the other man said in a cheerful tone while getting up to shake Toni’s hand. “I am Riku. You surely remember me from school though.”

Toni did indeed. Riku was a couple of years older than Toni - he had been a senior when Toni was a freshman in high school. Toni had chatted with him quite a few times and really liked him as well. After Riku had graduated, they had not contacted each other, though.  Toni was quite shocked to see him now. Riku was still very handsome with his dark brown hair, brown eyes, angular face and tanned skin. Two years ago he had also been fit, being one of the most athletic students in his school. He had always been victorious in the school’s sports events. Now that seemed to be a thing of Riku’s past. As Toni had surprised Riku when he was dressing up, Riku was shirtless and Toni could see his gut hanging slightly over the tight work pants that he was already wearing. He wasn’t obese, but he had clearly softened up. Toni just stared at the sight, excited for an unknown reason.

“Are you all right?” Riku asked, frowning. 

“Oh, yes. I indeed remember you. It is just that you have changed… Somehow,” Toni said awkwardly. 

“Ah, I had a busy year in college. I don’t mind it though, don’t worry,” he said patting his gut, which made it wobble in a way that excited Toni even more. Toni managed to smile to him and Riku smiled in return. 

“You better get into your new uniform as well,” Riku said as Toni continued staring at Riku. 

“Uh, you are right,” Toni uttered and as Riku didn’t move away, he just squeezed himself into the tight space between the wall and the lockers. 

Changing his clothes was both an embarrassing and exciting experience. As there was so little space, he couldn’t help but touch Riku’s softened belly and love handles in the process. From a corner of his eye he saw that Riku was staring his lean body. Riku appeared to be surprised as well. Eventually they got dressed up and Toni looked at Riku to notice that his shirt’s buttons had quite a struggle to contain his belly. “He must have gained the weight recently rather than in college”, Riku thought.

“I am not the only one who has changed,” Riku said.

Toni knew exactly what Riku meant: a couple of years ago Toni had been quite chubby himself but now, thanks to his best friend Aleksi and his gym enthusiasm, Toni was buffed. Toni smiled and shrugged as they left the locker room. 

“Helena told me that you would teach me the basics of working here,” Toni said.

“Oh, yes. Well, the job is simple. We help the customers should they need help and somebody stands at the counter on the cash machine. Surely you know the deal,” Riku said speaking quickly. “There are three workers working here at a time and we have a total of six employees here this summer. We have two coffee breaks, which we can have when we want as long as somebody is running the store, and one lunch or dinner break. What is special about lunch or dinner is that we can eat at the pizza buffet next doors for free since we have promised them to advertise their business. I have to say that the food is delicious there,” he continued smiling and patting his small but very noticeable gut. 

“Got it, thank you,” Toni said. The thought of Riku stuffing  himself with pizza somehow excited him, even though he didn’t know why. 

“Good. Now we’ll just have to open the store and wait for customers.  You can start by cleaning up the storage room. By the way, would you like to have your lunch with me today?” Riku said pointing at a door that said “No entry”. 

Toni agreed both on his next task and the offer for lunch and headed for the storage room that Riku had pointed for him. Toni soon found out that the storage room was a smallish space filled with clutter. Clothes, accessories, bags, advertisements and other such things were hanging here and there messily. Toni sighed and started his boring job.  Toni found out that time passed surprisingly quickly since after a seemingly short amount of time he saw Riku coming to the storage to tell him that it was time for lunch. 

Toni had never visited the pizza buffet before and thus he was surprised by the variety of pizzas that it offered. There weren’t many customers in the buffet since the normal lunch time was almost over. Riku showed some kind of a pass to the salesperson who gave him two trays. Riku handed one for Toni and rushed to the counter full of pizzas. Toni watched him as he piled dozens of slices of different kinds of pizzas on his three plates.  Toni decided that it was for the best to act like nothing unusual had happened, so he just followed Riku, took a few slices of pizza and followed Riku to one of the tables.

“I can see that you’re hungry,” Toni said with a silly smirk on his face.

“Hungry? Oh, not really after the breakfast that I had,” Riku said smiling. “These pizzas are just so delicious that I can’t resist them. You don’t seem so hungry, though”.

Actually Toni was hungry, but he was used to eating small portions when he had company. He didn’t really know why, but he found it a bit unpleasant to eat heaps of food when others were watching. Somehow he knew that Riku wouldn’t mind to see him eating a lot, so without any explanations he rose from the table with his plate and went to grab more slices of pizza. Then he returned to the table.

“Now that’s more like it!” Riku said cheerfully looking at Toni’s plate that now contained almost as much pizza as Riku’s.

At first the two of them just focused on eating, but after a couple of minutes they started chatting. Toni soon found out that Riku was just as easy going and fun to chat to as before. Unlike Aleksi, he also seemed to listen to Riku instead of pursuing his own thoughts. The pizzas also tasted delicious and Toni didn’t have to wonder why Riku had grabbed so many slices on his plate. As Toni got fuller and fuller, he wondered whether he could finish his portion or not.  The food tasted so delicious that he couldn’t help but try. 

When Riku had finished his food, Toni heard a loud belch and then a sound that made him look at Riku. It was a button of Riku’s shirt. It had popped and flown on the table. Toni stared at the button and then at Riku, who was blushing but also smiling. The sight made Toni blush as well.

“So, it seems that your shirt didn’t enjoy the food as much as you did,” Toni said after an awkward moment of silence.

Riku laughed. “It seems so. But you weren’t a light eater either,” he said pointing at Toni’s direction.

Toni knew that he was right. His belly was swollen since he had eaten more than ever before. It was obvious through his shirt, but he was glad to see that the buttons weren’t about to pop. His shirt did feel quite a bit tighter than when they had entered the buffet, though. “I can’t eat like this again,” he thought even though he actually enjoyed the feeling of being full. He still wanted to finish his food, since it was free, so he ate the last slice of pizza quickly, which seemed to impress Riku.

After the boys had gotten back to the store, Riku went to get a bigger shirt and told Toni that he would help with the cleaning of the storage. Toni enjoyed the task a lot more now that he had somebody to talk to and they actually got the cleaning done before the closing time.  After work Toni walked back home despite of still being full. Later that evening he was invited to play some football, but he turned the offer down as he thought he’d be better off by digesting the food slowly at home.  He felt unusually sleepy for the rest of the day and fell asleep on his mattress much earlier than usual.