[RMVX ACE] [SCRIPTING] EXCLUDING CHARACTERS FROM CHOICE WINDOW SIZE CALCULATION?

Hey all,
I'd like to use Ace Message System's color effect to highlight certain quest-related options in a Choice menu. The problem is that the code for the color effect inflates the size of the Choice window by about 10 characters, as RPG Maker counts the number of characters before the text effects are applied--not a great look. See:



What I would like to do is exclude the characters '\', '' from being counted toward the window size. Failing that, being able to force the window to draw at a slightly smaller size by calling a function or flipping a switch or something would work, too. I'm pretty comfortable editing scripts, but I'm not a Ruby guy and I'm honestly still having trouble wrapping my head around the way windows work in this program. Can someone help me out here? The NPC interactions in my game are pretty complex and I would love to be able to easily cue players in on what choices are quest-related and which are just flavor text.

What I'd prefer NOT to do is download any new message/text systems, as the game is already more than half done and I definitely don't wanna remake all of the custom shop and crafting menus I've already made. I'm open to other suggestions though. Don't mind if they're kind of hacky.

I already asked this question on rpgmakerweb and got no responses... would love to have some help here! This is one of the last things I need to figure out before I move on to the semi-final stage of development.