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Chisato Mera’s life wasn’t exactly a happy one. It wasn’t laden with misery and misfortune like Hii-chan’s was. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t feel a sense of comradery with the school’s resident walking disaster.
Their situations were different, but the first day that Chisato saw the girl stumble through the halls of PK Academy, covered in cuts and blood, seeming like she’d gone through a tsunami and then some just to get there -- it felt as though for the first time in her life there was someone who understood her daily struggle.
And just like that- she met a nice boy, and her luck seemed to shift. It wasn’t ‘good’ by any means, but- she was.. happy. Satisfied.
One person walked into Hii-chan’s life. One person looked her way. And it was enough.
Was Chisato happy? Was she satisfied with her life? Was anything ever enough?
Her father finally came home after a long, oppressively silent absence. And their debt was forgiven! They were still poor, but that was something to be happy about right? A reason to be satisfied?
She had so many wonderful friends. Ones who would share food with her, even! Ones who would forgive her for her less than flattering personality quirks. Like extortion, her tendency to guilt-trip people into getting her way, her reoccurring binges..
She could list so many reasons to be happy. To be grateful for what she had. But she wasn’t.
It wasn’t enough. It was never enough.
Despite everything she still felt… empty.
Not just physically! She was used not feeling full. She was used to feeling unfulfilled in her life, in her jobs, everything.
It wasn’t enough to have seven jobs-- she needed more.
It wasn’t enough to make enough money to pay for the bare minimum for survival-- she wanted more.
It wasn’t enough to have a meal every once in a while-- she needed MORE!
School was a godsend.
People brought food to school. Classmates would share if she strong-armed them into doing it.
And money was abundant with Saiko around. (She’d gotten enough to buy a meal for herself and her siblings more than once from the man who so carelessly and generously thew money at her. Literally.)
Sometimes she would even get to ‘cook’ in class! Well, she never really cooked, mostly she just ate whatever no one else wanted. Sometimes she lost control and ate the ingredients right out of the bowl! Why wait for it to be cooked when she can just eat it now, right??
But the greatest saving grace was that she qualified for reduced lunches, even with her father around, after he came back home. At first, she’d sustained herself almost exclusively on rice and pickled plums during the school year. Rice was cheap after all. She couldn’t afford school lunches, and she was scared to tell anyone that her father wasn’t at home with her. What if they took her siblings away from her?!
It wasn’t her fault that Mom died and Dad left! And she couldn’t bear the thought of going through those cold dark nights all alone. So she kept it a secret.
Yet another selfish act, but a necessary one. Even if being in the system would ensure her little brothers and sisters a warm bed to sleep in and full bellies, she couldn’t bring herself to lose them too. Not after losing both of her parents.
But now Dad was back. And now she could finally fill out the paperwork to get herself and her younger siblings on reduced lunches! Free would have been better—there she goes, being ungrateful again. But being able to eat every day, even if only once during the school year, was that really too much to ask? It certainly sounded better than once a week.
But even so that was better than the long winter and summer breaks. The months of time that seemed to stretch on forever, where she worked tirelessly from before the sun rose in the morning long until the nights while the moon watched over her in the sky.
Those days all she ate was snow and grass. Dirty leaves and flowers, shady mushrooms. Sometimes she’d drop food during her shifts waiting tables just for a quick bite to eat. Sometimes she lost control around all of that food and was scolded for it. More than once she’d been fired for that. She winces at the memory.
The train of thought she was on brought her back to another less than pleasant memory. One when she’d been stranded at sea with her so-called friends for several days.
The island had been a difficult situation for everyone, but of course, Chisato knew that things would have gone better if it weren’t for her.
She ate- everything. The food that could have been used to help everyone else live comfortably on the island for several days- she took it all for herself!
She knew that it wasn’t a good thing to do, but- ‘I have to keep eating!’ her thoughts screamed at her. It was all she could think about- ‘Food! FOOD! FOOD!’ Food, nourishment. The sustenance she’d been denied for so long. She was overcome with desire, it felt as though her body was moving all on it’s own. When was the last time she’d eaten? When was the last time she’d gone to bed with a full stomach?
It was a selfish action, but not one she could bring herself to feel responsible for.
She did feel guilty about it, sure. After all, she did try to apologize to everyone with mushrooms and other foliage on the island. Not a breakfast of champions by any means, but Mera herself didn’t care, all food was worth eating in her eyes, even if it made her feel sick and she would loose the contents of her stomach the same day, or she would be nearly bed-ridden with pain from food poisoning, it didn’t matter. She was more than content with scraps if it meant she wouldn’t feel the bottomless emptiness inside her.
But when she’d been surrounded by so much -- such excess, she couldn’t handle it! Saiko had more than enough to share, didn’t he?! And meanwhile she had nothing!
So many nights spent in the cold, dark place she called her home, so many nights where she went to bed hungry, or couldn’t sleep at all, because she was working, or caring for her younger siblings, or- or just, crying silently all alone at night while her little brothers and sisters slept, hoping that they wouldn’t hear just how exhausted she was.
It just wasn’t fair!
So she indulged. She went too far. She ate everything she could get her hands on. And then even after the boat crashed and the situation changed, all she could think about was going hungry again. Knowing that if she didn’t eat the food now, it would go away! Someone else would eat it, it would go to waste, it would go away!
And that was how Chisato justified her actions. Her suffering had been immense, and these people would go home to a warm bed after all of this was over. They would go home to a warm meal and a hot bath. After they were rescued, everyone else would be -safe. Warm. Full. Happy. Cared for. Everyone but her.
Instead, she would go “home” to empty stomachs, crying younger siblings, tattered clothes, a structure crumbling around her, filled with bugs and dirt- a feeling of dread, not knowing which meal would be her last. Not knowing when she’d get to eat again.
It had been a while since Chisato had felt like that, and the long, seemingly never-ending year of suffering had become a thing of the past.
She was in her third year now.
She was eating almost every day now.
She was able to save up some money for her future thanks to her numerous jobs.
Dad helped buy food and clean the house. And he helped pay the bills to keep the heat on in the winter and the AC on in the summer. Plus, her siblings were at an age where they could start looking after themselves and each-other a bit more.
Her friends, her wonderful, beautiful friends; often gave her left-overs without complaint.
Nendou often paid for her ramen when she tagged along with the boys after school.
Kuboyasu ‘lent’ her money once or twice, without expecting her to pay him back in turn.
Yumehara always gave a share of her snacks.
Teruhashi started carrying emergency rations in her bag just for Chisato.
Even Saiko would give her gifts unprompted, for seemingly no other reason than he cared.
Mysterious lunches would appear in her shoe-box on days she didn’t have enough money to buy her own food, almost like someone knew, and was watching over her somehow.
.
...But it still wasn’t enough.
That fear- the cold, heart-stopping fear in the pit of her stomach didn’t go away. Her hunger didn’t go away. Even when she wasn’t starving, even when she wasn’t empty she still never felt full. And maybe she never would.