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Shit.
He messed up.
He fucked up again, (of course he did).
He could already feel his body start to tremble as he stared at the empty wrappers in front of him. Just how could he be this stupid?
Akito slowly got up, immediately hunching over and grabbing the corner of the table to steady himself. his stomach was ripping apart and it felt as if he was able to feel the food already coming up his throat. it was disgusting. he was disgusting.
this feeling went with him as he stumbled to the bathroom, barely holding himself up. everything hurt now. his legs were weak to the point of trembling and Akito wished he could just sink to the ground and cry his eyes out until all those stupid calories he just ate burned off.
Why couldn’t he control himself.
after locking the door behind him, akito ever so slowly walked up to the toilet, looking at the water inside of it. it was disgusting, really disgusting, but the adrenaline in his blood pushed away all the other feelings - all the worries, fears and emotions were pushed to the back of his head by one simple thought;
He needed to throw up.
It felt almost as if a sixth sense already, with how many times hes done this. it didn't take too long. after wiggling his fingers a bit at the back of his throat, the first tears started to form in Akito’s eyes, accompanied by a pack of vomit, which splashed down in the water beneath him. the sound his throat made made akito’s skin crawl.
the taste was even more disgusting than he remembered. but he wasn't done. He needed it out.
sometimes he feels like he fucking lost it. because how can eating become a mental illness? how can food control your life? how can a mental illness be a reason to starve yourself or make yourself throw up? it's necessary if you want to live, but akito still does it, people die from it, even if all they need to do is eat. it feels like such a stupid modern problem to him. what he’s craving, now that he’s not walking the tightrope of being perfect as much anymore, is the feeling of control. He wants success, but beneath it all, it's the self- loathing that's starting to overwhelm him. Akito never hated eating before all this, which makes it so easy to refuse to eat sometimes, because it's so confusingly frustrating. then he could see his cheeks carve in, his legs getting smaller, but when he checks the scale and begs for it to change, it still barely does. and then it hits him; he’s starving. He’s hungry and suddenly all he can think about is food, food, food and he can taste the temporary happiness until the realisation finally hits.
it's not when the spoon hits the bottom of the plate, it's when his body yells at him to stop because it's about to burst. that's when Akito feels like he snaps out of it. and suddenly his body feels different, he can feel the fat on his sides and his chubby face looks rounder than before. Akito looks at the mirror and feels disgust. Disgust at how he looks then he keep telling myself, next time this won't happen, he’ll restrict himself, he’ll make sure he doesn’t become like this again but he’ll tell himself this next time too and Akito wonders how many times he has to tell himself this until he can finally stick to his words or actually go crazy.
so he put his fingers, which were covered in vomit, since he wasn't quick enough to pull them out before the vomit exited his throat, in his mouth again and started to wiggle them again and again... again and again until the only thing left inside of him was stomach acid, which burned his throat to the point that he had to stop.
He knew he shouldn’t be doing this. It’ll probably mess up his singing even more than it already is. (Would it even matter? It wasn’t like it was good to begin with) He would become an even bigger burden to the group. (Perhaps this would be the final breaking point. Maybe they’ll actually kick him out after this.) A muffled whimper left his throat, the tears running down his cheek, slowly dripping into the mess in front of him.
throwing up is messy, it hurts and it's exhausting, but as long as Akito can't control his self, it's necessary.
how else will he change?
Akito feels like sometimes he loses sight of what's worth destroying himself for. layer over layer of self hatred glides over his skin and changes him, and all that's left is an empty Akito, a shell that doesn't feel or look like his self anymore. He can feel it himself and he know it's true; when he doesn't think about weight and food, he can just go on with his day and everything is okay. but when it starts to consume his life? Akito can’t seem to get it out of his head. His brain just doesn't seem to agree that what he’s doing is fucking stupid and he has no actual reason to.
to be honest actually he isn’t sad. most of the time, it's just nothing. numbness, which is even worse than being ‘sad’. it's different from the kind of numbness he feel after he throws up. the not sad not happy just nothing numbness is not comforting like the post-purge numbness is. He doesn’t even know how to explain it. and every day when he looks in the mirror he feels like he hit a new low. and it hurts a little.
… okay, maybe it hurts a lot.
theres something inside of him that wants to stop now, that wants to hear some nice words of confirmation, stuff like "whoa, did you lose weight?" and maybe Akito wants them to worry about him too because SHIT he feels fucking awful and he wishes someone could finally notice and help him.
Maybe thenhe’ll be able to finally break down and tell him his feelings but at the same time theres just this part of him that knows that that wont happen. Even if it did he would probably just lie and say “of course, im fine!” with a smile because thats all he’s good at, lying.
Akito feels like if he tells anybody, heck even his closest friends like Toya, Kohane and An or maybe even Ena, everyone would just see him as ‘the guy with an eating disorder, who doesn't even look like one’. Akito wondered if they would believe him. How would the rest of vbs react? Would they be worried or would they think Akito’s just being an attention-seeking asshole.
All these thoughts ran through his mind and yet, theres still something that keeps pushing, that urges him to keep feeling that sickening, twisting pain in his gut. why does it hurt so much?
He felt lightheaded but he just couldn’t stop. it feels addicting, almost intoxicating and it honestly just makes him laugh because how can torturing yourself like this feel so digustingly pleasant.
even when he felt like it was getting better he still had the weird feeling that he has to spiral back into that feeling again or else he wouldnt feel human. Akito felt like he hadn’t suffered enough to be ill. and the hopeful part of him tells his self that he knows he doesn’t want to relapse, he doesn’t miss feeling like that. maybe he just missed being familiar with something, missed the high the pain gave him, the rush and the adrenaline.
and now after all this, Akito still couldn’t get the thought of "why am i always like this, needing help why cant i for once be the one whos helping, to be of acutal use to someone" out of his head and it just makes him so frustrated.
taking a deep, juddering breath, Akito sat up again and looked at the mess he had created, immediately flushing the toilet after grasping the fact that he had just purposely made himself throw up again.
great. in all ways possible, akito was failing.
his throat hurt so much. he needed to drink something.
he slowly got up and was surprised by the fact how much lighter, emptier, he suddenly felt. it was sickly pleasing. the numbness that overtook his body was calming, a thousand times better than the panic he felt just a few minutes ago.
after taking a few sips and washing his face to get the vomit, which was stuck to the outside of his mouth, away, he looked into the mirror one last time for the day. his eyes were red, his hair was messy and his eyelashes were wet from his tears, he looked terrible.
but for some fucked up reason akito felt better. the tingling in his fingers had finally stopped. he was actually fine now, wasn't he?
"I'm fine", he told his reflection and smiled at it for a second before finally letting the smile fall again, leaving behind the pouting boy he always saw in the mirror. his reflection on the other hand scoffed. "sure you are", it sarcastically answered.
because for someone who is supposed to be a good liar, akito sure doesn't know how to fool himself.