Work Text:
Sugawara loved when Daichi's mother invited him over for dinner. It wasn’t that he had problems to escape from in his own home, he just always felt a little more wanted when other parents liked him. The table was made of dark wood, and the kitchen was filled with the scent of oden and the laughter of the three of them. Daichi was relaxed, and his smile matched his mother's exactly. Suga felt warm all over, and he could barely wait for the food to be ready.
"It's so nice to finally see you again, Suga-kun!" Daichi's mother said. "You need to come around more often!"
"Take it up with this one, not me, Sawamura-san," Sugawara teased, elbowing Daichi. Daichi only rolled his eyes in response, and didn't bother complaining about how busy they both were.
"It feels like it's been years," Sawamura-san kept on as she handed out plates, "Eat up while you're here. You look so much thinner."
Sugawara felt the world tilt sideways.
"D-do I?" The comment caught him completely off guard. When was the last time he saw Sawamura-san? He didn't feel like he'd lost weight. He actually thought he was doing really well. "I guess I've just been going harder in practice. It takes a lot to keep up with our first years!" He tried to laugh it off. Sawamura-san chuckled at his joke, but Suga noticed Daichi wincing sympathetically.
The food was set out and the banter continued as they ate. The air in the kitchen still seemed warm and soft, but Sugawara couldn't feel it anymore. The food was good, and he made sure to say so, but he wasn't sure how much to eat. Everything was off-kilter. The table felt like it was getting farther away, and anxiety built in the back of Sugawara's mind. Eventually he was sure he'd eaten too much, and he felt nauseous, but he didn't want to accidentally under-eat. What if he had been under-eating all this time?
Suga had gone several months without weighing himself, and that had been a victory. His friends congratulated him on not caring. He was proud.
But that had backfired. After worrying about weighing too much, he might not weigh enough. He had no idea if that was true. Mothers tell kids that they look too thin all the time, he tried to tell himself, but he couldn't reconcile the comment. He must have been failing. He must have relapsed. He was losing, without even trying.
He was still eating. The food was tasteless now. The need to know his body mass was overwhelming. Suga had no clue what Daichi and his mother were talking about at this point.
"Excuse me," he said, leaving the table. He went to the bathroom. The upstairs bathroom, with the scale in it. His heart raced as he got on it. The seconds it took for the numbers to calm down felt like years.
It was the same.
It was just the same as the last time he'd seen Sawamura-san. He'd worried over nothing. He still felt sick, though, and numb. He felt bad, looking at that number, even though it was exactly what it was supposed to be. Suga held himself for a minute, conflicted, shaken.
For a moment, he was angry at Daichi's mom. Why would she say something like that? He pulled at his sweater and the knees of his pants. Was he swimming in his clothes? Was he just a frail-looking person? He was exactly how he was last time. The number said he was exactly the same as he was last time.
Was he supposed to be that same person?
The whole breakdown only took about thirty seconds. If he stayed in there too long, Daichi would notice. Sugawara was supposed to feel reassured after seeing the number, but it didn’t help at all. He just felt gross and unaware of himself.
Suga wiped the traces of misery from his face as he returned to the table and insisted he couldn't fit dessert. They all did the dishes together and finished cleanup within ten minutes. Afterwards, the boys headed up to Daichi's room.
They spread their homework on the carpet and propped themselves up on their elbows. Daichi had reading to do, and Suga had math. He tried to finish it, because it was due the next day, but the marks didn't really look like numbers, and he couldn’t remember what problems needed to be done.
"Are you okay?"
Suga's head snapped up. Daichi was looking at him with those eyes. The sad dad eyes. "Why do you ask?"
"Well, you're just staring holes in your notebook."
"Oh, yeah. Kinda."
"...And you went all the way upstairs to use the bathroom."
"I..." There were a handful of excuses he could have used for that, but none of them would come to mind. He was too out of it.
"Are you okay?"
Sugawara’s head hit the floor this time as he let out a dangerously shaky sigh. "No."
A warm hand rubbed circles on his shoulder. Suga didn't look up. The gentle touch went on. Suga willed his breathing to even out, then tried talking.
"I thought I fucked up," he managed to say, quiet and wibbly. "I've been doing so good, and in one second, she made me doubt everything. I don't know-" He cut himself off, and Daichi waited patiently. "I weigh exactly the same as the last time I saw her, down to the decimal. It- It sucks that I remember that." He wrapped his arms over his head. "I- can't tell what's real. I don't know. I feel numb. And sick. I think I ate too much at dinner, but nothing makes sense anymore."
"You did eat a lot."
"Food isn't real."
Dachi huffed. There was a pause. The hand was gone for a moment, and then Suga felt a shoulder line up with his. They laid on the floor together, not looking at each other, imprinting the texture of the carpet onto their faces.
"I'm sorry she said that," Daichi finally said.
"It's okay, it's really not a weird thing to say. I wish I hadn't freaked out about it."
"She kinda knows about your food thing, though. She should be more careful."
"Parents forget stuff," Suga sighed. "I'm not gonna hold it against her."
Another silence.
"You're doing fine, by the way."
That got Suga to look at him.
"You think I wouldn't notice my vice-captain relapsing?" Daichi said, pressing their shoulders tighter together. "You've been doing awesome, especially since the first-years joined. I'm really proud of you."
"You're not just saying that, are you?" Suga asked, fighting a smile.
"Of course not! You just, sounded like you needed an outside perspective. In my humble opinion, you've been really good about eating right."
Suga pressed his face back into the carpet and made some sort of garbled noise.
"Did that help any?"
"Well... I still feel weird, but it certainly is easier to believe you."
Daichi hummed, satisfied. "Do you want some Tums?"
"Yes, God, please."