Jamie tried to separate me not to publish it. Look how good I mind to directions.Summary: Kame's backstory pre-MTV Road Rules, plus some non-backstory plot. What has the world come to?A week before Kame was signed with the Baltimore Orioles, he found Extended Recess' MySpace page with a few samples of their music while attempting to cut down a screening to Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round". He'd nearly clicked right off the page again until the medicine had automatically started playing- and alas for both Kame and his neighbors, his laptop had been set high from rocking out to his last.fm playlist a day earlier.It wasn't bad. In fact, it was jolly good, and variety of catchy, and the leading singer's voice had a prize to it that Kame wasn't really sure how to describe. He sat and listened to the whole song, an upbeat tune entitled "What's Your Credit Card Number?", and clicked on the following song in the playlist called "Whistles", that ended up being a rather haunting ballad.He listened again. And so again. And by the fourth play through, he constitute himself staring at his computer screen wondering where Extended Recess had been his entirely life; the lyrics weren't the greatest things he'd ever stumbled across, but the leading singer's voice echoed in his mind even after he'd pressed the finish button.There wasn't much about the stripe on the MySpace music page, but clicking around revealed that the singer's name was Jin Akanishi, and the guitarist was named Tomohisa Yamashita.Kame boot-legged the songs from the page onto his iPod, and fell asleep with Jin's voice in his ears."Are you nervous?" Castillo asked, one paw on Kame's shoulder as they both looked out to the pitcher's mound and the players warming up round the bases. The warm up pen had seemed a lot smaller than usual as Kame had been pitching to Santos, and his spirit was in his chest, worming its way up to his throat and cut off his air. "It's ok to be nervous.""I'm not nervous," Kame replied, and the lie didn't even sound convincing to his own ears.Castillo's fingers tightened around his left shoulder. "It's your major league debut. You'll likely be so anxious you won't remember a one thing about today.""Thanks for the voting of confidence," Kame mumbled. He spun the baseball around in his hand, fingertips finding the laces in a habitual, nervous rhythm."Nothin' against you," Castillo laughed, and patted Kame's back one final time before heading back to the pirogue to unite the remainder of the team. Kame kept rolling the baseball back and off across his palm, pantomiming the actions for the pitches he knew by heart- two-seam fastball, sinker, sliding change-up.As he craned his mind up to look at the fans filling the stands, clad in hats and jerseys and sweatshirts all emblazoned with the Orioles' logo, he sang "Whistles" in his mind, trying to summon Jin's voice again to calm his nerves.He thought perhaps it worked.When the coach pulled him later the 6th inning, he'd just given by two runs and had gotten five strike-outs against the Devil Rays, and he'd never felt so much adrenaline screaming through his origin in his life.Extended Recess came out with a new song on their MySpace page called "Girl, You're But My Type" a few weeks later, and Kame listened to it on repeat before facing, for the start time, the top of the Yankees batting order and the ballclub that was on their way to taking over 100 games by the end of the season. He thought maybe it was because of Jin's clear-as-day high notes held over strummy guitar rifts that he was capable to gaze down Derek Jeter and his .312 batting average as he threw the low pitch.Jim Miller was with him when he stopped in one of the electronic stores in the Sea-Tac Airport, jittery and pleased still from his pitching the dark before. Kame had only wanted to get a new yoke of ear-buds for his iPod after accidentally tugging the cable from the left bud free in his sleep. What he found instead was Extended Recess' debut single, professional and shiny, wrapped in clear plastic and sitting on the check-out counter.He did a double take, and then grabbed for it, devouring everything on the breast and the track listing on the rear while feeling like all the air had left the shop."Someone you know?" Jim asked, peering over Kame's shoulder."Sort of," Kame breathed, and so felt infinitely stupid saying so; of form he didn't recognize them, but he wasn't really sure how to explain how a band he'd discovered on the net had managed to think so often to him in so poor a time.He bought the single, even though he didn't get a way to hear to it until he got back to his one-room apartment just outside Baltimore, on the decidedly dodgy end of town. But he open the packaging as the airplane was taking off to see through the insert booklet.There were pictures of the band- the first pictures he'd ever seen of them, save the caricatures done in anime-style on the MySpace page.The drummer had on hipster glasses and was wheeling his eyes, and Yamashita was balancing a pencil between his curled upper lip and his nose, eyebrows tilted up towards his hairline. And Jin was peering out at the camera through dark lashes and tendrils of wavy, sweeping hair, mouth open just adequate for his knife to peep out from the tree of his lips.Kame stared at the pictures for a long time, thinking that he'd never before seen anyone quite so impossibly, easily beautiful.He ended up sharing the CD's contents with Adam Loewen and Lance Cormier, who laughed at the lyrics but view the medicine was very pretty good, and felt like he'd helped Extended Recess out when both men eventually purchased CD's for themselves.After a few months, staff from Oriole Park asked him if he cherished to exchange his image song for home games, and Kame didn't even hesitate before telling them he had a strain he cherished to use, he only had to cut it onto a white disc for them.The start time he stepped onto the pitcher's mound after hearing his name called over the loudspeaker, booming through Camden Yards and attended by "How'd You Get So Fly?", he thought he'd finally found exactly what he'd been searching for.He got Javier Vazquez to move out looking, too."I can't, I can't," he said, again and again and again, even as Cormier was dragging him within the bar. They'd gotten lucky- too lucky, too stupidly lucky- and Extended Recess was performing a dingy, backwater bar in Detroit the same weekend they had a three-game series with the Tigers. Kame wasn't even on the agenda to go in the games, but the pitching coach sent him on as middle relief in case Bradford ended up getting pulled in the back again.But the idea of seeing Extended Recess- and Jin- in person, after everything- it felt like too much. He was afraid of how it could ruin everything, how it would exchange his perception of the group that had meant so often to him.Cormier just dragged him in to sit at the table with Moore and Scott, and Kame had no alternative but to sit low and tell a pledge from the slightly haggard-looking waitress."You'd be stupid to lead this up," Cormier told him ended the sparkle of his beer once the drinks arrived, and Kame tried to follow up with excuses as to why his eye was beating as quickly as it was in expectation of the show.He was afraid they wouldn't be as good. He was afraid they wouldn't be as meaningful, as resonant, he was afraid Jin's voice wouldn't expect the quality it did in the recordings. But as Extended Recess stepped out on present and Kame got a look at Jin in the figure for the 1st time, he knew he'd been an idiot to always think they would be anything less than amazing. Jin brushed loose hair from his eyes and smiled at the crowd, and it was at that moment, just as the lights dimmed and Kame was staring out at the lop-sided, too bright grin, that he knew."Dude," Scott laughed, "I swear he's got stars in his eyes."Jin was perfect. And his voice sounded even better than it did in the songs; it carried more and left goose bumps up and down Kame's arms that evening the sleeves of his shirt didn't entirely cover.At the end of the set, Kame wasn't sure what to feel. He hadn't even touched his drink, and the circle was milling with the bar patrons, signing a few autographs and laughing aloud at the counter.There were men on his shoulders, propelling him forwards. "So go talk to him.""What?" Kame sputtered, flailing for the board and missing, fingers slipping off the side. "No, no, I can't, I can't-""Oh, shove it," Moore said, and pushed him again. "Just go talk to him!"Kame took a deep breath and a shaky step forward. Jin was sitting on one of the stools with his feet propped up on the wood, elbows on the bar and a brilliant smile on his face. Kame could see the lustre of effort on his front from the lights. He tried to breathe, but constitute it impossible, and somehow just kept walking, one base in presence of the other, until he was just a hand span away.He should have opened his mouthpiece to say something. But he was still scrambling for what he could say, what he should say, and a leggy blonde with a strappy top and sparkly heels slid up next to Jin, snaking one arm round his waist.Jin's mega-watt smile was alone for her.Kame turned, mirthless laugh wrenching its way out of his throat of its own accord, and made his way backwards to their table."Let's simply go," he said, and it didn't even help when Cormier gave him a kindly look at a light pat on the back on the way out.The day Extended Recess broke up was the day Kame tore his rotator cuff in the heart of the 3rd inning, pitching a two-seam fastball to Manny Ramirez; it hadn't even ended up being a strike, but Kame didn't know this until after he'd been helped off the pitching mound, uniform covered in soil from when he'd fallen to the earth due to the blinding, indescribable pain.His shoulder was hurting a bit- sort of a distant, aching throb- but it was just because his brain was laying on it, bent at an embarrassing angle across the top of the table. It wasn't entirely comfortable, but it beat getting up; things were kind of spinning around him, objects blurry and tripled.There was a stab at his arm, and so another when he didn't respond."G'way," he mumbled into the curve of his elbow."Oh my god, how often experience you had?" Pi asked. Kame wondered why he simply didn't consider the empty glasses on the table, but possibly one of the bartenders had taken them away. He didn't care enough to prove his head.He hoped Pi would go out to allow him only in his misery, but his luck wasn't about that good. The early man pulled out one of the empty chairs and sat down, and Kame could see the whine of the stool's legs against the sticky tiles."You want a better organization of dealings with things," Pi informed him."D'want one," Kame said.Pi sighed and drummed his fingers on the table. There was a baseball game on the TV behind the bar counter- Mariners and White Sox. Kame didn't need to watch."You used to play, right?" Pi asked, and when Kame finally raised his mind because he didn't recognize what the early man was referring to, Pi gestured towards the screen. "Pitcher?""Yeah," Kame swallowed thickly. He ran a hand through his hair. "Something similar that.""Did you love it?"Kame wished he would go away, wished he would stop talking about things that hurt; he squeezed his eyes shut, willing the way to stop spinning. "More than nearly anything else.""More than Jin?" Pi asked.That was when the room abruptly stopped. It happened so degraded that Kame would have fallen over had he not already been seated- as it was, he just kind of cracked open one eye to gaze at Pi in a variety of superfluity and growing horror, but Pi didn't feel like he thinking it was weird. His face was neutral, fingertips pressed together in thought."I-" Kame started."Here's the thing," Pi said, and flicked at a bit of soil on the table's surface. "If you are aiming to look for him, you're going to be waiting forever."Kame swallowed again, but his lip had gone very dry. "He- he doesn't. swing that way."Pi didn't do right away, and Kame couldn't tell if the suspension was right or bad. "Does he?" he continued."It's Jin," Pi laughed. "I don't suppose he's really concerned in details like that.""Oh," Kame said, the air coming out in a rush. He stared at the denim of his jeans, opening and ending his fists. "Why are you telling me this?""Because," was all Pi said, which was maddeningly unhelpful.Kame didn't yet know where Jin was- he'd gone off with a grouping of people he'd called "adoring fans", and that was near the time Kame had started with the Jackass and Coke's. But it had been hours, probably, and Jin still wasn't back, and Kame wasn't stupid. He was a lot of things- naive, blind- but not stupid.Pi's fingers touched his arm briefly, the ghost light. "I mean maybe you've had plenty to drink.""Yeah," Kame sighed.Getting to his feet and out the door was difficult, but at least Pi stuck out his arm to be an ground and stabilizing point. Kame felt like an idiot as they made their way outside; it was getting warmer, but only just, and the last bits of winter were still lingering on the air, especially after the sun had gone down.He had but just sat low in one of the RV's horrible uncomfortable seats when the door banged open again. Jin was in the doorway, breathing difficult and looking terrified.He was also missing his shirt."Oh, what the hell?" Pi moaned. "Averting my eyes!""We get to get out of here!" Jin exclaimed. He tried to get in the RV so quick he tripped and face-planted on the floor. This didn't even look to dissuade him, since he immediately scrambled back to his feet, grappling for the pull-out table. "Oh my god, seriously, we receive to leave! Move! Now!""What the dirt are you leaving on about?" Pi asked.Jin launched himself at Kame, eyes full and half-crazed. "Kame, Kame, we receive to leave. Can you drive?""No!" Pi said, just as Kame replied with, "I don't believe so.""Okay!" Jin cried, and then appeared to be thought hard. His fingers were still wrapped around Kame's arm, and they were very warm. Kame looked down at them as Jin bit his lower lip. "Okay, Pi can get the RV. We take to get out. This crazy girl tried to buy my wallet.""Is this why you are sans shirt?" Pi asked, but he stood up and started for the door, presumably to seduce his way to the cabin."Er, sort of," Jin said, and so shook his mind to improve with, "Well, not really. Look, it's a long story, just DRIVE."He sat down as Pi climbed into the driver's seat and started up the engine, and he still hadn't let go of Kame's arm. Kame's world was kind of muddled and hazy, but filled with more color than he remembered there being ten minutes ago- Jin brought with him an air of consolation and ease, of exhilaration and butterflies."Jin," he murmured."It was so scary," Jin moaned, and his fingers clenched tighter. "She was so crazy! Don't always let me do that again. You should have talked me out of it.""There WAS no talking you out of it," Pi called from the cabin, and rapped on the lowered window to raise his point."Okay," Kame said, because the Tar was catching up with him, and he couldn't conceive of anything else to say. Jin just sighed again- overdramatically- and slumped bonelessly against the support of the seat, shoulder hitting Kame's a bit. "Worst. Night. Ever."Kame was thinking perhaps Pi wasn't the best driver, and he was stressful to flesh out if Pi had ever even DRIVEN the RV before and was coming up blank, but then Jin made a wail in the game of his throat and shifted to one side so his mind was resting on Kame's shoulder. Suddenly, Kame couldn't concentrate on anything else."Jin," he tried again, to no avail. The row were getting stuck behind his teeth, on his tongue."Next time, you take to do with me," Jin said. "You'll protect me, right?"Always, Kame wanted to say. Instead, he only reached over to pat Jin's hands wrapped round his arm. "Only if you're nice."Jin caught his fingers when Kame made to pull his hand back. He interlaced them with his own, and didn't let go. "Promise?""Promise," Kame whispered.From the cabin, Pi grinned up at the rear-view mirror, and made a mental note to give Marie some additional cash for displaying such amazing acting skills- and likewise to get Jin's shirt back, because he was reasonably certain it had been one of Jin's favorites (you don't deal with a man's Ninja Turtles shirt).
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