"Now," Robin said, flipping through her notebook with the focused energy of someone who had been taking notes through everything and intended to use every single one of them, "onto some specific things I felt needed to be acknowledged."
She looked up.
"Mister Mikko Tan."
Mikko's brows shot up. First on the list. Not prepared, but also — because he was Mikko — immediately present.
"That voice of yours," Robin started, and then paused in the specific way she did when she was choosing words carefully because the ones she wanted were worth finding, "genuinely, I don't know quite what to do with it." She shook her head slightly. "You showed everyone tonight just how versatile you are. Classically trained — which, for those who don't know, is both a tremendous gift and a very specific set of chains. Classical training builds something extraordinary in a voice. But it also tends to make genre adaptation genuinely difficult. The foundation becomes the ceiling."
She looked at him directly.
"If I had watched that performance without knowing your background — I would never have guessed. Not for a second. The classical training wasn't audible in the way it usually announces itself. And yet I could see you using its very foundation — the breath support, the resonance, the control — and translating all of it into something completely, effortlessly pop." She sat back. "That is rare. That is genuinely, specifically rare. And it was so refreshing to witness."
"Thank you," Mikko said, bowing with a dramatic sweep that was entirely, authentically him. "I aim to please." The cheeky smirk arrived exactly on schedule.
"That you did," Robin said, not without warmth. "That. You. Did."
"Lemon and Fahad."
She turned a page. Found her notes. Looked up at the two of them with the expression of someone who had been sitting on this specific observation and was pleased to finally deliver it.
"You two held that entire performance together." She said it simply, without qualification. "High notes are spectacular. Belting is thrilling. Everyone responds to the peak. But those deep, gritty, resonant bass notes you two were sitting in?" She pressed a hand briefly to her sternum. "I felt those. Physically. You gave the whole performance its weight. Its meat." She leaned forward slightly, animated now. "Thick, juicy, oh so—"
She stopped herself.
Looked out at the room.
"And before ANY of you go there — get your minds out of the gutter. Every last one of you nasties."
The laughter came in a wave. Guilty, delighted, completely caught.
"Going back," Robin continued, unbothered, "both of your contributions were essential — and never more so than tonight, singing completely acapella. You gave the harmonies depth. You made the whole thing complete. Without that foundation, the higher voices have nothing to build on. You were the ground that everything else stood on." She looked at them steadily. "I commend you both. Genuinely."
"Thank you," Lemon and Fahad said, bowing together in the same moment.
And in the brief downward arc of that bow, they glanced at each other — just for a second, just between them — and exchanged a smile. Small and warm and entirely their own.
The historians noted it, as historians do.
****
"Now. Taylor, Taylor, Taylor..."
Robin said his name three times with the particular energy of someone who had something specific to deliver and was going to take their time getting there.
"This is the cleanest I have ever heard you sing," she said. "Spring water clean. Not flashy. Not grand. Just — clean. Pure, consistent, unwavering." She flipped a page. "You held that melody down for the entirety of that performance. And your adlibs, your vocal ornaments, the harmonies you wove in — they made everything tighter. Whole-er. More complete." She nodded. "I commend you for that."
Taylor's smile was bright and wide and genuinely moved —
"Although," Robin added, with the timing of someone who had been waiting for exactly this moment, "I still think Swift is mid."
Taylor gasped.
Not a small gasp. Not a subtle, polite intake of breath. A full, dramatic, extra with a capital E gasp — the kind that required the whole body, the hand coming up, the eyes going wide, the complete theatrical package delivered at full volume.
"Thank you for the wonderful feedback," Taylor said, recovering with dignity, "but that jab at the end was a low blow." He collected himself. "It's okay, Miss Robin. Someone as excellent as yourself is allowed to be wrong sometimes."
Dora's eyes went wide. Hand on chest. "Ooooop—" her gaze darting between them like someone watching a very polite tennis match that was one serve away from becoming something more interesting.
"It's okay to be delulu, Taylor," Robin said, with the serene patience of someone who had been in this industry long enough to have opinions and intended to keep them. "We accept you as you are."
Taylor opened his mouth — the full defense of Swifties worldwide visibly forming —
Cat stepped in. Smoothly. Graciously. With the practiced timing of someone who had been doing this her whole life and knew exactly when to intervene before a friendly banter became a nationally broadcasted debate about whether Taylor Swift was mid.
"Moving on," Cat said pleasantly.
Robin turned to Liam.
Something shifted in her expression — the professional warmth becoming something more direct, more personal, more like a decision being made out loud.
"Liam." She let his name sit for a moment. "You better prepare yourself. Because I will be training that voice like there is no tomorrow." The passion in her voice was not performed — it was the genuine fire of someone who had just heard something they recognized and intended to do something about it. "A voice like yours doesn't just deserve training. It begs for it. It demands it. And I — being the excellent vocal coach that I am—" the smallest smile, "—take on that responsibility with complete and total honor. I promise you this: whether you leave this island as a debut member or not, your voice will be something the world hears. I will make certain of it."
Liam stood there.
The stunning, specific silence of someone receiving something they hadn't known they were waiting for. He bowed — deep, genuine, the words not available right now but the feeling entirely present.
"And last — but absolutely, definitively, not least."
Robin's eyes found Zen.
"Zen." Soft. Direct. "Do you know how special you are?"
Zen typed. Passed the phone to Mikko with the easy, unhurried naturalness of something that had long since stopped being a system and simply become the way things worked between them.
Mikko read.
"Mama, Papa, and Yenny have always told me I'm special." A beat. "And I believe them."
The smile that came to Mikko's face was the involuntary kind. The kind that arrives before you decide to have it.
In the audience, Yen didn't hesitate for a single second.
"Damn right you are," he said, loudly and without apology. "You are the most special person in the entire universe, Z."
"The way he calls you Yenny," Jeremiah said beside him, hand briefly over his heart, "that is genuinely the most adorable thing."
@Hyouka_Icecream: Zen, I know your mama and papa are watching somewhere and they are SO proud of you right now 😭😭😭😭
@1ndeciph3rable: Why is Zen so unbearably adorable. I want to put him in my pocket and keep him safe from the world.
@Corn⭐: Why is Zen kinda...
↳ @FF_on_bio: Girlie pop. Chile. Unless you want a knock on your front door, I'd finish that sentence very carefully.
↳ @Svn0one: Zen is 20 though. Which means legal. Which means—
↳ @somally_Aaa: y'all are NASTY and I love every single one of you.
↳ @LegalEagleKween: FBI FREEZE. Nobody move. Hands where I can see them.
****
"They are absolutely right," Robin said, and the certainty in her voice left no room for anything else. "And not only are you special — you are a gift that keeps on giving."
She leaned forward slightly, the way she did when something mattered enough to make sure it landed properly.
"You gave away the part that would have made you the undeniable highlight of that entire performance. The bridge opening — the way you sang it, the momentum you built with it — it gave me chills, Zen. Genuine, physical chills." She shook her head slowly. "And you used all of that. Every bit of that momentum. Not for yourself — but to build a runway for Liam to fly from." A pause. "You walked so he could soar. And you did it without hesitation, without announcement, without needing anyone to know."
"That voice of yours," she continued, "smooth and buttery and carrying this quality of — I don't know how else to describe it — innocence. It's powerful and soft at the same time, which is extraordinarily rare. Most voices choose one. Yours holds both."
She flipped her notebook closed. A deliberate gesture.
"And the fact that you were the one who arranged this entire performance — every harmony, every part, every intentional choice — Zen, you are one special star."
"I also want to say," Robin added, and her voice took on the specific warmth of a vocal coach speaking about something she felt deeply, "thank you. For keeping this song exactly as it was meant to be. There were adlibs — beautiful ones, placed exactly where they belonged. Vocal ornaments, scattered with intention and purpose. Nothing gratuitous. Nothing for show." Her eyes moved across all six of them. "You all know how I feel about vibratos appearing where they have no business being. About vocal gymnastics performed purely for performance rather than for the song." A beat. "In this performance — everything was intentional. Everything served the music. And that is why I loved it as much as I did."
She closed her notebook.
Stood up.
"I'm going to say it plainly." Robin looked at the six of them one final time, steady and certain. "This is my favourite performance of the night. Bar none. Full stop."
And she clapped.
Robin, standing, clapping — which was its own kind of statement from a woman who did not give those out lightly.
The room followed immediately. Everyone on their feet. The applause rolling through the space like something that had been building all night and had finally found its complete release.
And in the audience, Yen — Zen's number one, his twin, his voice in every room he'd ever been too afraid to speak in — clapped the hardest and the loudest of anyone. Both hands. Everything he had. His brother's name on his face even without being spoken.
The six of them stood on that stage and let it land.
Just for a moment. Just long enough to absorb it fully — the sound, the warmth, the weight of what they'd built together out of a missing music track and a song they'd learned acapella in a rehearsal room on a Thursday afternoon.
Then they straightened up. Big smiles, all six of them. Waved at the camera — warm and genuine and completely present.
And headed backstage.
And with that — the very first evaluation of the second half of LEAVEN came to a close.
Not quietly. Not without incident. Not without artificial rain, a human barbell, Rick Astley appearing twice uninvited, a Pinky Up catastrophe that shall not be named without a moment of silence, industrial fans attempting to relocate several trainees to the golden brick road, and six young men sitting on the floor of a stage with nothing but their voices and a metronome and delivering something that made the best vocal coach in the industry stand up and call it her favourite of the night.
Just another evaluation at LEAVEN.
Perfectly, chaotically, completely itself.