I wasn’t able to rest my body during my break at first, but the last five minutes were at least calming enough for the adrenaline to leave me. Yae ended up forgiving me since I couldn’t really do anything on purpose at my current size. That left the blame on Takahashi. I spent the break watching Takahashi try to buy Yae’s forgiveness. I could see that Yae was thinking up a ‘simple’ punishment for Takahashi. It was a shame I couldn’t take part in the conversation, but seeing Takahashi panic when Yae said she’d save the punishment for next week did make me grin. Yae seemed to be disappointed she couldn’t relax with me much like Arai and Watanabe were or Nakano and Honda were.

The third session was going to begin soon so Yae had to bring me back to the front table, but after she did, I was surprised to see Takahashi get called over by the health committee. There was apparently an issue. That gave us a little extra time to rest up, well, everyone except me and Nakano. The curiosity of how Honda cared for Nakano and the surprise of seeing Yae fall onto me that the guys saw led to them questioning us.

Nakano being flustered and tongue tied saved him from answering but I was a bit too honest for my own good. We had a good chat before the health committee members returned. 

It was a surprise to see more than one health committee member besides Takahashi show up. After Takahashi who came back with a video cart and projector were Sasakura-sensei, Morino and Akagi. The two talkative friends from classes 2-B and 2-C were also rolling their own carts into the room while accompanied by our school nurse who had a stack of papers in her hands. 

Takahashi set up the cart and project in the middle of the room while the friendly pair of Morino and Akagi went behind the teacher’s table with the cart. To our amazement, one of the carts had a reduced classroom on it. Around the size of a dictionary, the classroom building had its roof removed, but that wasn’t all. With a tap of Akagi’s fingers, the walls were all knocked down as though they were made of cardboard. Such a demolition that would normally require a number of workers had been accomplished by the tip of one girl’s nail. Morino then placed a folded up piece of cardboard to act as a bridge with guardrails for us to cross from the table to the cart.

“Hey, boys. Your next two lessons will be on tables, so no more floor for you,” Morino smiled as she adjusted her black, spider-web patterned scrunchie pulling her brown hair back into a ponytail. “Touya-san, can you lead the guys over?”

“We brought a bunch of desks because now it’s time for the joint activities with the girls,” The cutesy Akagi added, giving us a wink. “I bet you didn’t see this coming, did you, Tou-san?”

Joint activities? I certainly didn’t. What kind of joint activities could we do when the difference in scale between the boys and girls was this massive? Nonetheless, I did as Morino requested and was the first to cross the cardboard bridge over to the cart. Akagi bent down to desk level to get a better look at us. It was a little unnerving to see a face wider than the chasm we were crossing. Her breaths, though unnoticeable to her, were actually strong enough to shake the bridge with a heavy gale. I wasn’t appreciative. I was even less appreciative when the guys started pestering me on the nickname Akagi used.

“Tou-san, she said… Wow, someone’s popular...”

I reserved the right to remain silent and only hoped Yae hadn’t heard. Fortunately, she hadn’t as Akagi had been whispering. Akagi was an energetic and bright-eyed girl who really knew how to overstep her boundaries, a cute-type who wore a cardigan with sleeves that were too long to the point where they went up to her fingers. She was very fond of nicknames. This was one of the reasons why I had been careful about my health committee affairs with Yae. Well, maybe calling them ‘affairs’ was pouring oil onto the fire.

I pushed my concerns to the back of my head as Sasakura-sensei started to speak to the class as to why she was present.

Cough.

“Ahem,” started our school nurse. “Well, normally, you girls would be taught by Yasuda-sensei right now, but she’s out sick. To be honest, that makes things a bit easier to manage for this program. Though I will need you girls to cooperate with me and arrange your seats properly in a bit.”

Our third session, according to the words Akagi wrote down on the backboard with her bubbly handwriting, was called Digital Reporting. She also added, in much smaller words, Tableside Teammates.

“For this session the boys and girls will be in groups assigned by us,” Morino explained the session to the entire class. “Instead of a math class, this’ll be a technology class. Sounds fun, doesn’t it, Kasumi-chan?”

“Yup. Yup, Fumika-chan,” nodded Akagi, “We’ve brought personal laptops provided by the program for everyone. Today, you’ll be watching a short video and then working together on a report about what you watched. Think of it as a long distance collaboration even though you’re in the same room.”

Working collaboratively on tiny computers that were going to be on the same network as the girls’ computers - this actually sounded more like an office job than the previous two had been. Apparently we guys had been promoted from interns to actual employees now.

Akagi giggled. “We got to pick the video on this since Yasuda-sensei would’ve picked a boring math related video.”

“Kasumi-chan’s the one who decided actually,” Morino shook her head with a smile on her face. “I’m sorry for her bad taste, but we’re watching a short compilation of ghost stories.”

The moment she said those words, she took out a flashlight and put it underneath her to illuminate her face creepily. It wasn’t exactly successful when the lights of the classroom were still on. Both of the health committee girls’ eyes brightened while the rest of us were left dumbfounded.

“Right, I forgot the two of them were also part of the occult club…,” Sasakura-sensei was also bugged by their choice of video. “Well, their choice is actually not on the restricted list, so I’ll allow it. Let me go over what the girls missed and then we can split up the groups.” 

“Oh, wait, Sensei. We should talk about the penalty game too,” Akagi spoke up to interrupt. I flinched at the mention of that. She was so blatantly open about it. Did that mean Sensei actually approved of it?

She did.

“Penalty? Oh right. We’ve got to keep everyone working diligently after all. I can’t believe I let you kiddos convince me to allow it,” Sasakura-sensei scratched the back of her head. “So? What did you girls pull out of the can this morning?”

“We got lucky. It’s something perfect for a group effort since we can have both the boys and girls do this,” Morino grinned.

Akagi revealed the popsicle stick to all. “We’ll be having every person who doesn’t meet their quota doing this.”

Something that would be a penalty for both the boys and the girls? I didn’t like the sound of that, but it at least seemed fair. Akagi erased the session title from the board and then wrote what the punishment was. At first, we were confused and then shocked and scared when we misunderstood, however, the accompanying picture she drew clarified plenty. I could hear the collective groans from both the guys and the girls when they saw what she wrote.

Upside down hanging. Those were the words that had been written down. As morbid as that sounded, the pictures Akagi drew with quick speed but astonishingly high detail showcased boys being held by their legs upside down by a giant hand and girls forced to handstand while desperately trying to keep their skirts on.

“S-Sensei, are you serious?” Tokiwa asked as she was the most flustered of this blatant sexual harassment. “Is this allowed?”

“Honestly? Probably not, but you’ve been displaying your undies to the boys all week. I don’t really see much of a difference now,” Sasakura-sensei shrugged. She was as blase about underwear as always. “If you don’t want them seen, just make sure you do the work.”

“You’ll be getting a grade from your group effort too. Even if you met the quota, if your group score is below 70%, we’ll be giving you all the penalty anyways,” Morino looked down at us and singled me out in particular, “Touya-san, we’re looking forward to giving those out.”

Now that the penalty had been made known, if we messed up, we weren’t only going to get the penalty game, we’d also get the ire of whoever we were grouped with. We could feel the enmity from the girls who were glaring in our direction. There was no way they would let us go if we didn’t do our share of the work and get the quality of the report to 70%, even if it was just an honest mistake. There would be double the punishment for messing up… they really were trying to hold us accountable. Moreover, according to Akagi, the health committee members who weren’t around this session were actually in the nurse’s office with their own computers checking on our work so we could get a grade immediately.

Well, this session at least didn’t require us to be moving around. In fact, we were required to stay seated in the reduced seats and use the laptops that had been provided for us. Each reduced computer and desk had our name on it so we sat in the appropriate one and turned on the laptop. We were surprised to find that they were able to connect to a network but it was apparently a private server just for the Reduction program. It was going to be a quick and easy time. Perhaps we were actually going to get a break after all.

“Oh. As expected,” I saw my group mates for the session. I was going to be working with Yae. I turned my head over to Yae who had also just logged onto her computer.

Ping!

[Hi Touya!] [We can talk to each other again!] [Are you getting these?]

I chuckled at the string of messages sent in the group conversation chat right off the bat. Yae was quick on the uptake to be able to communicate with me. I began typing things in as well.

[I can see them.] [By the way, we’re having a talk when I’m back to normal.] [Both you and me and me and Takahashi.]

A non-veiled warning was what I used as my greeting to the other group member I was friends with.

Takahashi entered the conversation quickly after.

[Give me a break.] [I said I was sorry.] [It was an accident.]

To be able to talk to the girls properly now was a welcome blessing. It seemed all of the guys agreed. Being able to converse with someone we physically couldn’t for some time - technology really was grand.

These were groups of four, though, and there was one last member in the group assigned by the health committee.

[Please don’t fool around, you three.] [I’d rather not get that penalty..]

Yoshikawa was also part of our team. When the girls were told to rearrange their seats into squares and sit next to each other, our class representative joined my friends. 

As it turned out, we boys weren’t going to be staying on the classroom cart, though. Akagi pushed the cart we were on towards the tables and picked us up, table and all, to place onto the other empty desk. It didn’t last too long though as the girls pulled us over to their tables to get a better look at us. I realized while looking into the distance where the other girls were that we were the only group with three girls and one boy. 

This was where my special quota came in apparently. “Tou-san, you’ll need to pull your weight here. The quota for the report is actually pretty simple to meet since it’s just the page count. For your group specifically, the girls will need to do 4 pages together, and you’ll be doing the same amount yourself. Think you can do it, Tou-san? It sounds unfair because it is. If anyone’s getting the penalty this session, it’ll be you.”

So she blatantly admitted it was unfair.

“Tou-san, huh?” I heard Yae mumble and she glanced down at me. Sweat trickled down my neck. Yae had paid special attention to Akagi’s nickname for me. It was painful feeling her heavy gaze on me from above. Rather than just a piercing gaze, it felt all-observing.

“Well, that lightens the load on us a lot,” Takahashi grinned.

“I feel bad about making Kirishima-kun do all the work, but if that to be the case…,” Yoshikawa felt guilty but also seemed pleased to have her load lessened. I hadn’t interacted with her too much, but her giggling was rather cute.

“You two...” Yae sighed at her teammates’ opinions. Her gaze relaxed, but she was still bothered by Akagi’s nickname for me. “Hey, Touya, what’s up with that nickname?”

I was not answering that. I was not typing that reply into the computer either. Yae huffed and pouted, pulling me and my reduced desk over to her table, but I still didn’t answer. Yoshikawa found it cute how a jealous Yae could be trying to pry information from me by pestering me, but from my perspective, Yae was lording her presence over me. According to the reading on the Tracer Belt, I was now 0.63 cm. At this height, Yae’s chest was massive to me. I was lost in its shadow as Yae used her tree-sized pencil to easily push my desk into it. I held on tight to the computer and the table as the few centimeters I was pushed around repeatedly were meters to me.

Yae continued to prod me with her pencil like I was a broken pencil lead while Sensei gave the class the full explanation of the report and the other boys’ and girls’ fair quota of two pages each. She advised the girls to place us boys at the front edge of the tables so we could see the projected video properly. Apparently, Morino and Akagi were staying during the session because they had to go around making sure we were all paying attention… and also to enjoy the video they picked.

“Kukuku… This one’s based on a true story… It’s actually just a few stations away the school too…,” Morino chuckled as she walked by to shake Takahashi awake. They weren’t letting her sleep.

The video seemed interesting enough. It highlighted urban legends, ghost stories, and old wives tales of our local prefecture, but it provided various reference sources and analyses. It was more scientific than I expected.

Takahashi was stiff and working hard. She couldn’t sleep because Morino was patrolling and continuously bumping into her to wake her up. She had apparently developed a poor relationship with Morino due to how she was always exhausted. I supposed it made sense. Like Akagi, Morino was a very spirited and diligent girl despite having such a strange, dark interest in the occult. She contrasted heavily with Takahashi.

Aside from her, Yae was being diligent. Ghost stories didn’t scare her, and she was very much like me. She seemed to be surprised at the science involved. The table shook as she typed a number of notes down for future reference while she watched. I still wasn’t free from her mercy though as she kept me and my table right next to her monument sized computer. Every now and then, she would stop typing and glance down at me. The next thing I knew, she’d use her pencil to poke me. The less than 1 mm tip of her mechanical pencil was still a large pole to me. She still was trying to pry about my relationship with Akagi.

Lastly was Yoshikawa. To my bewilderment, our class rep was the least productive out of all of us. She was closing her eyes with her hands while the video played. She was apparently very bad with anything horror related. She yipped when the narrator tried to be dramatic and she shivered as she listened to bloody retellings.

[Class Rep, calm down.]

She saw my message and whispered down at me. “I’m not good with these sorts of things, Kirishima-kun.”

I chuckled and continued to communicate with her. A frightened giant was a strange sight.

[I didn’t expect our class rep to be a coward.] [Even from down here, it’s cute to watch.] 

“K-Kirishima-kun, that’s rude…,” I caught the class rep off guard. She was caught off guard again by the lightning strike she saw on screen. “Kyaa!”

[Yup. Cute.] [You’re squirming a lot.] [Never thought the class rep had a weak point.]

“Grr… I didn’t think I’d be teased today… And by someone smaller than my pinky too...”

“Grk!”

Yoshikawa was not happy with my teasing. An eraser the size of a house descended on me. My entire desk and my body were pushed over when Yoshikawa tapped me with it. She then used it to pin me down. I could hear Yoshikawa giggling at being unable to fight her eraser that she left atop of me. I couldn’t budge it. I was buried underneath it completely.

“Oh my… I didn’t think this would be that enjoyable,” she remarked, much to my dismay.

“Class Rep... no flirting with Touya...” Yae glowered.

“A-ah. I’m so sorry. I couldn’t help myself, Asano-san,” Yoshikawa got her eraser off of me and pulled back from Yae’s protectiveness/jealousy.

“Wow, I wasn’t the one who got Asano jealous this time. Good job, Class Rep,” Takahashi grinned as I pulled my desk back up. The computer was surprisingly intact. 

“I know how you feel, Class Rep, but I’m Touya’s caretaker. You shouldn’t mess with him without my permission,” informed Yae.

“I’m sorry, Asano-san. Though does that mean you’d be fine if I asked first?”

“H-huh? Uh… W-well...”

“Permission? Hey, wait, Yae!” I nearly choked on my own saliva. I was being treated more as a pet than another student. I wanted to argue with the two giant girls above me, but because their laptops were still closed while the video was playing, typing was useless. Even if the laptops were on, however, I doubted they’d pay attention. I could see Yae was deliberating.

I couldn’t believe Yoshikawa had asked that question. Her good girl nature had made me think I only had to worry about Takahashi, but her eyes were curious after having hit me just once. Even our class representative couldn’t fight her desires apparently. 

Then Yae decided on my future sentence. “Mmm… Then maybe later… I’m a little mad Touya was being all flirty too...”

I shivered when Yae glanced at me. I forgot that even though I was able to talk to them again, I couldn’t ignore my current size. This was not a conservation between people on the same level. I was still below the girls. If I said something that offended them, they could do whatever they wanted to me. While Yae was protecting me as my ‘caretaker’, if she allowed it, they could do what they pleased.

Yae was being this permissive because I had called Yoshikawa cute. She could be the jealous type which is why Takahashi was careful around her. How the other health committee girls addressed me also probably affected her mood.

I sighed and got back to paying attention to the video. If I was going to have to do most of the work, I was going to need to get as much information as I could. 

When the video was over, Sensei started to detail what the contents of our in-class report was supposed to be and gave suggestions on how we could all split up the work. As she did, I tried to look over to the other groups. It was difficult because Yae’s body was blocking one direction and Yoshikawa’s was blocking another, but I was able to see two other groups. Hozuki and Tsujimoto were apparently together with two other guys. Whoever one of the guys was, I felt sorry for him because Hozuki was making him run away from her pencil as she chased him with it. I guessed that Ryou was also a part of the group though because Tsujimoto was apparently being gentle, if not staring somewhat distractedly.

Besides Hozuki and Tsujimoto’s group, I also saw Satou with Honda. The pair were apparently both as bad with horror as Yoshikawa had been if not worse. They had their hands over their ears and their faces were turned down to the table with closed eyes, trying to block out what they could hear and see. This had apparently been trouble for whoever they were sitting with because I could spy two tipped over desks beside the well-endowed duo’s breasts which were pressed into the table. I wondered if those guys considered that heaven or hell to be underneath all that pressure but also wondered if the girls realized if they didn’t do their fair share as well, they’d get the punishment.

In the end though, I had to prioritize my own work. Takahashi, Yae, and Yoshikawa were a very productive team. Yoshikawa’s organization, Yae’s diligent work, and Takahashi’s intelligence worked well together. I would have liked to call this a golden group to be working with, but their efficiency also worked to my disadvantage. Two problems came up.

“So 4 pages for us altogether and 4 for Touya, huh? That doesn’t seem too bad. We can probably do more than that too for our part.”

“We can probably bring it up to 6 pages for us with all the notes you and Kirishima-kun wrote down, Asano, but let’s just finish our part early and then take a break.”

“Sorry that I couldn’t help so much on the note-taking. I’ll make up for that by doubling my efforts.”

“You don’t need to be so serious, Class Rep. This’ll be easy to do.”

[Hey. At least help me out a little.]

“You have all the notes too, Kirishima-kun. Just refer to that,” Takahashi brushed aside my request. 

This was the first problem with having the quotas decided by page count. We weren’t so much working together in the sense of full collaboration since we each had to meet our own requirements. One person’s work did not affect another’s. While Takahashi, Yae, and Yoshikawa were hard workers, their efforts would not change my own. This created a divide between me and the girls that wasn’t just the size difference. I had to figure out a way to crank out 4 pages of this team report alone. I made a note to figure out a way to change this before the next class went through Reduction Week. 

While we were working, though, the second problem emerged.

Slam!

“Oof!”

“W-wow… I wasn’t even trying to knock him over this time. I just tapped him with my pen.”

“You haven’t had a chance to interact with the boys much until now, right, Class Rep? This is how Touya and the others are right now: super light. It’s surreal, right?”

“It sure is…” 

“Hm…? I think you two marked up his uniform.”

“A-Ah. Sorry, Kirishima-kun. I-I’ll wipe that off.”

“Wait stop! You’ll soak him if you use your water bottle.”

Yoshikawa had jabbed me with a pen after I finished my second page. It was more payback for the teasing earlier and was permitted by Yae, but seeing my shirt stained blue, she then tried to apologize and clean it up immediately. I was pinched off the table as our class representative tried to uncap her water bottle to wash me off. Yae thankfully stopped her before she could drown me in a heavy waterfall. 

[You’re almost got the computer wet.]

That was my only complaint since it had ended as quickly as it had started.

“I-I’ll ask Sensei for the cleaning balm later, Touya,” Yae sighed as the girls let me work again.

The second problem was that having the all-star students grouped together meant they would finish their portion early. That was why they had the opportunity to interrupt me. With their quotas finished, the girls were free to relax, and each of them had their own reasons to mess with me. Takahashi was her usual self. Yae was being both playful and venting to alleviate her jealousy. And our class representative was both curious and wanting payback from my remarks earlier. If they kept it up, I wouldn’t be able to finish the report.

But those problems weren’t going to stop me so easily. If they were going to knock me off while I was still working, I didn’t hold back and went full throttle. I tried to work as quickly as I could think. If there were any mistakes or extra details I missed, I’d add them after the rough version was done. I needed to hit the quota first.

Yoshikawa was surprised at my speed. “W-wow. Look at him go. I’ve never seen Kirishima-kun so serious.”

“Touya’s always been skilled at writing good reports,” Yae remarked. She knew that reports were my specialty, as Sasakura-sensei could probably attest to as well. It was why she wanted me to note down my experiences during Reduction Week.

“Jeez. I guess size doesn’t matter when it comes to online work. Technology’s amazing at closing the gap,” Takahashi was impressed as well. “No wonder we can have office jobs like this. Even someone who can’t even lift an eraser can be productive.”

“Hm… There’s a couple spelling errors, but this is really well done,” Yoshikawa complimented. “There’s still fifteen minutes left of class too.”

“That’s way too fast, isn’t it?” Yae frowned.

I appreciated all of the compliments. I was already halfway done with my third page when Yae finished her sentence. It wouldn’t be long before I finished the fourth either. I scrolled up on the computer screen to look through my notes to confirm what I wanted to write and then pushed myself to keep typing. I was going to be done, and I was sure we’d avoid getting under 70% with what we had so far.

But therein lies the biggest problem with the quota and grade requirement strategy that the health committee had decided on.

“Hey, Asano, I was thinking… Kirishima-kun’s been getting lucky all day, hasn’t he?”

Yae sighed at Takahashi’s conversation starter, “... I know what you’re thinking, Aoi-chan. You really want to mess with Touya, don’t you?”

“C’mon, I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one. This is the last day he’ll be smaller than you. Don’t tell me you’re going to let the chance slip by.”

“That’s… Well…,” Yae was having trouble fighting the devil on her right shoulder that was Takahashi. She tried to find an angel. “Class Rep, what do you think?”

“Eh? Me?” Yoshikawa didn’t want to be caught up in our antics. “Um… I’m fine as long we hit the 70% mark. I don’t want to have to do a handstand...”

“I’m pretty sure we’re at that point with what Kirishima-kun’s done so far. So what do you say, Asano?”

“Mmmmngh...” Unable to get an answer she wanted from Yoshikawa, Yae struggled with her choice. Unfortunately for me, she gave in. “Just what do you have planned…?”

“So you agree? Great!”

Quotas and a grade requirement were smart ideas to strongarm students into working to avoid the penalty game, but the unfair quota given to me gave the girls an opportunity.

“Gah! Takahashi, what the-” I was plucked off of my desk and the table when Takahashi pinched me between her nails.

“I think we have some time to spare, Kirishima-kun. How about we play for a bit?” 

Because the girls were sure we’d get at least 70% with what we had so far, they upped the ante. The penalty didn’t apply to them any more even if I finished. Furthermore, Takahashi and Yae were more than interested in seeing me get the penalty. There was no more reason to let me work if they weren’t concerned about getting anything above a passing score.

Takahashi pulled her hand back to her desk and me along with it. I was deposited atop the ‘6’ key of her computer. My 0.63 cm body sat on it with room to spare as I looked at my classmate’s tired but amused eyes staring back at me.

“Kukuku~!” she chuckled. “Asano, get a load of this. He’s even smaller than the keys.”

“I’m more surprised he’s not even pushing down on it,” Yae peaked over at Takahashi’s laptop. It was true. My weight wasn’t enough to press the ‘6’ key at all even after Takahashi dropped me on it.

“Sorry, Kirishima-kun,” Yoshikawa shook her head and apologized to me but she was still smiling. “I don’t think you’ll be able to finish your work anymore.”

Takahashi pretended to take offense. “C’mon, Class Rep. I’m not that mean. He’ll get a chance to get his work done. I just wanted to give him a challenge.”

A challenge? I hoped it wasn’t like what Yae had put me through last night.

Yae raised an eyebrow. “So what do you have planned, Aoi-chan?”

“It’s simple. Here, Kirishima-kun.”

What Takahashi thought up was unfortunately more physical effort for me. The girl started taking things out of her book bag and piling them up beside the laptop. Textbooks and notebooks were stacked to create a large building high above me. She then used a ruler to act as a bridge between the computer and the top of the stack. I realized what she was planning when she took my miniature desk and placed it at the very top.

“... You’re kidding, right?” I asked the question I already knew the answer to.

“What do you think, Kirishima-kun? Simple?” Takahashi chuckled as she rested her head against the table. “Just get to the top and you can work again. Nothing too big, right? Oh wait… sorry, my bad.”

“That really wasn’t a good joke, Aoi-chan,” Yae frowned. 

“Hey, I told you. Isn’t this a limited opportunity, Asano? This is your last day with him in the palm of your hand, right?”

“This is a rare occasion, Asano-san,” Yoshikawa actually agreed. “And it doesn’t seem too difficult. Kirishima-kun can do this with ease. Also, pardon me, Asano-san, but even I think it might be cute seeing Kirishima-kun climb up.”

“You two...,” Yae had a look of disbelief on her face as her teammates tried to persuade her. They were successful. “Well, I guess I can’t deny not wanting to see it. Touya was pretty athletic yesterday night. And if it’s just this, I think it should be easier even though he’s smaller today.”

“What’d you make him do yesterday?” Takahashi smirked before turning to me. “Well, you heard her. Permission granted. You ended up making it through the first two sessions, Kirishima-kun, but let’s see if you can do a third.”

Takahashi really wanted to make my life difficult. I was going to have to convince Yae to let me have control over the punishment she still owed her when I got back to normal.

It was decided that I would be navigating my way back to my table by getting to the end of the laptop and scaling the ruler. I had no say in this decision as, not only could I not say no, Takahashi started tapping the screen of her laptop with her finger. It worried me to see the laptop slowly closing with each poke. I did not want to be flattened by it so I started moving.

As I jumped, hopped, and climbed up and down the computer keys, I could hear Yoshikawa giggle. “He really is doing his best.”

I could see Takahashi trying to hold back her laughter as well. “He’s like an ant crawling around...”

I really was one. I didn’t expect the keys on the keyboard to actually be an obstacle, but constant change in elevation was pain to deal with. I couldn’t stray off the course either as if I started to move in another direction, Takahashi would smack with her finger, slamming me right down into the keyboard and causing a string of repeated letters to be typed onto the screen.

“Grk!”

“Hey, it’s a straight course. No going elsewhere,” she ordered me with a cat-like smile. She was getting too much enjoyment out of toying with me. It annoyed me to know I couldn’t disobey her in my current state.

I made it to the edge of the computer where Takahashi had placed a ruler. It sloped upwards to the top of a pile of books. Takahashi didn’t use too many books so the slope wasn’t extreme, but I still had to get the top of a stack at least twenty times my height.

“Something tells me there’s a catch,” I frowned as I started to move up the ruler. I was getting my third workout today.

And of course, there was. When I was a third of the way up, I had to brace myself against a strong gust. Turning my head, I could see Takahashi pursing her lips together. She was making it difficult for me by blowing air my way.

“Kukuku~! Didn’t think it’d be that easy, would it, Kirishima-kun? Fuuuuu~”

“Wow. Just a breath from over here and he had to stop because of it? How light is Kirishima-kun?” Yoshikawa was astonished.

“Very,” Yae frowned as she looked at the rest of the class. Everyone was still hard at work because nobody wanted the penalty, but there were glances in our direction because we were fooling around. “Aoi-chan, don’t blow too hard. I don’t want you sending Touya flying.”

“I’ll be careful. C’mon. You two join in too. It’s no fun alone,” Takahashi grinned as she blew again. This one was even stronger than the last. Considering my less than 1 cm body was less than a gram in weight now, just a simple huff from Takahashi was enough to force me off balance. I was comparable to an eraser scrap she could blow away without an effort.

“They’re seriously messing with me,” I ground my teeth and tried to keep going forward. Yae and Yoshikawa joined in as well. I was assaulted from three directions by light breaths of wind. It must have looked weird to the others in the classroom to see the three of them pursing their lips and blowing at the same target, but I had no time to consider the sight when I was in the middle of it all.

“My turn, Touya. Fooooo~!”

It was like trying to go home in a typhoon that was picking up speed. Yae’s breath blew from my left, causing me to stumble to the right. I was then hit by Takahashi’s from the right, pushing me back on track but the extra force of her breath pushed me further left. I was zig zagging up the ruler thanks to their efforts. Even so, I was able to avoid falling off. I was two thirds of the way up the ruler and was almost there at the goal. Just a bit more and I’d be able to see the top of the stack of textbooks.

And that was where my confidence got the better of me.

“Almost Kirishima-kun!” I saw Yoshikawa’s pink lips enter my field of view when I nearly got to the top. She was waiting for me to get up to her. “Fwoooo!”

“Uwaah!” I wasn’t able to brace myself in time for Yoshikawa’s powerful tempest. She hadn’t had the opportunity to figure out how strong or weak to blow. What she considered a reasonable breath was enough to not only catch me off guard but also lift me off my feet. I was sent flying into the air like a kite for a moment before gravity quickly pulled me down. I fell back off the ruler entirely and onto the table, my body tumbling further due to my momentum. To make matters worse, I had gotten to the edge. Instead of stopping, I rolled off the tabe, falling a second time. “Wah!”

“Whoa. I think that was a bit much there, Class Rep,” Takahashi pulled back when she saw I had flown off the ruler. I had caught myself just barely and was literally hanging on the edge of the table with just my arm strength. I didn’t want to fall. The table was a cliff to me.

“Kyaa! Touya! I’ve got you!” an alarmed Yae rushed to cup her hands beneath me so I could fall into her palm. I was grateful to land in the plush, stadium sized field of her hand.

“Uwah! S-sorry, Kirishima-kun,” Yoshikawa was also taken aback to what had happened. “That could’ve been dangerous, couldn’t it?”

It certainly was. If I had fallen to the floor, that would’ve hurt. I would’ve known how Nakano felt when Saeki flicked him.

“That was close,” Yae exhaled a breath of relief as she placed me on the top of the book stack next to my table. “Aoi-chan, I think we should just Touya get back to work. That must have been scary for him.”

“I guess you’re right,” Takahashi frowned but agreed. “And jeez… He’s going to get me back for this later… I was just trying to have fun too… Class Rep, you really went overboard there.”

“Sorry. I didn’t think it’d be that strong to him,” Yoshikawa felt bad. “Kirishima-kun, I’ll pay you back with something. I promise.”

I was grateful to be finally given a rest from the girls. And for Takahashi to admit her fault and Yoshikawa to promise me an apology gift, I at least made it through the sudden trial with a plus instead of a minus.

Still, my body was now exhausted. Looking at the time on the miniaturized laptop on my desk, I frowned. There were seven minutes left. There wasn’t going to be any time to relax if I wanted to avoid the penalty.

This was going to be one rough last sprint to finish.

(46) Day 5 Session 4: Medicine Making (0.63 cm > 0.50 cm)

“Waaaaah!”

So in the end, who didn’t avoid the penalty given by Akagi and Morino? 

“Hey, Fumika-chan, look. It’s that one movie. The one with the shark!”

Who were the people who had to endure the Upside-down Hanging?

“It’s more like those spy movies where the captured agent is hanging over a death trap...”

Who were the girls who had to do an upside down handstand and who were the reduced boys who would be held upside down by Fumika Morino and Kasumi Akagi?

“Nishishishi~! Kasumi-chan, open wider. Aaaaah~n!”

The answer, unfortunately, was one person. Every group met the 70% grade requirement so the girls were safe, but there was one boy who couldn’t meet the page quota. The only person to have failed to meet the required amount of pages was one reduced boy: me. I would have preferred to have someone suffer with me, but the other guys had an easier time because they had a smaller quota. If it hadn’t been for Takahashi fooling around and exhausting me, I wouldn’t have been in this predicament, but now I was suffering from the two occult-loving giant friends’ antics.

“Like this? Aaah~n!”

Akagi opened her mouth while Morino held me by my leg above it. Morino’s comparison of a captured agent fit my predicament precisely. Akagi’s mouth was a death trap. With my leg pinched between Morino’s fingers, I was suspended above her open mouth. My body was assaulted by her hot, moist breath as Morino held this position that looked like I was being fed to Akagi.

To call me a bite-sized snack to Akagi would be over-selling my size. Being under a centimeter, I was less than a crumb to her. Her mouth was a cavern of pink and white. Her pearly white teeth were each larger than me. This was also my first time realizing Akagi had very sharp canines. Her long, pink tongue licked them and then spread out, as though wanting to welcome me if I fell in. I could see strands of saliva clinging from the top of her mouth to her tongue, and behind it all, I could see an ominous frightening blackness that led down to her stomach.

The occult lover never seemed that frightening when I spoke to her in the health committee meetings. She always seemed small and cutesy, hiding her fingers with her sleeves. She tried using those sleeves and fingers to make a cutesy cat-like pose while I dangled over her. It was anything but cute to me, however. I felt afraid of her for the first time. Her massive fangs could tear me apart. Her serpent-like tongue could coil around me and coat me in her thick, viscous saliva. I could fall into the darkness that was her throat and enter her stomach, never to return.

“Hiiiii!” I squeaked. I was one step away from being dropped in Akagi’s mouth. She could easily bite down on me like I was grain of rice or even just swallow me whole without needing to chew.

“Aww… Look at him. He’s so scared,” Akagi noticed my panic and giggled. “What’s a matter, Tou-san? Afraid I’ll eat you up?”

“He wouldn’t even be filling,” Morino joined in and got close to Akagi’s face. She moved me from being above Akagi’s mouth to her own. I bore witness to Morino’s remarkably long tongue as she stretched it out. “How about it, Touya-san? Are you going to let two girls frighten you more than ghosts and youkai?”

I was. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I was absolutely terrified of the smell of mint coming from Morino’s mouth. She had chewed some gum before pulling this on me, so she was certainly conscious of her breath, but that made me even more worried. Why did she have to be concerned for her breath while holding me over her mouth? 

“Hora~!” Morino jerked her arm, causing me to panic further as I got closer to her mouth. “You know, that youkai in the video earlier was said to eat people, right? I wonder what that’d be like...”

Morino was far more frightening than any monster at the moment because this was a real danger. Though the girls were certain that no harm would come to me while they teased me, I couldn’t be so sure. Just one mistake and I’d be less than a piece of candy for them.

“W-wow. He’s really terrified. Maybe I went too far…,” Morino pulled me back and saw my trembling body pinched between her fingers.

“He’ll be fine, Fumika-chan. Tou-san’s made of tougher stuff than that,” grinned Akagi. “Nishishishi~! Wait until the others hear about this. We were the ones who got Tou-san first today.”

“Yup! Yup!” Morino grinned. “Touya-san, tell me how scary it was later. I’d love to hear your thoughts.”

I was relieved after Morino put me back down. She placed me on the rolling cart with the tables of the other boys she had collected after the class ended. I didn’t have the energy to stand so I just stayed prone on the ground. I never wanted to be that close to being eaten again.

Yae and Sasakura-sensei hadn’t been around to stop them. When class ended, everyone was told that the next class would be in a different room so Sensei led the girls all there while Morino and Akagi collected all of us boys and then gave the penalty.

I was in no state to think as Ryou and Eguchi came over to pick me up and bring me back to the tables. Morino and Akagi had to get back to their duty as health committee members, so they started to identify us boys on the cart using their printed seating chart of all of the desks. After they did, Akagi lifted the walls of the miniaturized classroom back up and Morino put the roof back on as well. The room had shrunken further over the course of the last class, so it fit in Akagi’s hand when she picked it up.

“Let’s get to the next room, boys,” Akagi spoke as her long sleeves wrapped around the classroom, blocking out our light. 

There was nothing we could do but be literally taken along for the ride as Akagi went to the next session’s room. Akagi was not careful. Despite her best efforts in trying to make sure we were in proper seats, her steps tossed us all over the place. We endured as we headed to the next session of the day.

What was the next session? Session 4 was science based. Specifically, it was called Medicine Making. That was why we were taken to a lab room.

“Ah~ Just in time~! The girls were just finished with their preparations for the lab~! We can start right away~!”

“Emi-chan, no need to get so excited. We need to make sure the boys understand the session before we send them off.”

“Oh, right~! Let’s do that then, Nacchan~!”

I heard a familiar pair of voices when Akagi and Morino entered the room. 

Kamiya-Senpai and Yanase-senpai were in charge of this session. We were given to Yanase-senpai who placed us atop an empty desk in the science lab room. Next to her, I saw, was Kamiya-senpai who now had a lab coat on.

Yanase-senpai removed the roof and knocked down the walls of the miniature classroom so that we were exposed once again. We stared up at the two towering upperclassmen who had tied back their hair into ponytails.

Well, to be more specific, we started up at Kamiya-senpai in particular. Yanase-senpai was happily giving us a view of white panties by getting a bit too close to the table. She didn’t seem to mind and was staring down at us with her usual smile. It literally knocked us down though when she bumped her thigh-high clad leg into the table. The sheer mass of her thigh alone sent a noticeable shockwave through the table. Yanase-senpai didn’t seem to notice, however, as she had merely brushed against it in her eyes. It made me wonder just how heavy she was compared to us, though I pushed thought to the back of my head, knowing if Yanase-senpai knew what I was thinking, I’d feel the full force of her weight.

“Well, I suppose I should welcome you all to the field of medicine, today,” Kamiya-senpai started, blissfully content and unaware of my worries, “Today, your fourth session shall be another joint session between the boys and girls. We will be exploring a science career that is done by both normal sized and reduced individuals.”

As expected of our health committee senior, Kamiya-senpai was fond of the sciences, especially chemistry. It was only natural that she’d lead a session about it. Yanase-senpai was also around to help as well, but Kamiya-senpai took charge. I spotted Ishigaki-sensei sulking in the corner of the lab room, annoyed that her job in explaining had been taken. Senpai made no errors as she explained, though, so Sensei decided to remain silent and just watch the session with curiosity.

“When it comes to chemistry, precision is vital. From proper doses to proper amounts of reactants in reactions, it is important to obtain accurate and precise measurements. Otherwise, you put others at risk for your mistakes,” Kamiya-senpai spoke without reading from the government provided blurb. “Today, everybody will be working together to reduce such risks as much as possible… within a percentage of error of course.”

We were going to be doing a chemistry lab was the gist of Kamiya-senpai’s explanation. Our goal was to be as accurate as we could.

“Once again, you boys will be in groups with the girls~” Yanase-senpai switched into detailing things for us. “You have to help your group get within 10% error of the amount of the final product you make~.”

That didn’t sound too unreasonable. We weren’t going to be able to do much of the lab considering our size, though. I was currently 0.50 cm, half a centimeter, so none of us were going to be able to travel very far on the tables. In fact, the glass flask right next to us towered over us like a skyscraper. We’d be relying mainly on the girls for this lesson, so that put them more at fault than us.

“Oh, Nacchan~ Shouldn’t we explain the lab to the boys~?” Yanase-senpai recalled. “They’re only doing one part, but they should know the basics, right~?” 

At that, Kamiya-senpai nodded. “Oh, yes. We should give an example as to how everyone will be cooperating.”

“Okay then. Touya-kun~ Come on up~!”

I flinched at the mention of my name. Yanase-senpai had reminded Kamiya-senpai because she had been waiting for this opportunity to use me as the example. Reluctantly, I got out of my shrunken desk and walked away from the other guys.

Slam!

“What the-?”

The second I was a reasonable enough distance away, a glass wall was dropped between me and the other boys. Or rather, a glass prison. I was surrounded on all sides.

“I got him, Nacchan~!” Yanase-senpai’s voice sounded muffled but was incredibly loud as it vibrated the glass around me. I realized from seeing the inverted numbers that she had placed a small beaker over me. Before I could process anything further however, the glass behind me struck my back. I was pushed forward as though somebody had slammed the gas pedal in a race.

Yanase-senpai pulled the beaker towards the edge of the table where she then bent down to look at me through the glass.

Flick!

“Gaah!” a painful ring plagued my ears when Yanase-senpai playfully flicked the glass. Was this what the New Years’ bells sounded like from the inside? 

“-llo Touya-kun~! We’ll be having you show the others the ropes, so I hope you’re ready~!” I heard Yanase-senpai say as my ears slowly recovered.

“Ready? Ready for what? Hey! Senpai!” I slammed my fist on the inverted beaker. It was a worthless effort but one I did instinctively as a result of being imprisoned. Even just two millimeters of glass was enough to both trap me and silence me.

“Emi-chan, be gentle, please,” Kamiya-senpai tried to convince her but it was to no avail. The next thing I knew, Yanase-senpai flipped the beaker over. The edge of the beaker slammed into the back of my legs, knocking me over. I fell back, tumbled, and fell down the beaker until I landed on the bottom of it.

“I’m so not getting used to this…,” I groaned as I tried to get up. My butt remained planted to the glass, however, because I froze when I looked up.

My height was constantly being put into perspective this day, and being inside the beaker was no different. The 150 mL beaker was small, able to be held within Yanase-senpai’s hand with ease. She only used three of her fingers to wrap around the beaker I was in while she held it. I could see her skin press against the glass walls that rose many times over my head. Each finger was over twice my size in thickness and the gaps between her fingers let light shine through like windows.

When I looked straight up, my body shivered. Yanase-senpai was looking down at me, or rather, one gigantic eye was peering down at me from above with bright-eyed interest. I couldn’t see all of her at all, just her hand that was surrounding the beaker. I wasn’t even tall enough to reach the lowest measurement marking on the beaker.

“Half a centimeter really is one teensy-tiny size~,” giggled my upperclassman. “I don’t think he’ll be strong enough for this, Nacchan~.”

“Perhaps we should have hosted this session earlier in the day,” frowned Kamiya-senpai. She shook her head after a while. “No… I suppose even at 1 centimeter, this would be as much of a challenge.”

What was Kamiya-senpai referring to? My question was answered when she started to pour something into the beaker I was in. I wasn’t quick enough to react as the bottom of the small glass started to be filled, nor was I able to evade any bit of the avalanche of pink and green boulder sized spheres that tumbled down onto me.

“My apologies, Kirishima-kun. Are you okay?”

Kamiya-senpai had dropped a number of different colored pills into the beaker. I could see from my surroundings that there were two types: green ones which were as large as medicine balls and pink ones that were twice as large. Both felt heavier than bowling balls and anvils respectively to me.

The health committee leader began to explain the goal to the other guys as the beaker I was on was placed onto the table. “This is a small example, but you all shall be assisting the girls with measurements for their lab trials today. Shortly, you will be placed in a larger beaker with the pink Pill A and the green Pill B. You all will be assisting the girls in ensuring that their trials will have the correct ratio of pills.”

“The pink ones are four times heavier than the green~” Yanase-senpai added. “If you have trouble, try rolling them like the ball races during the sports festival~!”

“The ratios, weights, and amounts will be calculated by the girls so you will simply be doing the leg work for them when they give you all the orders,” nodded Kamiya-senpai. “As such, your only quota to meet will be to complete all of the required trials by the end of class.”

“Oh, but if your group does not get under 10% accuracy to the expected amount~...” giggled Yanase-senpai. “We will be getting to play a penalty game with all of you~!”

Despite having warned me about them earlier this morning, Yanase-senpai was enjoying the idea of a penalty a bit too much. I saw that she held the popsicle stick that had the penalty in her hand, but she did not let us see it. It was apparently another penalty that could apply to both the girls and us, though.

In any case, I demonstrated what we were to do when Kamiya-senpai gave me orders for a 1 to 1 ratio of 5 pink to green pills. I ended up following Yanase-senpai’s advice in rolling them. It was a laborious activity because of their weight, but the perfectly rounded spheres moved surprisingly smoothly. Though how smoothly it’d go for larger amounts made me worried.

Nonetheless, after preparations were completed, our upperclassmen divided us out into beakers. We were transferred into much larger, 500 mL beakers with even more pills to make the bottom of the beaker resemble half of a ball pit. It felt like we were being treated as another piece of lab equipment. Considering we were around the same size as the larger pills, I couldn’t deny that description. The girls who had been working on their calculations and preparing the lab equipment in the meanwhile were then allowed to come get us.

“Let us see here… Yoshikawa-san and Yamaguchi-san, you will be with Fujimoto-kun and Aikawa-kun… And Yoshikawa-san, please be gentle.” “So you heard… I’m sorry about Kirishima-kun...” “Don’t mind it, Class Rep.” 

“Shima-san, Tsujimoto-san~! Natsume-kun and Eguchi-kun will be in your care~!” “Eh? Ryou? Seriously?” “With Eguchi-kun? I’ll be careful, I promise.” 

“Hozuki-san, Watanabe-san, please be careful with Yamabuki-kun and Arai-kun.” “As long as they do their work, I won’t complain.” “Lucky! Hiroshi, we got paired up! My tension’s hyped up now!”

With how the pairs were being assigned, I assumed I’d be with Takahashi and Yae again, but I saw Takahashi get stuck with Satou to my surprise. Apparently, because word had gotten to Senpai’s ears of how she had fooled around last session, the pairs had been rearranged. I was grateful to be free from the teasing for a short time. As for who I was working with...

“Yae-chan, you will be working with Kirishima-kun of course. As for your partner for this session, Honda-san, I heard that you were getting along well with Nakano-kun, so I took the liberty of making the arrangement.”

“Y-you didn’t have to. I-I was just worried about Nakano-kun, that’s all,” Honda blushed and stuttered as the beaker Nakano and I were in was handed off to Yae.

“Touya, are you doing okay? Sorry about earlier. You almost made it in time. It’s my fault for going along with Aoi-chan,” Yae apologized.

“You three looked like you were having fun,” Honda noted. “I’m curious how that penalty game went though. Nobody was around for it because Sensei rushed us over here.”

“Touya, tell me about it later, okay? Those two girls didn’t do anything bad, right?”

I was going to have to think of a way to describe what happened to Yae honestly while still omitting some major parts, like me panicking frantically. In any case, Yae and I were with Nakano and Honda - an impressive pair to have together in my opinion.

“Consider this a benefit of being friends with a health committee member,” I smirked, glancing over at Nakano who was embarrassed Kamiya-senpai had put him with Honda because of how she had been caring for him. While they weren’t at all close, that didn’t mean we weren’t trying to pair them up. I appreciated that even the serious Kamiya-senpai had picked up on the sparks between them.

“Seriously, it’s not like that yet,” Nakano tried to argue with me.

“Yet?”

“N-nevermind,” he gave up. His ears were red from embarrassment. “Thanks Kirishima-kun.”

“You’re welcome, especially thanks to that extra quota for me,” I sighed. Our upperclassmen didn’t forget about giving me a tougher challenge compared to the other guys. Considering the requirements for this session, however, this one was surprisingly fair in that it wouldn’t increase the chances of me getting the penalty by too much. All I had to do was do one of the trials without Nakano’s help.

We were brought back to Yae and Honda’s lab table and set off on our tasks almost immediately. Honda and Yae had already calculated out all of the ratios so they used a piece of tape to prop their scratch paper up above us so we could see it like a billboard (if billboards were the size of city parks).

They were efficient, I gave them that. We had plenty of time to just stare at Honda’s impressive knockers when they landed on the lab table as she bent down to try speaking to us. The massive grammage of them far outweighed us and the boulder sized pills around us. She nearly knocked the beaker over with their weight which now had to be in the range of thousands of tons compared to us. 

“Nakano-kun, Kirishima-kun, do you understand? It’s a 10 green and 15 pink for a 2:3 ratio for the first trial. Maybe one of you should handle the green and the other gets the pink. Are you clear?” Honda detailed her orders to us. It sounded like she was talking to a grade schooler. I supposed without being able to properly see us respond, she was trying to make sure we understood her instructions. It felt bad to be talked down to by even the gentle Honda, but considering she was 600 m tall to us bug sized boys, we were nowhere close to being on the same level.

600 m… For the girls to be over half a kilometer… for me to start having to use kilometers as the unit to measure their heights was eye-opening to me. Quite honestly, though they were instructing us on what we had to do for the lab, we were being ordered with no chance of refusing. Honda and Yae effectively had all of the authority over us for the duration of the session as we were tools for them to get the lab done properly. It felt demeaning to consider myself as such, but the difference between us was made clear when Yae’s skyscraper fingers entered the titanic beaker, her hand filling almost all of it up.

“There we go. This should help,” Yae stated after having taped a cut out piece of cardstock to the beaker. It had the word Pink on one side and the word Green on the other. She had made a divide for us to separate the pink and green on one side of the beaker. “Touya, you handle the pink. Nakano-kun can take the green. We’ll take the pills when you’re done.”

There was no rejecting Yae’s decree. She had created a massive building sized wall with ease after all. After having over doubled in size since the beginning of the day, the girls had shot far past Tokyo Tower sized to the point where the tower would be beneath their legs. The Skytree was probably more along their level, and even then, they were still growing higher and higher into our skies as we continued being reduced. Every movement, every action, and every word they spoke shook the beaker we were in and altered our environment with ease, demonstrating the outstanding level of power they had.

“Let’s get to work I guess, Kirishima-kun,” Nakano took to rolling the smaller green spheres. I joined him in following orders. 

The task was at least a simple labor. While Yae and Honda prepared the rest of the chemicals for the experiment, we prepped the last thing they’d need before each trial. Nakano and I tried treating it like the sports festival but stopped because that tired us out too quickly. I definitely had a harder time than Nakano despite having fewer to roll over simply because of how heavy the spheres were. Whatever the pills were, they had some weight to them. If we did this session any later in the day, we wouldn’t be able to budge them.

And of course, that wasn’t the case for Yae and Honda.

“Are they done yet?” Honda leaned in to stare at us through the glass. We were resting using the green pills as seats. “They aren’t moving.”

“I guess that means they are. Let’s do this then,” Yae decided. She then turned her attention to us, me in particular. “Touya, Nakano-kun, hold on tight.”

Hold on to what? There was nothing to hang on to as Yae tilted the beaker over. Honda and I fell off the pills we were sitting on as everything began to slide, us included. Yae was pouring what we had exerted ourselves moving to one side of the beaker out onto a coffee filter. We were blocked from falling out with the rest of the pills by Yae’s building sized finger. If it weren’t for the hassle of having to count and move each small colored pill, I was certain Yae and Honda could do this lab without us.

“I’m feeling a little inadequate here,” I remarked when Yae the entire beaker we were in back down.

“They definitely can do all of this without us, but this is just a part of the session, I think,” Nakano answered me. “I wonder if this type of job would need protective equipment if the chemicals were more dangerous.”

He had a point. The pills we were working with seemed simplistic and safe. Yae wasn’t using gloves to handle them, though Honda had put a pair on herself. If we ever had to deal with more dangerous chemicals, I wondered if they’d have to make us wear full-body suits and gas masks for our protection or if this job would be too dangerous with other chemicals. 

“That flask over there worries me,” I pointed outside of the glass for Nakano to turn his head. 

Yae used a mallet to smack our pills inside the coffee filter to break them smaller. She then began pouring the pills into a small flask which had some murky liquid in it. The moment the green and pink pills fell in, we could see them dissolve and bubble. Some type of reaction was going on before Honda even started moving the flask over to the open flame of a bunsen burner.

“Wonder if that stuff would dissolve us,” I mumbled. 

Nakano shuddered. “K-Kirishima-kun, that sounds a thousand times scarier than the video last class.”

Seeing something bigger and heavier than us get eaten away in front of our eyes only hammered into our heads how fragile we seemed to be at our size. We moved onto the next trial’s pills to try and forget about my own words. 

That topic couldn’t be avoided though as other students were also curious.

“Hey, Kami-paisen, what’d happen if this gets on the boys?” asked a curious Nomiya.

“Pais-?” For a second, Kamiya-senpai was confused about how Nomiya addressed her. “I would rather nobody does that, Nomiya-san. They will be fine as anything that has gone through the Reduction process should be safe, but the solution may still cause their skin to sting if they are exposed for too long. Also, it will soak into their clothes and stain them. The smell of that solution is rather pungent after it is heated. I would doubt they would be able to handle it, and,  if we grow them back later today, I am afraid none of us in the health committee will enjoy the smell either.”

“Oh… Um, you might want to come over here then. The tweezers totes had that stuff on them.”

“Oh my~... I’ll handle it, Nacchan~” Yanase-senpai went to help.

So it wouldn’t dissolve us. That was at least one positive. I questioned how bad the smell would get however. At least Yanase-senpai was using the cleaning balm.

The conversations continued as our work continued as well. When Nakano and I were working on moving the pills for the third trial, Kamiya-senpai approached us.

“Yae-chan, Honda-san, how do you two feel about the session? Actually, perhaps I should ask about all of the sessions so far,” she asked, searching for some feedback.

“It’s not that difficult, Senpai. Actually, nothing we did today was really that difficult,” Honda stated.

“I don’t think that’d apply to the boys though, this must have been a tough day for them,” Yae observed. “Though some of that was our fault...”

Yae’s answer seemed to please Kamiya-senpai. “Right you are. We made our best attempt to arrange the government’s requirements as well as we could for a classroom.”

“You were?” Yae was skeptical. “It seems to me like you ended up pushing too many things on Touya, though.”

“Oh my, are you perhaps worried for your boyfriend, Yae-chan?” giggled Kamiya-senpai after hearing Yae’s accusation.

“He’s not my boyfriend... yet...”

“Well, I will admit to it,” Kamiya-senpai accepted the accusation. “Sensei was searching for a way to have the boys be somewhat accountable for their work today, and these quotas were what I considered. I was not the one to single out Kirishima-kun, however.”

“Yanase-senpai said it was the other girls in the club, right? Something about them knowing Touya so it’d be easier to do this stuff with everyone?”

“Well, while that is true… How do I say this…? If I am to be honest, the girls had Kirishima-kun as their main target the entire time,” Kamiya-senpai looked away from both Yae and me as she scratched the bridge of her nose sheepishly.

“The whole time?” Honda was surprised and confused as she took the pills from us since she saw we finished getting what they needed for the third trial. She handed it to Yae.

“When the idea came up, the club voted on it unanimously, brainstormed penalty game ideas, and played rock-paper-scissors for a chance at playing with Kirishima-kun… The other boys were an after-thought,” Kamiya-senpai explained. “Kirishima-kun is quite popular in our committee after all... ”

Was I? I helped out a lot, but I didn’t think I made friends with everyone in the committee. There was a larger number of girls than boys in the committee, admittedly, but I didn’t expect it to be a unanimous vote unless only the girls got a vote because they got to lead the entirety of Reduction Week while the boys were reduced.

Slaaaaaaaaaaaaam!

My thoughts were interrupted by a heavy crash that sent a shockwave vibrating through my body. The entire class heard it. Yae didn’t tap the pill with the mallet to break it. She pounded it. Even the girls were surprised by how strongly she crushed it.

“Touya… Popular?... I never heard about this… Can we talk about this later...?”

That was not a request. Yae could be the jealous type. I knew that. I did not appreciate Senpai provoking her when she was armed with something that could turn boulder-sized pills into powder.

Well, even Senpai felt uncomfortable having had to tell us that. “My apologies, Kirishima-kun. I knew I should not have brought that up, but I felt I should be honest with you as to why you have been getting these unfair quotas.”

It certainly explained Saeki’s disappointment when I met the quota in the second session as well as Akagi’s and Morino’s excitement when I didn’t meet the third session’s quota. My somewhat fair quota this time was most likely due to Kamiya-senpai’s influence over the session. In any case, Senpai tried explaining things to Yae so she’d calm down. She had to describe the tales of my assisting the health committee members to Yae. 

In the end, Yae shook her head and looked over at me. “I give up… Touya… how many flags did you raise…?”

“He might have raised more than Eguchi-kun,” Honda remarked with a giggle, “It may be a good thing he’s dedicated to you, Yae-chan. He broke them all in no time flat.”

“I-I don’t know whether I should feel happy about that or not anymore,” Yae tried to hide her face. She was happy but still wanted to pout. I had to thank Honda for saying the one line that got her to stop glaring at me.

“Kirishima-kun, you’re quite the guy,” Nakano chuckled while pushing the second to last green sphere needed for the fourth trial. “It’s no wonder you and Eguchi-kun are friends.”

“I still don’t think I’m any popular,” I defended. “If I knew I was, I feel like I’d be a different kind of guy.”

“No. You’d still be dedicated to Asano-san, I’m pretty sure.”

“You’re darn right I’d be.”

“Always the straight-forward type, aren’t you?” laughed Nakano. 

At the very least, Yae had been defused. We were able to get through the fourth trial with no issue as a result. Well, the only issue would have been Yae giving me a cold look of disgust for a moment while she grabbed the pills. Though I was fearful, I had to admit it was a peculiar sight. It had a strange appeal, perhaps because of its rarity.

Nakano took a few steps away from me upon noticing my reaction. “Kirishima-kun… Don’t tell me you’re an M…”

I wasn’t. It was just because it was Yae.

Kamiya-senpai left us to our devices after the conversation ended. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean things were over. I couldn’t forget Yanase-senpai. After the fourth trial was the last one where I was going to be pushing with Nakano because the fifth was going to be my solo pushing. My special quota had been arranged by her so, as expected, Senpai quietly came over just to observe me pushing the spherical pills.

“Touya-kun~ You’re on the last trial, huh~?” Yanase-senpai happily strolled on over and took a seat atop the table we were on. The beaker we were in started shaking and nearly tipped over when her skirt-clad butt bumped into it. Unlike Kamiya-senpai, she was less careful about lab safety. Not was she concerned about the placement of her skirt either as it created a canopy over the beaker for a moment.

“I was wondering when she’d get closer,” I mumbled. I hesitated to turn around to see the massive wall that was Yanase-senpai’s leg was right behind me. Nakano got a good look at it and started babbling about side-tie panties in surprise. The upperclassman Yae and I knew since middle school was as carefree as ever letting us get a peak of her underwear.

“S-Senpai, your skirt...” Honda tried to get her to adjust, but Senpai then put her right leg over her left, giving everyone nearby a clear view of her thighs. Yae and I knew better than to react, having gotten used to it since middle school, though the view was impressive, especially the clear view where Yanase-senpai’s white thigh highs pinched her thighs. I contemplated how Yae’s black ones would look. They seemed to squeeze so tightly, I doubted even a reduced guy like me would be able to move if trapped in them.

“Gah. Begone, my delusions,” I shook my head.

Despite my size, my ever-observant Senpai was able to predict my actions. She didn’t need to see me while I was out of view beneath her skirt and by her butt as she shifted about, purposefully hitting the beaker Nakano and I were in. 

“Touya-kun~ Even if you shake away your delusions, you still had them, didn’t you~?” she asked quietly before scooting away just slightly. To Nakano and I, it seemed she moved a dozen meters away in an instant.

“Senpai… you’re too much," Yae dryly remarked.

She certainly was. Yanase-senpai frowned while slowly sweeping her finger around the beaker’s rim above us. “If only the beaker wasn’t necessary~. I wanted to scare Touya-kun some more~ and it’d be so much better if the glass wasn’t in the way~!”

“Senpai, please…,” Yae tried to stay quiet. Senpai’s conspicuous way of sitting was bad enough. If the other classmates heard her words, she’d feel embarrassed to be associated with her.

She already did enough this morning, honestly. Yanase-senpai’s love of fooling around with me and Yae never stopped. She was also happily nudging her butt to and fro along the table. She didn’t even have to touch the beaker. Her movements were powerful enough that I couldn’t keep my feet still nor could the spheres rolling around me as they jerked left and right alongside Senpai’s motions.

The upperclassman noticed and stopped the beaker by putting her fingertips on the edge of the glass. Nakano and I suddenly found ourselves yanked to the side at ridiculous speeds. Nakano and I were both slammed into the wall of the glass along with the pills which smacked into us. 

“Oh my~ I may have forced Touya-kun to have to start over~. I shook the beaker too much~,” Yanase-senpai knew what she had done, and she wasn’t repentant. She merely giggled and whispered. “Sorry, Touya-kun~ I just wanted to get you closer~”

Closer was an understatement. What Senpai had done in an instant was raise her leg and then pull the beaker we were in under it. The white and peach colored walls completely blocking our view of the rest of the classroom were her legs and underwear. She had moved us between her thighs.

“S-senpai, that’s a little revealing, isn’t it?” Honda was concerned. She looked around to check if anyone else was paying attention. They thankfully weren’t.

“It should be fine~. The boys have probably been seeing them all day so there’s no reason to be concerned about it now~” Yanase-senpai seemed completely fine with exposing herself to us. 

“Kirishima-kun, I feel sorry for you, having to put up with all of this,” Nakano commented while trying to keep his eyes away from seeing the up-close sight of the giant wall of Yanase-senpai’s panty-clad crotch. He was not succeeding considering how much of our view consisted of Yanase-senpai’s body.

“Thanks for the pity,” I scrunched my nose. I wasn’t succeeding either, but I at least knew Senpai enough to know this wouldn’t last too long. I tried remaining calm while a feminine scent entered the beaker and lingered around us. I tried to not think about where it was coming from lest Yae get angry with me later. 

The reason why I said that I knew Senpai enough that our current stay would be brief was because Yanase-senpai took joy in flustering me and Yae. Even more than me, she knew the best ways to push Yae’s buttons and rile her up quickly.

“Touya-kun~ Nakano-kun~ Would you like to play with me~? Yae-chan and Honda-san are cute, but wouldn’t you prefer a lovely older girl~?” To hammer it home, Senpai closed the space between her legs, squeezing the beaker we were in with her legs. We could see her thighs press against the glass. The beaker walls felt fragile compared to the imposing flesh walls pressing against them. 

“Senpai, what are you doing…?”

“Ah, didn’t you know, Yae-chan~? A lady’s Pheromones are a lot stronger on Reduced men~! If I leave them here for just ten minutes, they’ll fall for me~!” Senpai whispered quietly enough for only people nearby to her. 

“Eh?!” “What?!”

Was that the truth? I had been pressed against Yae’s panties earlier and admittedly did start worrying about losing my sense of reason. I hoped it was a lie considering Senpai often led Yae on. Still, I didn’t completely trust the potency of the sensory spray.  Even with our senses dulled, there was musky odor spreading around us. It wasn’t as strong as being crushed under Yae, but the mixture of Senpai’s pungent sweat and her womanly curve’s charming fragrance was actually somewhat alluring. I seemed to be more acquainted with it compared to Nakano, who was red in the face while he tried to cover his mouth and nose.

“Nakano… How are you holding up…?” I asked while covering my mouth with my arm.

“A little… dizzy… My body feels a little hot too...,”

I couldn’t disagree. We were up next to our upperclassman’s womanhood which was larger than a skyscraper after all. Even with the beaker’s glass and Senpai’s white side-tie panties in the way, we couldn’t avoid its presence.

“Fufu~n~! They’re really getting a whiff, aren’t they~? I’m so embarrassed~!”

Senpai was being very bold to tease Yae, but both she and Honda didn’t need any more convincing.

“No, Touya!”  “No, not Nakano-kun!”

Yae took the bait. Honda did as well. They really didn’t want us to be charmed. The two of them shouted loudly enough that the rest of the class turned in their direction. Causing both of them to turn red, flustered and embarrassed. This was what Yanase-senpai had been aiming for the entire time. She started giggling while Kamiya-senpai in the far side of the room only shook her head, having realized what she had done.

“My, my~! How adorable~! I was just joking, Yae-chan~! Fufu~n~” the health committee member/ student council secretary couldn’t stop her laughing fit as she freed Nakano and I from the grip of her thighs. 

“Eh? A joke?”

“It was a lie about the pheromones~! There’s been no experiments that proved it was true~,” Senpai grabbed the beaker we were in and put us away from her legs. She then stood up and got off the table. “But I’m super impressed with you two~! You must really love them to react that loudly~.”

“L-Love? N-No, I don’t think- Nakano-kun, it’s not… Um… Um...” “Lo-! I-I mean, I do, but… Senpai, please! This is embarrassing!” 

“Emi-chan, go easy on them…,” Kamiya-senpai sighed when she approached to drag Yanase-senpai away. “And telling a lie like that is in poor taste.”

“Sorry~ Sorry~! Hehehe~!”

I was going to have to tell Senpai that it wasn’t as much of a lie as she thought it was. Nakano and I were still suffering from the fact that the smell of Yanase-senpai’s womanhood lingered at the bottom of the beaker where we were. I was thankful when she started waving her hand above it to try bringing in some fresh air.

Well, Nakano and I admitted seeing the defeated, tomato-red faced girls we were partnered with was both amusing and embarrassing. To think they’d both fall for Yanase-senpai’s lie so easily… Actually, to think Honda would focus her attention on Nakano so strongly… We were definitely going to get a couple after Reduction Week was over. If not, I’d have to smack Nakano.

All of the antics of the period settled as the lab neared its end. I was able to succeed in my quota despite Yanase-senpai’s interruption, and Yae and Honda were able to finish the lab after recovering from their self-destruction earlier. They were doing their best to avoid eye contact with us, though, I noticed. That alone would have been easy enough, but they were clearly trying to avoid it to the point where just turning in the direction of the beaker was impossible for them. I told Nakano to be proud we were able to fluster a pair of 600 m giant girls.

In the end, it seemed as though the class would end safely without any more issues. Yanase-senpai and Kamiya-senpai weighed the resulting chemical products each group made and, because of how simple the lab was, we thought there’d be no way we’d fail to meet the requirements.

“It looks like we have a lot of people who weren't within error~!” Yanase-senpai announced.

Overconfidence precedes carelessness.  Unfortunately, as it turned out, one-third of the girls ended up not noticing one of the trick questions in the lab. Messing up the units before converting in the calculations had been the error a lot of the girls had ended up doing. As a result, the error in a number of the groups’ results exceeded 10% by a large margin.

“No way. Are you telling me we’re all getting the penalty?” Hozuki couldn’t believe her luck for having succeeded in finishing the lab but failing to evade the penalty right at the end.

That was correct. The penalty was going to apply to both the boys and the girls. This was the first session where so many of us were going to get the penalty, my classmates were all in shock, the girls more so than the boys because they had been breezing through the entire day without issue.

So what was the penalty? Yanase-senpai handed it over to Kamiya-senpai to read.

“The two of us ended up pulling the tape penalty from the joint penalty box,” Kamiya-senpai revealed. She then explained how this would work for the girls. “If I recall correctly, the idea behind this would be putting the tape on the girls and pulling them off quickly.”

“As for the boys~ We’ll try sticking you in tape for a few seconds~!” Yanase-senpai detailed the penalty for the boys.

I grimaced. Tape? I had experience with being stuck to various things as of late, and none of them had been originally designed as adhesive. Tape, however, was. A single piece of tape was many times wider than we were tall. If we were stuck to something designed to cling to us, how would we be able to be peel off? I imagined it would be painful for the entire body.

At the very least, the first victims were the girls. We boys watched from within our beakers as the girls who messed up had tape put on them and then quickly peeled off. Unlike us who Kamiya-senpai promised to use normal tape for, the girls were victims of the power of duct tape. Both of my senpais were not gentle when tearing that off. 

“Kyaaa! My leg! It stings!” Nomiya squealed.

“Pya-hiiiiiiiiii~!” Tokiwa squeaked when the tape was torn off the back of her neck. 

“Uwaaaaaah! Mo-Mo-Mouth… Hurts...” Honda was in too much pain to continue speaking.

“G-Gyaaaah! T-T-That pulled a few hairs… O-ouch...” Hozuki tried to keep cool but couldn’t.

“-----------!” Yae couldn’t even speak. She was the victim of Yanase-senpai yanking the tape off her mouth just like Honda. 

I would’ve liked to see Takahashi get her just deserts, but she and Satou were among the groups who were within the margin of error. And to make matters worse, the fact that Honda and Yae were among the group of victims meant our group didn’t meet the requirement. We had been off by 23% apparently.

After the girls were done with their penalty, our time to watch ended, and then came our turn to become the victims.

Kamiya-senpai and Yanase-senpai collected all of us boys from their unsuccessful groups by pinching us out of the beakers we were in and dropping us all in the same beaker. We were shaken around while Senpai grabbed us all and then placed us on a clean lab table in the center of the room.

“Well, let’s see here~!” Yanase-senpai happily inspected us. “Eight boys, huh~? And Touya-kun, too~! Isn’t this going to be fun~?” 

“Emi-chan, please do not single Kirishima-kun out. You have been having too much fun today,” Kamiya-senpai tried to stop Yanase-senpai from getting too excited. “If you fool around too much, I will take you out of assisting the next session.”

“Eh~? That’d be so cruel, Nacchan~! I’ll be good, I promise~!”

Whatever the next session was, both of our senpais were looking forward to it. In any case, Kamiya-senpai was given the chance to take charge of our penalty. Whether or not that was a good thing, I became unsure when I saw Kamiya-senpai’s nervous expression looking down at us.

“Okay, boys. I will be starting now,” she told us as she plucked Arai from the beaker like a piece of candy. We looked through the glass to see her place him on the table and watched as she cut a piece of tape. “Here we go!”

If Arai was saying something before Kamiya-senpai applied the tape to him, we couldn’t hear him due to how far he was from us (which was 50 cm) and due to the thickness of the beaker. What we could see, however, was that Kamiya-senpai’s finger pushed him down and applied the tape immediately over him like a blanket. His body remained motionless while Kamiya-senpai used her fingernail to trace around his body, trying to flatten the tape properly.

“How long should it be, Emi-chan? Thirty seconds?”

“Mmhmm~” nodded Yanase-senpai. “I’ll peel them off, Nacchan, so keep going!”

At least it would be quick. Kamiya-senpai continued to take all of us out from the beaker and carefully stuck us to the table. I noticed all of the other girls were watching curiously and a few others were watching with concern.

“Hiroshi… Soz…,” Watanabe apologized while still rubbing her stinging arm.

“They’re just sticking them in whatever way they fall. Look, Yamabuki-kun’s all curled up,” Yoshikawa noted. 

“They’re so small, they hardly make an impression. Maybe we should get the magnifying glasses out,” I heard Takahashi remark.

“... Look like we’re doing a dissection…,” Yukimura mumbled. That did nothing to ease my nerves because Kamiya-senpai was clearly leaving me for last.

When it came to my turn, the other boys were done with their penalties and returned to the reduced classroom we had come into class in. I stood alone trapped by the fortress-sized glass walls of the beaker as Kamiya-senpai smiled down at me.

“Okay, Kirishima-kun, here it’s your turn,” she told me as her fingers descended. Senpai only needed her nails to pinch my body. She was gentle, having gotten used to handling us reduced boys throughout the week. I was lifted out and placed in front of her on the table. Looking up, I saw the piece of tape stuck to the finger. It was only the length of her finger nail, but it was the size of a tarp to me.

“I should probably get into a better position,” I realized what would be a good plan before I was plastered onto the table. I started to lie down, but I was not quick enough to compare to the speed that Senpai was moving at relative to me. The tape descended and her finger knocked me flat on my back. The next thing I saw was the opaque blanket before it covered me. My arms and legs had been spread out when I was knocked down. I was sealed in place by the sticky adhesive.

“Wow. Very Vitruvian Man of you, Kirishima-kun,” Senpai was impressed at the sight of how I had been taped down. I would have said something but my mouth was stuck to the tape as well. I could not move one bit. Was this how being vacuum sealed could be like? My entire body was firmly kept in place by the clingy material. Yukimura’s comparison came to my mind. Senpai looking down on me with the ceiling light far behind her indeed made my position look like I was going to be dissected.

Senpai used her nail to trace around my tiny 0.5 cm form, pushing out any stray air bubbles that weren’t around me and flattening the tape so there wouldn’t be any bumps other than where I was. I couldn’t even turn my head to follow her gigantic nail as it moved swiftly around me.

“Mmpf...” I tried to breathe with my mouth but that was impossible. This was worse than if somebody tried to cover me in plastic wrap. At least with plastic wrap, I could struggle a little. The tape was so strong to me, I couldn’t fight it.

“Wow… he’s just stuck there,” I heard Yae. I really was. I was too weak to fight even a piece of tape. If nobody was around, I doubted I’d be able to break free.

After thirty seconds passed, it was then Yanase-senpai’s turn to let me go. She peeled the tape off the table slowly. I braced myself for the stinging pain and the tearing of my clothes, but it was never that simple at a reduced size. I found myself lifted up along with the tape, stuck to it and still unable to move while Senpai dangled it in front of her with a smile.

“Fufu~n~. That’s the penalty game, Touya-kun~!” she was not going to be freeing me immediately. “I hope you enjoyed this session~! We’ll get you ready for lunch and then there will only be two sessions left~!”

Lunch? That sounded good. I could use a rest. I hoped there would be some time for Senpai to apply the cleaning balm on us guys as well. This tape was completely coating me and sticking to my skin.

To my dismay, however, Yanase-senpai did not peel the tape off me like she had done the other boys. Before I could think, her finger folded the piece of tape over. I could feel both sides of me completely covered by the adhesive as her thick, enormous fingertips pressed down on me, rolling me around the surface of her thumb.

“Mmppf! Mpff!” I struggled but I couldn’t do a thing as I was bound by the tape from all directions. What was Senpai doing?

The answer to that had been in what she said earlier.

“Here you go Yae-chan~!” Senpai had kept a part of the adhesive unused. I found myself dangling freely when she stuck my rolled up and taped body onto Yae’s fourth uniform button.

“Mmph! Mmff!” I couldn’t get a word out while swinging left and right by Yae’s chest. It was bouncing. I was bouncing. My body rose and feel meters in the air as Yae panicked, flustered from Yanase-senpai’s action.

Yae peeled me off as soon as she could and kept me in the middle of her sports field sized palm. “Senpai, you’re playing around way too much.”

“It’s fine, isn’t it~? Treat Touya-kun well for lunch, okay~? You’re in charge of him after all~!”

That was right. Yae was my caretaker. She had been given permission to have me with her instead of with the other guys for lunch. With my body rolled up in tape like a cocoon, I could do nothing, not even look up at Yae because my head was stuck facing down into her palm.

The day was almost over at least… right?