Chapter Text
Eva had woken up five minutes ago. The events of yesterday and the previous night had completely tired her out, and the last thing she had remembered was falling asleep on Damon.
However, when she woke up, she was no longer resting her head on his chest. Instead, her head was on his pillow, and Damon was still asleep. Once she had gotten her bearings, she noticed something quite peculiar about the debater.
Damon Maitsu was eight-and-a-half sizes too small.
She had been observing his miniaturized form for the past five minutes, trying to figure out what exactly was going on. During her analysis, she came to two conclusions:
- He was currently about 8 inches tall; slightly larger than the length of her hand.
- Although his height had reduced by a factor of 8.5, his weight should have decreased by a much larger factor.
“This makes sense,” she thought. “Weight is proportional to volume, which is a cubic property. Since his size decreased by a factor of 8.5, his weight must have decreased by a cubic factor. This must mean he’s about…”
…0.27 pounds, is what Eva came up with. She wanted to pick him up to confirm her theory, however she didn’t want to risk waking him.
She stared at his figure a bit longer. It looked to be uniform; there was no singular body part that had shrunken more than the others. His clothes seemed to have diminished in size along with him. Apart from his unusually small stature, nothing else seemed to be unusual.
“Weird.”
How something like this had even happened—she had no clue. As far as she was aware, the technology to compress atoms—or remove them selectively while keeping structure—was currently nonexistent. This situation should have theoretically been impossible.
She needed to test if her eyes were deceiving her. “Perhaps this is another one of my nightmares…”
Unable to resist her curiosity any longer, she stuck her index finger out and gave Damon a small poke in the chest.
It seemed like that poke had been more forceful than she intended, because the debater yelped and sprang up into a seated position.
Damon rubbed his eyes, his vision still blurry from sleep. But when he finally looked up at Eva, his eyes widened in horror.
Eva merely blinked as he started to scream. Given that his vocal chords and lung capacity were much smaller, it made sense that his voice was much higher-pitched—and much quieter, too. She guessed that if she were to walk to the other side of the room, she probably wouldn’t even be able to hear him.
However, she was currently right next to Damon, and his grating shrieks were starting to irritate her. In an attempt to get him to shut up, she poked him once again, causing him to let out another yelp.
“Stop doing that!” he demanded.
“Why?” she asked, taking extra care to speak in a softer tone. Considering his eardrums were tinier, he was most likely much more sensitive to sounds.
“Because it hurts!”
Eva hummed in response. “I see. So you’re also hyper-sensitive to impact forces, as well…”
“What are you talking about? What’s going on?! Why am I-...how did I-...?”
“On the bright side, you might be able to survive long falls, considering your terminal velocity is much lower than usual…”
“EVA!” he shouted. “CAN YOU TELL ME WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO ME?!”
“...no.”
“N-no?! Why not?!”
“Because quite frankly, I’m not sure what happened either.”
“WHAT?! Come on, you have to know something!”
“I don’t, Damon. Sorry.”
The debater groaned in exasperation, his gaze traveling down the rest of his body to look at his miniature form. He attempted to stand up and walk, but the dips on the mattress caused him to quickly lose his balance and fall flat on his face. Propping himself up onto his elbows, he let out a long sigh.
Eva would be lying if she said she didn’t find the situation amusing. It was somewhat comical to see the prickly, brooding, and admittedly handsome Ultimate Debater be reduced to something akin to a doll. However, she decided that Damon was already humiliated enough, and chose not to speak on it (for now).
“If you’d like,” she said, “I can tell you some things should expect in this state.”
“I’d really like to know how to get back to normal, instead,” he remarked. “But okay. Tell me what I should expect.”
“Well,” she started, “it looks like you’re about 8 inches tall. And if my calculations are correct, you should weigh about 0.27 pounds.”
“L-less than a pound?!” he sputtered.
Before he could react, Eva had picked him up by the back of his vest. The mathlete brought him up right in front of her face, so that he was making direct eye contact with the space between her eyes.
Damon had always thought Eva looked good (especially when she smiled), but now that he was able to get a closer view of her features…
…she looked beautiful. Her face was much larger than his own at the moment, and he took the opportunity to admire what he could. His gaze trailed over her bangs, then to one of her eyes, then the other, then down towards her lips...
Before his mind could wander any further, Eva brought him down and placed him on the palm of her hand, looking at him with her usual blank expression.
“I was correct. You seem to be about a third of a pound.” she said.
“R-right…”
“Due to your new…proportions, you’re hyper-sensitive to both sound and force. Furthermore, nearby footsteps may feel like miniature earthquakes to you. But, because you weigh so little, if you were to fall from a great height, you could survive due to air resistance and your low terminal velocity.”
“That’s…good to know, I guess.”
“And as for how exactly you got into this situation…I don’t know. To my knowledge, humans can only shrink like this if there’s some way to compress their molecular structure, however the technology to do that hasn’t been created yet.”
“So…what you’re saying is…this is basically impossible?”
“That’s what I would have said, but it’s clearly possible, considering you’ve done it.”
“Great. So I randomly shrank in the middle of the night, and you—and probably everybody else—have no idea how to reverse it,” Damon grumbled.
“Hm…” she responded, “...are you feeling strange at all?”
“Not really, no. I feel like myself, except for the fact that everything around me is gigantic…”
He sat down on her hand, dangling his legs off of her palm.
“It’s quite soft,” he thought.
Eva, keeping her occupied hand stationary, got up from the bed and made her way over to the sofa in Damon’s room. She gently set him down on the table in front of her, placing him on the chessboard. When Damon stood up, he noticed that the king piece was almost half his size.
“Ugh…” he groaned, “someone must have done this to me. There’s no way I just shrunk out of the blue.”
“Right,” Eva remarked, “but how exactly were they able to do so?”
“Well, I don’t know for sure, but maybe it was-”
Before he could finish his sentence, the morning announcement cut him off.
“Good morning, my amicable student friends! It is now 8 a.m. Rise and shine, and be ready to start the day~!”
*click*
The pair remained silent for a few moments after the speaker had shut off. Then, Eva spoke up.
“Wolfgang probably wants us all to meet him at the dining hall for breakfast.”
“Right, but…” Damon looked down from the table he was standing on, noticing the distance between him and the floor. “I…as much as it pains me to say it, I don’t think I can go anywhere on my own at the moment.”
“Understandable,” Eva said. “Considering your current stride length, it would probably take you at least fifteen minutes to reach the dining hall walking on your own.”
Damon grumbled. “Yeah, so…that being said…”
“I can’t believe I’m asking this,” he muttered under his breath.
“Do you mind, um…carrying me around?” he asked, his tone betraying a hint of sheepishness.
“Hm,” she replied, “first I bridal carry you in the boiler room, then carry you on my shoulders to see through the vent, and now you want me to carry you in my hand?”
“Well,” he responded, his face now noticeably red, “I don’t want to be carried in your hand.”
“What?”
Damon Maitsu may have been downsized to no more than eight inches, but he was still the Ultimate Debater nonetheless. And the Ultimate Debater, a prodigy among prodigies— someone who simply can’t be outmatched, refused to be treated as some sort of toy. If he had to be carried around, he was going to do it in a way that demanded respect.
“Let me sit on your shoulder,” he told her.
“Excuse me?”
Damon had come to the conclusion that sitting on Eva’s shoulder would be the best course of action in this situation; since he would be right by her ear, it would be as if he was telling her what to do. This position, he decided, would give him the most commanding presence despite his small stature.
And it was in no way related to the fact that he would also be able to touch Eva’s hair. That played absolutely no part in his decision.
The debater cleared his throat before repeating himself.
“I said to let me sit on your shoulder.”
“Yes, I heard you the first time,” Eva remarked, “but why? I think you would be much more comfortable on my hand.”
As soft as her hand was, Damon needed to convince her otherwise.
“I disagree. Your hand would probably get tired from holding me up for so long, and I’d have a better view of my surroundings from your shoulder. Also…” he mumbled shyly, “it would make me feel less small…”
It wasn’t often that Eva had the chance to see the Ultimate Debater look so…docile. Although she still didn’t fully understand his reasons for wanting to sit on her shoulder, she found herself nodding anyway.
“Okay.”
With that said, she held out her palm in front of him. Once Damon climbed onto her hand, she gently lifted him up to place him on her shoulder. The small man stumbled slightly, leaning onto the side of her palm to keep his balance as he placed his feet on her shoulder.
After a few more careful maneuvers, the debater seemed to have finally gotten himself into a comfortable seated position. He dangled his legs off the front of her shoulder while keeping a tight grip on her blazer in case he somehow fell.
Eva glanced at him from the corner of her eye before speaking up.
“I’m going to stand up now. Let me know if you start to lose your balance.”
After receiving a quick nod from him as confirmation, she planted both her feet on the ground and stood up in one swift motion.
Aside from the brief moment of lightheadedness Damon got from the increased downward force, he was otherwise okay. Noticing her eyes on him, he removed one of his tiny hands from her blazer to give her a thumbs up as reassurance.
“Now,” Eva said, “how are we going to explain this to the others?”
Damon blinked. “The others?”
…oh shoot.
The others.
“Eva!” he exclaimed. “The others can’t know about this!”
“Hm? Why not?”
“Because…now that I think about it, I’d be the easiest to murder in this state. All someone would have to do is grab me and step on me!”
The mathlete pushed up her glasses. “You have a point, but you’re sitting on my shoulder. I’d notice if someone tried to take you from me.”
‘Tried to take you from me.’
Warmth crept up Damon’s neck as he heard those words. He knew what she meant, but hearing her say something like that still made his heart rate speed up.
“B-but what if…someone targets the both of us? Knowing that I can’t fight back, they might knock you out and attempt to murder me while framing you in the process.”
“I always have my guard up, Damon. And so do you, for that matter. Something like that is unlikely to happen without one of us noticing.”
“Still,” he replied, “it’s too dangerous. I…I don’t want to risk you getting hurt, Eva. Especially not because of me.”
Damon looked down at his knees and balled his hands into fists. Although he was tiny, Eva could see his lower lip quivering with—was that… fear in his expression?
Once again, another rare display of vulnerability was coming from the Ultimate Debater. Despite her belief that they would be fine, she sighed and turned her head over to look at the miniature man perched on her shoulder.
“Alright, I won’t let the others know. But how exactly are we going to keep this a secret? I don’t think leaving you alone in here is a good idea, and people will notice you on my shoulder if we go to the dining hall.”
“Then we’ll need a way to hide me somehow.”
“Damon, no part of my outfit has pockets. And I’m already under heavy suspicion from the rest of the group; if I were to cover you in a towel or something and enter the dining hall, people like Wenona and Wolfgang would notice it immediately.”
Damon put a finger on his chin, as if he was thinking.
He wasn’t thinking. He didn’t need to; he already knew the answer to their problem.
“Eva,” he started, “they might be suspicious if I was covered in a towel. But if I was covered by something you normally have with you, they’d be none the wiser.”
“Good suggestion,” she remarked, “but what exactly are you referring to?”
Damon looked straight into her (very large) eyes, and pointed towards her hair.
“My…hair?”
“You always keep the majority of your hair behind your back. But if you were to wear it in front of your shoulders, it would cover me perfectly.”
“That would still arise suspicion from the others, though.”
“Maybe so, but not as much. Besides, I really don’t see a valid enough reason to be suspicious over someone wearing their hair a different way.”
She hummed in response. “I suppose you make a good point.”
After saying that, she carefully moved half her hair in front of her shoulders, sheltering Damon quite nicely.
Damon, although he would never admit it, was in a state of pure bliss. Eva’s hair had always been something that captivated him; the soft curls and silky strands mesmerized the debater in a way words couldn’t describe. And now, that same hair was currently enveloping him, and shielding him from sight.
Being surrounded by her hair was every bit as heavenly as he expected it to be. Damon could make out the faint scent of lavender in his surroundings, and he reached out to grab a lock of her hair, gently running his fingers through it. It was so soft , and he couldn’t help himself from reaching out to grab more.
He was almost tempted to coil a tuft of her hair around himself like some sort of snake, but her voice promptly snapped him out of his thoughts.
“Uh…Damon?”
He poked his head out from the strands. “Yeah?”
“I…understand that this whole situation is frightening for you, but please don’t tug on my hair.”
“Ah-!” he squeaked, using another lock of her hair to hide the embarrassment on his face. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it was bothering you…”
“It’s fine,” she said, “just don’t do it unless there’s some kind of emergency or you need to discreetly get my attention.”
“Right…” he sighed, “got it.”
He buried himself deeper between the strands, never wanting to show his face in the light of day again.
“Well, at least she only thinks you did it because you were scared,” he told himself, attempting to hold onto a shred of his dignity.
Then, he felt her shoulder shake a little as she started to move. Eva placed her hand on the doorknob, but didn’t open the door just yet.
“Are you doing okay?”
“Yup,” he responded, “all we need to do is get breakfast without me being noticed, and then interrogate Tozu to find out what the hell happened to me.”
“Tozu? You think he has something to do with this?”
“Most likely. I mean, who else here could potentially possess the technology to shrink someone?”
“Fair point.”
Saying that, she twisted the door handle and opened the door, heading towards the dining hall with the miniaturized debater hidden in her hair.
“Alright, let’s do this.”