"I think making love is the best form of gymnastic."

Cary Grant

America understood he had reached the point of no return.

"Fucking..." He swore between his teeth as he fiddled with the safety belt and his trousers belt.

He was on the backseat of a cab, heading to the centre of Paris and the international meeting there held, and was fighting against the ghosts of his past.

Better, against all the pounds he thought he had lost, which seemed to miss him and thus had come back to see him... And it looked like they wanted to stay, the fuckers.

A couple of contortions after, America managed to undo the upper button of his trousers, and was finally able to breathe deep for the first time he had sat in that blasted cab.

In the remaining time before arriving to the UN offices, he made sure the belt hid the trick her had put and took a decision: the time to take action had come, and bend the adversities to his will!

That girth in excess had to vanish, or he wasn't any more the U S of fucking A!

A quick glance at his watch as he got off the car confirmed that, even if he was late for the first call, the real meeting wasn't still beginning for some time.

"America! Such a pleasure to see you. Have you decided to grace us with your mighty presence?" France politely welcomed him, leaning against a drink vending machine, even if America had the impression to see a suspicious shine into the other's blue eyes, as if something amused him to no end.

"Yeah, the hero has come! I know well you can't start without me!" America answered happily, and the blonde French said nothing, just smiling from behind his cup of coffee he was drinking and straightening mindlessly the folds of his tight shirt visible under his open jacket.

"I wanted to ask you something, France." America started, noticing the slim build of the nation, but he hesitated. A hero can't simply admit his weaknesses!

"Uh? Do tell. I'm listening." France invited him with a nod.

"Weeell... You see... I, wait, no, a friend of mine, like, has decided to lose weight, and I was wondering if you had any tips to give me - him! - to..."

France snickered silently, throwing his empty cup into the trash bin, then faced America and answered with a straight face: "There are endless ways to lose weight, but I'd suggest you not to try diets. Most of the times, they just make you hungrier. To have good results in little time, you'd better do much physical exercise."

America was too disappointed by that to remember the advice should have been for "a friend of his".

"But jogging is sooo boring!" he complained, pouting like a child.

"And who told you to go jogging? Find someone and have some healthy sex, no?" France said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

America looked at him as if he had something loose. "What? I didn't know that. Really?"

"Really. Sex makes you burn lots of calories: it's good both for the spirit and the body. Like some kind of unorthodox yoga." France confirmed with a light smile, and was about to add something else when suddenly England appeared in front of them from behind a corner like an avenging spirit.

"What are you doing here? The meeting is about to start!" He scolded them, but with a resigned tone.

"You're rude, Angleterre! I was giving America here some piece of advice to lose weight." France said back with an offended tone, but America cut him in.

"Come on, help me too! He suggested sex, but you must have your ways too! Everyone noticed how much you lost weight, lately!"

There was a moment of silence, and then France burst out laughing like a madman, leaning heavily against the machine vending machine to avoid falling on the floor and there roll for the laughers ("Ohmygodohmygod... Lost weight...!"), while England was becoming red enough to give Spain's tomatoes a run for their money, trying to look daggers at France enough to shut him up (and failing miserably at it) while spluttering something unintelligible ("It's not like I wanted it... Stupid wine frog...").

America stared at them with an utterly confused expression.