Clutching the panda plushie that seemed to inte upon liberation from its vacuum seal, Leo’s eyes simmered with a brooding gaze at Mirabe.


    Mirabe cleared her throat with a hint of awkwardness. “The panda is a treasure, you know, sort of mascot. And all your fans call you their lucky charm, Leo. I think it’s <b>fitting</b>.”


    “It’s not the same!”


    Leo felt his image as the cool older sibling was shattered entirely. He even suspected that his sister had started treating him like a younger brother. No, scratch that, not even a brother<b>, </b>considering the fluffy toy Mirabe gifted him was the kind only little girls adored.


    Zach, observing Leo’s look of utter despair, couldn’t help but feel a sense ofpletion. Indeed, his sister’s knack for knocking people down a peg seemed even more brutal than his own.


    As Mirabe parted her lips to speak, Shawn interjected. “If you don’t want it, can I have it? I’ve been looking for a cute little thing to put on my bedside table,” said Shawn, shooting a nce at his youngest son.


    Upon hearing this. Leo, albeit begrudgingly and under intimidating paternal pressure, mumbled a response. “Who said I didn’t want it?”


    Leo was at a loss for words. His status in this household seemed to be plummeting by the second.


    Delh, setting her perfume to the side, chimed in, “By the way, darling, did you get any trophies?”


    Mirabe nodded, “Yes.” With that, she made her way to her suitcase, flipped it open, and pulled out a trophy, a certificate of achievement, and a letter of unconditional eptance from Prestige College.


    The trophy and the certificate were symbols of honor, but it was that letter from Prestige College that truly carried weight.


    As Delh looked at the early eptance letter from Prestige College, her mind inexplic


    wandered back to the time when her daughter first returned home holding her eptance letter from Parkside High School. She remembered the doubt she had felt back then.


    Now, without even having sat her final exams, her daughter had secured a spot at Prestige College. Mulling over this, Delh’s cheeks burned with a mix of pride and embarrassment. Her daughter seemed to be constantly redefining her expectations.


    “I’ve got to snap a photo and show off our family genius on social media!” Shawn whipped out his smartphone, arranged the trophy, the certificate, and the eptance letter, and snapped photos from various angles. He crafted a coge and posted it to his social media.


    Mirabe, with a weary smile, let him be. She yawned, her face etched with fatigue. “Mom, Dad, Zach, Leo, I’m heading to bed. I’ve got school early in the morning.”


    10.44


    “Alright, honey.”


    As soon as Shawn posted the coge online, his socialwork was flooded with likes and adoringments


    Summer, meanwhile, was stewing as she scrolled through her Messenger and spotted the images of the trophy, the certificate, and the eptance letter to Prestige College. She clenched her phone so tightly that it nearly snapped.


    Again, Mirabe. Always Mirabe. Her name had practically taken over Summer’s phone for the day. Social media and ss group chats were all about Mirabe’s nationalpetition victory as if that first ce had elevated her to some kind of deity in everyone’s eyes.


    Watching everyone fawn over her, Summer felt a wave of nausea. These people seemed to havepletely forgotten how they used to badmouth Mirabe. The sycophancy was nauseating.


    Tossing her phone aside, Summery in bed, restless and agitated. She couldn’t fathom how someone so unremarkable in a previous life could suddenly transform into an utterly different


    person.