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It’s been days, since Atsushi last ate.
It’s not an uncommon feeling, not at all. He was raised on the feeling of emptiness rotting his innards. He got used to it eventually. It hardly affected him by the time he was 16, as long as it didn’t go too far. The orphanage never had enough food to go round, it was a simple fact that Atsushi had known for as long as he could remember.
But once he left the orphanage, and therefore joined the agency, hunger wasn’t a necessary evil anymore. He could eat. Whenever he wanted.
It was beautiful. Unbelievable, magical and awful.
Sure, he stuffed his face full of food constantly to rid himself of the achy hunger, but then he just felt nauseous. Fullness was a new concept to him. He’d never been full before, so feeling that new sensation terrified him. It rid him with guilt and some nonsensical fear that the headmaster would punish him for his undeserving fullness.
So he just… stopped.
Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. He didn’t stop entirely. He still ate when necessary, like when Kyouka noticed he skipped too many meals, or Kenji insisted on having lunch with him, but when he was all alone, he simply wouldn’t bother. The obnoxious growl of his starved stomach was like nostalgic music to him, and in a way, he’d missed that. The sound of childhood, regardless of how horrific his was.
And really, it was only because he felt guilty when he ate too much. At first.
That was until he started admiring his body in mirrors, windows, any chance he could get. He’d gained weight, before this whole.. not eating thing started. It was revolting. So watching all that flesh melt away was like magic to him. It’s beautiful, truly, to watch how his body crumpled back into its prior malnourished look.
It pleased him, to see the results of his effort. He told himself he didn’t do it for aesthetic reasons, it just happened to come along as an extra perk. So, he figured, why not set goals. Rot off another couple kilograms. Expose a few more bones. The more he hurt, the better it felt.
And then, he found out it wasn’t just him, who was like this.
People online understood him. Sure, most of them had originally began doing it for cosmetic reasons, but he’d picked that up too, so he could understand in a way. He knew people liked skinny bodies, and surely people will like him if his is too, right?
He fit in, on these forums. These people gave him tips, how to last longer, how to put the hunger off, how to eat the least amount of calories possible, and then how to throw them back up so it basically didn’t count. How to lose so much weight that he’d look unreal, without anyone he knew noticing.
And god, that was probably his worst nightmare. The idea of the agency finding out.
He didn’t think that was he was doing was inherently bad, but for some reason he just knew they’d be disappointed. They’ve given him the opportunity to fix all his issues, and he’s thrown it away for skinniness, for approval, for a lack of guilt. He can just see the way Kyouka’s face would crumple with disgust.
And maybe that’s the sign that he should stop, but whenever he brought it up to the people in the forums, they’d tell him not to give up. And really, that’s the answer he’d wanted from them anyways. He didn’t want to stop. For once, he was beautiful, with his stick thin thighs, jutting hips and ribs, and the sunken divots of his cheeks.
Like this, as a skeleton, he loves himself.
__________________________________________
“Hey, Atsushi-kun, let’s go get lunch together. I know a place down the street that has some great chazuke.” Dazai chirps, and through his wave of panic, Atsushi doesn’t hear the odd tone in his voice.
“Ah- um, no thank you, Dazai-san. I’ve got a lot of work to do. Most of it being yours, actually.” He plays it off as sassy, but he hasn’t had the energy for sass in months.
“My Atsushi-kun? Saying no to chazuke? Well, that sounds nothing like the Atsushi i know! Has Kunikida-kun been overworking you again?”
Frustrated, Atsushi sighs as he continues tapping his fingers across his keyboard. “No, i’m just not hungry. Why don’t you take Kenji-kun. I’m sure he’s hungry. He usually is.”
Dazai furrows his brows at him, crossing his arms. “But i don’t want to take Kenji-kun. I want to take Atsushi-kun. And between me and him, i don’t think Atsushi has eaten yet today. We should fix that, shouldn’t we?”
Terror shocks Atsushi’s system. The only real, solid emotion he’s felt in a while. Now he has to go, otherwise Dazai will definitely know what’s going on. Gulping, Atsushi closes his laptop. “Okay, i’ll go.”
“Great!” Dazai wraps his fingers around Atsushis wrist, easily tugging him along despite his protests.
The walk is done in mostly silence, from Atsushi’s part. Dazai prattles on about random things, a recent case, Ranpo forcing him to buy him candy, Yosano trying to experiment on him, all the usual stuff. Atsushi hardly hears him over the rapidness of his own thoughts.
What is he going to do? He’ll have to look for the menu item with the least calories. But then again, Dazai is expecting him to have chazuke, that’s why he invited him out in the first place. Right?
So, maybe he’ll just order the chazuke, force it down his throat, then excuse himself to the bathroom and throw it up. That’s all he can do. Anything else and Dazai would push for answers.
The mere sight of the restaurant makes him feel ill. He’d heard about situations like this, online. Where people like him have to eat something high caloric because otherwise it’d blow their cover. He’d dealt with it on smaller occasions, like eating a few bites of cereal to keep Kyouka happy, but it’s never been like this before.
He has to publicly eat an entire bowl of chazuke. He can already imagine the way their faces will twist in disgust, watching him eat. They’ll think he’s so greedy. As he stares into his reflection in the restaurants windows, he barely recognises himself. He looks huge.
“Atsushi-kun? Are you coming?” Dazai asks.
Snapping out of his torturous head, Atsushi notices that Dazai has been waiting for him. “Ah, sorry!”
Dazai simply chuckles, waltzing through the glass doors. Atsushi gulps, taking a large breath in as he braces himself for the impact of delicious smells, spices and dishes and all the things he’s been craving in the deepest crevices of his mind. It’s okay. When he goes home, he can chug a few glasses of water, go online for a few hours to talk with people, and then sleep off the guilt.
“A table for two, please!” Dazai chirps to the hostess, throwing her a cheeky wink as she blushes.
As she ushers them over to a small table in the corner by the ceiling to floor windows, he notices her eyes lingering on him. He wonders, briefly, what catches her eye. Is it his prominent cheekbones, or his sunken temples? Is it the way that bone in his wrist pokes out sharply, or the way his collarbones are so defined that it’s almost scary?
Or, even worse, does she not think he’s skinny enough? He’ll never know.
“Okay, and do you what you’ll be having to drink?” She asks, terrifyingly normal.
“Ah, i’ll have a beer, and Atsushi? What do you want?” Dazai’s stare penetrates into his very soul, in a way that almost feels challenging.
“Uh- just a water, please?” He mumbles, fiddling with his fingers.
Dazai tilts his head in a way that reminds Atsushi of a dog. “Hm? A water? I thought you usually ordered juice, Atsushi-kun? Don’t you want that?”
“No, thank you.” Atsushi says, and he knows immediately that it was too fast, too sharp. But the mere thought of all the calories sends his head spinning.
“Hm. How unlike you. Infact, you haven’t been quite like yourself for months, have you?” Dazai practically taunts, resting his cheek against his fist as he gazes at his subordinate.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dazai-san. I’m better than ever.” He forces a smile, feeling as it forces his skin to crinkle.
Dazai doesn’t reply, simply humming as he looks Atsushi up and down. It’s like he’s analysing Atsushi’s entire being, and he absolutely despises it.
But thankfully, Dazai relents, glancing back down to the table with an exasperated sigh. For a moment, an awkward silence washes over the table, swooshing in Atsushi’s stomach unpleasantly. In his foggy mind, he fishes for something to change the topic with.
“So… you seen Chuuya-san around recently?” Atsushi fumbles around the sentence, but it riles Dazai up anyways.
Immediately, he’s rambling on about a stupid slug he saw this morning outside an ugly clothing shop, who immediately challenged him to a fight. Apparently, Dazai won, though Atsushi doubts that, considering Chuuya is much stronger physically.
Then, somehow, the conversation spirals into a horror movie Yosano had made him watch, then a bar fight he saw the other night, and then he’s telling Atsushi far too much about a hookup he’d had that same night.
“And then, right, she just grabbed my hand out of nowhere and shoved it right-“
“Okay! Okay i really don’t need to hear all this, Dazai-san!” Atsushi screeches, trying to cover his ears as best he can.
“Don’t be such a prude, Atsushi-kun! See, it was like this!” He says, grabbing Atsushi’s hand and curling it into a graphic motion that leaves Atsushi blushing even more than before.
But then, Dazai just sort of.. stops. For a millisecond, his joyful expression flinches, before immediately plastering itself back into silliness. It happened so quick, so quick infact that Atsushi almost missed it.
Gently, Dazai sets Atsushis hand back down over the table, his own blanketing it for a moment before the warmth slips away. It’s a shame, Atsushi quite liked the heat radiating from Dazai’s hand. He’s always so cold nowadays, so any warmth is welcome.
However, the conversation doesn’t quite pick up where it left off the same. Atsushi has no idea what happened. He was enjoying the chat, despite it flustering him quite a lot near the end. He wracks his brain over and over again, but nothing comes to mind. Even after they order, Dazai doesn’t quite slip back into his usual persona.
Picking at his food, Atsushi looks back up to his mentor, watching as he kisses his teeth. Maybe Atsushi did something wrong? Is Dazai mad at him for something? He can’t bring himself to ask, fearing the answer.
“Your knuckles are red.”
“…What?”
Dazai looks up, meeting Atsushis widened eyes. “Your knuckles. They’re red. You’ve been making yourself vomit.”
Trembling, Atsushi stutters through a defense. “W-what? No- Well- Dazai, that’s not-“
“Don’t lie to me, Atsushi. I’m no idiot, me and you both know that. This is a dangerous path you’ve been going down.” Dazai’s voice is so very clear, so monotone.
Tears begin to prickle in Atsushi dimmed sunset eyes. They were once so bright, but now all they reflect is exhaustion. “Don’t pretend you know anything about me. You know nothing. I look good, Dazai-“
“You look dead. You look like a corpse.”
Atsushi’s mouth opens and closes around a defense, but his throat feels sticky and dry. He wants to scream, but he can’t find the energy. He wants to cry, but the thick tears won’t drop from his eyes.
“You’re going to die, Atsushi. This will kill you. You’ll die a malnourished skeleton, and for no fucking reason. It’s not money, you have that. You never cared about appearances before, so why now? Why are you doing this to yourself, Atsushi?” Dazai sounds choked, but it’s not quite with sadness.
And that’s really why hits Atsushi. Because Dazai has a point. Why is he doing this? It used to make him feel good. Proud. It hasn’t made him feel that way in a while, though. But still, the idea of him stopping, it sounds like his own personal hell.
“Please… please don’t tell Kyouka. I don’t want her to know.” Atsushi begs, unable to look at Dazai’s all knowing stare.
“She already knows. She came to me about it months ago, saying you weren’t eating, and you’d bought a scale out of no where.”
And really, Atsushi just.. snaps in half. Sobs escape him as he hides his eyes in his hands. He can’t help it, it all just hurts so much. He’s so tired, and he feels like he’s going to faint, and fuck, Kyouka knows.
“We’re just worried, Atsushi. All of us. Even Akutagawa said something. He told me that you’d fainted on a mission, before the fight had even started. He said he could see you.. ‘rotting away’.” Dazai’s words are careful, as if he’s scared he’ll break Atsushi with them. Maybe he will.
The tears just flow, and flow, unstopping as he remembers that day. Akutagawa, surprisingly, has looked almost genuinely worried as Atsushi awoke. Crouched beside his unconscious body, Akutagawa had nudged at him and repeatedly called for ‘Jinko’, still refusing to use his real name. It was humiliating. And to make matters worse, he had forced a crumpled and clearly old protein bar, fished out of his coat pocket, into Atsushi’s hand as he sat there and he made sure Atsushi ate it.
In that moment, he’d felt sick, and full, and hungry all the same. He didn’t like sympathy, when it came from Akutagawa. It shouldn’t come from him at all, it’s so unlike him that it aches.
“Are… Are you gonna send me away? Like, to a h-hospital.?” He stutters.
“I don’t know, Atsushi. Do we need to send you to a hospital?” Dazai challenges, sending Atsushi a look of angered frustration.
“No.. please, nothing like that. I-I don’t think i could bear being that far from the agency every day.”
Dazai sighs, spinning the beer around in his glass as he thinks. “Okay. Well, here’s what’s gonna happen. You’re gonna eat that chazuke, you’re going to enjoy it, and then i’m going to take you back to the agency to see Yosano. If she thinks you need to be sent to get help somewhere else, then that’s out of my jurisdiction. Doctor’s orders.”
Sniffling, Atsushi nods. “O-Okay..”
Leaning over, Dazai takes Atsushi’s chopsticks in hand, and scoops up a big pile of rice, salmon and sesame seeds, before lifting it to Atsushi’s mouth. And somehow, Atsushi finds the confidence to shakily grab the chopsticks and force the food between his chapped lips.
Flavours immediately bloom in his mouth, and he moans in delight at the delicious taste. All he’s eaten for months is cucumber and rice cakes, basically. Maybe the occasional ice cube to keep him sated. But this, this is so so different.
He’s reminded, suddenly, that this is his favourite food. He loves chazuke. Why did he ever stop eating it, when it tastes so good?
He’s struck into a frenzy as he forces rice and fish into his mouth over and over again, feasting like he did back when he first met Kunikida and Dazai. It’s addictive, it’s so much better than the hunger. It’s better than anything else he’s ever felt.
And it’s only when his chopsticks meet nothing but ceramic that he realising that he’s eaten every last grain of rice. But just as a wave of heavy guilt crashes over him, Dazai pipes up.
“Good job. I’m proud of you.”
A shaky, real smile spreads across Atsushi’s face, and even as tears slip down his face, it’s the happiest he’s been in a long while.
All at once, he feels scared, and worried, but most of all, full.