HIH:A Chapter 24 Preview 2 (Patreon)

(I am still suffering through no power so sorry for being unable to post on Patreon. Here's the second preview of chapter 24. There's still a lot more to write!) 

"Their feet wouldn't be able to land flat makin' it impossible for them to get squished." With his heart beating out of his chest, Rentaro found himself underneath the tattered sole of Fury's uwabaki. Just like Furyu had said, he was saved from being crushed by the small height of the pencil. Stuck crouching in the small gap between the table and the dirt-ridden bottom of Fury's shoe, he could feel himself blushing extremely hard at how hot the situation was. Even if he preferred feet and socks, being this close to the bottom of her shoe was exhilarating. Rentaro's mind raced as he tried to compose himself in the tight space between the table and Furyu's shoe. His face burned with embarrassment, and he desperately hoped no one could see his blushing cheeks. The scent of the shoe's worn leather and the heavy aroma of her feet filled his nostrils, sending a strange mix of excitement through his body. He had always had a foot fetish, but this was an entirely new experience for him.As Rentaro struggled to find his composure, Furyu, oblivious to his predicament, continued discussing her idea for the small walls along the edges of the walkways. The other club members nodded in agreement, adding their own suggestions to the mix. Megumi and Makoto jotted down every idea, their pens scribbling furiously across the pages of the tiny notebook.Meanwhile, Rentaro's mind raced with conflicting emotions. On one hand, he was grateful that Furyu's shoe had saved him from being crushed. On the other hand, his proximity to her foot was making it difficult to think straight. He tried his best to focus on the task at hand, reminding himself that they were brainstorming ideas to improve safety.After what felt like an eternity, but was only a few moments, Furyu finally removed her shoe from the pencil, allowing Rentaro to breathe a sigh of relief. He scrambled out from under the table and regained his place next to Megumi. After Furyu suggested her and idea, the rest of the group continued their discussion. Optimistic, the meeting went smoothly and before lunch was over they came to an agreement about which suggestions they'd be submitting to the student council. Out of the many ideas, they selected five in total and began filling out the suggestion forms. Elevated walkways (Megumi's idea), indents/walls (Furyu's idea), fully enclosed walkways(Tomoya's idea), high visibility markings that make it apparent when a micro is nearby (Shinako's idea), and lastly, making all students wear socks only to reduce injury if a micro were to be mistakenly stepped on (obvious). While some of them were obviously far-fetched, they were still confident that at least one of them would get approved, and as apprehensive as she was in the beginning, everyone's enthusiasm had Mai feeling somewhat confident as well. Just as the meeting finished, so did lunch and everyone started to head back to class with Megumi dropping off the suggestion forms on the way and Mai promising to convince the student council to review them by the end of the day. Half an hour later, and still enthusiastic from the meeting, Megumi, Rentaro, and Furyu decided to quietly chat with each other to pass time during a particularly boring lecture. "Rentaro, I dunno if you've been doin' it intentionally, but you've gotta tone down that whole 'foot thing' you've got goin' on." Furyu whispered to the tiny who was caught completely off-guard by her statement. Stammering to come up with a response, he came to the slow realization that his filter was a little more loose than it was a couple weeks ago. While a lot had happened to him recently to cause him to be more open about his foot fetish, the last thing Rentaro wanted was to be considered creepy. "S-Sorry!" He yelled, bowing his head deeply. "I'll stop being so creepy." With his face completely flushed, he tried his best to convince her. While most girls would've bought his apologetic act, Furyu wasn't buying at all. "Yeah, alright." She scoffed sarcastically. "Really! I seriously mean it!!" Trying to retaliate didn't really do him too many favors as Furyu still doubted him. "If you really mean something, you gotta have the guts to prove it." Furyu said staring menacingly at him. Despite how intimidating she was being, for some reason, Rentaro didn't want to back down. "Fine! I will prove it!" Almost unconsciously, the words escaped from his mouth. Staring shocked at the tiny for a couple of seconds, a smug smile then appeared on her face. "Heh, alright. For the entirety of this week you're not allowed to look at, touch, or even talk about feet while you're at school." While technically being a pretty easy challenge all things considered, this was extremely devastating for the tiny boy. Already too far to back down, Rentaro grit his teeth and reluctantly agreed to the challenge. Before they could shake hands, or rather before Rentaro could shake Furyu's finger, Megumi interjected. "That's not fair, Furyu! If you're gonna make someone do a challenge, you have to give them a reward if they complete it." Megumi whispered enthusiastically. "I know that if Shuic— I mean, my boyfriend," She giggled, happy to be able to something like that. "were to do something like that, it'd be super-DUPER hard and he'd be really sad if he got nothing after miraculously avoiding feet for a whole week." Somewhat confused about why Megumi needed to bring up her boyfriend as an example, Furyu sighed and reluctantly decided to make the challenge worth his while. "Ugh, fine! If you do somehow go through the whole week I'll… uh, buy you lunch for a 1 week." This, of course, was an awful reward. Not only was lunch extremely inexpensive for tinies, it also wasn't worth it at all considering Rentaro always had his lunch home-made for him by someone who was practically a professional chef (also he's rich). Staring judgmentally at her, Furyu eventually caved into the pressure and chose a different prize. "I'll uh… um… I-I'll…" Thinking deeply about what to say, Furyu was drawing a blank. And with Megumi and Rentaro staring at her with judgemental expressions she eventually just spat out the first thing that came to mind. "I'll give you my running shoes… to keep." Having no idea why she said that of all things, both her own and Rentaro’s faces became extremely flustered for wildly different reasons. "W-wait! Can I choose something else?!" She tried to bargain but it was already too late. "Deal!!!" Rentaro blurted out excitedly. As much as she hated it, Furyu was the one who started this whole thing so it was way too late for her to start backing down. "Tch! Fine, but you've gotta to buy me new one's if, by some miracle, you win." "Of course! But you'll have to throw in your gym socks too…" He said shyly, pushing his luck. "WHAT WAS THAT?!" Furyu asked threateningly, bringing her face and fist extremely close to the tiny. "I-I said, of course!!" Rentaro said, shaking with fear. With that, the two of them shook on it, and with Megumi as their witness the bet was officially on. Though Megumi was more than a little confused about why Rentaro would want Fury's shoes as a reward. 'Maybe he wants to gift them to his sister…' She thought trying to understand why he was so eager. Regardless, if it made him happy that's all there was to it when it came to deciding if the reward was fair. "Oh and by the way… if you lose, you have to tell everyone in the whole school about your 'little interest' and confess about sneaking into the girls locker room to take perverted pictures for the dumbass boys in this class." With an even more twisted smile plastered against her face, Rentaro was completely shook for two reasons. One, was how horrifying that punishment was. And two, was how she even knew about "Operation Heaven's Gate." While it was a tad bit unfair to declare the punishment after they already shook on it, Rentaro didn't back down and took a deep breath to prepare for the arduous week ahead of him. After setting up a some ground rules (People touching Rentaro with their feet intentionally doesn't count as a loss, hallways are safe zones as it's impossible to not look at feet when you're that close to the ground, and mentions of feet, socks, or shoes is allowed if the context is about units measurement or general non-perverted chatter) the game was officially on and Furyu had already begun playing dirty. Taking advantage of the fact that Rentaro was on her desk, she did as she always did. Leaning back in her chair, she slammed her feet onto the desk, making sure Rentaro was positioned comfortably in between them. As hot as this was, Rentaro couldn't afford to lose immediately so he used every bit of willpower he had to keep his eyes forward and away from Furyu’s well-worn uwabakis. Impressed, Furyu decided to up the anti a little with a simple and hopefully effective… heel pop. Being very casual about it, this simple action of idly rocking her shoe back and forth near Rentaro was enough to set his heart a blaze. He couldn't see what she was doing obviously, but the smell of her freshly released socks and tapping of her shoe was a dead give away. Deep inside, he could feel every fiber of his being slowly pushing his body to catch just a small glimpse of her amazingly well-worn, sweat-stained, and torn socks. The smell alone was enough to practically cause him to drool, and he was already having thoughts about how it wouldn't be too bad to reveal his secrets to the school… HOWEVER, the tiny boy held firm as he also had an ace up his sleeve. Undoing his tie, he wrapped it around his eyes to create a blindfold. Despite being frustrated by this move, Furyu couldn't complain as she was also playing dirty. Her only response to play even dirtier. Too caught up in the challenge to realize that this was probably enjoyable for Rentaro, she brought her popped heel close to him so that her heel would be practically right behind him and her partially removed shoe would be directly above. Feeling the heat and smell slowly envelope his entire body. Behind him was the extremely potent smell of her socks and hanging over him was the intense smell of stale sweat from her shoe. All he wanted to do at that moment was bury his face into the sweaty sock directly behind him, but he absolutely could not. Holding his crotch tightly and savoring every deep breath, Rentaro hoped and prayed for class to end soon so he wouldn't have to endure the pain of not being able to indulge himself. Seeing how Rentaro was practically as still as a statue, Furyu was almost desperate enough to just take off both her shoes and surround him with her socked feet but she came to her senses and decided against it. "You'll slip up eventually~" Furyu said, taking her feet off the table.