He heard the light sound of snoring, emitting from the person beside him. Having received his answer, Hiroyuki quickly followed the other person into dreamland.
The following days, the two people fell into a routine. Since Jiro wanted to contribute and not just sponge off of Hiroyuki, Jiro took care of all the housework – from cleaning to dusting, even the laundry was taken care of by him. The only thing Jiro did not do was cook. He didn't know how and Hiroyuki didn't have the time to teach him.
As for Hiroyuki, he went to work six days a week, coming home late. Hiroyuki had a full day of work, as usual. Being a human resources manager was definitely not as easy as it seemed. Although he didn't have to go out for dinner with the company's clients, but every now and then, he would have to eat with his work team and also with the other managers at the company.
Waking up, he went to the closet, only to find his favorite inner shirt was missing. He walked over to the laundry hamper.
Hiroyuki rummaged through the laundry hamper and found women's panties. Huh?
Then it hit him that he hadn't thought about Jiro's underwear needs at all. Somehow, all he thought about were the outerwear. Tucking the image of Jiro in female panties away, Hiroyuki made a note to buy the boy decent underclothes at the local market, so he wouldn't have to continue wearing secondhand ones.
At the local market, Hiroyuki had to stretch every dollar. Before Jiro came to live with him, Hiroyuki would shop for groceries late at night. A secret he learned about the market was that after 9 pm, the market would clearance price all their "unfresh" items. These were usually items that were a day over the expiration date.
Picking up a few apples with brown spots, Hiroyuki added them to his shopping basket. There were some expired snack bags. A few prebatched bags of ugly-shaped vegetables were also thrown into his shopping basket. That's the funny thing about society, they won��t buy ugly-shaped things even though once it's chopped up and cooked, it tastes the same as the cutely-shaped items.
Oh well, it just means he can save money.
As he was checking out, he noticed packages of undergarments on the side. Each package contained three underwear. He put two packages in his shopping basket. As the cashier rang him up, she informed him that he could add one more undergarment package, as they were having a special, three for the price of two. Hiroyuki went back to pick up another package.
By the time he returned home, Jiro was practically starving. Helping Hiroyuki unpack the food, the little scamp wanted to open up one of the snack bags, but Hiroyuki forbade him.
"I'm making dinner now. Just wait thirty minutes," he told the younger man.
Jiro dejectedly put the snack bag away. Then he returned to his roost on the sofa to continue watching his favorite television show.
They ate dinner. Afterwards, Hiroyuki handed the bag of undergarments to Jiro, "Here."
Opening the bag, Jiro's eyes widened when he saw the underwear, "For me?"
"Yes," Hiroyuki said. "Right, wash them before you wear them."
Tightly hugging the bag to his chest, Jiro was afraid to let it go, lest he lose all his happiness. The look on Jiro's face gave Hiroyuki a deep sense of pleasure. It had been a long time since he actually cared to see someone else happy. Even with his exgirlfriend, he hadn't felt the same warmth.