Chapter Text
Tomo was going to kill her.
Yoimiya ran down the street, cigarette still in her mouth, keys jingling in her hand. She didn’t expect for her Friday evening to escalate to the point where she had to run from the cops, but here she was.
Besides, who knew that they actually cared about illegal fireworks?
Well, they might have enough reason to care if one of the fireworks sets off into the police station’s window but that’s not even Yoimiya’s fault.
If Gorou had been more careful, none of this would have happened.
Yoimiya threw the cigarette into a nearby puddle, and ran forward to her apartment building, making sure the cops were off her ass beforehand.
“Hey Tom-Tom I— Ew! Gross! Not on my couch!” She exclaimed, shutting the front door very loudly behind her.
She watches as Kazuha crawled off of her brother’s lap and slumped onto the couch next to him without a word.
“How’d it go?” Tomo asked, acting like his little sister didn’t just walk in on a make out session.
“It didn’t really…” She moves her foot over the floor, “Gorou might’ve blown up a police station window and—”
“Yoimiya!” Tomo jumped off the couch suddenly, standing tall in front of her, hands on his hips.
“Oh don’t try to act like mom right now—”
Tomo shushed her by throwing his finger in the air, “We had a deal,” he said, raising his eyebrows.
Yoimiya sighed, “Yeah, whatever.”
“You will find a job this week. If you want, Kazuha can ask Beidou to hire you.”
“Oh god no,” She groaned, “No offense Kazuha,” she said quickly, throwing her friend a glance.
“None taken,” he shrugged lightly.
“I’ll find a job on my own. I promise,” she said, finally taking off her shoes and putting on her slippers.
“You better,” her brother tutted, sitting back on the couch.
Yoimiya slipped into her room, taking out her phone. She shot a text to Thoma.
hey!!! u still need help at the circus????
After a few minutes, her phone pinged with a reply:
I thought you’d never ask :D
***
Yoimiya stood next to the huge doors, multiple posters with clowns and dancers were plastered all around the building.
Taking a deep breath, she tried to pull the door but it was locked.
After a second of being in a complete stupor, she slapped herself on the forehead and headed around the building for the staff entrance.
There, Thoma was waiting for her, his hands already reaching out to take her bags. He slid one of them over his shoulder and leaned over to give Yoimiya a little hug.
He clapped her over the back with an unusual force, causing her to topple over a little, “Hello, dear friend!” he exclaimed, showing her inside.
“Hi,” Yoimiya replied.
“Truth be told, I didn’t think you’d ever accept the job, I was practically dying over the controls, thank you so much, though. I really needed help.”
“And I really needed a job,” Yoimiya huffed out.
“I thought you were planning on living on Tomo’s cyber-fortune your whole life,” Thoma chuckled, cutting a corner in the lean corridors of the backstage.
“Yeah well, he wants me to move out, he wants to live with his boyfriend so the cyber-fortune wasn’t that trustworthy.”
“Oh prayer hand emoji,” he said.
“Did you just say ‘prayer hand emoji’ out loud?”
Thoma just threw her a glance, before opening a door to what seemed like a dressing room.
The dressing room, to Yoimiya’s surprise, was filled with a bunch of people. Countless women and men getting pampered up, or running errands.
“Hello everyone!” Thoma exclaimed, everyone in the room stopped what they were doing to look at them, “This is our new special effects master, Yoimiya. Let me introduce you to everyone. That’s Xingqiu, our trapeze guy,” the boy looked like he was only one foot out of puberty, he had a weird haircut and dark blue hair, he smiled at Yoimiya and waved slightly.
“That’s Chongyun, his partner,” Thoma pointed his fist at the boy with the pastel blue hair, he just nodded at Yoimiya slightly.
“Bennett, our juggler,” the white haired boy also looked incredibly young, a few long scars were neatly spread over his cheeks and nose, but his green eyes were blazing with excitement, “He almost burnt his face off last year, so he isn’t allowed to come close to anything that burns anymore.”
“Lisa, our hair and makeup specialist,” The tall woman had her hair in a bun, a pair of glasses hanging lowly on her nose, she smirked at Yoimiya.
“Hey cutie,” she waved with her hands slightly. Yoimiya waved back.
“Hu Tao, our costume girl.”
“Ayo!” The girl called back, winking at Yoimiya.
“Mona, our magician. You know what? No, she’s the magician.”
The woman frowned at Thoma, “You know I prefer illusionists.”
The man waved her off, “Razor and Scaramouche, they are the animal trainers, they can make lions jump through hoops and all that.”
The two boys looked very different, but still very young. One of them had a bowl cut and short shorts, the other had long messy grey hair and scar plastered over his cheek. Both of them nodded at Yoimiya.
“Venti, our artistic cyclist.”
Yoimiya gaped, the boy looked like he was at least fifteen, “I’m twenty four,” Venti quickly supplied, nodding, knowingly.
“You’re shitting me,” she frowned.
“I get that a lot,” Venti smirked, swiping one of his braids away from his face.
“Kaeya, our clown,” Thoma said plainly, the tan-skinned man rolled his eyes- eye.
“I’m a showman.”
“Stop trying to act like Hugh Jackman” Lisa supplied.
“Oh! And our wonderful tightrope walking woman Kokomi and— Where’s Ayaka?”
The woman, who Yoimiya assumed was Kokomi, sighed, “Practicing. Again.”
“She better not overwork herself,” Lisa huffed,
“Well, I guess you’ll have to meet her later,” Thoma said, “Let’s go, I’ll introduce you to the crew.”
The crew turned out to be not any less crazy and scattered, but somehow organized. The I.T guy, Xiao, looked like he hated everything and everyone. Diluc, the set master, showed absolutely no emotion except annoyance towards Thoma. Yoimiya wondered if everyone here just hated him.
Thoma also introduced her to the live music program, Barbara and Xinyan, both very young but talented girls.
The sound directors were twins, Aether and Lumine, both around Yoimiya’s age, but they seemed like they knew what they were doing.
Albedo and Zhongli, the marketing managers and their assistant Sucrose. All three of them worked in a little office which was down one of the halls. Thoma explained that they weren’t very social since they didn’t actually engage with the cast or crew, too busy with their adverts ‘or whatever.’
Childe was the engineer/the person who handles absolutely anything. If you needed something, you would just tell him and he would get it fixed. The guy wore a crop top, which— very nice but so unprofessional. But who was Yoimiya to talk, when she showed up for the first day of work in a hoodie and shorts.
Jean was the choreographer, incredibly talented and absolutely gorgeous. She took her apprentice, Noelle, everywhere with her. Yup, not weird at all. Thoma explained that Jean was also married to Lisa, which sparked interest in Yoimiya. Maybe this place wasn’t so bad after all.
But the scary part began when she got to meet the chief director. God she was terrified. Her name was Raiden Shogun, but everyone called her Baal. And her assistant Sara wasn’t any less intimidating.
“It’s great to meet you,” Yoimiya said, shaking hands with the woman, trying to keep her calm.
Baal just nodded and pulled out a paper from her cupboard, she slid it onto the table, “Just fill out your information here, and sign here.”
Yeah…Pleasantries didn’t seem to be her thing.
***
The special effects department was a mess. Aside from Thoma, there was this girl, Fischl, and not to be rude, but she set Yoimiya off.
Fischl was probably the only person in the goddamn circus who was completely useless.
The whole time Yoimiya tried to start a conversation with her, ask about what she knows about special effects, the girl would ignore her completely, her nose buried deep in her phone.
“What does she do?” Yoimiya asked her friend, turning away from the other girl.
“Aside from sitting in the best chair, no idea.”
Yoimiya groaned, “Can I fire her?”
“Well you’re the superior here so I guess—”
“You’re fired.”
Fischl looked up, fucking finally, she stood up from her chair, looked at Yoimiya, then at Thoma.
“I don’t even work in this department,” She said.
The adults stared.
“What?!” Thoma yelled, throwing his hands up, “You have been sitting here for the past six months, every day, and you don’t even work here?!”
“Ye p,” the girl shrugged, “I’m Hu Tao’s assistant.”
“Hu Tao has an assistant?!” Thoma yelled even louder.
“Duh. Me.”
“Okay uhm,” Yoimiya stepped in, “Stop showing up in the control room, and go help your superior.”
Fischl rolled her eyes but she walked off anyway.
Thoma breathed out, “‘K. Here’s a list of things that are supposed to be done, but I haven’t done any of them in the past six months cause I have no idea how.”
Yoimiya stared at the list. At the three page list.
“How did you manage before?”
“I didn’t, I used to be the sound guy.”
“Oh god..”
“Yeah..So what are you going to do?”
“Um..Do the things on the list?”
“Oh! You’re actually going to do them?”
“Yeah. Yeah I am.”
“Alrighty.”
***
After about ten minutes of trying to get everything together, Yoimiya was testing out smoke machines with Childe.
“So, why do you want to work here?” The man attempted to make small talk, making modifications to one of the machines.
“Me and my brother had a deal, if I get in trouble working with illegal fireworks again, I have to get a steady job. I don’t actually want to work,” Yoimiya explained, fiddling with the controls.
Childe nodded slowly, “Try it now.”
Yoimiya pressed one of the controls, nothing happened, Childe sighed and went back to his work.
“You sure have some rusty ass equipment,” Yoimiya commented.
“Oh don’t even tell me. I know. I’ve been trying to talk Baal into changing some of it for years, but all of the money goes to salaries. We have top tier workers here, the whole cast is beyond professional. Even though Bennet is just incredibly unlucky, the audience finds it endearing though.”
“I can see why,” Yoimiya agreed.
“How about now?”
The girl pressed one of the buttons again, the machine grumbled a few times before finally letting out smoke.
“It worked!” Childe clapped his hands a few times.
“Now we just have to fix three more of these,” Yoimiya muttered, as Childe moved onto the next machine.
This was going to be a long day.
***
Yoimiya was sitting in the control room, Aether on her left, Thoma on her right.
“Diluc, please let down the silks. Over,” Aether said into the walkie-talkie.
“Oh you’re in for a show,” Thoma muttered, relaxing into the chair.
“No time to relax,” Yoimiya said, bumping her knee into Thoma’s, “You get the blue and purple lighting, I’ll get the smoke machines.”
“Yes sir,” Thoma joked, getting up from his spot.
“Lumine, can I get a solid sound running? Over,” Aether asked into the walkie-talkie.
“After Ayaka makes her preparations. But, yes, I am ready. Over,” Lunine responded.
Yoimiya saw the lights turn on, blue and purple blazing over the stage. She watched as Ayaka entered, her long pale blue hair, swinging from side to side as she strode towards the silks.
I do not mind the rain sometimes
'Cause that's the only way the roses bloom
In my mind, when I cry, when I cry
That's the only way the roses bloom
As the music started, Ayaka began climbing the silks, flipping a few times, trying to get a grip.
She hung upside down, hooked a leg onto one of the silks and spread the other. Then, she quickly flipped backwards, holding the silks tightly in her hands, she began flipping, again and again.
It's okay, I'm not okay
I feel the disarray of yesterday, oh my
I need to feel the raindrops on my head, on my head
The lights centered on her, Yoimiya couldn’t look away. Ayaka began climbing the silks, wrapping her legs around them and spinning, dragging herself up with her arms. She stopped and posed, tilting herself to the side, one leg bent and the other stretched out.
I know I know nothing so
Embrace what I cannot control, oh my
Trouble walks beside me 'til my end, 'til my end
Yoimiya got ready as Ayaka climbed the silks higher and higher. The chorus was approaching.
I do not mind the rain sometimes
'Cause that's the only way the roses bloom
Yoimiya got the smoke machines running as soon as Ayaka let go, sliding down the silk the slightest bit before gripping it with her thighs again. She began to move herself to the music, wrapping and unwrapping the silk around herself, striking poses now and then.
In my mind, when I cry, when I cry
'Cause that's the only way that the roses bloom
Ayaka began to wrap the silk around her thighs, before finally letting go and rolling down. Yoimiya’s breath hitched. Ayaka hung upside down, her hair was so long it almost touched the floor.
It's better to have loved and lost, but
The feeling, it comes at the cost
My poor heart is my only friend, only friend
The dancer began to climb the silks again, wrapping them around her ankles in the process, and suddenly she spread her legs into a neat split. Yoimiya almost choked on air.
I've come to love a heavy sky
The lightning couldn't beat my shine
Trouble walks beside me 'til my end, 'til my end
Ayaka straightened up, unraveling the silk from one of her ankles and wrapping it around her hand instead, as the chorus approached, she lifted her free leg up in the air.
I do not mind the rain sometimes
'Cause that's the only way the roses bloom
In my mind, when I cry, when I cry
'Cause that's the only way that the roses bloom
The girl began to spin her leg, making full circles, climbing higher and higher on the silks. She struck a pose and began to unwrap herself slowly.
She began to climb the silks again, it wasn’t as graceful as before, but Yoimiya knew something big was coming. The song began to build up to the final chorus.
Hand on my heart
I swear, I made peace with the rain
Peace with the rain
Now I slow dance with the pain
Ayaka wrapped both of her ankles tightly in the silk.
And then as the beat dropped, she let go.
Yoimiya gasped.
I do not mind the rain sometimes
'Cause that's the only way the roses bloom
In my mind, when I cry, when I cry
'Cause that's the only way
That's the only way the roses bloom
As the song ended, the woman unraveled herself from the silks and lowered to the ground. She bowed her head to the control area booth, and sprinted off the stage.
“She is quite something,” Thoma commented, but Yoimiya didn’t care. She wanted— she needed to get to know the mystery, that Ayaka was, better.