Nevermind

Chapter 24: You Should Be Your Light

The next few weeks you made small changes that you could barely handle, but you really tried. You started by adding a couple extra slices of apple to your prepped meal one day or putting just a splash of milk in your coffee on another occasion.

Some days you'd find yourself contorting in the weirdest positions to look at yourself from every angle with the hand-held mirror. Other days you'd be so anxious you'd get physically sick and then you'd go back to restricting your portions again trying to stop it.

You bought more than one mirror in moments of weakness and then smashed them and threw them out not to be tempted to retrieve them if you just took the entire thing out. It wasn't rare for you to drop by a pharmacy and randomly weigh yourself before or after work or at the gym

Your mind told you your efforts were pathetic and useless, but you tried to ignore it as best as you could. It didn't work most of the time, you failed more than you succeeded, but you didn't want to have another incident at work.

Jimin wasn't sure why you wanted to hang out more often, but every time it was possible, he dropped by your place even if for just an hour. The first time you took the initiative of asking him to go out with you, he was shocked.

You didn't look like you were doing okay that day, but he didn't mention it. He'd told you you could count on him if you were having a bad day and he wasn't about to point it out and make you feel uncomfortable.

Some nights he had stayed until very late watching movies with you, playing games or just talking and he hadn't left until you had knocked yourself out. He'd gently move your head from his shoulder and lay it on a cushion to then cover you with the blanket on the sofa before seeing himself out.

Multiple times you'd wake up to find a small snack or a glass of water on your table. You didn't always eat them, but you'd store them in your cabinets to go back to them. Maybe add a few nuts to your apple slices or crumble up a piece of a cereal bar on top of them.

When you were in a particularly dark place mentally, you couldn't do anything at all. You'd skip entire days to make up for those when you ate the extra pieces. Or you'd end up eating more than you usually did, all at once as if rebelling, and getting sick because your body couldn't take it.

You didn't think you could get far with your attempts, but at least it was different. At least you felt like you were doing something more normal even if it was far from it.

Jimin didn't miss how you'd take a few extra pieces of popcorn or how the container he brought the previous week with Jin's food wasn't as full as usual sometimes.

Even if you only took a few extra teaspoons throughout the week, it was enough to make a difference after seven days. He smiled to himself each time, these things were nearly unnoticeable, but he was used to paying close attention to details like those.

His rituals with food were so carefully calculated when he was struggling, the slightest change and he would freak out. He'd be irritable and upset, even if it was only someone mixing the food he bought with the rest of the stuff in the fridge.

If someone tried to share their food or questioned his choices, he'd feel self-conscious and sometimes not eat at all out of guilt. When they told him he looked slimmer he felt proud of his efforts, but his weight ultimately yo-yoed and he never actually felt good about it. It was fleeting.

Healthy meant fat, so mentioning the damage he was doing to himself didn't help at all. If he looked like he was doing better, it meant he was slacking. It meant he was eating too much or not exercising enough. He'd try to burn every ounce he ate at the gym when he had some spare time.

As he stayed up late at night practicing at the studio, he also did working out if he hadn't had time during the day. It was impossible for him to go to sleep if he hadn't completed the routine he meticulously planned in his head.