Chuxi stood by the sink as it filled with water – and bubbles.

“I’m kind of jealous,” admitted Haley as she dumped in more suds. “I haven’t had a bubble bath in forever.” He looked at her reflection in the mirror – she wore a simple white T-shirt with a towel wrapped around her head – Chuxi couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she was. She dipped her finger into the water. “I hope you like your baths warm,” she smiled.

With that, she twisted the faucet off and began rummaging through a drawer. A moment later, she withdrew an unused contact lens case and set it by the edge of the sink. “You’re gonna smell pretty girly,” she apologized before squeezing a bit of her shampoo into the case followed by a dollop of her body wash.

“I like Dove, but I usually go with the ‘Gentle Exfoliating’ kind,” he sighed with theatrical disappointment. “I guess this ‘Deep Moisture’ stuff will have to do.”

With a laugh, Haley flicked some water in his direction. He managed to dodge most of the liquid, but perhaps he shouldn’t have – he still reeked of Julie’s feet, easily overpowering the pleasant scent emanating from the bubble bath. His clothes needed a bath just as much as he did.

“Why I wash your clothes for you?” suggested Haley. When Chuxi didn’t rush to strip for her, she gave him a knowing smile. “You know, I feel like most guys would jump at the opportunity to get naked in front of me.”

“I’m not most guys,” Chuxi replied, applying as much cheese as possible to the four words, and then he paused melodramatically. “How many four inch tall dudes do you know?”

“You’re the best four inch tall dude in the world,” giggled Haley before extending her hand towards him and turning her head to the side. “Now if you’re done with the jokes, just leave your clothes in my hand and I’ll take care of them for you.”

Chuxi stared at the soft pink skin in front of him, mesmerized by the detail he could see at his current size. He swore he could see her heartbeat pulsing through her skin. She was larger than life – a majestic, unfathomable creature. Well, really he was just tiny, but the effect was the same.

“Hurry up! Quit being so shy,” Haley teased.

“All right, all right – but no peeking!” he ordered. He thought about making a crack about his currently microscopic member, but thought better of it. If he was honest with himself, he was surprised he hadn’t blurted out something similarly stupid already.

Once he had slipped out of his stinky clothes, he tossed them onto Haley’s hand before leaping into the bubbles. It felt amazing to completely submerge himself, something he hadn’t done in years. Back on the surface, he wiped his face and found himself facing the mirror. A quick glance upwards revealed Haley gazing down at him, her eyes sparkling in a way that made him uneasy – but in a good way.

“Like what you see?” asked Chuxi slyly.

Her eyes shot up and met his via the mirror. “Oh!” she yelped, her face turning red. She scurried out the door, calling, “Take as long as you need.”

Chuxi spent the next few minutes thoroughly enjoying his bath. Using an old meditation technique he was taught in high school, he actively relaxed his body, and before long a modicum of peacefulness washed over him. His current circumstances weren’t horrible: he was in the care of a kind, beautiful girl, and he had a doctor behind his cause as well. Plus, maybe he would regain his size overnight, and this whole problem would disappear just as mysteriously as it had arrived. For the time being, it wouldn’t be hard for him to maintain his schoolwork – all of his classes were recorded and posted online, and he didn’t have any tests, which he physically needed to attend, for at least a month. If by then he still hadn’t regained his height… well, he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

He allowed himself to soak a few more minutes in the warm water before reaching for the contact lens case. Scooping up an outrageous amount of shampoo in his hand, he set about eradicating the last of Julia’s foot stench. He scrubbed even harder when he recalled what it was like beneath her sweaty sock.

Thinking back on his unfortunate encounter with Julie’s lowest article of clothing, Chuxi couldn’t decide how he felt about her. She seemed nice enough – it wasn’t like she had done it on purpose – but something about her had rubbed him the wrong way. On the other hand, he was probably just overthinking things, as he often did.

Just then, there was a knock on the still-open door. “Come in,” called Chuxi. Haley’s head popped in, whereupon she immediately melted into a fit of giggles. “What’s so funny?”

“You’re covered in bubbles!” gasped Haley. A glance towards the mirror revealed what appeared to be a cross between a yeti and Santa Claus in the sink. “Anyway, here’s a towel if you need it,” she said, placing several paper towels on the bathroom counter. “Do you think you’ll be much longer? I made us some dinner.”

“I was just about to get out,” said Chuxi.

Haley nodded. “Okay, I’ll be back in a couple minutes to get you.”

Once she had gone, Chuxi hopped out of the sink and dried himself off with the paper towels. There was plenty of it to go around, so he tore off an appropriately sized strip and wrapped it around himself. All-in-all, it wasn’t too bad.

He hadn’t waited long when Haley’s arm wrapped around the door like a gigantic snake. In her hand was a plush, purple-and-gold Crown Royal bag, which she deposited on the counter. “Not sure if you’re naked in there,” explained Haley from around the corner, “but in there is your clothes. Hand-washed I might add.”

“Thanks,” said Chuxi. “How did you get them dry so fast?”

“I threw them in this bag and then in the dryer and they were done in no time.”

“Ah, the perks of being tiny,” he joked. “I’m ready, by the way,” he added. Haley came in and set her hand down on the counter, and he clambered on, taking up his usual crouch. This time, though, she extended her thumb inwards slightly, allowing him to brace himself against it. Looking up, Chuxi gave her a grateful nod. She smiled back at him, and he noticed that she had removed the towel and now her wavy, golden-brown hair flowed down to her shoulders. Maybe the fact that she literally towered over him had something to do with it, but Chuxi couldn’t help but stare – she looked beautiful.

“Like what you see?” asked Haley with an arch of her eyebrow, throwing his line back at him with a smirk.

Chuxi’s face reddened instantly, and he quickly looked away and pretended not to hear, fooling no one. “How long did that painting take you?” he asked quickly, pointing towards where it hung on the wall.

“Oh, that took probably about forty hours total. I took a painting class to fulfill my art requirement, and that was my final project. It’s nothing special, but I like it a lot.”

“I think it’s amazing,” said Chuxi truthfully.

“Thanks,” Haley said. “I definitely want to keep painting as a hobby.”

She set him down on the table where their dinner waited for them. Ingeniously, she had balanced a stack of post-it notes on top of a shot glass for his own miniature table, and what appeared to be the cap to a medicine bottle sat next to it, serving as a makeshift chair. The proportions were a little off, but it worked well enough. “You didn’t have to do that,” he said.

She brushed it off. “Please – it didn’t take me any effort at all.” Not for the first time, Chuxi felt his heart swell with gratitude. Inwardly, he made a resolution to take Haley out to the fanciest dinner he could afford once this was all over. “I know your name is Sushi, but I hope you like steak.”

“Are you kidding me? In China, beef is a delicacy!” On his table was a plate made from a spinach leaf, and on that leaf was a dinner consisting of a generous portion of steak (although at his size, what wouldn’t be generous?) cut into tiny strips, a few grains of rice, some mashed potatoes, and a few smaller, shredded spinach leaves as well. A fortuitously-sized pen cap filled with water served as his cup. Slack-jawed, Chuxi gaped openly at the meal, marveling at the dexterity it must require to portion his food like she did.

“Well?” she asked, looking down at him from where she sat across the table. “Dig in!”

“I kind of don’t want to,” he admitted. “It would be such a shame to eat this work of art.”

“Oh stop it,” Haley blushed.

“No, really,” Chuxi pressed. “How in the world were you able to cut these so small? It’s practically surgical!”

Haley hid her smile behind her hand. “I’ll put that in my resume when I apply to medical school: ‘Demonstrates surgical precision while making meals for tiny men.’” They shared a laugh before Chuxi took a seat at his miniature table. “Oh, also… I hope you don’t think I’m racist, but…” she looked pointedly at a pair of pins that he just noticed by his plate. “I couldn’t think of a way to make you a miniature fork and spoon.”

“These will do just fine,” he grinned, taking up the pins like chopsticks. They were a bit large, like the ornamental ones his mother brought out on special occasions, but they were nothing he couldn’t handle. Her face was like the sun when he scooped up a strip of steak and stuffed it into his mouth.

The pair proceeded to have a pleasant dinner together. Haley told him how hard she had been studying for the MCAT, and how she had been doing on practice tests. He asked her who she usually hung out with, and she replied that being a pre-med necessitated ridiculously long hours of study, which in turn precluded her from too much socializing.

“If I do get to go out, I usually just tag along with Julie to her sorority stuff,” she said. “In fact, I’m kind of an honorary sister there. Speaking of school, what are you going to do about classes?”

Chuxi explained to her how all of his classes were online, so for the short term, it shouldn’t be too difficult for him to work from home. He teased her about how much food she was eating – from his perspective, truckloads of food had disappeared into her mouth.

“Are you calling me fat?” she fired back with a wolfish grin. Chuxi murmured something unintelligible, and she laughed at his awkwardness. “Oh my God!” exclaimed Haley suddenly. “Shouldn’t you call your mom?”

“Definitely not,” said Chuxi emphatically. “She has enough to worry about. Besides, she doesn’t even have a phone. I usually just mail her postcards.”

“But… but…” stammered Haley, unwilling to accept that his mother wouldn’t know about what had happened.

“It’ll be fine,” he assured her.

“Okay…” Haley submitted, “but if you’re not better by next month, you’re sending her a letter whether you like it or not!”

Chuxi laughed, but Haley maintained a serious expression. “Okay, okay, we’ll send her a letter in a month,” he gave in.

After dinner, Haley cleared the table, taking care to put the supplies for his makeshift dining room in a box and stowing it in a drawer. Then she carried him to her room. “My room is a mess,” she warned. “Don’t judge me.”

Naturally, her room was quite the opposite: it was immaculate. A neatly made double bed covered by a sky-blue blanket was in the far left corner, diagonally opposite the door. A desk hugged the wall directly to the door’s left, while a couple wardrobes flanked a window directly in front of them. Like the rest of the apartment, the room was small, but cozy.

“Wow, is it really nine already?” she said before setting him on the desk. “I know you’re not supposed to go to bed right before eating, but it’s been a long day. You wanna just call it and sleep?”

Suddenly, he realized just how bone-tired he felt. “Yes, please.”

“Okay, let me try to put together a bed for you.”

Chuxi watched in fascination as she went about crafting a miniature pillow for him. First, she ripped up some tissues before double-wrapping it in some more tissues. Then she applied a piece of tape to hold it all together.

“These are clean, I promise,” she said, removing a pair of black stockings from her dresser, “and I wouldn’t give these to you if I didn’t think they were the most comfortable things in the world. They’re satin. You wouldn’t mind using these as sheets, right?”

“No problem,” he said.

“All right – and you can use one of my T-shirts for a blanket.” With that, she brought the assorted items to her bed and laid them long-ways on a pillow, which itself was like a California King for him. She returned back to her desk and took him to his new bed. Then she gathered up her pajamas and left the room.

Shortly, she returned dressed in a pair of gray Vanderbilt sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt that had “Relay for Life” across the front. She came to his pillow and set down the contact lens case from earlier, only this time it was filled with water on one side and a bit of toothpaste in the other. “Do you mind using your finger to brush? I’ll think of a way to make you a toothbrush tomorrow.”

“Not at all,” he said.

She smiled, and the pair began brushing their teeth together. Once he finished, she took the contact lens case back to the bathroom. “You know,” she said upon her return, “it kind of feels like we’re…” she trailed off abruptly.

“Kind of feels like what?” he asked suspiciously.

“Nothing,” she said with a slight curve of her lips. With that, she slipped into bed beside him, his pillow parallel to her body.

“Aren’t you going to move me to the desk or something?” he asked.

Haley narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re not gay, are you?” she asked jokingly.

“N-no,” he stuttered, “definitely not. It’s just… I don’t know… uh…”

“Yes, I know,” Haley laughed, “but what if you suddenly grow back overnight? I can’t have you knocking all of my things off the desk, now can I?”

Chuxi stared at her, amazed. That hadn’t occurred to him at all. “You really think of everything, don’t you?”

“I try,” she said, “and don’t worry – I don’t move at all in my sleep. I’m like a mummy.”

“Really? Then why do you have a double bed?”

She fixed him with a cunning look. “Do you really want to know?”

“Oh,” said Chuxi, blushing scarlet. “I guess not.” He climbed underneath the covers, pleasantly surprised by how soft her stockings felt.

With a yawn, Haley reached over him and switched off the light on her nightstand, plunging the room into darkness. He smiled ruefully at the numerous glow-in-the-dark stars peering down at him from the ceiling. He thought about trying for a witty remark, but couldn’t think of anything.

“Good night, Sushi.”

“Good night, Haley.” For a few seconds, he listened to his heart beating in his ears. “Haley?” he said suddenly.

“What’s up?”

“…I’m really glad I met you… and thanks again.”

“Aw, I’m really glad I met you too, Sushi, and you’re welcome. I know you’d do the same for me if we were in China.”

They fell into silence, and before long Haley’s breathing came at the slow, steady rate of a peaceful sleeper.

Eventually, Chuxi fell asleep too.

That night, he had seemingly a hundred dreams: in many of them, he woke up back at his normal size, and he and Haley made passionate love. In others, he had shrunk down even smaller than before, and Haley couldn’t find him when she awoke. In still others, he was running across the floor of the library, unnoticed by a towering Haley who eventually crushed him beneath her sweaty bare foot.

There were many more, but in one particularly vivid dream, he saw Julie standing in the door way to Haley’s room, watching him.