AnimeCon Harem 13: Stephanie's Dilemma (Patreon)

   “All done,” Kelly announced with satisfaction apparent in her voice.

   Stephanie looked up to see the scene girl with the brilliant red hair leading Emily over towards her, while a very mortified-looking Megan trailed along behind them.

   “All done,” Emily reported in awkward agreement. The Latina’s pixie-cut was unkempt and the girl still appeared to be flushed and short of breath.

   “That was insane,” Megan chortled. “I can’t even believe that just happened. I can’t believe that happened right next to me.”

   “Steph?” Kelly asked, stepping closer and giving Stephanie an appraising look. “You okay?”

   Having been sitting in a crouch with her back to the pillar opposite the one the other girls had appropriated, Stephanie carefully regained her feet. For the first few minutes after squatting down, her head had been ravaged by the tantrum of a migraine, but the painkillers did eventually kick in. Now, her head just feel thick and empty. Her tiny bit of remaining magic appeared like a pink candle flame in her mind and she could barely ‘hear’ anyone through it’s light anymore. The quiet was a welcome turn for now, but rather than peaceful stillness Stephanie had to face her own brooding thoughts for longer than she’d have liked.

   “I’ll… I’ll be okay,” Stephanie afforded Kelly a bitter smile.

   “All that and still no powers, can you believe it?” Emily griped, throwing a palm down the mostly-deserted hallway and then grasping at invisible foes. “Still can’t shoot out an aqua blast or anything. No whirlpool grasp. No—wait, you think maybe I have to be near a water source? Shit, I didn’t even think about that. There was a pool back at the hote—”

   “Well, Stephie’s thing isn’t starting actual fires, though,” Megan pointed out.

   “True, true,” Emily let her hand plop back down to her side, looking disappointed. “Still, there’s gotta be some clue that—”

   “You okay, Steph?” Megan asked, finally picking up on her friend’s somber mood.

   “I’m okay,” Stephanie gave another sad smile. “Just—everything. It’s, um, it’s a lot to think about.”

   The four girls set about once again, making their way together back out of the semi-secluded hallway they’d chosen and meandering back towards AnimeCon’s central area. Stephanie found it a little dismaying to discover that the once overwhelming crowds throughout the pavilion had furthered dwindled—now there were even less people walking about than there had been back on Friday. The convention was ending. She knew that in her mind but now she felt it in her heart, because their energy was gone.

   Emily and Kelly were stepping lightly and looked extraordinarily relaxed, while Stephanie knew her own stamina had been depleted by that terrifying episode of manic rage. Even Megan was subdued now, keeping to herself as they stepped back out onto the tile of AnimeCon’s Lobby and took a look at the last groups of people moving to and fro in front of the open doors of the vendor’s room.

   “Stephanie,” Kelly took a deep breath. “I want you to come with us. Stay with Brian and me at his place, right after the convention. I don’t know for how long—we can figure that out as we go. Really just, kinda, don’t want to be separated from you. We have this great amazing thing going now, and there’s no reason for this to stop.”

   “I…” Stephanie paused, looking Kelly square in the eyes. “I think I need some time away from you guys. To be on my own for a while after the convention. So that I can sort some things out.”

   “Uhh,” Kelly mouthed, completely stunned. “I—Oh.”

   “I love you,” Stephanie quickly added. “I love both of you. All of you. Just, I also—I have a lot of concerns. Not about either of you. About me, about who I am, about what my… charm power has done.”

   “I just thought—” Kelly’s eyebrows furrowed as she struggled to get her bearings on this assertion that was way outside her expectations. “Okay. Wow, um. That’s just…”

   Emily and Megan exchanged glances with one another but remained silent.

   “What if I’m not me anymore?” Stephanie asked.

   “Not you anymore?” Kelly echoed, trying to understand.

   “Yeah.”

   “Steph, if this is just an identity thing then I’d rather you were with us while you—”

   “Can you hear me out? Please?” Stephanie pleaded, wringing her hands in front of her lap. “I’m maybe... um, I know, I mean I can tell, when I’m not really being myself. I think the ways I’ve changed this weekend go beyond just me… being impressionable. Or growing as a person, or anything like that. I feel like throughout my life that maybe my anxiety kind of rolled me up into a corner, like I just kept on retreating and retreating and conceding space until I was backed up into this little tiny corner, and, the rest of me? The rest of me was mostly this big blank slate.

   “Then, this weekend happens, and… it’s more than me just being impressionable, it has to be,” Stephanie struggled to explain. “I think it has to do with my charm power. All the pink. Kelly, I feel like when I was first around you and being in awe of you and who you are, I then subconsciously borrowed some of you, and carried it over into me. Some of your confidence, your—the parts of you that I love, the parts of you I wish I could be. It’s like I took from you on Friday night, and then I think I took from Emily, on Saturday night.

   “There was this moment this morning that stands out to me now, when I was out walking with Brian. We were just… I don’t know, talking back and forth, and I said something, and he remarked that it was just like something Emily would say. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I should have—it’s like I had borrowed some of Emily’s familiarity with him. That specific flavor of emotion she exudes when she’s around Brian, it’s like I was copying that and using it. On Saturday, I’d gleaned confidence from you, but there was still this anxious bit of tension between Brian and I. But then, on Sunday morning the tension was gone and suddenly it felt like we’d known each other for years.

   “Because, I think I’m maybe sensing all of these things in you guys that I don’t have and I’m kind of copying them onto myself. Filling in the blanks. Unintentionally. Emotional aspects, or—I don’t know how to put it into words. I feel all of these gaps in myself, and I subconsciously began to fill them in with bits of you and Emily. It’s not stealing, exactly, just maybe—unintentionally mimicking? With my power? Does any of that make sense?”

   “Whoa, whoa,” Emily interjected, holding up a hand. “Okay, a good some of that seems like just plain ol’ ordinary psychology stuff to me, not magic. It’s a normal social thing I think, to like, adopt mannerisms and whatnot when you’re transitioning into a new group of peers, a new friend group. Completely normal. Well okay not completely, I’m sure your empathic shit probably exaggerates whatever effect it’s having on you. But, it’s not this terrible crazy magic thing. Or, definitely not entirely. Right?”

   “The anger at Chloe was,” Stephanie pointed out with a helpless shrug. “That was mostly... from you, Emily. I was angry myself—I was furious, more than I’d ever been, but I never would have lost control like that. That kind of hate, that much of it— Emily, I’m angry at Chloe too, but that’s just too much. It’s not healthy or safe, for either of us. We’re going to either need you to start going to therapy, or we’re going to need to talk through this with you and help you work through some things.”

   “Uhhh,” Emily made a reluctant face.

   “This goes for you, too, Kelly,” Stephanie turned to face her other friend. “Once I’m back to my library, I’m going to study through as much of our human psychology references as I can. You have so much pain that you can’t let go of, pain that I just can’t get used to or accept, and if we’re going to be together I’m not going to let things keep on like this. It’s not just that it’s also hurting me now, it’s that it really hurts me to be able to see how much you hurt. That isn’t something you can hide from me.”

   “I…” Kelly began, but she really didn’t know what to say.

   “What kinda pain feeling are we talking about, here?” Emily asked. “Can you describe it?”

   “I don’t—it’s isn’t—it’s like,” Stephanie paused, staring at her hands as she struggled to illustrate what it was like. “It’s like—like I visit Kelly’s dorm room, and there’s a sofa. I know you don’t actually live in a dorm, Kelly. But, it’s like I visit and there’s a sofa and it’s missing one of it’s sofa legs. But instead of replacing it or, or, or stacking up phonebooks on that side or something, it’s like she has that corner of the sofa propped using a kitchen knife. Kitchen knife standing up, with the blade starting to sink into the sofa.”

   “Huh,” Emily gave Kelly a thoughtful look. “Is the sofa like—”

   “This isn’t a dreamscape thing, there isn’t really a sofa,” Stephanie sighed, letting her hands drop into her lap. “Just, that’s the sort of uncomfortable it makes me when I get deep into your emotions. I’m not good at making analogies.”

   “...Okay. Whatever you want, we’ll figure something out,” Kelly promised her after a moment of hesitation. “I mean it.”

   “What the fuck, did Steph just absorb a bunch of Rebecca’s mom tendencies, too?” Emily joked. “Ah, sorry. Kidding! Kidding.”

   “I… I don’t even know,” Stephanie sighed, letting her shoulders droop. “I might have. I just—it’s frustrating! I feel like I’m in this... unique position to help you all, s-so that there’s never any misunderstandings between us. And then it backfires, and everything goes wrong all at once.”

   “Everything didn’t go wrong, that was all just Chloe setting us off,” Emily argued. “Completely Chloe’s fault. Chloe went wrong, everything else was going just fine until she came along and—”

   “No, a lot of things went wrong,” Stephanie shook her head. “After I… lost control, you started to clam up, and th-then Kelly just focused in on me and my problem, but at Brian’s expense. Brian ”

   “I did not,” Kelly pursed her lips. “Brian was okay. I mean sure, he was upset— but, all of us were. He was handling things okay.”

   “It didn’t feel okay to me. It still doesn’t, doesn’t feel okay at all. Brian had… he had all of these fears, all of this fear and bad stuff pressed down deep in his stomach,” Stephanie explained, showing with her hands. “But then, when you two took off and left him with me, it’s like a bunch of those fears expanded out and rose up into his chest. Doubt and fear and awful—”

   “Fuck, it’s like we abandoned him,” Emily groaned, slapping a hand onto her forehead. “I should’ve explained to him more before we took off, but also—everything was all happening at once, and then all this magic bullshit we’re still trying to keep secret, so like. What was I even supposed to say?!”

   “What we did worked,” Kelly defended herself. “Steph, you were in trouble, and I was not fucking having it. We had to do something, and we did the best we could. Maybe you don’t want to hear it, but Steph—you’re more important to me than Brian.”

   “I’m not, though,” Stephanie insisted. “That’s another big messy thing we need to untangle. You have the same love for Brian that you do for me, just your feelings for him keep getting twisted up in these past problems you have that we need to work through. Kelly, you need Brian. I can’t overstate how important that is. He’s the one that can really help you. He’s the medicine—I’m just the spoonful of sugar.”

   “First of all; just no,” Kelly pointed a finger, struggling to not grow upset. “Steph, I love you, but you don’t get to decide my feelings.”

   “They’re right there,” Stephanie’s eyes watered, and she held up her empty hands in a helpless expression. “Can’t pretend I don’t see them or that I don’t feel them. I love you, and you’re hurting and I can’t not see that, Kelly!”

   “You’re not just a fucking spoonful of sugar to me, Stephanie,” Kelly snapped. “I love you. It’s real—I really fucking love you.”

   “Okay! I’m sorry,” Stephanie buried her face in her hands. “I know you do. I know you do. I wasn’t meaning to—I didn’t mean to say it like I was undermining how you feel about me. I can’t really explain it. Your feelings for me and your feelings for him are the same, though. They’re the same emotion... branching out, just, his branch is weighed down with some things you’ve had going on from the past, and mine isn’t. What I meant is that Brian, specifically, is your medicine, the solution to untwisting these problems you have. I’m going to help, too—we all are, we’re all a part of it. But, Brian’s th-this, this key to helping you that we can’t unlock until we sort out your feelings.”

   “I think we’re mixing metaphors too much, here,” Emily said.

   “I-I know, I’m sorry,” Stephanie admitted. “I’m upset.”

   “Me not liking Brian as much as I like you isn’t a diss on Brian!” Kelly argued. “Brian’s a great guy, and yeah, I do have some strong feelings for him. But, even if you know my feelings—you don’t know my problems. You’re just. You’re too close to all of this to see the full picture, and to you, Brian is this huge amazing perfect—”

   “I know that you can’t let yourself really be vulnerable around him,” Stephanie said. “Around guys in general. You can with me, but not with guys—that’s what’s making you feel closer to me, right now.”

   “I’m just not a super vulnerable person to begin with, Steph,” Kelly said. “The whole vulnerable submissive girly girl thing, that’s not me.”

   “You don’t understand—you’re not vulnerable because you can’t let yourself,” Stephanie argued. “Not around certain people. You feel that you can be around me, and Kelly I love you for that. But, you’re just not ready to around Brian, not yet. In certain ways, with him, you need to feel in control. That’s what being sexy is, for you. You’re, um, confident enough in yourself that you’re not sexy for attention. You don’t need attention. Th-the confidence and sex are things that make you feel in control, so much so that you can’t let go of them or even—”

   “Can we not do this right now?” Kelly threw up her hands in aggravation. “Just—no, nope, nooope. Or, can we set up some ground rules or boundaries or something so that some certain private feelings can stay totally private? I mean—okay, yeah fine I’ve got issues, we all do. But, so what? I don’t want to waste what tiny bit of weekend we have left here fighting any of you on this, this pointless bullshit or arguing or—”

   “And I don’t want to just leave things unsolved if I’m n-not… not going to see you for a while,” Stephanie bit her lip in frustration. “Not if, not if they can be addressed right now. These issues.”

   “We’re not gonna resolve my life issues in a single weekend,” Kelly pointed out. “That’s just not going to happen. Might never fucking happen.”

   “Saturday night, you were—I don’t know how to put this. You were open to this, you were... cautiously accepting things as they came. But then, this morning, you were different. This morning you were in love with me, you had, I don’t know, decided to set yourself on me, and that was easier and you could just start to let that blind you towards the issues you might have with Brian.”

   “I… fuck,” Kelly’s face twisted into a snarl. “Fucking fuck. FUCK!”

   “Kelly…” Stephanie froze.

   “You stupid fucking shithead, that’s not how you fucking deal with things!” Kelly swore, looking up and stabbing a finger at the sky. “You said to always listen to Steph, but you weren’t even fucking listening to Stephanie yourself! Fucking idiot! Fuck! If all you’re going to do is fucking yank me around then stay THE FUCK out of my life!!”

   “Kelly?” Stephanie rose up in concern from where she’d been sitting.

   “Future me showed me. Showed me that I was in love with you,” Kelly spat. “So, yeah. I latched onto that, because—I fucking need that. She didn’t show me Brian, because she fucking knows all the shit between me and Brian is gonna be complicated, so she’s trying to poke and prod me in this specific fucking direction like I’m a fucking lab rat. So, you’re right, Steph. Of course you’re fucking right. She even said you’re always fucking right. Fuck!”

   “I don’t get it,” Emily looked puzzled. “Why couldn’t she have just shown you that you’re in love with Brian, too? Is that so hard?”

   “Because—” Kelly bit her lip in frustration. “Because… I’m not there yet. Exactly. With Brian. So, I wouldn’t understand, I’m not like. Open to it, yet. When I tried to connect with past me, the me from Friday night, it was the same. Past me was a different person, practically. Even though it was just one day apart, our mindsets weren’t really even that compatible anymore. So, I had to like…”

   Kelly worked her jaw, looking absolutely furious.

   “So, I had to show her what she needed to see,” Kelly bit out. “Instead of. How things really are.”

   “Okay, so future you can be kinda thoughtless?” Emily looked confused. “Or, no. If she was like, taking it into account, she was definitely putting thought into it. Just, yeah I can see how it’d be annoying from your perspective.”

   “Fuck off,” Kelly snapped.

   “No, no— this is a good thing,” Emily brightened. “Or, at least I mean it makes a fuckton of sense when you think about time paradoxes. Right?

   “It’s going to happen with Brian, because he cares about you, and you can trust him,” Stephanie insisted. “His feelings for you go all the way past the sexy and confident Kelly. It’s not an ‘if’ or a ‘maybe,’ it’s there, there for me to see all laid out just like that.”

   “Uhh, hey normally I’d be the first to jump in and be all hold B button to doubt about dudes, but this is Brian,” Emily jumped back into the conversation. “Brian is the genuine real deal, and I can vouch for him. He will never, ever fuck you over, Kelly. I promise you that.”

   “Yeah, well it’s not Brian that I think’s gonna fuck this all up, now is it?” Kelly responded with a bitter smile. “I know I’m going to fuck all of this up eventually. Because, I always do. You think I want to hurt him? You think I want to hurt any of you?”

   “We’re not going to let that happen,” Stephanie decided. “We’re going to make this work, no matter how complicated things get. Because we love each other. That’s all that matters.”

   “I wish things were that simple,” Kelly let out a slow breath. “Now—stay out of my head.”

   “No,” Stephanie refused.

   “No?” Kelly scoffed, looking unsure as to whether or not they were kidding around. “You can’t just say no—Steph, magic or not there’s gotta be some basic level of privacy.”

   “Well, I d-don’t know how to turn it off!” Stephanie let out a cute huff as she crossed her arms. “If I don’t get to ignore your feelings and problems, um, then you don’t get to ignore them, either!”

   “Whew boy,” Emily winced.

   “That goes for you, too, Emily!” Stephanie admonished, looking cross. “We have a lot to figure out.”

   “Hey, if you know where to even begin sorting out all my fucked up emotional shit, then be my guest,” Emily chuckled, rolling her eyes. “Whatever floats your goat.”

   “Emily…” Stephanie sighed. “Kelly. Both of you can be very... flippant about your personal issues—very serious harmful issues—because you’ve both lived with them forever and you’re both completely used to it all. But for me, experiencing it all of the sudden—”

   “Well, I’m sorry,” Kelly said, folding her arms in front of herself. “I’ve got baggage. It wasn’t supposed to be an issue or ever even come up. This weekend, it was supposed to be super simple— get here, say my forever goodbyes, put a lot of things behind me for good. Didn’t even pack my metaphorsical baggage for this weekend, and yet here I am catching feels and—”

   “Metaphorical?” Emily corrected.

   “—I didn’t ever expect any of this would get dumped on you, Steph,” Kelly shot Emily a glare, “and, I wish things hadn’t turned out this way.”

   “I’m sorry, too—I-I mean I’m sorry about how uncomfortable this is making making you. Trust me, I know,” Stephanie said. “I wish I could control my power, and I wish it wasn’t... intrusive like this. But, I don’t think I regret anything. I’m not sorry things turned out the way they did. I love all of you, and when things are good, they then become very very good. When things are bad—even when I lose control because of all of everyone’s anger like before—I can still accept that. I can accept anything that comes, so long as it means we stick together.”

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