Nazuka Shouko is a doctor specializing in shrinking diseases, viruses, and other such ailments. She gained some notoriety in the medical field for disproving the existence of a “shrinking virus that only affects men.” She currently works at Small Town University, conducting various treatments on those who have the potential to shrink, and experiments on those who have. Of course, as a doctor, Shouko’s life is incredibly busy; however, like any good doctor, she’s managed to balance this with her own routine that she’s developed for herself over the years, and one that’s just flexible enough to keep her wits about her.
Every morning, she wakes up at 6:30 to her blaring alarm clock, smacking it off, grabbing her red-rimmed glasses off the nightstand and getting up with a stretch and a yawn. She heads downstairs and makes herself breakfast and coffee at around 6:35, finishing around 6:45. She then gets dressed (usually an orange shirt and black skirt and, of course, her standard lab coat), brushes her teeth, and fixes her hair. After that, she’s got to take care of her shrunken pet- PATIENTS. She has to take care of her patients. Yes, that’s what they are.
She heads back downstairs, grabbing the containment room key out of its secret spot (behind a poster of “Attack of the 50 foot Woman”. Shouko thought it was funny. The patients probably wouldn’t) and enters the large room, filled wall to wall with glass containers and compartments. It was like a pantry full of puny people. She grabbed their food (some soft bread crumbs she’d crushed up earlier in the week) and began her walk down the aisle.
Each compartment is labeled with numbers; the first is 0-50, the second is 51-100, and so on. This organizes all the shrunken patients in numerical order (she used to organize them by size, but she found that that would lead to confusion with who was numbered what). She greets all of them the same: The same warm smile, the same bright eyes, and the same cheery “Hey, little ones! It’s feeding time~!”. Then she deposits their food into the middle of the container, waving them goodbye and saying “Bon appetit!”. She does this with each container, all the way to 400. Then, she arrives at a special compartment: the 2 centimeter container. All patients who’ve shrunk to this size are virtually incurable. As such, they’re no longer considered human. And since they’re not human anymore, Shouko can experiment on them far more than the average tiny. Even so, she drops the crumb wordlessly into their container; you still have to keep your lab rats fed, after all.
After feeding is done, she collects some test tubes, puts them in her coat pocket, and heads over to another special compartment; the “room” of her shrunken assistant, Laura. Laura used to be a scientist working alongside Shouko- unfortunately, she fell victim to a shrinking virus, and dwindled down to a measly 3.5 inches- that’s better than most, mind you. Although this incident was indeed horrible, Shouko, ever the opportunist, realized that Laura could still benefit the medical field: as the supervisor to all her shrunken patients. She had a special passkey that allowed her entrance into a special mechanical door Shouko had installed in the back of each container. All these doors connected back into Laura’s “room”. Though Laura probably wouldn’t admit it, she was still one of Shouko’s shrunken pets- maybe even moreso, considering she has the equivalent of those tubes people put in gerbil cages.
“How’re all the patients today, Laura?” “Just fine, Shouko. Number 214 is still complaining about their treatment in the 2 centimeter compartment.” “Yeesh, tell me something I don’t know.” Shouko laughed at her own joke. To Laura and the others, it sounded like the rumble of lightning. “Oh, we’re also missing number 193.” “I see. Well, keep up the good work Laura! It helps me keep mine~!” Shouko said with a wink, heading out to work, stepping into her flats and heading out to her car, driving to S.T.U, and arriving at least 5 minutes early; 8:55. Perfect timing.
For the next several hours, Shouko would take subjects, all organized by number. Any who would shrink would be swiftly collected by her, dropped into one of her various test tubes, and quickly be written off as a failure. At some point, one of the S.T.U medical students would attempt to participate. One of them, a sophomore girl named Julie, was shadowing with her, since she, too, wanted to go into the shrinking field of medicine. Julie… wasn’t exactly good at this. She’d lost more than a dozen subjects the other day. And that was just one day- she’d lost far more over the course of her internship. She wanted to talk with Shouko about this in private (not really paying any mind to the tinies in Shouko’s possession), and, sure enough, she arrived at her scheduled time: 11:30.
“Um… Dr. Shouko?” “Ah, Julie! You wanted to talk to me about something?” “Yes, um… if I could explain my disturbingly high shrinking rate and tiny loss-” “Well, I’ll do that for you: you’re a bad doctor.” Shouko said, swaying in her spinning office chair. “W-Wha-” “Ah, I’m just pulling your leg, Julie! C’mon, let’s walk and talk.” She said, putting her hand on Julie’s shoulder and dragging her along with her through the halls of the clinic. “You see, Julie, having a patient shrink on you is nothing to be embarrassed about.” “It’s not?” “Psh, nope! Trust me, it happens to me at least once a day! Isn’t that right, everyone?” Shouko shook her pockets, eliciting high-pitched, nearly inaudible squeaking from them. “See? Dozens of them! But you can’t let it get to you- remember, they’re not legally considered humans anymore- therefore, there’s nothing to be ashamed of when using them to satiate your curiosity.” “Wow… thank you so much!” “No problem. Now, losing them, that is something to be embarrassed about.” “Because it means we lost another person…?” “No, because it means we can’t experiment! Y’know, I’ll tell you what…” Shouko looked into the breast pocket of her lab coat at all the tiny people squirming in their test tubes. “Any of you tinies want to help out my intern here?” None of them answered; they were too busy trying to get out of each other’s way.
Shouko clicked her tongue in bemusement, hovering her hand over the tubes. “Alright then, well, let’s see. How’s about… you!” She pulled the tube out of her pocket, tipping it into her palm and letting a small woman fall into her hand. “Here ya go, Jules- do some testing on her, alright?” Shouko said with a cutesy wink and a smile. “Y-Yes, Dr. Shouko.” Julie said, taking the tiny into her cupped palms and heading to one of the various testing rooms. Shouko sighed contently, looking at the clock on the wall: 11:35. “Oh, shoot, I’ve got an appointment!”
After several more hours of testing and shrinking and collecting, it was finally time to head home. She looked in her test tubes again: “Alright, shift is over, everyone. Know what that means?” They all stared up at her in fear and confusion. “Means that I’m taking you to your new home~!” Shouko said with an excited cheerfulness in her voice. She drove back home (making sure not to hit any speed bumps too hard- she didn’t want tinies flying out and getting all over her car). When she arrived back home, she went to the containment room and deposited the new arrivals in the necessary compartments. “We’ve got some new arrivals, Laura- be sure to help them get settled.” “Yes, ma’am.”
She hangs up her lab coat, and checks the clock: 5:15. She was free until she went to sleep. She stretched again, tired after a long day’s work, and when she came back down, her breasts wobbled a bit in her shirt, and jiggled right out of the “perfect spot” she’d put them in to not be uncomfortable. She sighed in annoyance, looking over at the 2 centimeter compartment. She cupped her boobs for a moment, looking down at her cleavage, and then back to the compartment. “Eh, yeah.” She shrugged, plucking some of them out of the container and depositing them in her underboob. She sighed in relief, wiggling her chest back and forth. “Ahhh, MUCH better~!” She said.
She then headed to the kitchen, placed a call for a food delivery, and headed upstairs, hopping on her couch and kicking her feet up on the coffee table, turning on the TV and leaning back to relax. She became engrossed in a rerun of Scrubs, before her attention was taken by her doorbell ringing. She headed downstairs and greeted the delivery guy. “One medium cheese pizza?” “Yup, that’s me!” “$8.75, ma’am.” “Alright, let me…” She reached around, feeling her empty pockets. “Huh?” She said, confused, bending over and giving the delivery guy a perfect view of her cleavage. “Ugh, I think I forgot my wallet upstairs. Let me go get i-” “N-No need, ma’am, it’s on the house.” “Oh. Really? Well, thanks! Have a nice night!” “Y-Yeah, you too.” He said, walking away as she closed the door. “Time to dig in~!”
After a couple more hours, she packed her leftovers into the fridge, and headed back upstairs to get ready for her shower. Before she took her shirt off, she felt something squirming under her boob. “What the- Ohhhh, right! I totally forgot about all of you, haha!” Shouko giggled, heading back downstairs and dumping her “padding” back into the 2 centimeter container. She showered for 20 minutes, before getting out and getting dressed into her pajamas. She looked at the time: 8:30. She was about to crawl into bed, but her stomach growling stopped her. She paused, wondering if she had anything to eat for dessert, remembering there were chocolate chip cookies in her pantry. That sounded good right about now.
She headed back downstairs in her pajamas, grabbing a cookie out of the container. What she didn’t notice was the tiny that had gotten themselves stuck in one of the chocolate chips: number 193. Shouko took a bite, separating a chunk of cookie and chewing it up; 193 somehow managed to miraculously avoid her gnashing teeth- but it wouldn’t save him from Shouko’s tongue tilting back, swallowing him and the cookie down in an effortless GULP.
Shouko finished up the cookie, brushed her teeth, and climbed into her bed. She took off her glasses, putting them back on the nightstand, and turned off her lamp. She let out another contented sigh, putting her arms under her pillow, turned to her side, closed her eyes, and drifted off to sleep, ready to repeat the routine all over again tomorrow…
THE END