(authors note: hi guys, sooo, theres a lot going on in my current life atm, including breaking up with my gf, breaking of a really close friendship and being sent rape and death threats on snapchat for something i didn't do. the first two were my decisions, which i don't regret. actually, i feel a lot better because of them, but the last one really fucked me in the head. so, sorry, if the quality of this chapter is worse, i kinda just fixated on this today to get my mind of of being told people hope i get raped <3 anyways, trigger warning for the usual, but a bit of binge eating today!!)
Despite his semi positive thinking yesterday, that morning he woke up to the same feeling of dread for the day.
As per usual, he got himself up and did his workout, had a quick morning shower and got ready.
He wasn't excited for classes. Yesterday his teachers did mention a slight difference in classes for the day though. Oh well, he would try to get through it.
He went downstairs and got some celery out of the fridge; he had a feeling he would need more energy for the day so he took two sticks and a medium sized container.
He chopped the celery quickly and efficiently (after washing it of course) and poured the chopped celery into the plastic box. After that he put it into his school bag waiting on the kitchen counter, he picked the bag up and started to walk to class whilst messaging Kita back.
He said his usual grumpy morning directed at anyone sitting in the classroom and plopped into his desk.
The breeze got in through the window and chilled him slightly.
He shivered before he brought a knee up to his chest and leaned over his knee in a folded-up manner.
To others he just might've looked a little down, but for him, he was just cold.
You see, he had picked up a certain sensitivity to the cold, even more than usual since covid started (and the diet started).
It was annoying but he learned to manage well enough.
He could feel his bones through his trousers as he hugged his knee more.
Soon enough, he was cold to the point he lifted both knees to his chest.
The heels of his feet were sitting on the chair with him, so he didn't have to hold his legs up without support.
People all around the room chattered and chattered up until their form teacher entered the room.
"Ok students, todays regimen is going to be slightly altered, we are going to have some people speak to us about mental health awareness, so some lessons will be missed out on. Any questions?"
Iida raised his hand sharply.
"Yes?"
"Why has this suddenly come up sir?"
"because of everything that has happened in the past year the school thought it'd be a good idea to make our students more aware of mental health. The idea was that this intervention would help any students that are struggling, with tips on how to help themselves and a little push to reach out for help."
Mina then raised her hand afterwards with a semi agitated look on her pink face.
"Why hasn't this happened sooner? It's not like we haven't been attacked by villains, and heck!! Even kidnapped!"
The rest of the class nodded their heads in agreement whilst Katsuki sunk his head deeper into his knees.
"I see why this must've angered you, and I will admit the school has been negligent of our student's mental health, but we are trying to repair any damage we caused."
Murmurs continued to spread throughout the classroom and Ejiro silently stared at Katsuki from his seat.
After the remainder of form class passed by, Aizawa left as two school visitors entered their form class.
One was a short female with teal curly hair cut under her ears. Kinda like a mullet. The other was a taller woman with sleek black hair and a slightly more gothic style, wearing darker and more elegant clothing.
The teal haired girl introduced herself as Mia, and the tall one introduced herself as angel.
Mia is a Spanish/Italian originated name, and angel is a Spanish/English originated.
After Katsuki realised that he was analysing these women's names, he cursed himself out.
It was an old habit he wanted to cut off.
The women pulled up a PowerPoint presentation and started off basic.
They talked about bullying and the affects bullying had on mental health, Katsuki breathed deeply through his nose at that (mostly in festering guilt).
They talked about depression, anxiety and the types of anxiety (like ocd, ptsd and social phobia).
Throughout the whole presentation they kept mentioning that if anyone felt reminicent of what was on the PowerPoint or if anyone related to anything that they could reach out to someone, or that they could talk to the women after the presentation.
Katsuki lingered on that thought.
Soon enough they started to talk about eating disorders.
From then on out things got worse.
Binge eating disorder.
Anorexia.
Anorexia nervosa.
Orthorexia.
Bulimia.
Bulimia nervosa.
His nerves shot through the sky and his hands shivered with dull tremors.
He felt numb but also heightened.
He felt like everyone knew.
He felt like he himself knew.
The air molecules thickened and it became harder to breathe. His lungs shrivelled and he attempted to hold his breath so that no one noticed.
It was becoming increasingly hard to fight the urge to run away and out of the room.
He couldn't listen to it anymore.
"Signs of eating disorders can range largely." The beautiful elegant woman carried the speech about eating disorders.
"You might notice your friend hesitates to eat, or maybe they impulsively eat a lot. Maybe they go to the toilet after each meal. Perhaps they constantly point out their flaws or insecurities. And maybe that sign makes you think they just want a bit of attention, but it could also just be a small way for them to vent after a long day of struggling with anyone of these disorders."
With each syllable Angel spoke Katsuki wanted to disappear more and more.
"Maybe, in these situations, you don't see someone else, you see yourself. You picture yourself. That's perfectly okay, but what isn't ok is staying silent. You need to speak up about it. To a peer? Or maybe a trusted adult. Maybe us? It doesn't matter. Maybe you aren't ready to say anything just yet. If so, just do the people that care about you a favour, and eat at least a singular regulated meal today."
Angel switched the slide to a picture of one of those meal balance plate things and got back to talking about signs.
"Some signs you might see could be boasting. Maybe a person you know constantly boasts about the way they look or their weight or weight loss, and that can be because of a deep-rooted insecurity that they cover up with self-gifted compliments and praises. This specific sign might make you think that person's ego is extremely large, when really, they're trying to salvage the last pieces of their self-confidence. The mind is a very complicated thing and it can do things that sometimes don't relate to what it shows. So, it's extremely important we take time to understand other people or at least stay aware."
Oh god, some of the things she was saying made him think about middle school Katsuki.
That guy is a different person altogether.
Angel went on about the topic, and Katsuki took extra care to zone out the remainder of the time and think about something else completely.
"Now, for the physical signs of eating disorders, we have, fluctuating weight, loose skin. Hair loss. White splotches in people's nails (a sign of malnutrition) and a struggle to gain muscle. Of course, these things are only the basic signs of things like bulimia and anorexia. Binge eating disorder can involve this stuff, but is less talked about considering the bad air people with binge eating disorder face."
The class was silent, listening close enough that you could hear every detail of Angels voice.
"You see, people that deal with binge eating disorder, are seen as less, considering most of them will face being overweight. Some people with binge eating disorder, are encouraged to teach themselves how to become anorexic. Which is a very stigmatising thing to say, as one cannot teach themselves to have an eating disorder, it's also a very harmful and rude thing to say."
"But the thing that we need to understand is that, people with binge eating disorder, are EXTREMELY prone to have thoughts about suicide and/or have attempted suicide. Another thing we as a society needs to accept, is that a lot of the time people with eating disorders are rarely 'stick thin' or 'very large'. Obviously, someone facing an eating disorder can definitely get to that point, but people that are overweight are more likely to have eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia, than people that are underweight."
"It's a fact that people don't take to heart. Not to mention, people with eating disorders are rarely treated unless they fit those stereotypes of stick thin and/or large. So to everyone sitting in this room, take care of those around you if no one else will, and most importantly, take care of yourself. You might not believe it (some of you) but you are all deserving of happiness and health. Learn to embrace your flaws, and become better."
----------------------------------
When it was over, Katsuki almost died of relief.
He wanted to sing out in joy, but also cry.
He knew deep down that if he was really 'ok' and just 'on a diet', he would not feel that way.
But he couldn't bring himself to accept that.
He was not 'mentally ill'.
He didn't have an 'eating disorder'.
And he did not have to 'reach out for help' or any of that bullshit those ladies were spouting.
He WAS taking care of himself, by taking care of his future.
You see, no one would support his future if he didn't do this diet.
He needed to fit the standards of attractiveness if he wanted to be a successful hero in others eyes.
Although, he had impulsive and unwanted thoughts of ending that future, he didn't think he REALLY wanted to die.
...
Well, all that mattered was that he got that day over and done with, he thought as he sat in his dorm desk finishing his home work with an opened can of white monster beside him.
Luckily for him, he had a special trick he manifested in primary school.
If he wanted to, he could make himself zone out for however long he wanted and just run-on autopilot.
He did it half way through the 'eating disorder' talk, but unfortunately, he didn't manage fall out of his zoned-out state till he got back into his dorm room.
Maybe it was a Défense mechanism or something?? Oh well, not like he could change the events of that day now.
(Although he wishes he could because he was having trouble remembering what to do with his homework (the homework from the ACTUAL lessons he did)
Soon enough, after the help of his handy laptop and the energy from his monster, he managed to complete his homework.
He was thankful for the resources around him.
After that, he got right to messaging Kita back and continuing to read volume 13 of one punch man.
He survived all the way through to 7pm before things took a REAL downfall.
A knock sounded from his door and he looked up from his phone in confusion.
The person knocked again, louder this time and Katsuki put his phone down to rush over and answer the door.
Kirishima, Deku and Satou stood before him.
He was used to Kirishima and Deku getting involved in his business, but not Satou. Usually, the buff guy just minded his own business and got back to baking with a new recipe or whatever.
"Hey kacchan!" "Hi Bakugo!"
Kirishima and Deku blurted out at the same time.
"Huh, what're you losers doing here?"
Satou then interrupted him and said "I brought you some of the food I made today!!"
Kirishima then explained that, "I know that recently you haven't been coming down for dinner, for whatever reason, but I just wanted to make sure you had something to eat, even if you don't want to eat it with our company! So, me and Deku got Satou to make something spicy for dinner today so that we could come and bring you it for dinner!"
Deku had a small frown on his face as he continued, "Yeah, Kacchan, we just wanted to make sure you didn't have to go to bed with an empty stomach! I hope that this spicy chicken is good! I even convinced Satou to help me cook it!"
Satou spoke up again with a smile on his face, "Yeah, Bakugou! I usually don't cook savoury food, but I wanted to do this for the sake of our classmate bond! We even made sure that the class left enough to feed you for two days!!"
Satou then pushed a big bowl full to the brim of chicken his way with a big smile on his face!
The spices were so prominent his eyes started to water slightly.
He was in shock; all he could do was silently stare down at the bowl with a parted mouth.
Kirishima's best friend senses were tingling, telling him Katsuki was going to try and give the chicken back, so he managed to quickly usher the other 2 away, to leave Katsuki (still in shock) in his door frame.
Soon enough, the blonde came back to his senses, and he quietly walked back into his room with the bowl, putting it on his desk as he stared at it like it was his worst enemy.
"Stupid fucking Deku.. Dumb Kiri.." he muttered under his breath.
He tried to ignore the bowl of goodness sitting on his desk calling out to him, but he failed terribly, and instead sat down in the chair and braced himself for one hell of a binge.
---------------------------
15 minutes later and he was head down on his desk with a puddle of his own tears underneath his smushed face.
He was crying as he languidly chewing on the chicken still in his mouth.
He felt disgusting, and if his bloated whining belly said anything, he was fucked.
He couldn't stop crying, but he also couldn't stop eating.
With every piece of spicy chicken that was shoved down his mouth, the more his tears built up and the harder it was becoming to swallow it all.
He felt like death.
At that point, he was just eating to eat.
The flavours didn't make sense so he ignored them, neither did his emotions, all he knew what to do was sob and chew.
He wanted to throw the bowl on the floor and force himself to throw everything up, but alas, he just cried a bit louder as his snot ran down his face nearing his mouth area.
He felt disgusting as he whined and sobbed like a small child would for their mummy.
Honestly, he felt like calling his mum and telling her everything so that she would give him one of her rare motherly hugs and assure him everything would be alright.
He heard his phone ping (a message from Kita) and he just cried even harder at the sound.
He didn't deserve Kita being his friend.
He didn't deserve any friends.
He was making small gasping noises and muffled cries as he swallowed the last piece of chicken that was in the bowl.
His usual angry demeanour was ripped and shredded apart as he didn't even bother to throw the bowl in an angry fit, he just gave up and slid of his chair, falling to the ground as he cried until he couldn't anymore.
In the end of it all his face was sticky and messy and his eyes felt dried up and like they were sticking together, his vision was blurry and he didn't have any energy to do anything.
And try as he might he couldn't think up any cognitive thoughts, the only feeling he felt was the pains in his stomach, being so bloated it hurt and the emptiness floating around in his mind.
He plucked the energy to stand up and crawl into bed, not even bothering to turn off the lights or put his phone on charge. Heck, he didn't even put his duvet over his shaking body.
He just cried into his pillows and covers until he fell into a deep numbing sleep.