Torn

Decision?

People flowed in through the doors almost immediately after they opened. It was rather intense, to say the least.

Ennard took one look at the approaching crowd from the windows of the double doors that led to Ballora's Gallery and whistled. They hadn't unlocked those yet, so everyone was still in the main room.

"Dang. Good luck surviving that, Lori."

"Thanks," Ballora said, playing with her mask in her hands.

Ennard pushed his own mask up his face for a second, giving Ballora a chaste kiss before disappearing into a different party room. "See you after we close."

Ennard was a sweet guy, but god, Ballora really wasn't sure if she liked him as anything more than a friend. Not anymore, anyway.

She started to drift into her thoughts, questioning herself. 

But she was soon snapped out of it by the sound of a door opening.

Her eyes shot over to the door of the 'employees only' area, finding Baby. 

"Hey, Lor," the redhead greeted quietly, a small smile gracing her lips before her face disappeared beneath her mask. 

Ballora smiled a little too.

But it wasn't because of the ringmaster's smile. It didn't make her want to smile too, no siree. Even though she hadn't seen it in a while, and she kind of missed seeing it. 

Nooopppee.

"You ready to try and survive the hordes of children?"

"Not really, if I'm being honest."

"Yeah...me neither."

It had been a while since Ballora had ended up on double duty with Baby. She usually ended up with Foxy or Ennard. Well, in recent times she did, anyway.

Baby pulled her keys out of her suit coat and went to go unlock the door. Upon unlocking it, she was immediately swarmed by children, whose parents were yelling at them to slow down and keep their hands to themselves. 

They did not.

And hey quite literally swept the ringmaster away, which was kind of amusing. Ballora could hear her utter an "oh boy" as she was taken across the room. After laughing slightly, the bluenette headed over to herd some of them away.

That was pretty much what the entirety of the next few hours was like. Trying to keep each other from being consumed in the horde. Occasionally they'd sing a song, or dance, or something.

Ballora noticed that things actually seemed a bit more like they used to be. Just a bit. It was nice.

Towards the end of the shift, the two had to figure out a way to actually get everyone to fucking leave.

It was a seemingly impossible task.

But they managed. Somehow.

When the people were finally flowing back out of the doors, a few kids nearly managed to drag her down.

Y'know, to the floor.

Thankfully, Baby saved her.

"Woah now, kiddos. It's not nice to do that. You don't want to hurt Miss Ballora, do you?"

They all mumbled no and disappeared off to find their parents. 

The redhead grabbed Ballora's hand and pulled her back up into a standing position. "You uh, okay?"

"I believe so. Thank you for saving me."

"Yeah, no problem." Baby then realized that she was still holding onto Ballora's hand. She cleared her throat before quickly letting go, muttering, "I'm going to go check on the others now." 

And then she left.

Ballora felt kinda disappointed when Baby released her hand, even though she knew the action was inevitable.

She silently admitted to herself that her feelings weren't going to go away.

And then she decided that she was going to do it.

She was going to tell her.