The house was chaos—but the warm, wonderful kind.

Laughter bounced off the walls, high-pitched and unstoppable. Two tiny hurricanes zipped through the living room: one in a superhero cape made from a towel, the other wielding a glitter-covered wand like it was a sacred family artifact.

Twins. Your twins. And somehow, they had inherited all of Ai’s energy and none of her volume control.

You were halfway through building a pillow fort—correction, rebuilding it after a full-scale toddler coup—when Ai shuffled in, barefoot and sleepy-eyed, wearing one of your old shirts as a dress and one of the twins’ tiny socks still stuck to her elbow.

Her braided pigtails were a bit lopsided, one drooping more than the other, and she looked at the fort like it had personally offended her peace.

“…Did I fall asleep for ten minutes?” she asked.

She groaned and plopped beside you in the ruins of the couch cushions, resting her head on your shoulder.

“I love them. I adore them. I would literally fight a dragon for them,” she mumbled, “but if they ask me to sing the sparkle juice song one more time, I’m turning into mist.”

Across the room, twin #1 immediately shouted, “MOMMY SPARKLE JUICE!!”

Twin #2 began clapping in rhythm. “Sparkle! Juice! Sparkle! Juice!”

Ai looked at you, defeated.