Hu Tao x Reader - A Morbid Curiosity

Chapter 38: Irodori Festival: Duel

There were six of us in total, in our little party of ours, as we made our way from the city of Inazuma to the smaller port town of Ritou. That being Aether and his travelling friend Paimon, the newly met Klee and Yoimiya, as well as myself and Qiqi. It was quite the gathering of personalities!

Although, because we were such a big grouping of people, we walked down the roads in pairs of two – with each pair following closely behind the one ahead of it. Although it was the courteous thing to do for other pedestrians passing by, it did make the conversations a little weird to carry out. As Yoimiya and Klee were at the front of the group, whilst Qiqi and I were at the back with the Traveller and his floating friend in-between us.

Klee: "Me and Albedo have a secret code! Whenever he puts a sign on his workshop door saying 'Experiment in Progress,' that's code for 'Come back later, Klee.' Albedo's really nice and he's so patient with me, so I don't mind waiting until he's finished with his work."

Yoimiya: "Oh, I see! That's nice. This Albedo sounds like a great friend!"

Klee: "He is! Albedo is my older brother. He's super-duper smart, he can do anything! Albedo is the best!"

Paimon: "Hah, she says that everybody is the best!"

Aether: "Except for Master Diluc of course, she thinks he's one of the 'weird grown-ups' after all!"

Qiqi: "Y/N? Who is Master Diluc? Did I forget them again...?"

Y/N: "No, no. Don't worry about that Qiqi. I'm pretty sure he's from Mondstadt, like Klee and Albedo are. You've probably never met him before."

Qiqi: "Oh. Okay... Y/N?"

Y/N: "Hmm? What's up Qiqi?"

Qiqi: "Will you take Qiqi to Mondstadt, together? Yes... or no?"

Y/N: "You want to go to Mondstadt with me...? Of course we can Qiqi! But uh... let's get through our visit to Inazuma first before we start thinking about other regions, okay?"

Klee: "Oh oh! You just have to come to Mondstadt! And then we can have a playdate and I can show you all of my friends! And then we can go fish blasting together! That sounds like so much fun!"

Qiqi: "... Okay. I would like to do that. Y/N, you will help me. Yes?"

Y/N: "Definitely! I'll arrange for us to go and visit Klee sometime after this festival, I promise!"

* * *

Finally, we were back in Ritou once again, it really is quite the trek from this town to the city, especially when we're travelling as a group which have younger company within it that we have to walk slower to accommodate for. But we're here now, and it looks like Paimon is getting ready to show off her travel guide skills again...

Paimon: "Here we are: the venue of the Irodori Festival. Say, why don't we have a look at one of these stalls? That one over there doesn't have a single person in the queue!"

We then all made our way over to this unbusy stall, the guy managing the stall looked really excited to see so many people make their way over to him at once. And now I can't help but wonder why he's the only stall with nobody in the queue of it, especially when all the other stalls have at least ten people each queuing for them...

Yoimiya was the first to get to the stall, and she had a scan through the books on the stall's table, reading out loud one of the book's titles for all to hear.