It was worth noticing that the girls were quick to realize this. Though their clothes and belongings that they brought to the Magnification device grew with them, the desks we were at certainly didn’t. I could hear Tokiwa’s chair groan as she tried to adjust her seating position. She was extremely flustered when she heard it and snapped at the guys who were snickering.

Seating position was another issue for the girls too. Suddenly having a growth spurt already made them uncomfortable, but it was clear that the chairs and desks were not made for people past a certain height. Yae still seemed mostly alright, but she started shifting her legs because she was a bit too tall for her seat. Takahashi, known for constantly sleeping in class, had similar problems and couldn’t fall asleep because it was no longer comfortable having to bend over to rest her head on the table.

The two of them voiced their complaints to me after our third class of the day.

“Ouch... I didn’t expect this… My back’s aching,” Takahashi complained, trying to stretch. “I didn’t think there’d be problems with our heights this early.”

“This feels so surreal. My knees kept hitting the table. I was happy when I thought my legs got longer, but I definitely don’t like this,” Yae agreed, frowning.

I had a good chuckle as I listened to the 195 cm and 207 cm tall girls’ grievances. As happy as they had been about being taller earlier, all of the girls seemed to have realized being too tall for the normal sized items was rougher than they had thought. Problems arising this early made sense though. The girls were already at the edge of natural human height. Just standing by the two girls was a tad intimidating.

It was also dangerous, though, as I quickly learned when Yae took a step forward.

“Wah!”

“Whoa! I’ve got- you-?”

One issue with Yae suddenly growing too tall was not being used to her stride. Her foot got caught on the leg of a desk. I did my best to catch her, but the moment I grabbed onto her arms, I realized I was not going to be able to. Yae was a lot heavier than I expected, far heavier than me. Her momentum was my downfall. I felt my feet leave the floor as I fell over.

Crash!

“Oof… Ouch...” Yae groaned.

“Mffph,” I would have spoken back, but my mouth was covered by cloth. More specifically, Yae’s right breast had slammed into my face.

“Oh my,” smirked Takahashi. “Asano, mounting Kirishima like that’s pretty bold of you.”

“Mount...ing…?” Yae repeated before she noticed just why her fall was cushioned. My ‘Lucky Pervert’ accident had stopped her from slamming her face into the floor, but she was now on top of me, smothering me under her chest. “U-Uwah! Touya, I’m so sorry!”

Yae stood back up, freeing me from over 80+ kg weight. She accidentally backed up into the table behind her, causing it to tip over with another crash, catching everyone’s attention.

“A-Ah… Um… Ueee…” Yae was flustered and embarrassed from making a scene.

I sighed as I slowly picked myself up. This was going to be the trouble of slowly getting taller. The girls were going to have to get used to their changing height and the boys were going to have to be wary of accidents like this. 

“That was… pretty heavy…,” I mumbled.

Yae took offense when she heard. “Eh? I’m not heavy, Touya.”

Crash!

“Kyaa!” “Whoa, Nakano.” “O-Oh no! Sorry, Nakano-kun...”

Case in point, Honda doing the same thing as Yae and tripping caused her to topple backwards. She knocked her seat neighbor to the floor and ended up falling onto his back, sitting atop of him. The sound and clattering of seats in the classroom made it clear how hard of an impact it was.

“You sure about that?” I asked Yae. “You girls are getting plenty heavier the bigger you get.”

“I hate to admit it, but he’s got a point there,” frowned Takahashi. 

“Uuu… As a girl, that doesn’t make me happy...” Yae frowned. “And I lost 1 kg this morning too...”

“I think we’ve gained a bunch since we started growing.”

I chuckled hearing Yae’s pouting as I rubbed the pain in my neck from the fall. I looked over at Nakano who was trying to reassure Honda that he was alright. I was a little thankful to know I wasn’t the only person caught up in the girls’ clumsiness, but I hoped they’d be able to adjust to their sizes soon.

“208 cm… wow.” Yae was over 2 m tall which we figured out using the measurement lines we marked on the wall in the back of the room. It was more than impressive to realize there was nearly a 30 cm difference between us. This was even more of a difference than how I was normally taller than Yae, making her a height more fitting for pro basketball players than a schoolgirl.

This was evident when Takahashi put her chin on top of my head. She relaxed her body, making me have to support her weight. My knees nearly buckled because I wasn’t prepared.

“Hey, Takahashi, quit it.”

“No way, you’re just the right height for this. I’ve got to do this whenever I have the opportunity,” the sleepy-eyed girl refused.

“That so…?” I had a solution to deal with this, thankfully. With just a single hop, I slammed my head up into the girl’s chin. She immediately leaned back, freeing me as she rubbed her chin.

“Gyah. That hurts…,” she grumbled.

“You kind of set yourself up for that, Aoi-chan,” Yae giggled. After she did though, a pensive expression formed on her face as she looked up. “Speaking of pain though, I’m glad our classrooms have tall ceilings.” 

Yae was concerned about fitting properly after realizing how gaining over nearly 50 cm in a few hours felt.

“That’s true. I actually have to pay attention to not hit my head on the door frame now,” Takahashi complained. She rubbed her chin and the back of her head, revealing that she had actually hit it when she went to the washroom earlier. “Asano, heads up. The toilets are just as rough.”

“Thanks for the warning, Aoi-chan.”

I was a little curious as to how the girls would be able to handle using the washrooms, but shoved that thought to the back of my mind. That was not my job. The girls in the health committee asserted that none of the boys would be managing the girls’ personal and private issues. It was for the best.

It was lunch in any case so Takahashi, Yae, and I sat together to eat as we normally did.

“Hm…? Touya, isn’t your meal smaller than usual?” Yae noticed a difference between the sizes of all three of our boxed lunches.

“You were told to bring stuff to be Magnified, right? That includes the lunches you brought,” I explained to her. “It’s your meals that are bigger right now.”

“Wow,” Takahashi was impressed. “Maybe that means I can win the eating challenge at that ramen shop now.”

“That’d be cheating,” I chuckled.

“Ah, but I wonder,” the lazy genius suddenly turned pensive. “If you can make food bigger with Magnification, can’t we just solve world hunger?”

“Hm? Oh. You have a point there, Aoi-chan.”

It was a good question. Making things bigger was the point of Magnification. I had studied up on the history a lot more ever since Reduction Week. What we’d taken for granted and dismissed because it didn’t directly involve us, I realized was all around us. Reduction and Magnification Weeks really opened my eyes to how the world worked.

Sasakura-sensei had given me the answer to Takahashi’s inquiry.

“Yae,” I called my childhood friend’s attention. When she turned, I pointed into my mouth and opened it. “Aaaah.”

“T-Touya!” Yae was surprised at my sudden forwardness. She was surprised I was the one requesting for her to feed me. She certainly did not mind it, however, as she picked up a meatball to give it to me. “Sheesh. Give me a second to prepare myself first.”

Chomp.

“Mmm… It’s… literally shrinking in my mouth…,” I told her. 

“Don’t you mean, melting in your mouth?”

“No,” I could feel the meatball literally shrinking back down to its regular size. “It looks like Sensei wasn’t lying about the failsafes. If someone regular size eats something Magnified, it’s been set to shrink back down for safety’s sake.”

“That’s… surreal… Just how precise is the Magnification technology?”

“That’s… definitely for the best,” Takahashi had a realization. “I didn’t want to think about what would happen to food continuing to grow inside someone’s stomach.” 

“Foods should be on the same scale as the person eating them. That’s the safest option,” I nodded. I was certain there were other precautions the government had in places to prevent what Takahashi was worried about. Despite being a part of our everyday life now, Reduction and Magnification were fairly well regulated due to safety concerns. 

“In any case…” Takahashi changed the subject. She pointed behind me to the door. “Kirishima… You look like you have a few visitors.”

“Hm…?”

Looking out towards the doorway, I could see that it was open. Compared to the other much taller girls of 2-D, these girls were much smaller - normal sized. There was one person who was chest high to 2-D girls and looked a little nervous. I recognized my underclassman, Okazaki, along with two other health committee girls. It looked like they needed me for something.

“Sorry you two. I’ll be back,” I told my friends as I walked out of the classroom.

As I had expected, they were pushing more work onto me.

“Grk… Matsu’s in the hospital? I was wondering why I didn’t see him this morning.”

“Yeah. So you’re going to have to pull double duty later this week, Tou-san,” my fellow health committee member Akagi nodded. “We’re already giving you a break to spend time with your girlfriend so think of this as paying us back.”

“Fine. It’s not like I have much of a choice but to fill in for him. Also, we’re not dating yet.”

“I really don’t get why that’s the case. You two are lovey-dovey enough that you might as well be,” Akagi’s friend, Morino, chuckled. “Still, it’s good you agreed so easily, Touya-san. Since Shinohara-kun ended up breaking his leg, we’d be down one boy helper in the evenings.”

“Sheesh, I’ll do what I can,” I sighed. I understood how much use I was to the health committee. It looked like all my effort in supporting everyone backfired. “Can’t I relax for once? I signed the forms to be Yae’s caretaker and everything. That should be enough, right?”

“Don’t worry, Senpai! I’ll help out as much as I can too!” my underclassman Okazaki declared.

“You sure about that? You were kind of cowering behind us when next to all the 2-D girls earlier,” Morino poked fun at my kouhai.

“I-I wasn’t afraid,” the 145 cm tall girl stuttered. Her usual idiotic confidence waned when she had to look up at her 200+ cm tall upperclassmen. “I-It’s just not fair. I want to be taller too.”

“Well, Sensei is working on getting the permission for us to be able to use the machine to help out more,” Morino recalled.

“I’d be interested in that!” Akagi pumped her fist. “If I get to be taller every time I have to help out for Magnification Week, that’d be so awesome!”

I inwardly hoped she wouldn’t succeed because I did not want to deal with a bunch more taller girls. “In any case. We shouldn’t have that much trouble until Wednesday when the growth really kicks up. Let’s just take it easy until then.”

“Of course,” Akagi nodded. “But if there’s any trouble, I’m still calling you, Tou-san.”

“Fine.”

That was right. Wednesday was the day when the girls wouldn’t be allowed to go home any more. Considering the size of the Asano family home, it’d most likely be tough enough on Tuesday for Yae. The Magnification program had everything prepared and ready to go for our classmates, but until then, we would have to make do.