A haphazard mess of Genshin One-shots

28- Xiaoven: Streaks of teal

"Morning, Ei!" Venti called as he swung the door open.

"Good morning," Ei yawned.

"Good morning, Venti," Nahida greeted.

"Aye, same to you!" Venti grinned.

"Morning," Murata grinned back.

"Greetings, Barbatos," Zhongli nodded.

"Waddup my dude," Venti smiled to the other as he trotted into the building, heading towards the back.

In the back of the shop, Venti entered a small room covered in shelves. Glancing at the wide variety of packaged merchandise, he tossed his small backpack and his jacket onto the ground.

"Since when are you here this early?" Tsartisa asked moodily, adjusting her hair while taking count of the inventory.

"Because I wanted to fix my highlights," Venti yawned, making sure his stuff wasn't going to fall over into anything.

"Well, I guess coming in ten minutes early is better than arriving an hour late every day," Tsaritsa muttered.

Venti huffed and stepped out of the small space, taking a breath. In front of him was the Seven's hair salon: each member practiced perfection in a certain color of hair dye, as well as working with clients on many different things like trimmings, conditionings, curlings, bleachings, etc. Venti was the expert in all teal-colored dyes.

Most called him stupid because they already had green AND blue experts, AND a white/pale blue- but he insisted people loved teal enough that he should get his own speciality.

Venti sat himself down at his personal station, reaching down into the drawer in front of him and grabbing a certain teal hair dye. His own highlights had been fading out recently, so he started putting gloves on and undoing his braids, watching his own actions in the mirror.

"Hey Focalors!" Venti called, spinning in his chair.

The blue-specialist turned to look over from her own station two down from Venti, a questioning look on her face. Venti tapped his head and Focalors sighed, summoning the power of Hydro and soaking Venti's hair from across the room, being sure to control the water so that it didn't drip down his neck.

Venti grinned and thanked the other, rubbing conditioner and shampoo through his dark hair. After finishing cleaning, he dried it partially with his own powers. Finally, it was time to use the dye. He'd lightened the ends of his signature braids a while back, so they were still bright enough to not need a redo of bleaching.

After about five minutes, Venti's hair was dyed. But he was disappointed.

"Morax, is it just me or is this dye darker than usual?" Venti questioned, spinning in his chair to face the opposite end of the room, where Zhongli worked.

"I can confirm this," Zhongli nodded. "Did you grab the wrong dye?"

Venti turned to check, but he knew he wasn't wrong. Something must have gone wrong with the shipment for some reason. Sighing, Venti took a Sharpie and wrote "40% off, defective disappointment dye" on the side of the bottle.

Venti used his Anemo powers to finish his hair drying process faster, and a moment later, Nahida turned the Open sign around. The New York City street outside was flooded with people and snow; it felt like this day would be promising.

Merely ten minutes later, a gush of freezing wind floods into the room as a group of teenagers giggled their way in. Murata, the charming front-desk manager as well as red-dye expert, sorted out their needs. Too bad nobody wanted Venti so he had nothing to do.