Ayu's Gain, Ch. 32

Chapter 32
A Very Belated "Thank-You"

*********************************************************************************

Once again, Ayu felt her sleep being interrupted by a gentle shake on the shoulder. "Wake up, Ayu," she could hear her mother say, through the haziness of her unconscious mind.

Slowly, her eyes opened, and a foggy image of her mother's face appeared before her.

"Morning," Nayami said, to which Ayu gave a grumble of a response. "I hope you're more energetic at school."

Just then, the loud, blaring, yet seemingly appropriate blare of the alarm clock reminded Ayu just where she was. While her mother flinched in response to the unexpected wail, it gave Ayu the comfort of bringing her back into the real world.

"I forgot to turn that off before I came in here," Nayami said after she smacked it silent.

Ayu scratched the back of her head and yawned. "What are you doing?" she asked. "Don't you need to go to work?"

"Nope," her mother replied happily, shaking her head. "Thanks to you, I don't have to be at work until noon. I figured you could use something more gentle than an alarm clock in the morning."

Ayu wiped the sleep out of her eyes, yawning deeply once again. "Why noon?"

"Carol's Kitchen doesn't serve breakfast. But I still fixed you some," she added, which seemed to perk Ayu up somewhat. "Now come on," she continued, standing up. "Get dressed and head downstairs."



"Now you do know that even though you're here to see me go off to school, that doesn't mean you have to walk me to the bus, right?" Ayu said, putting on her coat.

Nayami nodded and stepped back from the window she was staring through, where the bus was rumbling to a stop just in front of the house. "I know," she replied. "I just never actually get to see you go to school. I'm a little excited."

"Yeah, like that," Ayu stated, pointing at her mother. "That definitely needs to stop."

"What, me getting excited over your education?"

"Yes."

Nayami chuckled slightly. "Okay, I'll try to tone it down."

"So when are you going to be getting back home from now on?" Ayu asked.

"Umm…I think about 9:00...9:30. I don't quite remember. But I'll be gone before you get home. Which, by the way," she added, a small hint of mischief in her voice, "when you get home today, be expecting a bit of a surprise..."

This caught Ayu by surprise a bit. "What do you mean by that?…"

"No time to explain now," Nayami replied, hugging her daughter. "Have a good day at school…And you might want to bring Kazumi home with you."

With that, she practically pushed Ayu through the front door and closed it behind her, leaving her daughter with a confused look on her face.

While she watched her daughter shamble off to the bus through the window, Nayami Nishihara grinned evilly to herself. After the bus had started up and had safely cleared her line of sight, she walked over to the kitchen and stared at the oven mischievously.

"Well, time to get to work," she said, rubbing her hands together.



Meanwhile, on the bus, as Ayu made her way to the back, she was still wondering just what her mother had in mind.

Kazumi looked up to greet her friend. "What's with the look?" she asked.

Ayu sat down. "What do you make of this?" she started off.

……………

"That's it?" Kazumi asked after Ayu finished recollecting her mother's message.

"Yeah," Ayu replied.

"Huh," Kazumi said bluntly, obviously in thought. "I don't know what to tell you."

"You have no idea what she might be planning?"

"Well, I have a hunch…" Kazumi stated, tilting her head.

"What is it?" Ayu asked hopefully.

"Well," Kazumi replied, a small, devious smirk on her face. "I guess we'll have to see when we get back to your house."



Her mother's strange, mysterious "surprise" had her wondering all day, and kept her from focusing during a lot of her classes. The end of the day couldn't have come sooner. When that bus finally rumbled itself down Ayu's street up to her house, all she could think about was what exactly her mom had in store for her just beyond the front door.

Kazumi hopped off the bus along with her friend. "Calm down," she chuckled, seeing how much Ayu's hand shook from excitement as she reached to unlock the door. "It's not like your mom rigged the door with a bomb."

Ayu nodded as she turned the knob and took a step into the living room, where she found everything to be in order. "Alright," she said aloud, mostly to herself. "Whatever it is, it's not in the living room…"

Just then, she heard a purring coming from ground level, just off to her left. She look over, and saw the familiar, white, furry face of her beloved pet.

"Hey, Momo," Ayu said. Momo just stared at her owner in response, before turning around and heading back into the kitchen.

"You do know that if you want to keep hanging around me, you're gonna have to stop talking to your cat," Kazumi said, taking off her coat and sitting down. "I swear sometimes it's like you're expecting her to answer you."

Ayu ignored her for a second, eyeing the spot where her cat just was suspiciously. She followed her pet's trail timidly, peeking her head down the small hallway into the kitchen Momo had just ambled off into.

The view that met her eyes took the breath right out of her lungs.

A feast. A full-blown, undeniably large, bon-a-fied feast, fit for a king, maybe two. Plates upon plates of food, some piled on top of each other, crammed into each and every inch that dining table had to offer. Foods of all kinds were present; everything from spaghetti to cheeseburgers, steamed rice to some kind of chicken pot pie, steak, chicken, lobster, and everything in between. Ayu's mouth dropped open in shock and awe. The room overflowed with the various smells emanating from all the dishes piled into that one room. The sheer amount of food was nothing short of awe-inspiring.

The memory of her mother's last big meal crept itself back into her mind. The image of all those tin-wrapped breakfast plates stacked onto that same table. This easily outdid that meal by at least three or four plates, Ayu was afraid to count.

"Oh my God," she mumbled absent-mindedly.

"What?" Kazumi asked, still sitting in the living room. She stood up and walked behind her friend. "What is it--" She stopped dead in her tracks as she followed Ayu's gaze into the kitchen. She stood there dumbstruck for a moment, moth agape, before breaking out into a wide grin. "I knew it," she said, rubbing her hands together hungrily.

"Y…you knew what?" Ayu stuttered, regaining her composure. "You knew about this?!

"Well, to be fair I didn't know it'd be this big," Kazumi admitted, grabbing a drink from the fridge, "but I had a feeling your mom had made us some kind of snack or something."

Ayu noticed a small note left in the middle of the table. She expected it to read some sort of clever remark or some sort of explanation; but all it had was a crudely drawn smiley face winking at her and the word "Enjoy" scrawled out underneath.

"Well then," Kazumi sputtered through a mouthful of pasta. "Let's get to it."

"You don't waste any time, do you?" Ayu scoffed, stripping herself of her coat and draping it over her chair.

"I don't mess around," Kazumi replied, lifting another forkful up to her mouth. "And you better not either or all this food's gonna be gone before you get a chance to take a bite."

Ayu could tell by both the speed of her gorging and the tone of her voice that she was serious. This served as a motivator for her to begin as well.

"Pass me a burger," she said, sitting down.

Of all the feelings in the world, one of her undeniable favorites was the feeling of anticipation she got just as she began a stuffing session. This one was no different; in fact it was probably the best one she'd experienced so far. The food was both endless and mouthwatering, a combination that proved to go together so well. She ate at speeds so dazzling that some dishes would disappear within two or three minutes. Her cheeks were constantly full of delicious, savory delights, and were constantly chewing and swallowing, rinsing and repeating. Her mouth moved with the professionalism of a veteran eater, and every bite molded into each other, much as the plates of food she was so voraciously gorging on. Before she could control herself, she would grab yet another dish and pull it toward her gaping maw, with her hands moving at speeds so fast they seemed to be nothing but a hungry blur. With every swallow, she could feel her belly rounding out, pushing the limits of her stomach muscles. She would glance over at Kazumi at times, admiring her appetite as well. The two stuffers seemed to be going at it evenly, bite for bite, eating this huge feast at what seemed like a record-breaking pace. The plates diminished quickly, along with the girls' appetites, until eventually, neither of them had any room to spare.

"Ooh…" Ayu moaned, placing her tubby hand on her tremendously distended stomach, a feeling she had experienced many times before. "I'm done."

The hand on her belly was an unsuccessful ploy to ease the overwhelming pain residing in her stomach. She slowly started caressing it's creamy surface, too tired to do anything else. The pain was indescribable. It kept her from breathing steadily, each inhale a fight to keep from passing out. The food seemed to push outward, causing her stomach muscles to contract intensly. She could feel between her fingers the tightness of her skin, and the incredibly round ball that was her very own tummy did nothing but groan in response to her gentle hands.

Kazumi, sitting directly to her right, took a less modest approach to ease her fullness. She sprawled herself out on the chair, her chubby arms dangling at her sides, and her taut, fatty belly pushed out for all to see, completely uncovered by both her shirt and her unbuttoned jeans. The gargantuan mound of fat, creamy and round, rose up at least a foot, like a fleshy, rotund monster trying to devour her. It seemed to swallow up every inch of her body, rising and falling with every labored breath. It rose up so high that it seemed that all Kazumi had to do was bend her neck forward and she could lick it; like a big ol' beach ball resting on top of her fatty thighs, eating up the space between them. So vast was this pale, blubbery ball, that Ayu suddenly had the urge to just reach out and touch it…

"Get your hand off me," Kazumi groaned, lazily flicking her wrist. She grunted loudly and painfully as she shifted her tremendous bulk, hoisting herself up after a fierce battle between her and her globular belly. "I… I got some more food to…to eat," she breathed out tiredly after finally sitting up.

Ayu groaned and looked back at the table. There were still three un-touched plates sitting there, mocking them. After all their bingeing, there were, somehow, still plates of alfredo, chicken strips, and spaghetti.

There was a pause as Kazumi grabbed her fork, holding it just above the spaghetti, while the two didn't seem to breath.

"No, no," Ayu sighed, leaning back in her chair. "I can't…can't eat anymore…I'm sorry Kazumi. I'm done."

"Don't say that," Kazumi lamented, setting her fork down. "If you stop eating, I'll stop eating. We gotta suck it up and dig in."

"No we don't," Ayu protested. "There's some tin foil in the cabinets. We can save them for dinner or something. I'm serious this time, Kazumi. I feel like I'm going to pass out."

"No, no," Kazumi repeated. "It's gotta be now. Do you not remember anything I taught you? If you don't finish all your food the first time, you might as well not have eaten. Now come on," she said reassuringly, reaching over to pat her friend's shoulder. "We can do this. I'll take the spaghetti, you take the alfredo, and we'll share the chicken. Come on."

Ayu followed her friend's lead timidly, reaching for her fork as well. She lifted it up to the plate and stared it down for what seemed like forever, before finally taking the first bite.

……………

"I hate you," Ayu breathed, setting down her fork for the last time. Finally, after what seemed like hours chugging through those last three plates, the entire feast (consisting of thirteen plates, Ayu learned later) was resting uncomfortably inside the two bloated girls' bellies.

"Me too," Kazumi replied tiredly, back to the same sprawled-out pose she was in earlier.

The sheer amount of pain they were both feeling kept them rooted to their seats for over fifteen minutes after the last bite. When Ayu finally found enough strength to stand, she waddled toward the sink to put some of the dishes away, stopping dead in her tracks when she finally reached the countertop.

There was a small note laying just beside the sink, written in her mother's unmistakable messy scrawl. She must have missed it in the initial shock of seeing the kitchen for the first time. The message written on it made her do a quick double take.

"You're kidding me," she muttered to herself, obvious awe in her voice.

"What?" Kazumi asked tiredly, still sprawled out.

Ayu didn't respond immediately, reading the note over and over again, making sure she was, in fact, reading it correctly.

"What is it?" Kazumi repeated, finally sitting up.

The words rolled out of her mouth like a freight train, practically knocking Kazumi out of her chair. "There's still a cake in the oven."

After a short debate (a very short debate), they decided to save it for later.