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Dull eyes are reflected in the mirror. Stretch marks are stark against his skin, as his critical gaze glosses over his features. “The early morning light only succeeds in highlighting my flaws,” he thinks sullenly. He ponders why he bothered to get out of bed this morning at all.
“Pig,” the voices in his head echo with repetition of the familiar word. That’s all he amounts to be is a little, pathetic piggy that has no business being on the ice at all much less at the training facility in Russia with talents like Victor and Yurio. “How could they stand to be on the ice with someone like me,” he ponders not for the first time this week.
He lost the weight he had gained on his skating hiatus, but the weight he was at before was never good enough either was it? He has never been good enough. “A few more pounds could be the difference in a gold medal or not qualifying at all,” he tells himself quietly. Searching his reflection for answers, he comes up with none. Tears begin to fill his eyes, as he notes the roundness of his face and the softness of his stomach.
He hears his flatmate and friend, Victor Nikiforov, begin to stir and quickly composes his usual mask. One last loathing look into the mirror, and he is gone to take part in their normal routine of the day.
The rink was a breath of fresh air for Yuuri, as it had always been his hideaway place besides the dance studio. This reprieve was soon crushed, as he watched Yurio complete his short program practice routine out of the corner of his eye. This pulled him back into the harsh reality of his self-worth and of the shame and guilt that plagued him.
Practice was following their standard schedule and flow. Yuuri felt a little dizzier than normal today, but this had been happening more frequently as of late. He tried not to think anything about it and pushed it out of his mind. Instead, he began to work on his quad loop like Yakov instructed.
The edges of his vision began to blur, and his ears felt like someone had stuffed cotton into them. “It usually wears off by now,” the little warning in his head repeated. That was the last thing Yuuri remembered before his vision faded completely to black.
His vision slowly came back into focus with a loud ringing echoing in his ears. Yurio was staring into his eyes looking surprisingly concerned, while Victor was elevating his head into his lap. Yuuri could vaguely hear Yakov’s voice, but he had no idea what he was saying.
“Yuuri, are you okay? What happened?” Victor asked him in a soothing tone.
Yuuri nervously laughed and pulled a smile, “I must have just forgotten to eat yesterday. I’m sorry for all the drama. Seriously, I’m fine.”
“Are you absolutely sure you’re fine?” Yakov barked down at him.
Yuuri pulled himself back up on his skates and reassured his coach with confidence, “I am completely sure. You know how forgetful I can be.” He followed this with a laugh, and a few of the skaters that were in the crowd around him joined in.
Seemingly satisfied with this, Yakov turned to the crowd and began to give a glaringly harsh speech about the importance of nutrition for an athlete's diet.
Being out of the spotlight, Yuuri allowed his shoulders to relax and the plastic smile to slip from his face. Looking around, he noticed that Yurio and Victor still eyed him suspiciously with worry in their gazes, though Yurio would have denied this vehemently.
His attention was pulled from them however when he heard Yakov preaching, “Everyone is going to take a break and go eat at least 1000 calories before stepping foot back on this ice. I will not have a repeat of this fiasco today.” Yakov then stormed away to go order food muttering all the while in sharp Russian under his breath.
The skaters all seemed to be relieved to have a break and excited for the free meal ahead breaking out into cheerful conversations, but Yuuri could feel the panic building in his chest at the thought of eating that many calories much less in front of an audience. It had been a while since someone had called him a piggy to his face, but he did not want to risk it again. He couldn't risk it again. The fact that he did not have a choice left him feeling trapped in his own skin, and he broke out in a cold-sweat at the thought of it.
“Are you sure you’re okay, Yuuri?” Victor asked him quietly as he came to a graceful stop next to him. He turned to give him his usual speech, but Yurio was standing directly in front of him staring him down seemingly searching for his lie.
Yuuri turned back to his placing on his skate guards and muttered to them both, brushing them off, with reassurances that he was fine.
Yakov had apparently thought that pizza would entice everyone to eat quickly and gain enough calories, as he had decided as their coach that their careful diets could be forfeit for today. Grabbing two pieces of the pizza, Yuuri choked them down dreading what was to come next.
He dismissed himself from the group to go to the restroom, though he did not know that he had two shadows following behind him.
After slipping into the bathroom stall, he breathed a sigh of both relief and in being resigned to his fate. He carefully moved the toilet seat up and moved to squat in front of the toilet. Pushing two fingers into the back of his throat, touching his epiglottis with how far his fingers trailed down his already sore throat. Yuuri was always mindful of his teeth in these situations, as he did not want the questions followed by the scars that could form on his knuckles. He flinched in anticipation of what was to come.
His gag reflex began to kick in, and tears began to come to his eyes. He squinted and accepted his fate, allowing the tears to flow. After a few moments of gagging, the food began to move from his stomach up to the bowl. The cleanness of the bowl seemed to mock him, as he waited for the fattening food to come out of his body.
Yuuri, as a general rule, avoided bread for a very specific reason, especially pizza, it was the most painful thing to throw up that he had experienced. The pressure in his throat from the stiff bread was uncomfortable as he gagged on the hard mass of food. The acid from the pizza seared his throat, and he tried to quickly dispel the food to be able to rinse his throat and mouth. However, the pizza did not want to come up quickly, and Yuuri felt as though he was choking. The sick thought running through Yuuri’s mind was that, “I deserve to die like this. I deserve to go out like the pig that I am. This would truly be my karma.”
Once dispelling a satisfactory amount of the food, Yuuri stood. He never felt that purging truly cleansed him of his crime, but he felt that the burn was an apt punishment for the consumption of food by someone like himself. He began drying the vomit from his coated fingers, as he reflected on this. After a last wipe down of the vomit from his mouth, blowing the vomit from his nostrils, and wiping the tears from his eyes, Yuuri turned to unlock the stall door.
Yuuri stepped out of the stall and froze.
Staring at him with a look of stark horror, Viktor had a hand over his mouth holding in his sobs. Yurio’s face was a shade of dark red in fury at the scene he had just heard and seemed to be personally offended by the entire thing.
To the surprise of Yuuri, Yurio simply stepped out of the room giving Victor a moment alone with him, though his eyes held promise that this was not over between them.
Victor moved in a blur and crashed into Yuuri pulling him into a tight embrace while sobbing into his hair. Yuuri tentatively wrapped his arms around him and buried his face in Victor’s warm chest. He could feel his heartbeat hammering in his ribcage from this position and felt a twinge of guilt for bringing this pain to Victor.
With a hoarse voice, Victor whispered a simple word to Yuuri, “Why?” The question was filled with so much pain and confusion that Yuuri could feel tears again begin to sting his already sore eyes.
He simply shook his head, as there is never a true answer or a simple, single reason for someone to be broken enough to resort to a coping mechanism such as this.
An easy out would have been to throw the “piggy” comments back into Victor's face, but that was not truly the only reason aside from not wishing to cause the man further anxiety.
This stemmed from the culmination of every failure that could be blamed on his weight, it stemmed from the unfairly easy way that Yuuri has always gained weight, or the trauma associated with growing up as a heavy child. Countless reasons combine to give an answer, but no matter how much you add into it...
It is never that simple.
The pressure of perfection was brutal and lethal.
Each pressure point adds another reason, another motivator to accumulate to the ultimate breakdown of an eating disorder.
It was easier for Yuuri to simply blame the “piggy” comments that did finally move him over the edge, but he opted to simply be silent.
Yuuri knew that someone without this temptation, even with good intentions, can truly never understand the guilt and draw to be a more perfect version of yourself searching to find your self worth on the scale or in the mirror.
Yuuri muttered a broken, “I’m sorry”, into Victor’s chest.
It could be interpreted however he liked, and Yuuri was sorry.
Sorry for being a burden.
Sorry for never being enough.
Sorry for him to be there to begin with.
He was too selfish to leave, however, so he was sorry for that too.
Those words always stick in his throat, because he knew that they would simply fall on deaf ears without the other being able to comprehend his pain.
A hand suddenly appeared on Victor’s shoulder in the corner of Yuuri’s eyesight, and Victor pulled back from Yuuri.
Yurio gazed at Victor for a few moments seeming to have a silent, intense conversation between the two of them.
Victor pulled Yuuri back for one more quick embrace with a Russian phrase whispered in his hair that Yuuri could not have deciphered even if he had known the language. He pulled away just as suddenly, and he turned to leave with a worried, teary look thrown over his shoulder going out the door.
The room was filled with tension as Yurio’s sharp gaze accessed Yuuri. His anger appeared to have lost it’s edge, but his gaze still held a steely promise.
“You are going to therapy,” Yurio let out firmly with his arms crossed over his chest. Yuuri jumped a little in surprise before furrowing his brow, when he opened his mouth to argue, Yurio cut him off abruptly.
“I am not negotiating. You are going to fucking therapy, if I have to drag you there myself,” he stated firmly, tone offering no room for argument.
Yuuri must have had a confused look on his face, because Yurio relaxed his face and posture marginally and tried again.
“This is a common problem among performers,” he tried to explain. Eyes glinting with determination, he proceeded to say, “All of us deal with this in one way or another. You are going to go to therapy. Am I under the illusion that it will miraculously solve all of your problems? No.”
He moved forward and said in a voice with a hard edge looking like he wishes he was anywhere but there, “I have someone that I can recommend for you. I am not expecting you to be perfect, but you have to eat and maintain enough food to be safe enough to practice. This is not how I plan to beat you.”
The corners of his mouth lifted up, and he hesitated in the air for a few moments but proceeded to firmly pat Yuuri on the shoulder, then turned and left the bathroom.
Yuuri stood there for what felt like an eternity absorbing all that had occurred, trying to wrap his mind around the day's events. As he turned to the mirror, he was surprised to note a little smile upon his face, and his voices were quiet for the first time that he could remember.