"Actually, uh…" It was quite rare to see Shokuhou troubled to find words, but here she was, playing with her hair as she continued on. "There's someone that I like."
Someone she liked? Why would she tell her that? Why now, so shortly after they watched that… "romantic" movie together?
"When I think about them, my chest feels tight. But just being able to see them everyday is enough to make me happy."
Misaka gulped. Things were serious, both for Shokuhou and herself. She could feel her heartbeat accelerating.
"I…" Shokuhou leaned in very closely. "I'm in love with you, Dolly and Junko all at the same time!"
Glass shattered in the background. "What the fuck!?"
"It all started back two or three years ago, when…"
"Hold on!" They didn't have time for that long a flashback. If Misaka was not back in her dorm by the curfew, she couldn't possibly hope for Kuroko to defend her. "I really can't listen to your life story right now. Can we do this at another date?"
Shokuhou smiled brightly. "Of course. You can ask me for a date whenever you want."
While her confession towards Misaka could have went better, things still went very well for Misaki overall. She was not outright rejected yet and in the meantime was also able to talk to Dolly and Junko about her feelings.
Dolly was very quick to accept Misaki's proposal, probably because she was going through the same with Mi-chan and her. She had also assumed, that "something like that" was going on between them already, as in her eyes she invited Misaki to dates with Mi-chan and neither of them raised an issue about it. So did most people in her clique, merely swapping her name for Misaka's and Mitori's for "that girl".
Speaking about her clique, things were a little more complicated when it came to Junko. She barely understood what was being said and when she did, her embarrassment made itself shown quickly. Despite that, she seemed quite eager to romance her as well, carrying out even more tasks in her favour than she'd normally do.
"Queen, you are again so stiff today."
Misaki let out rather erotic sounding cries and moans as she was massaged by Junko. She didn't do so on purpose, but spending so much time with more energetic people like Mitori and Dolly and getting dragged to places all over Academy City did take a toll on her, that would often manifest in leg or back pain.
"Ahh, yes, that's the place." Of all the girls in her clique, Junko was certainly the one who performed the best massages. She knew all the right spots. "Ah, yes, right there."
There were only two problems. For one, Misaki felt she was a bit too close to her to be performing such lowly duties, but more importantly, Junko had the habit of losing herself to the task. Misaki had spent entire afternoons in agony as she was unable to command her to stop without a remote and no one was willing to even get close to helping her when she produced such sounds.
No one except for one.
"So much for your lesbian harem not being that big of a deal."
Of course Misaka had to walk in on Shokuhou being pleasured by whom students would without the influence of weird rumours consider her best friend, who coincidentally was also her rival in some sense.
"So, how is this supposed to work?" Misaka didn't waste any time talking around the bush. She needed answers. "Should we take turns? Does each one get a fixed day?"
But Shokuhou could only reply with moans and pleas for help, that would be betrayed by the other noises she was making.
"You're enjoying this a bit too much in my opinion." Misaka was literally shocked to find out, that this was not the case. Shocked as in "Shokuhou tried to use Mental Out on her even if she didn't have a remote, so that her defense mechanism would activate, producing lightning". A clever strategy indeed. But also a sign of despair. Just like the arm, that she reached out to her, also asking for help.
Misaka decided to be nice for once and help Shokuhou. It didn't even take much effort. Just by putting her hand on Junko's shoulder, she was reminded, that she was not alone, and she stopped the movement of her hands just long enough for Shokuhou to explain, that she had already done more than enough.
"I'm so sorry. What can I do to make this up for you?"
While Junko was panicking, Shokuhou grabbed her remote and ordered her to eat fifty éclairs. "That should keep her occupied for a while."
"So you'd still use your power on a person you claim to love." Misaka sighed. "For such a trivial purpose on top."
"Creating an opportunity to talk to you is not in the least trivial." She used her power once again, this time on someone Misaka couldn't even see. "In case you were wondering, your little admirer was about to get between us once again."
"'Get between us'? You're talking as if we were already a thing."
Misaka sure knew how to hurt Misaki. In recent times more often through words rather than actions, she was tugging on her heart as if it was a very flexible gym uniform.
"Right. We're not."
Just admitting that was enough to cause a small scale depression in her. She got her hopes up too early. Of course one of the three people she loved had to reject her. Misaki wasn't some protagonist of a harem anime. Not even a deuteragonist of a harem anime. Not even a supporting role, that gets expanded on in a spin-off series. Even in the side story to the spin-off series, she'd just be that one girl admired by many, while others get much more intense action and character moments.
"I'm still waiting for you to reveal your grandiose plan." Misaka took the remote away from her. Her most important remote, the one she associated all food-related commands with. "So, would you explain it to me? Or are you less serious about this than I thought?"
"I am serious about all three of you!" Misaki let out a sigh. "But that doesn't really mean, I have a solid plan. I first wanted to talk to you individually, to make sure that you were fine with the idea in general without being influenced by anyone else."
Misaki recalled the various way in which Junko tried to get her and Misaka to become friends even before she had made her part of her plans. She decided to ignore that for the sake of her argument.
"I think the specifics should be negotiated with all of us together. How do crêpes sound for next Sunday?"
"Fine with me, but please don't tell me all your date ideas from now on will involve eating sweets."
As a response to that, Misaki could only demonstrate her tehepero ability.