Hello!

So, new story Chaps and Chapettes! And this one is about an eating disorder - I've honestly just taken to full on making Sasuke's existence hell I swear. First with the epilepsy in The History of Nothing and now this...

In my last story though, it was a bit easier, because I actually am a little epileptic goblin (not all epileptics are goblins, just me; I legit am: sit in the dark, shuffle about, swear at everything...) So anyway, I've kind of wanted to write something like this. Basically, after work or university, my fiance and I binge documentaries like the sad little sea urchins that we are and I saw one on men with eating disorders and I was like 'well damn...'

Anyway, this is also a Narusasu story...Yay!

I hope you enjoy, this is just the first chapter so it's just kind of starting, or introducing? Anyway, enjoy! :)

Chapter 1.

Stardust.

Control. Everybody fights to exercise it; we pursue it compulsively. Like honey badgers, we're blind, unyielding, and merciless, in our chase for governance over our own lives. Without it, we perceive that we'd be embryonic nothings, coasting chaotically through existence.

However, how in control can we really be given that we're nothing more than an assemblage of stardust hurtling through a boundless linear dimension on a bigger star?

The illusion of control and the need for it is fed, and damaged, by the ever-enduring media. The polished pages and variegated television shows are fat with the unattainable. Women with unimaginable waists and unthinkable hair. Men with swollen biceps and symmetrical faces. 'It was easy,' they say, 'with the right diet.'

The truth is, it isn't easy, and it isn't glamourous. Where was the prestige beauty in tube feeding? In scabbed knuckles, hair on your pillow, and ruptures in your throat?

If somebody had told Sasuke, what control would do to him, he might've found a way to let go. People don't wake up with an eating disorder though, it isn't as if one day somebody drops a boulder smack bang down on your world; instead, some sadistic beast drops a tiny seed that spreads into an all-encompassing bindweed.

For Sasuke, that seed was a leaflet…

"What's this?" Kiba ripped off a flyer from the corkboard, his blue sleeve grazing Neji's face as he went. Sasuke saw Neji inhale quickly, his scalene muscles disappearing beneath his clavicle with the effort of holding his breath. "Krishna Body Popping," Kiba read off the flyer and then rolled his eyes, brandishing it towards Sasuke and Naruto. "That bloody community centre, no wonder the council's trying to shut it down; the crap they keep hosting." He sighed.

"Kiba, you're torturing Neji," Sasuke muttered, taking the flyer and glancing at the image printed on the front. Kiba looked back at Neji, who had turned puce and grimaced apologetically.

"Sorry, I haven't changed since I left the shelter," he admitted, sweeping wiry quills of dog fur from his baseball shirt.

"You never do," Neji pointed out, scrunching his face up. He had a point, Kiba frequently blunderingly forgot Neji's life threatening allergy to dogs and threw him up against the constant threat of anaphylactic shock.

They were all milling around the cramped atrium of Castle Dusk, which called itself a touring venue, but was really just a pub with a tiny, and poorly constructed stage. They were waiting for another two of their best friends to clock off work: Shikamaru Nara, and Sakura Haruno, both of whom didn't finish their shift until one in the morning.

"I dunno, Kiba, this one might be for you," Naruto smirked, tearing another flyer down and waving it in their friend's direction.

"Jazz mums, get your jazzercize on," Kiba read and then shot Naruto a look of deepest disgust. "Ha ha."

"Oi, you dickheads, stop ruining my corkboard," they all whipped around and saw Shikamaru Nara there, struggling with a barrel.

"Oh boo you, you buzz kill," Naruto gave him a thumbs down.

"What's this?" Neji was holding something, "Endurance for Charity," he read off the flyer, "it's to stop the council closing the poxy community centre," he flapped the piece of lime green paper with an eye roll.

"Endurance?" Kiba whipped the sheet from Neji's hands so quickly that Neji winced, sticking his finger in his mouth where Kiba had left a papercut. Kiba's eyes flew over the print of the lurid piece of paper before he scoffed. "Fear factor obstacle course with a bit of fire, water, and a few electric shocks…Piece of piss," he waved his hand dismissively.

"Oh really?" Neji smirked, snatching the flyer back.

"Yes, really," Kiba maintained and behind them Shikamaru snorted with laughter.

"You're all talk Inuzuka," he snickered and Kiba scowled.

"Right, I'll do it, but with the rest of you," Kiba snapped, staring round at them, his gaze testing.

Sasuke smirked, and averted his attention back to the corkboard: somebody was selling a freezer for twenty pounds, that was far too cheap, it must have a body in it or something…

"Go on then," Sasuke's full awareness shifted back to his friends. Neji was grinning at Kiba whose face was torn between irritation and the wicked impishness of the challenge.

"Yeah, go on," Naruto joined and Sasuke felt like he had butterflies inside; this was not the challenge for him, he wasn't as built as them, wasn't as impressive….

And then it hit him; none of them were asking him if he was going to join them, why? Did they perceive him as weaker than them? He bristled.

"Yeah, okay," the words were out of his mouth before he could stop them; because, it's something like human nature, impressing other people, it's how we seek validation.

"Great," Kiba didn't seem to even notice the internal war going on inside Sasuke; full-blown Guerrilla warfare tearing him apart, and nobody batted an eye. "So, I'll see you all down the gym, first thing, yeah?"

"I guess you will."

Sasuke liked getting back to his apartment late; that way, there was no way his neighbours could try and engage him in invasive and prying conversation, and would all be in bed, so their lace curtains would remain un-twitched. He didn't know what fascinated them so much about him, he'd moved into the flat when he was eighteen and lived there alone for the following five years. He hadn't always lived alone, or in Oxford for that matter, his family had simply depleted over the years. Sasuke had once lived with his mother, father, and brother in Arundel; however, following Fugaku's heart attack whilst Sasuke had still been in secondary school, his parents had emigrated to Cyprus believing a change of country would help them manage his father's high blood pressure. The reality was, Fugaku's heart attack was nothing to do with the UK; it was all down to Sasuke's older brother, Itachi Uchiha. No amount of beautiful Augean sea could wash away the scars that his brother had left…

Still, his parents seemed happy living in Cyprus from what Sasuke could tell from their Christmas cards and six-monthly Skype calls. He'd been sixteen when they left, leaving him under the guardianship of Itachi, which was fine. At sixteen he was an adult. It was fine. All fine. Just fine. Fine…

At eighteen, Sasuke had packed a bag and left, phoning his brother from the Oxford train platform to tell him what he'd done. For a month, he lived in a hostel whilst he looked for a job and then saved up a deposit on a flat. He never bothered going to university, it was the type of thing his parents would've wanted for him, and for some reason that made him repel the very concept.

So there Sasuke was, twenty-three-years-old, working as a receptionist in a tattoo parlour, living alone, and avoiding his neighbours.

After he'd keyed in the code to his flat, he slid inside and closed the door quickly behind him. He kicked his shoes off, and hit the dimmer switch, throwing his apartment into a soft, saffron relief. He was in a state of disarray as he made his way through to the living room and sat cross-legged on the grey-felt sofa. His mouth had run away with him, Sasuke was not cut out for an endurance race. He was naturally svelte, it wasn't anything he'd thought to worry about before. He bought his fingers to his lips and began to gnaw at them. Surely, to win an endurance race, you had to be both the strongest and the lightest? Well that seemed impossible. Sasuke scowled, staring ahead at a photograph of him and his friends mounted beside a mirror on his wall.

It wasn't impossible for him.

Nothing was impossible for him.

His self-control was boundless, he could achieve anything.

For broken people, who refuse to acknowledge their own damage; control becomes an addiction. They use it like a gloss or paint to hide a fragmentary and desperately sad centre. However, just like every other addiction, control has a dark and violent core waiting to erupt…

Oooh, like I said, this is just introducing stuff :) but please review, I appreciate it a lot!