Jon's immediate and impulsive knee jerk reaction was actually to wait this one out and get the Indecision option by default, and his knee jerk reaction to that knee jerk reaction was to regard the Indecision option with suspicion and distrust. Up until now, the Indecision defaults had all posed themselves as being the worst of both worlds in some way or another, the combined downsides of option 1 and option 2 with none of the upsides. But this one, on the other hand, looked on its face like it was just preserving the status quo; Jon and Karyn would stay friends, Sarah and Karyn would stay enemies, and nothing really bad could be expected to come about from that. Of course, Jon would have to give up any hope of anything more than a basic platonic friendship with Karyn, and Karyn and Sarah would be as catty as they ever were, but still, Jon had just been rationalizing that he liked things as they were now. If that were really true, then he ought to just give up the stone and go with indecision and be grateful for what he had.
... Right? ...
... It didn't sit well with Jon. He was trying to tell himself that Karyn was his best friend and only ever his best friend and that was somehow okay, and that whatever little crushes he may or may not have had on Sarah it was foolish to act on them, and that really, the status quo was just peachy, he couldn't dream of more. He wouldn't dare ask Karyn out and make themselves a proper lovey-dovey couple, couldn't grow up and marry her and start a little family together with the Stone their heirloom, and he'd never even think of banging someone as hot and sexy as Sarah even in his deepest darkest sexual fantasies, right? Things were the way things were for a reason, and that reason was... It was...
... There was a twisting in his stomach that Jon wanted to ignore but couldn't. He wasn't being honest with himself and he knew it. The Wish was giving him the Status Quo as a worst of both worlds option because it knew that, on some level, both options were more attractive to him than the laughably mediocre life he lived now. Karyn and Sarah were his two deepest legitimate crushes ("legitimate" because he refused to acknowledge the new family situation), and the Wish was putting the idea of them getting it on as lesbians, or even more greedily the idea of one or both of them as his hot girlfriends, right under his nose. Face it, Jon, the Stone might as well have said, things are the way things are because you've never had the guts to ask them out, nor the nerve to Wish for what you wish for from them. Man up for once!
Option 1 was VERY tempting. The idea of his two hot crushes being themselves secretly crazy about him, to the point of fighting with each other over him? It was HOT! If he was going to be honest with himself, he had to acknowledge that was hot, even before the guarantee that he was eventually going to be sleeping with either one of them. Or BOTH of them! Imagine that! The Wish had insisted on the jealousy thing, that ever-so-unfortunate animal emotion Mother Nature enforced Monogamy with, but it occurred to Jon that he did still have the Stone and thus didn't have to listen to Mother Nature. He couldn't wish away the jealousy, that was probably irreversible, but he could wish they wouldn't harm each other in fighting over him, or that polyamory was socially normalized or something. In fact if he was going this route he probably also oughtta make Sarah nicer just in general, and Karyn sexier just in general, and maybe that Zoe and Mom were actually his stepfamily and thus in harem too, and also that he had the stamina to keep up with all of them and that he was more handsome too, and oh maybe he could wish that they all had higher libidos too, and he could also transform them with magic and-...
... Okay, stop. Reality, check. Jon was pretty sure Option 1 was what he really wanted, and he was sure the Stone could make it work, but realistically, just rushing it without a plan and scabbing over any problems ad hoc with wishes was a terrible idea. It still seemed better than Option 2, though; wishing Sarah and Karyn were lesbian meant getting rid of his two crushes for good, and while he hoped that their being in love could somehow make the two of them get along better, there wasn't any actual guarantee of that. On the contrary, actually: Jon kinda hated the idea of Karyn's only possible romantic partner being Sarah McMillan of all people, a Sarah McMillan who could very well turn out even more insecure and venomous for being in the closet and yet getting unwanted male attention nevertheless. There was a very real chance their affair could turn toxic for the both of them. Maybe he could fix it with the Stone if that happened? But if he was going to be solving problems with the Stone anyway, why not go with option 1?
He checked the countdown. A little less than 10 minutes. He had time to think, he figured, time to work out a wish that would smooth over the friction Option 1 was bound to cause. No getting ahead of himself, now, no going on a wishing extravaganza yet, he still wanted Karyn and Sarah to stay as much Karyn and Sarah as possible after Option 1 and then his own Wishes changed them a little. He just wanted something simple, something that would make any jealous feelings they might have over one or the other dating him less of a problem. Ideally it'd be specific enough that he could trust the Stone not to mess it up too much, and yet not SO irreversible that he couldn't abort if things turned sour.
And, uh... if he could get them open to sharing... maybe even part of little harem... that'd be great. Maybe he was wrong for wanting that, knowing Karyn and Sarah almost certainly wouldn't... but he wanted to give it a try nevertheless.
Really, something like that would be for their own good, he rationalized. It'd be a wish to make them more empathetic, less likely to really hurt each other and more likely to get what they mutually wanted. He didn't want to mess with their minds any more than he had to, nor do anything too overtly manipulative, but certainly there was something he could do to get them on the same side?
... An idea came to him. A wish that, he thought, had a good chance of making Option 1 really pop. He spent a little while longer thinking it over, thought through the details as well as he could in the time he had and figuring out how best to phrase the wish, but really, he knew what he wanted now.
Jon selected Option 1. Then he grabbed the Stone and made a Wish.
