Modern Family: New Life-Chapter 113: Fame

Long Island, New York

The freshly cut grass and trees cast shadows over a two-story family house, with white shutters and flower pots overflowing with blooms.

Upstairs, in a second-floor room, a young girl stepped out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, her wet black hair clinging to her neck. She walked into her room, closed the door behind her, and dropped into the chair at her desk.

She turned on her white laptop and automatically opened YouTube. The first video that popped up made her eyes widen in surprise when she read the title:

📺 WE HIT 1 MILLION! | MEETUP WITH SUBSCRIBERS + THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING

"What!? A meetupt!?" she said out loud, as if someone could hear her.

She clicked quickly, and the video began.

The boy on the screen had an aura that radiated confidence and security, the kind you don't learn. The background was simple: a room, a shirt hanging, natural light coming from a window on the side. He spoke in a calm, clear voice, thanking everyone for a million subscribers on his channel and saying how much it meant to him.

The girl barely blinked as she listened to what her favorite YouTuber was saying:

"...so next Sunday, at four, I'll be at the Citrus Grove Mall in California. If you can come, I'd love to meet you guys. I've got a few things prepared, surprises..."

Upon hearing that, she slammed the video to a pause. She stayed still for a second, as if her brain was slowly processing an opportunity that seemed too good to be true.

Then she jumped to her feet, the towel still wrapped around her, and began digging through drawers with extreme care but urgency. Pants, shirts, sneakers. She got dressed in under a minute, tied her damp hair into a slightly messy ponytail, and rushed out of her room.

She stopped in front of a closed door and knocked hard several times. "Open the door! Come on, hurry up!"

Silence. No response from the other side, which made her frown and lose the little patience she had for her brother.

"Don't make me kick the door down, idiot! Are you sleeping!? Open up!"

"Alright, alright... stop yelling," came a sleepy voice from inside.

The door opened slowly and a boy about her age, maybe a little older, appeared. His black hair was messy and he had bags under his eyes.

"What do you want?" he asked, scratching his head.

"We have to go to California this weekend!" the girl replied with a mix of urgency and excitement.

"Whoa, whoa... slow down," he said, stepping back. "Don't tell me you ate marshmallow cereal and ice cream for dessert again?"

She looked at him impatiently, crossing her arms. "I don't eat that poisonous stuff anymore, this has nothing to do with that."

"Really?" the boy said, not sounding convinced. "With your current metabolism, if you ate as much sugar as you used to, technically you could be experiencing a glucose spike followed by euphoria, sweating and tremors, like now," he added, pointing at her sweaty face.

"That's not sweat! I just got out of the shower!" she growled. "I'm perfectly fine and sticking to my diet. I'm just excited because Andrew is doing a subscriber meet-up!"

"Andrew... the football guy?" he asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Yes! Who else? And we're going!" she said like it was carved in stone.

The boy leaned against the doorframe with resignation. "You do remember he's from California? And we live in New York. That's the other side of the country."

"I know. We need plane tickets. And to get them, we need mom and dad's permission, and money. And I need your help to convince them," she said with a confident little smile.

The boy raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

"My help? And what do I get in return?" he asked, adopting a weary negotiator's tone. Between siblings, every favor involved a small transaction. It was the unspoken law.

"A fun weekend in California with dad," she replied, wiggling her eyebrows. "Besides, you watch Andrew's videos too. I know you're doing his 30-day workout routine. I saw you doing squats in front of the mirror with your Knicks shirt."

"Hey, don't spy on me!" the boy growled, blushing slightly.

"It's not spying if you leave your door half open."

He let out a long sigh, leaning against the doorframe, "Fine... I'm in. But on one condition."

"Which one?"

"Stop working out in the living room. Your burpees at six in the morning are scaring my friends."

"Your friends are weaklings. One of them tried to lift one of my kettlebells and couldn't... What kind of guy can't do that?" the girl said, clicking her tongue in frustration.

"He has asthma and weighs 100 pounds..." the boy replied.

"Enough useless talk! Let's go speak to Mom and Dad," the girl said, grabbing her brother's arm and starting to push him toward the kitchen.

'Ugh... this is going to be a long battle,' the boy thought, having no choice.

...

October 6, 2009

It was Friday, game day. And at Palisades High School, that meant everything.

The air in the school's hallways was filled with excitement and energy. Many lockers were decorated with eagles, handmade posters hung on the walls: "Let's Go Eagles!", "Undefeated!", "#12 is the GOAT!"—and most students were wearing team jerseys.

The entire school pulsed with an energy that was hard to describe, a mix of collective anticipation for Friday night games and deep pride in their identity.

The team had a perfect record this season: five wins in five games, dominating each match with a sharp offense and solid defense.

There were still five games left in the regular season, but honestly, for Palisades to not qualify for the regional playoffs, they'd have to lose every single one, and not by a little. We're talking blowout losses, with score gaps so wide that even the most optimistic calculators of rival teams couldn't make the numbers work.

If you counted their undefeated streak from the previous year, Palisades had come off an almost perfect 2008 season. They won every game in D5, finishing as both regional and state champions.

They had only lost one game: the first one of that season. Why? At that time, Andrew wasn't the starting quarterback. He earned the starting spot in the very next game after that loss, and since then... they hadn't lost a single match.

Since he took command, Palisades hadn't known defeat.

That storyline didn't just fuel the team, it lifted the whole school. Andrew had become the local pride. His YouTube channel, with over a million subscribers, was a daily topic of conversation, and many students followed him like he was a celebrity.

For Andrew, getting used to it wasn't as easy as he thought. Yet he somehow managed it. After all, no one forced him to start a YouTube channel or become a quarterback. He chose that, and with it came the stares, the expectations, and the opinions.

He knew being a quarterback wasn't exactly a low-profile role. It's the face of the team, the leader, the point of reference. Even more so when your stats are insane and you've been undefeated since last year.

"This Sunday is finally the day," said a ninth-grader, walking through the hallway alongside his friend, heading to the cafeteria.

"The fan meet-up?" his friend asked, and he nodded.

"Citrus Grove. It's not too far. I guess he chose a more distant place for safety. I'm bringing my jersey for him to sign."

His friend gave him a weird look at that. "Why don't you just ask him to sign it here? You see him during breaks, in the hallways..."

"Yeah, sure," the first one snorted. "You think it's that easy to approach him? He's always surrounded. I don't want to look like an idiot asking for an autograph in front of everyone."

"You'll be surrounded by fans on Sunday too..."

"Yeah, but that event is meant for that," he shot back.

"Good point," his friend admitted, just as they passed by one of the bathroom doors. freēnovelkiss.com

The door swung open, and Andrew walked out at that exact moment. He had his backpack slung over one shoulder, his phone in hand, and a slightly serious look on his face. He'd caught part of their conversation and couldn't help but smile faintly as he walked.

'I'm not surrounded right now...' he thought, with a touch of irony. But he didn't stop.

He picked up his pace, like he often did when he felt attention piling up like storm clouds. Every student he passed greeted him:

"Let's go, Eagles! Crush them!" shouted a group of four guys in unison, causing a commotion when they saw him.

"You're throwing eight touchdown passes today!"

'Eight passes? That's a bit much faith,' Andrew thought with a faint smile, giving a small nod as a thank-you for the confidence.

"Andrew, I love you!" shouted a girl from a group of friends before hiding her face behind nervous laughter. The others pushed her playfully, giggling.

'I have a girlfriend...' Andrew thought as he slightly nodded and kept walking.

To every comment, Andrew responded with a quick nod, a faint smile, a small wave. And kept going.

It wasn't arrogance, nor that he thought he was better than anyone. It was experience. He knew that if he stopped, even for a second, more people would approach, and practice started in less than ten minutes.

And although, as a prodigy, he had certain privileges, and the coaches forgave him more often than they'd admit, he was never late. He'd only been late once the year before, and that was due to a family matter.

He picked up his pace, cutting through a side hallway until he finally reached the double doors that led out to the locker rooms and the field.

There, two girls were waiting: Regina and Karen.

Both were wearing the cheer team jackets, perfectly styled as if even the wind couldn't mess up their hair.

Karen was chewing gum lazily, with a slightly blank stare. Regina, on the other hand, had her arms crossed and was tapping her left foot impatiently, like she was waiting for someone.

It seemed they'd been waiting for him.

"Running from your fans, star quarterback?" Regina asked, raising an eyebrow slightly with a faint smile.

"Aren't we all running from something?" Andrew replied, throwing the question back at her.

Karen giggled. Regina tilted her head, "That was a very philosopher-like answer for someone who throws footballs."

"It's not all muscle. Is there something you two need?" Andrew asked, pushing the door open and stepping outside, the girls following him.

"A yearbook signature," Karen said, half joking and half serious.

"Are you going to Liam's party at his house after the game?" Regina asked casually, but with clear intent.

Andrew didn't respond right away.

Even Liam, the defensive captain and a senior, would occasionally host parties at his place.

Andrew and Pippa weren't into parties. They preferred quiet nights at one of their homes, with their close circle of friends. Reasonable-volume music, pizzas, snacks, board games, inside jokes.

Still, they had made a deal between the two of them: one party a month. Just so they wouldn't be total antisocials when it came to that stuff, especially since even their friends like Leonard and Howard sometimes wanted to go to a proper high school party and change the atmosphere.

"Yeah, I'll go. As long as we win tonight's game," Andrew replied.

A smile formed on Regina's face, but then she couldn't help but frown slightly, "Lose? Are you kidding?"

Even Karen looked at him like he had said something impossible.

"I don't underestimate anyone. See you," Andrew replied with a slight smile.

"Always so professional. Sometimes he's irritatingly decent," Regina remarked once Andrew was out of sight.

Andrew arrived at the field for practice with one minute to spare.

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