Chapter Text
At first it wasn't anything serious. As a young child, Dazai was underfed. Teen mom, rich father whom’s family had ‘better’ plans for him. His mother wasn't able to keep a job for long and she often struggled with bringing enough money together for a good meal. She would always make their plates the same in portions, she needed to be fed too. Especially if she wanted the strength to work. Dazai ended up with a very small appetite.
Quickly it turned into something else. When Dazai was eight, he and his mother went to a local restaurant for his birthday. He was told he could get whatever he wanted and not to worry about money, because it was taken care of. Later on in life, Dazai realized that was a lie. His mother knew he wouldn't choose anything too expensive.
Shortly after getting home that night, Dazai felt his body begin to cramp and turn painfully. Then the nausea set in. The little brunette ended up puking out everything he had consumed that day, which in itself wasn't much, but was enough to strike fear into Dazai at the thought of it happening again. Which it did. Again and again Dazai puked and puked.
Crying, he wobbled to his mother and begged her to give him special medicine to make his tummy better and stop his puking. She pet his hair and apologized because even if there was medicine that could help, she didn't have any.
Of course his nausea returned and he himself had to return to the bathroom as he cried. In between sniffles he begged, and pleaded, “Please, stay with me mommy.”
He wanted love and comfort from his mother. Instead she apologized and walked into the kitchen to continue her previous task of cleaning. Dazai always thought that she ignored his pleas because she didn't care for him, only later he realized she was scared. She didn't like the idea of vomit either.
Once he recovered, she hugged and snuggled him until he felt strong enough to resume his daily life.
After that is when the fear began.
Suddenly Dazai found himself scared all the time - terrified even - of food. Whenever he would go to take a bite of his meal, he would suddenly get the thought that something had contaminated it. A bug was in or on it. Or it was poisonous. Someone spat in it because they were having a bad day. Or it was old and left out.
Through tummy growls, Dazai would ask his mother, “ Mommy, is this okay?
“Of course baby, what do you mean?” His mother would question.
“It's not dirty, or old?”
“Of course not, I wouldn't let you eat anything bad.”
It's not that he did not believe his mother, but he just couldn't. His mother was a smart woman, she knew so much! But she didn't know everything. She could be unaware of what was wrong with the food.
Slowly, the amount of food Dazai ate dwindled down and down.
He found himself not trusting most foods unless he made it or was there and watched as it was bought.
Even when his mother asked him why, and begged him to eat more, he refused.
Even when her anger got control of her and she let out her frustrations on Dazai, “Why wont you just eat it? There is nothing wrong, I already told you!”, He refused.
Then, when he turned twelve, something changed. He was a growing boy soon to be going through puberty, and he had yet grown into his baby face. One wrong comment was all it took.
It wasn't anything extreme. It was basically just like a diet. He hated eating anyways, he always felt sick after. Eating just a bit less not only saved him from the discomfort and pain of consuming food but it also saved more for his mother.
Often people would comment on his body, rude, creepy, or nice. No matter what, when they brung up his ‘small’ ‘tiny’ stature he would be filled with pride. Whenever they would mention his ‘masculine’ bone structure he would find himself loving the look of his bones. Be able to see their imprint on his face or on his collarbones.
Validation makes people do crazy things.
This went on until he was thirteen.
Change is a part of life, and was a very recurring thing for the brunette. No matter how much he hated it.
Often, he would go to the library. There wasn't one where he lived so he had to walk a long way, however he was okay with that. He even enjoyed it.
Most of the time he would go straight to the classics, but that day something else caught his eye. A magazine.
When he opened it, all sorts of girls were posing. Tall and skinny. Girlish and slightly plump with youth. Mature. One girl caught his eye in particular. Her stomach was so small.
He could see her hip bones prominent through her clothes and her stomach , he couldn't stop looking at her stomach.
Quickly Dazai realized he wanted to look like her. He wanted to be her. So small, and innocent looking. She looked like someone people would coddle and treat kindly. She looked happy.
He continued looking through the magazine and eventually came across something that piqued his interest. It showed three girls in various poses, wearing bathing suits and high heels.
Next to the girls, there were various paragraphs explaining how and why the girls lost weight, and how happy they were that they did.
There were also numbers. For whatever reason, Dazai was especially fixated on the numbers. There was just something about them. He felt entranced.
At first it was easy, then it became hard. He felt tired all the time, and his body often ached. Whenever he stood up too fast his vision would blur, he would feel dizzy, and his head would ache.
His mother didn't own a scale much to Dazais disappointment. Of course, younger him failed to take into the fact that these were grown women and he was a young boy, he probably weighed less than they did.
However his scale predicament didn't last long. Change came for him again.
He was watching his mother do the laundry, something he enjoyed doing. She would always let him fold the blankets but first he would wrap himself tightly in them and absorb their warmth.
He reached to grab the next blanket his mother had ready for him when suddenly she froze. The blanket fell to the floor and she stared forward with wide eyes.
“Momma? Mom?”
Then she fell to the floor.
Quickly Dazai fell to his knees in front of her and shook her. She didn't budge. He read in a book once that there were multiple ways to check a heartbeat. He wasn't sure if he did it right the first few times because he kept getting nothing. So he tried again and again while tears strolled down his little face. Nothing.
He soon realized what that meant. He wasn't getting a heartbeat because there wasn't one. She was dead.
At that point Dazai was sobbing, tears and snot running down his now tinted red face. Snuggling up to her, he hugged her and refused to let go.
At least until the smell started. Eventually he left.
Change got him again, because not long after that he found himself sitting in the top floor of the Port Mafia's headquarters watching in silence as the boss of the port mafia’s neck was slashed, leaving his doctor his title and position.
Dazai finds himself thinking about how strange change is.