Chapter 1

The story of a new prime minister falling in all of the traps the prime ministers before him fell into, all the while bashing them for their greed and corruption. Male (and some female) weight gain, plus mild denial. Hope you enjoy!

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MONTH 1

Frederick settled into his new office with ease. The elections had been a breeze - any country, including this one, would have appreciated a breath of fresh air when it came to its political landscape, so it hadn't come as much of a surprise when his party had won by a landslide, making him the new prime minister with very little competition to speak of. He had always loathed the political class, in a way. Having been born into... well, not nothing, but not much in particular, he had always regarded politicians as entities above all law and retribution and had ran on the platform of changing that; on being closer to his people than anyone before him had been.

Even visually, that had been an easy idea to sell: as soon as people get into politics, he'd noticed, they tend to slowly, over time, get enormously fat. Some of them carry it well, but it's obvious they get too much money for too little work. He'd always been a pretty consistent gym goer and even with all the work he would have to put in to fix the mess he'd inherited, he would still manage it, he's sure.

Just one proof of his predecessors's vices he notices in the furniture used in the prime minister's office that he inherits: opulent and, more importantly, wide. After a short consideration, he decides to leave it be. After all, he's here to stop overspending; it wouldn't do to do more of it on frivolous changes.


MONTH 6

"Freddie," his assistant calls from the door, causing him to startle from the dreamlike state that he'd sunk into in the early evening. Unfortunately, "We're in for another long night, it seems. I got us pizza."

"Thanks, Alice," Frederick manages, digging into it as soon as it's placed in front of him, suddenly realising that he'd been starving. Long nights had been the rule rather than the exception ever since he'd come into power: there's just so much to do at all times that his entire team feels swamped and overworked, but there's nothing to be done about it. If they want the country to prosper, there are sacrifices that must be made. That means basically living in his office and giving up some of the comforts of the life he'd had before, but he'd taken on the task with startling ease, really. Several bouts of takeaway are nothing when compared to the good of his people.

He rubs the side of his overfull stomach as soon as the pizza is gone. It's not good to eat so much so late into the night, but that's usually meant for when one is about to go to sleep afterwards, he thinks; not when he's going to work until well into the next day. He looks down into his lap mournfully - if he's to try and close his suit's jacket just now, he's likely to look ridiculously bloated and his shirt, without the jacket in question, looks like it'll give up the fight soon. The button at the apex of his stomach is straining perilously, the plastic barely able to hold its own against the onslaught of food.

It's temporary, at least. As soon as they've been in power for a year, things will get a bit easier, he's sure. He can always go back to the habits he'd had before once the country is back on its feet.


YEAR 2

As he says his goodbyes to yet another foreign delegation, Frederick relaxed back in his seat, feeling the exhaustion finally creep into his body. It's the last one for today, or so he'd been assured, and while it had been very fruitful, it had also been just another number of a long list of assignments.

"Good afternoon," his chief of staff says as she breezes into the room, a thick folder full of the brief notes of all of today's meetings in her hand. She's still as effective as ever, if not quite as quick as she had once been - the late night snacks as they'd battled all the ills of the country had started getting to her, making her weigh a little more in her place, very literally. Her ample stomach had overshadowed the gentle silhouette of the cinched-in pantsuits of old, ruining its tailoring a bit, and given how tight it is, her movements are slightly constricted. "I think that's all on foreign affairs. Domestic ones, however..."

He groans, his chair groaning along with him when he leans even further back in it. It's not difficult to guess why it does that, though he'd prefer to ignore it, just like he does with the way his tie slopes down over his own torso and covers, if not by much, the gaping buttons of his dress shirt. He'd never got into the habit of wearing an undershirt; it had never been a problem until recently. His tie feels a little too tight and he loosens it to give himself room to breathe. "Bring it on."

It's the head of his PR team, it turns out, here to talk to him about what their strategy should be for the looming campaign for a potential second term. They can no longer use the narrative about being a new, untainted party, she says; no one is perfect, but they'd done plenty good so far and he can run on that.

"There's also the matter of how we'll dress you guys for the foreseeable future," she says, looking both him and Alice over, seemingly a bit displeased. "Your tailor needs to pay you a visit."

"I don't have time for getting clothes tailored; I'm here to work for the people," he waves her off. "Such luxuries are for the elites, not for anyone actually doing their job." Looking around the table for something to placate her with, he pushes a tin of biscuits across the desk. "Would you like something to eat?"

Mysteriously, she purses her lips even further. "I'm all right, thanks."


YEAR 4

If he loses this election, Frederick thinks, the thing that he'll miss least about his position is going to be this office and all of its stupid furniture. He had inherited it from the previous prime minister and he had never particularly liked it, but recently, it had become more of a pain than ever. The chairs are far too low, making it far too difficult to get up, and the handles dig deeply into his sides, separating his middle into two rolls which look terribly misleading - standing upright, he's not that fat-looking at all, he thinks. Yes, the several years of mostly boring desk work and listening to debates in the parliamentary hall had ruined his regimen a little, but it's not quite as drastic as those chairs make it seem.

Luckily, he's not the only one in this predicament, so he knows that he's being perfectly reasonable - his entire cabinet is seated in his private office today and they all seem to have trouble with this particular thing. Laughing, he helps Alice and then his finance minister to their feet, grinning at the way the questionable effort of being yanked upwards leaves them a little winded and he leans backwards against his desk, his own stomach brushing his thigh as he bends his leg at the knee. It jostles the heavy mass of it upwards and it wobbles lazily, pushing into his sizeable chest until he's breathless with it as well.

"Look at us," he says, "Still holding it all together." He thinks back to their campaign - deeply exhausting, unlike the last one, but worth it, he'd predicted. "Here's to four more years!"


ELECTION NIGHT

Looking at the pictures one next to the other, Frederick thinks that perhaps there's a little more to the optics of politics than he'd assumed at the start of his first term. There's the previous prime minister shaking his hand; an enormous mountain of a man in a comically big suit next to his springy, fresh newcomer energy. In the last term that the man in question had spent in opposition, he'd somehow grown even bigger, barely fitting into his chair at parliament, his fleshy gut taking more and more space and slowly approaching the table in front of him, his inaction making him even fatter, somehow, though he certainly has the time to not be like this anymore now that he isn't in power. He rarely makes the effort to get up the presidium and speak into the mic anymore and frankly, Frederick is starting to get it - the several steps upwards are steep and by the time one gets up to the top, it's only natural to be a bit of out of breath, which is just undignified in front of so many people.

Either way, in today's photo of his new cabinet being sworn into their positions, his predecessor isn't there anymore - given that it's their second term, there's no one else to accept the power from; it's theirs. And there Frederick is, in the middle of it all, a hand over his heart, awkwardly bent so that it wouldn't rest on his bulging paunch and draw even more attention to it than it already does to itself. His suit is impeccably tailored, he has to admit, and his round thighs barely strain against his trousers the way they usually would in his casual wear. His tent of a shirt had been shocking in size when it had been offered to him, but it had seemed like the perfect one during the fittings a few weeks ago; by now, it's skintight, and he'd had to close the suit's jacket on top of it to hide it from view a little.

The jacket itself is a beautifully made prison: its single button sits at the widest point of his stomach and the creases it forms, visible even in official photos, would have made him wince if he hadn't been used to the sight already. He's pretty sure they'd never got his measurements quite right, or he wouldn't look like one deeper breath would rip the entire thing to shreds. It's a little shorter than it had been supposed to be originally and he knows that if he bends even slightly backwards, the white of his shirt covering his expansive, heaving underbelly would be exposed. Thankfully, he'd had the mind to stand as straight as the weight attached to his front would allow; nothing as undignified as the man before him had always displayed. He would never be one of those politicians, but...

But, perhaps he'd been wrong to a degree - size isn't always indicative of corruption and detachment from the people. He can understand his people just fine, and either way, he's not as big as any of those before him. He's fine. They're all fine. Just a little too busy for any real exercise. He'll figure it out.

He steps into his new-old office again to the thunderous applause of his cabinet and settles back behind the desk that he knows so well, sitting precariously on the edge as he hears the chair creak. The handles dig far too deeply into his sides for comfort, leaving painful red lines much like his belt does where it's cinched under the majority of his bulk, and he's not going to spend four more years denying himself at least some comfort.

"Alice?" He calls out, seeing his chief of staff emerge with a glass of champagne in one hand, the other braced on her bulging love handle to massage what he assumes must be the place where her trousers had cut into her growing body. Just like with him, the fittings hadn't spared her either, making her end up in clothes at least a size and a half too small on the day of their oath. He would have to make a note to their collective tailor to take those thing into account, he thinks. They cannot be going around looking dishevelled and sweaty just from the effort of getting into undersized clothes that had clearly never been correctly measured to begin with.

"Yes, boss?"

"As soon as we get to work tomorrow," he says, like he had a thousand times about a set of reforms or social programs or diplomatic visits, "I have an urgent first task for you."

"Sure thing." She hesitates for only a moment and then a sly smile grows over her lips as she thinks better of doing what he'd just done and leans against the wall instead of sitting down. "Is it the chairs? They've been bothering me for a while."

"It is the chairs," he says solemnly. "They were never comfortable to begin with, and we inherited them from that horrible, greedy man." He snatches a flute of champagne for himself as well, feeling the bubbles settle into his distended stomach where every single food their catering had had to offer had already been sampled, some of them several times. His free hand settles at the tautest part of it, just above his belly button, to try and make room for a little more - there's so much more that he wants to taste. "Out with the old, in with the new."