AnimeCon Harem 9: 9 pt 8 (Patreon)

Stephanie almost tripped, stumbling over her own feet as part of her mind opened up to a chestnut-streaked forest of wide, sturdy trunks and ancient limbs, and the pink-haired girl nearly dropped the drink-carrier containing the coffees and hot cocoas.

“Whoa, there,” Brian remarked, steadying her free hand. “You alright?”

Having collected their order, the two were rather leisurely threading their way back through the city towards the hotel. Brian carried a take-out bag bulging with the cartons of their breakfast along with two rolled-up copies of the Gazette in one hand, while he held Stephanie’s hand with the other. She’d opted to carry their drinks, carefully hugging the carrier against her body.

“Yep!” Stephanie said with a weak smile. “Sorry. I’m feeling a bit… lightheaded.”

Lightheaded didn’t quite begin to describe what was actually going on, and Stephanie’s pupils dilated wide as she grappled with her fledgling sixth sense. Something—someone—had entered the network of intimate connections that tied Stephanie’s emotions to the others. It didn’t feel like an intruder, either. Rather than alarm and terror, she felt the sentiment of greeting a friendly face, of welcoming someone who really belonged into the fold.

Brown? Stephanie pondered, stretching out her senses. Her color is brown, and she’s… I can’t quite tell what her thema is? Roots? Branches?

Whoever it was, her flavor was comforting and reassuring. This new girl was wide open to them emotionally, seemed to be someone who could immediately be identified by the psychological equivalent of a pair of open arms. Safety. Love, support, immediate and enduring friendship. But, who is it?!

Um. Hello? Hi there! Stephanie tried to broadcast. The link that tied them all together didn’t seem to be compatible with expressing words or ideas, but the gist of Stephanie emoting a welcome seemed to be conveyed. There was a distinct impression that this new girl was turning her attention towards her, and Stephanie felt her transmit back bemused curiosity.

“Steph?” Brian interrupted, tugging her to a stop.

“Hmm?” Stephanie jolted back to awareness.

“You alright?” Brian gave her a look of concern. “Asked if you wanted me to carry the drinks, but you kind of zoned out.”

“Oh—sorry!” Stephanie blurted out, giving his hand a squeeze. “Hah, I was just—my head was miles away there for a second! Lost in thought. I’m fine, I can carry them.”

“Let’s get back and get some breakfast in you,” Brian said. “Probably shouldn’t have let you run with me on an empty stomach like that.”

“I’m fine!” Stephanie promised, sharing her smile with him again. “I mean… okay, I’m a little bit hungry…”

“You’re cute when you’re hungry,” Brian observed with a grin. “Emily gets ravenous for food. Then she eats like, less than half a portion and just sits back rubbing her belly moaning ohhh why did you let me stuff myself, I’m such a pig ohhhh I’m gonna hurrrl.”

Stephanie couldn’t help but break into laughter at his Emily impersonation.

“Chloe would get quiet when she was hungry,” Brian continued. “Not good quiet, either. Pissy quiet, there’s a problem and why haven’t you noticed what the problem is yet sort of quiet. Got me into serious trouble a few times early on in the relationship. Before I started to always, like, mentally track how long it’d been since she’d had a meal.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Stephanie retorted, shaking her head, furrowing her brow, and pursing her lips. “I really can’t believe her!”

“Thanks,” Brian said with honest appreciation. “I’m, uh. I really don’t mean to keep bringing her up, but for the longest time it’s like there’s a lot I need to get off my chest about her, and there wasn’t anyone that it was safe to talk to about it. Not even Emily. Because she’d get… weird upset whenever I brought stuff like that up. Though, I guess Emily being upset makes more and more sense now.”

“She loves you,” Stephanie affirmed, feeling her kinship with Emily growing stronger even as she felt more and more disappointed with Chloe. “We all love you.”

“Whoa there,” Brian chuckled. “Better watch that kind of talk around Kelly.”

“Kelly loves you, too,” Stephanie insisted, making a cute face and sticking out her tongue. “She knows she does.”

The pair of lovers walked across the last stretch of city block in companionable silence, having the good fortune to have a crosswalk signal halt traffic to allow them across the moment they arrived at the curb. Stephanie felt incredibly pleased just going around with him and soaking up conversation, these casual moments and conversation that she’d never realized she needed in her life but now craved more and more of. As silly as it was, when they stepped off the sidewalk and through the small exterior courtyard gate of Brian’s hotel, Stephanie was almost wishing they could spend more time just walking around together.

“Worried about that whole thing with Kelly, too,” Brian admitted as they strode along the walkway beside the hotel’s pool area towards their room. “I absolutely want to help her out with her living situation still, just. Also, it’s kind of like I’m just imposing my solution on her. Yanking her out of her comfort zone, forcing her to rely on some guy she hardly even knows at all—”

“We’re going to make it work,” Stephanie said. “We will. It’s, it’s just like in an anime! Where the protagonist is suddenly pushed into living arrangements with a beautiful girl.”

“Sort of like us meeting by you falling on top of me?” Brian arched an eyebrow. “Or, yesterday when I walked in on you and Kelly making out—”

“I didn’t fall, Megan pushed me!” Stephanie protested with a giggle. “I, I really liked how that ended up, though!”

“Oh, yeah?” Brian challenged, giving her a teasing look.

“Brian, I...” Stephanie drew in a deep breath. Think, think! How do I say it, um, um, how would KELLY put this?

“Brian—” Stephanie gently bit her lower lip and looked up at him with a certain heat in her eyes. “I really want to sit on your face.”

* * *

“Magic is real!” Emily blurted out, awkwardly trying to hold the bed’s comforter around herself while also attempting to pull on her pair of panties. “Magic is real, and we have it, somehow.”

“Emily—” A naked and rather buxom girl with bright red hair hissed out a warning and a meaningful look.

Rebecca pretended not to notice, instead withdrawing a small bra from the bag of Emily’s clothes she’d brought and holding it up for her friend to put on next. As someone who’d always believed in magic, Rebecca was excited but not shocked. She was of course intensely interested in how Emily had managed to get herself mixed up in magical shenanigans, and knew that it wasn’t something Emily would ever be able to keep from her.

“Magic,” Megan repeated.

“You’re… Steph’s friend, right?” Emily shot Megan a guilty look. “The one from the other hotel?”

“I’m Stephanie’s best friend,” Megan asserted, putting her hands on her hips.

Across the room, the nude girl with red hair slightly narrowed her eyes, though it seemed like no one but Rebecca noticed that particular little reaction.

“Right, okay,” Emily dropped the comforter in favor of trying to wrap one arm protectively around her breasts while accepting the offered bra with the other. “We can probably tell you, then. Just—hey you won’t tell anyone else this, right?”

“Umm well, no one would believe me?” Megan remarked, sounding more than a little skeptical herself. “Hah. I mean, everyone already thinks I’m like, the big dumb otaku doofus.”

“You’re not dumb, and you’re not a doofus,” Rebecca corrected the girl in a patient voice. “You’re a good friend to Stephanie, and a good friend to me, so please don’t speak about yourself like that.”

Taking Emily by the shoulders and gently pivoting her friend away from the others, Rebecca began to assist the much shorter girl in correctly wearing her undergarments. Putting on a bra with one hand while distracted and the other hand was still in the way seemed to be more than Emily could manage at once, and Rebecca didn’t know if she should be amused or exasperated.

“Okay, so yeah,” Emily chattered away. “There’s this magic charm—it’s a harem charm, and it makes you hot for Brian. An-and maybe each other, I dunno? Uh, like you got zapped by the charm, and now you’re part of the magic stuff, and it’ll like, get stronger if you kiss Brian? Your hair changes colors first, and then—”

“Wait, what anime is this from?” Megan asked, looking from girl to girl but trying not to stare at Kelly, who didn’t seem to feel any compunction to cover up or get dressed.

“No I mean like, it’s real, it’s this real magic sort of thing and we’ll maybe get powers!” Emily exclaimed. “Like, you see how my hair’s blue? Kelly’s red, Stephanie’s pink, it’s totally this sentai team sort of motif and—”

“Emily,” Rebecca carefully clasped the back of the brassiere closed. “How long has this been going on? Was this why you always had a crush on—”

“No, no!” Emily haphazardly twisted to see behind her. “Uhh, go one tighter. Use the next notch.”

“That’s too tight,” Rebecca frowned. “This bra isn’t the right size for that, it pinches at your skin when—”

“It doesn’t feel right when it’s this loose,” Emily protested, fumbling her arms behind her to adjust it herself.

“It’s not even loose at all!” Rebecca swatted Emily’s hands. “It’s fitting perfectly.”

“Will you—will you just—no, this wasn’t why I had feelings for Brian,” Emily growled, unhooking her bra and then exhaling so that she could pull the straps as tight as they could go.

“She’s right—your bra’s too small,” the red-haired girl commented. “Maybe if you’d give them some room to grow, they’d—”

“Not funny, Kelly,” Emily shot the naked girl a dark look. “Don’t… ever joke about them. Please.”

“...Sorry,” Kelly nodded, actually looking chastised. “Didn’t mean anything by it, it was just a joke. Sorry.”

Rebecca looked about in surprise as the interplay, unable to figure out their relationship. Emily’s temper didn’t completely fly off the handle at this Kelly girl treading into the big no-no zone of mentioning her smaller-than-average breasts. That would normally have made anyone instantly an enemy for life, because Emily knew how to nurse grudges like none other. For her part, Kelly seemed like the type to live large and sass whoever they pleased, so something about the heartfelt apology came off as… uncharacteristic. Rebecca felt sure that Emily and Kelly were new acquaintances, but apparently they were already close. Something about Emily immediately warming up to a girl like this seemed just as strange and outlandish as Emily suddenly discovering magic.

“Like I was saying, I’ve always liked Brian,” Emily explained. “Since like, day one. I liked Brian before it was cool. The whole harem magic thing is a, uh, a recent development? I think I got zapped when I gave him the charm, like, last week.”

“The charm got me when Brian offered me his spare convention badge,” Kelly admitted with reluctance. “Felt like it stung me.”

She didn’t want to tell us about this, Rebecca observed. She’s speaking up to help support Emily’s story, to help give it more weight. Emily’s important to her.

“Do… we need to figure out how to free both of you from this?” Rebecca asked, looking from Emily to Kelly with a weak smile.

““No,”” Emily and Kelly replied in unison.

“Are you sure?” Rebecca tapped her lip, holding up the lanyard so that the harem charm next to the battered convention pass was clearly visible to everyone in the room. “It sounds as if—”

“Rebecca, no. Just, no,” Emily said firmly. “I’ve always wanted this, always fantasized about this sort of… thing. It’s Brian, it’s Brian and for real, actual magic sorta stuff.”

“Wait, this is—” Megan spoke up. “This is for real?”

“Definite no from me, as well,” Kelly said. “Brian, Stephanie, even Emily—I need all three of them in my life like this. To unfuck my life from what it was, from where it was going.”

Their dialogue seemed to be happening on multiple levels, and Rebecca found herself getting distracted by the spiritual side of things, where Emily was symbolically a flowing body of water and Kelly seemed to be a burning red flame nervously peeking over the edge of a crater at her. This wasn’t happening visually, not exactly, but something about their magical forms left strong impressions to that order.

After all, if Emily’s a river—if EMILY RIVERA is a river—then she’s a pretty confused one, Rebecca thought to herself with a wry smile.

The path of the blue water was impossibly convoluted, snaking in every which direction and even seeming to stubbornly struggle uphill sometimes rather than follow the natural laws of flowing water. It somehow seemed like a very Emily representation. Kelly, on the other hand, featured a marked difference between her affected nonchalance as she stood there naked and the incredible wariness she displayed from the lip of the crater she hid within. Something about the scorching red entity seemed very out of her element and skittish of making a connection to Rebecca.

“Are you… a volcano?” Rebecca asked, quirking her head at Kelly.

“Starfall, actually,” Kelly answered with an uneasy expression. “Fallen star… sorta thing.”

“Oh! Of course,” Rebecca nodded to herself. “That’d explain it. That makes sense.”

“That explains… what?” Megan mumbled in confusion, unable to keep up.

“Wait, what are you?” Emily asked, fighting her way into a small T-shirt. “You feel like a naturey sort of… wilderness sort of thing?”

“Trees?” Rebecca guessed. “Dark forest?”

“Wait, did you get black for your color?!” Emily demanded angrily, glaring out the neck of the shirt she hadn’t quite pulled on right yet. “Because, if you got the coolest color, we’re trading. I’ve had dibs on black since like, forever.”

“No, I think it’s maybe… brown?” Rebecca pondered. “Brownish? Burnished? Russet, or chestnut maybe? Just saying brown doesn’t sound quite right.”

“Okay,” Emily conceded. “I guess that fits. It’s not too different from your actual hair color, though, so—wait, is that why you got your powers right away? Because of your natural hair color?!”

“Powers?!” Megan looked from face to face with helpless envy. “You guys…!”

“I think… it’s just something I was already in tune with?” Rebecca tried to assuage Emily’s wild suspicions. “These feelings, anyways. I was always ready to believe in things, and then all of the sudden… they started believing in me back?”

And the first thing I commune with on a higher level is EMILY?! Rebecca tried not to laugh at the thought. Of course it is! I’d rather be a part of this with Emily than get a response from an angel, or a demon, or an ancient spirit. She’s my little Emily!

“That… makes some weird sorta sense,” Emily righted her shirt and then smoothed out the folds. “I mean, I knew you were always… special.”

“Thank you!” Rebecca beamed at the compliment. “But! What are we doing about all of this crazy magic stuff?!”

“Uhhh, well I don’t know, but don’t tell Brian about it,” Emily pleaded. “Please. We think he’d, uh, like freak out if he thought there was this unnatural force affecting us, and—”

“That seems fair, though,” Rebecca countered. “He’s—”

“Only affecting us in a totally good way, though!” Emily said quickly. “I swear. Completely swear. You’ll probably be able to see the moment he gets back. Soon as you look at him, the magic’ll like, dazzle you.”

That sounded concerning. With a small frown, Rebecca opened herself fully to the dreamwalk again and swept her attention around for Brian. It was almost unnecessary—he was close. Not in a physical sense that implied his distance from her or approximate location, but in a destined to arrive way, like they were about to meet. Brian was power, Brian was the hidden canvas that their dreamworld was painted upon, and associating his presence with something on that sort of scale inspired a little awe. Moreover, he would be here soon, and with him came a swirling halo of pink fire that seemed to wave in her direction.

Stephanie? Rebecca’s frown began to disappear.

If Brian was a font of ethereal power, Stephanie was a hungry flame drawing fuel directly from the source. The girl’s happiness blazed bright and rich with color, and as the two drew near, the conflagration began to spread, licking at the burnt sienna of Rebecca’s ancient branches and lighting them up. Closer examination revealed that Stephanie’s fiery cheer wasn’t actually burning Rebecca’s dry wooden representation up, or even following any principles of actual combustion. It was simply there, dancing merrily atop the branches and leaping about, warm and pleasant in a giddy, excited way.

“They’re almost here,” Rebecca informed the rest of the group. “Brian and Stephanie.”

“Please please please don’t say anything about this to Brian?” Emily begged, clapping her hands together. “Not asking you to lie—just, can you not say anything about it right away? Can you just watch for a bit and see before you decide to do anything drastic like—”

A polite knock sounded on the door of the hotel room.

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/// Going to spend a few days going through Part 7 again, because I want to post it up public on all of the fic sites for my birthday. After that, I should be jumping back in here with a RE:TT post.