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Katsuki eats when he’s stressed, or angry, or scared. He eats his tumultuous feelings, going straight to the kitchen when he’s upset, grabbing all he can before heading back to his room and shoveling it all in. He doesn’t think when he eats, that’s the good part- he only has to focus on chewing and swallowing and breathing. The more he eats, the more he can work out, which is just another distraction for him. He wasn’t always this way, he could take out his frustration on those around him and feel better- but that didn’t work anymore. He knew he had to change after he had gotten kidnapped, but he didn't know how. He didn’t know what to do with all of his feelings, all of his anger, so he devoured them.
He loses himself, alone in his room until he’s surpassed fullness, until his stomach cramps and he has to spend the rest of the night curled under the covers. He eats more than he can burn off, and he knows this.
He always feels like shit after binging, but he also feels better in an odd way.
It’s fine, he thinks, because both of his parents have excellent metabolisms, so it would make sense that he inherited that quality- he’d just have to work out even more.
He’d have to get stronger.
He couldn’t be so weak anymore.
So, like a clockwork, he continues- his classmates mention their missing food, his teachers scold him for snacking in class, but he doesn’t stop. He can’t. He finds himself eating when he doesn’t even feel like it, eating foods he doesn’t even like. It doesn’t matter when people give him looks, he can always just tell them to fuck off and they would leave him alone.
Eating stops his brain from repeating the same shitty things to him every waking second like a broken record.
It’s your fault All-Might was gone.
It’s your fault he was kidnapped.
It’s your fault all those people died, and lost their homes.
No matter how good a hero he would become, he could never make up for that. He wanted to be just like All Might, but he ended up ruining his own idol instead.
He chews, and swallows, and chews, and swallows, and focuses on that.
Every night, he goes through the readily available foods, chips, bagels, fruit, bread, cereal, and then switches to tearing open packets of ramen and biting into them uncooked. It tastes awful, it feels awful.
But at least he’s not thinking about Kamino, he can instead focus on his sore stomach and teeth.
This carries on for a while. Eating and eating until he feels it all go away. His frustration, his guilt, his fear. Unfortunately, even his metabolism and rigorous routine can’t stave off the effects of those extra calories for long, and the waistband of his school trousers begins to press gently into the softening flesh of his stomach.
It doesn’t matter, he thinks. The few extra pounds didn’t affect his training, or studying. It was barely noticeable. Kaminari had asked him about it- if he was bulking for training purposes or what, but Katsuki was quick to tell him to fuck off.
Nobody comments on it after that, so Katsuki keeps eating, and eating, and eating, and he ignores the lingering glances he gets, the look on Kirishima’s face as if he wants to say something when Katsuki goes through 4 boxes of breakfast bars in one sitting after class.
When winter break comes and he heads home to his mom and dad, he gets an earful. She’s grilling him over the fact that he didn’t answer her calls, and it devolves into the usual screaming fest the two of them were accustomed to- except this time, she adds new insults when she smacks him upside the head. On top of the ‘weak,’ ‘good for nothing,’ and ‘ungrateful,’ she teases him about his added weight, calling him fat and disgusting, that he won’t be respected as a hero with a body like that.
He can’t eat in front of her after that.
He can’t bring himself to eat at all.
Bakugo finds that the fat isn’t hard to remove using this method. Anytime he feels like eating he chews on ice instead, and his mom laughs about him being on a ‘diet’ and how it won’t work, but she’s just a bag of hot air for all he cares.
By the time he gets back to school two weeks later, most of the extra weight had melted away.
He was pleased with himself, unaware of how gaunt his frame had gotten as well.
He continues, still convinced there was the extra layer of softness he swore he felt beneath his fingers when he pinched himself, and he couldn’t be soft, so he didn’t eat.
He worked out, ran for miles and chewed on ice when he felt like devouring something.
He doesn’t notice the sickly pale color of his flesh, the way his bones seem to nearly break through.
He doesn’t care that his clothes begin to hang loosely from his frame.
After a while, they all stop asking why he’s skipping lunch, why he’s skipping breakfast, and only eating a tiny amount at dinner. It’s always the same answer, ‘ i’m not fucking hungry.’
Kirishima knows he needs to say something to his friend- but he doesn’t.
So Katsuki’s figure, and his health, get worse.
After a while, they could see their friend swaying with each step he took, as if he could barely keep himself awake.
They saw how Bakugo struggled to keep himself up, knowing that he now had trouble supporting himself.
In training, he was slower, his punches felt like feathers, his explosions no stronger than a firecracker.
Of course, Katsuki realizes this himself as well. But he’s in too deep. He can’t eat, without feeling like he’s out of control again, and he needed control.
Bakugo Katsuki had consumed himself.