ATEEZ : One Shots

LO$ER = LO♡ER

San x ATEEZ

⚠️ TW: Disordered eating behaviours, OCD compulsions, and descriptions of a severely unhealthy body ⚠️

San has always excelled in math. Which, for him, is both a blessing and a curse. A double-edged sword.

San has OCD — specifically arithmomania.

He stares at his half-naked body in the mirror. He's lost a lot of weight in the past month, 10 kilograms to be exact. And he hates it. He's not purposely trying to lose weight but can't help it.

San is counting all day every day. Counting how many steps he takes during different dance routines, counting how many calories he consumes, counting how many minutes he spends exercising, counting the number of beats in a song, and the list goes on and on and on.

With the group's comeback revving up, his compulsions were getting increasingly harder and harder to deal with.

A few days ago, the group had been practicing some older songs plus some songs they planned on performing as extras on their next tour. Once it was over and most of the groups left, San told the leader that he decided to stay a bit longer to run through the choreo a few more times — which was true, he did mean to only run through it a little more. Except, once the beginning of HALAZIA began blaring through the speakers, San, exhausted, fell into another trance. His eyes focused on the floor, his body standing eerily still, his ears focusing only on the song — but it didn't feel like a song, it felt robotic. There was no feeling, no emotion, no soul.

"1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4..." San quietly counted as he tapped his thumb on the tip of the rest of his fingers.

He stood there for another two hours doing this with the whole setlist. When he was finally "allowed" to come home, he found that the other members had already gone to bed and were fully asleep.

To put it simply, he looked and felt awful.

★★★

Today, San woke up with this sort of sense of doom lingering over him — like a shadow hanging over his shoulders. He's cold and faintly shivering.

He pitifully drags himself out of bed, joints cracking with each step he takes to the washroom.

He winces when he turns on the light. He looks at himself in the mirror and—

"AH!" he shouts.

"Who the hell is that?!" he thinks, staring at his reflection wide-eyed.

What he sees is a man... well, barely. His shirt hangs loosely from his frame so much that it looks like it's Yunho's shirt and not his. The shirt, which had once been a perfect fit, was now so loose that it sags around his body, threatening to fall off him entirely. His skin almost blended in with his white shirt due to the sickly pale tone now adorning his skin. It severely contrasts with his jet-black tousled hair and the dark circles under his eyes, drawing attention to them. He looks like a living corpse, his once-strong physique was almost gone, leaving only a fragile, emaciated shell of the man he previously knew. He was so thin and weak that just looking at him would make one feel ill.

"Sannie, are you in there? We're leaving in half an hour, Hongjoong wanted me to tell you to hurry up to breakfast!" Yunho knocks on the washroom's door, startling San out of his trance.

"Uh... Yeah! I-I'm almost done in here Hyung!" he shouts back, cringing at how pathetic his voice sounds.

San frowns, he knows he can't have breakfast with the members. He hasn't been able to do so for a while now. He's not "allowed" to eat until 12 p.m. so he usually settles for a calming tea. Which, he's not sure the calming part is working so well anymore.