TWENTY-SEVEN

Weeks passed. Christmas approached, then New Year’s, and all the other end-of-year celebrations.

Kyungsoo collapsed and was rushed to hospital for every one of them.

Ever since the one night Jongin doubted Kyungsoo’s love for him, everything had spiralled downwards. Kyungsoo started having anxiety attacks over meals, and it was now blatantly obvious he had major problems with food. There wasn’t just suspicion over his unusual behaviours anymore – everyone knew that something was very wrong, something was causing him to act so anxiously.

Only Yifan voiced his suspicions of an eating disorder – but Kyungsoo still ate, and his purging was almost completely silent, so everyone denied it, feeling guilty when Kyungsoo tearfully pleaded that he was ‘just tired’, as if they were putting more pressure on the young vocalist by unfairly blaming him.

He ate less at mealtimes and more when he was alone, to binge and purge over and over again. His voice was soiled, he was slapped multiple times a day for his poor singing, and everyone was unhappy.

“This,” Chanyeol whispered, “is not what I signed up for.”

Kyungsoo had just fainted after dance rehearsal, again, and was taken back into hospital. Normally he would have been sent back to the dorm with an ice pack and a phone call to the doctor, but he’d stumbled away too far for anyone to catch him when he fell, and hit his head on the metal rails on the walls.

Jongin was crying harder than usual, the scene re-enacting in his head over and over again. After Kyungsoo lost consciousness and hit his head, he fell hard, hitting the floor like a tonne of bricks, limbs cracking dangerously.

He seemed fine when the company health members carried him out – arms and legs dangling, but not twisting at unnatural angles, either. A lump was forming on his head, but he seemed otherwise unharmed on the outside. And he was still breathing, in the least.

“What if he’s not okay?” Jongin wailed, “what if he’s going to die, and I haven’t even said goodbye?”

“It’s okay, Jongin,” Junmyeon whispered, “it’s okay, calm down. He’ll be back tonight. He always comes back.”

They were waiting in the practice room, sitting on the dusty floors in almost complete silence – some waiting, some crying, some deep in thought. Nobody felt happy.

At first, the thought of having a career like theirs would be fun and enjoyable. Stressful, of course, but not to the extents that they were experiencing.

Kyungsoo was collapsing all the time now, and he was performing poorly enough to be kicked out of the group any moment. He was vital to the band as a powerful and talented singer, but even his most valued tool was failing him, because of his purging. He, or more accurately, his disorder, was letting down the whole group, and he knew it.

Baekhyun, evidently, had had enough.

“Baekhyun,” Yifan snapped, “Baekhyun, don’t leave the room, or we’ll get in trouble.”

“Says who?”

“Baekhyun.”

Fists balled, Yifan stood up and grabbed Baekhyun’s wrist, pulling him away from the door. “Haven’t you had enough with lashing out at us, already?”

Baekhyun shook him away. “Trust me, having one member up all of our careers is a lot worse than someone as careless as you getting drunk, just because your little friend is dead.”

Yifan was horrified.

“Byun Baekhyun!” Yixing screamed.

Seeing the hurt on Yifan’s face drove Jongdae insane. He stood up from his corner, stormed over to Baekhyun, and slapped him across the cheek.

“How dare you?” Jongdae hissed. “Don’t you have a heart?”

Baekhyun scoffed, ignoring the fact that he was just hit by a fellow member.

“Kyungsoo’s lost his voice, and I’ve lost my ing patience. It’s not unlikely I’ve lost my compassion, as well.”

At the mention of Woosung, Yifan’s eyes had welled up with tears, and he turned away, shaking. Baekhyun pushed Jongdae away, and stormed out of the room.

As expected, Kyungsoo was at the dorm when the other members returned home, lying on the couch with a heat pack to his forehead. Baekhyun walked past him without a word, and Jongin ran to him, falling to his knees and cupping his cheeks.

“Kyungsoo,” he whimpered, tears building, “you’re…you’re okay.”

“I’m fine,” he whispered, pulling the blankets up to his chin.

“Did you eat?” Yifan said weakly, not expecting a satisfactory answer, but trying anyway. Kyungsoo shook his head.

And for the first time, he said something after that, without scorn.

“Sorry.”

The members who were heading off to their rooms paused, and turned around.

Yifan looked at Kyungsoo with pity. He looks so weak, so frail, so tired. His milky skin had turned an unnatural white, and his eye bags were darker than ever. His bones stuck out in his face too much – he looked malnourished, emaciated.

Yifan saw Woosung.

It hurt.

“You don’t need to be sorry,” Yifan answered softly, “it’s not your fault.”

It’s not your fault.

Kyungsoo was bingeing. Minseok was watching him. Everyone else was asleep.

At first, Minseok had wanted to binge with him, hungry and knowing he could simply vomit it back up after, but he already felt fatigued and unwell enough from being woken up so early, so he’d declined the offer. Instead, he was there to give moral support, knowing Kyungsoo was still shaken up over his ‘argument’ with Jongin, despite it being so long ago.

“I don't know if I ever told you,” Kyungsoo said, after swallowing his mouthful, “but it’s helpful to eat something easily identified before you binge. If you didn’t notice already, I always eat coloured ice cream or gelatine before bingeing. Everything—” he paused to eat another mouthful, “comes up in order. If you don’t know when everything’s out, colour stands out. When you vomit something recognizable up, that you ate first, you know you’re done.”

Minseok bit his lip and nodded slowly. “That makes sense.”

“Of course it does.”

He couldn’t bear watching Kyungsoo eating so ravenously, when he knew it’d all come back up the same way again. He looked away; keeping a hand on the younger’s back, letting him know he was still listening.

“How did you feel about the whole Woosung thing?” he asked, rubbing circles into the younger’s back.

Kyungsoo tossed his head and flipped his bangs from his eyes. “I don’t know. It was a reality check.”

Minseok was surprised. “Then why haven’t you stopped purging?”

Kyungsoo looked up at Minseok. His eyes were hollow and sad. It broke Minseok’s heart.

“I never said it was a reality I didn’t want.”

Finally, he pushed himself away from the empty plates and crumpled food wrappers, and walked off to the bathroom. Minseok hurriedly put the dirty dishes away and threw out the trash, brushing crumbs from the counter, before following him.

Kyungsoo looked so calm when he purged, as if he wasn’t scared at all. He simply bent down with ease and pushed his fingers back with perfect technique, and everything came out silently, with hardly a gag.

It was scary seeing everything come out effortlessly, the same way it went in.

Minseok helpfully held Kyungsoo’s hair back from his forehead, fanning him as he vomited everything back up.

“Why were you cutting that one afternoon?” Minseok asked.

Kyungsoo coughed. “A lot of reasons.”

“You should have been happy. We got news on our debut.”

“Well, maybe I was ing upset about our debut. Maybe I was angry with myself. Maybe Baekhyun deserves all of my lines, because I’ve ruined everything I’m worth and I don’t deserve to debut.”

Now upset, Kyungsoo forced his fingers further down his throat and gagged until he was coughing liquids that obviously weren’t food, gasping for breath.

“I’m done,” Kyungsoo whispered, straightening up and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m done. No more for tonight.”

He flushed the toilet and pushed away from Minseok to wash his mouth out, before stepping on the bathroom scales and looking down. Minseok wondered why, even after all of Yifan’s suspicions, they still left the scales there, but didn’t say anything.

He didn’t even need to see the number to know Kyungsoo was underweight.

“I’ve lost weight.”

Minseok forced a smile, “congratulations.”

One side of him felt reassured, knowing that doing the same thing as Kyungsoo would end up giving him the same results, but the other part felt frustrated. Frustrated that Kyungsoo was losing weight faster than him. Frustrated that he wasn’t the thinnest.

Kyungsoo turned to him. “How do you feel about Woosung?”

Minseok was taken aback. “Huh?”

“What do you think, about the whole issue with Woosung’s death?”

He stepped off the scales and pressed the ‘off’ switch with his foot, walking over to the door.

“I…I don’t know.”

“Did it scare you?”

He nodded slowly. “I guess.”

Kyungsoo pushed his hair from his face and straightened out his shirt, running a hand over his chest, smiling lightly in satisfaction as he touched his hipbones. Minseok could see the outline of them through Kyungsoo’s shirt, and silently wished his hipbones protruded more.

“Are you going to keep purging?”

“Of course.”

“And you’re not scared of dying?”

Minseok pondered the thought, before sighing. “Quite frankly, I’d rather be dead and skinny, than alive and fat.”

Kyungsoo smiled.

“Good.”

✏ [ a/n ] LMAO KYUNGSOO "I NEVER SAID IT WAS A REALITY I DIDN'T WANT" ANY SHAWOLS HERE???? THIS ISN'T THE REALITY THAT I WANTED alright i had to let that out now to the serious stuff because there really are some issues that need to be addressed right now. first of all, i want to thank every single person that voted (legitimately) on the poll, and especially give a very thankful shoutout to my commenters who reassured me (as you always do omg you sweethearts) that i'm not the one to blame. and really; i'm not. i put those warnings in the foreword there for a reason. if people choose to ignore it, their problem, not mine. most of my readers are recovering well using my story, so i'm never going to change it or bring it down for a few people's sake. another thing is again, people coming to me for moral support through their eating disorders. i'm going to make this very large and noticeable now so people get the point through, because really, what's there to lose: I AM NOT EVEN FIFTEEN YET. i wish so badly to help all of you guys, but i've had multiple people come to me saying they want help. i suggest for them to talk to their friends, their parents, a school counsellor -- none of them have worked? how do you expect a fourteen year old to make any kind of mindblowing recovery? i haven't gone through a severe eating disorder, but i haven't gone through recovery, either. if i knew how to help everybody, i would, i would do it all the time for everyone. but i can't. if countless therapists can't give you the support you need then i'm sorry but neither can i. i'm sorry for the gloomy authors note again guys, but i can't be told that i'm 'giving up on you' because i'm telling you straight to your face that i can't help you in any way. please guys, know the difference between moral support and actual help, because i don't know what to do. i'd like to also address the fact that some people have inquired about how this story is kind of veering off from luhan-centric to kaisoo-centric -- i am aware of that yes but this story is pre-written so i can't really do much about it;; kyungsoo is really a main character as well and i know the poster might be misleading but it was made by my best friend who's never read the story before so she didn't really know to put kyungsoo and minseok in there. thank you so much again to everyone encouraging me and keeping me strong through this, to all my commenters, subscribers (and unsubscribers, i see you guys too lmao), upvoters, just all my readers in general. i love you guys so much. thank you for constantly being there for me even when i'm not capable enough to be there for you. see you guys next update and i'll do my best to shorten the authors notes back down to normal<3

word count: 1563