Chapter 22: Shinobu: Want to join?
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Hand-drip coffee, fresh milk, savory burgers, classic omurice, and golden pieces of fried chicken—dishes that made Anna Yanami's mouth water like a torrential river—were brought out from the kitchen in a never-ending stream by Kihara and Sanae. Before long, every square inch of the dining table was completely occupied.
Marisa had never seen such a lavish spread in her life. Dispensing with any formal pleasantries, she clapped her hands together, cheered a quick "Itadakimasu!" and began furiously inhaling the food, a burger in her left hand and a piece of fried chicken in her right.
Not to be outdone, the rest of the group quickly reached out to snag their breakfast choices.
"Since it's the weekend anyway, everyone feel free to stuff yourselves. Once you're full, you can just collapse onto the couch and pass out."
"Ohhhhh! Coming here was definitely the right choice! This stuff is absolutely heavenly!!" Marisa cheered between bites.
Anna cast a glance of profound pity toward Marisa. Living in a culinary wasteland like England must have been truly brutal for her. The fact that she can eat a standard burger with such sheer ecstasy... I can only imagine what kind of miserable, primitive life she was leading before this.
"If you like it, eat as much as you want," Anna said magnanimously.
Swallowing the burger that was practically bursting with savory juices, Marisa's expression suddenly grew a bit complicated. "Man, if I get too used to eating like this, I'm afraid I won't be able to stomach my mushrooms when I go back."
"Mushrooms?"
"Yeah! I pick and eat mushrooms all the time!"
Anna set her own food down and proactively slid her untouched beef burger over to Marisa. The sheer pity in her eyes was almost overflowing. "Here, try this beef burger instead. The ones Kihara makes are a hundred times better than anything you'd get at a fast-food joint."
"For real? Let me try!"
"Ooh, try a piece of my buttered toast too!" Lala chimed in.
"Thank you, pink-haired girl! I swear, I probably won't forget your kindness for the rest of my life—or at least until I finish this meal!"
Breakfast proceeded in a wonderfully harmonious atmosphere. However, Kihara, who was exceptionally observant, noticed that Anna was eating at a significantly slower pace than usual.
His eyebrows shot up slightly, and his gaze subtly drifted toward her choice of clothing.
Every single thing on the table is one of Anna's absolute favorites. She's deliberately pacing herself, yet she wore a loose, flowy sundress perfectly suited for binge-eating... Don't tell me...
Kihara's gaze practically pierced through the dining table, locking onto the distinct little roll of fluff resting around her waist. His lips twitched violently, and it took every ounce of his willpower to suppress a laugh.
That's what you get for constantly chanting your sacred mantra: 'If the calories aren't listed, it counts as zero.' Now you can't even enjoy your food properly, can you?
In the past, the only reason Anna had managed to maintain her figure was because she hadn't yet fallen victim to the delusions of the "unlisted calories equal zero" and the "L-carnitine halves the calories of whatever I eat" diet myths.
Combined with the fact that Kihara used to drag her out for long walks all the time, her weight had managed to hover just on the safe side of the border.
But as Kihara's filming schedule entered its late stages, he would frequently disappear for days at a time. Left entirely unsupervised, Anna became like a wild horse breaking free from its tether, secretly gorging on all sorts of snacks.
The tragic result of her freedom was sitting right in front of him: she was now heavy enough to burst out of the jeans she bought four months ago, forcing her to eat with agonizing hesitation.
The food in her mouth tasted spectacular, and the cheerful, lively atmosphere around her should have made her ravenous. Yet, Anna felt that the joys and sorrows of mankind were completely disconnected; she only found them terribly noisy.
She was desperately trying to chew slowly to trick her brain into feeling full, minimizing her breakfast intake. The agonizing reality of having to stare at an array of high-calorie delicacies that she could only look at but couldn't touch was delivering a massive blow to her spirit.
Furthermore, she had noticed another deeply upsetting detail: Lala's appetite was easily on par with her own, yet Lala possessed a jaw-dropping, sultry hourglass figure that would make ninety-nine percent of women green with envy.
Unable to contain her burning curiosity any longer, Anna swallowed her last bite of food and popped the question. "Lala... how on earth do you keep your figure looking so perfect?"
"Hmm?" Lala tilted her head adorably, a half-bitten piece of toast still dangling from her mouth. She swallowed it in one gulp, pondered for a moment, and replied, "I don't really pay attention to that stuff. Isn't it enough to just eat and sleep on time every day?"
Curse you! So this is the legendary 'blessed constitution' where you never gain weight no matter how much you eat?! I'm so incredibly jealous!!
"So... did you actually get fat?"
Kihara's deadpan question dropped like a bomb, causing the biscuit in Anna's hand to clatter heavily onto her plate.
Her expression fractured instantly. She froze on the spot for a good three seconds before frantically jamming the biscuit back into her mouth, offering a strained, defensive chuckle. "W-What kind of nonsense are you talking about? I haven't gained weight at all! My weight is absolutely, definitely under 55kg!"
"Anna, your acting right now is incredibly fake."
"Eh?! Really?!"
Realizing that attempting to lie in front of a childhood friend who knew her inside and out was an exercise in pure futility, Anna slumped defeatedly onto the table.
"Aaaaah~! Fine, you're right! I got fat! So fat that I can't even squeeze into my jeans! Why are you always so hyper-sensitive about this kind of stuff, but when it comes to literally anything else, you're as dense as a brick?!"
"Weren't we just talking about your weight? Why are you launching a personal attack on my character out of nowhere?"
Sanae chimed in protectively, "Kihara, calling a girl fat right in front of other people is incredibly rude!"
"Yeah, yeah!" Lala nodded in agreement.
"Sorry, Kihara-bro, but I'm backing the girls on this one too," Marisa added.
Finding himself thoroughly besieged by the female coalition, Kihara quickly raised both hands in a gesture of total surrender. "My bad. I take it back. I promise I'll never bring up this kind of topic in front of everyone ever again."
On the surface, it looked like the girls were rallying to rescue Anna. In reality, they were safeguarding their own future interests. If they didn't nip Kihara's oblivious, blunt behavior in the bud right now, who was to say that one of them wouldn't be the next victim?
No woman could guarantee she would remain perfectly slim forever, so the danger had to be utterly extinguished at the root.
Once breakfast concluded, the girls immediately began brainstorming weight-loss strategies for Anna. She had initially hoped to glean some practical advice from her companions, only to discover upon questioning that apart from her, none of these people had ever struggled with weight a single day in their lives.
The revelation infuriated her so much she came dangerously close to running back to the dining table to eat every single leftover piece of fried chicken out of spite.
Surrounded by a bunch of people who literally can't gain weight, how am I supposed to find the mental fortitude to diet?!
Even though they had never been overweight, it didn't stop them from offering outlandish ideas. Lala immediately whipped out one of her inventions, the Super Run-Run-Kun—a bizarre gadget that closely resembled a piece of exo-skeletal power armor.
"My little sister wanted to build up her stamina when we were younger, so she begged me to make this! As long as you strap it on, it will literally hijack your body and force you to exercise until you hit whatever target you programmed into it!"
Anna felt a sudden spark of interest, but having survived the food replicator incident, she now harbored a deep-seated reverence for Lala's gadgets. She immediately pressed for details. "Sounds promising. So, what's the side effect? Or rather... the catch?"
"Oh, it absolutely will not stop until the goal is achieved. Even if the person wearing it loses consciousness, the armor will just keep running."
"Is your sister... still alive and well?"
"Hmm? She's incredibly healthy! Thanks to the Super Run-Run-Kun, she successfully became best friends with a Blitz Zebra known for its supersonic speed!"
"Let's... keep that as a backup option for now," Anna sweated. "Sanae, you make paper charms, right? Do you happen to have a charm that can magically incinerate fat cells?"
"Regrettably, charms can't perform biological miracles. I think you'd better stick to honest, old-fashioned exercise to lose the weight."
While the girls were deeply engrossed in their grand weight-loss summit, Marisa quietly sneaked off to the kitchen to find Kihara, who was currently doing the dishes. Her mind was entirely consumed by the thought of his special milk. However, the moment she slipped inside, she discovered that someone had already beaten her to the punch.
Shinobu was already there. Dropping the glistening straw from her lips, she turned her head, casting a thoroughly provocative, knowing glance at Marisa.
"Want to join?"
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Thank you for reading.