Drowning | Anorexic Todoroki x Bakugou

1 | Eating Fears

A/N:
Spanish version of this fic available by @n4turalle as of the 11th of Sept., 2023!

Shouto Todoroki

Todoroki couldn't remember when it all started, and frankly, he didn't want to remember what unleashed his current situation. However, he could recall his feelings and thoughts that likely welded into a debilitating torrent that tortured his mind.

In every room you walk into, someone is the thinnest, and someone is the bulkiest. I don't want to be the latter, but I can't help but want to be the thinnest. It's not a competition, and I shouldn't compare myself to others, but I can't help it. When I see others that are blatantly thinner than I am, I don't know how to describe the feeling, but I feel...uncomfortable. I just want to lose enough weight to be a little bit thinner than they are.

"You gonna eat?" A voice splintered Todoroki's train of thought that leisurely rolled along the tracks of his merciless memories. "Oi. Shouto." With furrowed brows, Bakugou peered across the kitchen counter in the common area of the 2-A dormitory to meet his boyfriend's eyes.

Sighing in the hollow air he'd been submerged in from the recollection of the past, Todoroki nodded. "Yeah," he replied while putting his phone down and wedging the wonderful yet abhorrent instruments resting before him between his digits to pluck his soba noodles with.

Todoroki started dating Bakugou roughly three months ago, and they advanced their relationship after about a week of dating. When the two began to date, Todoroki had already been in the process of attempting to recover from his eating disorder, but the thought of having a significant other was what truly drove Todoroki to abandon the habits he was admittedly ashamed of; what person would want to be his significant other if he was far more concerned about being thin than them?

I've made some decent progress, Todoroki thought to himself while bringing the soba in his chopsticks to his lips, but it's getting harder and harder to make more progress. I don't have the motivation I had yesterday, last week, and so forth and so on. But I don't want him to ever have to know I have a history of purging. He'd think I'm disgusting. Like I only care about myself. I don't want that. But I'm so tired of this... I'll make progress one week just to relapse the next because I can't kill the part of me that clings to wanting to keep my awful habits because of a list that could go on all day. I won't get anywhere by doing nothing, but I'm so tired of fighting just to choke down some food when I could avoid the problem entirely by not eating anything. I feel like I'm going to gag. I hate this...

"Not feelin' well or something?" Bakugou asked with lowered brows once Todoroki finally forced himself to swallow down the sickening pool of mush that he'd ground between his teeth.

Todoroki shrugged. "I'll be fine," he sighed.

Just eat. You're pathetic. Stop acting like the world will end if you ingest a single bite of food. You love him, right? Why can't you just eat for him? That's all you have to do. Why can't you do that?

Bakugou glanced around the kitchen for a moment before standing up and rounding the counter to stand beside Todoroki. "You better tell me if you're ever not fine," Bakugou sibilated in a growl like a snap of thunder. "Got it?" He splayed his fingers atop Todoroki's head as though to pick up the latter by the head like a doll.

While slurping down a clump of noodles, Todoroki nodded, and shortly after, Bakugou planted a brief kiss on his cheek. "Then I'd like the same from you," Todoroki proposed with his cheeks full of soba.

"Deal," Bakugou snickered. "Got some sauce on your cheek, you chipmunk dumbass." He licked his thumb and smudged away the small drop of sauce that had splashed onto Todoroki's cheek. "Cold like you."