From h.senju: Hi Madara! Thank you for you amazing job with our photos. We are endlessly grateful. Actually, we are manager-less at the moment. Ours got caught for something tax-related so we had to kick him out. We are managing ourselves at the moment. Or, Tobirama manages us. But we would love to have you as our photographer for our next show! The problem is, it's tonight... I know, I'm sorry! We haven't got the hang of self-management yet! But would you, please? Kind regards, Hashirama 

I jumped up and down and screeched a little. They wanted me! Again! And I could give them their Christmas presents!

From me: Hello, Mr Senju. Thank you so much, I would love to come to work with you this evening. And I'm sorry to hear about your manager. Just give me a time and place. Kind regards, Madara

This venue was much more like it. A black theatre with a standing area in front of the stage and balconies one story above. The stage was much bigger, and there was even a rhomb-shaped podium for Damien's drums. The stage design was excellent.

"Madara! Our fifth member!"

It was John, and he hugged me. I hugged him back and smiled. Damien did something between a high-five and a hand-shake that looked very gangster when he did it, but probably very dumb when I did it back. Hashirama hugged me without a word, a comfortable hoodie-hug. Tobirama stood back looking very uncomfortable, and I immediately guessed he wasn't the person to hug you to say hi. I just waved a little, and he smiled gratefully.

"Umm, I have something for you", I said to the room and blushed. "Sit down in a circle around me!" I demanded before I lost courage, and they obeyed. They looked so cute I thought I would die. I took my backpack and opened it. "I was out shopping, and I just saw a few little things that made me think of you." It was a white lie, but a very small one, so I hoped it was okay and didn't get me on Santa's naughty list. "So now, I'll... ehh, give them to you!" I hadn't thought this through properly, I realised.

But their faces lit up so much as they received their gifts, I didn't feel awkward at all. I felt happy. At home. John was already deciding which of his noodles he would eat after the concert and trying to hold the packages away from Hashirama's reach, who had already changed his nose stud to the one I had gotten him. Damien was praising the quality of his drumsticks. And Tobirama...

Actually, he wasn't smiling at all. He was staring on the notebook and pen, completely in awe. 

As we stood up to get ready, Tobirama suddenly pulled me in for a bone-crushing hug.

"Thank you", he whispered in a way that made me realise I had gotten him something really, really meaningful. 

I reached up on my tip-toes and kissed him on the cheek; I just couldn't help myself, he was so cute.

"You're so very welcome."

They played better tonight than last time I had seen them. I think it was the venue; it made the crowd go wild, and that, in turn, made the band go even wilder. At one point, Tobirama even took centre stage, going down on his knees, fingering his bass in a very suggestive way that forced me to leave the set to go to the bathrooms to wash my face to calm the fuck down before I could go out again and continue to work.

When they finished, I heard Hashirama look out on the crowd and whisper something to a member of security. Once he left to go backstage, the member of security went to a group of girls who had stood in the front and helped them over the fence to follow backstage.

It made my heart sink. I had grown even fonder of him this concert, my camera matching his energy splendidly. I liked him. He just seemed so... hard to get.

Not if you're a pretty girl.

I pushed the thought away. I had always identified as male. But sometime, I could become jealous of girls who got straight men I wanted.  

I was turning to leave when I heard someone calling my name. 

"Madara, my man!" It was Damien. "Come backstage!"

It was an order, not an invitation, and I followed. 

Hashirama was already sitting on a lush couch with the group of girls, looking incredibly comfortable as they flirted wildly with him. He seemed completely oblivious of my presence, and who could blame him? 

"Do you want Fanta?"

"Thank you", I smiled as I took the Fanta from Damien's hand. It was icy cold and refreshing. "Where is Tobirama?"

"Further back", Damien said and then winked. "Go see to him."

I went further back in the area, that was dark and murky and dirty and heavenly, to another group of couches where Tobirama sat, alone but not lonely. I was happy to see he was writing in the notebook I gave him. It looked a bit comical, seeing his palm was bigger than the notebook was, and he was writing in it with such intensity, I thought he would burn holes through the pages.

"I bet you could get girls just as easily as your brother."

He didn't jerk. If it was because he had noticed me coming or because he had nerves of steel, I didn't know. I didn't care. There was only one reason a gay man would say something like that and I knew it. And I knew that he knew it.

"I'm not interested in girls", he said.

As I thought.

"How about men?"

He turned to me.

"Are you kidding me? Can you see me go up to a security guard, point to a man in the crowd and ask him to bring that man to me? Do I really look the type?"

His words were quite harsh, but he said them mildly. 

"Well, based on how you played that bass, I would have guessed you could do anything."

Tobirama blushed as he realised the exact sequence I was referring to. The seconds during which he had basically fucked the bass.

"Don't mention it", he murmured. "It hasn't happened before and it won't happen again.

"Shame", I said, with a voice far more confident than I felt. "I had to leave for the bathroom."

Tobirama raised his pierced eyebrow. I didn't know he could do that. 

"To do what?"

"None of your business", I said cockily.

"Seeing I caused it with my bass-playing, I would say it is very much within the range of my business."

"What are you writing?" I asked, changing subject on purpose, stretching my neck to see the notebook, which he instinctively hid. 

"None of your business", he murmured. 

"Seeing I gifted you the notebook and the pen, I would say it is very much within the range of my business", I said.

"Touché", he said. Then, he sighed. "I write all of our song lyrics", he said. "I have always just written them down in my phone when I feel inspired, but now I have this."

I felt my lips part. Their lyrics were amazing. Poetic, obscure without losing meaning. Like Red Hot Chili Peppers if any of their lyrics would have made sense, which they never did. 

"You're the genius behind the lyrics?" I asked.

Tobirama looked down.

"I'm not a genius", he murmured.

"And now, you felt inspired?" 

He nodded. 

"Yes."

"What inspired you?"

He looked up at me, and his colourless gaze was so intense, it burned my soul the way Tobirama's new pen had burned his new notebook.

"You. You inspire me. When you work."

I couldn't speak.