Chapter XIV: One Week Later

Among the many challenges that Harvey faced in his transition from a carefully controlled, tightly managed environment back home with his parents to living unsupervised at the Institute was being in charge of his diet once more. That had been the dark horse candidate for things that would cause him even more anxiety than his loss of identity.

It was just a thing that he never really thought about—sure, he'd had a weight problem before, back when Harvey was little, but that ship sailed after nearly keeling over and starting packing on muscle instead of fat. However, still, it hadn't registered to Harvey that he'd possibly have to start cooking for himself and make his own dietary choices. Harvey had walked right into a bullpen that held the possibility of fattening him up into a bonafide heifer and hadn't thought twice about what it might do to his figure.

As of right now, that fear of bulking up was starting to become quite the rude reality for the bucktoothed teen.

In his enthusiastic zeal to conquer the cooking realm, Harvey might have gone just a smidgeon overboard with the actual cooking part. He and Kimberly had set up a dedicated study session routine that revolved around her working with him three times a week to help him get better in the kitchen, bringing her creations to compare against Harvey's once they'd finished in the oven. That meant that there were twice as many sweets going into them as there were coming out of Harvey's oven, and he just didn't think about it and…

Ooh, he was worried about getting fat, now.

Harvey had noticeably rounded out a bit since he'd first walked through the doors of the Institute, primarily in the tummy. He stuffed his shirts tightly, and the button on his pants was enough to give him some amount of stress throughout the day. Sitting down, sometimes it would come undone, and his little belly roll would pooch out over the hem.

Harvey's rounding face squinched shut as he thought about the mental image of his fat popping out of seams. It put him a little too close to his childhood physique, a physique that almost killed him, for his liking—and he didn't want to relapse into the greedy, obese glutton that he used to be.

Harvey must have snacked away thousands of calories a week without even realizing it.

But cupcakes were so hard to resist, and he had to get better in Mrs. Uno's class! He just had to!

"Oof!" Harvey squirmed as he struggled to button his pants, "If only I had a catalog for new uniforms…"

Headmaster Uno had offered him a free one, but he had declined. If he had known then that he'd have blown up like this, then he'd have some larger sizes to wear while trying to slim down and not go about humiliating himself by wearing skintight clothes all semester — none of the other mutants were putting on any weight. Well, that Harvey could see, anyway. Or even care about, if he was honest.

Harvey sucked in his belly as far as it would go and managed to get his trousers buttoned. He let it pooch back out and let out a groan as his belly popped the flaps open again!

"Hrmm..."

Harvey laid both hands on his belly and stubbornly tried to push it back in.

Of all the things that he needed right about now, seventeen pounds wasn't one of them!

Then again, it wasn't like wardrobe malfunctions were an uncommon occurrence in dorm room 363. Same with popped buttons or ripped pants.

For every pound that Harvey had gained over his first semester, Kimberly had matched him and then some. Already starting as a fat kid, some of the weight that Kimberly had gained was more noticeable in her belly and rear than elsewhere.

Sitting on the couch, working her way through whatever remained of Harvey's batch of king-sized cinnamon buns to see how far her young padawan of the culinary arts had progressed, she looked positively plump in her now skintight blue coveralls. With the blue monochromatic of the garment that she liked to wear, Kimberly's weight gain was much more apparent in her tight clothes, whether she was on the couch or not.

Her fat gut rolled out over her lap. Her forefinger and thumb stretched as far as they could to minimize contact with Harvey's sticky buns, Kimberly happily buried her face in the gooey pastry.

Coming up for air, her cheeks glazed with frosting, she saw Harvey standing in the doorway, and turned as red as an overripe tomato.

"What?" she asked, "It's my dorm, too—I can pig out if I want."

Harvey cupped his hands over his mouth as Kimberly rolled herself to her feet. The fat on her body jiggled with every step. The porky Texan trudged herself back into her room to change into her uniform lest she runs the risk of tearing her coveralls beyond repair.

"You and Rachel are gonna have to start going over to her dorm to study." Kimberly said with a sarcastic and mocking slap of her big belly, "Cause I'm gettin' a little bigger than I was when I got here."

Harvey balked at the by now familiar display of the female body and shied away just as quickly as he had when Kimberly may as well have been wearing spandex. The last thing that he wanted to do right now is to see what his new eating habits could do if he wasn't careful.

Of course, judging by how his sister wanted him to be comfy here and how dedicated she was to help him, it'd be unlikely that Harvey would get as fat as his Texan roommate.

Ugh, why was he slighted at every opportunity?!

"So what's up," Kimberly asked as she made her way to the fridge, conducting a bit of a raid on it. "Are you and Rachel still coming over to study tonight?" Kimberly asked through a bulging mouth full of cake, another one of Harvey's creations that she was taste-testing, "Because... you know, I was just kidding about doing it at her dorm."

Harvey made a disgruntled little noise as he tried to suck his belly back in. The last thing he wanted to think about right now was food, but it wouldn't stay out of his head. It was giving him a weird craving for sweets and junk food, not to mention sodas.

"Maybe..." Harvey mumbled, "Do you think that you could do me a favor?"

"Yeah, for sure." Kimberly smacked her lips placidly, letting out a little burp, "Anything for you, Harv!"

"Do you think you could finish off the last of the food I made for practice?"

Kimberly's eyes rolled over to the empty tray tucked away in the corner of their counter space. Harvey hadn't looked that far over yet, dealing with whatever his deal was this morning. Kimberly faked a contemplative little face scrunch and popped another bite of his cake into her mouth.

"Yeah, I think I can manage that." she lied, "What's up, you on a diet or something?"

"I'm thinking about starting one..." Harvey whimpered, his hand on his chubby tummy, "Do I look like I've gained weight?" Harvey struck a painfully rigid pose, designed to hide any problem areas of his weight gain. "I mean, I know I have, but can you tell?" Harvey asked desperately of his still-munching friend.

"Harv, relax, no one at a school like McClintock is gonna care about you packing on a few pounds." Kimberly rubbed her belly as she managed a heavy-sounding chuckle, "Take it from me, a diet's gonna do you more harm than good around here."

Harvey made another disgruntled little noise. "So you can't tell?" he asked again, "Like, really you can't tell?"

"I can't tell," Kimberly lied, knowing that if she told the truth, it would utterly destroy Harvey, "But, uh... you know, as I said, I wouldn't worry too much about putting on weight around here. Everyone does at some point."

Harvey grimaced—he knew first hand what it looked like when someone got too comfortable like that. He hadn't seen anyone Kimberly's size since he'd gotten here, but one of his upperclassmen was close. As much as he was, admittedly, enjoying being on his own and rising to new challenges, doing all the coming of age stuff that he'd seen on TV, Harvey wasn't about to let himself get fat if he could help it.

Or at all!

He corrected his inner monologue with a defiant little sniff.

"Speaking of shaking things up..." Kimberly burped as she glanced at her digital watch, "Aren't you late to class?"

"DAMN!" Harvey swore as he ran straight back into his room and threw on his uniform. He'd forgotten that today wasn't Sunday! He had classes all day today, and Kimberly being home in the morning when she was supposed to be leaving for the morning classes was making it hard for him to get used to all this!

Still slipping into his black and white sneakers by the time he was out the door, Harvey looked something of a mess. He grabbed his school bag and muttered something incoherently as he scrambled for the door.

"GOTTAGOTOCLASSI'LLSEEYOUTONIGHTFORCULINARYARTSSTUDYBYE!"

He just up and left Kimberly alone with the last cinnamon bun and the strong urge to take her uniform off and skip class.

There was supposed to be no running in the halls. And typically, Harvey was far too worried about demerits even to risk such a thing. But the fact of the matter was that he was already twenty minutes late to his first class of the day!

He had never been late before, not even since moving to the Institute, and among all of the other challenges, time management had become one of them.

Harvey nearly fell as he practically skidded down the hallway and made a mad dash towards the East Wing, where his first class was.

Sadly for Harvey, he was late to Home Ec.

"Oh, man," Harvey said as he barreled into his Home Ec class, skidding to a halt at the sight of his cross teacher. "Mrs. Uno, I'm sorry I'm late, I-I…" Harvey tried to explain himself, but Mrs. Uno just held up her hand before pointing to the door, and as Harvey turned, there was a small but visible crack in it that Harvey knew was not there before.

"Mr. McKenzie, kindly sit your bum in your seat, you have study hall for damaging school property." She said as she saw the despair in Harvey's eyes as he walked to his seat, mouth agape, and parked it next to Mushi, his partner. "Now, class, let's get on with the lesson, shall we?" She asked as Harvey began turning pale and completely zoned out for the entire class.

Later in the evening, after an hour, almost two hours, in study hall, Harvey was taking a walk with Nigel off the campus to clear his head. Nigel tried to make small talk with Harvey, but the bucktoothed teen was not in the mood to talk. That was when his stomach growled, indicating that he was hungry.

"Okay, man, let's head over to Ultra Burger, you sound like you need some food," Nigel said as he grabbed Harvey's and speed-walked across the street before Harvey tore his arm away when they stopped under a street lamp.

"No, bro!" Harvey said as he began to look worried. "That is the last thing that I need to put in here!" He said as he grabbed two great, big handfuls of his soft, protruding gut. "Look at me, Nigel! I'm getting fat!" Harvey said as he punched the street lamp in frustration, causing a visible dent in the pole and making the light flicker a bit.

"Whoa!" Nigel exclaimed in shock at the display of strength Harvey demonstrated while the boy in question just stared at his hand in shock and utter disbelief at what he had done to the pole.

"Nigel?" Harvey asked, his voice cracking as he started to cry into the arms of his sister's boyfriend. "What's happening to me?" He asked as he and Nigel opted to head back to the Institute.

"I don't know, but maybe we should head back to the school," He said as he and Harvey made a break for it.

"Okay, that must've been weird, bro," Rachel said as she sat her large rump on her bed, her jeans creaking ominously, making her cringe.

"No shit, Rachel," Harvey rolled his eyes as he recalled the weird stuff that happened to him that day as he practiced his culinary skills in Rachel's kitchen. "First Mrs. Uno's door, then I dent a street lamp," Harvey said as Rachel went wide-eyed at the number of cakes Harvey was baking.

"Uh, Harvey, that's a lot of cake," Rachel said nervously, a hand subconsciously going to her enormous ass.

"Well, surprise, sis," Harvey rolled his eyes as he whisked the batter in his mixing bowl. "I'm a stress-baker now! I swear, the more of this stuff there is, Gawd, I'm going to be a fat cow by Christmas!" Harvey bawled as he poured the batter into a circular cake sheet and just slammed the oven door shut before twisting the timer like he was giving the oven a sailor burn.

Then he gorged on the cake, as he had been doing during his tirade about how bad his day had been going since he entered room 362.

"Okay, Harvey, you, uh, might wanna take it easy on the food," Rachel said, getting worried as she stared at Harvey's bloated midsection. "You're getting, uh, a little…"

"Fat? I'm aware! But I can't stop!" Harvey said as he forewent the use of silverware and began eating the cake with his bare hands, much to the concern of his sister. "It's gonna make me fat, I know it is, but it's like my sense of taste is enhanced, and I feel terrific when I eat a lot, even though I hate that I'm getting so much junk in my trunk!" Harvey said as he began eating faster, polishing off three whole cakes before he took the one in the oven out and frosted it.

Okay, now Rachel was concerned about Harvey because the boy was eating like a hungry, greedy piglet, and he was getting so fat. Aaron had asked his daughter to keep an eye on Harvey, so, she started wondering if it was time for an intervention, or not.

The latest cake Harvey backed was the last one he made for the night, and he gobbled up the rest as he waited for that one to cool off. As soon as it did, into his stuffed, taut, and tightly packed stomach, it went.

That was when he hobbled onto the loveseat in Rachel's room and passed out. Rachel rolled her eyes with a smile and draped a blanket over her little brother and let him sleep all that cake off.

"Damn, Rachel, that was a lot of food," Nigel said as Rachel stroked Harvey's hair maternally.

"I know, babe, how am I gonna explain this to my parents?" She asked as she worried what her mother and father would say to Harvey's change in physique.

"Well, we'll worry about it tomorrow, let's hit the hay," He said as he playfully copped a feel of Rachel's super-sized derriere.

"Ooh! Naughty boy!" Rachel said as she and Nigel got ready for bed, not aware of what was in store for them tomorrow.