(Jung Hoseok x Reader) (TW: Anorexia)
You thought you had your bad habit under control- but when you wake up in a hospital room your boyfriend: Jung Hoseok confronts you- rightfully angry that you nearly starved yourself to death.
Pairing: Jung Hoseok x Reader
Tags: ANOREXIA, ANGST, ANXIETY, HURT/COMFORT, angry!Hoseok, eventual fluff. mention of recovered anorexic!Jimin, yoonmin if you squint hard enough. best friend!Seokjin
a/n: I’m honestly sorry if this triggers anyone because this is definitely graphic and emotional but to be honest, I couldn’t make myself eat today- and I wrote this as a form of catharsis.
“I’m too anxious to eat.” You say to yourself, And that’s when everything starts to go downhill.
At first, it was just the easier alternative. Your busy work schedule didn’t allow you to have time to work out- and not eating and not exercising freed up time in your schedule for other things. Anorexia kept you skinny when you didn’t have time to do it the healthy way. That and (though You hated to admit it) not eating also gave you the slightest feeling of control in your life- just enough that you felt less anxious.
You didn’t feel guilty about it- not really, the only thing that gave you slightest pause was your boyfriend Hoseok, whom you had been dating for almost 3 years. He was an idol, and busy with a comeback when your bad habit first started to get out of hand. You didn’t blame him for not noticing- you were good at hiding it. You were rarely intimate when he was this busy and he was hardly around enough to realize that the only thing you really consume was water.
He did comment on the nights when he got early enough for you to be awake. You had taken to wearing the baggiest clothes you could find; mostly his old thick joggers and fluffy sweaters. But those comments on your baggy attire where easily diffused with careful excuses of the approaching winter and excuses of comfiness and missing him; which wasn’t a lie.
You did miss him; you could barely bring yourself to drink water on the days you knew you wouldn’t see him. But you didn’t want to bother him; So when he pulled you close at night you let him think that you were fine, thick layers of clothing covering your rapidly vanishing body.
Everything was going perfectly- you couldn’t remember the last time you ate- and you were just waiting on the couch for him to get back from a performance when you decided to get up to get a glass of water.
The next thing you knew you were waking up slowly- an unfamiliar and uncomfortable bed underneath your small frame. The iv in your arm stung terribly. The only sound in the room the steady drip of fluids being pumped into you and the slow tick of the heart monitor. The beeping of the heart monitor picked up when you realized where you were- you don’t open your eyes yet but you feel a familiar hand enclosing around yours. Rough callouses rub gently against your palm as you finally open your eyes.
At the sight of you waking, Hoseok breathes a shaky sigh of relief.
Awake at last- now he could talk to you about this. All he had been able to think about the last few hours was what would happen if you died. What if he never had a chance to talk to you- his best friend and lover again? the thought made him want to never smile or dance again.
He let out a relived choking whine as your eyes meet his. Relief made his heart beat quickly But it also brought other emotions; shame for not realizing sooner, sadness that someone who he held so dearly was suffering, and surprisingly;
As you watch him the heart rate monitor picks up again as panic grips you. There is no more hiding from this here in your hospital room. No more shoving it down and lying to him. You’ve lost track of how many times you’ve lied and told him that you had eaten already or that you weren’t hungry.
“Hey.” He says. And you can’t help but feel guilty at the bags that have gathered under his eyes- or the fact that his clothes look slept in.
“H-hey.” You say back weakly. Wincing at the way your voice breaks- how many hours have you been here? Silence eats away at both of you until it’s Hoseok that cracks- finally letting some of his leashed anger through with a tight voice and bitter accusation.
“Are you not even going to say you’re sorry?”
“I don’t understand what you mean” you reply refusing to meet his accusatory gaze. You look at your hands, finding them shaking slightly- or maybe it’s more of a shiver. The hospital room is cold, but Hoseok in his thin black t-shirt and joggers doesn’t look bothered. Your words somehow manage to make him angrier.
“Oh, I don’t know! that you’re sorry for lying to me? for all those times you told me you’d already eaten? All of the times you told me that you were taking care of yourself when you weren’t when you didn’t get me when you needed me? Aren’t you going to apologize for all of those times you lied to my face and told me that you were fine?”
You swallow thickly “I am fine Hoseok.”
he barks out a laugh- flinging the covers off of you and then dragging up your shirt to reveal your ribs, he could count every one of them. Your stomach looked taught- almost painfully flat. You shoved at him but your arms had long since lost any ounce of muscle- and the action makes both of you realize how weak you had gotten.
Hoseok could remember a trip you took in the summertime to the beach with the boys. You had dragged him into the waves gigling and had held him there even when he shrieked as the cold water hit his stomach.
Hoseok’s tears hit your stomach- and you stop weekly pushing at him. He balances- his hands on either side of you careful not to put any of his weight on you. You look so breakable underneath him like if he put his hands on you- even to just hug you-you would snap in two.
You looked like years of sadness and anxiety had eaten their way through you.
To Hoseok- you looked like the shadow of someone he had loved. He hadn’t realized that you hadn’t been eating- that you had been starving yourself. he should have realized something was wrong when he realized you where cold- not emotionally too him, but now he could remember your cold hands touching his arms and his cheeks weeks ago.
Why wasn’t he a better boyfriend to you? why wasn’t he around more for you like you deserved- if he had just made time for you- had taken you out on maybe just a lunch date maybe he would have seen you suffering before you had gotten to this point. Self-loathing tamped down on him- and he knew it would be a long while before he would forgive himself for neglecting you.
But he would have dropped everything if you had just told him- and you knew that.
Walking in on you last night had been his worse nightmare- and the start of the hardest day of his life.
His hands still shook from the way he had picked you up from the floor- and the way his hands slid over your sharp shoulders and hips- so different from the way that you used to feel. Had it really only been a few months since you had been full- and not on the verge of death?
“You are not fine y/n,” he says finally, the venom in his voice diluted by his tears. Tears start to drift down your cheeks slowly too, and then you whimper, full-blown sobs threatening to escape. He carefully takes his weight off of you and sits back in his chair. Ignoring the fact that he won’t stop shaking or crying.
“Why are you so mad?” you ask him- because honestly, you don’t know- you thought he’d be at least a little happy to have a skinny doll-like girlfriend.
“Why am I angry?” He laughed bitterly through the tears running his fingers through his hair “You’re hurting yourself for shit’s sake! You broke my trust. How am I supposed to trust you when you’ve been lying to me for so long? How am I supposed to forgive you for almost taking the person I love away from me?”
Sobs rack your small frame and you only had to look up at him to see your anguish reflected. “Was I really that close?”
“The doctors say you would have died within the week if you didn’t at least get fluids into you.”
“But I made sure to drink plenty of water- I was careful- I…” you trail off when you catch his gaze- he’s watching you like they’res someone putting a gun to your head. When he watches you like that you can see how much you’ve hurt him. Your actions have broken his heart.
“I’m sorry” you sob out. His fingers are soft and barely there when he brushes your tears away. You never wanted to hurt anyone-least of all him. You never wanted to break his heart- and at this point, you would do anything to mend it. “Could you ever forgive me? Can you?” Hoseok swallows and pulls himself back into bed next to you. He hands an arm around your shoulders wordlessly and you find yourself leaning into his warmth.
“I’ll forgive you, but only if you promise to start eating again.”
You swallow again- but there are no liquids in your mouth- nothing to wet your lips. He’s watching you again and you can see relief in his eyes as you nod slowly.
And its heartbreaking- because you’ve done this too him and you’ve done this too yourself, and maybe you couldn’t stop on your own- but you owe it to him to try. He presses a gentle kiss to your lips- and it’s a kiss that is pregnant with emotion: relief, love, anger, sadness, and a tiny bit of hope.
You reach up delicately and wipe away a single tear that’s leaked out of the side of his eye. And he smiles at you softly. Leaning over to press a blue button.
He smiles at you softly. “I’m not going to let you hurt yourself anymore. Today is day one of your recovery, and I’m going to be with you every step of the way. and-” he says, interrupted by the arrival of a nurse guiding every one of your friends. “They want to help too.”
You smile at them hesitantly- a little uneasy at your deepest secret being laid out for all of them to see- but based on the looks of them, they already know;
Dried tear tracks have carved lines on both Taehyung’s and Jungkook’s faces. Namjoon looks like he about to walk into a minefield- and is smiling with something akin to pity. Jimin looks afraid- like looking at you will shatter him. But Yoongi is close by, and he watches both of you like a hawk- but he bites his tongue- not talking but looking about as angry as Hoseok.
Above it, all your best friend Seokjin looks unbothered and unruffled- a freshly baked dish in his hands- smiling down at you.
All of them are holding food- Taehyung and Junkook hold enought McDonalds to feed a small army. Namjoon has enough of your favorite fried food to make you sick. And Jimin and Yoongi hold more ice cream in between the two of them then you could find in most supermarkets.
“Ah y/n!” Jin exclaims sitting down against the end of your bed. “I finally perfected this recipe you just have to try it.” without a word about your condition- without a second of scolding- the 7 of them start taking out plastic silverware and divvy the food up between everyone.
“Come on hyung- everyone knows she wants McDonald’s first” Jungkook offers with a sly smile.
“Nah she deserves ice cream before dinner tonight,” Yoongi grumbles quietly.
“if you give her too much right off the bat she’ll just vomit it all up,” Jimin says, a little exasperated and a little angry. the crack of his voice makes everyone go silent. He doesn’t have to say that he knows from experience. Yoongi’s hands tighten around a carton of rocky road.
“I’ll eat what I can,” you say, meeting his eyes.
You accept an overstuffed paper plate of food with shaking hands. Your eyes meet Jimin’s again and in that moment you know that you two are going to sit down and have a long talk. Maybe after this family dinner and maybe after you get out of the hospital. But. You. Will. Talk. To. Him. You need to know how he got through this so you can too. You’re done hurting the people you love with your unhealthy behavior.
The people around you smile slightly but look at you with apprehension, waiting for you to shove the food away like they know you want to. you pick up a fork carefully. “Who wants to go bite for bite and see who explodes first?” you say to lighten the mood. Your friends laugh- and besides you, Hoseok rubs comforting circles into your arm, encouraging you to eat more.
You force yourself to swallow Jin’s cooking- not that it doesn’t taste good- it does, but the feeling of love settling into your stomach is a kind of strange and wholesome fury.
The food lights a fire in you-you will not let yourself starve again. But even if- by some mistake- you slip up, you know you have people to catch you if you slip into old bad habits.
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