Extended Recess Finds Love at the Waffle House
Title: Extended Recess Finds Love at the Waffle House
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Jin, Kame, Yamapi/Kitagawa Keiko, Shirota Yu (very mild implied Jin/Kame but not the focus)
Summary: Extended Recess is on tour in the Northwest when Pi meets a new love.
Notes/Warnings: This is set in the Extended Recess universe created by katmillia and you can find all the installments on her writing journal: argle_fraster. So this story probably makes little sense unless you've been reading that, sorry! Set at some point in her timeline around "Extended Recess Plays at an Old Folks' Home."
Tap. Tap tap tap. Tap taptaptap tap. Tap
Jin rolled over, grumbling in annoyance. The light from Kame’s laptop was making the whole back of the RV glow, and it was keeping him from achieving maximum sleep efficiency. He was just about to berate Kame for keeping him awake, only to discover that Kame was in his usual place, contorted like some circus performer at his side.
“The hell?” Jin wondered, blinking a few times to just make out Pi’s silhouette on the other side of the computer.
The laptop shut. “I…” Pi started, “I…I’m sorry.”
“What are you doing?” Jin hissed.
“N-nothing,” Pi sputtered, setting the laptop down and pulling his blanket over his head. “Mmfhfhmm!”
Suspicious, Jin thought. But as soon as he started thinking about Pi leading some secret double life as a spy for the Russians, he fell asleep again.
--
Kame frowned at the laptop screen. Jin leaned over, resting his chin on Kame’s shoulder.
“Something wrong?” he asked, seeing that for like, the twelfth time that day, Kame was checking his bank balance online.
Kame twitched. “You’re creepy.”
“You like it.”
Kame ignored him, talking to himself in his grumbly Kame way. “Since when do I have an account with Match.com? And since when am I paying for a premium subscription?”
Shirota and Pi came back from their BK run, opening the RV door. “Whoppers are here,” Shirota announced. “Oh, and a Whopper Jr for Kame, who apparently can’t handle all the meaty goodness of the original.”
“Piss off,” Kame complained, snatching the bag away. “Maybe I don’t want my heart to explode before I’m 30. And who’s been using my laptop?”
Jin watched as Pi looked away shyly, slinking off to sit in the cab with his bag full of onion rings. He debated saying something before Shirota dropped the bomb anyway.
“Pi’s trying to score,” Shirota said. “He’s on there every night, leeching the free Wi-fi signal from the Quality Inn across the street. I bet he’s talking to a dude.”
“Shut up!” Pi cried, mouth full of onion rings. “You don’t even know!”
“I bet it’s a dude named Jerry. He lives in a trailer in Utah, and he’s really into videotaping you, him, and his goat named Bob.”
“Shirota, I swear!” Pi screeched, readying an onion ring for battle.
“He’ll say, ‘hey Tomo cutie, why don’t you tape me and Bob…hell, why don’t you just leave it on the tripod and join us…’”
Jin wasn’t used to seeing Pi get so worked up. “She doesn’t live in a trailer! And she’s not a guy! And she doesn’t own a goat…that I’m aware of!”
Kame slammed the laptop lid down. “Okay, okay. Wait. So you’re using my computer and my credit card to try and score chicks?”
Pi turned his death glare off, and Jin was surprised to see how miserable he looked. His best friend was obviously suffering from lack of regular sex…or even a lack of the occasional booty call. They’d been touring across Montana and North Dakota the past few weeks - pickings had definitely been slim. But of course Jin hadn’t noticed Pi’s suffering. He’d been a little busy. He was…well, he was kind of spoken for now, wasn’t he? Sure, he was happier in his personal life than ever before, but he was a real shitty friend.
“I was going to pay you back, Kame, I swear,” Pi said. “I just…well, you saved all your Mastercard details on your Amazon account so I just…”
Kame unwrapped his burger, sniffing at it in disgust. “You could have asked. But since you didn’t and you went behind my back, you can’t use my computer any more.”
“Kame, come on, dude,” Jin protested, seeing Pi go full on deer in the headlights at the thought of being cut off from his Match.com.
Pi sniffed. “But we’re supposed to…supposed to…”
“What, have some kind of expensive video chat that I also have to pay for?” Kame snitted. “I have to change all my passwords now…”
Jin stood, his fries sliding off his lap and onto the floor. “Guys, don’t fight. Look, Pi. Did you really meet some chick on there? Those sites are kind of weird.”
“Says the guy who Googles himself to see if people are writing pornographic fan fiction about him and is depressed when there’s nothing,” Shirota muttered.
Jin ignored Shirota. You never really made it until people started writing terrible stories about you. Jin knew how the world worked. “Well? Pi?”
“I was waiting for her to email me back. She’s in Idaho, and since we’ve got that show in Pocatello next week, I asked if she wanted to meet.” Pi looked pleadingly at Kame. “Please? Can’t I just see if she responded? Please, Kame?”
“Be smart, Kamenashi,” Shirota said. “He wants to use your computer so he can meet a guy who probably hasn’t showered in a month.”
“Keiko showers every damn day!” Pi shouted, finally retaliating with the remainder of his lunch. Jin couldn’t help but join in, grabbing his discarded fries from the floor. To be fair, he really just enjoyed food fights. But if Pi was willingly putting food somewhere other than in his mouth, he had to be pretty serious about this girl.
Finally, the RV was a mess, and Kame was cradling his laptop in his arms. “Fine. Fine. But just…get her real email address or her phone number and cancel the subscription?”
Pi’s mood did a 180, and Jin couldn’t help but smile at the grateful look on his friend’s face. “Kame, I love you.”
Kame wrinkled his nose and held out his computer. “Don’t get any grease on it.”
--
“Thank you, Peccadillo!” Jin screamed into the microphone as Shirota hit the cymbals one last time.
“Pocatello,” Kame shouted into his own mike.
“Thank you, Pokemon!”
Jin wiggled his hips in joy as he departed the stage. Another successful show in the middle of nowhere done. Maybe once they paid their dues Meisa would actually book them in places where the audience collectively had more teeth than Jin had in his own mouth.
He launched himself at Pi, clinging to his friend like a monkey. “Toooomoooohiiiiisaaaaa!”
“Get off me.”
Jin clung all the more. “Tonight’s the night, huh? Right? Right?”
Since Jin had been pretty focused on his own life and the life of a certain perpetually grouchy someone, he hadn’t paid Pi much attention. He had to make up for being so self-involved. Pi had a girl, and Jin wanted to know everything about her. He’d be a bad friend if he didn’t care. He didn’t want to be Shirota, after all.
“You’re making me more nervous,” Pi mumbled, face turning bright red as they started hauling equipment off the stage.
“Did you buy her flowers? Champagne? Oh oh, wait.” He grabbed his wallet out of his back pocket. “I so have a coupon in here for buy one, get one free on Trojan Magnums…”
Pi was even more mortified. “Jin…”
He dug through his special coupon section, lamenting the expiration date on the Old Country Buffet free dessert one. “I had it, just hold on.”
“Jin, I don’t need any condoms…”
Jin looked up suddenly. “Dude. I’m sure she’s great, but I don’t want you to get oozing warts downtown. Or to knock her up and then discover oozing warts downtown.”
Pi shook him. “I’m trying to say that…Keiko and I…we’re…not ready for that.”
Jin scratched his head. “For safe sex?”
“For ANY sex,” Pi insisted, grabbing Jin’s wallet and shoving it back in his pocket. “Really. We’re taking it slow.”
Jin was rather confused. Who was this person standing in front of him and what happened to his best friend forever? Where was Tomohisa Yamashita and who the hell was this pod person? “Taking it…slow?”
Pi just blushed again, nearly tripping over some wires. “We haven’t even met, right? I wouldn’t want to rush her into anything, you know? She’s special. Really special.”
Jin could feel tears in his eyes. Or maybe it was all the leftover smoke in the dingy club. But was his friend growing up? Was he ready for his first serious relationship? He sniffled a bit as he took apart his mike stand. “You are so cute right now, Pi.”
“Oh god, are you crying?”
Jin waved his hand, feeling the tears start to rush down his face. “No, man, of course not…”
“Jin, why are you the one crying? What the hell?”
He dropped the stand and threw himself at Pi once more, listening to his friend’s protests. It only made him squeeze tighter. “I love you, Pi. I am so happy for you and Coco.”
“Keiko. And get off me, or I’m going to be late.”
“Oh, he’s worried about being punctual! Oh my god!”
“Jin, get off of me, seriously.”
Kame came by, rolling his eyes. “You’re like a mom sending her daughter off to kindergarten.”
Jin was kind of glad the club had emptied. “I’m so proud of him! I’m so proud!” He wrapped an arm around Kame instead. “He’s not even going to bang her on the first date! The Pi I used to know would never be a gentleman like that!”
Pi sighed. “I’m going to head off early, okay?”
Kame nodded, fidgeting in Jin’s embrace. “Of course. Good luck.”
As soon as Pi was out of sight, Jin poked Kame in the side. “We’re totally following him.”
“Jin…no, come on…”
--
Half an hour later, the RV was parked in the lot of the Pocatello Waffle House where Pi’s new lady was apparently waitressing the overnight shift. Shirota had declined to participate, lest he “steal Pi’s girlfriend with his own charms.” Sometimes Jin wondered why they kept Shirota in the band at all. He was kind of a giant douche all around.
Kame turned off the engine and sighed. “This is stalking. Can’t he just meet her and have his little moment? This is none of our business.”
“But what if she’s ugly like a troll?” Jin protested. “What if she thinks he’s ugly like a troll? What if she breaks his heart? What if she doesn’t like curly fries? You know how sensitive he is about that!”
Kame stared at him. “You need to let Pi make his own decisions, okay? You’re really creepy when you get hyper-involved in our lives.”
Jin frowned, staring across the dimly lit parking lot. He could see Pi sitting anxiously at a table within, fiddling with his straw wrapper, then his place setting, and then he started building a fort out of jelly packages. “Kame, he’s making a jelly fort.”
“Okay.”
“He only makes a jelly fort when he’s nervous! He turned his whole bedroom into a jelly fort before the SAT’s. He told me that.”
“He’s meeting a girl from the internet,” Kame reminded him. “I think he’s behaving pretty normally, all things considered.”
Jin crossed his arms. “I want to comfort him.”
Kame locked the RV doors. “Do you even listen to yourself talk?”
They sat in silence, watching Pi topple his jelly fort only to start building it again. This time with packets of Equal as the moat around his fort, and coffee stirrers as flag poles. Where was this damn waitress? Why was she making Pi wait so long? Jin ended up having to sit on his hands to keep from launching himself from the vehicle to go ask a manager where Coco was.
“Wait! There!” Kame said, pointing. Jin watched Pi hurriedly take the jelly fort apart as a pretty brunette in a Waffle House uniform approached the table.
Jin squinted. “Maybe it’s just the real waitress for that table. Maybe she’s making him order something.”
“She’s sitting down.”
“Oh my god, Kame, she’s sitting down.”
“Jin, calm down.”
“Kazu, Kazu, what if Pi tells her about that mole on his hip? He always pulls that card on a first date when it’s so obviously fourth date material…”
Kame patted his shoulder. “Jin, relax.”
He plastered his face against the window. “What if he tells her a bad joke? What if he does his legendary, but wildly misunderstood impression of Michelle from Full House?”
“He does an impression of Michelle from Full House?” Kame repeated.
Jin was ready to claw at the glass. “Pi, don’t fuck up! Please, Pi!”
“I’m still stuck on the Full House thing.”
Finally, Jin decided to try lip reading, quieting down as Pi and his new lady friend continued chatting. Pi looked pretty happy. He smiled, looked down, looked up, looked down again. The girl was rather pretty, too, Jin had to admit. This girl really was worth the drive to Idaho.
Eventually, Kame leaned against his shoulder for a nap, but Jin could only concentrate on watching Pi and his girl. It was important BFF business. He was kind of shocked when two hours and two helpings of Belgian waffles had come and gone, and Pi was getting up from the table.
Kame was already starting to complain about something in his sleep as the waitress followed Pi to the cash register. Jin watched her scribble down something, and Pi smiled. A phone number! It was like watching a TV show. And not a stupid TV show like something MTV would broadcast, Jin thought bitterly.
Without a tongue kiss or even a hug or a handshake, Pi emerged from the Waffle House on Cloud 9. Jin shrugged Kame awake. “It’s over, get up.”
“Wha…you got it, dude...”
Jin waited until Pi was heading for the bus stop before he blared the RV’s horn. Pi jumped about five feet in the air, give or take, turning around to give Jin the finger before opening the door and getting inside.
“What the hell? Were you out here the whole time?”
“No,” Jin said as Kame turned the key in the ignition and grumbled “Yes.”
Pi just launched himself onto the mattress in the back. “She’s perfect, you guys.”
Jin twisted in his seat to look back at his friend. “Really? Really, really? She did look pretty hot from here. But she’s not perfect in a Yoko Ono breaking up the band kind of way, is she?”
Pi scowled. “I just met her, you know.”
“I like to plan in advance for these types of instances! Between Shirota being a dick and you finding a girl and Kame going to Red Lobster with that Kimura dude…”
Kame gunned the accelerator, launching Jin into the dashboard.
“Oops, my foot slipped,” Kame deadpanned.
“It wasn’t Red Lobster? Was it Outback?”
Jin face planted this time. “Oops. My foot slipped again.”
Pi was kicking his legs in the air like a teenage girl as Kame drove back to their Motel 6 accommodations. “She’s amazing. And she’s going to Idaho State and studying business. And she likes reading and Sailor Moon. Oh, and she likes guys in bands. Bass players especially. Oh god, Jin, are you crying again?”
As the RV drove off into the night, Jin rubbed his eyes and shook his head. “I’m not crying!”
And he wasn’t, really. Even though he was happy that his best friend was happy. Dashboards just hurt.
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Jin, Kame, Yamapi/Kitagawa Keiko, Shirota Yu (very mild implied Jin/Kame but not the focus)
Summary: Extended Recess is on tour in the Northwest when Pi meets a new love.
Notes/Warnings: This is set in the Extended Recess universe created by katmillia and you can find all the installments on her writing journal: argle_fraster. So this story probably makes little sense unless you've been reading that, sorry! Set at some point in her timeline around "Extended Recess Plays at an Old Folks' Home."
Tap. Tap tap tap. Tap taptaptap tap. Tap
Jin rolled over, grumbling in annoyance. The light from Kame’s laptop was making the whole back of the RV glow, and it was keeping him from achieving maximum sleep efficiency. He was just about to berate Kame for keeping him awake, only to discover that Kame was in his usual place, contorted like some circus performer at his side.
“The hell?” Jin wondered, blinking a few times to just make out Pi’s silhouette on the other side of the computer.
The laptop shut. “I…” Pi started, “I…I’m sorry.”
“What are you doing?” Jin hissed.
“N-nothing,” Pi sputtered, setting the laptop down and pulling his blanket over his head. “Mmfhfhmm!”
Suspicious, Jin thought. But as soon as he started thinking about Pi leading some secret double life as a spy for the Russians, he fell asleep again.
--
Kame frowned at the laptop screen. Jin leaned over, resting his chin on Kame’s shoulder.
“Something wrong?” he asked, seeing that for like, the twelfth time that day, Kame was checking his bank balance online.
Kame twitched. “You’re creepy.”
“You like it.”
Kame ignored him, talking to himself in his grumbly Kame way. “Since when do I have an account with Match.com? And since when am I paying for a premium subscription?”
Shirota and Pi came back from their BK run, opening the RV door. “Whoppers are here,” Shirota announced. “Oh, and a Whopper Jr for Kame, who apparently can’t handle all the meaty goodness of the original.”
“Piss off,” Kame complained, snatching the bag away. “Maybe I don’t want my heart to explode before I’m 30. And who’s been using my laptop?”
Jin watched as Pi looked away shyly, slinking off to sit in the cab with his bag full of onion rings. He debated saying something before Shirota dropped the bomb anyway.
“Pi’s trying to score,” Shirota said. “He’s on there every night, leeching the free Wi-fi signal from the Quality Inn across the street. I bet he’s talking to a dude.”
“Shut up!” Pi cried, mouth full of onion rings. “You don’t even know!”
“I bet it’s a dude named Jerry. He lives in a trailer in Utah, and he’s really into videotaping you, him, and his goat named Bob.”
“Shirota, I swear!” Pi screeched, readying an onion ring for battle.
“He’ll say, ‘hey Tomo cutie, why don’t you tape me and Bob…hell, why don’t you just leave it on the tripod and join us…’”
Jin wasn’t used to seeing Pi get so worked up. “She doesn’t live in a trailer! And she’s not a guy! And she doesn’t own a goat…that I’m aware of!”
Kame slammed the laptop lid down. “Okay, okay. Wait. So you’re using my computer and my credit card to try and score chicks?”
Pi turned his death glare off, and Jin was surprised to see how miserable he looked. His best friend was obviously suffering from lack of regular sex…or even a lack of the occasional booty call. They’d been touring across Montana and North Dakota the past few weeks - pickings had definitely been slim. But of course Jin hadn’t noticed Pi’s suffering. He’d been a little busy. He was…well, he was kind of spoken for now, wasn’t he? Sure, he was happier in his personal life than ever before, but he was a real shitty friend.
“I was going to pay you back, Kame, I swear,” Pi said. “I just…well, you saved all your Mastercard details on your Amazon account so I just…”
Kame unwrapped his burger, sniffing at it in disgust. “You could have asked. But since you didn’t and you went behind my back, you can’t use my computer any more.”
“Kame, come on, dude,” Jin protested, seeing Pi go full on deer in the headlights at the thought of being cut off from his Match.com.
Pi sniffed. “But we’re supposed to…supposed to…”
“What, have some kind of expensive video chat that I also have to pay for?” Kame snitted. “I have to change all my passwords now…”
Jin stood, his fries sliding off his lap and onto the floor. “Guys, don’t fight. Look, Pi. Did you really meet some chick on there? Those sites are kind of weird.”
“Says the guy who Googles himself to see if people are writing pornographic fan fiction about him and is depressed when there’s nothing,” Shirota muttered.
Jin ignored Shirota. You never really made it until people started writing terrible stories about you. Jin knew how the world worked. “Well? Pi?”
“I was waiting for her to email me back. She’s in Idaho, and since we’ve got that show in Pocatello next week, I asked if she wanted to meet.” Pi looked pleadingly at Kame. “Please? Can’t I just see if she responded? Please, Kame?”
“Be smart, Kamenashi,” Shirota said. “He wants to use your computer so he can meet a guy who probably hasn’t showered in a month.”
“Keiko showers every damn day!” Pi shouted, finally retaliating with the remainder of his lunch. Jin couldn’t help but join in, grabbing his discarded fries from the floor. To be fair, he really just enjoyed food fights. But if Pi was willingly putting food somewhere other than in his mouth, he had to be pretty serious about this girl.
Finally, the RV was a mess, and Kame was cradling his laptop in his arms. “Fine. Fine. But just…get her real email address or her phone number and cancel the subscription?”
Pi’s mood did a 180, and Jin couldn’t help but smile at the grateful look on his friend’s face. “Kame, I love you.”
Kame wrinkled his nose and held out his computer. “Don’t get any grease on it.”
--
“Thank you, Peccadillo!” Jin screamed into the microphone as Shirota hit the cymbals one last time.
“Pocatello,” Kame shouted into his own mike.
“Thank you, Pokemon!”
Jin wiggled his hips in joy as he departed the stage. Another successful show in the middle of nowhere done. Maybe once they paid their dues Meisa would actually book them in places where the audience collectively had more teeth than Jin had in his own mouth.
He launched himself at Pi, clinging to his friend like a monkey. “Toooomoooohiiiiisaaaaa!”
“Get off me.”
Jin clung all the more. “Tonight’s the night, huh? Right? Right?”
Since Jin had been pretty focused on his own life and the life of a certain perpetually grouchy someone, he hadn’t paid Pi much attention. He had to make up for being so self-involved. Pi had a girl, and Jin wanted to know everything about her. He’d be a bad friend if he didn’t care. He didn’t want to be Shirota, after all.
“You’re making me more nervous,” Pi mumbled, face turning bright red as they started hauling equipment off the stage.
“Did you buy her flowers? Champagne? Oh oh, wait.” He grabbed his wallet out of his back pocket. “I so have a coupon in here for buy one, get one free on Trojan Magnums…”
Pi was even more mortified. “Jin…”
He dug through his special coupon section, lamenting the expiration date on the Old Country Buffet free dessert one. “I had it, just hold on.”
“Jin, I don’t need any condoms…”
Jin looked up suddenly. “Dude. I’m sure she’s great, but I don’t want you to get oozing warts downtown. Or to knock her up and then discover oozing warts downtown.”
Pi shook him. “I’m trying to say that…Keiko and I…we’re…not ready for that.”
Jin scratched his head. “For safe sex?”
“For ANY sex,” Pi insisted, grabbing Jin’s wallet and shoving it back in his pocket. “Really. We’re taking it slow.”
Jin was rather confused. Who was this person standing in front of him and what happened to his best friend forever? Where was Tomohisa Yamashita and who the hell was this pod person? “Taking it…slow?”
Pi just blushed again, nearly tripping over some wires. “We haven’t even met, right? I wouldn’t want to rush her into anything, you know? She’s special. Really special.”
Jin could feel tears in his eyes. Or maybe it was all the leftover smoke in the dingy club. But was his friend growing up? Was he ready for his first serious relationship? He sniffled a bit as he took apart his mike stand. “You are so cute right now, Pi.”
“Oh god, are you crying?”
Jin waved his hand, feeling the tears start to rush down his face. “No, man, of course not…”
“Jin, why are you the one crying? What the hell?”
He dropped the stand and threw himself at Pi once more, listening to his friend’s protests. It only made him squeeze tighter. “I love you, Pi. I am so happy for you and Coco.”
“Keiko. And get off me, or I’m going to be late.”
“Oh, he’s worried about being punctual! Oh my god!”
“Jin, get off of me, seriously.”
Kame came by, rolling his eyes. “You’re like a mom sending her daughter off to kindergarten.”
Jin was kind of glad the club had emptied. “I’m so proud of him! I’m so proud!” He wrapped an arm around Kame instead. “He’s not even going to bang her on the first date! The Pi I used to know would never be a gentleman like that!”
Pi sighed. “I’m going to head off early, okay?”
Kame nodded, fidgeting in Jin’s embrace. “Of course. Good luck.”
As soon as Pi was out of sight, Jin poked Kame in the side. “We’re totally following him.”
“Jin…no, come on…”
--
Half an hour later, the RV was parked in the lot of the Pocatello Waffle House where Pi’s new lady was apparently waitressing the overnight shift. Shirota had declined to participate, lest he “steal Pi’s girlfriend with his own charms.” Sometimes Jin wondered why they kept Shirota in the band at all. He was kind of a giant douche all around.
Kame turned off the engine and sighed. “This is stalking. Can’t he just meet her and have his little moment? This is none of our business.”
“But what if she’s ugly like a troll?” Jin protested. “What if she thinks he’s ugly like a troll? What if she breaks his heart? What if she doesn’t like curly fries? You know how sensitive he is about that!”
Kame stared at him. “You need to let Pi make his own decisions, okay? You’re really creepy when you get hyper-involved in our lives.”
Jin frowned, staring across the dimly lit parking lot. He could see Pi sitting anxiously at a table within, fiddling with his straw wrapper, then his place setting, and then he started building a fort out of jelly packages. “Kame, he’s making a jelly fort.”
“Okay.”
“He only makes a jelly fort when he’s nervous! He turned his whole bedroom into a jelly fort before the SAT’s. He told me that.”
“He’s meeting a girl from the internet,” Kame reminded him. “I think he’s behaving pretty normally, all things considered.”
Jin crossed his arms. “I want to comfort him.”
Kame locked the RV doors. “Do you even listen to yourself talk?”
They sat in silence, watching Pi topple his jelly fort only to start building it again. This time with packets of Equal as the moat around his fort, and coffee stirrers as flag poles. Where was this damn waitress? Why was she making Pi wait so long? Jin ended up having to sit on his hands to keep from launching himself from the vehicle to go ask a manager where Coco was.
“Wait! There!” Kame said, pointing. Jin watched Pi hurriedly take the jelly fort apart as a pretty brunette in a Waffle House uniform approached the table.
Jin squinted. “Maybe it’s just the real waitress for that table. Maybe she’s making him order something.”
“She’s sitting down.”
“Oh my god, Kame, she’s sitting down.”
“Jin, calm down.”
“Kazu, Kazu, what if Pi tells her about that mole on his hip? He always pulls that card on a first date when it’s so obviously fourth date material…”
Kame patted his shoulder. “Jin, relax.”
He plastered his face against the window. “What if he tells her a bad joke? What if he does his legendary, but wildly misunderstood impression of Michelle from Full House?”
“He does an impression of Michelle from Full House?” Kame repeated.
Jin was ready to claw at the glass. “Pi, don’t fuck up! Please, Pi!”
“I’m still stuck on the Full House thing.”
Finally, Jin decided to try lip reading, quieting down as Pi and his new lady friend continued chatting. Pi looked pretty happy. He smiled, looked down, looked up, looked down again. The girl was rather pretty, too, Jin had to admit. This girl really was worth the drive to Idaho.
Eventually, Kame leaned against his shoulder for a nap, but Jin could only concentrate on watching Pi and his girl. It was important BFF business. He was kind of shocked when two hours and two helpings of Belgian waffles had come and gone, and Pi was getting up from the table.
Kame was already starting to complain about something in his sleep as the waitress followed Pi to the cash register. Jin watched her scribble down something, and Pi smiled. A phone number! It was like watching a TV show. And not a stupid TV show like something MTV would broadcast, Jin thought bitterly.
Without a tongue kiss or even a hug or a handshake, Pi emerged from the Waffle House on Cloud 9. Jin shrugged Kame awake. “It’s over, get up.”
“Wha…you got it, dude...”
Jin waited until Pi was heading for the bus stop before he blared the RV’s horn. Pi jumped about five feet in the air, give or take, turning around to give Jin the finger before opening the door and getting inside.
“What the hell? Were you out here the whole time?”
“No,” Jin said as Kame turned the key in the ignition and grumbled “Yes.”
Pi just launched himself onto the mattress in the back. “She’s perfect, you guys.”
Jin twisted in his seat to look back at his friend. “Really? Really, really? She did look pretty hot from here. But she’s not perfect in a Yoko Ono breaking up the band kind of way, is she?”
Pi scowled. “I just met her, you know.”
“I like to plan in advance for these types of instances! Between Shirota being a dick and you finding a girl and Kame going to Red Lobster with that Kimura dude…”
Kame gunned the accelerator, launching Jin into the dashboard.
“Oops, my foot slipped,” Kame deadpanned.
“It wasn’t Red Lobster? Was it Outback?”
Jin face planted this time. “Oops. My foot slipped again.”
Pi was kicking his legs in the air like a teenage girl as Kame drove back to their Motel 6 accommodations. “She’s amazing. And she’s going to Idaho State and studying business. And she likes reading and Sailor Moon. Oh, and she likes guys in bands. Bass players especially. Oh god, Jin, are you crying again?”
As the RV drove off into the night, Jin rubbed his eyes and shook his head. “I’m not crying!”
And he wasn’t, really. Even though he was happy that his best friend was happy. Dashboards just hurt.