Just According to Keikaku (TN: Keikaku means Plan)

All of a sudden, Tiffany remembered a whole new reality, one where she'd never been dating Ernest, had never seen how amazing and perfect he was. For a moment, she froze up, feeling a slew of memories wash over her, remembering the various feelings of happiness, anger, lust, and envy that she'd had. She remembered feeling bad for her envy of Jessica's body, as well as her fondness and love for her friend that she had in this reality as well. And yet... her plan had worked out.

"Give me a second," she said out loud, still feeling relief that her suppositions about how this would work had been borne out. As it turned out, Jessica was probably right– the Tiffany of the old reality would have hated how she was now. She'd hoped that wouldn't be the case, but Tiffany had suspected Jessica was probably right, and so, she'd come up with her wish.

The old Tiffany definitely wouldn't have been able to come up with it, and if she still existed, would hate her for coming up with it. But she was also less hot, less smart, and less insightful, along with at one point considering Ernest a loser, so she could go suck it. As soon as Tiffany had heard how insistent Jessica was, well... she knew her boyfriend. She loved him more than anything in the world, yes, but he could be a bit of a pushover, and he was a pretty moral guy. If he'd realized that her own love for him would prevent her from ever wanting to go back to the way things were, there'd have been a pretty big risk.

She also, unfortunately, knew Jess. If she'd just asked for her memories, well, Jess was pretty smart. She'd discussed doing a psych major when they managed to go off to college, so she'd definitely have seen the problems with that wish right away– that dispassionate memories meant nothing. But by couching it in terms of remembering the past memories, she knew what they were, but they didn't affect her. Now, it was just time for the most important acting role of her life. It was a pity that whatever wish that Ernest had made hadn't involved her getting top tier acting skills, but she was pretty sure she could improvise.

"You good, Tiff?" Jessica asked, concern in her voice. "It's probably a lot, and, uh, Ernest and I can fix things, I promise."

"Yeah, uh– yeah," Ernest mumbled out, clearly still down. Tiffany wanted nothing more than to comfort him, but she couldn't, not right now.

"I– yeah. I mean– you don't need to do anything more, but can I sit down for a minute?" she asked Jess, trying her best to sound shaken.

Jessica got up and pulled out the chair before she was even done with the sentence, and Tiffany felt an outpouring of love. Jess really was a good friend– she just had to see how great Ernest was.

"Thanks. So, uh. What wish exactly did you make, to give me this new body?" Tiffany asked, trying to phrase it from the perspective of her original self. "Or, well, old and new, from my perspective– it's weird having two different memories of going through puberty."

"I, well, wished for the girl of my dreams, and you showed up at the door for me. I didn't intentionally try to change you," Ernest said, seemingly trying to defend himself.

"So, like... you had a crush on me?" Tiffany asked, combining genuine curiosity with an attempt to act how the old her would have.

"Uh, yeah, I guess? But you're also different, or, well, you were different." Ernest rubbed the back of his neck. "Sorry about that."

"Well... it wasn't all bad," Tiffany started. This was the critical point. "Like, I'm definitely smarter than I used to be," she said, turning to Jess. "I know you got into Stanford on Early Admission in the old timeline, but in this one, I have the grades to get in too."

"So... you don't want things to go back the way they were? You just want to break up with Ernest and have that be the end of it?"

Tiffany grimaced internally, but she didn't let it show on her face with more than a small frown. She was hoping she'd have more time to build up to it. "Well... uh. Actually, I don't think we need to do that yet?" she put forth, trying to make it sound tentative.

"I– what?" Jessica blurted out, her face showing her surprised.

"Really?" Ernest asked, hope coloring his voice in the cutest way.

"Well... all the stuff I remember is how you'd normally act, right?" Tiffany asked, turning to him once more.

"Yes?" Ernest said. "I mean, I think so, nothing from my memories that I got of this world seem out of character for me?" He still sounds rather surprised at this turn of events.

Tiffany nods, putting a bit of extra enthusiasm to really sell it. "See, Jess? I know it's kind of weird, and obviously it's also colored by memories of this world, but he's a really caring boyfriend." It was nice that it had the benefit of being true, though she knew that even if he wasn't as good, the magic would still probably mean she'd love him.

"No, sorry, what?" Jess asked, sounding confused. "Are you sure the magic isn't still influencing you? I mean, you know... it's Ernest?"

Ernest slumped slightly like a kicked puppy, and Tiffany felt her protective instincts go into overdrive. But before Tiffany could bite Jess' head off, her face flushed red and she backpedaled. "Uh– I mean, like, not to be down on you, Ernest, you're a lot nicer about this than anyone else might be, and you're kinda cute in a geeky way– you're just not exactly Tiffany's type, you know?"

"Yeah, that's fair," Ernest agreed, sounding sad, and Tiffany frowned again.

"Hey, I mean– he might not be exactly my type," she lied, knowing that he was the only guy she was at all attracted to, "But I think he's cute, and he has a good heart. Sure, maybe I never would have started dating him without this magic, but I'm glad I did, cause he makes me happy." With that, she leaned forward to hold his hands, comforting him.

At that, Jessica let out a slightly sad smile. "I guess we can't make things go back to the way they were, can we?"

"Is that so bad?" Ernest asked, still looking into Tiffany's eyes. "I mean... the world is our oyster, right? We can make the world a better place."

"You're just saying that because you get to be with Tiff," Jessica teased. "But uh, Tiff, tell me you'll stop trying to finagle me into a threesome? Because let me tell you, that was weird."

Hm. That was a tough one. Obviously, Jessica was basically off-limits for now, but with enough of the right, indirect wishes, she could probably still get Ernest as many lovers as he deserved, which was as many as he wanted. The only question was how open she should be about that.