After what seemed to be a long howl of annoying laughter, Tangled Menace snorted from her chair. It was a loud, unrefined sound—the kind of snort designed to communicate maximum skepticism with minimum effort.
"Good luck with that," she said, getting up to refill her coffee.
Mum and Dad turned to shush her simultaneously. "Mina—"
"What? It's the truth." She set her mug down with a clink. "Her Majesty over here couldn't pass a middle school math test right now. She called a supply curve 'a line that goes sideways.' She asked Professor Kang if equilibrium was 'the point where everything gives up and goes home.' She—"
"I did not say that last part," I said.
"You thought it very loudly."
Human Sera, who had recovered from her laughing fit, was now hovering behind Tangled Menace's chair with an expression of intense interest.
"She's not wrong," she said to me. "You are terrible at economics. You are the worst person at economics I have ever seen. Wait! No! Hang on! Second person—nope, still first, because the second person was some guy in my class who tried to calculate supply and demand using a diagram of a sandwich. But that's not as bad as yours. So, back to the title of 'Only Person Who Is Bad.'"
"That sandwich was a valid model," I muttered.
"What you say?" Mina said.
"Nothing."
Tangled Menace leaned back in her chair, her coffee mug dangling from her fingers, her eyes gleaming with the particular brand of sisterly malice that I was beginning to recognize.
"Tell you what. If Her Celestial Majesty can pass this semester—just pass, not even do well, just scrape by with the minimum—I will treat everyone to the most expensive dish on the menu at Mum and Dad's restaurant. The one with the abalone. The good abalone. Imported."
Human Sera's head snapped toward Mina. Her eyes went wide. Her mouth formed an O. And then her face split into a grin that was, frankly, terrifying.
"She said the good abalone," Human Sera whispered reverently, as if speaking a sacred truth. "The imported good abalone. Do you know how much that costs? Do you know how long she's been saving for that abalone? She's been talking about it for months. She has a jar. A specific jar. With a label. The label says 'Abalone Fund.' There is a picture of an abalone on it, Sera. A hand-drawn picture. She coloured it."
She paused. Her grin widened into something unholy.
"Game. On."
I looked at her. "What?"
"Game. On. This is a challenge. A sister challenge. When sisters challenge, it is war. It is battle. It is the clash of titans on the field of sibling rivalry. One fails, the other wins. Victory is like—" She paused, searching for the right words with the dramatic flair of a bard telling an epic tale. "—like the spoils of battle. The glory of conquest. The sweet taste of—"
"I understand the concept of competition," I whispered through gritted teeth. "I am a celestial being. I have witnessed wars between galaxies."
"Then you understand what you have to do." She floated closer, her ghostly face inches from mine. "You have to win. Not for yourself. Not for the economics grade that will probably come back from the grave to haunt you. For the abalone, Sera. For the imported abalone. For Mina's jar. For the hand-drawn picture." Human- Sera squealed with joy. My ear drums could burst at this point.
I looked at Mina. Mina looked at me. Her eyebrow was raised. Her coffee mug was still dangling. She was waiting.
"You're on," I said.
Mina's eyebrow went higher. "You're on?"
"I am a celestial being. I do not lose."
"You literally lost a fight to a girl with expensive shoes three days ago."
"That was different. That was an ambush. This is—" I searched for the right word. Something heroic. Something noble. Something that would make me sound like the cosmic warrior I was.
Human Sera supplied it. "This is a war," she whispered dramatically, pretending to play a tiny ghostly trumpet.
"This is a war," I said.
Tangled Menace stared at me for a long moment. Then she snorted again, but there was something underneath it—something that might have been respect, or might have been amusement, or might have been the first stirrings of genuine interest.
"Okay," she said. "Game on."
Mum rolled her eyes so hard I was briefly concerned for her ocular health. "You two are impossible. Absolutely impossible. This is not a game. This is Sera's education. This is her scholarship. This is—"
Dad made a sound. It was somewhere between a cough and a laugh, a sound that was trying very hard to be neutral and failing completely.
"Daniel," Mum said warningly.
"May the best daughter win," Dad said.
The betrayal was complete. Mum gaped at him. Mina snorted again—her third snort of the morning, a new record but she was smiling. Mum threw her hands up. And Human Sera, floating between us all, invisible to everyone but me, pumped her ghostly fist in the air and yelled "YES!". like she had just won a battle she hadn't even been fighting.
And I sat there, a celestial being reduced to an economics student, my pride in tatters, my coffee cold, and my future resting on my ability to understand something called "elasticity" which, frankly, sounded like an injury.
Divine Intergalactic Cosmic ways, indeed.
---
A note from
💖💖 If you’re enjoying this story, please click on COMMENT OR FOLLOW my page &/or RATE my story👍🏻 — as it really help stories and authors like myself to be discovered. 💝💝