Work Text:
Ranpo’s fingers snaked absentmindedly into the packet of cookies only to find it empty. With a sigh of disappointment, he brushed the wrapper into the almost full bin beside his desk and reached into the plastic bag he had set next to his laptop. He pulled out several mini individually packaged cakes, laying them out on his desk, before grabbing one and tearing open the plastic.
He took a bite, the spongey texture going down easily. The sugariness of the cake didn’t even phase him as his tongue swiped out from between his lips to lick the icing that had gotten onto the side of his mouth. Despite their sweetness, the mini-cakes were relatively light and easy to eat. Much to Ranpo’s satisfaction, he didn’t have to put much effort into chewing them. A few chews to break down the bites into swallowable pieces and some saliva to moisten them and ease them to slide down his throat effortlessly. That’s all it took. A perfect mindless snack.
Of course, Ranpo’s definition of a “snack” and the widely accepted one were vastly different. The plastic bag on his desk next to his laptop was full of a multitude of processed foods. Sickeningly sugary sweets that would give any six-year-old the rush of a lifetime. Saltier snacks as well, like chips and pretzels, to balance out the sweetness. Variety was key for Ranpo or else he’d get bored.
The bin was filled with the wrappers of the snacks he had already consumed this shift, the pile almost reaching the top and visible to anyone who looked over at his desk. To anyone else, the amount of food Ranpo had consumed as a “snack” today at work would’ve been concerning or at least impressive. But to his fellow detectives at the Agency, it wasn’t anything of note. For them, Ranpo’s excessive snacking was just normal for him.
For the most part, that was true! Eating was something Ranpo did without even thinking about it. His snack drawer in his desk was always well-stocked and he was constantly bribing his coworkers into buying him more. Food was a constant. Chewing and swallowing were mindless, repetitive motions. Food was calming and comforting and Ranpo often found that it helped him think.
However, his snacking wasn’t always for such a casual reason. He found comfort in food that he didn’t find anywhere else. And that meant that when Ranpo was stressed or upset, he did the one thing he knew would soothe him: Eat.
When he was alone at home, his binge eating was a lot more messy. He would curl up on the couch with food littering the coffee table and clumsily shove food in his mouth, more than he could even chew. Sometimes he would cry, the tears sliding down into his mouth and making everything taste salty regardless of the flavor.
When he ate like that, it was less about the flavor and more about the motion of eating.
Bite.
Chew.
Swallow.
Even though Ranpo often disliked doing the same thing over and over, the repetition of eating was comforting. Dopamine straight to the brain. A drug of sorts.
At work, his stress eating was less obvious. It was in the form of the trash bin being more full of wrappers than usual. It was in the form of Ranpo not putting in his two cents on everything said in the office because his mouth wasn’t empty for more than a few seconds. It was in the form of him taking his cape off and keeping it on his lap, in front of his stomach, to hide the effects of the overindulgence.
Today was one of those comfort-eating days, one of those bad days. Everything was simply too much and Ranpo needed an outlet.
He had felt overstimulated since the moment he had gotten up and the case he had taken on today didn’t help. At the crime scene, he had been yelled at by one of the cops, which normally wouldn’t bother him too much, but today it happened to. The loud, harsh voice had thrown him off entirely, and even after he had solved the case and the officer had reluctantly apologized, there was a lingering, overwhelming pressure in his chest.
So, to relieve that pressure, to chase away any chance of his composure cracking, Ranpo ate.
He idly spun in his desk chair as his eyes flickered towards the clock.
Half an hour until lunch break.
Half an hour until he would go downstairs to the cafe with his fellow detectives and eat lunch like he hadn’t been snacking since he clocked in. Half an hour until he would rid himself of everything he had forced inside and then fill himself again.
It’s strange, the way none of Ranpo’s coworkers have ever questioned a thing. But then again, he was the greatest detective in the whole world, so maybe the skill in covering up his tracks came with that.
And, well, it didn’t take being an all-knowing detective to realize that his eating habits would be treated a lot differently by the others if he wasn’t skinny .
There would be concern. Comments. Questions. All well-meaning, knowing the Agency, but still, it would garner attention.
It was a thought, a concept, that weighed heavily on Ranpo and one that he was sure always would. A concept that had settled when Ranpo was fourteen and looked around at the other kids in the police academy and noticed how they were all smaller than him—and there was that blinding moment of realization, and a loss of innocence, and acceptance that he would never be the same as them.
Logically, of course, he knew that the Agency was different than the academy. There would be no whispered comments, no stares, no alienation. They wouldn’t care. But the parasitic concept of the societal uplift that came with being skinny was something that ate its way down to Ranpo’s core and would not leave, as things that hurt you when you’re fourteen tend to do.
Because there was the truth and reality that Ranpo didn’t really understand society, didn’t understand the norms and actions and concepts that were a made-up language that everyone seemed to inherently understand except for him. But there was also the reality that even if he didn’t understand why , it still had to be done.
So he had to stay small, had to stay skinny, and not let too much flesh cover the bones he ached to see.
There was of course the problem that came with relying on food for comfort. But it was easily solved with a few fingers down the throat.
What comes in must come out, and Ranpo wasn’t eager to pay the price that came with letting his sin remain inside. The thousands of calories would never have a chance to taint him and he found stability in purging himself of them. Vomiting up the evidence had come to feel just as good as consuming it.
Frustration sometimes came from the fact that he couldn’t just deprive himself of food. That even if he tried, the urge to binge away would always come back. But that frustration would be expelled with the contents of his stomach and that was that.
Solace came both when he filled himself and emptied again. There was no beauty to the way things were--no rhythm. Ranpo wasn’t a poetic person and really couldn’t care less if there was prose within an action, but even then, he could firmly think there was nothing poetic about this. It was painful and messy and wrong on every level.
But Ranpo, truly, fully believed that this was the only way. The only way to keep himself from shattering at every minor inconvenience. It was the only way to keep at bay the guilt that would’ve permeated his whole being every time an act of overindulgence was committed.
He simply couldn’t stop. The way everyone else seemed to be able to eat in moderation without relying on the act for emotional stability was alien to him. How can someone worry about the meat covering their bones and just cut back on food rather than being stuck in an endless cycle of binging and then bringing everything back up? It was futile, hopeless to try and understand the behavior. Feeling like everyone knew something he didn’t wasn’t an unfamiliar sensation for Ranpo--but it seemed to intensify when it came to the subject of food.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair and he couldn’t help but let that thought ruminate as his eyes lazily drifted around the office over to where Dazai was attempting to shove his paperwork onto Atsushi.
Even with the bandages wrapped around his arms, the tendons and bones of Dazai’s wrist somehow were still visible. His skeletal hands flexed around the papers as he attempted to give them to Atsushi; long, slender fingers curling around the stack. Under the harsh office lights that always made Ranpo want to tear his skin off, Dazai’s cheekbones stuck out harshly from his face. Dazai was all sharp edges and skin stretched taut over bone—and it was sick. He looked sick , yet the sight of him made Ranpo feel differently ill.
Envy. Sick with envy.
He didn’t necessarily envy the unhealthiness of Dazai’s frame—being that thin would arouse as much concern as being big—but he ached for the casualness in which Dazai simply didn’t eat. He was one of those people who claimed to often “forget” how to eat and from what Ranpo could deduce, the statement was relatively true. Part of it was probably purposeful considering Dazai’s self-destructive nature, but he was not lying when he would offhandedly state that he forgot to eat.
Ranpo couldn’t understand how someone could just forget to eat. Food was constantly on his mind. But, well, Dazai was an enigma and if Ranpo lied and told himself that it was just a Dazai thing… then his mind wouldn’t dwell on it too much.
“Ranpo-san! You’re coming down with us to the cafe, right?”
Atsushi’s voice brought Ranpo out of the reverie he hadn’t known he fell into. Lunch break must’ve arrived and Dazai had given up on trying to coax Atsushi.
With a grin, Ranpo stuffed the last bit of cake into his mouth. “Obviously,” he said as he stood up and swept his cape back over himself in an easy, practiced motion. He made his way with his usual cheerfulness over to where Atsushi waited by the door.
The snacks sat heavily in Ranpo’s stomach, though he knew he wouldn’t have any trouble eating lunch.
He had room. He always did.