i'm very excited this update because i'm working on a tbhk/haikyuu!!! crossover! i have a bad habit of not finishing things i start, though (especially multichaptered fics, though this one is an exception! :D). due to that, i'm forcing myself to not publish any chapters until i'm finished writing the whole thing. i even wrote an overview to help me write it!! i'm very excited, lol.
anywho, back to the story at hand: sato this chapter! i'm so sorry for this ;-;.
[tw: (past/self) fat shaming, (past) bullying, weight obsession, (mentioned) eating disorder; anorexia nervosa/athletica]
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Rikido Sato was the baker of Class 1-A that could lift anyone's spirits. He wasn't always in the spotlight, but he was certainly nothing to sneeze at. He was powerful and skilled, and could also bake delicious treats to cheer up any of his classmates. He helped make the backbone of Class 1-A, and helped keep them together.
He was also very good at hiding things. He wore baggy clothes whenever he could, to cover up his biggest insecurity and source of pain. He had requested a larger school uniform than strictly necessary to help hide his weight, his absolute worst trait.
He tried anything he could to resolve the issue. He worked out tirelessly, exercising almost constantly and eating healthier. That didn't work, though. It never did, and the kids at his previous schools weren't as good at hiding things as him. They couldn't hide their laughter or their pointing, or their mockery of him.
He liked to think they couldn't hide it, rather than they wouldn't.
He was his own worst enemy, though. His Quirk specifically required sugar, which he knew from enough late nights reading up on health tips and weight-loss articles was a leading cause in obesity. It was addictive and absolutely terrible for one's health, so of course it was the thing that made him stronger. It made him so much stronger in the moment but so much weaker in the end.
He spent less time eating and more time baking, giving it to his family and non-existant friends. He once thought that if he brought in desserts one day to class, his classmates would be kinder to him, nicer. Stop mocking him constantly.
He was wrong, of course. He was his own worst enemy, and the torment just got worse and worse from there. They thought his weight was a choice, that he ate those desserts all the time, even though he's never once tasted the things he's made. He couldn't, it would undo all his hard work, and he'd just have to exercise more, until his legs couldn't work and his arms wouldn't move and his stomach would be churning from overexertion.
He was good at hiding things though, so now in this new school, he just hid it even better. His classmates didn't even notice that one of them was not like the other, skinnier ones. His hero costume was skin-tight, and he had to eat sugar before going into public so that his bulk would look like muscle and not the disgusting flab he knew it to be.
Rikido Sato was very good at hiding things, especially his weight and the way his body always felt so tired, so he could also hide his constant pain and shame and worry about the way others saw him; he could also hide things from himself, like the harsh truth that this was the way his body was, and the fact that his old classmates weren't trying to hide their laughter.
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sato i'm so sorry for hurting you
but yeah, i've learned a lot about eating disorders just from this series alone, my god. in case you were a "cool kid" and didn't read the trigger warnings, sato's eating disorder is kind of like a mix between anorexia nervosa and anorexia athletica.
nervosa is the more well-known one, where one will starve/purge themselves in an attempt to lower their body weight and have a sende of self-control (this is putting it shortly).
athletica is when one will exercise excessively and compulsively, not seeing a problem with it. this is usually to boost performance and have a sense of self-control, and it's important to note that this is still categorized as an eating disorder. again, this is putting it shortly— if you want more details i suggest looking it up, as i myself still don't fully understand either.
sato was kind of a combo of the two, since he was constantly overexercising like athletica but doing so to lower his body weight, like nervosa. i couldn't find a name for that so I just tagged both. correct me if i'm wrong (or if you have a proper name for it)!!
god that was such a long thing about anorexia okay ummm... i forgot what i was originally gonna put here. sorry sato rip
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