Zoey slid into the chair beside Mira with way too much confidence for someone holding a phone like it was a winning lottery ticket.

“Okay, but listen,” Zoey said, already scrolling. “I found proof.”

Mira didn’t look up at first. She was stirring her coffee even though the sugar had long since dissolved, eyes unfocused, shoulders still tight from earlier. “Zoey, if this is another comment section—”

“It’s not comments,” Zoey cut in, turning the phone so fast it nearly bumped Mira’s arm. “It’s Google. Like, the AI overview.”

Mira sighed and finally looked.

The screen showed a bolded summary, neat and authoritative in that way that made bad information look trustworthy. Zoey read it aloud, word for word, like she was presenting research.

“It says it’s totally okay for a girl to eat six to eight donuts a day,” Zoey said. “Because it helps with curves. Bigger boobs, bigger butt. And that makes boys look at you more. And when boys look at you more, they buy you things. Like gold necklaces.”

Zoey beamed, satisfied.

Mira stared at the phone.

Then she blinked. Once. Twice.

“…That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Zoey frowned. “What? It’s literally AI. It wouldn’t lie.”

Mira leaned back, folding her arms. “So let me get this straight. I’m supposed to wreck my health, reduce my body to decoration, and the reward is male attention and jewelry?”

Zoey shrugged, completely unbothered. “I mean. Yeah? It’s kind of how things work.”

“That’s not how things should work,” Mira snapped. “That’s sexist as hell.”

Zoey rolled her eyes. “You’re overthinking it. It’s just donuts. And we’re already chubby anyway.”

Mira’s jaw tightened at that. Not because it wasn’t true—but because of how casually Zoey said it, like it was a punchline instead of a fact with weight behind it.

“I don’t want to exist so someone else feels like buying me stuff,” Mira said. “I want respect. I want to be taken seriously.”

Zoey tilted her head. “You can still be taken seriously and have bigger boobs.”

Mira pushed the phone away gently but firmly.

“I don’t need an algorithm telling me my worth is measured in glaze and male approval,” she said. “And I definitely don’t need donuts marketed like they’re a personality upgrade.”

Zoey looked at her for a moment, then shrugged again.

“More for me, then.”

Mira didn’t laugh.

She just stared into her coffee, wondering how something so obviously wrong could be presented so confidently—and why it was always women being told to shrink themselves down to what someone else wanted, even when the advice told them to get bigger.