"Iris Luo! What kind of literary torture are you inflicting on me?! I specifically said NO to... whatever furry adjacent nonsense this is!"
Azura jabbed her phone screen accusingly at her cousin, Iris, who was already cackling like a witch who'd just discovered discount broomsticks.
"Excuse you! Werewolves aren't furries! They're romantically challenged canines!" Iris clutched her stomach, wheezing. "Besides, you LOVE trashy clichés! This book is like... cliché bingo on steroids! Evil sister? Check! Rejected by fated mate? Double check! Step-brothers AND step-uncle as love interests because apparently normal family trees are too mainstream! Forbidden harems! Possessive red-flag male leads who probably need restraining orders! Oh, and get this—one character shares YOUR name!"
"....."
"That last point is NOT a selling feature, Iris."
"Sure it is! Free self-insert fanfiction!"
"I told you—I read ONE werewolf book and it was WEIRD! All that 'I reject you as my mate' then 'actually I accept you' melodrama. Nope, nope, don't recommend something like this to me!"
Azura launched a giant plushie across the room, nailing Iris right in the face.
"It's emotional whiplash in book form!" Iris dramatically flopped backward, the plushie resting on her chest like a fluffy tombstone. "You wound me! This is peak literature!"
Azura just groaned, burying her face in a pillow, silently praying Iris's next recommendation wouldn't involve vampires or, god forbid, dragon shifters.
But her phone buzzed again, a frantic, demonic vibration against her nightstand. Azura peeked out from her pillow fortress. Her screen had been spammed into oblivion. Twenty notifications. All from Iris. All for the same godforsaken novel about werewolf step-family and their questionable life choices.
Azura grabbed the nearest projectile—a giant, surprisingly dense King Kong plushie—and flung it with the precision of a seasoned pitcher. It sailed through the air and connected with a soft THWUMP—followed by a pained yelp.
"Ow! My eye! You nearly blinded me with a primate!" Iris howled, clutching her face.
"Stop sending me this literary garbage! I'm getting eye cancer just from the notifications!"
Azura frantically swiped the messages away, as if trying to disinfect her screen.
"Okay, okay, truce!" Iris wheezed, still rubbing her eye. "Just read ONE random chapter. It's on free read today! A free sample! After that, I swear on my collection of limited-edition manga, I will never mention it again!"
Azura's hand, already reaching for another plushie (a particularly pointy hedgehog), froze.
Free.
The magic word. Iris knew her weakness.
"Fine," Azura grumbled, flopping onto her stomach and propping her chin on her hands, "but this is a one-time deal, a freebie fling, and after this, we're breaking up."
She tapped open the link, the screen glowing with a dramatic cover of four shirtless men.
"I'm reading one chapter, Iris, so help me God, if you send me another link, I'll use this hedgehog plushie for things it was not designed for."
Her eyes scanned the first paragraph, and a small, traitorous part of her brain whispered.
Well, it's free, so how bad can it be?
Two seconds. That's how long it took for Azura to regret her life choices. Her eyes widened in horror as a wall of text hit her. It wasn't just dialogue; it was a symphony of depravity, a cacophony of moans and grunts that would make a porn star blush.
The female lead sounded like a malfunctioning foghorn, and the male leads... well, they seemed to be competing in some sort of Olympic event for creative dirty talk, all while apparently sharing her like a communal pizza.
Frantically, she tapped to another random chapter. Same thing. Another. Chapter 69. Another. Chapter 420.
All featuring the female lead and her quartet of... let's say, overly enthusiastic partners, acting like they'd discovered a new brand of energy drink called "Erotic Overdrive."
Finally, she whipped around to face Iris, who was now cackling like a hyena that had just found a stash of extra-squeaky toys.
"What kind of... of... PORN disguised as a novel did you make me read?! Is there a single page in this entire book where they AREN'T playing naked Twister?!" Azura sputtered. "Don't these people have jobs? Or hobbies that don't involve... that? Do they even eat? Do they ever stop to, say, breathe or pay taxes?! Or do they just live on a diet of... of... Viagra and... and...!"
Wiping a tear of pure, unadulterated glee from her eye, Iris grinned, savoring Azura's meltdown like a fine wine.
"Uh, hello? That's the entire point! It's popular because of the smut! Not only that, there's a huge plot twist with a hidden villain you'd never expect! And all the male leads are—"
"—walking, talking STDs? I agree!"
Azura cut her off, launching her phone into the pillow fort as if it were contaminated. She vaulted off the bed, needing to put as much distance between herself and the digital cesspool as possible.
"That just solidifies my opinion! I'm out! Never again! Let's go make dinner. My dad brought over a lifetime supply of my mom's frozen dumplings, and frankly, I need to bleach my brain with something wholesome."
Iris casually gathered the two plushie casualties from the floor, placing them neatly on the bed like fallen soldiers. She leaned against the doorframe, her smirk reaching epic proportions.
"Oh, you can play innocent all you want," she chirped, her voice dripping with smug satisfaction. "But I know you. Tonight, long after the dumplings are gone and I'm supposedly asleep, you'll be back. Tapping that screen under the covers, one-handed, pretending you're just 'checking the weather'."
"Never! Not in a million years!"
Azura shot Iris a glare that could curdle milk and deliberately slammed her shoulder into her cousin's as she stomped out of the room.
Iris just stumbled back with a dramatic "Oof!" and a grin, rubbing her shoulder. "I can't believe it, little cousin~"
"You're delusional!"
In the kitchen, Azura yanked the fridge open with the force of a thousand repressed frustrations, crouching down to rummage for vegetables in the crisper drawer like a gopher on a mission.
Iris, ever the unhelpful helper, sidled up behind her. "I'll get the main course!" she announced brightly, swinging open the freezer door above. A giant, industrial-sized box of frozen dumplings sat there like a monolith of maternal love. Iris's eyes lit up as she grabbed it.
Only, the box had the density of a neutron star. It was far heavier than she anticipated, and her hand slipped.
"NO! AZURA!"
The box of frozen doom plummeted. It landed with a sickening THWACK squarely on the back of Azura's head. Her vision swam, the kitchen lights blurring into a kaleidoscope of pain. As her consciousness faded to black, Azura's final, silent scream echoed in the void of her mind.
Are you kidding me?! Frozen dumplings?! Of all the idiotic, undignified ways to die...
Her last thought was a furious, cosmic complaint against the sheer, unadulterated bullshit of it all. Then, everything went dark, the scent of garlic and chives the last vestige of a life absurdly cut short.
The universe, it seemed, had a truly twisted sense of humor.