What I Think of You Pt. 06

Author's note: Thank you to everyone reading, and thank you in particular for the very positive reception towards the previous chapter, if you're reading this, I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comment section.

Asha was considered the popular girl at her university, she had a small army of people, mostly men, following her everywhere she went, a small army that constantly sang her praises, told her how great she was, and generally created a constant cloud of noise wherever she went.

She had no fucking clue how she'd become popular, and she dearly wished she could return to obscurity.

Asha had gone to high school in India, had few friends, and was very much a nerd by nature, obsessed with tabletop board games, Sci-fi movies, and other things that generally excluded you from the stereotypical popular girl image. To top it off she felt she was generally bad with people, so she figured she'd always have a minimal network of friends. When she moved out of India to attend university, she was terrified she'd end up alone.

It was with furious gusto that she attempted to make friends on her first day, she'd bounce between tables at lunch, trying to introduce herself to everyone she could, making small talk about anything she could think of, and laughing at every joke she heard, no matter how terrible, trying to cast as wide a net as possible, hoping she'd get at least one friend out of it, she believed that most of the people she spoke to would never really be interested in speaking to her again, they were only talking to her because it was the first day of university, and they were trying to find their feet, once they'd found it, they'd find a much more trendy clique to join, and most of them would leave her alone, Asha was fishing for the dregs, trying to find the people who'd stick with her out of a lack of options, so she spoke to everyone, even the people who gave off strong socially awkward vibes.

For example, this one Japanese-looking girl she met who was just staring at her tits the entire time they spoke, not even pretending to be interested in speaking to her, Yoshiko, Asha believed her name was.

Asha's wide-net approach to trying to find a friend had worked far beyond her wildest dreams, the people she spoke to approached her in droves during study breaks, but she didn't make a friend, so much as she inadvertently recruited a small army of male admirers, this popularity caught the eye of many girls who were trying to integrate themselves into the upper echelons of the pointless hierarchy that was University social life, and figured that the small army of men following her around meant she popular, this cycle became self-fulfilling, and within a week, she was known as "The popular girl."

Thus began her university social life, which consisted of being followed around by a small army of people, in a self-perpetuating popularity cycle, where being part of the group meant being popular, and it meant being popular because it was large, and it was large because it was popular... it was stupid is what it was.

Asha quickly found this to be a somewhat annoying situation, they weren't friends, they were admirers, there was nobody she could talk to, and it was often painfully obvious most of the men just wanted to fuck her, she'd tried to strike up conversations about stuff she was interested in, and often they'd just respond with "uh huh, uh huh." If she tried to invite some of them to play a table-top game, it was treated as this bizarre form of charity, as if she was doing something beneath her to appeal to plebians... she'd grown to steadily hate her entourage, loneliness and solitude was sounding good right about now, but she got the sense if she told them to fuck off, they'd follow her around taunting her, break her windows, and some of her more deranged male admirers might do something even more drastic, she was stuck, this was life now, being a figurehead for a group of better than thou socialites desperate for the appearance of status through association.

As time passed, Asha became increasingly more interested in vicariously living through other people's lives and had made a habit of following the drama that surrounded the other cliques in her school, and recently, she'd been following a particularly disturbing piece of drama surrounding a girl named Alice, a weirdo who'd been obsessed with an otherwise mostly unremarkable guy named Alex, to the point of espousing some downright psychotic views, she'd had a weird fucked up blog, where she said all women were just sex objects for Alex.

The weirdest thing was, Alex had begged her to shut the fuck up, many times in weeks past, but for some reason, the girl insisted, she'd been protesting outside the campus at a few months ago, arguing that women weren't people, and should be reclassified as Alex's property... much to the embarrassment of Alex, who looked like he wanted to curl up and die when he heard about her protest. She felt sorry for the poor guy.

The most recent drama she'd raised had been with another member of Alex's study group, the infamous Yoshiko, Yoshiko was nowhere near as crazy as Alice, but she had her own reputation, pushing people down the stairs for seemingly no reason on her first year.

She'd painted a picture of her art teacher getting fucked by three different people simultaneously, and put it up on display in the university walkway... she'd almost been expelled for that, but managed to argue it was a moment of hysteria, brought about by a rough childhood, Asha felt there was far too much pre-planning involved for it to be a "moment of hysteria."

Asha had been lucky enough not to interact with Yoshiko much, their only interaction had been when she stared at her tits for a full minute without saying a word on her first day of university, and that had informed her opinion on her quite nicely. But recently, Asha had found a reason to start being worried for Yoshiko's safety.

Alice had been targeting Yoshiko for the past few months, pestering her, at one point even attempting to forcibly strip her in the middle of class, she'd had made a massive show of screaming at Yoshiko the other day, telling her she needed to be trained as Alex's cumslut, and lots of other shit Asha didn't even fully understand or even want to think about... The guys who followed Asha around could be weird, possessive, and a lot of them couldn't give less of a shit what she had to say, but Alice was misogynistic on a level beyond what she'd seen any guy achieve, how the university hadn't expelled her and had her fucking arrested yet, she'd never understand, she was a constant terror to any woman on the campus who didn't have the luxury of being shockingly ugly, and a terror to Alex, her sole object of affection.

Asha felt Yoshiko's social isolation provided a potential for her to end up influenced by Alice. Asha didn't know what Yoshiko's home life was like. but assumed she didn't have a great support network to have ended as she had, as a somewhat self-imposed outcast with a penchant for violence.

Of course, it was none of her business, she and Yoshiko weren't friends by any stretch of the imagination, but Asha had remembered her time as a social reject, and even if Yoshiko's isolation was more deserved than hers ever was, she still felt she should do what she could to try and ensure she doesn't fall off the deep end completely.

Contacting Yoshiko was difficult however, seemingly nobody really knew her outside of university life, and she usually went home immediately after lectures ended, while rarely attending Olivia's study group, that last one was the easiest point of contact, but the members that made up the study group were largely absent, and so Asha felt she had no way to talk to Yoshiko, they didn't share any class times, so while Yoshiko was theoretically quite close to Asha, in practice, she might as well have been on the moon.

That was how she had felt before today, but she'd heard from an acquaintance who hung out in the science annex that Yoshiko had stayed behind after lectures today, and that she'd been going around, approaching seemingly random girls and asking to take their photo.

Asha had no clue why she was doing this and could write it off as Yoshiko being Yoshiko, but she saw it as an opportunity, she'd placed herself in one of the major school walkways and was awaiting Yoshiko to pass by, so she could check in on her mental state, and make sure she wasn't listening to Alice.

It'd taken an hour, a miserable hour that she spent fending off advancements from the lovely members of her entourage... the only reason she hadn't told them all to fuck off, is she understood they had no life outside of following her around, accumulating imaginary "importance" points by snubbing each other, if she did anything to make them hate her, they'd still follow her around, they'd just be even more sociopathic about it.

Eventually, she saw Yoshiko speed-walking through her walkway and stepped out to intercept, her entourage initially seemed to want to move with her, but once they saw who she was approaching, most of them stepped back and gave her space, most people heard of Yoshiko, and most people knew what she looked like, so when they saw Asha step out to talk to her, they made one of two assumptions.

The people who didn't know or believe most of the stories about Yoshiko saw it as an act of charity that Asha was talking to her, the popular girl taking time out of her day to talk to the lesser folk.

The people who did know Yoshiko by reputation were making an effort not to talk to her, the nicer accounts of Yoshiko's university tenure portrayed her as an unsociable creep, the less nice accounts portrayed her as a sociopath, someone with anger issues, a tendency to keep weaponry close to hand, and a lack of any real ethical compass. While this view was somewhat exaggerated, it wasn't wrong, Yoshiko even now had a switchblade in her pocket and was wandering around with malicious intent.

There was also a third group, who had made no real assumptions, and largely knew Yoshiko was bad news, but kept their distance primarily as a means through which to ogle her, while many in the group thought of Asha as the hottest girl on campus, a few found Yoshiko to be more their type, she was more petite than Asha was, and the intensity of Yoshiko's expressions and body language was a turn on for some. Of course, few would be stupid enough to ask her out, they'd seen the canaries that had gone in before them, and the battered remains of what might once have been a canary had told them the mines were a touch unsafe. Yoshiko was hot, but functionally unapproachable, even if you were just going to grab her and try and force yourself on her, you'd likely end up dead from stab wounds, she had a mystique of being the extremely hot girl on campus who was truly unapproachable, there wasn't even a theoretical way to form a relationship with her, aside from maybe joining Olivia's study group and approaching you there, but getting her to like you felt impossible, and getting her to like you well enough to fuck you felt impossible.

Yoshiko had fans despite her general demeanour for one simple reason, she was beautiful by most definitions of the word, near perfectly proportioned and a somewhat slutty dresser, giving most a tantalising glimpse of what they could never touch. add to that, for some guys, red flags were a fun bonus to collect when dating.

Yoshiko was annoyed when Asha stepped in front of her, she was in a hurry to collect photos to show to Alex and didn't really feel like getting slowed down by Asha of all people, someone she thought of as a delusional fame addict.

Yoshiko and Asha lived worlds apart, and from Yoshiko's perspective, she couldn't see Asha as anything more than a popular girl who lauded her superiority over her, Yoshiko wasn't one to have an inferiority complex, she had a giant slayer complex. Still, for now, she cracked a fake smile and tried to ask what the hold-up was.

"Yoshiko... I know we don't talk, but I've been hearing all about you and Alice all week, and I wanted to make sure you were... how shall I say this... interacting with Alice in a manner that is conducive to Alice's peculiarities... if that makes sense?"

Yoshiko found herself confused... nothing even remotely interesting had happened between her and Alice this week or any week, Alice had the social presence of a basement dweller, nobody would really find her worth talking about, because there was nothing to talk about, she was just a boring study addict, with a sarcastic and snide personality that Yoshiko for the most part liked. Yoshiko just stuttered out a generic answer.

"Uh... yeah, we're still friends, I've been treating her well, don't worry..." Yoshiko assumed that was more or less what Asha would have wanted to hear, she wasn't prepared for this answer to make Asha visibly recoil in shock.

"You need to get the fuck away from her! there's something wrong with her, very wrong. She's a flat-out dangerous influence!" Asha's face visibly cracked with equal parts concern and disbelief.

Yoshiko had heard the phrase "There's something wrong with her!" and "You need to get the fuck away from her!" many times, it's just that usually, she was the problem being warned against, not the one receiving the warning, this was a new experience for her.

The confusion was overwhelming initially, and she quickly stuttered out a "What did Alice do to upset you?" before she could get her bearings together to plan an actual deduction.

"Do to me? Yoshiko... she tried to strip you, she called you, and I quote 'A temporarily useful fuckhole, but best eventually replaced, once a woman of actual value can be converted.' How the fuck did that NOT offend you?"

Asha was trying hard to stop herself from screaming, she didn't want her entire entourage joining in because they heard something interesting, but at this moment, Asha strongly suspected that if she cracked Yoshiko's head open, she'd find naught but an I.O.U.

Yoshiko was 100% sure she'd remember if Alice said anything even 10% as risqué as that, Thus, the easy conclusion to reach from this, was that Alex had changed Alice at some point, well, more accurately, the shade had changed Alice, but details, details...

She decided to try fishing for a bit more information and to just play dumb till she had a little more information to work with. "Are you sure you're quoting her correctly? Why would she say something like that, also, what exactly is a fuckhole?" Yoshiko added that last bit because she was pretty sure Asha was uncomfortable with all things sexual and wanted to see her squirm.

"Yoshiko... you've sat in a group with Alice for years, and you don't know what she means by 'fuckhole' at this point? Figure it out from fucking context, she wants you to fuck Alex, it's like the only thing she ever fucking talks about... and that also answers your question about her motive... did you miss that time she left that fucking essay on why all women should be Alex's stress relief objects around the uni? She frigging sent it as an email attachment to me, and most of the faculty. Did you miss that? Seriously, did you fucking miss that?!?!" Asha's fear for Yoshiko's safety had reached new levels, apparently, she was not only somewhat isolated but also dumb as a brick.

Asha calmed her voice and added a simple explanation "She's got a thing for Alex that goes so far outside the realm of acceptability she belongs in a fucking asylum..."

Yoshiko found this all to be interesting information, she felt she had now had a grasp on what Alex had changed her into, but more interestingly, this seems to be proof the shade could manipulate the past, or at least people's memories of it, Alice apparently now had an entire, much more interesting alternate history, and Yoshiko had to put her hat off to Alex on this one, this was inspired, not just turning a girl into your slut, but making her recruit others for you, now that was the ideal state of perverted existence, Yoshiko couldn't train Jiggly to do that in a million years, it was near impossible to teach her to strip.

"I see, no idea how that slipped my mind, I will be more careful, I suppose," Yoshiko mumbled out some more half-hearted words to try and dissuade Asha so she could let her go on her way, but as she did so, something occurred to her.

Yoshiko had been going around photographing various girls she wanted to try and get Alex's shade to twist and warp, she figured the visual element was most likely key to getting the shade to target the individual, remove the picture, and Yoshiko would be stuck just describing the girl, and that felt far too fallible. She'd had a list of the girls she was interested in doing, and Asha hadn't been on it, they hadn't interacted in years, since the first day of university, where Yoshiko had checked her out, and deemed her to be around an 8/10, not worth obsessing over.

Looking at Asha with a new eye, she realised she was wrong, Asha had cleaned up her fashion sense and was dressed in a rather modest outfit, her skirt was short, but not to a degree that Yoshiko could view as tantalising. But there was something about her now, it wasn't the outfit, but she exuded a certain beauty, her brown eyes seemed soulful, and the genuine look of care in Asha's eyes as she tried to help Yoshiko had ignited Yoshiko's sadistic instincts something fierce.

Yoshiko had decided to add her to her list, she'd chat Asha up, try and find out as much about her, as well as the large entourage that seemed to be lingering behind her, it was good to understand your prey before you savoured the kill, after all.

"So, Asha, it's been a while hasn't it, seems you're a fair bit more popular these days, you deserve it, really. So, would you mind telling me what it's like..." Yoshiko's face was one of pure joy, as she listened to Asha recount what amounted to her life story, she had many friends, but it seemed she had nobody to talk to, surrounded by people, but oh so isolated... she whispered her real opinions on her colleagues in bated breath, almost as if she believed that Yoshiko could save her, would save her... Yoshiko simply used her words of sadness and isolation to plan her coming ruin.

Earlier that same day, in Yoshiko's apartment.

Alex had awoken to find Yoshiko already gone. Their university timetables didn't perfectly overlap, and today Yoshiko had classes, and Alex had free time, just two months earlier, he would've had to drag himself out of bed to go to work, but he found himself dubiously lucky when his manager told him, paraphrasing: "Your position is being made redundant, here's three months' pay, get out."

Alex had managed to build up a considerable level of savings before being laid off, so when he received his generous severance, he decided he didn't really feel like working again until he finished his degree, so he had the day to himself.

The question was, what to do? Alex had brought his laptop with him when he fled his apartment, but honestly, after the craziness of the last three days, everything just seemed boring, movies? Games? Porn? His reality was presently more interesting than anything he'd read in fiction.

While he had no idea what to do today, he knew he wasn't going to find any enjoyment in just lying in bed... even if this one was unusually comfy, Alex didn't know what these sheets were made of, but he'd have to ask Yoshiko, these felt like heaven.

Speaking of things Yoshiko gave him that felt nice...

That redheaded girl... does she go to university? Is she still home? The way her tits jiggled... Holy shit I want to do her again...

Alex opened the door and decided to properly inspect Yoshiko's apartment, while he did so, he internally pondered how he'd rank the redhead relative to the other girls, she was easily hotter than someone like Alice, not that Alice was ugly, rather, compared to the redhead, she just seemed a bit... plain...