Chad
This was gold. A new Jiro song. Unreleased. And he was going to be the first person to post it. His followers were going to lose their minds.
He was here, seeing this first. That meant something.
...A love story better than the ones ever told...
It's just a prank, babe, why the serious face
Something flickered. Small. Dismissible.
While he's with HR in a forbidden place
A cubicle sin for a moment of heat—
Chad's hand twitched.
Wait.
That… that sounded like—
No.
Tons of people made mistakes at work. Tons of people had—
The song shifted. Built.
And then:
Put on the nose, paint on the grin
You traded a queen for a cubicle sin
Splat goes the cake — look at the mess
Chad looked down.
The architectural shoulders.
The ruffled shirt.
The gold chain that had seemed bold an hour ago.
Now you’re the clown—go on, confess
Oh. Oh fuck.
Honk the horn, strike up the band
You let the sweetness slip right through your hand
You called it a prank? You called it a game
Now the whole office is whispering your name
Someone near Chad laughed.
Not at him. Not yet.
At the song.
At the clever lyrics.
At the spectacle of it.
At whatever this was supposed to be.
You're looking for a laugh? Well, look at the mirror
The image of a sad clown has never been clearer
The makeup is running, the audience is gone
And 'Cupcake' is the one who's moving on
No. That wasn’t about him. It couldn’t be.
That was just a type. A joke. A character.
His face went hot, then cold. Settled into brittle alertness, his body recalibrating for damage control.
This was about him.
Jiro.
Jiro, the man Chad had worshipped for years, the man whose concerts he'd driven six hours to see, whose lyrics he'd quoted in texts to girls he was trying to impress—was singing about him.
Chad's hands were shaking.
His phone was still recording.
Muscle memory—habit. Document everything.
Even your own public execution, apparently.
But also, he was here. Seeing this first. Before it went viral.
The music softened.
Jiro's voice dropped to almost a whisper.
It was just a prank... right?
Squeak-squeak.
SPLAT!
The room erupted. Applause. Laughter. Phones everywhere, capturing, recording, uploading in real time.
Chad stood frozen. His phone was still recording. The timer read 3:47.
If he posted first, he controlled the narrative.
That was marketing.