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Whoever said that roadies are musicians that couldn’t make it and now had to survive on tuning guitars for more talented/luckier musicians or so desperate to be close to greatness that they drove tour buses around, had no minimum understanding of the internal working of roadies.
Genma, as a roadie for ten years and at this point well on his way to being a lifer, knew that roadies were people that enjoyed music (a much much lower percentage of them had had aspirations of being the one on stage) and had the personality for customer service but not necessary the temperantment needed for such a career move (or a fear of glass elevators like those in hotels, hatred of phones making call center work impossible, and susceptible to the kind of foot pain that came from retail, and too many allergies to work food service.) They were stronger and honestly more checked out of the desire for fame than people who had never even gotten close to a celebrity before. But like anyone in a customer service role, when it came to panic, oh boy did they panic. Especially in the world of roadies where friend, manager, CEO, client, lover, and enemy all blended together.
Which is why when Shizune’s voice rang through the walkie talkie stating that they were in a Code Pink, Genma knew he didn’t have to wait long before she appeared, accompanied by a gaggle of roadies behind her.
“Have you seen Tonton?” Shizune asked, out of breath, as she slammed open the curtains separating the front of the roadie bus to the back. She had been Tsunade’s personal assistant even before Tsunade had gotten a record deal and was what in the eyes of everyone, a bored socialite trying to have fun. Thankfully, Tsunade was anything but that and Shizune was the most diligent personal assistant that Genma had ever seen, even including his time back when he worked with
Minato, may he rest in peace. Not that Minato was dead or anything, he was just retired having chosen five years ago to abandon life on the road to become a stay at home dad and support his wife’s career as an MMA fighter.
Genma let his toothpick hang precariously low from his lips as he spoke. “If I had Tonton with me, don’t you think I would have let you known?”
Shizune pursed her lips. “Yes, but he is very fast and very good at hiding and everyone here should know by now, Tsunade cannot perform without at least 110 minutes of an uninterrupted cuddle session with Tonton! It’s her therapist’s suggestion.” Shizune was firm in following whatever Tsunade’s gambling addiction therapist told Tsunade to do. Genma still hadn’t figured out what cuddling a pet pig had to do with Tsunade’s need to place bets on who would end up with who at the end of a reality dating show season, fantasy sports leagues for sports she had never watched and had no idea how to play, and insisting that every tour needed to include a stop at cities known for their casinos.
“Speaking of cuddle sessions, anyone know the phone number and name of the groupie that Yagura and Mei were having a threesome with? She left behind her charger and I need to give it back to her.” Baki, the public relations guy, held the charger between the tips of his index finger and thumb, fearing that if he touched anymore of the bedazzled iPhone charger he would catch something.
“I’ll ask Yagura if you can tell the drummer of the opener that the DNA test did confirm he was the father and that his now confirmed baby mama is coming back with their son in tow.” Aoba adjusted his glasses and raised up the letter that most likely proclaimed baby mama’s financial compensation request and the rapid paternity test that the opening act’s drummer most likely requested because the paternity test that the baby mama had brought he believed to be tampered with.
“Yamashiro, pray tell, why are you helping the opening act with their personal life when you are the financial advisor for The Kages and not a nanny for oue opening act.” Ibiki demanded, because that was all he could do and was legally allowed to do as tour manger and granddaddy of all nightmares (although they are one and same in Genma’s eyes)
Despite the fact that the tour bus was becoming very cramped (why were all the roadies on his tour bus anyways? They had two tour buses just for the roadies and Genma knew for a fact that the other tour bus was bigger) everyone managed to make enough room for Ibiki to stand in the center of them while they were in a circle around him, making sure that he could see that they were present for this Code Pink impromptu meeting despite the fact that some of them had no business being here (Anko from Catering? Kumade from Hair and Makeup? If Kumade was here then who was putting the coconut oil onto A’s hair? This was going to set back the entire show if they also didn’t manage to locate Tonton. God, this was too much for Genma he just wanted to finishing tuning up the bass, pray nothing wrong happened during the show that he could be blamed for, have a canned beer, and then go to bed at the reasonable rockstar roadie time of five am)
“I was helping out their roadies. They’re all green as can be, you know that. They have no idea on how to deal with life on the road yet.” Aoba pushed his glasses up his nose. He was entering his financial advisor mode ready to demonstrate that he was one of the few roadies that could survive on the outside.
Ibiki stared him down making it clear that street smarts beat book smarts every time.
Aoba continued shooting himself in the foot. “I also have a degree in early childhood education you know. I put it on my resume?” his voice cracked under Ibiki’s stare.
“Who uses resumes in our world?” Genma grumbled to no one in particular. His arms were beginning to hurt from holding onto the bass but due to literally every single roadie on the tour being in this bus he couldn’t put it on the floor and risk someone stepping on it. Becoming unemployed in the middle of summer touring season was a special level of hell and there was no doubt in his mind that Gaara would fire him for getting one of his basses wrecked. Gaara still didn’t trust Genma to tune the basses made of literal gold that had belonged to his dad that he used at the first and last show of every tour. Which was fine with Genma, he had no desire to touch material goods that quite literally cost more than all of the money he had ever spent in his life. “I don’t even think I have ever written a resume.”
“I wrote a resume to join this band and when we worked for Minato.” Raidou, Genma’s bunkmate, ½ of his best friend group, and the band’s guitar tech said quietly.
“Yeah but you also went to community college and were a cashier at Thunder Burger. You have to have a resume to show that off.” Genma said. He watched Aoba get chewed out by Ibiki for a little longer before getting bored. Tonton was out there somewhere in this stadium and every second that passed was a second he was not in Tsunade’s arms which was a second more the show was delayed and a second more that he would have to be working. He loved his job but shit, even the coolest of jobs got boring after a while. He didn’t even know what city they were in and it didn’t even matter because it’s not like he was going to be able to enjoy it anyway.
“Morino!” Tsume, the production manager and the only person who could handle Ibiki without shitting their pants, entered the tour bus and managed to squeeze space for her even though Maen, the social media supervisor, was at the risk of being thrown out one of the four small square windows on the tour bus. “Stop scaring the roadies, we have a Code Pink on our hands and I want the kitchen manager to tell me where she gets the pork from ASAP. If I find out Tonton ran away because we were serving his brothers for breakfast I will rain hell onto you all.”
Anko gave a cheerful wave and the trite line of using only the best and organic local produce from the area they were traveling in. Tsume was more in your face than Morino but her bark was a lot worse than her bite. That didn’t mean her bark wasn’t a pain though as Genma discovered two tours ago when he had been too busy drinking beer and watching cop procedurals in the hotel room he was in with the keyboardist from the opening act to attend the final morning meeting of the tour. It didn’t even make sense. Tsume should have known better than anyone the siren call and struggles of being both a groupie and a roadie. Tsume, after all, had managed to become a teen mom by the one seventeen year old boy band member that actually lived the purity ring life that boy band executives forced them to pretend they lived. But no she dragged Genma by his bandana, literally dragged him with all the force of a production manager that had managed to outlive bands that she had once produced tours for, until she found Ebsiu, the drum tech who was committing a similar crime. Of course, since he was with a groupie and not the opening act he was given a much more lenient sentence than the earful and forced caring for Tonton’s bed that Genma was subject to.
Tsume and Morino split everyone up into groups, two or three and told them to cover certain areas. It was a pretty good split, everyone was told to cover the areas that they knew best, Raidou, Ebisu, and Genma got told to cover the backstage and stage areas where the equipment was kept and set up because no one knew the area better than them and to place close attention to any walkies coming in from Kotestu and Izumo in security who were going to be covering the ticket entrance. Genma had asked the actual legitimate question of who was going to be watching over Tsunade if her personal guards were searching for her pig but all he got was Shizune throwing one of her pens at him and saying that Tsunade was more than capable of looking after herself.
“Tonton, where are you~” Raidou sing-songed, jangling a pearl necklace in his hands. Tonton loved pearl necklaces (a sentence that caused Genma to snicker loud enough when he first heard it when meeting Tsunade that Minato had to apologize for him and tell Shizune that Genma was one of the finest roadies in the music scene despite his personality) and if a pearl necklace wasn’t going to get her to come out then nothing was.
“She’s going to come back eventually and between us, isn’t it Shizune’s fault that Totnon is lost? I mean if I had lost one of Gaara’s basses I wouldn’t be getting everyone involved. Hell, even the entourage is working. Hell, I saw Kankuro wandering around the meal area looking for Tonton.”
“Kankuro isn’t an entourage member. He’s a roadie, he’s Gaara’s personal assistant.” Ebisu said as he pulled opened another emergency exit door and prayed it wouldn’t set off an alarm. “You’re his bass tech, shouldn’t you know this?”
Genma shrugged. “Conversations between Gaara and me never last more than 3 sentences unless it’s a birthday or a holiday where he’ll tack on an extra sentence or two. All Gaara told me was Kankuro was his brother, that made him entourage in my eyes.” It worked out perfectly fine for Genma. Sure, he occasionally missed how boisterous it could be with Minato and his never ending collection of celebrity friends- novelists, actors, MMA fighters, models, the works- while finding a member of The Kages that had friends that wasn’t their family was more painful than pulling out teeth. But there was something to be said in their world where professional lines often became nonexistent after two weeks that Gaara and him could maintain that level of distance from one another.
Course, this was still the tour world so Gaara knew what was the exact type of condoms that Genma bought (ribbed) and Genma knew exactly how many caipirinhas it would take to make Gaara vomit and pass out (4)
Raidou laid down on the stage and hung his head over the stage to look down in case Tonton had managed to hide herself under the stage and survive. “Tonton, come out wherever you are.”
Genma was about to say that this is why Raidou had a resume when he spotted a flash of something pink with the distinct lustre of the finest Iwagakure pearls leaving the one emergency exit door that Ebisu had left open and leaving the backstage area to to the back of the stadium where the rest of the roadies were looking for Tonton.
Genma decided to follow the spot and discovered that it was Tonton, strutting around in her red dress and pearl necklace without a care in the world. Leave it to pet pigs to not understand that they were disrupting a multi million dollar tour and putting every single roadie without their livelihood for the summer or in the case of the groupies (who were roadies too even if the outside world was way too happy about being too ignorant to see it) without their hobby.
Tonton with more strength than Genma was expecting from the world’s pet pig was able to open the door with her snout and officially escape into the bigger backstage world that had plenty more roadies around but also had plenty of more places to hide.
“Tonton, I swear if you don’t slow down I will make you into bacon.” Genma gritted between his teeth as he closely avoid bashing his head into a ladder that one of the stage hands had left behind as Tonton easily ran through it with no problem. Tonton had yet to stop him which made his job infinitely easier because if Tonton saw him chasing after her then she was going to hightail it all the way back to Konoha.
Tonton made a sharp turn right and Genma ended up colliding with Matsuri, Gaara’s most favourite groupie, and making his walkie talkie and the plastic container of organic steel cut oats, the only kind of oats that Tonton would eat natch- fall onto the floor. Thankfully Matsuri’s container was plastic and the walkie talkies that the roadies were given were a special kind of indestructible. Other than the pain that came from the ear piece being pulled down from over behind Genma’s ear and a few oats spilled on the floor, they were both damage free.
“I’m so sorry Genma!” Matsuri bent down and scooped the oats back into the plastic container and handed Genma his walkie back.
Genma liked Matsuri, out of all the groupies- both those that worked the campaign circuit and the ones that were brought in when they were in a certain location- she was the one he spent the most time with and she was always working on getting Gaara and Genma to a certain extent better. She had bass lines memorized and helped Genma in rehearsals to spot any extra tuning that he needed and on the incredibly important first and final shows she would fill in for Genma and help Gaara tune his gold basses.
Basically, any sort of vacation Genma was able to get in the midst of touring season was owed to her and he would never forget it. He loved his job, he couldn’t survive in any other industry and no other job gave him the benefits and pay and lifestyle he desired, but there were times when he had to get out. Thankfully this tour was a campaign tour for The Kages’s latest album, In My Village, and had zero festival tours. Festival tours were hell and he shuddered at the thought of losing Tonton in the middle of a festival where there was too many bands, too many people, too many nooks and crannies for her to hide and since it wa sa festival, not enough fucks to give over a missing pet pig.
“Don’t worry about it. Tonton just ran by here and I was trying to chase her down without her seeing me. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”
Matsuri looked down the hallway that exited out into the elevator service room and the giant stairwell meant for people going to the underground parking, were way too smart to deal with the foot traffic for the elevators and regular stairs at the end of the show, and people that were afraid of elevators on principle. “Shouldn’t you have walkied someone?” There was no doubt that Tonton had been able to get down there and was running the risk of leaving the stadium area and as consequence the care and protection of the band.
He should have walkied someone. He could have walkied someone. The problem was Genma’s pride wouldn’t have allowed for the help and he wanted to see the look on Ibiki and Tsume’s faces when they found out he was able to locate Tonton all by himself without needing to follow the protocols that they had set up. Alas, as a result of his friendship with Ebisu and Raidou most likely, Genma was not lucky in that regards.
Genma pressed down on his walkie’s button. “Ebisu and Raidou come meet me in front of the women’s bathroom on the first right of the stage exit area.”
A reply from Ibiki arrived soon after. “Shiranui you better explain what the hell you’re doing right now.”
Matsuri tapped Genma on the shoulder and motioned to his walkie. Genma passed it over. “This is Matsuri. Genma is doing nothing wrong he justs wants to reconvene with Ebisu and Raidou about a few of the strategies for locating Tonton.”
“Thanks Matsuri.”
“Anytime.” She said before walking towards the other side of the route that Tonton had taken.
Ebsiu and Raidou arrived in record time. Genma nodded when he saw them. “OK boys, Tonton is heading to the outside world and we cannot let her escape.”
Raidou reached for his walkie-talkie. “Maruten can you-”
Genma quickly snatched it away. “We don’t need Maruten.”
“He’s our tour bus driver. If Tonton gets out, Maen and him are the only ones that could get her.” Raidou said. Maen was the other tour bus driver and while Genma was grateful for them, their careful driving skills, great taste in music, and remembering to pick up toothpicks for him, he wanted to solve this himself. A man, especially a man like Genma, had to have his pride. His ex girlfriend gave him a whole speech about it and his birth chart.
“How long have the three of us been together?”
Raidou opened his mouth and Ebisu placed a hand over it. “Fine, we’ll help you look for Tonton but if we’re not back for doors opening, you are going to have to find me a new job.” Ebisu said.
Genma snorted. “If by the time doors open we still don’t have Tonton, we won’t need to worry about jobs because Shizune and Ibiki will tag team kill us.”
The stairwell was cold, the air conditioning was on full force in the stadium (Ohnoki hated his age when he was dealing with people thinking that he was too old to be touring around but loved his age when it came time to demand communal goods fit his preferences) and the corners were full of dust, cobwebs, and shards of beer bottles.
Ebisu pulled out his cell phone. “I’m not getting any service.” He pushed down on his walkie talkie. “This is Ebisu speaking, I’m with Raidou and Genma. Everything is proceeding as planned.”
“Quit being a square and just find the damn pig!” Tsume barked back.
The three of them made it all the way to last level of the stairwell and Genma pushed open the door. What was in front of them wad the parking lot, right back to where they had started. Maen and Maruten were sitting on fold out chairs in front of their buses shooting the breeze.
“Did you two see Tonton around here?” Genma asked.
“If we did, we would have walkied everyone.” Maruten held up his walkie that was a bit wet as he also had two extra large milkshakes in his hands.
“We’re the last line of defence.” Maen said. “If Tonton makes it here, she has nowhere else to go.”
“You sure you two didn’t agree to be the last line of defence for the easy ride?” Genma raised his toothpick up. Maen and Maruten had a six pack of beer by their feet and one of their cell phones in a red Solo cup serving as a speaker blaring classic heavy metal. Both tour buses had their doors wide open, not that that tour buses ever kept their doors closed when the bus wasn’t in motion, and it was a cool and comfortable night with the sky clear and slowly beginning to darken with the promises of plenty of stars in the sky. Genma couldn’t blame them for taking advantage of it. Fuck it, he wanted to get his spciality liscense and join them in relaxing while everyone on the insided was running around like a maniac during showtime.
They chatted a bit about the ride to the stadium- Tokuma,the lightning engineer, putting himself in the line of fire- a lukewarm coffee mug to avoid in breaking on the floor in Maruten and Ebisu’s tour bus and everyone in Maen, Genma, and Raidou’s tour bus being awakened at four in the morning because of a racoon orgy that they discovered in the baggage area when Maen made a quick pit stop to pee.
As their chat was winding down, throughout it all there had been walkies of supposed sightings of Tonton and almost caught hers but it seemed like no one had been able to capture her and it seemed like this was going to be the last tour in The Kages history (or at least for this batch of roadies), when Genma as he was throwing away his current toothpick to replace another one, caught sight of a happy little coiled tail coming out of one of the various piles of garbage that Catering had set out.
Ebisu and Raidou, the fuckers, were still chatting with Maruten and Maen, who was now cracking open a beer for the three of them while Maruten had managed to get himself another extra large milkshake. That was fine with Genma, he would resolve this all by himself.
The problem was Tonton was by far the smartest living creature on the tour. She had taken to digging through the trash that she knew that catering would leave out before the main show would start. While she loved her organic steel cut oats, catering trash was a much better buffet with half eaten buttered toast, fruit that was fine for today but was not going to be fine by the time morning came around, and leftover cheesecake cookies that almost no one liked but catering still insisted on buying.
Tonton had clearly taken her fill based on the half eaten cheesecake cookies and semi peeled bananas. She had also caused quite the mess with regards to the trash as Genma discovered when he stepped into a wet pile of trash with both of his shoes. His shoes, his tour sneakers that were admittedly old and in desperate need of replacing, were completely soaked through. Genma trudged through the pile and could feel the liquid rising up past his shoes and socks and getting to his feet. Genma cringed as he felt his feet get wet and knew he would need to take a separate shower just to get the stench off of his feet.
Tonton, thankfully, was walking much slower no doubt because she wanted to nibble on whatever food she was able to bring with her. Genma had since discarded his shoes and he could feel himself whittling down his toothpick. It was a bad habit and his teeth were properly fucked for life but he couldn’t control it in times like these.
He was able to tip toe silently behind her and would have been going quicker if he wasn’t trying to avoid the hazardous materials that could be found on the ground near music stadiums. Pebbles and bite happy insects were the least of his problems. Of course, that didn’t mean that the super sharp rock that he had impaled his foot on was a pleasant sensation. “Ow, fuck man.” Genma said to himself as he lifted his leg up to rub his foot.
Tonton had chosen that moment to finish off her apple and drop the perfectly empty core to the ground, making eye contact with Genma. Genma had thought that looking into Tonton’s big brown eyes they would be able to reach a connection that surpassed species and she would leap into his arms where he would take her to Tsunade’s dressing room where Tsunade was no doubt drinking her second bottle of champagne and Shizune was fanning Tsunade and holding all phones and tablets away from her so she wouldn’t be tempted to sink money into gacha games and Genma would be crowned the saviour of the tour and he would be given a per diem raise. He would also be given the only vacation days on the tour and he could actually sight see for once in his damn career. He originally decided to become a roadie because he thought he loved travelling and that being a roadie would mean unlimited travel. He quickly discovered he was very wrong and that his hobby was actually sightseeing and taking pictures in front of tourist attractions and eating at the best of Yelp restaurants.
Tonton did not want to help Genma achieve any of his dreams and proceeded to go as fast as her chubby little legs could carry. Genma was 99% sure she wasn’t a micro pig but she wasn’t a piglet either. She was just Tonton, tiny and bougier than anyone save Tsuande and Shizune. And Genma wasn’t going to lie and say she wasn’t adorable. Adorable enough to make him forget that he was meant to be tracking her down so that he could keep on buying toothpicks and silk bandanas to sleep in and possibly even a raise so he could have silk banadas to wear while he worked.
Genma was smarter this time and his feet quickly got accustomed to the feeling of the ground and managed to track Tonton back into the stadium even if the sudden feeling of the sharp coolness of the linoleum floors on his feet after the (uncomfortable) warmth of the natural ground. Tonton was not as fast as she once was, probably as a result of pigging out -Genma laughed at his own unintended pun- on whatever scraps she could manage from the catering garbage.
“Tonton, we can work this out.” Genma used the same soft soothing voice he used back when he worked in a call center and whenever he realizes he forgot the date of some important event for one of his long term romantic partners (all two of them. The roadie life and Genma’s general disposition towards commitment was not the best mix) “Don’t you miss Tsunade?”
Tonton gave a little halt and Genma swore his heart clenched a little at how cute it was. “Good girl Tonton. Now come to Genma’s arms.” Genma crouched down and held his arms open for Tonton to jump into them.
Tonton squealed and went the other way. Genma still bending down with his arms open squat walked trying to get closer to Tonton but all he got was himself falling face forward and ass up onto the ground.
Right in front of the elevator electric closet where Ibiki was leaving with one of the electricians that worked in the stadium. “Shiranui,” Ibiki growled. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I was trying to get Tonton.” Genma said while he was still on the floor. He wanted to get up and could have easily get up but when Ibiki was giving you a talking to there was no regular form of thinking. All you knew was answer the questions he gave you and hope he didn’t tear you to shreds afterwards.
“And you were going to get Tonton by laying down on the floor with your ass up?” Ibiki walked in front of Genma and put his hand out. “Get up Shiranui.” Ibiki said, the tinge of military that was ingrained in most of his words disappearing. It was soft and understanding and Genma could understand why Ibiki’s “old lady” as he referred to her was willing to wait around for him even after military work and roadie work and why sometimes the baby roadies that never lasted more than two or three shows would call him dad. Genma always made fun of those roadies and would always make fun of them because they deserved it but Ibiki when he wanted to be could be the sort of guy that you would want as a dad.
Genma took Ibiki’s hand and got up from the floor. “Sorry about that boss. I swear I had Tonton right in my hands.”
Ibiki quickly dropped Genma’s hand. “Don’t care, she’s not in your hands now and we-”he glanced at the smartwatch on his wrist. “-have three minutes left to complete the locating of Tonton before it’s too late and we aren’t able to complete Tsunade’s pre show needs and we are all fired and I can’t take my old lady on an anniversary trip. Do you want to be the reason why my old lady and I don’t enjoy an anniversary trip?”
“Absolutely not sir.” Genma adjusted his toothpick. “I promise you I will not rest for these next three minutes until I locate that precious pink pearl necklace wearing pig.” Genma raised his hand like an overgrown boy scout.
Ibiki frowned even more than he currently did. “Cut the crap Shiranui and watch you mouth. You’re going to get into a fight you can’t win one day because of it.”
“Don’t worry about it boss, I’ve never been in a fight I can’t win. My toothpick gives me all the protection that I need.”
Ibiki fixed him with a stare that was all ‘I have survived being put through unspeakable acts of torture and giving out unspeakbale acts of torture and ran more errands for pop divas that had become primadonnas to the exent that even the most understanding of popheads wrote comments of support for him all while you were still cutting class in high school’
Genma ducked his down and switched his toothpick to the other side. “I’m going to go track down that pig.” Genma broke into a light jog and went in the same direction as Tonton. He was never one to back out from a fight as countless of his fellow roadies and friends could confirm from when they were out on the town together but like he, also enjoyed being alive.
Jogging after Tonton was not the best of ideas as the constant pressure on his feet made Genma realize he most likely cut his foot on something outside (please let it be a rock) and that every step was beginning to hurt more and more, if Gaara’s bass even thought about getting the slightest bit out of tune, Genma was liable to smash it. He needed an assistant tech that could bring the guitars over to him so he could tune them from the comfort of the couch. Although Tsume and Ibiki would have his head if they found him lounging on the couch even if he did have a good reason for it. Minato had always let the roadies stay on the couch if their job didn’t require them to be standing up during show time. Genma wondered if he should use Ebisu or Raidou as an excuse to sneak out to the medical booth.
The medical booth for the musicians, not for the public, the medical personnel for the audience was local to the are and rented out by the stadium for the purpose of the show and then the next day the staff would go back to their hospitals, medical schools, or travelling nurse clinics never to be seen again. Meanwhile the medical staff that was reserved for the musicians during the actual show and rehearsals were the people that Genma knew. They were the people that he drank with and the people that had seen him during the start of each tour as they helped him carry a bag full of nothing but toothpicks and were the same people that he hugged goodbye and depending on the distance made promises to see each other again during the non touring season.
That was what rock ‘n’ roll did to people. All of the medical staff were highly trained medical professionals with multiple college degrees and could work nice normal steady jobs that would command them respect but they chose to work only half of the year and get only half the paycheck because they wanted to be around rock ‘n’ roll as much as possible even if it came at the cost of things like a benefit package or attending any birthday parties for relatives born in the spring summer and autumn.
They also once stitched up the side of Genma’s mouth when he fell flat on the side of his face after getting into a bar fight with some dude over his girlfriend that Genma was smacking on. Genma ended up winning the fight because it wasn’t the first time some dude in a bar got in his feelings because Genma had to walk in to a bar and be ten times more good looking and charismatic than any other person in there. It was hard being Gnema but someone had to do it.
Still, that was the kind of relationship that Genma had managed to carve out for himself in the world that he chose to inhabit. It was needlessly simple, the kind of world that people wished was easier to find. The rules were laid out right at the start and if you ever got into a disagreement with someone well, your time together was only temporary and after that you didn’t have to see each other again for ten months- by which that time you would have been doing things that keep you busy in the real world and you forget all about the scratchy mic feedback in rehearsal that took hours or the fact that someone kept snoring right below you even though they had a perfectly function CPAP machine that was to prevent situations like that. Because by that point you had to spend autumn and winter with people that had no idea of how you worked and trying to stretch your bank balance.
It almost made chasing after a pig worth it. Almost.
Ibiki like any good manager was able to light a fire under Genma’s ass and give him a second wind to chase after Tonton. Genma ducked through ladders ignoring any comments of bad luck and looks from the other roadies - most who had long left the search for Tonton behind to do the jobs they were actually getting paid for.
Genma had finally managed to get through to Tonton only to discover that Tonton was in the area where the dressing rooms had been set up. The stadium was one of those old school ones on the interior that had been built during the age of bands before bands got too small and solo singers with a handful of a backing band came into light. The Kages were a dying breed and Genma as someone that had done the solo musician act had to admit that there was something magical about a band.
Tonton was much, much, much slower as she made her way down the hallways of dressing rooms and for that Genma was glad. The dressing room hallway was an area of every stadium that he knew well. After all, he and the other instrument technicians (and Genma would much rather stop chewing on toothpicks than use a pretentious term like that) spent the most amount of time there other than the groupies. Genma knew that Gaara liked the third door on the left but the reason why he chose that door was something that Genma respected the direct supervisor-direct report boundary too much to cross.
“Finally, geeze, Tonton, go slower next time. Not all of us are Olympic athletes.” Genma scooped up Tonton into his arms and scratched the top of her head. He didn’t exactly know if pigs liked that sort of cat/dog like affection but Tonton herself seemed to enjoy it as she nuzzled further and further into his arms. Genma looked up at the door where Tonton had decided to drag herself to.
There, on the door, was a sign stating the name of the musician. Most of the stadium doors didn't say the name of the person, even if they were very very big names. At most the door would have a generic word etched into it ‘RESTRICTED ACCESS’ or ‘AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY’ and some of them even chose to go with a classic ‘VIP’ but there were some artists that wanted to leave their mark on the door no matter how temporary it would be. Sometimes this took on the form of them required it to be on their dressing room door like they require a bowl of mixed nuts on the inside.
Other times this took on the form of having their personal assitant/best friend/ex-groupie but for some reason we have to pretend that she wasn’t a groupie and just a really close friend that loved the music which is a fucking groupie Shizune get it togther, that would carefully hang up a han d etched wooden sign decorated with slugs and leaves on the corners of the sign with ‘SENJU TSUNADE’ in the middle.
Genma took his toothpick from his mouth and held it between his hands much like one would hold a cigarette and stared straight into Tonton’s eyes with a sigh. “What did I ever do to you? Don’t I give you plenty of leftovers whenever I can? I’m one of the good ones Tonton. I deserve better than this.”
Tonton gave no answer. Genma placed his toothpick back between his lips. He raised his hand and knocked on the door.
Tsunade answered it, most likely because Shizune was still running around the stadium and tour bus and at this point she might have been on a rocket ship to space to get Tonton back. Genma once saw Shizune during non touring season and she was Genma was picking up a bottle of wine and some frozen soft pretzels to heat up for his hot date that night. And Genma for all of his jokes, did have a hot date.
A hot date with one of the roadies for Killer Bee, A’s brother and mega selling rapper, because even with Genma was not working and meant to be enjoying the winter, the only person he wanted to spend time holed up in the hot tub suite of a ski lodge was a girl who had a Spotify playlist that had eighty percent of the same songs as he did and a great ass.
“Genma?” Tsunade asked as she dabbed her fingers underneath her eyes the long red acrylics gracefully avoiding getting anywhere near her actual eyeball. “What are you doing here?”
Genma, despite trying his best at school and work, was not one for brown nosing of any kind. “I brought Tonton back.” Genma cupped both hands under Tonton’s ass and presented her to Tsunade.
Tsunade, not the type of lead singer that cries at the end of shows or when winning awards but does cry when she drinks her last good bottle of wine and when she finally manages to pay off another one of her credit cards off, noticeably did not cry at the return of Tonton.
Instead, she took Tonton into her hands, also cupping both hands underneath Tonton’s ass and stared into Tonton’s big brown eyes with her amber ones.
Genma had to look away and took his toothpick out of his hands and held it between his fingertips like the cigarettes he used to smoke. There was something too personal about the scene and Genma didn’t do too great with quiet displays of emotion and affection. He was into stadium rock because all of emotions and affections involved were the antithesis of quiet and hidden.
He fiddled with his toothpick as Tsuande cooed various baby noises at Tonton. “Genma, I have no idea how you managed to pull this off but thank you.” She paused for a second before pulling him into a hug while he tried to avoid being suffocated by her tits and also avoid the knowledge that he was right up against her tits. “Please be sure to speak to Aoba after this to ensure that your per diem gets upped for the remainder of this tour and any other tour that you work with The Kages.”
She let him go and Genma placed his toothpick back in his mouth. “It was my pleasure boss.”
He walked as Tsunade recorded a voice message to Shizune reminding her to remind Aoba to increase Genma’s per diem by two hundred dollars. He nodded to himself pleased by the increase in his salary as well as the fact that he did something good. Sure, it was still his job in a way but it wasn’t something that he had to do and lose his shoes over. He chose to do it because as he was inching thirty he was getting more xentimental and fuck it, these people were his family.
He climbed back into the tour bus where he had been only a few hours ago but felt like a lifetime, ready to take a piss and heat up a microwave burrito to burn the roof of his mouth eating while he waited for Gaara or Matsuri to call him in and have him give the basses one last pluck and hang out around backstage doing jack shit but texting Ebisu and Raidou while they were right next to him because Ibiki and Tsume both agreed on maintaining the backstage completely silent unless it was absolutely needed. Despite the stress at the start of the night, it was turning out to be a regular day at the job.
Yagura’s voice came on the walkie talkie that Genma had left unplugged while he was decided between a bean and cheese burrito or a chicken and cheese burrito. “Where’s my kid?”
Genma balanced the bean and cheese burrito between his mouth, a skill one acquired many years of toothpick and cigarette sucking, and braced himself for the worst. Yagura did have a kid, maybe a couple but they all looked alike that really Genma couldn’t tell them apart, but Yagura was constantly losing his kid.
Ibiki’s voice, strained and on the verge of his second breakdown of the night, came after Yagura’s. “Your son wasn’t supposed to be due for a visit until next month.”
Yagura’s voice came out annoyed even though Genma was willing to bet that until that very moment when his baby mama had texted him about their child texting her that their dad was missing, Yagura had no clue that his child was going to be arriving. “Who told you that?”
“You did.”
Genma could hear Yagura stiffen. Yagura, for the many faults that he had (one time he told a live interviewer that he only had interest in becoming a politician if he could be an old school dictator and despite it being December, Genma was called in to help the ‘office roadies’ work the backlash) would always amidst to those many faults. “My apologies then. May someone please collect my daughter and bring her to me?”
Genma inhaled his burrito and risking indigestion ran over to Gaara’s dressing room. One unplanned adventure per tour stop was more than enough for him.