Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandom:
Relationship:
Character:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:
2021-01-02
Words:
498
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
5
Kudos:
231
Bookmarks:
15
Hits:
2,341

Atychiphobia

Summary:

Atychiphobia: the fear of being evaluated negatively, more known as the fear of failure. Phobias are commonly formed during one’s childhood either through a traumatic event or was learned from a family member. Atychiphobia leads to the individual not trying things, especially outside of their comfort zone, if they feel like their success isn’t guaranteed.

Aka: a fic about the headcanon that Gakuhuo’s terrible parenting led to Gakushuu having really bad atychiphobia.

Notes:

I have always head cannoned Gakushuu with atychiphobia and I wanted to write something with that idea. This is pretty messy and stuff but it’s still July 1st for me and I wanted to get a fic out for Shuu’s birthday. If only it wasn’t about how much Gakuhuo F*ed up.

(See the end of the work for more notes and other works inspired by this one.)

Work Text:

Gakushuu was always labeled a perfectionist. He would spend way too much time, effort, and energy on simple things to make sure that it was perfect in every single aspect. During the rare occasions of group projects, people would constantly say that Gakushuu was a little bit of a pain to work with. He would end up making a fuss at every slight mistake and spent most of the time just completely redoing his group members’ work to make sure that it is flawless. No one ever saw the anxiety bubbling up inside of him as he corrected everything. Even when there were no mistakes in sight, he would spend time worrying if his work was good enough. It takes nearly all of his energy to not shut down and give up on things when there is the slightest chance of things not going his way, and sometimes the only thing that could get him to even make an attempt at things was push the odds to be on his side.

Gakushuu was hardly able to get himself to actually do the pole toppling. It was such a terrible idea and probably shouldn’t even be allowed at a junior high sport festival. The reason he invited the exchange students was because it gave him a sense of confidence. This was a nerd school; how good could E-Class be? It made him feel like his success was almost guaranteed and that’s why he followed through. Yet, it wasn’t.

How in the world did he fail?

For the finals, he was so close to not even trying. He knew he didn’t stand a chance. He couldn’t handle another failure. He can’t take another one. Fear and anxiety has sunken its claws deeper into his flesh, and he felt nauseous.

He failed again.

Things were that simple. He failed again.

He was also hit.

Everything started to make sense though.

People would say his condition greatly worsened after that. He barely did anything. He couldn’t bring himself to. He dropped all competitions; he dropped everything.

Growing up, Gakushuu was constantly told that everything he did was a contest and he had to make sure that he was successful in every single one of them. Well, you can’t fail in a contest that you never joined to began with. There really was no difference between winning and losing if both led to the anxiety of the next competition. Those claws were so deep into him that they had probably pierced straight through already.

It was pretty ironic when you think about it: that in the principle’s attempts to make someone successful and confident, he ended up making them fearful. That, what started out as a simple case of atychiphobia, turned into something way worse. Now, Gakushuu stands in a point of his life and he can’t go on any farther because he’s paralyzed with the fear of messing up-of failing at anything at all.
And that-

 

 

 

 

 

 

Was not a life worth living.

Notes:

Somehow it still ended with a hint towards Shuu being suicidal?! I have no idea how this got here. I don’t know. But, like, you know you f*ed up as a parent when your son is terrified to do anything because there’s a slight chance at him messing up and failing.

Works inspired by this one: