Futaba's Chocolate Surprise

	“Ugh, this is impossible!” groaned Futaba as she scraped the bottom of her cooking pot with a wooden spatula. Half the chocolate she had prepared was sitting in a messy, disgusting glop in a bowl and the other half was currently melded to the side of her steel pot and no amount of stabbing at it would loosen its grip.
	“Futaba, are you sure you don’t want any help?” Sojiro hung over her shoulder, a worried expression painted over his face. “I could teach you how to--”
	“No, I can do this! I need to do this myself.”
	Sojiro wasn’t convinced, but he knew better than anyone that once she set her mind to something, there was no stopping her. So he returned to the counter, but kept one eye on his adopted daughter like an overprotective mother watching her child ride a bike without training wheels for the first time.
	“I say I can do this, but I’ve never cooked anything in my life,” she mumbled to herself. That wasn’t entirely true. She could make a cup of instant ramen like a champ and she was a pro at heating a TV dinner to the perfect temperature. But she had never so much as boiled an egg or made a sandwich. “But, I mean, I know chemistry. And cooking is just household chemistry, right?”
	But the results spoke for themselves. She took a teaspoon and gingerly scooped up a dab of her own concoction. It barely touched her tongue before she was over the sink, coughing and sputtering, and wiping her tongue with a towel.
	“Gah! It’s like bubble slime curled up on my tastebuds and died! Heal! Cast heal!”
	She grabbed a chocolate bar from large stash she had accumulated and bit into it in an attempt to clean her palette.
	“Whatever, I’ve got more experience now. Let’s do this one more time!”

	Futaba collapsed face first onto her bed, the weight of failure pressing down on her. The stomach pains weren’t helping either.
	“I didn’t even know chocolate could be set on fire,” she moaned.
	She was not cut out for this. She was meant to eat sweets, not craft them. She could code a cooking game faster than it would take her to actually make something edible. Why was she even forcing herself to do this?
	And as she turned her head, her eyes fell upon a photo sitting on her desk. It was him. It was a photo of their first real date. She had made sure they got a picture together riding the Ferris Wheel at Destinyland. It was the boy who had literally saved her life. It was the boy who taught her that her life had value. It was the boy who meant the world to her.
	And it was the boy who had sacrificed himself, allowing himself to be dragged to prison to protect her and all of her friends.
	There wasn’t much she could do for him now. Everyone had made their appeals. All of his friends had gathered together to let the world know he was innocent. People wrote letters, asking for him to be let out. They signed petitions. They got the word out.
	And he was going to come back to her. He was going to be free. She believed it because she had to believe it. But she had to do something. Anything. She couldn’t just sit there. So she decided she would make something. She would take the warm feeling in her chest, the love he gave to her, the warmth that coursed through her, and she would give it form. She’d make him the best gift ever, all for Ren.
	Unfortunately, all she could think to make was the most stereotypical gift, a chocolate heart. She had no idea what else to get him. But if that was all she could think of, it’s what she was going to do. She bought a boatload of chocolate and a dozen recipe books and prepared to make the best chocolate heart ever.
	Which was a bold claim. Especially bold after her first attempts set off the fire alarm. But could she give up after a day of failure?
	She hopped off her bed, grabbed an armload of chocolate bars, booted up her PC and got to work. She snapped her teeth into the sweet, brown bars as she brought up her browser, hoping the sugar would fuel her brain and power up her inspiration. She rifled through a million cooking sites, walkthroughs and wikis until she was sure she was ready. She was going to be busy.

	“Okay, good, you’re making progress,” said Makoto. “Now, just keep watch on it until it’s ready to pour.”
	“Understood, sensei!” Futaba snapped to attention and gave a military salute.
	“You don’t have to call me that,” said Makoto. “But it’s fine. Just keep an eye on it while I go get the mold.”
	Makoto disappeared around the corner, making her way to the supply closet of her apartment.
	Futaba felt like it was a bit of a betrayal to Sojiro to go straight to Makoto for some cooking lessons, but it felt awkward to go asking him for help when she had turned him down just the day before. Makoto’s kitchen was also pretty nice and it meant she wasn’t getting in Sojiro’s way. Plus, this felt like it needed a mother’s touch, and she didn’t know anyone as motherly as Makoto.
	And it had paid off. Makoto knew exactly what she was doing. She was a total professional. She  was so professional she even made sure Futaba dressed the part, with a large, white apron around her waist and a handkerchief tying her hair back. It felt a bit awkward, but she also thought it was very moe, so she wore it with pride.
	Still, cooking wasn’t all that exciting. Sure, getting everything together was fun, and the idea of making something yourself was fun, but between those bits was a lot of waiting. A lot of lot of waiting.  And stirring a pot of melting chocolate could only offer so much stimulation.
	Crunch crunch crunch
	All she could do was munch on the pile of chocolate she had brought with her. Clearly she had overestimated how much she was going to need, but it was better to have too much than not enough, right? And it was still pretty good, even for store bought.
	Munch munch munch
	Stir stir stir
	Crunch crunch crunch
	So bored. So bored she couldn’t focus. Now she was just eating to stave off the boredom. A pile of chocolate wrappers began to overflow from the garbage beside her.
	“Well, I finally found them,” said Makoto, returning with a plastic frame in hand.
	Futaba snapped back to attention. “Huh? Oh, right. Does that mean we’re ready?”
	“Let’s see...” Makoto peered into the twin pots simmering on the stove. “Yes, I think we’re good to go.”
	So they rolled out some parchment paper, set down the heart shaped molds, poured in the chocolate, and set them in the fridge. After a good hour had passed, they were pulled out and placed back on the counter, looking as perfect as could be.
	“We… we made these!” said Futaba, gazing upon her chocolaty creations. “My crafting skills have leveled up!”
	“Good job, Futaba. Go on, give them a taste.”
	She lifted the plastic molds away and brought one of the chocolate hearts to her lips. Somehow, she was still hungry for more.
	“It’s… good.” Her voice was tinged with a bit of disappointment. “I mean, it is good and it looks good, but honestly, it doesn’t taste much different from the store bought stuff.” And this was something she had quite a bit of experience with.
	“Well, that’s only to be expected. All we really did was melt down store bought chocolate and put it in a nicer shape. That’s good work for a beginner. But if you want to make even better stuff, you’ve got to master the basics and then learn to make it from scratch.”
	“As expected of Makoto-sensei!” Futaba saluted.
	“I told you, don’t… Anyway, those are the basics, and if you want to do more advance stuff, you have to practice the basics. That goes for school work, martial arts and cooking. If you want to get better, you have to put in the work. Can you do that?”
	“Yes, sensei!”

	“Practice—umph—really is—crunch--important--”
	Futaba shoved the remains of her latest creation down her throat. She was getting good at this. All day, she spent her time melting, shaping, cooling and subsequently eating her experiments. She was at her heart a scientist like her mother. And science meant compiling data, forming control groups, changing variables and forming conclusions. And as she said, what was cooking if not just simple chemistry?
	Now that she understood the basics of melting chocolate, she was cooking around the clock. She realized if waiting for something to melt or cook was taking too much time, all she had to do was work on another batch while the first batch cooked. She followed her notes. She moved like a machine,  pouring chocolate into one bowl, adding ingredients to another, stirring another, cooling off yet another, and removing those that had finally cooled. Of course, once it was cooled, she had to test it. In theory, she only had to make a few bites to test it out, but cooking was complex. It was better to make a full batch and sample it all, to make sure it was the same all the way through.
	Crunch crunch crunch
	“The caramel is pretty good, but it mostly ended up in the middle. I need to make sure it spreads evenly.”
	Of course, eating large servings of chocolate around the clock was having some effects on her. For one, all the sugar was giving her bursts of energy, which made cooking all the more productive. It made her creative.
	It was also making her a bit chubby.
	“Come… on...” She squirmed as she tried to adjust her shorts. They had been getting uncomfortably tight lately. She had moved up a couple of notches, but it was starting to annoy her again, as was the tanktop which refused to stay down and cover the expanding curve of her belly. The hem of her shirt decided to rest gently above her protruding navel.
	Though Futaba herself paid little mind to this, apart from the occasional grunting or squirming to adjust her clothes. She was never one to be concerned with her appearance and her eating habits had always more closely resembled a family pet. She ate what was in front of her whenever she had an opportunity. Calories and nutrients were something that happened to other people.
	So she didn’t pay her burgeoning waistline any mind. A waist was a terrible thing to mind, especially when there was so much chocolate to make. And she had to keep making it. She had to keep perfecting it.

	And so she spent another week, taking every moment she could to hone her craft. And she had become much more efficient. It was much easier to make as many batches at once, and to sample them one after another so she could determine what truly worked and what didn’t. Which was why she was sitting on her bed, her laptop open, with a pile of chocolate nearly as tall as her at her side.
	“Mmm… Hmm...” She snapped a heart in half and easily stuffed it in her mouth. She tossed and turned the chocolaty morsel over in her tongue, analyzing its taste but also the texture. It was good. The marshmallow center was tasty, but you could also feel the lumps from unmelted marshmallows. The filling obviously needed a bit more heat, though.
	She turned to her laptop and made some notes. A sprawling spreadsheet kept track of various ingredients, temperatures and results. It was a lot of work and a lot of data, but she couldn’t argue with the results.
	After clicking on the save button, she returned her attention to her pile of sweets. She popped the other half of the heart into her mouth and within a few moments it was sliding down her throat.
	“Ahh… URP.” Her sigh of satisfaction was interrupted with a small burp as she leaned back into her pillow.
	“Right, one down, another hundred to go. Time to get my grind on.” She gave her stomach a hearty slap in anticipation.
	For its part, her stomach was clearly enthusiastic. It clearly enjoyed all the attention. And it jiggled and bounced as it explored its newfound freedom.
	Her growing, gurgling gut had reached a point where her tanktop simply could not and would not hold it back. The chocolate filled tubby tummy sprawled out in front of her, swinging back and forth endlessly. It constantly smacked against a pair of thickening thighs which were barely contained in a pair of tight thighhighs that indented her flesh.
	“Right, let’s see what’s next.”
	Leaning forward, she got on her hands and knees, reaching out to grab another tasty treat, but was interrupted by a loud noise and the feeling of a cool breeze coming from behind her.
	“Oh man, you’ve gotta be kidding!”
	She couldn’t turn far enough to see, but her hands started to explore her backside. It was a vast frontier, but as she expected she eventually found a long split going straight down the middle of her shorts. She could feel her striped panties breathing easier in the open air.
	“I swear these things shrink every time Sojiro washes them.”
	She did not stop for even a moment to consider any other reasons why her wardrobe was rapidly shrinking. Not that it mattered very much to her. After all, who was going to see? This was her room.
	With absolutely no shame, she turned onto her back and undid her belt, which was surprisingly easy. The moment the clasp was removed, a layer of fat dropped hard, unzipping her fly and poured out at every opening. She grabbed the offending garment, kicked her legs up, and pulled.
	“Come… on!”
	She grunted and groaned as she struggled to yank off her shorts, but they simply refused to budge. Sweat poured down her face and back as she pulled and pulled, but it simply clung to her legs and backside. She dropped her legs to the bed, arched her back and pulled once more. But the skin tight fabric simply had a death grip on her bottom.
	But persistence paid off. After several more minutes of squirming, pulling, grunting, squeezing and a few obscenities the damaged denim came flying off, taking her thighhighs with them as they went.
	“What a pain in the ass.”
	She took a quick look at the massive hole which had grown in the back of her shorts before she tossed it and her legwear aside, letting them land on the back of her chair. She took a deep breath and wiped the sweat from her brow. Was it always this hot in here? It was February, but maybe she should turn the AC on. Even her shirt was sticking to her skin.
	“Well, whatever.”
	She lifted her tanktop off, throwing it aside with the rest of her clothes. It felt like she could finally breathe. She took a moment to feel refreshed as the cold air rolled over her exposed skin. She sat in nothing but a pair of green striped panties which had seen better days. Those would at least stay for now.
	“Now, back to work,” she said as she reached for another chocolate heart.
	She sat back on her pillow, brought the next treat to her lips, which by now were smeared with chocolate, and simply enjoyed herself. Hours passed in simple delight, enjoying the sweetness of the candy, the softness of her bed, the freedom of relaxing in nothing but underwear and the thoughts of the boy it was all for.
	Crumbs dropped from her lips, and she couldn’t help but notice they seemed to bounce off her chest with a little extra oomph. She gazed upon her growing assets, her mothers genes clearly kicking into gear, and swelled with pride, among a few other things.
	It was such a good time she didn’t even feel that bad when she woke up, covered in melted chocolate, and realized she forgot to record the results. Well, she could always try again tomorrow.

	At last the fabled day had arrived. Their efforts had not been in vain. The court had ordered Ren to be released from prison. At last, he was reunited with all of his friends. And better yet, it was right before Valentine’s Day! Futaba had her chance. She had practiced for this for months. She had worked hard. She had gone from someone who couldn’t melt a chocolate bar to someone who could cook a batch of homemade candy so good it would blow your taste buds away. She had made a gift she could be proud of.
	But as she walked, or rather waddled, towards Leblanc that day, her heart felt heavy. Though then again, so did the rest of her. She pushed open the door, meeting a worried Sojiro’s gaze. She stepped in, taking a moment to dislodge herself from the door frame.
	“I’ll just… Look, just don’t do anything too crazy, okay?”
	Sojiro excused himself, with Morgana following behind him, and quickly left the shop, stopping only briefly to look back at his adopted daughter. Well, as long as she was happy. Though a feeling of apprehension still filled him.
	And the two of them were left alone. They had seen each other just recently, but this was the first time they had been alone in months.
	“You look different,” said Ren. When he first saw her a few days before, he had been quite shocked, though it seems he got over it fairly quickly.
	And she did look a bit different. Her usual shorts, tanktop and jacket had to be discarded. She says they got destroyed in the watch, though that was a lie. She had to call up Haru so that she could borrow a few sets of Shujin track jacket and shorts. The stretchymaterial clearly meant for someone with longer arms, as the sleeves had to be rolled back to even come close to fitting. But at the same time, the amount of exposed flesh suggested it was meant for someone with a much smaller circumference.
	The formerly underweight hacker had done a total reversal and in a few short months had become probably the heaviest person Ren had ever met. Her entire body had become covered in a thick layer of blubber, from her plump, rounded cheeks to the rolls of flab that were attempting to devour her ankles, but the bulk of that weight had found its way into a belly which stretched her red track jacket to its absolute limits. Her bloated belly dangled out of her top and into her lap, with her tiny belly button a single tiny dot amongs a sea of flesh that reached her thighs. Her stomach was so impressive that it distracted from the fact her chest had blossomed until she put even Ann’s sizable udders to shame. But as big as her breasts had grown, even if they were more than she had dreamed of having, her stomach simply drew all the attention for itself.
	Her hips had always been very pronounced, but while she was certainly wider, her hips and thighs seemingly blended together and it was difficult to tell where one bit started and another ended. And those legs were dangerously close to popping out of those shorts.
	“You look cute as ever,” said Ren.
	“R-really? I mean, I think I really leveled up, right? I changed class to a nice, mature woman, right?”
	Ren smiled, nodding along. “That must be it.”
	The two took their seats at a booth, although it took Futaba a solid minute to squeeze in to her seat. Even when she managed to sit somewhat comfortably, not all of her stomach could fit under the table, leaving a roll of pale flesh resting upon the table.
	“I… want to apologize,” began Futaba.
	“What for? I thought I would need to apologize first.” He had spend much of his time in prison worrying about how his actions would have hurt her.
	“See, I wanted to make you a gift. I wanted to make you a great gift. I wanted to show you I could grow, even on my own.”
	“I don’t think anyone could deny how much growing you’ve done in the last few months,” was what Ren thought to himself, but did not dare to even consider voicing aloud. He also certainly wasn’t complaining.
	“So, I started baking. And after tons of trials and… umm… some sampling… I totally got it!” Her eyes were practically glowing with pride, but as she continued, the light began to dim. “I mean, a few days ago, I totally made something great. I learned to do it from scratch and I made a chocolate heart that I could be proud of… Ummm, except I was worried maybe it didn’t actually taste as good as I thought. So… I kinda sampled it. And it was as good as I thought. Except then I had to make another. And I was worried about that one too, so I, uh, sampled it. And then… ummm… I kind of kept that up until I ran out of materials.” She paused, and took a while to stare at her hands, the table, anything to avoid looking him in the eyes. “So, I accidentally ate… your gift. S-sorry.”
	“It’s okay. The fact that you tried so hard for me is all--”
	“B-but I did get a gift for you!” She pulled out a white paper bag and placed it on the table. “Last night, I looked for some advice for last minute gifts and… umm… I spent all my spare money on chocolate, so I had to make due with what I had on hand.” She looked away, unable to look at him as her face turned bright red. “But I’ll need a few minutes to, uh, get it ready. B-but you better be ready! The Internet told me this was guaranteed to drive guys wild!”
	Without waiting for a reply, Futaba got up from her seat and made her way upstairs to Ren’s room, though her she had to stop halfway up the stairs to catch her breath first. And then there was several minutes of nothing save for the occasional grunt or the creak of a floorboard with too much weight upon it.
	“O-okay! Come on, hot… h-hot stuff!” came a cry from the attic in what was supposed to be a sultry voice, though it was far too monotone to be effective.
	Ren jogged up the stairs and took in the sights. The first thing that caught his eye was the pile of clothes lying at the foot of the stairs. Futaba’s red track suit was sitting in a pile along with a pair of stretched out panties lying on top of them. Beside them was the empty paper bag she had brought up with her. And across the room…
	“S-so, l-lover boy, w-would you like a me, a bath—wait, I mean, would you like a bath, a meal or m-me?”
	Standing in front of his bed, which is to say a pile of milk cartons with a flimsy mattress atop it, was Futaba wearing a white apron around her waist.
	And, apart from a tattered pair of thighhighs and her glasses, she was wearing only that apron.
	“S-so?” Futaba’s attempted at seduction was somewhat undermined by her obvious embarrassment. Her blush was flowing down from her face and into the rest of her and there was very little to hide it.
	The white strap holding the apron in place seemingly went around her waist but it was swallowed into the flesh, making it seem as if the white sheet was simply clinging to her waist to preserve what little decency was even possible. And even that disappeared moments later, when it was revealed that knot tying was not in Futaba’s skillset, and the white cloth fluttered to the ground.
	She froze. She could feel Ren’s eyes on her naked body, but all she could see was the blue screen of death in her own mind. When she finally rebooted, she grabbed the apron and held it up in front of her crotch. In truth, this was pointless, as her trembling tummy already covered her nether regions. But it calmed her down somewhat.
	“Naked a-apron is a m-must, right? All guys l-love it, right?”
	But Ren didn’t answer. He just stared stoically, unflinching. She grew more and more self-conscious.
	And then he turned and ran down the stairs. Her mental faculties still weren’t operating at full capacity, so it took her a moment to realize what had just happened. He left. He left her. And suddenly a pain shot through her chest.
	But just as her eyes began to swell with tears, as she could feel the world growing darker and colder, the sound of his footsteps came charging back up the stairs. He ran straight to her, an object firmly in his grasp.
	“So, Futaba, what you’re trying to tell me,” he said in a very serious tone, “is that you are my Valentine’s chocolate, right?”
	It was chocolate syrup. He was holding a squeezable bottle of chocolate in his hand.
	“Y-yes?” She wasn’t sure what was going on.
	He gently took the bottle in his hand, removed the cap, and placed the tip on her stomach. She shivered on contact. It had been in the fridge, after all. And then he began to squeeze, tracing along her flesh with the upmost precision.
	It was a chocolaty heart, drawn right on her, with “R+F” placed in the middle.
	“Thanks for the meal,” said Ren as he clapped his hands together in silent prayer.
	“Huh?” And Futaba gasped in confusion as she was pushed backwards, landing right on his bed.  She still had not recovered by the time she felt his bare chest press into hers, but she could feel the excitement and the romance began to take control.
	And so great was their passion that they were interrupted only for a moment as the bed supporting them crashed and collapsed to the floor.