“…and that’s it for today, everyone! Thanks for joining me, and I will see you next video. Buh-bye, guys!!”

Justine always ended her videos with that line and a wave from both of her hands at the camera, and that was what her fans enjoyed from a peppy, smart and enthusiastic (and very attractive) college student. She had a very big and fun personality, and that attracted a lot of attention on YouTube, from people of all ages and all genders. There were all sorts of videos on her channel—rants about classmates, makeup, nail or hair tutorials, reviews of her favorite indie music or movies, and more. She was still alternative in that she would always opt for independent movies and music at local festivals rather than big screen movies, and her fashion sense was reminiscent of a thrift store specializing in lowkey 80s goth attire.

On top of being an internet celebrity, Justine was pretty popular around her college, where she majored in TV & Film Studies. President of the cinematography club, vice president of the screenwriting club, star dance team member, and treasurer of the mysticism club—on top of all that, having a large social network, and of course staying up to date in her classes.

Fulfillment. She felt fulfilled. As far as she was concerned, she had the perfect life, if not a little hectic. She thrived in the chaos, in the always-doing-something, in the always-having-people-look-up-to-her.

Anyways, the video Justine recorded was one for next week. For today’s video, she uploaded earlier a vlog about her American Sign Language class last semester and a hearing student who would always try to verbally talk to the Deaf teacher. Once the video went up, she laid back on the bed in her dorm room and watched the comments pour in. Of course, there were a few stray haters (in particular, one user who said her smokey eye makeup looked like a dead raccoon today), but most of the comments were positive, relating to her story, asking her to teach them ASL and complimenting her hair today. (There was one user who repeatedly asked her to marry them, but she ignored them.)

Justine smiled as she watched the comments immediately pour in. This was the life. People were all over her, looking at her all the time and admiring her. She loved watching the comments pour in.

She looked at the clock, and her face turned into dread.

“Shit!” she gasped, slamming her slim MacBook shut. She got too much into her fans that she completely forgot her dramady screenwriting class was in 15 minutes—and it wasn’t a small campus, either. Gathering her stuff haphazardly, she stuffed everything into her bag and bolted out the door.

* * *

Justine was just about running to class once she got out of her dorm, not stopping for a moment to catch her breath. She had a brand new draft of her final screenplay she was excited to share, and she wanted to get first dibs on who presents first. The class was nice, and the teacher was nice. It was nice.

Just as Justine passed another dorm, she stopped in her tracks when she saw another student decked out in a blue and yellow magical girl-esque outfit, complete with aqua cat ears and a rainbow backpack. Who was this girl? Justine had never seen her around; then again, the college she attended was rather big, and while she knew a lot of people, she was far from knowing everyone. But if this girl was always dressed like this, then how in the world could she miss someone like her? Maybe she was a transfer student?

It wasn’t just her costume—she looked stunning as well. Her hair was a bright pink with blue and purple streaks, and Justine noticed her makeup was flawless—not that she was close enough to get a good look. She was tall and slender, her skin glowing and shimmering. It wasn’t Pride Month quite yet, but Justine felt extremely gay looking at this gorgeous woman.

Against her better judgement, Justine took a break from rushing to class to go up to her. She needed to know, not just out of morbid curiosity, but also, she wanted to make a new friend!

Justine wasn’t exactly quiet in her steps, making the other girl turn around. They greeted each other with smiles, though Justine looked a lot more sheepish than her new friend.

“Hey!” Justine started, “I just want to tell you I love your costume!”

“Arigato gozaimasu!” Justine was taken aback by the woman responding in Japanese—at least, Justine thought it was Japanese. It was a very bad accent, very forced and unnatural. She almost wanted to end the conversation there, but the girl kept her there. “It’s a cosplay from my favorite anime! Do you watch anime?”

Anime? Obviously Justine had heard of anime, and she did watch Sailor Moon and Yu-Gi-Oh as a kid, but she never delved into the newer stuff. Was that what this girl liked?

“Oh, I don’t really know a whole lot about it,” Justine admitted. “But I love independent animation, stuff like Don Hertzfeldt. Y’know, he did It’s Such A Beautiful Day?” She tried to steer the conversation back into a normal direction, but she soon would find she failed.

“No, I’ve never heard of it. But I can tell you all about anime, if you want!” she exclaimed. “You’re Justine, right? You’re really popular. I’m jealous,” she said with a pout. “I don’t really know anyone here. I just transferred.”

Justine gave a confident smile which masked her discomfort. “Well, I’d love to get to know you! You can tell me all about anime, I’d love to hear.”

The way her eyes lit up at Justine saying that gave Justine a new sense of security in this new friendship. She was a nice girl, if not a bit awkward (especially with the broken Japanese). She just wanted some friends, and Justine was more than happy to provide that.

“Yay!! Are you free after, like, 8pm or so, tomodachi?” she asked.

Justine nodded, smiling. “That’s when my class gets out, actually. Where do you wanna meet? Your dorm, mine, somewhere else…?”

“Well, I have all of my anime stuff at my dorm room, so I guess I could show you there. It’s in this building,” she said, pointing at the building behind her. “Oh! Um, my name is Giselle-chan. But, since we’re friends, just Giselle is fine!”

“Oh, okay,” Justine grinned, again a bit put off by the random Japanese in her speech. “I’m Justine. Nice to meet you!”

“Okay! Nice to meet you, Justine-chan! Nya!”

Justine, after she said that, realized it was about time for her class. They said their goodbyes, and Justine rushed even faster to class, racing against time. On one hand, she regretted suddenly making plans with this new girl, but on the other hand, she was excited to get to know Giselle. More friends, the merrier!

Or at least, she thought.

* * *

Justine finished with her class a little late—people had some comments about her screenplay, but most of them were constructive. Though, not from the professor—he was kind of a hard ass. Her classmates’ screenplays were also pretty good, especially the screenplay about animals who do cocaine and the one where a non-binary college student moves in with a lesbian lady from the 50s.

She got her notes together, and just as she was about to head out, she remembered she was supposed to hang out with Giselle. Her face lit up a little, yet she also got this sinking feeling in her stomach—maybe her instincts were right? Her gut was usually right in determining who was and wasn’t going to be a good person to be around, but for some reason, she was ignoring it. Maybe it was because she felt Giselle needed a helping hand around the college. Or maybe it was because she was like, super gay.

Justine went out of the building, running into some of her friends along the way (she liked to play a game where she would count how many people she knew in a given space, and if she counted more than 3, she “won”.) Eventually she made her way out, and briskly walked towards Giselle’s dorm building. It was only a 5 minute walk, and she enjoyed getting to watch the sun set for a bit during that time. Alas, she had to say goodbye to the sun and say hello to Giselle.

Giselle was waiting outside, still in the magical girl costume, though she switched out the cat ears for another pair. Justine walked up to her, greeting her with a warm smile.

“Hey, Giselle!” she said, adjusting her backpack. Giselle turned to her and her face brightened.

“Hi, Justine-chan! Are you ready for the best day ever?”

“Always ready and raring to go!” Justine responded, making a confident fist by her chest.

Giselle led her up the stairs to her dorm room. Some people greeted Justine, and then gave her a strange look when they saw her with Giselle. Almost if saying, “really? This is who you’re spending time with?” Justine did her best to ignore them, resigning to the idea that maybe they were just hesitant because of Giselle’s… loud and vibrant personality.

Eventually, after a few floors, they got to Giselle’s room. Justine was both surprised and unfazed that Giselle had a single room. Maybe she lucked out on the lottery. Justine felt sick when she immediately thought, ‘or maybe no one wanted to room with her’. She forced those ideas out of her mind, not wanting to let her immediate judgements get the best of her. Giselle was a nice person, just awkward. Maybe, Justine wondered, if she spent enough time around Giselle, she may learn some social skills, or at the very least drop the fake Japanese.

Giselle’s room was… well, it was exactly as Justine expected. Anime posters lined the walls and ceilings at every inch. The closets were full of cosplay gear, mostly magical girl outfits, and Justine swore she saw a few kimonos. Even the bedding was anime-themed, the blankets and pillows and everything. Giselle also had a large pillow, about the size of her body, of a naked masculine anime character she obviously didn’t know the name of. (Thankfully he at least had underwear on in the picture.)

“Wow, nice room!” Justine forced herself to say. “You really, really like this anime stuff. I’ve never seen anyone so into it.”

“Right? It’s all so kawaii!”

Justine raised an eyebrow and tilted her head, showing she didn’t know what that word meant, but she could assume it meant colorful or cute. “Well, you said you wanted to get me into anime, right? So where do we start?

Giselle gave a big, wide grin. “Okay, so let’s start with the basics…”

* * *

It had been a few hours, and the sun was long gone.

Justine had tried to give hints she had things to do a few times, but Giselle kept going on. She did her best to grin and bear it — if anything, this could be a one night thing, and at least Justine was learning a heck of a lot of Japanese culture. At least, she thought she could call it culture.

“So, what do you think?” Giselle finally asked.

Justine made an exaggerated bewildered expression. “Interesting! I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Giselle flattened a bit. She could tell the boredom in Justine’s voice, as much as Justine tried to mask it. “But… you still don’t really understand any of it, right?”

Justine sighed, realizing that she couldn’t keep this facade up much longer. “Well, I guess it’s just not my thing,” she said. “Or maybe I haven’t found one I liked? I dunno, I liked the movie about that Totoro creature you showed me. But I didn’t really understand a whole lot else.”

Giselle’s face turned from disappointment to desperation. Justine was slowly realizing Giselle wasn’t going to let her go until she swore her undying love for anime and Japanese culture. A part of her wish she trusted her gut and just let Giselle find her own people—after all, there was an anime club on campus, wasn’t there? Or did they not want to spend time with Giselle either?

“Please,” Giselle started, “give me one more chance. I promise you’ll like it. I think I know one more you might enjoy!”

Justine bit her lip. She really, really didn’t want to — she wanted to go home and work on her next video. And she didn’t want to let Giselle know about her YouTube channel — surely she would try to take it over or make Justine make a video about anime.

“I want to try one more thing to get you into it,” Giselle said. “Onegai? Can I try it, Justine-chan?”

Justine thought for a long, long time. Was this really the right decision? Probably not.

“Sure, okay. Let’s try it.”

Justine didn’t expect what Giselle said next.

“Okay, well, let’s start by having you sit on my bed.”

“I’m… sorry, what?” Justine’s eyes widened. Was this some weird sex thing? Justine prayed that she would not be forced into doing anything weird. Giselle was physically attractive as hell, but personality-wise? That was a deal breaker for Justine.

“No no, it’s not anything weird! I promise!” Giselle reassured her. Justine kept her eyes on her as she sat on the edge of the bed, trying her hardest to relax. She was puzzled when Giselle looked through her drawer, trying to look for something desperately. Eventually Giselle returned, with what Justine thought was a pocket watch. It had a gothic or Victorian style, with black, white and red roses around the gold exterior. All things considered, it was beautiful.

“Okay. Just watch this clock,” Giselle told her, as she held the chain up and dropped the clock bit in front of Justine’s face. Immediately, Justine was taken in by the beauty of it, and the calming sound of the hands of the clock ticking, over, and over again.

“Just play with me, Justine-chan,” Giselle said. Justine could already feel herself fading, and nodded her head. “I want you to count with the ticking of the clock. Okay?” She took a pause, waiting for Justine to respond, but Justine was already too focused that she couldn’t even muster a response.

Giselle smiled, and Justine thought she saw a devious smirk, but she couldn’t register it.

“You’re doing so well,” Giselle cooed. “Just count.”

“One… two… three… four…” Justine counted in a hazy voice, her voice getting softer and softer to what was eventually a mumble.

“This is so easy. So easy for you, Justine. Keep counting.”

“Ten… eleven… twelve… thirteen… ah…”

Justine, through the smog of her mind fading, could see Giselle grab her phone and turn on an audio track of some sort. It was Japanese voices speaking; some from the shows Giselle forced her to watch, some other voices. They were all saying words from the Japanese Giselle would use.

“I’m so proud of you,” Giselle said. “I want you to feel this track making its prints into your mind. Imagine them making their mark on your brain. Imagine being surrounded by them. They turn into a mist, as you inhale it is, you exhale anything else out. Exhale your friends. Exhale your worries about your classes. Everything is becoming slower, and dimmer. Your mind is slowing down. Slower, and slower…”

Justine could feel it—as much as she wanted to resist, she couldn’t. She felt herself going blank. She felt the words, the audio, the voices and the music burning into her mind. Changing it, altering it. She wanted to be there. She wanted to be the voices, join them, and—

“Fall asleep.”

That was the last thing Justine heard, before she blacked out and lost consciousness and fell into complete darkness.

* * *

Justine came to a few hours later. It must have been 3am or so at the point she woke up. She felt well rested, as if she had come back from a nice, long dream.

Giselle was still there, sitting on the floor across from the bed. Justine sat up. She felt that something in her had changed as she sat up on the bed, her entire body aching and taking a very long time to wake up with her.

“How do you feel, Justine-chan?” Giselle asked, intertwining her fingers together.

Justine sat up completely, and shook her head to get the last of the fatigue out.

She gave a broad, toothy smile to Giselle, and responded. “I feel sugoi, Giselle-chan! Can you show me some more anime?”

* * *

The two watched more anime together until the break of dawn. It wasn’t just watching anime—Justine tried on all of Giselle’s cosplays and cat ears. Giselle also played for her a lot of J-pop and anime openings, taught her some (very broken) Japanese, and taught her how to Naruto run.

Justine enjoyed all of it. Where had this been her whole life? She felt like a completely different person, a better person, a more fulfilled person. She thought she was complete before meeting Giselle, and this proved she wasn’t. She was missing something—she was missing anime. She didn’t even care about getting a normal amount of sleep. Or about her friends, or classes, or YouTube channel. She was perfectly fine, as long as she could keep watching anime with Giselle-chan.

After they were done binge-watching the entirety of an anime called Love Live (both seasons), Justine yawned and stretched her arms. Despite not sleeping all night, she felt well rested enough to go to her classes. As much as she wanted to stay here in this very kawaii room, she still had to keep her grades up.

“I gotta go, Giselle-chan,” she said, gathering her stuff together. “Can we do this tomorrow? You said you wanted to show me some yaoi, right?”

“Wait, before you go,” Giselle stopped Justine in her tracks, and she swore Justine looked like a protagonist in a shoujo anime. “I want to show you one more thing.”

Giselle looked on YouTube for something. It was an ending sequence to one of the anime Giselle told her about, but didn’t actually show her. The ending wasn’t necessarily an ending as it was a dance. The main girl—a girl with a blue and white sailor uniform and brown hair with a yellow ribbon intertwined in it—was doing the movements confidently and perfectly. A few other characters joined her on screen eventually, doing the dance with her. There were a lot of hand movements. If Justine wasn’t hypnotized before, she was now.

Giselle looked up at Justine and smiled at her once the anime dance was over, looking at her with expectant eyes. “Well? What did you think?”

“That was so kawaii!” Justine excitedly responded.

“Hey, you know what would be even more kawaii? If you did the dance!”

Justine pondered this idea. Was she even cool enough to copy such a cool and confident dance?

“And, and you can wear cosplay and neko ears while you do it! Can you do that for me, pwease?” Giselle begged.

Justine was taken in by Giselle’s begging. After all, Giselle was so cute when she used that little kitty voice. Immediately, she nodded. “Of course! I’ll do it today!”

“Yay!” Giselle exclaimed happily. “Well, do you think you can have it ready by today? I really want to see!”

“6pm, right?” Justine confirmed, as those were the plans they agreed upon.

“Yep yep! See you then, right back here!”

Justine left, with a renewed sense of purpose in her life. She felt excited to do this new dance, and excited to spend more time with Giselle and watch more anime. She wanted to make Giselle proud, but moreover, she wanted to feel as happy as she did watching anime.

Before Justine left, she swore she saw Giselle give a snicker, as if she were amused, but Justine didn’t care enough.

* * *

They met up back in Giselle’s dorm room after all of Justine’s classes—and all of her “dance practice”. She wasn’t a member of the dance team for nothing, obviously, and she felt she was putting her dance skills to better use.

She felt she was putting her life to better use.

Giselle watched Justine do the dance smoothly—actually, parts of it were really bad, and her singing along to the song off key was even worse, but Justine knew that Giselle wasn’t going to say something like that. Giselle wanted a friend, and that was at the core of why Justine met her in the first place. Meeting Giselle was the best thing that had ever happened to Justine. Giselle was her new best friend—screw all the people in her classes, or the E-Boards of the cinematography club or the screenwriting club, or the dance team. She didn’t really care about any of them anymore. All she cared about was Giselle, and anime.

Once Justine was done with the dance, Giselle clapped excitedly. “That was so good, Justine-chan! You really are amazing!”

“Thank you, thank you!” Justine grinned, taking a curtsy ironically. “Well, let’s watch some more—“

“Wait.”

Justine was surprised when Giselle stopped her in her words. Giselle used this moment of silence to take out a video camera and aim it at Justine, grinning.

“Want to do it again? For watashi? For this camera?”

Justine didn’t even think twice. She nodded excitedly. “Of course! I’ll do it as many times as you want!”

Giselle mouthed the words ‘good, good girl’, and Justine chose to ignore that. Once the recording was started, Giselle took a pause.

“And, action.”

* * *

Justine finished with the dance once again, but Giselle knew that Justine would do it over and over and over again for her, if she was asked. Justine sang along again, and that made things even better. Justine had a thought, that maybe she could show this dance to the dance team, and they could do it with her! She made a mental note to do that. Maybe she could introduce Giselle to everyone too. After all, Giselle was so cool, and who wouldn’t want to meet her?

Giselle showed Justine the recording. Justine took pride in her movements, and in her voice.

“You are so, so kawaii, Justine-chan,” Giselle praised Justine, who blushed and rubbed the back of her head in response to. “You really know what you’re doing!”

“Arigato, Giselle-chan! I’d love the world to see!”

Giselle got another devious smirk on her face. “You know what? Maybe the world should see, nya.”

Justine tilted her head and responded with a questioning mutter.

“You have a YouTube channel, right? And you have a lot of viewers?”

The blood drained from Justine’s face. How did Giselle know about her YouTube channel? And come to think of it, Justine completely forgot about it. The thought of her viewers seeing who she’s become almost pulled her out of the trance she was put in, and the thoughts were racing in her head. Giselle reached to her side, and pulled something out.

Justine blacked out for a moment. When she came to, probably 15 seconds later or so, Giselle was holding up the pocket watch again, and Justine realized the ticking had brought her back to a normal state (or well, as normal as this could be.) She remembered—she wanted people to see her like this. She wanted people to know about anime, to watch anime with her. And she wanted to make Giselle happy.

“Don’t you think your viewers would like to see you dance, Justine-chan?”

Justine nodded excitedly, her love of anime and her need for people to know she loved anime taking over her again. “Of course! Let’s put it up, now!”

Justine pulled out her laptop, and Giselle gave her the SD Card with the video on it to move over to her computer. Justine did so quickly, tapping her laptop as she was impatient for the video to transfer. Once it did, she was immediately ready to get it up for everyone to see.

The video wasn’t that long. It must only take a few seconds to upload. Justine didn’t even care about doing an intro and outro to the video, she didn’t even need to explain herself to anyone. She titled it, “I do the Kawaii Haruhi Dance!! :3” and hit upload.

The video sent. It was now on her channel.

“Well, let’s see what people have to say, nya?”

Justine went to the comments. Sure enough, they were pouring in, as they did with all of her other videos. She also noticed the dislikes on the video greatly, greatly outweighed the liked. Some choice comments that really stuck with Justine were things like:

“wow. didn’t think justine was a fucking weeb. this is embarrassing”

“Well, there goes my boner for Justine”

“justine what happened to you?? :(( gonna unsubscribe now”

Those were only a few, and they were pouring in more and more. Justine watched in both horror and fascination at her loyal fans turning on her for who she became. But, she was okay with losing subscribers. She wanted people to know she loved anime.

“You know, you really are a fucking idiot. You know that, right?”

Justine was surprised to hear Giselle’s voice drop, as if she was keeping it up and cute all this time. It was almost like those anime where a character would be all cute and happy and then become a yandere. But Justine couldn’t help but feel a little hurt at Giselle’s comment.

“Nani…?”

“Man, giving in so easily to me,” Giselle continued. “You think I even like this anime shit? No, I just wanted to fuck with you.”

Justine couldn’t even say anything. She just watched the comments come in. She hated watching people hate on her, but also, she oddly loved it. She barely even noticed Giselle’s hands find their way on her waist from behind and feel her up.

“It was so easy. Usually, it takes people a while to go into a deep enough trance for me to mess with them, but you… you just disappeared like that.”

Justine had no words. She tried to stammer something out, and eventually found one.

“Why?” was the only thing she could ask.

“Why? You’re so adorable, that’s why,” Giselle said, her hands finding their way to Justine’s chest and fondling her lightly. “I saw how perfect you were. How nice and smiley you were, how you wanted to be friends with me just because you felt bad for me. You’re so naive and stupid. I needed you under my control.”

Justine moaned at the movement Giselle was making with her hands, her grip getting more rough around her tits. She could barely even focus on what Giselle was saying anymore.

“Now I can do what I want with you. I can ruin your life. See? I ruined your YouTube channel, the pride of your identity. And I can ruin your friendships, and your grades, and everything about you, too.”

Justine couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She thought Giselle was her best friend. She thought Giselle just wanted what was best for her. No—she should have followed her instincts. But she was in too deep now—she felt a need to “wake up” from something, but she didn’t know what.

“Aw, you’re trying to get out of this trance,” Giselle gave a deep laugh as she mocked her. “Well, you’re in too deep. You’re going to keep humiliating yourself and doing whatever the fuck I want you to do. You’re going to become the stupidest weeb in existence.”

Giselle kept one hand on Justine’s breast and quickly moved the other hand under the skirt of Justine’s magical girl outfit, under her panties, and ran her fingers around Justine’s folds. Justine gasped for air, the sensations being too much. She felt so good seeing how much people were making fun of her, even Giselle, her best friend.

“See? You’re enjoying this. You’re enjoying watching people degrade you and insult you. You like that, don’t you?” Her fingers kept tracing Justine’s cunt as she kept going on with her hurtful words.

Justine couldn’t help herself. She needed more. She needed Giselle’s insults and mocking.

“Yes,” she groaned, arching her back. “I need more, onegai, give me more, Giselle-chan!”

“Wow,” Giselle said with a bewildered tone. “You are in really deep. What a fucking slut you are. Generic ditzy college whore who’ll let anyone do what they want. Fucking stupid idiot. You’re only good for being my plaything, and you don’t need anything else except to please me. After all, you’re not even good at any of it. Look at you—getting all nice and wet for me,” she kept going on and on, her fingers roughly circling around Justine’s clit, making her moan louder and louder. “You really are a sick piece of shit.”

Justine kept going with her moans. Giselle took her other hand off Justine’s breast and gave her hair a rough tug, causing her to shriek.

“Say you’re a stupid slutty weeaboo,” she ordered.

“I’m… a… a…” Justine tried to say it, but couldn’t between the pleasure. Giselle dragged her by the hair again.

“Say it, you idiot, or can you not even do that?”

“I’m… I’m a stupid fucking… a stupid, slutty, weeaboo!” she screamed, her eyes tearing up with the pleasure.

“Yes you are,” Giselle cackled. “And you’re my stupid slutty weeaboo. You’ll be my toy forever, right?”

“Yes! Yes, forever and always!” she cried out. “P-please…”

“Oh? What?” Giselle breathed out as she got harder with getting Justine off.

“Please let me—please let me…”

“Oh? You want to cum? You’re really sick and depraved, aren’t you?” she cooed. “Fine, go over. Cum for me, that’s all you’re good for.”

Justine went over. Her back arched over and over again, and her moans got louder and louder, and then softer. And softer. Giselle could feel how wet Justine was, and realized she could stop once Justine was done orgasming. Justine took her time to catch her breath. Giselle did as well, using her clean hand to close Justine’s laptop.

“That’s enough for now,” Giselle said.

Her voice moved back up to her normal octave, and she said, “You know, Justine-chan? There’s an anime convention next weekend. Maybe we could go together?” She kissed the back of Justine’s neck.

Justine perked back up at those words. That was what she wanted. Despite Giselle’s mean words and the fact Justine was betrayed, that was all she wanted—to be her stupid slutty weeaboo.

“Yes! I’d love that, Giselle-chan!”