After the last show the whole cast went out to eat something. Some kind of a farewell party for kids. After all Justin went back to his home in Memphis Tennessee and I went to L.A. . For my future I already knew I wanted to make something with music and L.A. was the best place to start with. At least that was my thought at this time. But as most of the artists know, it isn't that easy to enter this business. You need a record deal and for that you need a producer, who is convinced of you. To convince a producer of yourself, you have to send a few of them Demo-tapes and to produce those you need money. I didn't want to ask my parents to help me out. They already did enough for me. So I started working in little side jobs. Just for example I worked on Roadworks and carried building materials around like bricks and cement sacks. Not the most glorious time of my life, but also not the worst. After a half year I had to admit that moving to L.A. wasn't my best idea. The money I earned sufficed only just to scrape by. So I decided to acquit myself of a promise and visit Justin.

In fact he was happier to hear from me than I thought. But instead of visiting a basketball game I had to go with him to Nashville, where he wanted to record a song with me. I actually didn't ask about it, I just said yes to make my brother happy. I never would've thought that a few months later I would receive a call from him.

But before I skip too much, let's take a look at the two weeks we recorded together in a little studio of Justin's vocal coach. Wherefore a vocal coach need an own studio. As I mentioned before, I didn't ask questions, I just enjoyed spending time with J. Even though his mom controlled every step Justin took. I didn't say anything, because I knew how much Justin loved his mom (and still does) and somehow I could understand that a mom wouldn't let go of her 13 year old son in an unfamiliar environment. But still I couldn't understand, why his mom followed him even to the bathroom and back. Until today I don't want to know, if she followed him into the cabin, too, or if he was allowed to pee by himself...

Alternating one of us stood in the cabin and the other listened to the record. We just covered two songs in the end, but for own written songs two weeks were just not enough time. And for those who didn't know, I'm a perfectionist. I can't produce a mediocre song and inscribe to the next one. I work on this one song, until it seems to be perfect to me. Sure, at this time I didn't have so much experience to produce a song in a quality I do today, but a good work attitude is the first step to become a good musician.

Justin was sad again, when I left to go back to Bowie Maryland, but he had to go back to school and even though I tried to hide it in front of him, it left a mark on me that my plan didn't work out even a little bit. I dreamed of being a singer and no one even noticed me there. Sure most would say 'That's life. Don't keep crying!', but remember I was seventeen at this time.

My family intercepted me and still today I am grateful for that. Nothing better than my mom could ever happen to me. She always supported me and is still today kind of my guardian angel.

I came from my work as a cashier back in Bowie, when I received a call. I was surprised when I read the name 'Justin' on my phone. Surely I immediately picked up the phone and greeted my brother with a simple "Hey, how is it doing?"

"JC, just say yes!" an excited Justin yelled into the phone, so I had to keep the phone as far away from my ear as I could. With my other hand I rubbed my ear with a hurt facial expression, before I carefully put the phone back to my ear.

"Do you want me to become deaf?" I asked with an annoyed voice mixed with confusion.

A little lower, but still excited, Justin repeated his command.

"Say yes to what?" I asked even more confused than before.

"Just say it. Please, C. It's a matter of life and death!"

"I actually doubt that. So just tell me what it's about."

"LIFE AND DEATH!" Justin stressed out. I guess he tried to put me under pressure. It didn't really work, but I knew that he wouldn't stop begging me to do so, until I actually did. So I sighed, before I said "Yes" to something I had no idea of what it would be.

"Yes! C, you are the best!" The younger one celebrated on the other line.

"Justin! What are you talking about? Would you please explain your really confusing behavior?!"

Sheepishly Justin laughed, before he answered. "Sorry C, I was just afraid you could say no..."

"No to what?!" My voice wasn't aggressive, but more distracted of this whole situation.

"I got a call from Chris Kirkpatrick."

"Chris who?"

"This one guy, who also worked at the Universal Studios. He was at the studio diagonal right from ours. I don't think that you ever met him."

"Then why are you..."

"ANYWAYS." Justin interrupted me harshly to keep explaining that call to me. "He found a tape from us at the MMC and he asked me and also about you, if we want to join his band. Oh and I also showed him our Demo songs we recorded half year ago."

"A band?"

"Yeah C. That would be so cool. We could be together again. Not like this gay thing, but as friends. Wouldn't that be amazing?"

"Wait, wait, wait. What kind of a band? I mean even though I play some instruments I actually wanted to sing."

"That is the best part of it! We are going to form a boygroup."

"Seriously?" Shortly I kept my phone away from my ear and raised an eyebrow skeptically. I knew Justin couldn't see me in this moment, but somehow I had to let go of my confusion.

"Why not? We both can dance, we both can sing, we both surely have more talent than these Backstreet Boys dudes AND we both would rock the stage and maybe later on some fangirls, if you know what..."

"Ok Justin, I get it." I interrupted him. Normally I would be the last one, who'd do such a rude thing. I was most of the time polite until today, but I really didn't want to know anything about Justin's fantasies back then. As I mentioned often enough now, he was something like my younger brother. A kid I wanted to protect. It was hard for me to accept that he grew up. Especially later on, but I don't want to anticipate too much.

"So what do you say, JC?"

In the first moment I wanted to decline Justin's offer. A boygroup was never part of my plans. But on the other hand I thought about what I achieved alone. Nothing except for a little scar on my right arm from an accident at the Roadworks.

"JC? Hello? Are you still there? Earth to JC, come in please."

"What?" As I thought about my coming decision I totally forgot the time and that I let Justin wait for around three minutes without saying a word."

"What's your answer now?" Justin asked me again. I could hear the impatience in his voice.

"Yes."

"Is that the answer or..."

"That is the answer." I slightly laughed. Suddenly Justin started to scream joyfully on the other line and let me grin, after I kept the phone away from my ear once again.

Quickly I moved down to Orlando Florida, where I got introduced to our first manager Lou Pearlman, who already managed the Backstreet Boys. Also Chris explained to me his plan of the boygroup and why he is searching on his own now for other members. In contrast to the Backstreet Boys there was no casting for our members. We had to find them ourselves. The reason why we were searching for two other members was not because every boygroup had to have five members. Indeed we all had high voices and even though we all could sing pretty well, it didn't sound rounded yet. Some deeper voice was missing. At least a baritone. This was our thought, when we went on the search for the next member. We made some phone calls and searched in our contact lists, but it seemed to be impossible to find a fitting candidate.

So we decided to just go outside and try our luck. We went to the Universal Studios, where Chris already seemed to get to know Justin, even though I never heard of him before. As we walked around the area, we saw a singing guy in a gigantic Teddy bear costume performing. First we all had to laugh, because that guy looked pretty funny with his weird moves and his so called dancing. But then I started to listen to his voice and actually was pretty amazed by his deeper baritone voice. Immediately I was convinced that this guy would fit to our band. Sure, some might think now that we didn't know that guy and he might have said no. But seriously, what is better? Singing and dancing in a costume in summer, when it's about 300°F or to sing in an actual band, which would be financed by a rich guy, who seemed a little bit creepy to us. But later I tell you more about Lou.

When this guy finished his performance, we all went behind the stage. It wasn't actually legal, but it was all in good cause. When the Bear took of his head neither Chris nor I could believe, who we saw under it.

"Joey?" we both yelled out in confusion.

The guy turned to us and got a big smile on his face, when he recognized us. "Chris! JC! What are you guys doing here?"

"You know that Teddy-guy?" Justin asked with a raised eyebrow.

Joey laughed about Justin's comment. "Yeah, he was working at this Mouse Club thing and I did also have a job at Universal. We know us since about four years now?"

"And did meet us obviously insufficiently."

"Definitely." Joey agreed, while we hugged each other as a greeting. "Sorry, I sweat a little."

"I don't wonder, Teddy-guy." Chris teased him and grinned while he also got hugged. But this time Joey rubbed himself at Chris to get revenge for the little tease.

When Joey hold his hand towards Justin to shake it, this one just took two steps behind and said skeptically: "Sorry, I don't want to smell like you, bro."

Joey laughed. "It's fine. I'm Joey. Anyways, what are you guys doing here?"

"We want to ask you, if you'd like to join our boygroup." Chris asked directly and laughed out loud, when he saw Joey's surprised expression.

To our all surprise he directly agreed. Yes, I said I was sure that he would and I really was, but I didn't expect him to answer straightaway.

Now we were four members and even though Joeys voice was deeper than ours there was still something missing. We or at least I knew that we needed a bass voice. Surprisingly we found someone in a cast we arranged. His name was Jason and yes. I will explain this shortly, because there is still so much I have to tell and this isn't important for the main story anyways. So Jason wanted to be in our group, Justin's mom said we would sound in sync the way we sing, we found out that the last letters of our names revealed NSYNC and so we picked this as our band name. *NSYNC. We were so lucky and three days before we had our first live performance Jason decided that he didn't want to be in a boygroup. That Chuckle Head.

We were about to cancel the gig, until Justin's mom made some calls and their vocal coach suggested Lance Bass. Oh Lance. Lance became one of my best friends over the time, but Justin really didn't get along with him. The only reason why he accepted him to be in the band was that he had no other choice. Otherwise we would've cancelled the show and may've missed our chance.

In Justin's defense I have to say that Lance wasn't innocent all the time. But yeah, it was like Justin just couldn't smell him. I don't know. He always seemed sympathetic to me.

Our first performance we could practice for only a few hours and you can imagine that it just could be a failure, when we actually had decided for a dance performance. Especially because Lance isn't a dancer. I mean he could learn dance steps as he proofed in the future of *NSYNC, but he just had to practice a little more than Justin for example had to. So we decided to just stand and sing a covered, slow song. I have to admit that I don't remember it anymore, but can you blame me? We had so many performances and even though it was our first as a group, I just forgot. I actually ran out of excuses. Maybe I don't remember, because it was familiar for me to stand on the stage with four other guys. And especially Justin next to me had always felt right. I guess somehow this wasn't special to me.

But our first real big concert is still in my mind. More or less. But I don't want to describe every single performance. That would take too much time and I am pretty sure I would forget a few to mention.

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