I hear your laugh

“Mm, that hits the spot!” Kim rubbed her belly cheerfully as they stepped out of the restaurant. “Nothing like some greasy fast food to really get you energized, huh?”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Nick said diplomatically. Once upon a time he’d been addicted to greasy, salty burgers and fries like those. But since getting married and eating Mary’s cooking damn near every day, well…

His standards had risen considerably since then.

“You don’t have to be polite,” Kim said, turning to Nick with an understanding expression on her face. “I get it, this isn’t your type of food. Having had Mary’s cooking!? Yeah, it’s not even close.”

She patted her belly again, and grinned.

“But sometimes, you just get a craving,” she pointed out. Her cheeks turned scarlet. “And, um… with Mary, I… I kinda… feel bad.”

Nick looked at her, surprised to hear that. “Feel bad? What, for making Mary cook for you? I get that, but trust me, she loves cooking. Holly does, too. Those girls, half the reason they became friends was because they bonded over cooking projects. Back when we were in school together, they were always cooking and baking things and having me try them, asking whose tasted better. I must have put on twenty pounds in one semester between the two of them,” he laughed. “It seemed like someone was always cooking for me, I hardly had to use my meal card once that year.”

Kim stared at Nick, stunned that he could be that dense. “Dude… they were totally fighting over you,” she said bluntly.

“Huh!? No, Mary didn’t even like me that way back then, and Holly-”

Kim shook her head. “Dude? Dude. Come ON. You’re better than this, Nick.” She rolled her eyes. He really wasn’t… “Maybe they didn’t even realize it, but they were totally competing. What’s the old saying? ‘The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach’? Yeah, they were putting that into practice, trying to get you to like them by cooking for you. It was so NOT about becoming friends or bonding over food or whatever.”

Yeah, maybe that had happened incidentally, but Kim could picture the two girls working their little hearts out to appeal to Nick more. It seemed so completely like them.

“…Huh.” Now that Kim had said it, it really recontextualized a lot for him. “Yeah, I guess you’re right, wow.”

“Lucky boy,” Kim said with a grin. But her eyes betrayed the envy in her heart. “Getting two cute girls to cook you meals out of their own pocket, while SOME of us were living on cup noodles and tap water. I swear,” she huffed, shaking her head. “You men really need to check you privilege.”

By this point, her grin had taken up her entire face, and the look in her eye had changed from venomous to amused. Nick couldn’t help but smile back.

“I don’t think that’s a ‘man’ thing, I think it’s a ‘not being poor’ thing,” he pointed out.

“Intersectionality or whatever,” Kim scoffed, waving her hand. “Point is, you’re a lucky dog, and you’re getting luckier by the day.”

“Kim, I think we both know Mary would cook as much food as you wanted if you just asked,” Nick pointed out. “Welcome to privilege.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. But then her smile disappeared and a sheepish expression crossed her face.

“Yeah, uh… don’t… don’t have her do that, though,” she said quickly, shaking her head. “Like I said, I feel bad… even if she likes it.”

Nick still didn’t understand. “Is it because you’d ask her to make you a ton of food?” He remembered how Kim had crammed those massive burgers into her mouth one after another. “Mary would just see that as a challenge-”

“SHHHH!” Kim lunged forward and slapped her hands over his mouth. Her eyes were wide with desperation and she clenched her teeth. Color filled her cheeks as she hastily shook her head back and forth. “I… I don’t want that! That’s exactly the point, you moron!”

Nick’s eyes widened. He finally got it.

“…You gonna open that fat mouth if I take my hand off?” Kim asked suspiciously.

Nick paused for a moment, then nodded, much to Kim’s confusion.

“…Ah. You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” She realized, rolling her eyes.

Nick shrugged. He didn’t not enjoy having Kim’s hand on his mouth.

“Creepo,” she playfully teased, taking her hand back and sticking out her tongue.

“What can I say, any contact is appreciated,” Nick replied. He remembered back when he was a kid, and would sometimes irritate Dawn just to get her attention. It reminded him a lot of his current dynamic with Kim.

“Well… anyway, like I said, Mary’s cooking is great, but… seeing me pig out like I did before… it’s embarrassing,” Kim mumbled.

She looked sharply at Nick. “And it’s not like I do it all the time!” She pointed out. “I-I don’t! Okay!? Just… sometimes, you know, I want to indulge! That’s all this was! I have a lot on my mind, and eating helps me relax! And same as last time when you walked in on me! It’s not a big deal, okay!? It’s not! Okay!?”

“…You said ‘okay’ a lot,” Nick pointed out neutrally.

Kim sniffed at him and scowled.

Nick held up his hands. The date had been going fine so far, he didn’t want to do anything to disrupt it. “Hey, look, I think it’s great, you eating like that today,” he assured her.

Kim looked at him in surprise. “…Seriously?”

He nodded. “Kim, I’ve been trying to get you to eat more since practically the day you got here,” he reminded her, recalling the countless times he’d encouraged her to indulge herself. “There’s nothing WRONG with that. I mean, look at how healthy you are now. Occasional binge eating isn’t an eating disorder, right?”

Nick wasn’t a doctor or a dietician or a nutritionist or whatever profession it was that was qualified to identify something like that. But he cared about Kim. He knew how much she’d struggled growing up, even if he didn’t know the specifics, and it had been quite a journey of gentle encouragement that had gotten her from that exhausted, restrained clerk who had arrived on the island to the vibrant, energetic woman in front of him.

The last thing he wanted was to undo all that progress.

Luckily, Kim had a strong enough personality that she wasn’t so easily discouraged.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” she admitted, attempting to cross her arms over her chest. But her new assets made that a bit of a struggle, so she was **** to cross them under breasts instead, much to her embarrassment.

Nick wisely chose not to comment and just appreciated the view.

She looked at him with a sharp, scrutinizing eye, searching his face for any signs that he was ogling her. He gave her nothing.

“…Well,” she huffed, stroking her chin, “it’s not that big of a deal. Like you said, indulging isn’t so bad, right? Personally, I blame the fact that I spend all day surrounded by candy.”

“Candy that you don’t eat,” Nick reminded her.

“Exactly! It’s called self-control!” Kim nodded. Sure, she could tear through her room if she wanted to, but then she’d have to deal with the consequences of the temporary transformations from doing that, and Kim was way too responsible to do that.

Nick, on the other hand, wasn’t sure he saw much self-control in how ravenously Kim had devoured her lunch. It wasn’t as if she’d eaten enough hamburgers to get a full set of Happy Meal toys (now that he thought about it, he probably shouldn’t bring that up in case her 100% Completion transformation compelled her to do that) but she’d eaten over three times as much as he had.

And not counting the sudden increase in her breasts, she was a lot smaller than him.

“Well, as long as you’re happy, I’m happy,” Nick said, making his position clear. “That being said… don’t eat so much you make yourself sick.”

Kim could get onboard with that. “Believe me, you don’t need to tell me twice,” she agreed, shaking her head. A grim expression crossed her face. “When Dani first got me into working out, I threw up so many time- wait, what am I saying?!” Her cheeks turned red with shock. “I- that’s not date conversation material!”

She swung her hands wildly and shook her head. “Just… just forget about that, please!” The last thing she wanted was an image of her throwing up in Nick’s mind, especially after what happened last night with Ella.

“…Done, forgotten,” Nick agreed. But what he didn’t forget was Kim’s line before about eating a lot when she felt stressed. “There is one thing I need to ask though…”

Kim gave him a wary look. “…What?” She asked hesitantly.

“Before, you said that you were binge eating because you were stressed… is that true?” Nick asked, concerned.

Kim bristled, answering his question before she could answer it.

“Kim…”

“It-it’s nothing,” Kim said hastily, shaking her head. How could she tell him!? The issue with Dakota, her righteous anger over Sylvia, the fact that the host was taking things easy on them due to her lingering feelings with Nick…

Where could she start to address this stuff, without setting Dakota off again?

The two massive balloons of fat hanging from her chest were a back-breaking reminder of what she’d almost done.

With a sigh, Kim looked up at Nick and gave him a somber smile. “It’s… complicated,” she said softly. “I’m glad you’re looking out for me, Nick, but this is one of those things I have to figure out for myself, first. You understand?”

She really hoped he’d leave it at that. She didn’t have the energy to keep going if he pushed the issue. But luckily, Nick was an understanding kind of guy, and not the sort of person to pry.

“Yeah, I understand,” he said gently, nodding. “Don’t worry, I won’t ask. As long as it’s not something I have to worry about.” If it involved him, he couldn’t exactly respect Kim’s wishes to be left in the dark about it, as much as he may have wanted to.

Kim winced. “It does… but believe me, now’s a really bad time. I promise we’ll talk about it some other day, but I don’t want it getting in the way of our date, alright?”

“Okay,” Nick agreed. She was playing on his natural urge to not pry into other people’s business and he knew that, but he respected Kim too much to keep going. “Just one thing though… is it related to what happened to your breasts?”

Vivian’s face flashed through Kim’s mind and she scowled. “It isn’t… _un_related to that,” she admitted with a sigh, scratching her head.

Which meant it was related to Vivian. Nick just put it together. Vivian had that transformation that allowed her to increase the size of other women’s breasts by investing BP in them, and now here was Kim, who’d just jumped up half a dozen bra sizes or so, making that same irritated expression she made when the topic shifted to the heiress.

What exactly was going on between the two of them and why Kim didn’t want him to know about it, he wasn’t sure. Knowing Kim, if Vivian had done something wrong or played an unwanted prank on her, the tomboy wouldn’t have hesitated to castigate her. But at the same time, it was clear that this wasn’t exactly a voluntary transformation, either.

The fact that she was keeping quiet meant something else had to be going on. And Nick was burning to know what it was. Especially after how things had imploded with Vivian this week. But not knowing the specifics, Nick couldn’t do much more than keep his mouth shut and hope nothing untoward came out of all of this.

“…Well… like I said, I won’t pry,” Nick assured Kim, coming to a decision he could live with. “But if you need any help, just let me know, and I’ll do whatever I can to support you, okay?”

Kim laughed. “Funny you should mention that,” she said, rubbing her shoulder. “Because I need a lot of support now.”

It was a dark little joke, but one that she enjoyed quite hardily.

Nick took it in earnest, though. “I could give you a backrub,” he volunteered. “Dani taught me how to give massages, remember?”

Kim’s arm dropped to her side and her eyes widened. Actually, that little detail had slipped her mind. But now that he said it, it sounded so enticing…

But…

“N-no, that… it’s okay,” she said hastily, waving her hands. “I was just kidding around, I mean…”

“Come on, Kim, if you’re stuck with those things, I could at least make it a little easier on you,” Nick offered. “After all, if I’m getting to enjoy them this much it’s only fair, don’t you think?”

Kim turned red. When he put it like that, it became hard to argue.

“W-well…” She looked away and bit her lip. “Maybe just a little bit…”

And that was how Kim found herself sitting on a park bench and letting Nick rub her shoulders tenderly as her face burned. Couldn’t they have at least found somewhere private to do this? What if someone came by?!

At least she wasn’t moaning. Much.

After that surprisingly enjoyable backrub, Kim was eager to repay the favor. But her suggestion for getting the kinks out of Nick’s back were a little different than what he was expecting. She’d brought him to the gym to work out.

Half an hour later, they walked out, and now Nick was the sore one.

“Ah, how refreshing!” Kim stretched her arms over her head. “Nothing like a good workout to raise a sweat, don’t you think, Nick?”

“Speak for yourself,” Nick said, with just the faintest bit of curtness in his voice. He glanced at the tomboy with a scrutinizing look in his eye. “I was the one going through all the routines again. You just sat at the juice bar drinking smoothies.”

Kim rolled her eyes. “What part of ‘protein supplements’ did I not explain to you properly?” She scoffed, crossing her arms under her chest again.

“Yeah, still not a substitute for an actual workout,” Nick pointed out. “If Dani was here, she would back me up on that.”

Kim stuck out her tongue. “Well, today wasn’t my workout day,” she reminded him. “Thanks to my 100% Completion transformation, I’ve gotta go through the same routine every other day. And it’s really hard! After going to work? …Nope, I need to cherish the days I get off as much as I can.”

She punctuated her statement with a loud slurp of the rest of her protein shake, before hucking it into a trash can.

Nick could respect the logic there, but he also felt like she was maybe coming at this with a bit too much of a rules lawyering perspective.

Still, it wasn’t like he minded TOO much.

“You’re just upset that you didn’t get to see me bouncing around with these babies,” Kim teased, batting her eyelashes. She leaned forward, emphasizing the swell of her chest. “Can you imagine it? Me, doing all those stretches in this tight little shirt… soaking it with my sweat until it turns totally see-through?”

It was already mostly there anyway, Nick could clearly see the outline of her bra through the soft fabric. And through the holes in the front caused by her large chest straining against the buttons.

“Don’t forget the possibility of your buttons bursting off if you move the wrong way,” Nick playfully added. “That was also something you robbed me of.”

Kim made a face that was hard to read for a second. Nick’s playful little “suggestion” reminded her of what had happened earlier that morning with the lingerie, when this whole breast expansion mess first started.

She returned to a smile a couple seconds later, though, and wiggled her eyebrows. “Sorry to disappoint,” she teased. “But you can’t exactly blame me for not wanting to do push-ups with these babies!”

Kim reached down and caressed the underside of her new breasts, giving them a shake. They felt so different compared to the chest she was used to having.

Nick blushed, finding it difficult to tear his eyes away. When he finally did, and looked up at her face, she was smirking.

“Pervert,” she teased him, as he knew she would.

“I’ll admit it,” Nick said, not seeing any point in denying what was readily apparent. Kim just giggled and shook her head.

“Also, with everything I ate earlier for lunch…” Kim reached down and rubbed her stomach, a sheepish smile crossing her face. “Remember our earlier conversation, Nick? About throwing up after a workout? Yeah I don’t think so.”

Nick could see her point. He was surprised that she could keep that much food down as it was.

“Ah, well, it’s fine,” Kim said, stretching her arms over her head. “You’re not wrong, Nick, after eating that much, I should work it off somehow. Don’t want to get chubby.”

Nick wouldn’t mind her being chubby either. Kim’s smile would be dazzling if she was 300 pounds, and it wouldn’t change the charming girl’s personality in the slightest.

“We could go for a nature walk,” he suggested, remembering how much she liked that. “Or go on a stroll through the garden?”

Very good suggestions. Kim felt all warm and gooey inside, seeing Nick show how much he cared about her and paid attention to her likes and interests. He really was so great.

But…

“…Right, yeah, go out for a nature walk, or to the gardens, in this heat?” Kim fanned her sweat-dampened face in an exaggerated fashion, shooting Nick a coy look. “Out in the summer sun for hours, me getting all sweaty… it’s the gym all over again! You’re just trying to peep at my bra again!”

Of course she knew that wasn’t the case. But she liked seeing him squirm. Like he was doing right now.

Nick blushed. “No, I…”

“Don’t worry, I’m just teasing you,” she said, elbowing him in the side. She felt so free, being able to play around with him like this. She didn’t want to ruin it by talking about serious issues right now. She stretched her arms over her head again, cricking her back. “I actually wanted to do something else, like-”

“ZIP!”

Kim flinched in shock as a button on her shirt snapped off. It shot through the air and disappeared into the distance.

Nick looked at Kim. Kim stared vacantly ahead of her, her jaw slack and her eyes wide.

“Err… after… after a quick change,” she stammered, her blush intensifying as she tried to cover the newly-formed gap in her shirt placket.