The cautious boy’s anxiety was quickly dispelled, finding both Jase and Scottie sitting at the kitchen counter, his father regaling the two with a long forgotten embarrassing tale from Danny’s first childhood.
“Dad, could you please spare them the details…” Danny blushed, attempting to maintain some degree of cool in front of his friends, at least as much as an 11-year-old could in front of his much older friends.
“Whoa, dude, your voice!” Jase marveled, laughing lightly, stricken by the thoroughness of the Pubertaway.
“Yeah, you’re a whole kid again, man!” Scottie added.
Danny, still reeling from the sudden appearance of his friends, tried to get his bearings while mirroring his friends’ curious enthusiasm. “I know! It really worked! That thing is so awesome!” he exclaimed. “Wait, why are you guys even here?”
“Your mom invited us for your ‘11th birthday party’,” Jase denoted with air quotes. “So we were like sure why not. Might as well see what a pipsqueak you turned into!”
“Plus, it’s like 200 degrees out, and you guys have a pool, so we figured this’d be a good excuse to crash here for the weekend and cool off,” Scottie explained.
“Hell yeah! I’m so glad you guys decided you weren’t too cool to hang out with a middle schooler.” Danny remarked, peering down at his very middle school attire.
“We gotchu, dude!” Scottie affirmed before turning toward Jase, teasing, “Jase even said he thought it’d be cool to be in middle school with you, didn’t you, Jase?”
Jase laughed it off, “No way bro. I like my balls dropped thank you very much.”
The three shared the laugh, and Danny felt immensely grateful that the dynamic between the three of them hadn’t been totally thrown off by his voluntary regression. Over breakfast, the two birthday guests bombarded the preteen with a rapid-fire volley of curious inquiries, the juiciest of which related to his loss of sex drive.
“So you legit felt nothing? Like not even a little hard?!” Jase drilled. “Doesn’t that kinda suck?”
Unabashedly, Danny answered honestly. “Dude, yeah, nothing. It was really weird, but it was kinda what I wanted out of this. Like how exciting it feels that one day I’ll be able to do that kinda stuff, ya know?”
Jase chuckled, covering his mouth to keep from sharing his food with his two friends, “I dunno, man. I don’t think I do!”
Scottie echoed the sentiment, and Danny emphasized the need to experience it firsthand to truly understand. The two quickly dismissed the notion, and the trio finished off their food, proceeding to head upstairs to Danny’s room to change for the pool.
While Danny had initially thought it a bit odd or uncomfortable, to all change in the same room, it’s nothing the trio hadn’t done before, both at 11 and 16. However, they had all always been the same age, so it had never really been a consideration. Jase set the tone as he began removing his shirt, making it clear that he had no qualms with changing in front of his preteen friend. Scottie followed suit, and as the two teens stripped to their boxers, Danny found refuge in the opposite corner of the room, rifling through the box of hand-me-downs for a pair of swim trunks. Finding a blue pair decorated with crocodiles, he set them aside and deftly pulled down his shorts and underwear in one swift motion. As he was pulling the trunks up, he peeked over at Jase and Scottie, each now without their boxers and pulling on their own trunks. These two were his best friends, but now Danny couldn’t help but feel jealous of them, looking at the gifts puberty had bestowed upon them. Though, Danny was spurred on by this nostalgic yearning. This desire to be more mature and finally reap the benefits of puberty—the body and facial hair, the muscle tone, and the bigger equipment—had been a driving force behind his decision to regress. Yes, this was exactly what he’d wanted, and he was glad that Jase and Scottie had made an appearance so that he had more mature bodies to compare his own to.
“You sure you don’t miss this at all, Danny?” Jase joked, miming a funneling motion with his hand toward the outline at the front of his swim trunks.
“Nope!” Danny declared. “I wanted to be a kid for the weekend, and I definitely wouldn’t feel like it with anything swingin’ around down there.”
“Haha, you definitely don’t gotta worry about that, kiddo,” Scottie teased, but Danny, if anything, appreciated the playful jabs that really helped to solidify his new status.
The three set off downstairs to the backyard pool, where Scottie and Jase raced to see who could cannonball the fastest while displacing the most water. Danny followed the older boys’ lead, crashing into the water just in between his friends but producing a notably less impressive splash.
Having leapt into the deep end, Danny found himself struggling to keep his whole head above water.
“Oh man you can’t even stand up in here, huh?” Scottie commented.
“Dude, come on, you gotta miss being tall, right? No man wants to be short.” Jase prodded.
“Nuh uh!” Danny countered, his arms and legs working tirelessly to tread water and maintain his hard-earned buoyancy. “Once again, you guys are missing the point! I wanted to be a kid, with all the disadvantages that comes with. You won’t get me to admit I made a mistake,” he said, sticking his tongue out at the teens.
“Well…” Jase paused, a sinister smile creeping up his face. “I bet the shark can…” His head disappeared beneath the water, and Danny knew exactly what was coming as just a moment later, his leg was being tugged at from below, and he was pulled below the surface.
Danny writhed and kicked, but Jase’s grip was firm and relentless. He felt powerless to counteract his friend, but Danny could see from his smile, even underwater, that this was merely a joke, no malice intended. Finally, Jase let up, and Danny scrambled to the surface, stealing a huge gasp and wading to the security of the pool’s edge.
“Damn, dude, you really went for him,” Scottie laughed, landing a little bop on Jase’s shoulder. “You good over there, squirt?” Scottie yelled.
Danny was busy catching his breath, but he signaled a thumbs up for the two, letting them know they had not gotten the best of him yet. Jase and Scottie started up playing some sort of game of there own while Danny relaxed at the pool’s edge, grabbing the pool noodles as makeshift weapons and battling each other. As the two swung the pseudo-swords high above their heads, their muscles and upper body hair stood out to Danny, who paid more attention to them now than he ever did at 16. He rubbed a hand on his own armpit, and what an incredibly unfamiliar feeling the smoothness was! On one hand, he was so impossibly smooth, but on the other, he was at an age where that was all about to change. Every boy dreams of being a man one day, and being on the cusp of two was exhilarating, especially his second time around. For a moment, Danny saw flashes of himself going through middle school once again, and perhaps that wouldn’t be so bad! He could make new friends and get to mature all over again… but then what would become of Jase and Scottie? Surely they would never want to hang out with Danny if he were permanently 5 years younger than them?
The boy’s daydream was cut short by a blast of water to the face. This assault would surely not go without retribution, and Danny collected his own pool noodle, making way for an epic addition to the duel at hand. Scottie and Jase, however, were much older, and their whacks packed a much more devastating punch than did Danny’s, who couldn’t help but feel so much weaker and smaller than the teens. One day he’d catch up to them; one day he’d be just as big and strong! Today, though, was not that day, and Danny called uncle first, followed by Scottie, leaving Jase the clear winner.
After about another half hour, the trio decided it best to take a lunch break and perhaps play some video games, all exhausted from their aquatic shows of force. They all headed back up to Danny’s room after drying off, Jase and Scottie leading the way, leaving Danny at eye level with their hairy legs as he trailed several steps behind.
Back in the room, the two older boys led by pulling off their trunks first, drying off a bit more before pulling on their boxers. At this point, Danny had also stripped naked and dried himself further, but he found himself just a bit embarrassed to pull on the tighty-whities while his friends wore boxers.
By now, Jase had taken notice of the preteen in his partial state of dress. “Haha, dammnnnn you even got the tighty-whities too, bro?”
“Yep! Wouldn’t really be a kid without ‘em, ya know?” Danny laughed. “Really, though, it’s my cousin’s hand-me-downs that my mom brought me this morning, so it was kinda all there was.” The snugness and the sensation of bare thighs were nearly as foreign to Danny as the feeling of hairlessness, but the tightness of the white underwear was nonetheless nostalgic and emblematic of his preteen era.
“Man, some hand-me-downs you got.” Scottie mocked, pulling on his shorts.
Danny shrugged. “Honestly, they’re pretty comfortable. I think we all probably woulda kept wearing ‘em if we didn’t have to change for gym.” As everyone continued changing, Danny pushed further. “I mean, if you wanna try ‘em out again, I’ll let you guys use my Pubertaway,” he offered, laughing at the prospect.
“I mean, you do seem like you’re really enjoying yourself…” Jase conceded.
“Haha, dude, no way you’re actually considering it, right?” Scottie asked.
The preteen continued, “I read that it works for all sleep, even a nap, so we wouldn’t have to wait until nighttime!”