Eren pinched his arm. 

He desperately wanted this all to be some kind of awful dream that he could laugh about then forget. He wanted to wake up on his girlfriend’s chest and feel her heartbeat lull him back to sleep. But no matter how hard he squeezed the skin between his fingers, nothing around him changed. 

This was real. Jisoo had really killed those two people. She had really swallowed that man alive and crushed his sister to death as callously as one might step on an ant. Eren still remembered Alice’s face alight with terror moments before she was squished into paste. He had seen that same hopelessness many times before. Old friends and flings who had suffered similar, gruesome fates.

Although he had never seen someone die the way Thomas had. To be eaten alive was a fear of many specks, albeit not a very common way to go. They were vermin to most people, and it would be repulsive to consider eating a speck. And yet Jisoo had done so and seemed almost aroused as the tiny speck slid down her throat. 

When she stooped down to lift him off the ground, Eren had felt an unprecedented kind of fear. He felt an uncontrollable urge to run away, although logically he knew it would be impossible to escape. Nonetheless it took every bit of willpower he had to simply trust Jisoo. Surely she would never hurt him…

And yet when he felt her fingers close in on him, Eren did not feel comforted to be in her indomitable grasp. His gaze was solely fixated on her plush lips, which at any time could open to reveal a set of teeth that would macerate him into ribbons. Each of her elephantine fingers effortlessly turned and manipulated his near rigid body with ease, completely under her control.

I can’t stop shaking. Eren realized as Jisoo began to walk away. It was impossible to feel at ease, with his body doing everything it could to compel him to flee. Adrenaline flooded his mind and provided a tremendous spurt of energy that he refused to expend. The result was a war between his innate desire to remain still in her palm, and the other part of him that screamed at Eren to scurry away and hide like his life as a speck had taught him to do. It’s like that time at Delphi’s Tavern… I’m having a panic attack.

Jisoo took a seat on the edge of her bed once she closed the door behind her. She could feel Eren quiver in her hand but only noticed how terrified he looked upon closer inspection. She sighed and murmured something to herself. 

Gently she brought him closer to her bosom and pressed him against her chest to feel her heartbeat. Even now the simple hug comforted him as it always had whenever Eren had an episode. The warmth and softness all around him put Eren at ease, and gradually he could feel the rush of adrenaline which coursed through his body abate.

Calm down, she won’t hurt you. She would never…

Jisoo still remembered the first night Eren had been with her. Shortly after she returned from her altercation with the bartender complicit in his assault, she had discovered him in her bed shivering in his sleep as if stricken by an awful illness. He thrashed around for several minutes under her concerned gaze before finally she could take no more and nudged him once to rouse him from what had been a terrible nightmare. 

His eyes had been red and teary, alert and watchful of even the slightest movement she made. It didn’t matter whether or not on a rational level Eren was aware that she posed no threat. Quite the opposite. At the moment he was a shivering wreck in need of comfort only a giantess could provide. Eventually his fear melted away in the warmth provided by her chest, until eventually he went completely limp in her grasp. 

This was not how she wanted this conversation to begin. She knew it would happen one day, but not so soon and especially under these circumstances. Now she could only hope that Eren would understand. He was one of the only people she knew who possibly could, he just didn’t know it yet.

She sighed. “When I was younger… sometimes Tae-yeon would hold me just like this.” Jisoo murmured softly and affectionately stroked Eren’s back with her thumb. “Whenever I returned home from school in tears. Or when our father would scold me to the point I felt worthless. Cradled in her palm and pressed against her chest where I could feel her heart lull me to sleep was the only thing that could calm me down.” 

“Her… her palm?” Eren repeated, confused. His voice was muffled and indistinct beneath the fabrics of her blanket. It made it hard to determine whether or not his voice was trembling, or in disbelief.

Eren attempted to crawl from between her fingers up her chest towards her collarbone, but Jisoo held him firmly in place. He still needed to recuperate, and she wanted him to feel safe with her once again. 

A few moments passed as Jisoo gazed up at the ceiling fan which spun slowly overhead. Against her bare skin the cool air felt heavenly. Laid back in bed like this she could easily fall asleep and forget this night ever happened.

Nevertheless she continued. “When we first met, you asked why someone like me would care about a speck.” She recalled and nudged him slightly. “I couldn’t tell you at the time. You would have thought I was crazy… but now you’ve seen the impossible with your own eyes.” 

“I saved you because you needed help, and because I’ve been there too. I was tormented simply because I share the same curse as you.” Jisoo told him. 

She could feel him go stiff, and was thankful that she could not see his expression. Surely it would be a mixture of confusion and disbelief at the idea that she, like him, could have been born as a speck. After all he was enveloped within her grip as she said so.

Had he not witnessed a woman he once knew was a normal person die before his eyes at a height of three inches tall, undoubtedly he would have never believed her. Now he was uncertain. 

Jisoo continued. “For the first sixteen years of my life until I was discovered by my true family, I was a speck.” 

“Your true family… the Amrita Corporation. They are the ones behind The Diminution, aren’t they?” Eren mused after a brief pause. “It’s how you shrank Alice and her brother. And I assume how you reversed the effects within yourself.” 

“More or less that’s the simplest explanation.” She said with an affirmative nod. Of course he had discerned as much. 

“That’s…” Eren trailed off then flipped over onto his back to lay against her bosom. “So, what is the longer version?”

Her fingers splayed over him like a big net, and kept him pinned to her soft curves as she spoke. Eren was very comfortable, but it was a subtle reminder of the infinite gap in their power dynamic. 

She sat up slightly with a few pillows propped beneath her back against the bed frame. “It was never intended to result in the world we have today. The Diminution was supposed to be a chance to save the world from the destructive nature of mankind.” 

“To what end?”

“The world my grandmother, Daiyu, and her younger sister were born into was dying. As two brilliant scientists they came up with a solution to reduce humanity’s impact upon the planet.” Jisoo explained. “But they could never have anticipated how hateful people would be to the ones who were shrunk… we’ve both experienced that cruelty first hand.” She replied.

In Korea, the chances that a speck would be murdered outright for fun was considerably lower than it was in the United States. However, those unfortunate enough to be within the minority of diminutive people would still face a lifetime of hardship and torment from their larger counterparts. Whether through economic exploitation or outright hostility and assault, the social hierarchy was still brutal.

That much was true almost everywhere. There were seldom few nations where specks could live freely without concern that a trip to the grocery store would be their last excursion into the world. Specks were such small and meaningless people, so why would anybody care about them? Ultimately what most people really cared about was themselves and nothing more. Perhaps a select few in their family and social network could be lumped into that group, but the plight of strangers was always met by indifference.

“Half of humanity was affected by the chemical compound they released. Now only twenty percent of the global population are specks.” Jisoo murmured. “Conservative estimates show that they will be rendered extinct within the next seventy years.” 

“If you are a descendant of Baochai, then why did you live as a speck to an adopted family for so long?” Eren asked.

Jisoo moved him to her lap so he could look up past the slope of her torso and speak more naturally to her. “My mother is to blame for that. That… witch abandoned our clan and had me. I was discovered by complete accident and then brought into the fold.”

“An accident?”

“After school one day a girl who often bullied me went too far and I had to go to the hospital. I had never done any blood work or annual physicals since my father took me to a family physician instead whenever I was sick.” Jisoo said with a shrug. “By the time my father had rushed from work to stop the procedure it was too late and my blood samples had been processed and sent to a lab for testing.” She explained.

That day felt like an eternity ago. Jisoo still remembered her first visit to an actual hospital, rather than the pleasant little home owned by a family friend who would treat her whenever she was ill. The doctors had all been normal sized, which made it a very intimidating procedure especially since they were not particularly accommodating to a speck patient beyond the bare minimum to ensure she made a proper recovery.

Nevertheless they did more than the American system, where specks in emergency situations were directed to a local specialty office designated to treat specks. However they were so few actually operable due to a lack of funds and qualified personnel that a call usually just rang indefinitely. Most specks had to rely on surgeons within their communes. 

“The Amrita Corporation detected whatever chemical they used to reverse the effects in your blood sample then.” Eren realized. “It created a blip on their radar and they found you.”

“We call that specific compound the xírâng. It was developed by Baochai to reverse the effects of the zhìyù, which was created by my grandmother, Daiyu Fang.” Jisoo replied affirmatively. “Every person on this planet currently has the zhìyù within their blood. It is only active in specks, but can be activated in normal people with a concentrated dose.”

“Which is how you shrank both Alice and Thomas.” Eren concluded. “And the xírâng, that is only found in the blood of those directly descended from either Baochai or Daiyu Fang I presume.”

“It was a kind of failsafe Baochai implemented, in case their plan ever went awry.” Jisoo told him. 

That had been the most important decision in their family’s history. Had Baochai not done so, the ability of their family to manipulate the fate of the world would have surely been lost. Now they had a chance to correct the mistakes of their ancestors, and finish what they set in motion.

More importantly, they could save countless lives that had been doomed to the perils of a world careless to their hardships. Those who were shrunken, along with countless others who still toiled beneath the current world order of oppressive regimes and corporatism. It was clear now to the contemporary descendants of Baochai and Daiyu that it was not simply enough to alter the course of mankind away from total destruction. Rather, a firmer hand was needed.

Eren furrowed his brow. “Wait… if you were born a speck that means that one of your parents must have been too.” He murmured. 

Hmph. You don’t miss a thing do you? Jisoo nodded to confirm his theory. “My mother was a speck when she was born, and like me, later reversed the effects. Her mother was Daiyu, and she voluntarily became the first speck.” She noted. “However Baochai never became one, and therefore her immediate lineage does not produce any specks.”

“So wait a moment… I’m… I’m very confused about how you can be Daiyu Fang’s granddaughter. She would have been in her twenties when The Diminution happened in 2005.” Eren said, confused by the timeline. It was now the year 2108, that had been over a century ago. “How old was your mother when she had you?”

“Keqing would have been seventy-five when she had me. Right now she is…a hundred and one.” Jisoo said after a brief pause to do the math in her head. “Since that time, my family has methods to greatly extend mortal life. Unfortunately before she vanished my mother absconded with a few such trinkets.”

“Why did your mother leave? Have you ever looked for her?”

“Honestly… nobody knows. We’ve searched for her all across the world.” Jisoo admitted. “It was very strange. She had always been a loyal believer in our family’s cause to repair the world but… one day she left with a few artifacts then disappeared. Until I was discovered over twenty years later, it was like she had fallen off the map. The only person who had seen her was my adoptive father on the night she gave me to him to raise as his own daughter.” 

“Byung-ho when he was questioned said he had no idea where she went. Only that she had asked him to look after me.” She said.

It felt painful to give her mother any credit at all. The woman had doomed Jisoo to a miserable life that had almost ended prematurely many times. However it was the truth. She supposed that Keqing could have always done worse. She could have simply done as Byung-ho’s ex-wife had suggested and simply flushed her down a drain. 

The only memory she had left of Keqing were old photographs and videos taken long before Jisoo had been born. She had spent hours watching them to see what kind of woman her mother was, and carved her face into her memory. Never had she seemed like the kind of woman to spit in the face of everything their family had done and just leave without a word.

Then again… that is what I nearly did, isn’t it? Jisoo thought to herself remorsefully. I nearly followed in her footsteps. But I’m different now, I’ve accepted who I am. And I am nothing like my mother.

“Well, that’s the easiest explanation I can provide. You understand who I am now. Who I really am.” Jisoo said with a relieved sigh to feel the insurmountable weight fall from her shoulders. “And you don’t seem entirely appalled by what you see. I was worried you might despise me.”

Eren glanced away, still unsure of his feelings. “Jisoo… why did you eat Thomas?” 

The adrenaline from his panic attack had worn off. Now Eren felt a strange kind of calm serenity, as if his body had expended all of its energy to feel alarmed for the time being. It made the revelations that Jisoo had revealed to him considerably easier to swallow. Not that he would have been able to feasibly deny them anyways.

From the moment he had laid eyes upon Alice, a formerly normal sized person attempting to leave as a speck, he knew that something remarkably strange had happened. Either a repeat of The Diminution, or her capture and reduction had been intentional and coordinated. The latter had been more probable.

When he saw Alice burst like a grape beneath Jisoo’s gargantuan foot, and heard her scream out for her brother to save her… Eren had felt a multitude of emotions. 

He had witnessed countless of his friends perish in similar ways, and it drove his instincts into fight or flight. However after some time to consider what had happened, and more importantly who the victim of that casual cruelty had been, it was hard not to feel immense satisfaction. Eren still remembered that face from his nightmares, laughing as he prepared to meet an ignominious death in a skid-marked toilet. He remembered it full of glee as he suffered.

The thought of that same horrible person dying a miserable death befitting of the people whom she had tormented before in similar ways was a delicious form of revenge. It disturbed him to think of how much he had actually come to relish that fleeting moment, in which his girlfriend became a godlike arbiter of retribution and crushed Alice into paste. However, it was the demise of Thomas which was hard to feel the same kind of vitriol towards.

For what little time he had known him, he never gave the impression of a monster who liked to torment specks. Only a big brother who wanted to protect his sister, but crossed the wrong people in the process. Someone like that did not deserve such treatment.

They were both here, in Grace’s suite. Eren ruminated. On that day the police officer and Jisoo ran outside… Was he the one who caused that incident? Is that why Grace had them both?

Grace played a significant role in this, he was sure of it. However, to what extent he was not entirely sure. Admittedly he did not know her as well as Jisoo, but she had always seemed like a good person whenever they spoke. Would a good person really torture someone like Thomas for her own amusement? Is that what had happened? 

The titaness rubbed her tummy, as if subconsciously aware that her digestive juices were currently melting Thomas away. A shiver ran down Eren’s spine, the thought of such a demise was terrifying to say the least. Many specks had that fear, but fortunately since they were viewed as vermin by many the idea of putting a speck close to one’s mouth was a disgusting thought.

She contemplated his question carefully. “Whether or not I swallowed him or stepped on him, the end result was death. And it’s been a long time since I’ve… Well, since I have eaten someone.” Jisoo told him and stifled a playful giggle. “Oh it sounds so morbid.”

“You’ve… eaten people before then?” Eren asked uncomfortably. That had not been the answer he expected. 

It also demonstrated something else. Her casual response and general ease at which she took in the death of others implied that she had killed before. That was not a very pleasant thought. Truthfully death was less impactful for specks compared to the average person, they saw it happen all the time and often in grotesque ways. Moreover she even seemed to enjoy it.

However, to see it done without such carelessness still disturbed him. Even if the death of one of the two of her victims was justified.

Jisoo brushed the hair from her eyes. “Thomas knew what his sister had done. When Grace captured him, she informed him that Alice had tried to murder you. And that she had previously killed many other specks before.” She told him. “Alice was a mass murderer. She and her friend Sylvia Collins both tortured dozens of people to death and recorded it. Limbs pulled off one by one, bodies twisted into odd shapes, burnt alive in hot oil or popped in a microwave… you would have been her sixty-second victim had I not intervened.” 

“…sixty-two?”

She nodded sadly. “Grace and I watched the recordings. They were still on Sylvia’s phone. If you don’t believe me, we can watch them together-.”

So they got the other girl as well. “I believe you.” Eren cut in, and felt rather faint. Some of the world’s worst serial killers had murdered fewer people than that. 

However their victims were brobs, which in the eyes of the general public qualified them as monsters. Specks did not get that luxury. Now he could understand why it was projected that within decades the extinction specks were anticipated. Their downfall was a long, drawn out genocide.

He shook his head. “But Thomas only knew after the fact.”

“True, but even with that knowledge, he still defended his sister. He still attempted to save her worthless life.” Jisoo replied. “Tell me something. If the brother of one of the men who murdered your father, and raped your mother, tried to defend their kin even with the knowledge of what they did, would you show them mercy?” She asked.

Eren opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. His first response would have been a lie. That day still haunted him. It always would.

Sometimes he dreamt that he was a brob, and those faceless monsters who killed his parents were specks. He could only imagine the terrible vengeance he would exact upon them if he had the opportunity. An eternity of torment was too light a punishment for what they did. 

Her actions were brutal. Cruel. Inhumane. But directed towards those who enabled the mass slaughter and plight of his kind. It just so happened that most of the population were grouped into that bucket of people. Why should he care about their deaths or pain? Were the situation reversed, those same people would turn a blind eye to the misery of specks. Or in cases such as Alice, people murdered them for fun.

There was no reason for him to oppose her actions. The people who died at her hand were unworthy of life. 

Jisoo is probably the only person in the world right now who has had that chance to make the people who made her life miserable pay for what they did. It’s understandable that she’s so bitter and cruel towards them. And why she has a total disregard for their lives. Eren realized. If it were me… would I have done it differently?

Regardless of whether or not Thomas did anything wrong in his life to people like me and Jisoo, he still came to understand what his sister did. And despite that he still defended her. 

“If it were me I would have done the same thing.” He finally admitted. “If someone tried to stop me from killing those men who destroyed my life, it wouldn’t have mattered how good a person they were.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that. It doesn’t make you a bad person to want revenge.” 

“What difference does it make?” Eren replied numbly. “The world treats us like shit no matter what. Alice was a monster. I’m glad she’s dead. And her brother… he chose his side.” He proclaimed. 

Eren took a seat on her lap and placed a hand upon her thigh affectionately. She could feel his body relax and breathe a sigh of relief. It was a simple gesture, but it reaffirmed their trust in one another that for a moment she feared had been lost forever. 

Jisoo smiled and nuzzled him against her leg. “I was wrong to keep the truth from you. You understand me.” She mentioned and leaned back in bed, ready to fall asleep with him on her lap.

“As a speck… I am one of the only people who can understand you.”