Hello! I'm not dead (surprisingly)! While I am still working on some of my other fics *coughsSnatchedAwaycoughs* I decided that I wanted to start another fic centering Japan. This is part of a series kinda thing I'm doing where all the separate fics kind of tie in together (The actual series folder is on my AO3). Anyways, here it is- hope you enjoy :3

"Is that all?" Asked Kiku, the teacher's assistant for Ms. Zwingli's health class. She looked up from her laptop with a smile and nodded.

"Just attendance, but I can do that. Thank you, Kiku." He nodded in acknowledgement and took a seat at one of the tales in the far back of the room. Not long after did the bell ring, and the hallway grew loud with the voices of students, some of whom drifted inside. Kiku watched them from over the top of the book he had been reading, silently analyzing each student that walked in. He had a knack for picking apart the good ones and the… "disruptive" ones.

While most hated having to attend health class, Kiku had always taken an interest in it. He'd wanted to be a doctor since Elementary, and took every chance he could to study. Of course, he dedicate every moment of his life towards it either. He leaned back in his seat as he watched Ms. Zwingli try and her start her presentation while the back row of students chatted in low voices amongst themselves. Finally, she had enough of them to actually start.

Most of what she had put down on the slides, Kiku already knew. Calories, Diets, Hydration, etc. had already been memorized. However, as he walked down aisles of desks collecting papers from the freshmen, he noticed that Ms. Zwingli must've added something to this year's syllabus. He went back to his former seat and looked up at the screen with interest.

The slide was titled 'BMI and Obesity'. While he did know what obesity was (obviously), he hadn't heard what a 'BMI' was until now. Kiku made himself a mental note to read up on it later, when he got home. In the meantime he listened as Ms. Zwingli explained more. When the bell rang signalling the end of the day, Kiku did his few odd jobs around the room while making pleasant conversation with the teacher before packing up and wishing her a good weekend.

Making his way through the crowd, Kiku grabbed his sweater from his locker and headed towards the front doors to meet his brother, Leon. He was right where Kiku expected him to be when he got there, casually leaned up against the doorframe alongside their (although mostly Leon's) friend Emil. Leon waved to him and said goodbye to Emil as they made their way down to the school's student parking lot. Kiku climbed in the passenger side seat, as Leon went drivers side, starting to recall his day- starting all the way from the morning.

As he listened to his brother talk, Kiku looked out the window as they drove, wondering if Leon knew he really preferred to drive in silence. The two eventually pulled into their driveway, practically bolting for the door. When he walked in, Kiku could already see his youngest brother Yong Soo in the living room, watching TV. The middle schoolers always got out earlier than then them, and honestly it seemed kind of unfair. His sister, Mei, was also home by the looks of it (as in, all of her things were dispersed across the entrance of the house).

Ignoring the mess, he stepped into the kitchen and quickly microwaved himself a cup of ramen before retreating upstairs to his bedroom. He set the noodles down on his bedside table and curled up in his bed, pulling his laptop closer to him. Kiku was prepared to do some more reading on whatever BMI was. Listening to Ms. Zwingli talk about it had made him even more curious.

The very first result at the top of the page was a small blurb about the acronym and its relation to weight. There was a small reference on how to calculate it was well. In a new tab kiku searched for a calculator to measure himself. He typed his height in the small box, but wasn't sure how much he weighed, as he didn't check very often. After a quick run to the bathroom scale he punched in his weight and waited for the numbers to load.

"BMI: 25.8: Overweight"

Kiku looked back at the screen, confused. Overweight? He was about the same size as everyone else, he wouldn't think that he'd be overweight. Refreshing the page, Kiku tried again, typing in the same numbers as before. Again, the screen projected those same words:

"Overweight".

Kiku felt the noodles he had been slurping on before cement in his stomach. If he was overweight, that meant he'd need to start going on a diet. And that also meant no unhealthy junk food either. As he was trying to figure out what he could do to start losing weight, Kiku was startled out of thought by Leon bursting through the door unannounced.

"I'm going to pick up Dad, be back soon, probably." Before he could say anything, his brother was already walking out, forgetting to shut the door behind him. Begrudgingly kiku stood up to do it. As he did, he pulled his phone out from his pocket and checked the time. It was late, and that meant that Dad would most likely be picking up pizza for them. Kiku mentally cursed; that was the exact opposite of what he wanted right now!

Sure enough, when he heard the front door open, the smell of grease and breadsticks wafted upstairs. He shut his laptop and headed downstairs to meet the rest of his family who were piled around the table, plates in hand. He almost reluctantly grabbed his own and snatched up one of the smaller slices from the box. The table was loud as everybody tried to talk at once, but Kiku had grown used to the noise. He couldn't imagine the house ever being quiet.

Eventually, the spotlight turned on him.

"Aren't you gonna have any more?" Mei questioned, looking down at Kiku's near-empty plate. His Dad gave him a curious look as well.

"I had ramen not too long ago, I was just going to have more when I was hungry," He replied, hoping that it deemed a good enough answer.

"Don't eat so late next time," his Dad chimed in, mouth full of crust, "Bring some for lunch if you're not going to eat it now," Kiku nodded and stood up, leaving his plate on the table. He immediately headed towards his room, wanting to figure out what his new diet plan was going to have to be.

Later that night, after a few hours of skimming through health sites and online magazine copies, he had finally wrote down everything he needed to do. First of all, he'd have to stop eating as much junk as he did. He made a mental note to write himself a grocery list for later that week. Secondly, he'd have to start exercising more. Since he didn't have any equipment, nor did he have a gym pass, he settled for walking the dogs, Pochi and Fuji at least twice a day. He smiled as he set the small sheet of paper aside. This would be no problem at all.

Kiku unpacked his lunch on his lap, shivering as the cold February air cut through his sweatshirt. He sat outside with his friends (when the weather permitted) during lunch, the five of them crowding around the school's front steps. He was currently trying to get roped into a conversation about a new movie remake by Alfred, who had started the now argument with Toris.

"Dude, is that all you're gonna eat?" Alfred questioned, eyeing his lunch. Kiki had tried to go reasonably small with a cold slice of leftover pizza, some apple slices, and a few whole peppers. It had seemed like enough when he was packing it this morning.

"I'll be fine," He replied, taking a large bite of the pizza. Alfred shrugged, and went back to chattering.

"You can always have something of mine, if you want!" The cheery voice of Feliciano called out. Him and his brother- twin brother- Lovino, had been in the middle of trying to hastily scribble down work for their next class while passing a bag of chips between them.

"No thanks Feli," Kiku said with a polite smile.

"Good," Lovino said, grabbing the bag from his brother, "More for me."

At the end of lunch they followed the other small groups of students who ate outside back into the cafeteria where they split up to head off to their own classes. Alfred had tried to convince him to come to class with him instead of going to his study hall ("It's not like you even do anything in there!), but Kiku denied and headed up to the third floor.

It wasn't even halfway through the period when Kiku started to wish he'd taken Feliciano up on his offer. His stomach growled loudly, distracting him from his book and causing him to squirm in his desk in a mix of discomfort and embarrassment. He'd forgotten how active he was during school, even without going out to walk the dogs. 'It's only this and health' he reminded himself, trying to break the spell of reading the same line over and over.

For Kiku, seventh period couldn't possibly go any slower. Ms. Zwingli was talking about something he had already learned last year, and the growling in his stomach had turned to dull pains that pulled him out of focus. When the bell rang he bolted out almost faster than the freshmen, giving a rushed "Sorry-Goodbye" to Ms. Zwingli.

He met Leon by the doors as always, walking down to the parking lot with him as they did every day. His brother had raised an eyebrow when he saw Kiku tearing down the hallway towards him (Maybe not tearing, but walking faster than usual), but he didn't say anything about it. They walked down to the parking lot as usual, Kiku only hoping that the grumbling of his stomach wasn't loud enough for Leon to hear.

Leon must've picked up that something was wrong, as he didn't talk as much as he usually did. Kiku inwardly cursed this fact, as this would've been the perfect day to distract himself with his brother's daily gossip. As soon as they pulled into the driveway, Kiku pushed past the dogs and bee-lined it to the kitchen. In the freezer was a half-empty bag of pizza rolls, which he pulled out and promptly dumped on a cookie sheet.

Kiku had wound himself into somewhat of a cycle. Smaller breakfast, smaller lunch, followed by huge snacks and dinners afterwards. A couple walks here and there in the week, and Kiku was feeling great.

"This is so much easier than I thought!" He cheerily thought to himself as he tried to round Fuji into the house.

Yong Soo happily ran up to him and began chattering excitedly ("Can I come with next time? Please?") and Kiku smiled as he made conversation with his younger brother. Lately, he'd felt so much happier, and Kiku was sure it had to do with this brand new diet. He looked at the calendar on his wall once he flopped down on his bed, and suddenly realized it had been almost a month.

He got back up and slid the scale he took from out of the bathroom from underneath his bed, taking off his workout clothes before stepping on. He watched the little red pointer jitter before settling on one of the numbers marked around the edge.

And he nearly fell over in shock.

Somehow he had gained weight since the beginning of the month, and was heavier than ever. Kiku stepped off in disappointment, He'd been working so hard at trying to lose weight, how could he have possibly gained more?

Thinking it was a mistake, he got back on and tried again, watching as the red dial spun once again, to the same number. Kiku felt his happy spirits die down as he took a seat on the edge of his bed. Obviously, what he had been doing wasn't working; And that meant that Kiku now had to find a new plan for himself.

He grabbed his laptop from off of the desk in his room and went straight to Google, hoping to find better results than he did last time. He clicked through page after page, seeing the same things over and over again. He tried to rephrase his searches. Eventually, Kiku started to get tired of checking off everything he couldn't do. His hope for finding something that work- and work quickly- was getting weaker as he kept reading through a near identical copy of his previous diet.

Finally, he found a small forum for people who had just gotten off a seemingly popular fad-diet. The pictures he saw surprised him, people who had dropped 20, 30, even 40 or 50 pounds in just months. He could not, however, keep suspicion from rising. It seemed a little too good to be true, losing so much in so little time. It was called the 'ABC Diet', something he had never heard about before now. If the results were this good, why wasn't everybody doing it?

He typed the name into the search bar, and was met with thousands of results. The first link, a layout of exactly what to do. Kiku clicked it open, scanning the image of the daily 'guidelines', as the poster had called them. He saw abnormally low numbers listed in the columns, some days only marked with 'fast'. He scrunched his face in confusion.

Wasn't fasting harmful? It didn't seem healthy at all to him. Either way, Kiku still couldn't deny that it must work if so many people saw such results as he had read about. Another perk he noticed was that It only lasted for 50 days, just over a month and a half. The outcomes were definitely tempting, and in all honesty it seemed easy enough.

Despite the nagging voice in Kiku's mind, he copied the numbers and days down in a small notebook he kept handy. If he could endure this month and a half, the results he'd get would certainly be worth it. Besides, it couldn't go as bad as this past time…

Kiku was still saddened that he had actually gotten heavier in the last few weeks, but he was going to put that behind as a "trial attempt" and start straight away at this new plan. He sat in bed, computer still open and running, talking himself up until he became excited at the fact of starting the ABC diet. Of course, he still felt some unease at how low those numbers seemed on screen, but he pushed those thoughts to the very back of his mind and instead, fell asleep.

Yay, first chapter is up! I kind of feel like this chapter reads a little rushed but the next one will go a little more in-depth into Kiku's daily life outside of just lunch and home ^^