Summary: This is a translation of a fic I've recently finished. My translation skills aren't exactly the best, therefore I apologize in advance for the lousy quality! I still hope some of you don't mind and just enjoy the story.

Also, please note the following warnings/triggers: Depressive feelings, eating disorders, perfectionism, ambivalent feelings, self-esteem issues, control issues, as well as common myths/misconceptions about eating disorders and healthy eating. So please take care of yourself and don't read this story if it's going to trigger you.

Last but not least, I'd like to thank Archer/DrWhohouselock221b for the great beta reader service! *thank you very much!*


Everything for the Crown

Prologue: The Tale of the Imprisoned King

The crown of dizzyingly high expectations had been put on his head long before anybody ever called him the Grand King.

Oikawa Tooru refuses to remember whether it was somebody else or he himself who laid the burdening weight on both his head and his heart. Enveloped by a persistent aura of pathological pride, insatiable ambitions, and exorbitant demands on himself, he cannot but make every possible effort to keep his crown in place, to keep his balance on the throne. A task which is incredibly difficult to perform once you have become aware of the intimidating presence of all the geniuses threatening your reign.

'You're not a king!' They do the miracle of whispering without moving their sublime lips. 'You don't have it in you. You're not one bit like us! You're rank and file! And we'll put you back in your place!'

Yes, he is going to fall, he is going to be overthrown, for the mere reason that he is simply not good enough to rule for good. The devastating realization hits Tooru quite early in life. Grudgingly putting up with the fact that he suffers the misfortune of being born inferior in comparison to all the truly brilliant volleyball players out there, he uses any means available to fight his inner terror, to at least maintain the puny remnant of security left in him. He certainly had no intention whatsoever to develop an eating disorder. It is just that by and by Tooru figures out that his diet is the one area in his 13-year-old life which is easiest to master. In no time, the control of his daily food intake feels as comforting as being wrapped in a cozy safety blanket, and Tooru quickly learns to love this kind of extraordinary protection idolatrously. After all, a healthy diet is no crime for a motivated athlete and thus it is only logical to reduce the import of sticky lollipops, dangerously sweet milk bread and the like into his bodily kingdom. Nobody has to know the real reason behind his new custom provisions. Nobody has to know that the very thought of being pushed from the throne scares him to death. And most certainly it is absolutely nobody's business that Tooru, in an attempt to suppress his anxiety and to improve his bodily condition, becomes addicted to high-protein breakfast dishes and devotional prepared lunch boxes housing a tidy arrangement of vegetable sticks, rice balls, seaweed salad, as well as lean pieces of tofu and meat.

It is a slow process, this growing obsession with sugar-free drinks, energy bars, and neurotic menu planning. A steady development never questioned at home. If anything, his mother is supportive and understanding since she used to be a passionate gymnast as a teen and, despite two pregnancies, has been managing to keep her petite figure with ease. Tooru's father, on the contrary, is not the type of man wasting a thought on his diet. Good genes bless him with the privilege to eat whatever he wants and whenever he wants it, and as long as there is some fried chicken or rice on the dinner table every now and then, he sees absolutely no necessity to complain about his wife's perfectly well-balanced meals. And then there is Tooru's elder sister who is, although only in terms of physical build, a younger version of their mother that hits the gym three times a week. The latter comes particularly handy because it regularly offers Tooru the opportunity to sneak into his sister's room and read through endless pages of workout plans, nutrition tables, and flirting tips listed in her fitness magazines.
All in all, home is a place where Tooru's new eating habits flourish and grow unhindered.

Friends and practice are a whole different story though, for someone always catapults Tooru into a conflict of interest by conjuring up a bag of chewy sweets or chocolate bars. On the one hand, he instantly wants to reject the candy in order to prove that he does not need it. He is not an ordinary peasant. He sits high above everything and everyone.
On the other hand, he longs to be an essential part of his team, a leader perceived as a good and trusted friend, but only birds of a feather flock together. And 13-year old boys eat chewy sweets, Smarties, and chocolate-coated birthday cake. What exacerbates the situation further is the fact that Tooru actually loves candy. So his vivid brown eyes always beam thankfully in light of a friend's kind offer or whenever they go and buy popsicles after practice on hot summer days.
It is not until Tooru is back home that his neurotic thought patterns regain the upper hand and he starts to panic. His racing heart beating reason into his greedy brain then, making absolutely clear that the worse his physical condition, the sooner he will fall. For fear of his throne, Tooru hastily works off every slice of cake and every single sticky strawberry-chocolate toffee he consumes. He cannot help it. It is like a reflex and he cannot calm down before his shirt is soaked with sweat. Afterwards, damp air kisses his luscious eyelashes and black dots dance through his vision, reassuring him that he did just the right thing. Somehow it feels like drifting through space, and as long as he plays by the safety rules, as long as he finds his way back to the right path after slipping, everything is going to be fine just a little longer.

With that in mind, it is hardly surprising that the cheat days achieve to pass Tooru's meticulous customs officer. At the age of 14, his desk drawer is stuffed with hand-made pralines and cookies, given to him by pretty girls with red faces and stammered love confessions on their lips. Tooru usually rewards the girls' courage by giving the nicely wrapped treats a try and then, with a smile to melt away, pays the skillful confectioners a compliment. After all, loyal subjects are always welcome in his kingdom. Furthermore, being seen eating sweets in public brings the advantage of appearing completely normal. Nobody thinks him a freak because of his eating habits. He just plays Mr. perfectly healthy way too convincingly, even though his compulsive control never grants him the liberty to permit himself more than one praline or one cookie at a time, since that is precisely the amount he feels confident to be able to work off during the rest of the day.

In addition to this, it cannot be healthy, either, to hear the pralines and cookies in your desk drawer sing your name like a pack of banshees while you are desperately trying to focus on your homework.
'We know what's good for you. We know what your insecure heart is longing for. So please, love, let's help! We'd never hurt you. We promise!'

Lies! Nothing but lies! Tooru knows for sure. The deceitful banshees are announcing the impending death of his self-control and after endless month of tough regulations, Tooru has gotten to the point where he is completely and utterly unable to resist the urge any longer. Sure, his inner balance entirely depends on being in control of his food intake, but his long suppressed discomposure is suddenly in full bloom. The totalitarian king in Tooru has awoken from his hibernation and is everything but satisfied with the limits of his empire. He wants more. He wants everything–just like Tooru wants to achieve everything in volleyball. Consequently, one cookie is not enough, because one cookie tastes like plain silver when you are starving for exquisite gold.

So in spite of being painfully aware that he will never be able to work off all the calories awaiting him, Tooru's greedy hands shovel each and every praline and cookie into his mouth. Within a few minutes, months of presents are gone, leaving Tooru still yearning for more! More! MORE! Before he even knows what he is doing, he dashes down into the kitchen, grabs a spoon, a tall glass, the package of cacao powder, and the milk. Back in his room, he drinks one glass full of overdosed cacao–Why doesn't anybody help him?–and then a second one–Why does he have to carry the weight of the crown all alone?–and even a third one–But sharing his throne is not an option. Period.
God, his ambivalence is driving him insane and his stomach is making him sick!
His lips part in pure desperation, paving the way for retching, puking, spitting, and eventually laughing. Abusing your gag reflex in order to bring up sticky chocolate smear is definitely no walk in the park, but Tooru does not give a damn about his vomit-soiled fingers, his cramping lungs, or his burning throat. Currently, the only thing that counts for him is the invaluable feeling of total relief soothing his bad conscience.

Henceforth, self-induced vomiting gradually turns into yet another unhealthy strategy to regulate his emotions. Manically, Tooru crunches his impregnable self-doubts and his sadness, so he can throw up all his anger and frustration. The ritual settles for Mondays, when he is all alone. His home an impenetrable fortress preventing anybody from witnessing how Tooru, the boy who was born an exceptional and aspiring learner, rapidly evolves into a professional puker.
Under the leadership of secrecy and self-hate, he experiences not only which foods are easy to bring up again and which are not, but also that it is wiser to wear latex gloves than to expose his eager hands to corrosive stomach acid. He buys both the cheap gloves and his binge foods in supermarkets nearby, hides them in his room, and draws an awful lot of strength and self-confidence from believing that it is him and only him who is in the driver's seat.

Puking outside home is rather the exception for him. The only occasions being family trips to restaurants which offer too large buffets and no wafer-thin bathroom walls. And even then it only happens on particularly bad days, when neither hard practice nor his safety rules are device enough to subjugate the envy and fear boiling up in his chest. Why do born volleyball geniuses like Kageyama and Ushijima even exist? It is so fucking unfair! Tooru just cannot accept it. Not even after being headbutted by Iwaizumi for acting like a self-centered "moron" pointlessly overworking himself. It is not that Tooru does not appreciate his best friend's concern–he really does–but unfortunately, none of Iwaizumi's words or actions are strong enough to break Tooru's deadlocked thinking patterns and exorcise his deeply rooted perfectionism once and for all. So after a few relatively peaceful days, the fatal combination of pride and self-doubts nesting in his mind once again fuel his eating disorder until it is ablaze. By then, it has become so normal for Tooru that he does not even realize that he is at war with himself. All he does is tell himself over and over again that his way of handling food is no big deal and that he can change it any time he pleases, even though the hard truth is that he has long turned into his eating disorder's obedient servant and, as such, is thoroughly addicted to his very personal illusion of safety, to the soothing effect of accurately packed bentos and secret binges that can be undone without a hitch.

Therefore, he stays the energetic guy smiling from one ear to the other when shoved a bag of marshmallows under his nose after practice. The habit to entertain tempts him, then, into fishing two of the white candies out off the bag, plugging them into his nostrils, and producing an animalistic sound while pulling a face. His teammates' flashing up laughter the applause Tooru's narcissistic personality desperately starving for.
"Oi! Don't you play with food, Assikawa! You're not a toddler anymore!"
Neither minding the grumpy admonition nor the rebuking hit against his occiput, Tooru simply giggles in return, picks the marshmallows out off his nostrils, and lets them melt on his tongue. A reaction which earns him a disgusted shake of the head by Iwaizumi. But frankly, Tooru does not care anymore when people think him childish. His life is a game he can only lose in the long term. Cursed by his inner demons to play along, Tooru leastwise tries to have as much fun and gain as much approval as possible for as long as the game is still on.

Later, he walks home instead of taking the bus. After all, marshmallows are pure sugar, yet there is nothing sweet about Tooru's ceaseless efforts to win, to rule. Year after year, Ushijima is the one wearing the gold medal around his neck; and all the recent signs indicate that Kageyama is the one setter who will eventually outshine Tooru.
Yes, the reign of Oikawa the Great is irrevocably coming to an end.
The prospective tastes as bitter as the bile dripping from Tooru's bottom lip when he is kneeling in front of the toilet, looking everything but majestic.


Thank you for reading!

Translating always takes me a while, but I'll try to update as soon as possible.