Chew And Swallow

He was weirdly aggressive when it came to food, no matter how little it was. It was like he was scared of it being taken away from him. Tremor knew Tasia had tried to assure him that no one in The Black Dragon had any intention of letting him starve, but none of it seemed to help. He also ate quickly, to the point he’d make himself gag from how fast he shovelled food into his face. Tremor was honestly surprised he had either choked or made himself throw up yet.

Yes, yes, this was all very clearly a trauma response, and Tremor needed to tread lightly since he didn’t know what the trauma was in this instance. While the others were content to let Kuai be, Tremor knew that if someone didn’t step in to try and correct this behaviour it was just going to snowball.

And once again, it seemed Tremor was that someone.

Kuai was sitting with a pile of candy, no doubt provided to him by Tasia. He was shovelling it into his mouth, sometimes several pieces at a time, and yet again he kept gagging from the sheer amount of food he was putting in his mouth. Tremor sighed, and slowly approached.

“Kuai Liang,” he greeted, and Kuai’s eyes flicked up to him briefly, while his hand reached for more candy. Kuai’s mouth was already full, he couldn’t possibly fit more in. Tremor grabbed the candy before Kuai could. “Stop.”

Kuai’s eyes widened, a mix of shock and rage, and Tremor knew a tantrum was about to commence but he was going to put a stop to that before it could happen.

“Chew and swallow what you already have in your mouth first,” he ordered, seeing the dark anger in Kuai’s eyes. “Then you can have more.”

Kuai didn’t do what he was told. His hands balled up into fists instead, flakes of ice beginning to cover his knuckles. When Kuai made no effort to do as he was told, Tremor went to take more of the candy.

Kuai grabbed his arm, and made a very loud but muffled growl. His jaw twisted as he chewed the food before eventually swallowing it.

“There, happy?” Kuai hissed, yanking on Tremor’s arm slightly. “Now give my candy back! It’s mine!”

“If you’re going to throw a fit over it, no I won’t,” Tremor huffed, trying to break Kuai’s grip on him.

“Give me my candy back,” Kuai howled, strangely sounding like he was about to cry. His fingernails began to dig into Tremors skin, causing a slight sting. “Give it to me!”

“Not until you learn how to behave,” Tremor snarled back, and holy shit, the reaction to that was instantaneous.

But it wasn’t the angry tantrum he’d expected. Kuai let go of Tremor’s arm, his eyes wide in terror. Now he wasn’t just sounding like he was about to cry, but his eyes were genuinely welling with tears.

“I-I’m sorry,” Kuai sobbed, hands reaching up to claw at his own biceps. “Please. I’ll be better.”

Ah, shit, it seemed Tremor had accidentally hit the trauma button without intending to.

“The Lin Kuei used to take your food away when you didn’t meet their expectations, huh?” Tremor summarised because this was the forgone conclusion anyone would come to with this reaction.

Kuai bowed his head slightly, cheeks slightly wet from the tears that were now flowing down his cheeks.

“Food is a privilege,” Kuai muttered bitterly. “And I rarely earned that privilege.”

Right. That explained so goddamn much.

The Lin Kuei really did just fucking break this man apart and then dumped him on The Black Dragon for them to try and put the peices back together, didn’t they?

“Kuai Liang, listen,” he started as he sat down opposite him. “I have no intentions to take your food away, alright. But the way you eat does worry me. You eat too much too fast, and you could end up making yourself sick or even choke on it.”

Kuai’s head stirred slightly, as he mumbled “if I don’t eat fast, I don’t eat.”

“That was in The Lin Kuei, that isn’t how we do things here.” Tremor pulled out one of the candy bars he’d snatched and held it out to Kuai. Kuai hesitated, but took it in his hand. “Let’s try this, one bite at a time. Chew and swallow before you take your next bite.”

Kuai gave him a resentful look, likely over the fact that he was being treated like a child. Still he unwrapped the bar, and despite looking for a second like he was going to shove the entire thing into his mouth, he eventually relented and took one bite from it. Admittedly it was a big bite, but baby steps, Tremor supposed.

Kuai gently chewed the bar for a couple of seconds, before finally swallowing.

Tremor gave a relieved sigh, as Kuai continued to eat the rest of the bar in the same way.

This was far from the end, but maybe for once, Tremor might actually be going in the right direction with helping Kuai Liang.

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