Piggy Hana (2)
"Mmm..."
Snacks shimmered at the edge of my vision. I'd eaten a perfectly filling dinner, and still they did. Whether my digestion was simply that good, or a beggar had taken up residence in my stomach, I couldn't say. I'd been watching television, and slowly I pushed myself upright.
It was time for an important mission. I climbed down off the bed and crept toward the door. My destination was the office. Scolding myself for having handed the snacks over to Haru earlier, I made my way there at a careful pace. At this hour, Haru was sure to be gone.
At nine she took my hair off somewhere, and while she was out the office stood empty. Everyone else had already gone home.
I slipped inside and started a frantic search for the snack box. I'd given it to her not long ago, so it had to be in here. Rummaging through this and that, I broke into a grin. I'd found it.
The box was jammed into a corner of the office. Leaving snacks this unguarded... For me, that was excellent news. I rushed over and started digging through it. Take too many and they'd notice for certain, so I meant to find something small and high in calories.
I'd just picked out a few pieces and, beaming, turned to leave when a huge shadow fell across my path. I couldn't stop shaking. A shadow that size belonged to an adult woman about Haru's height. Slowly, fighting a neck that did not want to turn, I looked back.
Haru stood there, smiling. I froze solid as ice.
"H-Haru..."
"Ha~na~?"
My mind went blank. I needed to say something, and not a single word would come. Watching her face, I put the snacks I was holding back into the box.
"I... I was just looking to see what they looked like."
"Oh, were you? Funny. I could have sworn you were about to walk off with them."
"You're imagining things, Haru!"
I latched onto her leg and deployed the very sweetest plea I could manage. Haru seemed to soften at once and scooped me up into her arms. The room rose around me until our eyes met. It was a little hard to hold her gaze, so I turned my head.
"Hana. If you're hungry, you can have a snack."
She said it looking right at me. I knew a devil's temptation when I heard one, and still it was far too sweet. Would just today be all right? Eating for a single day wasn't going to kill me...
In the end, instinct defeated reason.
"I can really eat them?"
"Mhm. Nobody said you couldn't. There's no reason you shouldn't."
She had a point. No one had ever told me not to eat. Haru, as expected, knew exactly where I was weak. Beaming, I climbed down out of her arms and set about ransacking the box in earnest.
She watched me with a fond look on her face. It felt a little like being treated as a child, but what I was doing was childish enough that I had nothing to say for myself. Every bit of my attention had sunk into the snacks.
Nearly six hours had passed since I'd quit them, and the withdrawal was ferocious. I was trembling for want of a snack.
I pulled several out. My arms grew reassuringly full, and I headed back to my room with a smile. Haru followed. She looked as if she coveted them. I was generous, so I meant to share.
"Hana, isn't that an awful lot to carry off?"
She said it when she saw both my hands piled high. There were a lot, sure, but only enough to vanish quickly if we split them. So I answered without a shred of shame.
"This much is fine!"
"Hmm..."
Haru rested a hand on her chin, lost in thought. Afraid she'd say something more, I dumped the snacks on the desk and started wolfing them down. Maybe because it had been so long, my body was begging for them.
The moment I packed my cheeks until they bulged, Haru took out her phone and snapped a photo. I flashed a peace sign and modeled for her. The snacks had put me in such a good mood that I could.
I struck pose after pose while I ate. Haru nodded, deeply satisfied, and said,
"Mind if I have some too?"
"Yeah!"
Of course she could. I'd brought this many so she could eat as well. However hungry I was, even I couldn't finish all of them alone.
And so I split the snacks with Haru and passed a wonderful night. Snacks, as expected, were the one thing I could never give up.
"Hana, you've gained another two kilograms?"
"Waaah!!!"
I climbed onto the scale, saw the number, and screamed. It had no intention of going down. If I'd at least grown taller I might have had an excuse, but my height was exactly the same. A slow sense of crisis settled over me.
Keep on at this rate and getting fat would take no time at all. From here on out, it was nothing but dieting. Telling Haru and Bora, though, felt wrong. Not because my willpower was weak—because if I opened my mouth, they'd confiscate my snacks and my meals again, just like last time.
I decided to diet on my own. I didn't need an accomplice. Dieting was a lonely business by nature. Starting today, the weight was coming off.
I did resolve not to hand the snack box back. Didn't one or two snacks count as a reward for dieting so hard?
I ate as little lunch as I could stand and went up to my room. Uninvited guests were waiting inside.
"Hana!"
President Sehee and President Seyoung were there. The presidents never arrived empty-handed. They came with both arms full of delicious things.
"Uuugh..."
I wanted to flee the room, but a delicious smell was drifting through it, and before I knew it I was drifting toward the food.
"I bought the chicken you love!"
President Sehee, blind to the war in my heart, had brought chicken that made my mouth water at a glance. Beside her, President Seyoung carried a box of gorgeous donuts, apparently meant for dessert.
"Chicken first, and then donuts—that'll be just right, won't it?"
Because I'd eaten a light lunch, there was still plenty of room left in my stomach. I swallowed my tears and started on the chicken. Eating a gift with obvious delight mattered, so the presidents who had bought it wouldn't be disappointed.
How crushed would they be if they'd gone to the trouble and I refused? I could have borne that and not eaten. I could not, however, stop my hands from reaching for the chicken on their own.
"It's delicious!"
It was my favorite sweet-and-spicy fried chicken, and it all but melted. Juice flooded out with every bite. I closed my eyes and savored it. However they'd kept it, steam still curled off the chicken as if it had just left the fryer.
"Eat up, Hana. When you're little, all that weight turns into height~"
Kim Seyoung chimed in after Kim Sehee.
"I feel like I ate an awful lot when I was little, too."
"You know you kept eating until you got fat, unnie?"
"I watch myself now, so I'm fine!"
The two sisters bickered back and forth, but none of it reached my ears. All of my attention was on the chicken. The crispy batter was wonderfully savory. No other chicken they could set in front of me would have tasted as good as this one.
Smiling in pure happiness, I finished the chicken and reached for the donuts to close out the meal. I had no idea when it had been poured, but I knocked back a glass of cola in one go and started in on them.
I was lost in a trance. Aside from the occasional murmur of agreement when the presidents spoke, my mouth existed for eating and nothing else.
Ruin was drawing nearer, little by little. I knew it was coming, if only faintly—and I paid in full for the crime of never measuring its speed.
"Huh...? Hana... you've gained way too much weight!"
Bora said it while holding the checkup sheet out to me. One look, and I couldn't help but jump. Obesity was a single step away.
And yet I'd never once felt heavier when I put my clothes on...
If you gain weight, your clothes ought to get tight. I'd never felt anything of the sort.
The scale, however, did not lie.