My arm held Sana in place against me. I rested against his propped up bed, and he was in front of me. Like this, I was feeding him his lunch. It was shogayaki and onions, as prepared by my mom. The back of his head rested against the side of my neck, turned a little to me. I watched him eat, so careful for signs of distress. He was doing well so far. He seemed tired, but I wanted him to eat as much as he wanted. His eyes were closed, but that was okay.

The whole time, I was thinking of something that had happened in the third week of October. I remember it, because it changed our lives. It was a Thursday night. We were going to visit my parents that weekend. However, the night before, I'd learned a strange piece of information from Nobu when we'd all gone out together.

Nobu had been drunk, and so was Masaki. Yami and Sana hadn't drank at all, which I'd found odd. Sana didn't to like to drink, but Yami seemed like the kind of person who would at least drink socially. I'd had a few, but I was fine. We were walking to karaoke, and Yami was walking with Sana up ahead. We were passing a lot of little bars and restaurants, and things like that, and I saw one that looked particularly fun. We hadn't eaten much, and I was a bit hungry.

I turned to Nobu, and he stopped walking. "Should we duck in here and get something to eat first? It looks like it has good food. Do you think Sana would be hungry? I noticed he didn't eat much at the izakaya. He must be hungry by now."

Nobu just gave me a funny little smile. He walked past me. "Sana, hungry?" He laughed. "Sana doesn't eat."

At that moment, it was like my life flashed before my eyes. Memories. I stood there, blinking, stunned.

Sana putting a bowl of miso soup in front of me the first time we met. "I'm not hungry," he'd said. Then, Sana making that beautiful coffee and raspberry cake. "Oh, it's for you, it wouldn't be right for me to eat it." After that, at my apartment, when I brought home Indian food for us. "Oh, I already ate. It looks delicious, though," he'd said.

As I stood there, I realized. Almost every single meal we'd had together, he had some kind of excuse. "I'm not hungry." "You enjoy it, I'm happy to watch you eat." "It's too rich for me, I couldn't possibly."

Thinking about him eating. I'd always been talking a mile a minute to him, while eating also. How much did I pay attention to him eating? Now that I thought about it, whenever he went to go wash our plates and bowls, there seemed to be an awful lot left on his.

I watched Sana walk away ahead of me. I compared his body to Yami's. My stomach descended to my toes, comparing them. Sana looked so small compared. Willow thin, too thin. I always admired how tiny he was. Now, seeing him next to Yami, analyzing like this... I always said, "Ah, Sana, you're skinny like a model." But now...

Sana doesn't eat.

I hurriedly rushed back up to walk with Masaki and Nobu.

The next day, I'd had to go to work. We were at Sana's apartment. We'd gone home together the night before, because he'd wanted to make sure I made it back safely. There'd been some snacks at karaoke, but he didn't touch a nibble of it. He sat there, drinking his Coke Zero and cheering everyone on. He'd sang a few songs himself, but generally he watched everyone. As I sang my songs, I watched him also. I compared his size to his band members'. I know Sana has a different body type. But, just comparing the weight. His friends are pretty healthy guys, but are still pretty trim. Sana has some lean muscle, but he just looked... My stomach stayed at my toes.

Putting it into the context that Nobu had suggested... Watching Sana smile and not eat anything... At work, all I could think about was Sana not eating. Trying not to put it together in my head this way, but there was no other way to look at it.

Was Sana Anorexic? Was that what was happening? And I hadn't seen it for three weeks? Where was my attention this whole time? Did I really care about him at all, since I hadn't noticed this? The more I thought about it, it was a pattern.

Just that morning, we'd eaten breakfast together. He made eggs and pancakes with a special maple syrup which he usually used in his cakes, he'd said. I watched him discreetly. He ate his eggs, but didn't touch a bite of his pancakes. He even cut them up and pushed them around his plate as he laughed at the story I was telling about work. Expertly, he was looking at me and acting cute, and normally that would have distracted me.

So, I poked my fork into a piece of his pancake. I twirled it around in the syrup on his plate. I smiled at him, masking my concern. "Say, ahh-n," I said, trying to be as friendly as possible.

For the briefest of split seconds, his act went down. A tiny panic rose in his face. Then he was smiling that cute smile again. "Oh, no, it's okay. I don't like pancakes, I just made them because it's special? I used the syrup I imported. I wanted to make something nice for you."

"It would be a shame to waste the syrup, then," I protested, tilting my head, something I did which I knew he couldn't resist.

But, resist it he did. "Ah! Look at the time! You're going to be late. I'll clean up. Your work is further away since we're at my apartment, isn't it?" He got up, leaving me hanging. He gathered our plates and turned away from me. I popped the fluffy piece of pancake left on my fork in my mouth. My eyes went up a little in the deliciousness of it. Why wouldn't he want to eat this? Was it the calories? But, this small morsel wouldn't have much. It must have been worse than I thought, and my worried feeling descended even lower than I ever thought it could.

This person I'd grown to like so much. Was he this far gone? That he wouldn't even eat a morsel of something sweet like this? I'd encountered Anorexia and other things like it before. A few of my friends had gone through it. I thought about them and the things they'd done. It all fit, the more I thought about it. I breathed in deeply, watching him scrape his mostly full plate into the garbage. I was about to say something, but thought better of it. My friends back then. If I'd brought such a thing up to them, they'd have been horrified. They'd have just fiercely denied it, and turned it around on me instead.

I wouldn't dare do something like that to Sana. I wouldn't want him to get mad at me, or worse, cry and accuse me of thinking this of him. Really, I was scared of his reaction. I really liked him. I didn't want him to run away from me.

That night, I offered to take him to dinner. He happily agreed. However, over the course of the day, I'd been so worried about him. His band members had to be aware that he wasn't eating. Nobu had told me almost like it was a running joke. How could they joke about this? It bothered me so much. I wanted to confront them about it. Tell them that someone being Anorexic is no joking matter. That if it got bad enough, Sana could die from it. Maybe they weren't taking it seriously enough.

We wandered around his neighborhood for a while. Eventually, we settled on the a restaurant that specialized in hamburgers with an outside seating area. I was excited about it, because since Sana is American, maybe he'd be interested in eating there. He was as excited as I was.

When our food came, I ate my cheeseburger, and I watched Sana. He poked around at the vegetables he'd ordered with his cheeseburger. He ate some of them, taking a lot of time between bites. I was telling him about my day, but the more I watched him, the more I lost my appetite. He tore apart his burger a little, as if to make it into bite-sized pieces for easier eating, but really, he was pushing it around his plate and making it look like he'd eaten some. It really did look like there was less of it there. He never rose any of it to his mouth. He ate more of his vegetables, but that's it.

He was an expert in deception. If I hadn't been watching, I never would have noticed he hadn't touched his burger at all. Now I'd had it. Enough was enough. His band members could laugh at it, but I couldn't sit idly by and watch him starve himself.

I put my half eaten burger down. I picked up a particularly large french fry off my plate, and gestured it towards him. "Say, ahh-n," I said, experimenting. If he refused it, I would say something.

"Oh, no, I don't like the look of the spice on that," he laughed. He looked down demurely, something else that would have charmed me.

"I noticed you haven't touched your burger. You haven't eaten barely anything. You barely ate at breakfast, too." I put the french fry back on my plate, and his shoulders bunched up a little. His eyes were on his own plate. "Do you have an explanation for this? You always do, I noticed. Nobu said you don't eat. I've been paying attention since then. He's right. What's going on, Sana?"

His shoulders bunched up more. No more masks now. He stared forward. In the low light of the strung up lights, I saw him blush. His hands folded in his lap, tightly bound together.

I saw this. I had to let him know I wasn't mad at him. Quickly, he'd shown me in our first couple of weeks together that he didn't like anger. He looked like he wanted to bolt away.

I grabbed his hands. He jumped and was staring me in the face, his mouth parted, his eyes in fear. I knew it. He thought I was mad at him. I couldn't be mad at him. It broke my heart that he was looking at me like that.

"I'm not mad at you," I said, trying to make my voice as gentle as possible. "I'm just trying to understand. I've noticed you don't eat much. Are you worried...about- about your weight, or...? Is that what it is? I just want you to be healthy. You don't have to worry about your weight so much. You're so, so tiny. You have to believe that. I want you to eat more. I know it's not that easy. We can get through this together. You don't have to hide it."

He looked down at our hands. He wouldn't look me in the face. We stayed like that for a while. The hustle and bustle of the street passed us by, music from far away went through a few different songs, the evening was turning into a dark purple that would soon be night.

I stroked his hands. His lips were pressed together. He was so, so tense. "We'll get through this together," I assured him. "I've had a few friends who had Anorexia. I know about how it is. I can't claim I understand completely, because I've never had Anorexia. But, I know what it's like to worry that I'm not maintaining my weight. You've seen me, right? I go to the gym, I count calories in a way, mentally cutting corners in my head. I think maybe your worry about maintaining your weight is a little out of control. That's okay. We can work through it. Will you eat a little bit? Is there something else that you like to eat? We can go somewhere else. I don't care how expensive it is. I want to help you. Please let me help you." I bowed my head down to him, to show my sincerity.

"Uh...unk..." He swallowed in a half gasp in his throat. My head came back up, and I saw his eyes were swimming in tears. The corners of his mouth were downturned.

"It's okay," I breathed, wetness coming to my own eyes. "I'm right, aren't I? Oh, don't cry, don't cry. It's okay. I care about you." I brought him in for an embrace. He hugged me, too, and I rocked him gently from side to side.

After a few minutes, with him sniffling in my ear, he finally spoke. "I like...grilled and boiled chicken and vegetables. I like eggs, and nuts. I like tofu. Beans are good, and I really like sweet potatoes."

"Okay. We can go get some of those. I want you to eat, okay? Let's go get something you like. I'll walk around all night if I have to."

"Okay," he whimpered. We parted, and I wiped his tears away with his clean napkin. This made him cry again, so I hugged him for a long time.

This was the start of us eating the things he could eat if we ate together. I was more cautious to include the things he liked to eat with our meals, making sure that wherever we went had something he liked. I'd read menus in advance, no more spontaneously popping into a trendy place that looked fun. He started to eat more, and that filled my heart with gladness. He still wouldn't eat dessert, but I'd take the victory of him eating full meals.

I had no idea what I'd actually been doing at the time. I'd in fact begun including his severely restrictive medical diet into our meals together, and that's why he'd cried at the restaurant that day. I'd been so concerned about him not eating, and I'd finally noticed. He'd felt so special, that I'd noticed this about him and wanted to help him, even if I'd come to the wrong conclusion.

He confessed a week later that he has his genetic endocrine disorder. I'd been so happy that I'd gotten him to eat ice cream at Disneyland. Finally, he was having dessert with me. I felt like that was such a victory. But, it was what ultimately made him pass out from high blood sugar that day. I felt so stupid, but he assured me I had no way of knowing.

When I finally learned the source of his diet, that he was actually very sick, I felt so guilty. So terrible. He actually couldn't eat the foods he'd been making for me. He had to miss out on all these delicious things. And I'd made him drink that one night at my favorite sushi restaurant and made him very ill, because his diseased liver couldn't process the alcohol. I attempted to apologize for this as he laid in his hospital bed that day when he got sick at Disneyland, looking so awfully small under the blanket. He'd smiled at me, and told me it was okay. How could he be smiling? If it had been me, I'd just... I had no words for it. At that moment, something filled me completely, a new feeling.

I knew it was admiration turning into love. A fierce wanting to protect him, more than myself. To watch out for him, and make sure he was okay. The he didn't have to go through this alone. I'd be there for him. We were always together, anyway. He didn't have to keep track of his diet alone. I'd learn more about it from him, and always make sure he could eat if we went somewhere. I'd learn the symptoms of if he'd eaten too much sugar, and I'd learn to help him if he had. Not only that, he'd told me that green lettuce, beef, and dairy were like poison to him due to various other problems that his disorder caused in his body. As he'd told me these things, I was horrified, but I kept my composure.

He wasn't Anorexic at all. He just had so, so many things that he wasn't allowed to eat. If he mistakenly ate any of these things, he'd get so sick that he might have to go to the hospital.

Eating this kind of diet, devoid of anything fattening like junk food or sweets or even many carbs, had caused him to be very thin. He admitted to me that in fact, he was pretty ashamed of being so thin. I wasn't the first one who'd asked if he was Anorexic. Some people even asked if he had cancer. He didn't blame them. He said that in reality, he wished he could bulk up like Yami. "I want Yami's muscles. I want a more masculine body. I look pretty girly like this, don't I?" He'd sighed. I'd hugged him then. We hugged for a long time.

So now, feeding him as he laid against me, I was making sure he got as much to eat as he wanted. I'd keep him awake until he refused. It was a stroke of unfortunate luck that we'd even found out he could eat pork if prepared a certain way. It turned out, he'd been getting sick from pork due to the fried nature of all the pork he'd tried to eat in the past.

"Say, ahh-n," I smiled to him, even though he couldn't see. I poked my chopsticks into his mouth, and watched him gorgeously chew. He smiled, too, and I felt him relax even more on my body. He swallowed, and I waited a moment for him.

"It tastes good," he whispered.

"I'm glad," I said, preparing more shogayaki to pick up with my chopsticks. I mixed some shredded onion with this, and picked it up. His mouth was already open for more.

It made my heart so happy that I could burst.