(52) Day 3 Mixed Bath Intermission (16.7 m
< 16.9 m)
“So I get to take a dip now. Thankfully this
doesn’t look like the foot bath area.”
The mixed bath at Hotel Ten-Scale was
certainly the strangest co-size location I had been at. I could see why it
wasn’t easily known, but it was certainly an experience to use after I had
changed into a provided swimsuit and walked outside.
“This is a wide fence. It loops around the
building.”
There had been two doors next to each other –
one Magnified and one regular sized. Kamiya-senpai had pushed Yae through the
noren and into the girls’ side entrance while leaving me to head through the
boys’ side entrance that was partially concealed behind a Magnified potted
plant. The boys’ side seemed like your own typical bathhouse changing room, but
there was something peculiar outside of the changing room and it wasn’t just
the expansive, fenced-in bath.
”Hm…? Is this okay? I’ve never heard of riding
one of these in a hot spring before.”
While there was enough room for a bath
already, there were also several boats docked in the hot, steamy water. You
wouldn’t ever expect for a hot spring to have boats, but the entirety of the
springs was actually large enough to resemble a lake so it made sense.
Whrrrrr!
“Whoa! O-Oh, it’s automatic? I guess I’m going
to the mixed area now then.”
I narrowed my eyes the boat pushed me through
the floating steam. I was sure that this section of the spring was manmade
because it didn’t seem likely for the path to be so linear naturally. It also
didn’t seem to be connected to the rest of the hot springs outside. This was
made clear when I saw that there was an entrance in the inn that the spring
redirected towards. The high-tech looking white and blue boat made its way
through the steam and into the even steamier building.
Cough!
“Oh jeez. This steam is thick. Am I glad I’m
only wearing a swimsuit right now.”
The heat and steam made my body feel sluggish
and heavy. It felt like I was travelling through a sauna, which wasn’t too far
off considering the tunnel through the wall of the inn building made it difficult
for the hot steam to leave. I couldn’t see the walls due to the thick fog, so I
was thankful for the lights that lined the tunnel. Still, it took a full thirty
seconds of boat travel to get to the other side where there was light.
“Kwah! Gah… It’s still hot but that’s better.”
Despite knowing that everything inside the
building was Magnified, entering the expansive indoor mixed bath took me aback
the moment I entered. Rather than entering an indoor bath, I felt like I had
entered a Roman emperor’s thermae. The bath that I was in looked to be made of
something like marble and had an intricate pattern visible through the water.
Well, that was only the singular bath I had
entered. As the boat got further in, I saw the rest of the room. The marble was
only for the large bath while the rest of the room had flagstone flooring. Some
of the walls had square ceramic tiles lining them which would be 10 cm wide
normally but were a solid meter wide at this scale. This made it somewhat
easier for me to determine the actual size of the room I was in.
“Jeez. It’s a single room, but this indoor
bath really feels on par with the lake outside,” I remarked as the boat started
to slow. It began turning to park itself at a second dock located in the indoor
mixed bath. I didn’t see another boat there so I was likely going to be the
only guy around.
Walking to the front of the boat and looking
around, I had to admit that I rarely ever went to public baths before. This was
a fancy ryokan, but I imagined it would follow standard bathhouse etiquette. Would
I have to take a shower before entering the water even though I just rode a
boat across it? The showers looked over 100 meters away from me and didn’t seem
operable at my scale. The bottles of shampoo and conditioner were also taller
than me, and a stray bar of soap that I saw was half my size.
The large mixed bath lake that I had come in
to was also not the only bath present either. Separate baths for different
temperatures were also in the room but impossible for me to get into when the
water was being kept behind solid wood, ceramic, or stone walls that were over
twice my height. Well, impossible wasn’t actually the truth. There seemed to be
regular sized steps that would allow me to head up if I wanted to try those
baths out.
In any case, I didn’t have to do anything nor
did I have time to do anything as the boat ride from the mens’ changing room
into the mixed bath took long enough that Yae and Kamiya-senpai were already
washing up at the showers. They realized I was here when a green light lit up
on one of the walls.
“Oh. It seems as if one of the boats just
docked. It must be Kirishima-kun,” Kamiya-senpai’s voice could be heard across
the room. “That is good timing since you seem to have finished washing up. Yae-san,
you should go get him. Kirishima-kun needs to be cleaned up as well before we
can soak in the hot springs.”
“Boats? Oh, that spot you showed me. Okay,
Senpai.”
The steam in the room was thick, but Yae’s
figure got clearer and bigger as she crossed the room over to me. She wearing
an inn-provided pink two-piece swimsuit that covered much more than the fabric-lacking
O-ring she had been made to wear earlier. She was clearly more comfortable in
this one because she was not at all embarrassed or hesitant walking around in
it.
“Hi, Touya. It took you long enough,” Yae greeted
me with a giggle. I held onto the edge of the boat as two feet each over half
the length of the boat entered the water, buffeting it with wave after wave.
The boat had been docked at the first step of a four step stair down into the
water, so Yae’s feet were only ankle deep. She had to bend her knees to get a
closer look at me.
“The boat ride was unexpected. These things
are automatic apparently. It’s pretty cool,” I was keeping a straight face as
best as I could, but my face must have been turning red for a reason that
wasn’t the heat. Because of how she had stood next to the boat before bending
down, I was being treated to a close up view to Yae’s pink bikini bottom.
“They’re automatic? Then these boats are more
surreal than I thought they were when Senpai told me about them.” It sounded
like Yae had already been told by Kamiya-senpai so the initial surprise had
already faded. “Well, come on, Touya. Senpai and I are practically done
washing. You need to wash up too before we can jump in.”
Rumble!
“Gwoah!” I tightened my grip on the railing I
was holding onto as Yae brought both hands down to the deck of the 5 meter long
boat. At her scale, her hand was as long as I was tall, meaning that the entire
boat was more or less a big toy to the nearly 17 m girl and I was more or less
a doll. Yae snatched me up off the boat and made her way back to the showers.
Kamiya-senpai was finishing up washing her
long hair while seated on a stool. She wore a similar swimsuit to Yae’s but in
green. It felt odd seeing my responsible upperclassman in a swimsuit. I
couldn’t help but notice that she was slimmer than Yae in a few places.
“Kirishima-kun… I am aware that you are
staring,” Senpai did not have to open her eyes to intimidate me with the truth.
“S-Sorry, Senpai,” I apologized as Yae put me
down between her stool and Senpai’s stool. Actually, to be specific, she put me
into a basin tub that had a shampoo bottle, conditioner bottle, and a rubber
duck in it. It wasn’t too deep of a tub that I couldn’t climb out of It but it
would take some effort. I was more concerned about the fact that the tub was
actually directly beneath the showerhead. “Uh… Yae?”
“Ufufu. I already finished washing so it’s
your turn, Touya,” Yae giggled and turned the faucet. In a second, a deluge of
water started to pour onto me.
Splash!
“Uwoah!” I expected a cold shower but it was
lukewarm. I had to make sure to put my weight on my right leg in order to avoid
getting knocked down by the waterfall of shower water. I wondered if this was
what being hit by a power washer felt like. To my concern, the basin was also starting
to fill with water. There was no way for it to drain out so it rose up to make
ankles and soon the water was halfway up my knees.
“That should be good, Yae-san,” I heard
Kamiya-senpai say. I had to close my eyes to avoid getting the water into my eyes.
The water was Magnified so the literal downpour was full of heavy and hard
droplets. I knew what was happening when a sudden acceleration increased the
force of the water on me, slamming down into the growing pool of water in the
basin.
Senpai had lifted the entire basin up and
turned on her stool. She set it back down on top of hers and Yae’s laps. Yae
lowered the water pressure until it became a trickle to them (while still being
strong shower strength to me).
“Hey, what’s going on?” I realized Senpai had
likely planned something with Yae.
“We’ll wash you up, Touya,” Yae told me,
taking the giant bottles of soap and shampoo out of the basin and squeezing
some out into the hand. “You’ve had a tough day, right?”
“No, it’s fine. I can wash myself, Yae,” I
tried to refuse, but that was not going to happen.
Kamiya-senpai also had a rough day, but she
was also joining in. “Considering what Yae-san told me about your encounter
with Ranko-san and what I saw in the changing room of that… incredible outfit…
you both were told to wear underneath your clothes, I believe some pampering
will do you some good, Kirishima-kun.”
“Senpai, you too?”
“While I may not be as good as Naru-chan, I am
quite confident in my technique,” Senpai smiled warmly. Her long fingers
entered the basin and began to stroke my arms and back. “Although, I do not
believe I have ever washed the back of someone so small before.”
Washing someone’s back was something that you
could call pampering. I remembered those times when we were kids where Yae and
I helped wash her parents’ backs when we were still young enough to take baths
together. What Senpai was doing was not washing my back, though. She was
rubbing her thin fingers against my body gently while Yae came in with her
hands, lathering the soap up in the water basin until herbal-scented bubbles
surrounded me completely.
“Kirishima-kun, lift up your arm a little,
please. Like this,” Senpai’s pinched her fingers and grabbed my entire left
arm, lifting it up so she could wipe under it. It was a motherly action, but
due to the sheer size difference between us, it was more like a girl messing
with a doll.
“Ehehehe. I can barely see you anymore,
Touya,” giggled Yae at the sight of me lost in the comparatively mini bubble
bath. “Here, let me get your hair. You don’t take care of it too much.”
“Uwah! O-Oh! Wow…” I couldn’t form coherent
sentences as I received a full body treatment. Senpai hadn’t been lying. Her
technique was amazing. Yae and Kamiya-senpai alternated holding me and rubbing
the soap around me with their fingers. Yae was comparatively rougher due to her
inexperience, but Senpai’s fingers were gentle as they stroked my back and
chest.
“This reminds me of whenever I have to give my
puppy, Coffee, a bath,” Kamiya-senpai remarked. “Oh, Yae-san. That is the
conditioner. The shampoo is over here.”
“Oh. Thanks, Senpai… A puppy? Do you have any
pictures?”
“Yes. I can show you some later if you would
like.”
The conversation above me started up and
continued without me. I couldn’t speak up while surrounded by bubbles and
water. The two 17 m giants were not cutting any corners when it came to washing
me up. The girls were gentle and thorough, but I felt like a dish in a sink. I
half-expected a sponge to be brought in to scrape any dirt and grime off of me.
Longer than I would have ever washed up in a
shower on my own, Yae and Kamiya-senpai finally finished scrubbing me down. “Alright,
Touya. We’re done.”
“Did that feel good, Kirishima-kun?”
“… More than I expected it to…” After going
through a massage-like experience in my childhood friend and upperclassman’s
hands, I was almost speechless. My legs felt like jelly.
“Well, if we are all finished here, then it is
time for us to enjoy the hot spring. Shall we?”
“Yes!” Yae cheered.
I was grateful to hear that I was done being
gently man-handled, Yae took me out of the tub while Senpai poured the water
out and grabbed the rubber duck. The two of them then slowly walked over to the
large bath I had entered from.
“Oh my, it is quite hot,” Senpai hesitated for
a moment. She had to slowly get used to the temperature of the water.
Yae, on the other hand, was perfectly fine
walking right in. As she walked down the steps into the deeper part of the
steaming water, she lowered her hands with me in it. As her hands dipped under
the water, I lost my floor and needed to tread water to float.
“Aaaaah~!” Yae let out a loud exclamation of
pleasure. The water was just the right temperature for her. “It feels so good!”
“Yae-san, that was a little loud,” Senpai was
taken aback by Yae’s moan but also made a noise after sinking her shoulders
into the water. “Nnnngn~ But I certainly
relate with you here.”
“Sorry, Senpai. I haven’t been in a hot spring
in middle school,” Yae sank her body deeper into the water, enjoying every
second she was in the spring.
“Oh, right. That was back when Su…” I drifted
off, remembering my conversation with Takahashi. We had to keep Yae oblivious to
that girl’s presence on the island.
“What was that, Touya?” Thankfully, Yae hadn’t
heard me fully. She looked at me swimming in the water in front of her.
“Ehehehe. Are you having a good swim?”
“It’s a lot more like a heated pool than a hot
spring here… A very hot heated pool,” I told her. “I never thought I’d be
allowed to swim in a bath before.”
To prove her point, I swam a few meters
forward and then dove down into the water. The hot spring water was
surprisingly clear so my actions treated me to the underwater sight of Yae’s
statuesque, swimsuit clad body. To think I’d have such a scenic view without
having to go scuba diving.
“Kwah!” I swam back up to catch my breath to
find both Senpai and Yae trying to stifle their laughter.
“I suppose I cannot lecture you for swimming
in the bath here, Kirishima-kun,” Kamiya-senpai smiled. Her hand stroked the
surface of the water, pushing it to send the rubber duck she had towards me. “Please
use this if you ever get tired of treading water.”
Splash!
Senpai’s water pushing was strong enough to
hit me like an actual ocean wave. The floating rubber toy, when Magnified, was
about 75 cm in height, width, and length. It made a good pool float that was
practically rideable. Actually, instead of just grabbing onto it, I tried to
see if I could climb onto it…
To my own surprise, I could. “Whoa. It’s not
even sinking.”
“Pfft! Ahahahaha~!”
Cough! Hack!
The sight of me mounting a rubber duck was
something even I knew had to be hilarious. Yae couldn’t hold back her laughter
and Kamiya-senpai choked on her own saliva trying to.
Cough! Cough!
“I did not expect you to just hop on…” Senpai managed a complete
sentence between coughs.
“I’m.. I’m sorry Touya… You just look so
ridiculous like that… Ahahaha!” Yae held her sides which were hurting from her
laughter.
While being laughed at did feel embarrassing,
I couldn’t help but laugh along with them. Even I had to admit how I looked
must have been prime comedy. I was straddling a duck floaty in the middle of an
onsen in my swim trucks for crying out loud.
“Heheh. Well, at least I’m at a bigger size in
the water this time,” I tried to break the laugh-fest. I was successful as it
got to remember how it had been for us during Reduction Week.
“R-right… That time in the bath…” Yae
hesitated. She stopped laughing because she recalled.
Kamiya-senpai frowned at the mention of it. “…
You two took a bath together while you were Reduced before, Kirishima-kun? I do
not believe you told me about that.”
“Ah… Well, I did tell Sasakura-sensei. She
approved of it too, seeing as she gave us something to test out in the bath.”
“Sensei… what were your intentions… Or was it
actually Ranko-san behind it all?” Kamiya-senpai pinched her brow, trying to
not get any wrinkles from stressing over it. She eventually opted to dismiss
the matter and sank into the hot spring water in an effort to relax. “No, I
should not think about it now. I need to calm down after today… Let the water
soak into my shoulders…”
“Heh. That’s the spirit, Senpai.”
“…?! Kirishima-kun, you are a little too
close…” my upperclassman’s ears reddened.
“Huh?” Looking around, I realized that the
duck had floated over towards her. Directly below me was Senpai’s navel and if
I looked down in front of the duck, I could see the green fabric of her bikini
top poke out of the bath like little sandbars in the water. “O-oh. I can’t
really control where this thing goes, Senpai.”
“I can, thankfully,” Senpai literally pushed
away her embarrassment as her left leg moved underwater. She pulled it towards
her, causing it to rise out of the water like a submarine surfacing. The force
of her knee breaking the water’s surface sent waves that spun the duck and me
off the course towards her chest and redirected me away from her body.
“Whoah! Waaah! I’m getting real dizzy here!” I
held onto the rubber duck as it continued to spiral around the bath. I came to
a stop when Yae’s hand rose up from the water and grabbed the rubber duck. “Uwoa!”
Splash!
I had been spinning too quickly so the sudden
stop caused me to lose my grip on the duck. I fell off. I tumbled under the
surface of the hot spring bath and tried to figure out which way was up before
I could claw my way up to air.
“Kwah!” I was grateful to be able to breathe
again. “Phew… I didn’t think my fingers would slip off. That duck is slicker
than I thought it was.”
“Slicker? Ehehe. You sure did make a cute
little splash, Touya,” Yae’s voice spoke down to me.
I had to look left and right to get my
bearings after my tumble in the water. Above and below me were a given, but it
was only when I turned around did I realize that Yae was behind me.
“…Cute, huh?” I mumbled, my attention was
directed towards the prominent pink orbs taking up my vision. They were
floating.
“Touya… pick your jaw back up,” my staring was
too obvious. Yae both blushed and smiled at how stunned I must have looked. She
didn’t move because she was enjoying the hot spring water. “Well, I guess it’s
okay. It’s only the three of us right now. Let’s just relax...”
Both Yae and Kamiya-senpai were unwinding in
the hot water. It was amusing to me how laid-back they looked, especially
Senpai who was always so serious. I certainly wanted a break to so now that
both girls were done laughing, I swam over and hopped back onto the rubber
deck, laying my stomach onto its back.
“You’re right. It’s a hot spring. Let’s enjoy
it…”
(53) Day 3 Hot Spring Horror (16.9 m < 17.0
m)
Although the three of us spent a long time in
the hot water like old folks enjoying a bathhouse, the time we spent in the
largest bath was more than my relatively smaller body could handle. I was as
red as a lobster and intending to swim from the rubber duck that was floating
over Yae’s belly button to get out of the water.
My attempt, however, was interrupted by some
new additions to the mixed bath that had apparently been present the entire
time.
Slam!
“Gaaah! So hot! I can’t take it anymore!”
“C-Cold bath! T-there’s a cold bath! Let’s get
in there, Fumika-chan!”
There was a sauna connected to the mixed bath,
and two people slammed the door open, running out to hop into the wooden, cold
bath. It was so sudden that Yae and Senpai both stood up and turned around.
Considering my location, I was pulled by the current caused by Yae’s body displacing
the water.
“Gwagh!”
Splash!
Water dripped down from Yae’s body,
particularly her boobs, smacking me in scattered, heavy bursts like multiple
buckets of water. The rubber duck was sent spinning away so I had nothing to
grab onto. I was forced to continue my swim to ‘shore’ as Yae and Senpai
recognized who had broken the silence.
“Akagi-san, Morino-san,” Senpai recognized the
second year duo in our health committee. “You were in the sauna this entire
time?”
“Huh? Kamiya-senpai? And Yae-san? What are you
two doing here?” Morino turned her head after it popped out of the cold water
bath she had jumped into.
“Senpai recommended us the mixed bath so me
and Touya could relax. Why are you here?”
“Someone told us this inn had a ghost rumor in
the mixed bath’s sauna,” she explained. “We wanted to see it for ourselves, but
it got too hot inside while we were investigating.
“Ghost rumor?” I was incredibly skeptical. I
tried to glance into the sauna room to see if there were any ofuda talismans or
something, but, with the way the door opened, I couldn’t see inside from this
distance. Actually, I doubted Yae and Senpai could see inside either.
“W-wait, you said Tou-san is around? O-oh
right, the mixed bath means guys can come in. I didn’t see any here until now,”
Akagi sounded flustered as she lowered her body further into the water.
Considering how flustered she could get when I saw her bare arms when she wasn’t
wearing ‘moe sleeves’, she was really weak when her skin wasn’t covered.
“It should be fine, Kasumi-chan.,” Morino was
the less embarrassed of the two. She was used to how nervous Akagi could get
without covering her skin. “Touya-san’s smaller than us. We can just throw a
towel over him if we don’t want him to see.”
“She’s that bad without long sleeves, huh? I
should make a note of this for future reference,” I said to nobody in
particular while dog paddling to the closest land which actually was the docks
the boat was at.
“Come on. I’ll show you. Let me bring him
over,” Morino got out of the cold bath.
“W-Wait, Fumika-chan!?”
Before I was even half way to the docks, Morino
was already there. The normally ponytailed girl, her hair down and wet now,
spotted me immediately. “Pfft! It’s bad manners to swim in the bath,
Touya-san.”
“I heard that line before,” I groaned. Morino
was the third girl to see me swimming in the bath after all.
“Here, I got you,” Morino decided to step into
the water. The moment her feet went in, the displaced water created a wave that
pushed me away. It was only for a brief instance, though, as the moment she
started to walk, she generated a small current that yanked me forwards again. I
didn’t have to swim to be carried towards where her dark blue swimsuit bottom
loomed over me. I was a bit too close, but for Morino, that was just what she
needed to scoop me out of the water.
Sploosh!
“W-Whoa!” I was startled when peach colored land
suddenly burst out of the water from beneath me. Morino didn’t use her hands to
get me out. She lifted her leg up while standing in the water. She made sure
that I no longer had to swim by using her thigh to create an island for me.
Morino was more flexible than I expected, though. The ‘island’ began to tilt as
her leg went past horizontal and broke through the water’s surface. I had to
hold on so I wouldn’t start sliding down towards her bikini bottom.
Morino, thankfully, plucked me off because I
could slip further. “Get some good exercise today, Touya-san?”
“… Yeah, I think it’s been enough, Morino,” I answered
as she brought me up to her face. “But I think you girls did a lot more work
than I did.”
“Sure did,” Morino sighed and stepped out of
the large bath. “I expect you to help us out tomorrow. That’s when your shift
is.”
“Gotcha,” I nodded. Morino brought me all the
way over to the cold bath where Akagi was. Inside the wooden confines of the
small bath, I saw bubbles in the water that indicated her location. “…Is
Kaa-san trying to see how long she can hold her breath?”
Spoosh!
“Kwah!” Akagi had run out of breath too soon.
She shivered and jumped out of the cold water bath as quickly as she could.
“I-It’s too cold!”
“3/10,” I rated her performance. She was
always trying to scare me with urban legends and ghost stories so I felt I had
the right to poke fun at her. “Got to go slower, Kaa-san, if you want to mimic
those horror movie ghosts.”
“Uuuu,” the shivering girl frowned as she
jumped out of the cold water. The warm color of her red swimsuit did not heat
her up. “I-I wasn’t trying to scare you, Tou-san. N-now stop looking… Fumika-chan,
put him away.”
A shivering Akagi who was doing her best to
hide her skin was amusing to me. For her to be embarrassed because I was
present, she was pretty self-conscious. The ‘S’ in me wanted to have her
experience this for a bit longer.
“Whoa! Hey, Morino! Hold on!” I had to act
quickly because Morino’s other hand started to come down on me. I was pushed
down onto my back by her palm, forcing me to use my hands and legs to try to
push back against her. Of course, there was no winning against Morino’s hand
when she over 10 times my size, so I had to get clever. I had to distract Morino
so she wouldn’t cover my face in her palms. “Y-You know, Morino. Since you
mentioned that ghost rumor, there are always stories about inns that are
haunted. Things like talismans on the walls of some rooms… hair coming out of
holes… strange noises and happenings at night. Which one are you looking for?”
I successfully caught the interest of the
occult club health committee member with my choice of conversation topic. She
stopped moving and lifted her hand back up to her head, pondering an answer to
the question. “Well, we were hoping to find hidden talismans, but we couldn’t
find any. I guess they wouldn’t last too long in a sauna anyways now that I
think about it. Hair seems more likely to pop up in the drains and baths. As
for the strange happenings… is it night yet or does it have to be later?”
“Probably when everybody’s asleep. Speaking of
drains, there are also hot spring and bath stories of ghosts coming out of the
water. Was the rumor specifically just the sauna?”
“We were only told about the sauna, and then
we dropped what we were doing to go look. Do you think something would come out
of the water here, Touya-san? Maybe we should investigate tonight.”
“You are not allowed in the baths after hours,
Morino-san,” Senpai scolded. She and Yae both had walked out of the bath to
join us since we were talking to each other.
“And I’m pretty sure this inn can’t have been
here long enough to have any ghosts,” Yae used logic and reason to dismiss the
idea. “I mean, this place was Magnified too.”
Morino blinked, realizing what that would
entail. “Oh, you have a point there. But if it were true, maybe the ghost would
remain normal sized and we girls can just pick it up.”
“I like the idea of a Magnified ghost more,” I
chuckled, imagining the long, dark-haired ghosts from classic horror movies.
“Touya, you’re enjoying talking about the
occult a bit too much. Are you sure you’re not an occult club member?” Yae
frowned at how into the conversation I was being.
“He’s an honorary member but also our rival
skeptic,” Morino chuckled. “Akagi has him on speed dial.”
“Morino, you don’t have to tell her that,” I
told her without looking at her. The entire time, I kept my gaze on Akagi, who
had been trying to user her arms, a basin, and then a small towel to cover
herself.
“Tou-san, you Peeping Tom. I said to stop
looking,” she chose to cower behind Senpai and Yae to get the most cover
between the two of us.
“Akagi-san? Are you okay?” Yae was surprised
at how the normally energetic occult club girl was now in a panic.
“Sorry, Yae-san. Kasumi-chan is real bad at
having guys see her skin. And that feeling’s probably doubled considering it’s
Touya-san. After all, she used to li-”
“Morino stop!” “Kasumi-chan, stop!”
Akagi and I shouted in unison to stop Morino
from blabbing about something neither of us wanted revealed in front of Yae. It
was something Akagi herself had chosen to give up on, but if Yae knew, it’d
make things much more complicated for everyone.
“Huh? Used to what?” Yae tilted her head. I
was grateful for her occasional bouts of obliviousness. She likely assumed it
was one of our health committee in-jokes because we certainly had plenty of
those.
“A-Ah. Sorry,” Morino realized what a bad idea
finishing her sentence would’ve been.
“… It’s fine,” Akagi sighed, shaking her head.
“I already gave up on it before anything could happen.”
Akagi was saying too much. We needed a change
of subject so I took it upon myself to do it myself. “Morino, do you mind
putting me down? I’d rather not be more than ten meters above the floor.”
“Ten meters? Oh, right. I keep forgetting
we’re Magnified when we’re here,” Morino nodded and lowered me back down to the
floor.
Although we hadn’t been in the mixed bath for
more than half an hour yet, it certainly felt like it had been ages since I had
been on solid ground. It had also been just as long since I last looked up at
the giant girls when from the ground because I had been moved around in Yae’s
hands the entire time.
Looking up at the girls who were now around 17
meters in height now, I certainly felt small. If I were to compare myself to
them properly, I was less than 20 cm to them. I wasn’t even half way up their
knees.
“Jeez, you girls are huge,” I stated the
obvious.
“No, you’re ju- No wait, you’re right,” Morino
was about to say that I was the small one but realized her own mistake halfway.
“We are still growing I suppose,” Senpai
added.
“Akagi-san, are you okay?” Yae was more
concerned about Akagi than the rest of us were.
“Haaah… After that little scare, I think I’m
better now,” Akagi let out a deep breath. Yae gave her a large towel – one that
she could use to wrap around her body. It gave her enough comfort to huff and
pout at me. “You know, Tou-san – you distracting Fumika-chan like that by
keeping her talking - you’re a real ‘S’ sometimes.”
“It’s just a little payback,” I chuckled.
“Oh, really now? I’ll show you payback.”
I earned Akagi’s ire. Her being over 10 times
my size also made it easier for her to quickly retaliate so she immediately got
to it. Akagi’s feet, which were petite, were still longer than I was tall at
over 3 meters. I learned this quickly as Akagi tried to intimidate me by
lifting it up into the air. She could cover me completely underneath the soaked
bare foot. My own trauma kept me frozen until she heavily stomped onto the
ground.
Wham!
“Urk!” I winced at the force of dozens of
metric tons of weight slamming down near me. However, to her dismay, I wasn’t as
intimidated because she quickly pulled back to make sure her towel wouldn’t
slip off her shoulders. I put my hand on my hip and worked up the breath to
tell her, “…You’ll have to get used to short sleeves eventually, Akagi. You
nearly passed out from heatstroke during our club training in the summer because
you kept wearing your jacket.”
“He has a point, Kasumi-chan,” Morino took my
side here.
“He does,” nodded Kamiya-senpai. There were no
arguments here considering all of us health committee members had witnessed it
over the summer.
“… I’ll get to it eventually,” Akagi bit her
lip, unable to talk back after being triple-teamed. She went back to hiding
behind Yae who was trying to follow the conversation. She was still feeling
vindictive. She narrowed her eyes and glared at me. “Tou-san, why don’t you go
into the sauna? You need some sweat out some of that nastiness of yours.”
To force me into the sauna, she bent down and
used her hands to push me towards the door. It had closed sometime after the
two of them had run out, though, so the occult loving health committee girl had
to pull it open again.
Rattle! Rattle!
“Huh? It won’t budge,” Akagi was genuinely
surprised. “Did it lock from the inside?”
“I didn’t think sauna’s have locks,” Morino
approached. As I had a much smaller field of vision and Akagi’s attention was
directed towards the door knob, she was the one who noticed something through
the fogged up glass door of the sauna. “Huh? … Uh, Kasumi-chan, we were the
only ones inside earlier, weren’t we?”
“Yeah. It was just us, Fumik-” Akagi glanced
up and saw the same thing Morino did.
As I was at the bottom of the glass door, the
part where the wooden frame became glass was chest high to me. I had to crane
my neck to take a look, and the extra Magnified distance made seeing through
the steam much more difficult. However, I was able to see a blurry and shadowy
figure inside.
Click!
“Whoa!”
It was then that the door finally unjammed up
for Akagi. Unfortunately, for me, it swung out. I felt my feet leave the ground
when it hit me and shoved me along its path as it opened. That might have been
for the best, as I was still able to hear what happened next.
“Get out…”
“Eh?”
“GET OUT!”
“K-Kyaah!” “We’re sorry!”
“Akagi-san? Morino-san? Yae-san, please go
after them. I am worried they will run into the halls in the swimsuits.”
“I-I’m on it, Senpai!”
For the occult club members to be frightened
of a sudden ghost sighting, they were a lot more cowardly than I thought. At
least, that would’ve been the case if it were an actual ghost. I was hidden
behind the glass door as a giant girl stomped out of the sauna. Much like movie
ghosts, she had long hair, but unlike movie ghosts, it was a dyed blonde. The
reason why they ran off wasn’t because she was a ghost but because she had a
fierce glare.
However, after meeting her, I would’ve
preferred a ghost.
“Tch. Bunch of noisy bitches,” the giant girl
in a purple bikini clicked her tongue. “They were so loud, I thought if I snuck
past and jammed the sauna door, I wouldn’t have to deal with their noise.”
“So that was how she scared them,” I mumbled. The
cold bath wasn’t next to the sauna so we hadn’t seen her come in. I also hadn’t
noticed because I was staring at Akagi the whole time to make her squirm. They
must’ve been extremely stealthy, though, as the rest of us from Sakuragawa
hadn’t realized either.
“Why’d they have to get it unstuck and barge
inside with all their ghost talk? No matter the school, occult bitches are so
annoying.”
Kamiya-senpai frowned at the girl’s choice of
words but she chose to be courteous. “I
apologize. I should have reminded them sooner to be respectful of other guests.”
“You’re damn right you should’ve,” the girl crossed
her arms with a snarl. “It’s been a rough day, and I just wanted to sweat off
all this annoying shit. I did NOT want to deal with whatever bothersome spooky crap
you all were doing.”
I narrowed my eyes. Senpai already apologized.
There was no need for this girl to continue to snap at her no matter how bad
her day had been. I didn’t say anything, however, because it actually was
intimidating having an angry girl who towered over me within the vicinity. She
steps were heavy and she wasn’t looking at the ground like the more cautious
Akagi had been.
“Oya? Was today that bad, Reina-chan? Usually,
you only blow you top off like this when Kimura-kun’s involved. There’s no need
to be so harsh to someone we don’t know.”
It seemed someone else was in the sauna as
well. A second pair of legs stepped out. She had been sitting against the wall
out of view but now she had chosen to come out. She was thankfully more of a
voice of reason. While I would’ve been happy that someone was defending Senpai,
a chill ran up my spine. The second girl’s tone was not gentle. She was
taunting her friend with a passive smile. I froze up faster from her words than
from any vengeful spirit. Her voice triggered a memory within me.
“Tch. Don’t mention that guy now of all times.
I want to grind that dumbass under my foot right now. If only he were on this
trip too. Then I could make him squirm in front of everyone.”
“Ufufu. You sure do like to say that. He sure
is lucky he isn’t around.”
Senpai and I both visibly winced. These girls
were dangerous. This Reina girl was perfectly fine talking about hurting
someone while Magnified while her friend was enjoying it and enabling her
friend.
That wasn’t the worst part of it all, though.
“Her voice… It can’t be…”
The second girl’s voice was one that was
familiar with me. I would’ve said that I couldn’t place it, but that would’ve
been a lie. I knew it well. I couldn’t forget it even after two years. I could
see why Takahashi had been completely exhausted today.
I hesitated to look up higher through the
foggy glass to see the girl’s face, but I had no choice in the matter. Senpai,
after hearing the Reina girl’s words, made the decision to get me and leave.
She swiftly picked me up from behind the door and held me in her left hand,
cupping her right hand over me to cover me.
I was able to get a good look from between
Senpai’s palms. Although her hair was down, clad in a matching purple swimsuit
like her friend was a face that I had known in middle school. The same
expression she always carried was on her face today as it had years ago.
“… Sumire…” the girl’s name escaped my lips.
“I apologize for the bother,” Senpai was not
going to retaliate and accepted the girl’s anger calmly. Engaging would’ve enraged
her more. “We will make ourselves scarce. But please, next time, I would advise
you not to jam the door if you want some privacy. Saunas can be dangerous if
you cannot get out.”
“I don’t need you to tell me twice.”
“No, no. She’s right, Reina-chan. Even I was
worried we’d be locked in.”
“Sumire, you bitch! You’re the one who told me
to rush into the sauna in the first place!”
“Oya? Oh yeah, I guess I did. My bad,
Reina-chan. It was the first idea that came to mind so we could avoid everyone.”
Their unabashed interactions… for her to be
friends with someone so harsh and to enable her… I mentally jumped through
loops, hoping I was only seeing a look-alike, but that wasn’t the case.
“… We should get going, Kirishima-kun. Do not
worry. I will take you straight over to the male side,” Senpai told me,
deciding to stop listening and to start walking away. I would’ve appreciated it
if she didn’t say my name, but it had already been too late. An observant pair
of eyes had already been locked-on to me.
“Reina-chan, let’s get back to the sauna. Once
Touya and his friends leave, we can enjoy the bath together.”
While Senpai took me out of the room, I heard
her use my name. As I thought, she knew it was me. It was her, and I could no
longer deny it. I was only thankful Senpai had made Yae leave the room before
they met.
Although horror had been what the occult club
lovers were looking for, I felt I had gone through a proper horror experience.
I had reencountered Sumire Yashiro.