An hour passed.
The studio had settled into that specific creative quiet — the kind that isn't silent at all, but full of the small sounds of people thinking. Pens moving. Pages turning. The occasional quiet hum of someone testing a melody. Nikola's notebook filling up with what appeared to be increasingly ambitious scribbling.
Isaac had been in his corner the whole time. Head down. Notes app open. Working through something with the quiet, unhurried focus of a person who had decided to take something seriously and was honoring that decision.
Until he looked up.
"I think I'm done with mine." He said it carefully, like he was still deciding whether he believed it. "Would you guys listen and tell me what you think?"
Every head came up.
The pleasant surprise was collective and immediate — because Isaac, finishing first, was not the prediction anyone had made internally. The verse was short, granted. But finishing first, having never written lyrics before in his life, was its own thing entirely.
"Alright dude — hit us!" Nikola said, leaning back with the easy encouragement of someone who meant it completely.
Isaac nodded.
Took a breath. Let it out slowly. Cleared his throat. And then — because Isaac was Isaac and did things properly — spent a moment finding the pitch of the song, quietly, just for himself.
"Ah... ahh... ahh—"
Found it.
One more breath.
And then he sang.
🎶 I ain't here to dominate, control, or own,Just standing tall, comfortable alone,If you add to my life, you're welcome to stay,If not, no beef — I'll bless my way 🎶
The last note landed and Isaac let it sit.
The studio went quiet in the specific way that happens when something real has just occurred and the room needs a moment to catch up with it.
Isaac looked around.
Everyone was staring at him.
He looked back.
"...Did you guys not like it?"
"FUCK, DUDE."
Nikola's voice came out with enough force that it physically startled three people out of their thoughts. Every head in the room snapped toward him.
He was looking at Isaac. Then at his own notebook — pages dense with crossed-out lines, arrows, rewrites, the evidence of someone who had been working hard for an hour. Then back at Isaac.
"I didn't know we were going that hard." He held up the notebook. "Now all of this is useless. I have to start completely over if I want to even be in the same conversation as that verse."
"Wait—" Isaac blinked. "You didn't like it?"
"Why would I hate it?!" Nikola said, as if this was the strangest question he'd been asked in recent memory.
"Nah dude, that verse was hella fire," Leo confirmed, nodding with the directness of someone who had no reason to say otherwise.
"Should I start calling you Chef Isaac?" Louie said, looking genuinely impressed. "Because I did not know you could cook like that."
"I owe you an apology, Isaac," Nox said, with the quiet sincerity he brought to everything.
Isaac turned to him, completely overwhelmed now, not sure where to put any of this. "For what?"
"I wasn't familiar with your game," Nox said simply.
"EYYYYY—" The rest of the room descended on Nox immediately, the collective noise of four people acknowledging that Mr. Smooth had done it again, effortlessly, without apparently even trying.
Isaac was still sitting exactly where he'd been.
Processing.
"So you guys... liked it?" he tried again.
"That would be a yes," Mikko said, pointing at him with the decisive certainty of someone delivering a verdict. "You, sir, have created something genuinely special. A tweak here and there and that verse is going to be something to behold."
"Thanks, guys," Isaac said.
The shy smile arriving slowly, warm and disbelieving and real — the smile of someone who had taken a risk and hadn't expected it to land and was still catching up with the fact that it had.
"Ah, FUCK—"
Nikola was already head down in his notebook again.
The casual, relaxed energy he'd been carrying for the last hour? Gone. Replaced by something sharper, more focused, the pen moving faster and with considerably more intent than before.
Because his pride as a rapper — the thing he'd built, the identity he'd earned, the craft he'd spent years developing — had just been respectfully, accidentally, very specifically challenged by Isaac Kim from Alabama who had never written a rap verse before today.
And Nikola was not — was categorically not — about to let that stand without a response.
The flames behind his eyes were visible.
The notebook pages were filling up faster than they ever had.
And what Nikola didn't know yet — what he was in the process of discovering in real time, driven by a healthy competitive fire and the refusal to be outshone — was that the verses currently pouring out of him were going to be some of the best he had ever written.
Some things, it turned out, needed exactly the right spark.
Isaac, accidentally, was that spark.
****
When lunch arrived, the six of them migrated to the HQ cafeteria with the collective energy of a flock of birds.
Extremely attractive birds. Birds with sculpted bodies calibrated to a precise and devastating perfection. Birds whose face cards alone could cause spontaneous fainting in the general population. But birds, nonetheless, moving together toward food with unified purpose.
The Bread Music HQ cafeteria was not a cafeteria in the way most people understood the word. Michelin-worthy chefs. Farm fresh produce. Meat that had lived a good life and been prepared with respect. The kind of lunch situation that made people genuinely look forward to the middle of the workday.
They joined the line.
Isaac, standing behind Leo, was being served zucchini.
And as the zucchini landed on his plate, Isaac began to sing. Softly. Happily. To himself and anyone within earshot.
🎶 Eat zucchini, eat zucchini... eat zucchini, eat zucchini... 🎶
Just that part. On repeat. With the serene contentment of someone who was simply expressing genuine enthusiasm for a vegetable.
Leo turned around.
"Dude," he said, with the careful tone of someone choosing their words responsibly, "I don't know if you're aware, but that part of the song is not actually about eating zucchini. It's about telling haters to eat—" he gestured vaguely, "—a man's private parts."
Isaac looked at him.
"I know," Isaac said pleasantly. "It's an innuendo. I'm aware of what it means." The Alabama smile, warm and completely unbothered. "But for me, intention matters. KATSEYE sang it to their haters about eating said private part. I'm singing it because I genuinely love zucchini. God looks into my heart and knows my intentions." A small nod. "So my conscience is clear. But thank you for looking out for me, Leo. I really do appreciate it."
Leo looked at him for a moment.
Considered the answer.
Found it airtight.
"Very well," he said, with genuine respect. "Please continue."
Isaac continued.
🎶 Eat zucchini, eat zucchini... 🎶
Leo, for context, had been raised in a religious household — had understood the reference immediately and wanted to make sure Isaac's beliefs weren't being quietly compromised without his knowledge. A considerate instinct. A good one.
It turned out Isaac knew exactly what the song meant, had assessed it against his own conscience, and had arrived somewhere clean and clear and completely Isaac about the whole thing.
Some people, it turned out, simply could not be rattled.
Isaac from Alabama was one of those people.
At the table, lunch proceeded.
Five of the six of them eating, talking, existing like normal human beings who had earned a meal.
And then there was Nikola.
Who was eating — technically, yes — but only because Mikko had, with the casual devotion of a best friend who had made his peace with this situation, cut Nikola's steak into bite-sized pieces so that the man could get calories into his body without having to fully disengage from his notebook.
Which Nikola had not looked up from since they sat down.
Fork to mouth. Eyes on page. Chew. Hum. Thinking pose — hand on chin, eyes closed, the focused stillness of someone moving through something complex internally. Then the eyes would fly open and the pen would start moving again.
Bite. Write. Think. Write more.
Repeat.
By the time lunch was winding down, Nikola finally — finally — lifted his head.
He held the notebook up. Read it. His eyes tracking his own work the way a craftsman examines something they've just finished. Looking for the gaps, the weak spots, the places where it didn't quite sing yet.
Finding fewer of those than he expected.
The proud grin arrived slowly. Starting at the corner of his mouth. Taking its time. Earning it.
"You finally done, fucker?" Mikko asked, watching him with that smirk.
"Hell yeah, motherfucker," Nikola said.
The smug smirk landing on his face like it had always lived there.
The notebook closed.
The steak, finally, getting his full attention.