Chapter Text
The first time he heard the “f” word he was shocked.
He was familiar with the word. He had heard it before being directed to other kids, but never to him.
The truth is, you never know the sting that a word can cause until it’s directed towards you. Funny how that is.
He was young, only ten years old, when he was first called fat.
His teacher had brought in cupcakes so they kids could eat during Field Day. Everyone was given one cupcake, but there was an extra, since one of the kids had been absent. When Jimin raised his hand and asked the teacher whether he could eat the remaining cupcake one of his classmates yelled.
“Jimin is so fat he’s gonna eat a second cupcake!” The room burst out laughing as the teachers tried to shush the kids. Jimin took in a sharp breath in surprise. He looked down in embarrassment, feeling the blood rush to his cheeks.
Am I fat?, He wondered.
The cupcake was placed in front of him.
“Eating a little sweet once in a while is not a bad thing! Don’t listen to him Jimin, you can eat it if you want.” The teacher patted his head and went off to scold the kid who had yelled.
Ignoring the initial shock, Jimin took the cupcake in his hands and ate it with a smile on his face.
~
The joke caught on, unfortunately for Jimin. There was not a day that he did not heard the “f” word being directed at him. At first he was able to ignore his classmates, marking them off as just bullies, but as time went by he had a greater difficulty to ignore his attackers.
It didn’t stop that year. Even when he passed on to the next grade and changed schools many of the kids from his elementary school still remembered the joke and many more joined once middle school came around.
“Park Jimin more like Fat Jimin!” Their laughs mocked him as he walked along the cafeteria and found a place in a corner, near a window.
After two years of their constant mockery Jimin wondered how they even kept the joke going. The only friends he had had in his previous school had either gone to another school or just left him after he was labeled as a fat looser. Twelve year old Jimin sat in the corner of the cafeteria, a tray of nasty looking food in front of him.
That day it had been his locker. The day after would be his backpack. The next day it would be him.
When he had arrived in school that morning, he had found that someone had written on his locker.
“Fatsso”, “pig”, “cow”, and everything in between had been written all over his locker.
He wanted to cry. He wanted to slam the locker, clean the words off with bleach and forget them. He wanted hear someone say it would be alright.
He had talked to his parents about it the first day he was beaten up, and although in the beginning their comfort was enough to calm him down, he had stopped believing them when they said everything would be okay. They always said it wasn’t a bad thing to be a little bigger, but Jimin lost faith.
Clearly if everyone believed being fat was a bad thing, it had to be a bad thing, and clearly if everyone said he was fat, then he was fat.
Still the feeling of being filled was the warmest he had felt in the past two years. The constant jokes targeted towards him only made him want to eat more.