Reiko was an ordinary enough girl. She was in third grade, and she was exceptionally good at memorizing her multiplication and division tables for math class. She had some close friends at school, Jessica and Kimmy, and they always had fun together. Reiko would often have sleep overs at Jessica and Kimmy's houses - somewhat unusually this happened multiple times a month. They'd sprawl out in the living room, all cozy with blankets and pillows, and do enough homework and studying to make their parents happy before playing games, watching movies, or just talking the rest of the night.
It wasn't by accident. Reiko felt more at home in Jessica and Kimmy's homes than she felt in her own house. And while she could walk from the school to either of their homes, her own house was much further away. She lived far outside the city limits, and far away from any neighbors she could play with. Other kids who lived out in the country could at least go play in the surrounding woods or fields or something, but her house was cut off from all of that by a massive concrete wall. The property inside the wall was very large. Reiko didn't know how big exactly, but it was probably the same distance from the school to Jessica's house as it was from her back door to the concrete wall.
Reiko's house didn't provide much comfort either. Everything was too... empty. At Kimmy's house, Reiko and her friends could sit on the couches and chairs and be only a few feet apart. Everything was close together, and it felt warm and cozy. In her house, from the arm chair to the couch was a good 60 feet (18m) gap. The hallways were massive, 45 feet (14m) wide at the narrowest. And the ceilings... honestly, Reiko had no way of knowing how tall the ceilings were. She was good at math, and she was sure there was a way to use math to find out, but she hadn't been taught anything that would help her guess the height of that yet.
Height was also a big issue in her house. Yes, the house was empty, but the furniture in it was also massive. The cushion on the arm chair alone was 30 feet (9m) wide - larger than the entire living room in either Jessica or Kimmy's homes. It was also 20 feet (6m) off the ground, which meant climbing up and standing on that cushion was a lot like climbing onto the roof of Kimmy's 2-story house, and came with all the dangers that entailed. Most parents don't want their teenagers to be up that high, so as much as Jessica and Kimmy's parents adored Reiko they just couldn't justify letting their daughters come over without their supervision.
Of course, no normal family needs an armchair that's as big as a house. And that brings up the last point that made being at home uncomfortable for Reiko - she was too short. Not compared to her classmates, of course. Jessica was 4'4" (1.32m), Kimmy was 4'2" (1.27m), while Reiko was 4'9" (1.45m) and easily the tallest in her grade. But compared to her family, Reiko was nothing. She was reminded of this as she came back inside the house through a "special door" that had been installed for her (that was the same size as the doors at her school) and found herself in the entryway of the house next to Mom's sandals. They weren't anything fancy, just some flip flops, but the from the ground to the top of the straps was almost as tall as Reiko was. The soles on those flipflops was almost 1 foot (0.30m) thick, making it taller than any step she'd seen (outside of her house, of course).
And the worst part of comparing herself to her Mom's sandal? Mom was the second shortest person in the family, only taller than Reiko herself. There were other shoes (belonging to her sisters) there were much bigger.
The "special doors" in the house were connected to a security system, which dutifully announced every time Reiko came or left the house. Upon hearing the chime, Reiko heard (and felt) her mother's footsteps thudding in a brisk, excited way towards her. She'd mentioned her family's thudding footsteps before to Mom, and Mom had actually taken the effort to walk on tip-toes around the house to try to reduce it.
"Reiko! I just finished making you a turkey sandwich!" Mom said, excitedly. "Want to try it out?" Before Reiko could reply her Mom was kneeling down and offering her hand to Reiko, palm up and back flat on the floor, to give Reiko a ride to the kitchen. The step up onto Mom's palm was about 6 inches (0.15m), which was much closer to a normal stair height than the sandal Reiko had passed earlier.
Reiko couldn't help but smile at her Mom's enthusiasm. "Sure Mom, that sounds great," she said, climbing aboard the offered hand and moving towards the middle. Reiko could tell by the acceleration forces pushing down on her and the wind rushing through her hair that Mom's excitement was causing her to move faster than she normally would with her youngest daughter in hand. For most people, making a simple sandwich wouldn't be anything to get excited over. For someone as big as Mom the "simple" task took as much effort as assembling a model from a hobby shop. Sure enough when Mom let her off at the Kitchen counter Reiko noticed the super-sized tweezers, exacto knife, and magnifying glass that had been her Mom's tools for assembling the sandwich.
"The turkey slices were extra thin in this pack, so I hope I didn't get any stuck together... and I tried to not add too much mustard this time!" Mom said, bringing over Reiko's "special" table and chair. The table was about 3 feet (1m) square, but since Mom was 54 feet (16.45m) tall the table was about as big as her palm, and easy for her to move around the house as needed so Reiko could sit with the family at meal times. The sandwich was much harder for Mom to move, being roughly the size of her thumbnail and made up of several separate pieces. Reiko could see the look of worry on my Mom's face as she tried to figure out how to move the sandwich to her table without ruining it.
"I'll get it Mom," Reiko said, walking over and up on the cutting board her Mom had assembled the sandwich on. She could see the store-bought ingredients, all the same sizes Reiko had seen at her friends houses, scattered around the workspace - including the box of toothpicks that her Mom had evidently wanted to use to hold the sandwich together for just this moment. Judging by the torn and mashed cardboard sides of the box, as well as the toothpicks scattered everywhere, Reiko could guess that the wooden sticks were just too small for her Mom's tweezers to pick up, but not for lack of trying. Reiko carried the sandwich over to the table and opened it up to inspect it. Condiment bottles, even the large ones like the school cafeteria had, were so hard for her Mom to use that she frequently added too much on accident. This time she could see the streaks of the extra mustard and mayonnaise being wiped away with the exacto knife. The turkey slices were stuck together like Mom had feared, but they were so thin that it was probably for the best that they were doubled up. The iceberg lettuce had jagged edges to it where it had resisted Mom's attempts to cut it away from the rest of the head, but it would taste fine. That left the tomato slices... which were each about 3/4 inch (0.02m) thick. Reiko debated for a moment if she wanted to just eat it or cut them as it was.
"Does it look alright dear?" Mom asked, with the same nervousness in her voice that Reiko felt when taking a test at school.
"Yeah Mom, it looks great!" Reiko said, deciding to just eat it and enjoy. The sandwich was pretty good, even if tomato juice squirted out all over the place as she ate it.
Her Mom beamed, bouncing up and down happily while Reiko ate, causing Reiko's chair to rock slightly in rhythm. "Oh good! It's so much more interesting making meals for you than it is for the rest of the family. Using actual ingredients instead of premade mixes is so... special!"
Reiko involuntarily paused and sighed. There was that word again - "special". She knew her Mom didn't mean it in an insulting way, but it still was a reminder about how much she didn't fit in with her family. Her Mom noticed right away something was wrong, and intuited that it wasn't an issue with the food.
"What is it dear? What's troubling you?" Mom asked, concern evident in her giantess eyes.
Reiko took a moment to gather her thoughts, then asked "Mom..."
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