An Unbalanced Talk (1.1 mm)

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(Side - Taku: Takumi Endou)

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A talk was a conversation between people - an exchange of ideas and words through spoken words. When Mayumi had said she wanted to talk to both of them, Takumi didn’t know what to think. Makoto had changed from an intimidating gigantic captor to a panicked girl now that she was under 5 cm tall. She was better off than he was though, standing no more than a millimeter tall like a dirty stain on the empty cup the woman had placed him and Makoto in. 

The older Komiya initially sounded reasonable, saying she wanted to speak to them because of everything that had happened while she was away. Makoto’s behavior, she said, had been inexcusable, and she was concerned about what she had done to him. 

However, this was not a talk.

“...I should have realized applying multiple layers of Compression would amplify the effect rather than overwrite it. I know it was my mistake to just leave the device operable, but to think you’d actually trick Takumi into it. Let’s hope being this small now puts what you’ve done to him into perspective.”

The only one speaking was Mayumi, or rather, scolding. There was no way either of them would be able to talk to her when she was so much bigger than them. It would be like trying to shout at a storm to stop it - useless. Takumi knew he had no ability to speak to the booming voice that echoed in the white canyon that was the cup she had thrown him and Makoto in. 

“Have your thoughts cleared up yet?”

“I… I...”

“So just what things did you do to the poor boy? I highly doubt you did not lay a hand on him while he’s shrunken.”

“I didn’t… I mean… I…”

Watching the giant Makoto standing over him unable to form a proper sentence was unbelievable to Takumi. The girl who had complete control over him earlier was now a stuttering mess in the face of her sister. It made sense to him, though. Although Makoto was always snippy with her sister, the difference between the two of them was beyond that of age now. Makoto was a bug to Mayumi in this state.

As for him, he was a helpless speck, and Mayumi, she was a being far beyond his comprehension. Mayumi’s words alone sent him to his knees and forced him to hold his hands over his ears to lessen the throbbing it inflicted on him. Going up against Mayumi was like trying to fight Mother Nature. 

Slaaaaaaaaaaaaaam!

“Wah!” “Uwoooh!” The cup they were in was brought down onto the table again. For a moment, both of them felt weightless before they plummeted what felt like several stories before hitting the bottom of the cup hard.

“Tell me, Makoto. What did you do?”

“I-I just messed with him a little, that’s all,” Makoto was trying to evade answering properly, but her nervous movements and words were enough for both him and Mayumi to tell she was lying. Being dishonest did not do Makoto any favors. Her older sister’s patience was clearly running thin.

Whaaam!

“Kyaaah!” 

Takumi shuddered as the world around him trembled again. He heard Makoto scream, and he knew why immediately when he looked up again. His entire vision was filled with a monumental skyscraper - Mayumi’s finger. The shadow of said finger was more than enough to cover him. It had crashed down onto the center of the cup. Mayumi had done so with enough force to cause Makoto to fall over since the finger was over twice as tall as she was. To him, however, he felt that it would have been enough force to completely flatten him. 

“Mgggnh! Ngggnh!”

That was not all she did either. The building-sized finger lifted up and aimed right for the fallen shrunken giant that was Makoto. Mayumi slowly placed it over Makoto. She wasn’t crushing her with it, simply pinning Makoto down. Despite her struggles, the girl couldn’t get it to budge as she tried pushing it off her chest.

“That wasn’t a request. I was trying to be civil earlier, but you do understand the position you’re in right now, don’t you, Makoto?”

“G-Gyah!” Makoto squealed under the weight of her sister’s finger.

“H-Hey, that’s….” Takumi was in disbelief at what he was seeing. Wasn’t this going overboard?

“I won’t be able to hear Takkun one bit at his present size, so you’re the only one I can actually hear,” Mayumi glowered. “Tell me how far you went. Be honest, or you can forget about being returned to normal.”

She was threatening her? Makoto was her sister, right? Takumi knew what Makoto did was terrible, but he couldn’t picture Mayumi actually leaving Makoto compressed. It had to be an empty threat, one just said to intimidate Makoto. However, he couldn’t be sure anymore. An angry Mayumi was not a common sight, and with everything that had happened, he couldn’t predict how the older Komiya sister would behave. It scared him to consider the possibility of Mayumi following through with her threat.

“Forget… No...” A helpless gasp escaped Makoto. She was just as frightened of the thought. “Okay! I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you.”

Really, this wasn’t a talk at all. This was an interrogation.

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(Side - Mayu-nee: Mayumi Komiya)

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Makoto told the truth. The whole truth. The entire story. Despite her sister’s small size, Mayumi listened to every word, but as she did, she contemplated just how much of a power difference Compression had created. It was amazing how a little intimidation could force someone to speak. Under duress, she blurted out everything she could, begging to be changed back to normal every few minutes. 

“You really did it...”

“Please Nee-san. I get it. I messed up. Just change me back!”

“... You’ve outdone yourself, Makoto,” she shook her head and removed her finger from Makoto so she could pinch the bridge of her nose. In terms of what she had done, everything seemed to have been quite low-key until that morning. Takumi’s secondary Compression sent her off the deep end, or rather, her discovery of his phone sent her into mania.

Could someone really be so deluded in love that they’d so willingly take advantage of Takumi like that? The answer, of course, was certainly a yes. Makoto’s love for Takumi was something Mayumi was well aware of, and Makoto’s frustration at her was just as obvious. The combination of the two emotions hitting their peak culminated in Makoto’s assault. She was afraid of how traumatized Takumi might have become because of her little sister. It was all too easy for her to do everything she did to Takumi when he was as small as he was...

Easy.

It really was too easy. Deep in thought, Mayumi looked at her own hand. To think all she had to do was lift and drop a cup and then gently place her finger atop Makoto to get her to confess. She had not been intentionally trying to hurt Makoto. Was this really what it was like to have someone in the palm of her hand? Quite literally at that? She actually could understand how simple it must have been for Makoto to cross the line. Something as dramatic and terrifying to Takumi must have been so routine to Makoto. The difference in scale granted her too much control over the boy.

She, too, was starting to realize it. She was angry at Makoto, so she had treated her roughly and even threatened her. Even a mundane action like moving her finger around was too much for the Compressed girl to handle. There was a psychological aspect to Compression that she hadn’t considered - how people would react to a being many times smaller than them?

‘I’m at fault here too,’ Mayumi frowned, knowing the entire incident was due to her hubris. It still didn’t give Makoto a free pass, though.

“Takkun,” the woman redirected her attention back into the cup. It was hard for her to remember that miniscule speck she could mistake for a stain in the cup was her sister’s friend. “You must be angry about this. My sister and I have been nothing but trouble for you all this time. If you wish to cut ties with us or report us, I won’t argue.”

She wasn’t going to be able to hear Takumi, but that was fine. She would leave their judgment to him since he was the one who had taken all of the abuse. However, hearing her announcement, Makoto tried to resist again. “What? N-No. Mayu-nee, what are you saying?”

“You haven’t cleared your head yet, Makoto?” Mayumi dropped her elbow onto the desk to rest her face and her palm. The mere action of doing so jostled the teacup, silencing Makoto unintentionally. But that was not all she did. Frustrated, she slammed her finger down onto the tea cup again, this time right where Makoto was. It was so simple to knock the girl down. She hoped constantly shoving the barely 5 cm girl around would get her to release she wasn’t in any position to negotiate. “Those who abuse power should in turn receive punishment. After everything you’ve done to Takumi, do you think anyone in their right mind would just forgive you for that?”

“Hiiiiiiii~e!!!!” Makoto squealed.

The reason for her panic was because of Mayumi, though the woman herself didn’t realize it until she looked at her own hand.  Her index finger was curled back onto her thumb as though ready to flick Makoto. She wasn’t actually angry enough to do it, but her hand had reflexively entered that position due to her frustration. She pulled her hand away, giving Makoto room to breathe in the cup. 

“Sorry. I got too hot-blooded there, it seems,” she apologized for scaring her little sister. “But if you were scared of that, after the hell you put him through, Takkun’s more than likely to be afraid of you or hate you now.”

“Hate?” Makoto hesitated. Her voice cracked. Though it was hard for Mayumi’s ears to pick up, there was a deep despair in her tone. She had been assuming Takumi’s feelings the entire time, and because of that Mayumi’s words dug deep into her. The word ‘hate’ was not something the deluded lovesick girl wanted to hear. “I… I...”

“That’s why I said I’ll leave it to him. What you’ve done is irredeemable, Makoto. Takkun has a right to have the final say in what he wants to do after all of this.”

Compression wasn’t in any way something that could be discussed in a court of law. She was sure Takumi was aware of that as well. Even so, the boy had been victimized too much. That was why she wanted to leave the decision to Takumi. He was owed at least that much. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. As cruel as it could be, she subscribed to that ideology, believing it to be ideal and fair.

“We can talk about this, right? Taku? Please? Taku?” Makoto knelt down onto the tea cup to get closer to Takumi.

Mayumi blinked. Was Makoto trying to appeal to the doubly Compressed boy? It seemed Makoto took what she said as a case of transferring the authority of judgment over to Takumi. She bit her lip. She had only said that for Takumi’s sake, but didn’t her words carry too much impact if Makoto was already desperate enough to start pleading? Was there, perhaps a weight, or rather, a power to her words now that Makoto was so much smaller than her?

A shiver ran up Mayumi’s spine. There were too many things about human Compression that she didn’t know. She did not want to know them now, though.

“We can settle this later,” she sighed. “You two want to get back to normal, right? Then give me some time. I need to check if the chamber’s Decompression program actually works properly, since you mentioned there was some bug on the application.”

She would give them some time to talk. Hopefully, as she checked the program, they could hash out some of the tension between the two of them. What was to come after Takumi was restored back to normal size, she wasn’t sure. She would accept whatever decision he would make, but she hoped the boy would be lenient on them in the end.