chapter 1 - introduction

Chapter 1

Hi, I'm Emma, I'm 20 years old and from the states. Tennessee to be precise. Anyway, I'm here to tell my story of how I, a once skinny girl, got big soft rolls and a double chin.

First of all, some details about me so you can imagine what I look like. I have straight black hair, about shoulder length - just a little longer, so that the tips of my hair rest on my collar bones. I have bangs in the front, a look I kept from my exchange in Japan. My eyes are blue - not a cold, icy blue, but as warm a blue as blue can be, with a slight touch of green. I have some freckles, but only very few, and they're usually visible only in summer. When I smile, I have the faintest hint of dimples.

Enough about my face, now more about my body. My body today looks so different from what it looked like before my fattening exchange. For the purpose of narration, I will describe what I looked like before. Wouldn't want to spoil the story ;)
I was really slim. Not underweight, but really just barely above. When I had weighed myself last before my flight, I was around 105 lbs (48 kg - that's the metric in japan). I am around 5'3". I really didn't have a belly, my tummy was perfectly flat. Not even a bit of flab. My metabolism was to thank for that. My hips were normal for a skinny girl. Not wide, not too narrow. I had perky breasts, not too large, not too little. I was quite average, really.

Anyway, let's get on with the story then. I hope you can imagine what I look like, more or less.
So that was two years ago, just a week after I had turned 18. I got accepted from my highschool to go on an exchange program to Japan. I could tell you so much about how excited I felt, but I think you can imagine it just fine.

August 14th, I boarded the plane. I was packed and ready to embark on an adventure, to expand my horizon - and, as I was to find out, my waistline too.

I arrived at Fukuoka airport on the 15th after a long flight. Yes, I got to go to Fukuoka, the city renowned in Japan for its delicious ramen and food in general.
I moved in to my first host family, very nice people, where I would stay for the first two weeks. That was a really nice time - but I won't get into it too much, nothing too much happened during that time, weight related. (Although... that's not entirely true. I remembered weighing myself and noticing I had already put on something around 5 pounds, but since I hadn't weighed myself in a while, I might just have gained that before. I'm not sure. It doesn't matter. Moving on...)

After two weeks I moved in with my next host family, where I would stay for two months. Only a few days in, school started, and I got to meet some other exchange students, and some japanese students too (although God help me I could not speak a word with them... it took me like 6 months before I could hold even a short conversation).

That's where I met Sophie (it was really Sofia - she was German - but I called her Sophie because she kept making fun of the way I said Sofia). She was a stunning blonde. Very cute. I actually thought I was only straight until I met her. It didn't take me long to understand that I liked girls too.
Sophie was quite sporty - like me (I played some volleyball - not too serious - back in the states), but with a very toned and hot body.
Not only that, but Sophie was very charming and cute and funny - just a great person. She was shy at times though, even more than me sometimes.

Anyway, needless to say, me and Sophie got along quite well. We talked about our first few weeks in Japan, how much japanese we knew (none at the time), about our hostfamilies and what foods we wanted to go try together. I enjoyed our conversations about food especially much. Turns out I wasn't the only foodie. We both really enjoyed trying lots of different foods and eating lots of food (a lot for skinny girls, at least), and thanks to our amazing metabolism, not once did we have to worry about gainig a pound - at least not yet.

That was about to change in the coming weeks...

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This would conclude part one - the introduction. I hope you're intrigued :)
In the next chapter my first pounds will come creeping on. But not just me...