AnimeCon Harem 13: The Reason (Patreon)

   “This weekend… Brian lit me up, and I was fire. I became fire. Pink fire?” Stephanie said, gazing deep into Kelly’s eyes for a long moment before looking away. “H-he first lit me up, but, I still wasn’t close—red starlight guided me in the right direction.”

   That’s me, I suppose, Kelly thought, feeling a flicker of red warmth in her belly. Always egging her on. But, was that really some ‘right direction,’ or was it just part of my selfish—

   “Then, when we got closer,” Stephanie continued, “there was Emily. A river. The river follows towards this... special place, and the forest protects along the way. Then, at the end of this, this—journey, this path…

   So—wait, now Steph’s all experiencing the dream metaphor stuff, too? Kelly regarded her love with renewed interest. Like Rebecca can? Don’t even know if that’s good or bad, just—fuck, I hope somebody figures all this shit out sooner rather than later.

   “There’s a beautiful city. A beautiful city, guarded by, by, an... evil mirror?” Stephanie went on, fidgeting in place as she spoke. ”The evil mirror. A broken mirror, in the heart of the city, sort of… damaging everything. Everywhere. But, a mirror only shows reflections, so maybe…? Damaged reflections? Of Brian? Or, of us?”

   “Steph—what the fuck,” Emily looked shocked, pulling her phone out of her hoodie pocket and opening up the haphazard map they’d put together earlier. “That’s all dreamscape shit. Are you seeing the dreamscape now like Rebecca does?”

   “Dreamscape? No, I just—I’m, um, I’m thinking out loud,” Stephanie gave the scribbly drawing a look of surprise. “What’s dreamscape? I’ve just been trying to, um, trying to figure all of the, all of our abstracts together into, uh, some kind of... narrative? It’s just, just that symbolically, there’s so many thousand different ways to interpret—”

   “Oh right, guess when we were gettin’ into all that you were, uh, gettin’ down with Brian. And stuff. Chloe’s the evil mirror?” Emily pursed her lips. “Right? I mean, I’ve gotta say—fuck, that fits. It really fits, I can totally see that working.”

   “She’s definitely broken,” Stephanie’s expression soured. “Very broken. Tiny little... sharp mirror shards, just—grinding. It’s terrible to even be near her.”

   “But, she didn’t show up on Rebecca’s radar at all,” Emily mused, tapping her lip. “Rebecca’s radar. Rebeccar? Rebeccadar? She didn’t register in her version of the dreamscape, here. I asked her back when I had her draw out the metaphor map or whatever. Chloe and Megan don’t map out at all, and Brian either doesn’t map or is the map, she couldn’t really say.”

   “Does Chloe have a color?” Kelly asked. I’d rather she wasn’t a part of this with us at all, honestly.

   “Um,” Stephanie grimaced as she tried to remember. “Maybe? But, I don’t know what it is, not for sure. It could be silver, or it could be, um, flashes of light and darkness, or it could be that she was just reflecting what was around her. Reflecting what was around her, but in a broken sort of way?”

   “Okay, so here’s what mirrors represent in common symbolism,” Emily tapped through her browser search window for a few seconds. “Self-reflection. Vanity. Wisdom and awareness. If the—”

   “Vanity’s a good fit,” Megan pointed out.

   “Yeah,” Emily laughed. “The others, not so much. But, I mean like, she’s also broken, so—”

   “So, she represents… a failure to self-reflect?” Kelly tried. “Her personality is definitely like, twisted. Warped. Her charm thing turning out like a funhouse mirror would then fit to that, right? If she gets a charm thing.”

   “She’s not warped like that kind of mirror, though,” Stephanie pursed her lips. “She’s broken. Shattered. Very shattered. Imagine like, um. Like a big pile of shards, but... grinding and twisting and rolling over themselves?”

   “That seems like it’s heading in a different direction than mirrors, then,” Emily frowned as her finger plucked away at her phone’s digital keyboard. “Thematically, at least. Mirrors get used all the time as storytelling devices—broken mirrors, too—but what you’re describing could be something else entirely. Like, there’s mirrors, and then there’s piles of glass. ‘Glass shards’ isn’t turnin’ up search results in symbolism. I mean, I guess glass is super fragile but also sharp though, so—”

   “It’s—” Stephanie sighed. “I don’t know. It wasn’t glass exactly. It was complicated. Unpleasant. Like noise, she was putting out, er, um she was radiating magic all around her, but it wasn’t in emotions like everything else I pick up. I don’t know what else to say about it beyond that she’s broken. Broken and dangerous.”

   “Well, ‘evil mirror’ is a great start, honestly,” Emily said. “In game logic, she’d almost definitely be an enemy that reflects damage or turns back special attacks. If we’re going by anime logic, she’ll be the big bad boss that like, makes each of us fight through an introspective dream battle thing. Traps us in a hallucination kinda, and—”

   “Time-out,” Kelly sighed in exasperation, making a T shape with her hands. “Can we just kinda… set aside anime and video game logic when we’re working through this stuff? I don’t see why any of that—”

   “No, it’s relevant,” Emily argued. “It’s super relevant. We’re at an anime con. We became an anime harem. Each of us now has anime hair. Sorry, I thought this was super obvious, but anime logic is definitely the right track to be—”

   “This isn’t anime hair,” Kelly denied, pointing at her hair.

   “Uhh, it totally is,” Emily argued. “Look at us. We are anime now.”

   “You’re reaching,” Kelly shook her head. “You’re way reaching for that. Dyed hair could have a billion other connotations, different hair colors falls into cosmetology, it definitely isn’t exclusive to anime.”

   “Yeah, okay, but does cosmetology pull us into a harem and give us magical powers?” Emily held up her hands. “We friggin’ get juiced up with magic whenever we kiss or—you know, interact with his saliva or bodily fluids. Totally, obviously an anime thing, an anime narrative.”

   “You can be anime if you want to, but I’m definitely not an anime thing,” Kelly crossed her arms.

   “You’re the most anime out of all of us!” Emily insisted, waving her arms towards Kelly. “I’ve thought that ever since I first ran into you back in the parking garage. You’ve got anime hair and the big-tiddy anime bod. The way you act is like, haughty sex-bomb mischevous trickster character stereotype. Archetype? You get what I mean—real people don’t act like you do.”

   “You’re projecting, hard, because you want this to be like one of your kiddy animes,” Kelly made a face. “I’m not a fuckin’ stereotype, I’m definitely not anime or anime-adjacent or anime-like. I’m me. This isn’t a fucking anime, Emily.”

   “Well, sorrrrry, princess,” Emily rolled her eyes. “We’re obviously not anime ‘cause this is real life, but I mean— if you look at all these parallels—like, what else do we have to compare this narrative to?”

   “Stephanie?” Kelly turned towards Stephanie for final arbitration.

   “We’re not an anime,” Stephanie said slowly. “But... Emily’s right in that there are a lot of parallels we can draw to—”

   “Fine then, we’re anime,” Kelly huffed. “Whatever. Fuck it. This is all just a big anime. You win. Great. Whoop-di-fuckin’-do. So—what does that even fucking mean?”

   “Things are happening that can’t be explained, and the situation seems anime-esque,” Emily shrugged. “Doesn’t mean we’re suddenly trapped in 2D or anything, just, like— it doesn’t hurt to start applying anime logic to things, right?”

   “So, what’s the anime logic to sorting all of this out?” Kelly rolled her eyes.

   “The power of love and friendship, obviously,” Emily retorted. “To defeat the evil mirror once and for all we just gotta come together as nakama and oomph through it with bullshittery, that’s how anime works. The real magic to win was the friends we made along the way, stuff like that.”

   “We already defeated the evil mirror, Kelly grunted. “Steph folded her face in, and she took off. Game over, we win.”

   “I mean, yes but also no,” Emily said, growing serious. “Like, both in anime terms and real-life terms, I don’t picture Chloe giving up and getting out of the picture from that. She’s a fucking psycho with a grudge and like, hell-bent on trying to fuck us over. To fuck Brian over. That definitely doesn’t stop with Steph punching her. I mean, there’s like a two hundred billion percent chance she’s more pissed off than ever and is formulating some even more extreme psycho plan to fuck us over right now.”

   “Right, so how do we put a stop to that for good?” Kelly asked. “Get her arrested and locked up? Kill her?”

   “Thematically, the anime resolution to this is gonna be some high-stakes climactic thing where each of us and our unique powers plays some pivotal role. Which, I mean, fuck, because I’m close to something but… still no dice on exactly what mine is. We can bet that whatever big thing happens, it’ll involve hints or heads-up from the future and sensing or connecting emotions, though. Right?”

   “So the tying-shoelaces comes in… how?” Kelly asked with a smirk.

   “...Tying shoelaces?” Stephanie looked lost.

   “Rebecca’s thingie, some kinda passive buff that affects us,” Emily explained. “Kelly said it felt like tight shoelaces. That might not even be what her real power is—maybe that’s just how we perceive her power when she’s using it. From the looks of things, her real power is probably that she’s able to spirit walk or whatever in the dreamscape. Which would make hers… metaphor-mapping magic? Or, something? Metaphor-mapping?”

   “I feel like Brian should have a power,” Kelly pointed out. “He’s at like, the center of all of this.”

   “Right, he definitely is,” Emily nodded, ticking off her fingers one by one. “He either has a real strong power we haven’t found yet, or, he has access to the powers of each of his thralls, or, maybe he’s like the magic battery that powers our powers, and each of us girls is the only way of actually using the powers.”

   “By anime logic,” Kelly said.

   “Yeah, by anime logic,” Emily confirmed. “Heck, all of the above all at once is also possible. Definitely need to dive in and research some of the battle harem anime tropes more, start like, takin’ down notes and shit.”

   “I don’t think we’re a battle harem,” Stephanie said with a small smile. “The powers we’ve seen aren’t, um, direct ones like they would be for combat stuff.”

   “Eh, hard to say,” Emily gave her an expressive shrug. “Anything and everything can be weaponized, it’s all in how a power is applied in situations. Right? Like—empathy. When there’s a character who can influence emotions in an anime, they’re the ones who can like, calm down monsters so they don’t attack. Or, incite a bad guy to whack out and make stupid mistakes, stuff like that.”

   “Monsters?” Kelly rolled her eyes.

   “It was just an example!” Emily threw up her hands. “What if, like, Chloe comes up on us all full of piss and vinegar, and Steph is able to mellow her out and make her forcibly chill the fuck out? That’s how empathy gets used in stories. That and calming down people who are freakin’ out, or like, bolstering the peeps on your side with courage towards some big battle victory or whatever. Crowd control! That’s the word I was looking for.”

   “I… don’t think I can do any of that,” Stephanie admitted. “I, um, I have no idea how.”

   “Well not now, right now you’re probably like, level one or something,” Emily shrugged again. “Shit, wish we had status screens and numbers and like, stuff defined into skill traits. That’d be hella convenient. Then we could—”

   “It’s Brian,” Stephanie spoke up, giving a start and looking around suddenly. “He just found us. Or, ah, he just saw us.”

   “There,” Kelly gestured towards the escalator, where Brian was descending down to meet them.

   “Your Stephie-sense is pretty sharp,” Emily observed. “We’re gonna have to like, test out your sensory range so we can map a—”

   “He’s upset,” Stephanie interrupted in a murmur of concern. “He’s, he’s. He’s very agitated. His—I don’t like it. His feelings are really jumbled up and bad. I don’t like it.”

   “It’s… probably from Chloe,” Emily swallowed. “Right? It’s not us— it’s gotta be the Chloe thing. Of course he’d still be upset about that. Who wouldn’t be? Right?”

   Kelly couldn’t take her eyes off of him as Brian stood continuing to ride down the escalator, because she remembered now how much of her immediate future was riding with him. Her perception of him was transformed by that—just like he’d said earlier, there was a power dynamic at play here between them, and it really did put her on edge. He was still handsome, but now it was a darker kind of handsome, as if there was an underlying edge to his good looks that put her on guard. Brian looked upset, and instead of immediately feeling sympathetic or worrying like Steph here was—Kelly felt as if she was mentally positioning herself in opposition to him.

   Which, I shouldn’t be. He’s not a douche canoe like Dale. But… I guess yeah, me and Brian, we’re obviously gonna have problems. Right? Future Kelly omitting him and pushing all of my apparent feelings onto Steph—that’s classic misdirection. A parlor trick, a disguise, a distraction. But distracting from WHAT, exactly? WHAT, SPECIFICALLY? Why exactly was she trying to keep me from focusing on with Brian? Is it because he’s upset? Because he’s upset right now, and our egos are about to clash in a big way, or something?

   So what? Like, fuck it, Kelly decided, feeling her body tense up as if bracing for a heated argument. I’ll deal. I’ll just fuckin’ grin and bear it. Turn the other cheek, or whatever. Maybe he’s in a shitty mood, and about to say something that’d set me off? Well, c’mon—he’s allowed to be in a shitty mood, he just got bitched out by his ex. Almost got smeared by a rape accusation. He’s got a right to be in a mood. If he takes some of it out on me or says the wrong thing—so what? I’ll deal with it. I can deal with it. I’ll just fuckin’ deal with it, okay future Kelly you sadistic bitch? You think you know everythi—

   The ringtone of Kelly’s phone began to play, prompting Kelly to first reach for her purse— which wasn’t there, she’d left it in Brian’s car. Her hand instinctively then tapped twice across her thighs in search of the familiar weight of the device, first to check the front pocket she normally crammed it in, next to blindly grope for where it normally rested in her work apron. Remembering she was instead in borrowed leggings this afternoon, Kelly finally found her phone in the normal fourth-most-often-used position, tucked into the rear waist-band of her leggings on the right side.

   Shit shit shit, Kelly unlocked her phone in a hurry as Brian stepped off the elevator and started towards them. It’s Chelsea—we totally lost track of time, here. Of course she’s here already, she’s probably idling outside wondering where the fuck *I* am.

   “Hey babe,” Kelly answered, earning a look of surprise from Megan.

   “I’m here!” Chelsea announced in her soft voice. “I’m in the loop out front. I have your stuff. Is there somewhere you want me, or somebody, uh, whose vehicle we’re transferring your stuff to? Where are you?”

   “Uhh, hey,” Kelly winced. “He’s parked at the hotel across the street, it’s the Westylin or Westerin or something. Can you—”

   “The Westerlin?” Chelsea prompted. “The one with the green sign?”

   “Yeah,” Kelly said. “Can you meet us over there? We’ll be over in like, one sec.”

   “Okay,” Chelsea agreed. “I have your stuff in three boxes; I put all your clothes in your big laundry thing, then all of your stuff from the bathroom’s in a shoebox here, and everything else fit into a Bermuda box.”

   “That works—thanks, babe,” Kelly said. “We’ll be right over.”

   “‘Kay,” Chelsea responded. “Ciao ciao for now!”

   “Ciao ciao for now,” Kelly repeated the phrase Chelsea always sang to her toddler. “See you in a bit.”

   In the brief span of time Kelly spent conversing with Chelsea, Brian had crossed the distance between the escalator and where the girls stood. Distracting sigils of red starlight seemed to glare at the edges of Kelly’s vision, and for some reason a pang of guilt weighed on her as she ended the call and let her hand drop back down. Brian’s mien was somewhere between strained and frustrated; he wore a difficult, somewhat hard expression, and his eyes didn’t even begin to soften until Stephanie stepped in and tilted her face up for a kiss.

   The way Brian returned the pink-haired girl’s affection made Kelly’s apprehension intensify, though, because all he gave Steph was an awkward, wary peck on the lips. Oh fuck.

   “That was my friend just now,” Kelly said, waggling her phone. It was a fight to keep her voice neutral and even. She hadn’t been anywhere near this nervous when confronting Chloe—but, why would she have been? Chloe meant nothing to her. “With my stuff. I asked her to meet us across the street at the hotel, if that’s… you know. Still cool and everything?”

   “Yeah—I guess,” Brian’s brow furrowed, and it looked like he had something else to say, but he frowned and instead glanced from girl to girl. “We can head over there now.”

   “Brian…?” Stephanie looked up at him with heartbroken, searching eyes.

   “Uhh,” Brian ran a hand through his hair and his frown of caution settled into a deeper one of contemplation. “Rebecca kinda… clued me in on a little bit of what was going on with everyone.”

   “Oh fuckshit,” Emily went rigid.

   The constellations of red dissolved into dancing madness, and despite herself, Kelly felt her nerves pull taut. This wasn’t crass words or a pointless argument or anything she could simply stiffen her lip for. Brian knowing about the magical dreamscape bullshit nonsense added an entire new depth of complication to everything that was going on, and a good deal of it was way over her head. Fuckshit is fucking right. How much does he know? What did Rebecca say? WHY?! What does he think about all this? Where does it leave me, where does it leave all of us? What are we going to even—

   “Okay,” Stephanie said with a steadiness that surprised Kelly. “Kelly, Emily—both of you please, please calm down. If, um, if the two of you can go meet your friend and get stuff moved over at the Westerlin… I’d like to talk to Brian here. Alone.”

   “Brian—I didn’t—I, uh, I wasn’t trying to—” Emily remained frozen in panic.

   “Are we still cool with—you know?” Kelly asked, fighting down her own gut-punch of trepidation and only partially succeeding. “Moving in together? If things are—”

   “Kelly, Emily, please,” Stephanie had even more resolution in her voice, now. “Go. Everything’s going to be okay, I promise. I can do this—I can handle this.”

*     *     *

   “In which case—yeah, this is all super personal between you guys, so I’m gonna make myself scarce!” Megan held up her hands. “I’ll be running through the vendor’s room lookin’ for last minute bargains before they all pack up. Alright? Come find me whenever.”

   “Thank you,” Stephanie gave her friend a small hug. “Oh, if you can—can you take this with you?”

   “Sure, yeah,” Megan accepted the offered baggie of ice. “You don’t need it anymore?”

   “I’ll be fine,” Stephanie said.

   “But, but—” Emily dawdled, still stricken with fear. “Brian, this wasn’t—”

   “Emily, go with Kelly,” Stephanie instructed. “Please. I’ll talk with Brian.”

   “Okay,” Kelly spoke up, taking Emily by the shoulder. “Emmie—c’mon. We’ll be back in a bit.”

   “It’s going to be okay,” Stephanie promised again. “It’s going to be okay.”

   She watched as Megan fled the scene in one direction, and then the other two girls peeled away from the group and headed the other way, shuffling on down the wide open space of the lobby towards the hall’s entrance doors with obvious reluctance. It was hard watching them go, a little heartbreaking each time their little group had to split up, but Stephanie needed to face this crisis on her own. The petite-figured girl with the bright pink hair focused on the flame light deep within her, steeled her nerves, and took one last deep breath.

   “So, uh,” Brian seemed incredibly uncomfortable. “What did you have to say?”

   “I only have one thing to say,” Stephanie looked up into his eyes. “And, um. It’s that I love you. That we love you.”

   “I… I love you too, but—Steph,” Brian struggled. “How can I know what’s real? How do I know what’s going on? Why didn’t anyone tell me right away, before things—uh, escalated into being like this? Steph… why didn’t you say something?”

   “Hmm,” Stephanie pondered, seemingly not worried at all about the gravity of the situation. “I think… I don’t really know.”

   “You don’t really know,” Brian repeated.

   “This is all new to me,” Stephanie admitted. “The, this whole—everything. Being here with you, meeting everyone, the time we’ve spent together, to me it’s all magical. It’s all been magical, all of it. If you were to ask me to separate the magic of everything I’m feeling from, um, I mean separate it to the actual magic happening, I wouldn’t even know where to begin. I wouldn’t even want to. Brian—I love this.”

   “So, there is actual magic happening,” Brian’s expression fell. “Somehow. There’s— something crazy going on, and it’s making you all think you’re into me. It’s not real.”

   “No,” Stephanie shook her head. “No, it’s not like that.”

   “If it’s not that—then, what is it like?” Brian asked. “I don’t know what’s... there isn’t any—how can I know, really know for sure what’s real and what’s not real?”

   “Because... I say so,” Stephanie insisted, struggling to articulate her feelings. “Because, that’s what I’ve decided. Because to me—this, this is more real.”

   “Steph—” Brian made a terrible face. “I’m, I’m really being serious here. I can’t do this. If there’s even a tiny chance that you all are only interested in me because there’s some, I don’t know, some crazy mystical power that’s forcing you to—then I can’t. I can’t do this.”

   “No, Brian,” Stephanie shook her head insistently. “You don’t understand. Even if there is—it doesn’t matter, because I love you. Don’t you see? That’s all that—”

   “But what if you don’t?” Brian challenged. “What if you don’t really love me at all? Don’t you see? If it’s a compulsion, if there’s some magical thing making you feel attraction to me, then—how can any of us trust what you’re feeling? How can we be sure any of this is real?!”

   “Because I love you,” Stephanie answered, blinking up at him. “Brian, even if there is something magical that’s been drawing me to you—I’m okay with it. I accept that. I’m grateful for it, even.”

   “That’s—that’s just it, I can’t accept that,” Brian gestured with his hands. “How could I accept it? How could I ever be okay with that? How can you?!”

   “Brian… I want to explain,” Stephanie sighed, stepping in close and placing her hands upon his chest. “But first, I think we need to talk about how Chloe hurt you.”

   “How Chloe hurt me?” Brian gave her a quizzical look. “What? Why wou—”

   “Your entire position on this, it, um, it hinges on this... huge false assumption, and I think you’re still blind to that,” Stephanie said. “It’s one of the things that’s been on my mind all weekend, ever since you told us on Friday night.”

   “False assumption?” Brian’s brows furrowed again. “False assumption, what do you mean a false assumption?”

   “Brian—if there is something compelling us to become closer to you, then I can only see it as a complete blessing—because, we trust you. Magic bringing us together would only ever be a bad thing if you were bad, if we couldn’t trust you with us. But, you’re not even a tiny bit bad—you’re wonderful and amazing and you deserve all the love we have to give you. And more.

   “That’s, that’s not really—” Brian started to argue.

   “Brian!” Stephanie pressed on, not allowing Brian to interrupt. “Back during truth or dare, you said that the reason you and Chloe broke up, um, the reason your relationship didn’t work, was that she couldn’t trust you. She didn’t trust at all, her immediate, um, presumption was that you had to be acting in bad faith, th-that you were either trying to take advantage of her, or that you were, uh, that you were operating with bad intent, or that you were willing to push things too far without her consent. She didn’t have any trust for you at all.”

   “I… yeah,” Brian swallowed uneasily. “But, that’s because statistically—”

   “No,” Stephanie simply shook her head. “No. There is no because. And, I should have said what I thought about it back then. It isn’t fair of her to, to burden you with the failings of other people, when you haven’t done anything wrong. You’re not other people. However many horrible men have abused women or taken advantage of them, whatever statistical amount doesn’t matter and has no relevance at all to your relationships, and won’t ever matter—because you’re not like that, you’re not one of those people. It’s completely not a factor! You never have been a guy like that, and you never will be, and you being made to feel you have to take responsibility for things other people have done, simply for being a guy… Brian, that’s wrong.

   “Brian, we judge you by your actions, and your actions alone.

   “You didn’t invite us to your room because you were hoping to sleep with us—even when Kelly really wanted to, you turned her down. Brian, you tried to sleep on the floor because you thought we might be uncomfortable with sharing a bed! All weekend long, every step of the way, you’ve been with us, thinking of us, putting us first, and... why? You don’t owe any of us anything! You gave Kelly that full weekend badge, you let us stay in your room, you bought our meals, you’ve spent time making us feel special, you listen to our problems an-and, and then set your mind on them, become intent on making things better for us. Even ignoring that you actually are handsome and clever and charming and amazing in your own right, putting the magic aside, even—how could we not feel something towards you, after you become part of our lives like this?”

   “You’ve only ever been the sweetest, most thoughtful guy I will ever know,” Stephanie said. “And, so—I trust you. We trust you. We have no reason not to completely trust you, you’ve never given me any tiniest little reason not to fully, completely trust you. I do understand why you struggle with accepting trust, why there’s this one strange path in your feelings that fails to connect like it should. It’s because your ex-girlfriend—who’s an awful person—almost brainwashed you into thinking that you’re not worthy of trust, that you just can’t be. But, you are!

   “Chloe taught you to never trust yourself,” Stephanie summed up. “But, Brian—I trust you, I trust you completely, and it’s, it-it’s incredibly, personally important to me that I teach you how wrong Chloe was! About everything! If you were who Chloe made you out to be, then yes, us falling in love with you would be a very bad thing! But, who Chloe made you out to be isn’t who you are at all!

   “If a magical charm came into our lives and helped make me aware of who you could be to me, of who I could be to you, of what we could become—if it helped bring us together? Then, I will only ever see it as a blessing. I can only be thankful, for, for how lucky I am, how lucky we all have been, for this to help connect us to you. Each of us needs you, Brian. If this magic hadn’t come into our lives, we would be worse off for it. You would be miserable. I would still be alone and afraid and unable to connect to other people. Kelly would still be, be rushing headlong into terrible things because she was stubbornly unable to see a way out. Emily—Emily has always been in love with you, for a long time.

   “So, yes. Something magical did happen that brought us all together like this,” Stephanie said. “But, so what? I’m not sorry that it did. Brian… I love you. This between us is all real because I say so, because I love you, and I need you to trust me, to trust us, until you’re able to trust yourself again. I think you need us every bit as much as we need you. No, I know that you do.”

   Stephanie felt surprised at herself as she concluded what felt like a whirlwind tirade. She’d never had so much conviction. She absolutely needed to say all of this all at once, she’d never been in possession of a position she needed to assert so strongly, of an incredibly important meaning that she just absolutely needed to convey to someone. It felt good, though, it felt great getting it all off her chest.

   Because, while before Brian’s mind had felt divided by the sudden rise of this uncompromising precipice of this he was holding onto, that steep cliff of obstinate resolution had begun to crumble beneath her words, because Stephanie was not going to allow it to separate them. Their feelings for each other were too important to her, and she took offense to the reasoning that any circumstance or magical intervention that helped bring them together was at fault or in any way a bad thing.

   “I, uh,” Brian stared down at the tile of AnimeCon’s lobby, and Stephanie could sense that his head was spinning. “I don’t know what to say.”

   “Don’t say anything!” Stephanie said with a small smile. “Y-you don’t have to say anything. You don’t have to say that I’m right, or that you’re wrong—this isn’t about that, and you don’t even have to think about all of this right now or decide anything. I, I just—Brian, Chloe really hurt you. I don’t expect you to heal right away, I just wish, I um, I just want you to please try to trust me. To trust us, to trust that we trust you, to try to be open to the fact that yes, while something magical may be happening, that it doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. For any of us.”

   “I… yeah, I guess,” Brian gave her an uneasy smile of his own. “Just—this is a lot to take in all at once. My first knee-jerk reaction has got to be… well, paranoia, I guess. Assuming the worst-case scenario, thinking that what if—”

   “You make me happy, and I love you,” Stephanie refuted him. “To me, to me this weekend is best-case scenario. It’s been better than I ever could have dreamed. Okay?”

   “Okay,” Brian relaxed his shoulders slightly. “I—okay. That does actually help me feel a bit better.”

   “I know,” Stephanie rose up and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

   “You do?” Brian asked.

   “I do,” Stephanie nodded. “Because... magic!”

   “Magic,” Brian repeated in disbelief. “Still haven’t quite wrapped my mind around that part at all. Like—magic, what magic? Everyone’s hair changing colors? How? How does that even…? Where did all of this come about from? Why didn’t you say something like, right away?”

   “I thought I’d sound crazy!” Stephanie admitted with a sheepish grin. “It, um, it does still sound crazy, it did sound crazy. I think the first person I brought it up with was Chloe, when we ah, when we confronted each other over at the other hotel. Because, her magic felt wrong, felt off. And she thought I was delusional! Even Emily thought I was a little crazy, at first. But, then Emily went from that to thinking that this was, um, anime powers or supernatural, or something like that, and she... really got into it.”

   “Hah, yeah,” Brian ran a hand through his hair again. “I bet she did. And, then… Rebecca said Emily wasn’t comfortable bringing it up with me, because of how I might react? Or how I might, uh, draw a line between us?”

   “Because something happened before,” Stephanie took Brian’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “With you two. Where either you couldn’t trust yourself, or you couldn’t trust her, or...”

   “That night way back when with the tequila,” Brian nodded. “Yeah, Rebecca brought that up, too.”

   “Yes,” Stephanie said. “Emily, Rebecca and them—they’ve talked through more about the magic stuff than I have, I think. They started naming things, and connecting things, and they drew a map and… they got really into it. Emily did think you’d be really against the magic if it was affecting us, but I guess… um, I guess I didn’t really register the significance of it until just now earlier, there. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner.”

   “They... drew a map?” Brian chuckled. “I—uh, wow. A map of what? A magic map? A magic chart?”

   “A… metaphor map? I think it was?” Stephanie said, rising up onto her tiptoes in search of another kiss.

   Brian obliged her, and their lips met and then melded against one another in an increasingly passionate exchange. Stephanie opened her mouth and then Brian did the same, she ran her free hand along his arm, and his arm circled around her back. She could feel some more of the tension bleed out of him, and it made their act of intimacy even more beautiful. The pink flame inside Stephanie burned brighter and rose up a little higher.

   “A metaphor what?” Brian said as they finally broke away. “Mapping them how? Metaphors? Metaphors for what? Is everyone, um…? I don’t even know what to say. I can’t think right now.”

   “You don’t have to say anything,” Stephanie kissed him again. “Now I know your, um, your concerns about this, and now you know how I feel about everything. And… we’re still okay, right?”

   “Yeah, I think so,” Brian gazed into her eyes. “I do know I love you.”

   “I love you!” Stephanie beamed, feeling a pleasant flash of heat. “That’s what matters, and the rest—the rest we’ll all figure out together!”

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/// Hopefully this one made sense. Steph is obviously hax because she can read his emotions, but the gist of it is that Brian has huge, somewhat repressed personal misunderstandings on what trust means in a relationship. His family didn't really love or trust him--they demanded obedience and compliance, that wasn't a relationship based on trust.

   Brian longed for a relationship full of trust and love, but with Chloe each of his compromises inevitably became acts of self-sacrifice, until there was really no ground left to give. He's forced to acknowledge himself as someone who can't be trusted. This is the psychological basis for how Brian is on needing to draw lines, here, it's something of a foil to the trust issues Kelly has. In that Brian can give trust but has mentally been trained to think that no one should ever have to give him any trust in return. That he'll never deserve it, and shouldn't ever expect it or feel entitled to any. This is what turned him into a doormat with Chloe, and in part what sabotaged his friendship with Emily from becoming something more back then. Brian thinks he can't trust himself to let go, and so he has to stay rigid and in control.

   Everyone knows the saying "trust goes both ways," I think this is the lesser explored side of that. Will play with it a bit more in future segments, just hoping that at least something of value was conveyed in this one.