Disclaimer: I should probably work on my other fics, but I'm on a roll with this one.
Chapter 21:
By the time Haruka and Elza had made it back to Elza's place it had gotten fairly late.
Haruka then grabbed her phone off of Elza's coffee table and saw that she had ten missed calls.
"Woah."
"Let me guess, Michiru blew up your phone?"
"Yep. I knew I shouldn't have left it here."
Haruka said, quickly dialing Michiru's number. A few moments later the aqua haired beauty picked up.
"Hey, Michi."
"Jesus Christ, Haruka. You nearly scared me half to death. I thought something had happened to you, where have you been?"
"Elza and I went for a run, and I left my phone at her place."
"Are you sure you're alright though?"
"Positive."
"That's good. Now I know you're gonna hate me for this next question, but I have to ask it. Have you eaten anything today?"
"No."
"Are you going to?"
"I haven't decided yet."
"So that's a no."
"No, it's an I don't know. I might eat I might not."
Haruka was sounding irritable. A clear sign that she needed a good meal and a nap.
"Ruka, listen. I'm sorry I confronted you about your eating disorder."
"You mean the eating disorder that I don't have?"
Michiru wanted to tell Haruka that she did have one, but she didn't want to get into another argument with her.
"Yeah, that one. I guess just the thought of you causing harm to yourself scared me and I freaked out."
"I would never do anything to cause harm to myself. I'm stronger than that."
"I know you are."
"Yeah. Anyway, I'm kinda tired from my run so I'm gonna go take nap."
"Okay, call me when you wake up."
"I will."
Haruka then ended the call and set her phone back down onto the table. She then plopped herself onto Elza's couch.
"Don't tell me you're tired. You're hardly ever tired after a run."
Elza said, taking a seat next to Haruka on the couch.
"I am when I run on an empty stomach. However I also burn more calories that way, so it's a win-win."
"You should probably eat something though."
"I'll eat when I wake up."
Haruka mumbled, trying but failing to stifle a yawn.
Elza was going to try to plead with Haruka to eat, but the tall blonde was already fast asleep.
"Guess I'll go get started on dinner then."
Elza then got up from the couch and headed into the kitchen to begin preparing dinner for herself and Haruka.
Meanwhile, back at the outer senshi home they were trying to decide how to best go about helping Haruka with her eating disorder.
"We could always force feed her."
Hotaru suggested.
"That's not a good idea, it'll just make things worse."
Michiru said.
"Oh, and confronting her right out was such a marvelous idea?"
"I panicked, okay? I didn't want your Haruka-papa to…"
"To what? Michiru-mama, are you keeping something from Setsuna-mama and I? You keep trailing off whenever you bring up not wanting Haruka-papa to go through something."
Michiru released a heavy sigh.
"I guess I might as well tell them."
"When I was 14 I had an eating disorder."
Both Hotaru and Setsuna let out an audible gasps.
"You, but how?"
Setsuna asked.
"It started off with my mother instilling me that if I wasn't thin I wasn't perfect, and if I wasn't perfect no one would love me. She had me on a strict diet and exercise regime. the more weight I lost the more she wanted me to lose. I hated it at first, but over time her brainwashing began to work. I began to see myself as fat and useless, despite people telling me I looked like a skeleton with skin. I became obsessed with weight loss and began restricting more than my mother already was. It got to a point where I was living on nothing but water and black coffee."
"My god. How did you recover though?"
"After my mom passed I finally felt free to seek the help I knew I so desperately needed. By the time I had met Haruka I had been in recovery for nearly a year."
"What was your lowest weight?"
"If I remember correctly it was 45 pounds."
"How the hell were you still alive?!"
Michiru shrugged her shoulders.
"I guess I must've had an angel watching over me or something."
"Well I'm glad you're still here with us."
Hotaru said, walking over and giving Michiru a hug.
"Me too."
Michiru said, returning the hug.
"I do have a question though. How come you allowed your mom to do what she did to you? How come you never told anyone?"
Hotaru asked.
"Despite what she was doing to me I still wanted her approval."
"Do you think Haruka-papa wants are approval."
Michiru gave a nod.
"But why? We all love her just the way she is."
"That's the the thing about eating disorders hime-chan. They often warp a person's thinking. Right now there's this voice inside your Haruka-papa's head telling her that we think she's fat and we'll stop loving her if she doesn't lose the weight."
"That's not true though. We all love Haruka-papa no matter what."
"I know, and deep down she knows it too. She's just having a hard time seeing that right now."
"She's going to get better, isn't she?"
"Right now it's hard to say. When you're Haruka-papa sets her mind on something she usually sticks to it."
"But we can't let her stick to this."
"I know. She needs help, but that's easier said than done. It can't just be us that wants her to get help. She has to want it as well."
"Isn't there a way we can convince her to get help?"
"There most likely is, but it wouldn't do us any good at the moment. Your Haruka-papa is very stubborn and she is in major denial about any sort of problem she has."
"So what do we do?"
Setsuna asked.
"Well I told her to call me after she wakes up from her nap. When she does I'll ask her why she feels the need to lose weight."
"Are you sure that's a good idea?"
"It probably isn't, but we won't be able to properly help her until we know why she's doing what she's doing."
End of chapter 21:
A/N: Welp Setsuna and Hotaru now know of Michiru's troubled past. I guess it's only a matter of time before they find out about Haruka's. Also, thank you so much for the reviews I've gotten so far. Until next time, this is PokémonSoulMaster93 signing out.