HIH: A 24 Full Chapter Draft (Patreon)

(If you spot any mistakes lmk since I'm still in the process of proofreading)Chapter 24: First Request

It was a brand new day and everyone in the club was happy, Megumi especially. Her excitement was practically radiating off her like a big smiling ray of sunshine. Now that the club had not only enough members but an actual, honest-to-goodness, request box, they could finally get down to business and actually start helping the school. For the entirety of first period, she had a big goofy smile plastered across her face and she didn’t shy away from letting everyone around her know the exact reason in great detail. When lunchtime had finally come she practically ran out of the room while excitedly grasping Furyu, Rentaro, and Fujo’s hands. Seeing the small wooden request box they left outside the club room brought her immense amounts of joy. Clutching it with both hands, she held it like a baby and impatiently waited for everyone to arrive before seeing all the requests they got.

Once everyone had gotten into the club room, Megumi proudly made a show of opening the box. With a dramatic movement, she unlatched the box and smugly dumped it out onto the main table. However, as Megumi would soon find out, things would not go as planned. Holding the box upside down, everyone in the club was shocked as… absolutely nothing fell out. 

“Eh..?” Megumi’s stared at the empty wooden box with an emotionless grin on her face. Even after shaking it a couple of times, nothing fell out. She and the rest of the club were completely speechless, Makoto especially since it was her idea.

“Tch." Makoto grimaced, trying her hardest to hide how sad she was. Everyone stood silent for a couple more minutes before they started to wonder why something like this happened. “Are you sure you told everyone?” “Did you forget to add a tiny slot so Micros could leave their suggestions?” “Did you grab the right box?” All these and more continued to be asked until things almost boiled over into an argument. Standing on Megumi’s shoulder, Rentaro did his best to comfort the girl. It was either super obvious or not obvious at all, but Megumi was extremely sad about this. She was usually never this quiet.

“I’m sure we’ll get some tomorrow— huh?” Patting a strand of Megumi’s hair, the tiny boy caught a little glimpse of what looked to be a small piece of paper stuck between one of the hinges. Gasping, he pointed at its location excitedly. “Megumi, look!!” He yelled causing Megumi to perk up for a moment and almost cause Rentaro to go tumbling off her shoulder and into her shirt.

Carefully putting Rentaro back down on the table, she looked at the hinge and sure it was: a tiny piece of paper with micro-hand writing on it. In an instant, her sad, almost blank, expression faded away and she cheered with all her might. Makoto was pretty much the same but she hid her happiness by turning away from everyone and pretending to be on her phone. Due to it being pretty difficult to read, Mai did the honors and picked it out before turning up her megaphone and announcing the request to the entire club.

“Please do something about the Micro walkways! I want going to class to be safer!’ While it was definitely a sensible request, the look on Mai’s face gave everyone the impression that she’s already tried that. Nevertheless, she didn’t give up hope and graciously accepted everyone's feedback and ideas.

"Naturally, if we want to actually implement any of the ideas we'll have to write out a request form and submit it to the student council, but for now let's all just get everything jotted down so we can submit our ideas all at once." She said, pulling out a tiny notebook and pen from her bag. Almost immediately every member of the club had come up with an idea. The micro walkways were already pretty unsafe so finding a solution to make them safer was pretty easy, the real difficulty was somewhere else… 

"Hmmm, back at Okisana, the micro walkways were all elevated to about chest height," Megumi explained, holding her hand horizontally near her chest. "And they also had those flat escalator things you see at airports! So maybe we could put in a request for something like that." As over-optimistic as this was, elevating the walkways off the floor would dramatically decrease the likelihood of being stepped on. And so the Micro-Rep's first suggestion was put into writing!

"Yeah, and if movin' them super high up is too much we could always just put up some small walls along the edges of the walkways," Furyu said, placing a pencil right next to Rentaro. "That way is about to step on a tiny…" Without warning, the delinquent took one of her shoes off and slammed it lightly on top of the pencil. 

"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 the best ones along with some simpler methods 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 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 the 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 looser than it was a couple of 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, socks, or shoes while you're at school." While technically being a pretty easy challenge, 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 do 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 buy me new ones 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, slamming her fist extremely close to where he was sitting. 

"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 girl's 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 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 ante 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 ablaze. He couldn't see what she was doing obviously, but the smell of her freshly released socks and the tapping of her shoe was a dead giveaway. 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 was 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 envelop 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. With that, the two of them went back to normal, well mostly. While Furyu had gone back to dozing off in class, Rentaro's emotions were still running rampant. His heart was racing and he couldn't sit still without thinking about what he had just gone through. The sensations running through his body would last the entirety of that class period, but the tiny boy would still have to remain on edge even after he had calmed down a little. 

“That’s all for today. Don’t forget midterms are coming up so don’t slack off!” The teacher said as she walked out of the classroom. As students began to exit Rentaro took a sigh of relief knowing that Furyu would be forced to take her feet off the desk. As much as he wanted to go home and avoid any risk of losing their bet, the club still had to meet after school to discuss the request they received.

Predicting that Furyu would try something on the way there, the tiny boy opted to ride inside Megumi’s school bag. He couldn’t risk being carried by either of them so this was the best decision in his mind. But much to his dismay, Furyu did some predicting of her own when Rentaro chose to blindfold himself during class. It wouldn’t be long before Rentaro noticed her plan as upon entering “Megumi’s bag” he saw that the insides were a lot more messy and beat up than he remembered. Before he could even see Megumi hand the bag off to Furyu, he had already realized that this was actually Furyu’s bag the whole time.

“Huh? I must’ve hung my bag on your desk by accident! Whoops, clumsy me! Thanks for noticing, Megumi!” Being uncharacteristically airheaded, Furyu and Megumi traded bags, leaving Rentaro in the delinquent’s possession for the long walk to the clubroom. Looking through a gap in the zipper, All he could see was her smug face as she reached down toward her legs to remove her socks. All too aware of what she was about to do next, Rentaro quickly scrambled to the opposite side of the bag and hid behind some crumpled paper. Furyu opened her bag and shoved both of her steaming socks inside. Within a fraction of a second, their combined musk had filled every inch of the bag. In any other scenario, on any other week, being inside a personal foot-odor sauna would be absolute nirvana for Rentaro but this was yet another one of her traps. Taking exaggerated breaths, he huddled within his paper bunker and closed his eyes in hopes that it would make this end faster. While this did seem like a good opportunity to cheat, any thoughts of sneaking over to her socks were quickly diminished as Furyu whispered something to him before zipping the bag shut.

“Oh, by the way, my phone’s inside. So if you plan on cheatin’… I’ll know.” With those horrifying words clouding his brain, Rentaro curled up into a fetal position and used every last bit of willpower he had left to resist the urges to run over and curl up within Furyu’s irresistibly aromatic socks. If anything, he was glad he was still allowed to smell things as her odor was more than enough to mostly satisfy him…

Having to wait through an excruciatingly painful 10 minutes thanks to Furyu wanting to take the "scenic route," Megumi, Furyu, and Fujo walked into the club room to see everyone impatiently waiting for their arrival in complete silence. At first, they had no idea why but as the four of them took a seat they saw a manila envelope placed right in the center of the table. It was marked by the student council's stamp and contained their reviewed suggestion forms. Now that everyone had arrived, the Micro-Rep Support Squad was ready to open it up. Nervously hoping that at least one of their ideas would be approved, they sat with bated breath as Megumi undid the seal and pulled out the documents within. Her hands shook as she set them down on the table. Despite their combined wellspring of optimism, things were off to a rough start…

"Elevated walkways would be exceptional for raising quality of life and safety for our micro student body, however, due to issues concerning budget, construction, and safety we are currently unable to consider this suggestion and as a result it has been rejected." Boldened and highlighted in red, that last word struck fear into Megumi's heart. Her heart began to race and her breathing became erratic as she stared down at the form. Before her optimism ran completely dry, Megumi felt the tiny presence of Mai's hand against the tip of her finger. 

She didn't need to say anything for the girl to come back to her senses. All Megumi needed was the look of pure determination on Mai's face to snap back to reality. Taking a deep breath, she calmed herself down. Scratching the back of her head, she flashed a nervous smile towards the rest of the club. 

"Ehehe, I guess it was a little ambitious now that I think about it." She sighed. “I need to remember that Okisana isn’t exactly a normal school.”

Taking a deep breath, Megumi took a moment to prepare herself before turning the page to see the next suggestion form. Slowly sliding it out of the way, she revealed the for bit by bit. With only the top of the page revealed, she saw that Rentaro’s suggestion was up next. While none of them would say it to his face, nobody in the club aside from him and Megumi had any hopes of this idea getting accepted. And with Furyu’s bet hanging over him at all times, even he was hoping to see the stamp of rejection. As Megumi finally flipped the page completely, there it was. Highlighted and stamped in red just like the suggestion form before it. Not wanting to hurt Megumi’s feelings the whole club hid their sighs of reliefs and went to comfort her instead.

“Don’t worry about me.” Megumi said, glancing towards Rentaro. “I’m sure Rentaro feels way worse since it was his idea, after all.” Patting him gently on the head with her finger, the tiny boy feigned a look of sadness. Even if he found the idea of everyone wearing only socks in the halls, logistically it didn’t make the most sense. Despite surviving multiple instances of being stepped on with socks, he was still unsure of if it’d actually prevent injury on harder surfaces. 

Reasurring Megumi that he was ok, the club went back to looking at suggestion forms. With each rejected stamp their morale grew weaker and weaker. "Rejected due to cost concerns,” “Rejected due to hygenie and comfort concerns,” “Rejected due to difficulty of application.” The list of blanket excuses went on and on with each turn of a page. By the final suggestion form, Megumi couldn’t even feel sadness, or any emotions for that matter. Hesitantly staring down at the scattered suggestion forms with her arms to her sides, she couldn’t even be bothered anymore. Mai wanted to give some words of comfort, but deep down she had already predicted this exact result.

“C-C’mon! There’s still, like, one form left.” Makoto exclaimed, reaching for the pile. “I’m sure at the very least, the ‘warning sign suggestion’ got accepted—” Slightly turning the page over, the small glimpse of red ink immediately drained every ounce of back up optimism she had. Clicking her tongue, she stayed silent for a couple seconds. Tensing her fists, she took a deep breath before grabbing the stack of papers and throwing them onto the ground as hard as good. Snatching her bag off a nearby chair, she stormed out of the club room without saying a word. Still holding some animosity towards the former bully, none of the club ran after her and Megumi, the person they did expect, was so burnt out from today’s disappointing results that they questioned whether or not she even noticed Makoto’s outburst. 

While they all did their best to console Megumi, she remained silent the whole way through. Awkwardly, as the sun started to sink below the horizon little by little, each of them left to go home. Furyu wanted to stay longer, but didn’t want to make her little sister worry so she was the first to leave. After her it was Shinako and Tomoya. Rentaro and Fujo stuck around the longest. It was only until a teacher came in and ordered everyone to go home that Megumi finally got up to leave. Not even addressing the two of them, she despairfully exited the club room. Fujo steadily followed after leaving Rentaro alone on the top of the table. Slinking back in contemplation for a few moments, he called his housemaid to come and pick him up, marking an official adjournment to their complete failure of a club meeting… 

Meanwhile, at the popular family diner Size-Area… 

"It's such total BS! Just when you think you have a good idea, everything goes to shit right at the very end." Makoto groaned while sipping her melon soda angrily. She had calmed down a little since her outburst, but most of anger still remained. She wanted to ask for suggestions about what to do but given the people she was ranting to, that might not have been the best idea. 

"Uhh, what exactly are you mad about Mako-chi?" Chihiro asked, absent-mindedly eating her plate of spaghetti.

"As if you deserve to know, traitors!" She pouted, turning her head away from Aomori and Chihiro who were sitting across from her. Thinking that Makoto was mad about how she was the only one to receive backlash when they tried bullying Megumi, Aomori was quick to interject. 

"Out of the three of us, you were the only one with an actual 'good' reputation, so it was only natural that you'd be the only one targeted by that bug after kidnapping him." Aomori said, in a matter-of-fact tone as she studied. 

"I'M TALKING ABOUT THE FACT THAT YOU TWO LEFT ME ALONE TO GET BULLIED BY ABSOLUTE NOBODIES!!" Makoto yelled. Chihiro and Aomori couldn't exactly deny it. Nervously laughing, the two of them shifted their gaze awkwardly before formally apologizing for the 5th time that night. "I'm over it though. I've got something new to be pissed about…" 

Staring out the window, into the distance she started to blame herself for what happened with the student council suggestion forms. 'If only I had come up with a good idea— maybe then…' she thought. 

"Oooh! Since we're on this topic, can I talk about something that's been pissing me off recently?" Chihiro asked, raising her hand enthusiastically. Taking Makoto and Aomori's silence as a "yes" Chihiro began to rant.

"So we got a new recruit the other day— some shrimp who's super obsessed with losing weight— and she's such a promising runner." Chihiro's complaints faded into the background for both Aomori and Makoto but little did she know, she was about to hear something incredibly useful. 

"Anyways, I'm 90% sure she's gonna quit. She doesn't take practice seriously and she always leaves early. It pisses me off that someone with so much potential would join only to quit because 'running around a track isn't helping her weight loss." She scoffed. Initially dismissive of Chihiro's problems, Makoto tried to just ignore them and go back to thinking deeply to herself. However, that last sentence lingered in her mind for some reason until eventually… 

"What's her name?" Slipping out from Makoto's mouth, her curiosity got the better of her. 

"Kaede Hayashi."

END (next chapter might be soon).