Yae and I were doing homework together by the time they got back since Yae forced me to. I appreciated getting to copy her notes, but I really didn’t want to work. Yae wouldn’t let me be free of homework when she couldn’t be unfortunately. Ayame-san told me she would get dinner ready and asked us to keep Yuri company. Considering Yuri was complaining about having to start on her school project later after dinner, we relented.

“Onii-chan, let’s play hide and seek! I want to see if I can find you!”

I thought that would be fine, but it wasn’t really possible to cover much distance in a minute at my size. At just over 5 cm tall, I could get past Yuri’s striped sock foot and one step away from her by the time she reached 10. At thirty, I was still within her line of sight. 

Stomp!

“Wah!”

“Found you Onii-chan! Nishishishi~! You didn’t get very far!”

I didn’t like the idea of being on the floor with Yuri around. She wasn’t as cautious as the girls in school. In fact, she wasn’t afraid of stomping. I was blown away fairly often by her steps. Yae tried to tiptoe gently while barefoot, but Yuri was sliding across the floor in her socks and jumping about. It was clear to me that escaping a kaiju sized girl was impossible on foot.

There were not many places to hide on the floor either. Even after Yuri extended her count to fifty, I couldn’t leave the living room since I couldn’t make it that far in time, and there were only so many things on the floor. On the second match, I managed to crawl under the cushions by the coffee table, but that was the second place Yuri looked after putting her face down onto the floor to check under the sofa.

“Uwaah!” I shouted as my ceiling disappeared when Yuri picked the entire cushion up.

“Yay! I win again!”

We opted against me searching for the girls because it would take forever for me to get anywhere, but Yae played as well. The same result came with her searching. Actually, she cheated on one game by using the Tracer Belt’s tracker.

Pluck!

“Uwoah!” I made a sound when Yae simply plucked me off the ground from where I was hiding behind the table leg. She wasn’t even looking at me, just her phone.

“Onee-chan, that’s no fair for Onii-chan.”

“I just wanted to make sure if it worked. And I knew he was there already.”

When she had a birds’ eye view of me, it must’ve been obvious. Still, I would have at least thought being this small would have made me harder to spot. As it turned out, Yae only had a hard time distinguishing me from the other guys when we were on the floor at school, but she could see us all easily. Now that she only needed to find me when I was the only Reduced person around, the task was a breeze for her.

A few games later, Yae tried to help me hide, too.

“Here, Touya, in here,” she whispered to me before slipping me inside the pocket of her shorts. I couldn’t exactly argue, nor could I see what was going on outside while Yae kept me in her shorts, but the warmth I felt while waiting for Yae to (purposefully) get caught by Yuri was comforting.

Yuri found me quickly however, realizing Yae was acting suspicious. She stuck her hand inside Yae’s pockets and pulled me out. 

“Kyaa!” “Ngph!”

“Aha! Found a tiny Onii-chan!” She squeezed me tightly in her hand in excitement. I felt the air leave my body like a balloon being deflated.

“... You got me,” I exasperatedly breathed out. Being held in Yuri’s hands made me more nervous than being in Yae’s simply for the fact that the little ball of energy that was my neighbor’s little sister was in no way little. Her grip had been tight and rough - like I had been constricted by a giant snake. The power difference between myself and Yuri was like an ant and an elephant, and Yuri wasn’t as capable of restraining herself as Yae was. 

This continued until our last game which I felt was a bit much for me. Yuri liked Yae’s idea of hiding me and decided to copy her older sister. Unfortunately for me, her choice of a hiding place was not one I liked. I knew immediately when she started to take off her socks.

“Wait. Yuri, can we talk about this? I don- Waaaaah!”

“Onee-chan will never find you in here! Nishishishi~!”

“Blargh… No way...” I choked through the tears as I was tossed into Yuri’s striped sock. She left me on the floor beneath the sofa and went to hide while I struggled to find a way out of the pungent tunnel. It was damp from Yuri’s sweat and the sour odor was intense and muggy. The heavy air felt oppressive despite the effects other spray on my senses. I couldn’t tell which way was the way out and my body felt weak and dizzy. There was no sign of fresh air, and Yuri’s sock, heavy from both the size difference and the sweat it soaked up, pushed down on me. I was surrounded from all sides by the odor of Yuri’s sock. To think that I couldn’t even escape the sock of my childhood friend’s little sister…

Yae thankfully found me quickly. It wasn’t hard to realize when Yuri had suddenly switched to barefeet. I tumbled out of the sock when Yae lifted it up, finally able to breathe fresh air. She was more than mad at Yuri for subjecting me to that ordeal.

“Never again, Yuri!”

“But Onee-chan, you probably want to do that too.”

“N-No I don’t! I’m sure Touya doesn’t like this either.”

That spot of hesitance told me Yae had considered it, but I tried to block that knowledge out of my mind.

That was how my time was spent with Yae and her little sister before dinner. I was given very little time to rest in between games, so a breather was much appreciated while Yuri took out her project materials for Yae to see. The two girls were clearly not tired, but I sat exhausted in the middle of the coffee table as it became filled with arts and crafts scissors, popsicle sticks, poster paper, markers, and glue. 

There was also glitter. A lot of glitter.

“Whoa, hey, careful there Yuri. This is my only shrunken uniform,” I was cautious when her glitter glue bottle fell over and was nearly splattered by it. I did not want to get my foot caught in it let alone any other part of my body.

“Sorry, Onii-chan,” Yuri half-apologized, half laughed.

“Ah, that reminds me. Sensei did give me a clothes cleaning balm for you, Touya,” my words seemed to spark Yae’s memory. She pulled out what looked to be a lip balm stick out of the paper bag. Though she wanted to hand it to me, she stopped when she realized I was around the same height as it. I couldn’t lift it even if I tried. “Uh… If you want me to, I can clean your clothes right now.” 

“Save it for later, you two. Touya-kun, no taking your clothes off in front of Yuri,” Ayame-san interjected from the kitchen.

So it was alright if it was just with Yae? Well, when it came to using the Cleaning Balm, I and Ayame-san especially would have appreciated that. She really didn’t want me to be wearing the same set of clothes all week.

That was Reduction equipment number 5 in any case. As for number six, that came out when Ayame-san called everyone for dinner, or rather, called Yae and Yuri.

Tonight, I wouldn’t be eating the same meal as them.

“So we’re supposed to feed Touya-kun with this?” Ayame-san was curious about Reduction item number 6 which Yae had brought to the table. 

Yae nodded. “Sensei said Touya shouldn’t be eating regular sized food, so she gave me this. It might be like the buffet plate thing I saw during lunch today.”

“Okaa-san, you should put this on a plate too. It looks so cool,” Yuri suggested.

Item number 6 was apparently the largest of the things in Yae’s bag. I didn’t exactly approve of its design being made to resemble a bento box with a clear glass top, but it was actually a building. Inside it were cafeteria tables and a buffet of food much like from today’s lunch. All I had to do was step into the 8 cm tall box and go eat.

I did and found a smorgasbord of different foods sealed tight so that they wouldn’t fly out while Yae had brought it home. In fact, everything was strapped onto the surfaces tightly. I grabbed what I felt was enough for me and moved to one of the tables. Looking up, I could see the Asano family’s faces all looking down at me through the glass.

“Well, it looks like Touya-kun has something to eat at least, so I don’t have to be worried about that then,” Ayame-san smiled seeing me with a plate of food. “Just remember to eat your vegetables, Touya-kun. I’ll stuff you with a regular sized one if you don’t.”

To prove her point, Ayame-san used her chopsticks to bring a baby carrot over to the roof of the building. It was as big as I was. She then pulled back and put the entire thing in her mouth.

“This is so surreal,” Yae stated while unconsciously moving her chopsticks. As I was as small as a morsel of food and inside a building that looked like a box of food, that didn’t make me feel relaxed.

“Ehehehe~! Onee-chan, are you going to eat Onii-chan up?” Yuri didn’t miss Yae’s movements.

“W-What?! O-Of course not!” Yae was taken aback and flustered by her little sister’s words. There were plenty of things being implied but Yuri was too young to have understood them.

I was a little thankful I didn’t have to be a part of that conversation. There was a button on every table if I needed to speak into a microphone to amplify my voice, but I chose not to use it. I left Yae and her family to eat their meal while I ate mine in relative peace. I was going to make use of the shrunken building to experience normal size again as much as I could while I still could. I wanted to relax.

After that meal, however, while Yuri was made to do the dishes and after Yae had put the Bento Building away, I found the night was still young. Yae seemed nervous after checking what was next on the list of instructions from Sensei, but I did hear her say something about a ‘chance’. She left the living room with Ayame-san to talk.

“Okaa-san, Sensei said...”

“Eh?! She wants you to...”

“... Well, she said it’d be fine if… And Sensei said Touya’s under my...”

“Hm… You have a point…”

“... a little embarrassing but I want...”

“I guess this is a once in a lifetime chance… But if that’s the case...” 

Something was going on according to the conversation between Yae and her mother that they had in the hallway. I could only hear bits and pieces, but I knew it involved me. Yae did say that she was slowly bringing out all of the Reduction items. What was left on the list that Sensei wanted me to both use and test out?

My answer came when Yae returned to the living room and took a seat on her coffee table cushion. “Okay, Touya, let’s get going.”

“Get going? Where to?”

“Well… Sensei wanted to see if we could use the next thing, but I needed to get Okaa-san’s permission first. I’m also supposed to get your permission too, but I think you would probably say yes.”

Though I probably would, I would have also liked to know what I was signing up for. It was nice to know Yae was being assertive, or was it just because my opinion didn’t mean much now that she was going to be grabbing me in her hand?

Either way, I still wanted to know what it was.

“So what’s the next thing we have to do then?”

Picking me up with one hand and grabbing the paper bag with the other, Yae gave me her answer while I was muffled by her closed palm. “We’re going to be taking a bath together.”

“... Eh?”

So after dinner was a bath. A bath… Childhood friends like me and Yae had admittedly taken baths together before. When we were kids, there were times when we were in the same bathtub. Our parents were close and we were still children, so there really wasn’t any trouble at all.

That was when we were young though. A bath together with Yae at this age was unheard of. Not even with kids Yuri’s age would take baths would boys the same age as her. Yae and I were high schoolers, mature high schoolers who were nearing adulthood. 

I was surprised Ayame-san allowed this and even more startled it was being condoned by Sasakura-sensei who requested Yae do this in the first place. No, she didn’t simply say ‘Just use a sink and test it out’ she actually wrote down ‘Try it out in the bath’.

“I can’t complain, but Sasakura-sensei, you really shouldn’t be promoting this to high school students,” I mumbled to myself.

“Something wrong, Touya?” I heard out in the distance. Looking over in that direction, I saw Yae, or rather, there was nothing to see except Yae. 

“It’s nothing important, Yae,” I sweated not just out of concern but also from the heat.  “Urgh… this is hot…”

“Is it? Well, I guess this is bigger than any onsen, isn’t it?”

“More like an ocean.”

Of course, it wasn’t an ocean. I was taking a bath inside Yae’s bathtub... while she was in it at the same time. I wasn’t simply swimming in the bath water, though. I had all of the proper bathing necessities around me from soap to shampoo to towels. 

This was accomplished through Reduction Item number seven: The Indoor Open-Air Bath. A miniature onsen that could be filled with bath water was floating on the surface of the water Yae was bathing in. It was equipped with waterproof, watertight, and firmly affixed facilities and drainage pumps that allowed it to survive and float back up even if it was pushed under water.

To quote Yae, this was surreal. I was wearing my swim trunks and having an onsen bath on a 15 cm by 15 cm floating square that was between my childhood friend’s legs and her breasts.

Thank goodness Yae was also wearing a swimsuit. The frilly two piece from last summer was cute, but the frills couldn’t hide her cleavage, and to be between her spread legs, I wasn’t exactly sure where to look. I had a beautiful view of an island sized girl and a nice hot bath. 

“It’s like you’re a bath toy,” Yae remarked.

“And you’re like an island,” I gave her a counter comparison while looking in her direction.

“H-Hey, stop smiling like that. Really, don’t look so much, Touya,” Yae blushed, though from the way her eyes gazed up again after saying so, she clearly wanted me to look a little more. Yae was as much a queen of mixed messages as I was sometimes.

“Just be careful, okay?” I requested. “I’d rather not practice swimming in a place that has a drain.”

“I’m blocking it so you should be fine, but I understand why you’re worried,” nodded my childhood friend. “I’d rather you not do that either… I’m not prepared yet… At least give me a few minutes...”

The water was clear enough that I could see Yae’s hand in the water reflexively trying to cover her bikini bottom clad crotch. She was embarrassed despite having pushed herself to do this.

“Well, we both might as well enjoy this, right?” I suggested. “I know I sure am appreciating this view. I should thank Sensei for letting me see this.”

“No fair, I have less to see,” Yae pouted while her ears turned red from my comment. “You should do something to even this out, Touya.”

“I’m not going to strip.”

“N-No. I just wanted to watch… Wait, that’s not what I meant...”

“What do you mean then?” I raised an eyebrow, wanting Yae to get more flustered.

Yae struggled to work up the nerve to speak up. “Well, actually, Touya, maybe you cou-”

“You two better not be getting up to anything lewd in there!” We heard Ayame-san shout from outside.

“O-Okaa-san!” Yae’s body jerked as she shouted, flustered. I and the floating bath were nearly knocked over by her movement.

“Wah! Yae!”

“Kyaa!” Yae saw and heard me just in time to grab hold of the floating square before it tipped over and capsized. “S-sorry, that was my fault.”

“That was close… Is this how it feels when a kaiju destroys a ship?”

“Sorry…,” Yae bowed her head, pushing water as her body leaned forward. Her wet hair sending water flying in my direction with a powerful spray.

“Whoa, careful!” I raised my arms to protect myself.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Again, Yae moved, causing waves to rock the platform. I was already on unsteady ground but the wet floor made me slip and fall. I nearly fell back into the water again. “That’s my bad, Touya. I don’t think I'm ready yet for this.”

Ready for what, I wondered. Still, more than enjoyable, my current predicament was really dangerous. I wasn’t in any good condition after the near capsizing for the platform. It wasn’t exactly easy to enjoy a bath when the bath itself was being rocked about so easily. If there was any observation I wanted to make to give Sensei later, it was that.

“Gak… Well, if I’m going to get knocked off the platform, maybe I should just go all the way,” I gave up and stood up in the floating bath.

“Touya?”

I neared the edge of the platform and pointed up at Yae. I was ready to admit that the sight of her swimsuit-clad giant body all wet and towering over me like a mountain was gorgeous. I was about to recklessly approach it.

“Might as well just enjoy myself for a bit. If there’s an ocean, you’ve got to swim, right?” I told myself before diving into the bath.

Plop!

I hopped into the water beside the floating onsen and began to swim around. It was the same type of water as what was in the onsen so it wasn’t too different, but there was a definite change in feeling since this was directly Yae’s bath water.

“Uwaaah… You actually did it,” I heard Yae.

Swimming back to the edge of the onsen, I used one hand to keep myself from floating away and the other to push to activate the microphone and speaker. “It’s not too different from the onsen. I’m still taking a bath, aren’t I?”

“I thought you were afraid of the drain too… But Touya… I’m really not comfortable with you being here…,” Yae was red in the ears.

“It’s still the same bath, isn’t it? And let’s be honest, I’m in the mood for some exploring,” I regained my adventurous spirit from earlier today and swam away from the platform.

“Kyaa~! Touya! What are you doing!? Wait, where are you heading?” I heard Yae shout. I could feel her muscles tense through the ripples in the water. She had frozen up the moment I swam towards her. 

I couldn’t reply while swimming, but Yae had every reason to be flustered, in any case. I really could be a pervert. My destination was Yae’s breasts. They were floating in the water. Floating. Like islands. Among any of the other landmarks from Yae Island, I still probably would have chosen this one first if not second. I was a man with clear desires after all. I wouldn’t just deny them.

I swam as quickly as I could to my goal. I was curious how it’d be like to climb onto Yae’s chest. I had been pressed against it and also scaled it earlier, but a swimsuit clad Yae was an SSR rarity. I wanted to enjoy it. It was just going to take the effort of swimming the fair distance. Then again, everything was. The walls of the bath tub were far enough away that they alone seemed like distant cliffs. Anything beyond that was out of focus or blurred out in my vision due to the steam of the hot water.

“Huh? Touya?”

Unfortunately, my little adventure was cut short. I had been too slow to get there. Honestly, my pace was so slow, Yae had calmed down enough to see my miniscule body trying to make the distance. I hadn’t even gotten half way there.

“Is that it? Touya, that’s… That’s just...”

After realizing she had nothing to worry about and then getting angry from my reckless action, Yae decided to stop me. Her hands came up out of the water from below. Like a net, her cupped palms caught me and raised me out of the water.

“Wah!” I shouted as I found myself captured and brought up to Yae’s face. Her wet hair fell over her eyes and shoulders, but I could still see her glare.

“Caught you. Touya, that really wasn’t cool,” she frowned. I could tell she was more than just embarrassed.

“I’m sorry?” I was a bit nervous when I apologized. Yae clearly had all of the power here. I had known that all along, but she never showed it out of courtesy for me. My stunt had forced her hand, unfortunately, literally at that.

“I wasn’t ready yet, Touya. Don’t try that again,” she told me. It felt more like an order than a request.  “If you want to do something, you should ask me first. Get consent, okay? I need to prepare myself first.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I straightened up in fear. Yae was a gentle girl, but I may have crossed the line and gotter her angry. 

Yae sighed after hearing my answer. She lowered me back onto the platform and leaned back into the bath. I could feel the water level rise as she put more of her body into the water.

“You really are crazy, Touya,” Yae remarked. “Just why do I like you again?”

“Because I’m honest?”

“You honestly love me way too much… You really don’t make this easy, Touya. I thought we were supposed to be holding back.”

“We should be… Sorry, I guess I just lost out to temptation?”

“Well, I guess when you’re like this, I can be a real temptation…,” Yae chuckled. I was starting to get her approval back at least.

“I’m trying here. I know you are too, so can you forgive me?”

“I don’t think so,” Yae frowned. “You worried me by jumping in all of a sudden, and you were trying to swim towards my chest too. There’s such a thing as too much freedom, Touya. You can’t just do things without asking. I’ve been asking you properly, haven’t I?”

Mostly in any case… I guess getting permission was becoming a must for Yae while she was being flustered. I didn’t seem to be having any freedom right now seeing as I couldn’t exactly escape the bathtub and Yae’s grudge.  “Please forgive me, Yae?”

“Hmph. No way, Touya. Not after that,” she pouted.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“I’ll do any one thing you ask me to.”

“Anything?” Yae paused. She liked that idea. “... Well, I’ll think about it…”

Upon seeing the sparkle in Yae’s eyes, I probably should have rethought that. Unfortunately that was the first thing that came to my mind to try and appease Yae, and I had already said it.

“Wait… actually, let me rephrase that.”

“Nope. I’ll forgive you, Touya, but I’ll hold you to that.”

“Seriously? Can I get a rain check on this?”

Yae didn’t respond because she was satisfied with my proposal. I wanted to bargain further, but Yae wasn’t going to listen to me any more. She slumped her entire head down into the water and began blowing bubbles. The platform shook and rocked from her simple bubble blowing. More than me, it seemed she was the one who needed to relax and calm down her racing thoughts.

In the end, with Yae no longer willing to talk to me, I reluctantly returned to the miniature onsen and tried to bathe quietly. I debated whether or not I wanted to tell this story to the other guys when everything was over and wondered just what it was that Yae was going to ask me to do.

There was a lesson to be learned in all of this. Beware chasing the carrot dangling right in front of your nose. For someone my stature, I had been a bit too much of a daredevil.

“Anything, huh?”