...Yeah, I have no excuse for this being so late other than, well, real life. Again.

Well, at least 2016 isn't ending us. Yet.

(Also, Harumi and Ayame are OCs, if it wasn't already obvious.)

Pretending to be an apprentice geisha had been easier than GoGo had thought it would be, once they had actually gotten in. The most she had done so far was help Aiko powder her hands, as dry hands were a necessity for playing the shamisen, and then sit and watch quietly from a corner, which she already did a lot on her own anyway.

The banquet hall was a ruckus of noise and light, with the courtesans' perfumes and the smells from food and sake mixing to make a headache-creating combination. If this was bad enough, she could only imagine having to be in places like this for hours on end every night and having to get used to it. She'd never been up close to festivities like these before, but she apparently hadn't been missing much. When it came down to it, it was just a bunch of rich men talking and lolling around and getting drunk off their heads than actually paying attention to the performances. But the key word was that it was rich men, men from noble families and descendants of the old guard, and that was enough to make these things important.

She took her time observing the guests from her spot near the stage, as Aiko sang out a ballad of the pale cherry blossoms that bloomed with the falling autumn leaves and into the hardiness of winter. The host was Yama Manabu, a wealthy man who, according to Aiko, held raucous parties in only the largest and finest of halls. As a result, he was always rather generous in his payments. He was also the client for her work, as he'd been known to have a taste for the kind of art Aiko made.

There were some Dutchmen from Dejima in attendance, an extraordinarily rare occurrence that Yama was treating as perfectly normal. But one of the Dutchmen was Krei, and everyone knew his reputation well enough. GoGo could see him near a corner of the hall, sitting with the host and throwing his head back in laughter at some joke while drinks were set before them.

Aiko had told her about the other geisha here. Apparently, Momoe, Sakura, and Chouko weren't here after all, but Harumi and Ayame were. There were also some others Aiko was acquainted with, including a traveling storyteller named Mariko and a pair of more well-known sisters, Eriko and Akina, who were making the rounds these days. Rumor had it that Eriko was a witch who possessed a kind of bond with the winter, but GoGo took all of that with a grain of salt. Anyone could come up with anything nowadays.

She needed to slip away. Just for a few minutes, she told herself. She needed a breath of fresh air, or else at this rate, she'd pass out. Slowly, she got to her feet and pushed herself out the door, sliding it shut behind her, and into the hall.

Now, GoGo thought as she looked back and forth down the corridor, where was the exit?

She started to walk, glancing a little wildly back and forth to keep an eye out for anyone who'd intercept her. Aiko probably wouldn't be too worried if she was gone for only a few minutes; she'd understand she needed to take a break. Or she'd think GoGo had needed to use the lavatory. Either way, she'd be back soon. Hopefully, if she didn't get lost first in this never-ending maze of corridors.

The only person she passed in the hall was a young man, some samurai from the guard. When she looked up, their eyes met, and the first thing she noticed was how his bangs fell just above his eyes. Inexplicably, she thought of how strange that was. Wouldn't the hair get in the way?

He blinked, and she stiffened. Shit. She couldn't start polite conversation like a proper geisha would, and how could she talk to a samurai, of all people? Clumsily, quickly, she bowed her head and went on her way a little quicker than normal. Any faster, and she'd trip over her sandals.

It was only minutes later, long after the samurai was out of sight, that she started to slow down and breathe. Breathe, GoGo thought. No use in panicking and doing something stupid. He wouldn't remember her anyway, it was only a second in the hall. It didn't matter.

She turned a corner in the hall, pushing open a sliding door. Outside was a garden, clear and illuminated by the moonlight. Ornamental trees framed the place, with irises surrounding the goldfish pond at the center. Before it stood a tall, rather large man robed in pure white, who was looking up at the sky and seemed to be in deep thought.

It would probably be best if she didn't bother him. GoGo doubted she could make small talk with anyone in the state she was right now. She turned away, sliding the door shut. Maybe she could find an empty guest's room, stay there for a bit to savor the quiet before going back. Or the lavatory, if she had no other option.

She wound her way down another corridor that split off from the hall, glancing at the doors. Another turn, and she heard...noises. Rather long, loud ones, from what sounded like a man and a woman.

Well, she certainly wasn't going to be using that room.

It took what must have been at least a full five minutes of walking before she heard other noises, more welcome ones, that sounded like familiar voices. But she hadn't even taken more than a step towards the door when it was abruptly pushed open and two young geisha women, heavily attired in fine silks with their hair pinned up by ornaments and their faces painted in makeup, made their way out of it.

"—and I told you, Harumi, of course Aiko was going to be here, she's a client of Yama's," the taller, willowy geisha in teal was saying coolly to the younger one in red. Ayame was one of the older geisha, her experience and skill on par with—if not beyond—Aiko's. She was known by clients for the bandage slung over her missing eye, which served as her trademark, and rumors swirled around how she'd lost said eye and where she'd exactly come from. Not even any of the other geisha knew, since she hardly spoke to any of them outside of preparation for performances.

"But I didn't see who was going with her!" Harumi argued, adjusting the kanzashi pins of wisteria in her piled-up hair. "She doesn't have an apprentice, last time I checked, and we all went out before she did—"

It was Ayame who noticed her first. She visibly gave a start before, to GoGo's surprise, smiling. "Ah, hello, GoGo! Aiko chose you as her apprentice for tonight, did she?"

GoGo blinked, momentarily at a loss for words. What could she say to that? Harumi, at least, seemed to be mirroring her expression. She was only gaping in disbelief, her jaw hanging, her hands frozen on top of her head in the middle of tightening her hairpins.

"Yes, she did," GoGo finally managed as shortly as she could, trying for a level tone. She gave a brief bow, as was expected of her. "Good evening, Ayame, Harumi. I take it business is well for you here?"

"It could be better, could be worse, but it's alright," Ayame replied casually. She glanced at Harumi and raised her eyebrow. "Close your mouth, dear. You'll catch flies."

Now Harumi shut her mouth, though not without a glare at Ayame before turning back to GoGo. "How on earth did Chinatsu let you go?" she asked incredulously.

"Aiko just had to tell her she wanted to take me, and that was it," GoGo answered a little stiffly. "You know how the old lady's like with Aiko."

"Maybe she wanted to save some money," Harumi muttered. "Wouldn't put it past her."

It sounded like what GoGo had thought earlier, but there'd be no point in her saying so.

"Oh, I don't doubt that would've happened," Ayame commented airily. "Well, Harumi and I are about to go back for a second performance to join Aiko and that other geisha. Then I suppose that'll be it. How's being an apprentice going? Would you want to perform with us?"

"No," GoGo said flatly, and maybe she was just imagining it, but Harumi's expression now looked a little relieved. Not that GoGo could blame her for it. "I couldn't if I wanted to. I don't fit in this kind of place."

"A lot of people don't." Ayame shrugged. "We should get going, Harumi. Yama's not paying for nothing."

Once back in the banquet hall, GoGo had decided she had been wrong. A breath of fresh air hadn't cleared her head of all the noise and fumes. If anything, it'd only made the whole thing worse because she'd reminded herself what clear air and quiet were like.

She took her place in the corner again, settling herself on a scarlet cushion. Aiko was now plucking the strings on her shamisen again and singing a ballad of tragic lovers separated in the stars, creating a tune as Harumi and Ayame danced across the stage with their own fans twirling around them. By now, the party seemed to have reached the point where it had passed the peak and was winding down. Some men had started dozing and were being carried out by servants to sleep off their drunkenness in other rooms. Others were flirting with the courtesans, engaged in chatter, or drinking some more and helping themselves to numerous kinds of wagashi.

The host, Yama, seemed the most different from earlier. He was alternating from drinking from his often refilled cup and glaring at something, though GoGo couldn't tell what. It could be one of the guests, though she couldn't make out which one in particular, or it was one of the geisha on stage. Aiko, maybe, which GoGo only thought of because he was her client and he probably wasn't pleased about something in what she was doing right now.

Krei had moved away from him by now, playing mekuri karuta with some other guests in a corner and occasionally flirting with the tayu courtesan dressed in red and gold. Or at least, it looked like flirting. Smiling and casually touching and apparently having the other person giggle counted as flirting, didn't it? It probably said something about him as a person or the guests in terms of drunkenness that no one seemed to care about what was normally seen as scandalous.

As the hour dragged on, one minute after the other, GoGo leaned her head back against the wall, absentmindedly looking back and forth between the geisha on stage and the guests in the hall. The courtesans seemed a lot slower-moving now, too, most either just sitting with the guests or gossiping with each other. One was sitting in a guest's lap as he fondled her, both of them apparently drunk out of their heads. The samurai assigned to guard the party looked bored or half-asleep, a tall one in green by the door clearly fighting the urge to nod off. The shorter one next to him looked oddly familiar, but from where she was, she couldn't make out exactly what he looked like.

"You'rerealprettyyy..."

She nearly jumped. When she looked up, it was one of the attending Dutchmen. Not Krei, but some man who looked younger, around her age, and who was smiling widely and weirdly at her with all his teeth showing. His eyes were half-lidded, his face red and framed by a mess of brown hair. He was in formal clothes suited for the Dutch, some kind of neat gray suit.

Great. This was what she'd been expecting and dreading. A man flirting with her, though at least it was a drunk man. Hopefully Aiko was right about dealing with them.

GoGo repressed the urge to roll her eyes and forced as polite a smile as she could, which was tight and strained and probably proof of why she'd never make a good geisha on her own. Just say you have to go to the lavatory, or something like that, and slip away. "Thank you."

"I'm—'m seeerious," the man slurred. He leaned forward, close enough for his nose to nearly brush hers and too closely for comfort, and GoGo nearly caught herself gagging at the smell of his breath. That was sake, alright. "You're like...likelike an angel or...o-or somethun'. Nice, nice purple and shtuuufff-f-f. Yaknooow?"

She could barely decipher his attempt at Japanese, but she got the gist of it. "Yes, I know," she managed, her voice very strained. "I need to go to the lavatory. Excuse me."

Without waiting for a response, she all but leaped to her feet and hastily pushed past him. Ignoring the slurred "hey wuhwait, where ya goiiin'?", she shoved her way into the cramped crowd in the hall and hoped she'd be able to disappear. There was more than enough guests around, surely he'd lose sight of her, and she could go out to the garden. That man she'd seen earlier there had to be gone by now, right-

"GoGo!" Aiko was breathless and exuberant, practically colliding into her the moment she'd come down from the stage. GoGo made a strangled noise that wasn't quite a groan. "Did you see that? I hit that last high note! I've never been able to do that before and that's why I never sang that song before but now I can! I just need my woodblock prints—"

"Great," GoGo choked out. "Real great, Aiko, real—"

"I'll have to introduce you to someone!" Aiko went on. "I told you about that poet, Mariko, right? We met at my last performance in this district, at one of the other halls down the street, and she's here! She's great at what she does, you should seriously read some of her work sometime—"

"We should really get going soon, Aiko," Harumi interrupted. She was breathing a bit hard, face flushed through her pale makeup, and strands of her perfectly arranged hair had come loose. "This is our last performance tonight—"

"We will," Aiko reassured her. GoGo glanced behind her, breathing a sigh of relief to herself when she saw that the weird drunk Dutchman was nowhere in sight. "But I just want to introduce you to a friend first. It'll only be a minute or two."

"'A minute or two' doesn't mean an hour in this case, does it?" Ayame deadpanned, fluttering a golden fan before her face. "If you'll excuse me, ladies, I need to go outside. A breath of fresh air, if you will."

With that, she turned and moved away towards the hall. Aiko only glanced after her before giving a shrug. "Well," she said nonchalantly, "let's give her a break. In the meantime, Mariko's in the room down the hall, so this'll be fast."

She led the way, navigating the crowd with ease and with GoGo and Harumi close on her heels, while another geisha took the stage with a shakuhachi.

At this rate, Hiro was about ready to fall asleep. The party must have gone on for at least over two hours. Or was it just one? Or maybe it all only seemed longer than it really was because of just how bored he was and how tired he was from everything earlier and how late the hour was getting. He'd even drunk sake just for something to do other than stand around near the door and occasionally walk around to check on Fred, although it'd only been one cup and he hadn't drunk all of it because of the look Wasabi had given him.

Damn Wasabi and his talent for non-verbal guilt-tripping.

Hiro had no idea just how much Fred had drunk, but it'd apparently been enough for him to nearly run into the wall several times and trip over other drunk guests. He was starting to wish Fred was one of those people who'd fallen asleep after drinking, if only so he wouldn't have to worry about constantly making sure he didn't split his head on a table or hadn't gone outside and fallen on some rocks. Right now, Fred was just standing against a wall and mindlessly humming along to the ballad the geisha on stage was singing.

It was nothing compared to Yama, though. The man was looking at him in a way that made his skin crawl, and he wasn't sure if that could be chalked up to just the drinking getting to him. From Hiro's experience, angry drunk men didn't normally just glare menacingly at the people they were angry with, they got right up in their faces and screamed and raved and fell over themselves and occasionally vomited.

He wondered what it could be if it wasn't Yama just being drunk and mad. Maybe it was, well, the same reason a lot of people had glared at him. Was Yama one of those people who could just tell? Now that he was a lot closer to the man than when he'd arrived, he thought Yama looked a little familiar. Maybe he'd seen him around before or something. Edo was a crowded place, after all.

Hiro did anything but stare back. He stared at the ceiling, at the walls, at the floor, at the guest with a courtesan in his lap, at Krei playing an intense game of mekuri karuta with some other guests, at the geisha singing and the others dancing on stage. It'd be better not to risk making him angrier by returning the eye contact or glaring back. It wasn't part of bushido to get involved in petty fights for no reason, he reminded himself.

He glanced at Wasabi, feeling a little relieved when he saw him yawn. At least he wasn't the only one ready to nod off.

"Hey," Hiro muttered. "Do you know anything about Yama?"

"...What?" Wasabi mumbled back.

"Yama," Hiro repeated, jerking his head slightly in Yama's direction. Wasabi glanced at him.

"Other than that he's a lord, no," he replied wearily. "Not a good guy to make angry, from what I've heard, and apparently he gets angry a lot, but that's nothing new. You'd be amazed at the things nobles can get worked up about."

Hiro raised his eyebrows. "Really? Such as?"

"Tea," Wasabi deadpanned. "Gardens. Flower arrangements. Calligraphy mistakes. Name it and they've gotten mad about it. Can't say anything about it, but it happens."

"Wow," Hiro muttered under his breath. But he couldn't help adding, "Are you really one to talk, though? There was that wasabi..."

"One time," Wasabi reminded him sharply, sounding rather miffed. "It was one time, Hiro!"

Hiro couldn't contain his snickering. "Okay, okay. Sorry. I swear."

He turned back to sneak a glance at Yama again, but the man had simply turned back to his table. Two geisha were sitting with him, whispering things with each other he couldn't hear, and one man next to Yama was nodding off.

"We should be getting ready to leave soon," Wasabi commented curtly for a change of topic, as the singing geisha on stage hit a particularly high note. "We'll have to go early if we want to make it back without any trouble. It's already beyond dark, and I don't trust most of the party not to do something stupid before we return."

"Hey, the worst case scenario is us having to carry them on our backs because they can't walk," Hiro suggested lightly. "I'll get Fred."

"I'll talk to Krei," Wasabi replied, moving away. "I might have to step in to save him before they start throwing things. They take their mekuri karuta pretty seriously."

"Right," Hiro said absentmindedly, looking around at where Fred had been in the spot against the wall. Just his luck, because now Fred wasn't there.

Damn it.

He set off through the crowd, careful not to jostle or shove the guests he passed by and often squeezed his way between, constantly looking around. It was at that opportune moment when the one he was looking for slammed into him and against the wall.

"Ow!" Hiro barely caught his balance, rubbing his now sore shoulder. "Fred! There you are, listen, we're leaving—"

"Hirooo! Hiro, my man! Whatsa goin' on?" Fred slurred, stumbling and flailing his arms wildly. "Ohgod, you should meet this girrll I saw, she was like, soooo-o-o pretty, purple and stuff-"

"Tell me about it later." Hiro puts his hands on his shoulders in an effort to steady him, but that didn't stop Fred from nearly slapping him in the face from his flailing. "Right now, we need to get going, so stick with me, alright?"

"But Hiro, this girrrrlll," Fred groaned. "Ya gotta...ya gotta meet her, man! She's like, an angel or somethun, her eyes were like all gold, and shiny, andandand..."

Hiro felt a small jolt at the mention of eyes of gold, inexplicably remembering the geisha he'd passed earlier. He shook his head. Focus. "Okay, that's nice, Fred, really nice. Great. But we need to get going, now."

At the last word, he grabbed his arm and started to drag him through the crowd. Fred followed unsteadily, stumbling and tripping over himself as he wove in and out through the throngs. He spotted Wasabi in the corner with Krei, who had now put down his cards. Some of the other guests at the card-laden table looked rather disgruntled, while the tayu was sipping serenely from a cup of sake.

"Let's just head outside," Hiro continued hurriedly, rushing through the hall at this point. "We'll wait for Wasabi and everyone else."

"So pretttyyyy..." Fred was still stumbling, although he at least wasn't flailing around anymore. When they reached the hall door, Hiro wasted no time in shoving it open and getting into the hall.

Several turns and more drinking-induced ramblings from Fred later, and they were outside. Hiro let out a long breath, clutching Fred's shoulder. Alright, he reminded himself. This would be simple. They would be leaving soon, nothing stupid would happen, it'd be fine. Really.

"Ungrateful bitch!" Hiro jumped at the sound of a scream, letting go of Fred and spinning around. What—?

Yama was violently shaking a geisha in a teal kimono, practically lifting her off of the ground with his thick hands squeezing her arms. She was futilely trying to pull away from him, shrieking curses while he continued to bellow and rant and rave hard enough to spit into her face. A fan had been dropped on the ground below their feet, and no one else was outside to see what was going on. No one except Hiro and a now collapsed, snoring Fred. Baku was nowhere in sight, and Hiro wasn't sure whether to feel relieved or disappointed about that.

Hiro gritted his teeth. What kind of man was Yama? An affable host one minute and an angry, bullying drunkard the next?

"Hey!" he shouted. Both Yama and the geisha stopped mid-fight, turning to look just before he stalked up and stopped directly before Yama, glaring straight at him and his arms folded across his chest.

"Let. Her. Go," Hiro snarled, biting off the last word.

Yama blinked, momentarily stupefied, and his expression hardened into the same glare he'd been giving the geisha-the same one he'd given him earlier. "You," he spat, and Hiro had to marvel at how much sheer hatred he'd put into that one word. "This is none of your business, brat. I thought the shogunate knew better than to meddle where they shouldn't."

"The shogunate," Hiro said coldly, "knows to 'meddle' where they're needed. I will only repeat myself once, Lord Yama. Let the woman go, now."

The woman in question was watching the exchange silently the whole time, and it was only up close, when Hiro was able to actually see her clearly, that he realized she was wearing a bandage over one side of her face that hid her eye. Of course, not only had Yama been bullying a geisha, he'd been bullying an injured one.

Yama only stared at him, looking as if he was seriously contemplating the idea Hiro might only be joking with him, before throwing his head back in laughter noisy enough for everyone inside the hall to hear. "And what will you do if I have no intention of listening, samurai?" he sneered. "Challenge me to a duel, is that it? Put your practice of playing with your toys to use?"

Hiro's glare never wavered. "All you have to do," he said flatly, "is leave the woman be. That is all I ask."

He was hoping this wouldn't turn into an actual fight, considering that they had no blades after the weapon confiscation at the security check. That and Yama towered almost two heads over Hiro, with enough bulk and frame to crush him. A sword duel would be one thing, but he was far from confident in the idea of taking him on hand-to-hand.

A muscle was working furiously in Yama's jaw as his eyes flicked back and forth, from the geisha to Hiro and back again, as if deciding which one he wanted to beat the most. Finally, he completely released his grip and let the geisha drop like a sack of cabbages, utterly discarding her. The moment she landed, she immediately crawled away to grab up her fan.

For a moment, Hiro was sure it was done. He began to turn to leave, or at least, he would have if not for Yama punching him across the face.

In the span of that second, the moment when it happened and before his realization of what had happened, he found himself literally seeing stars. The pain set in sharply to the point of almost numbing his jaw, and he hit the ground with a dull thud. The world seemed to have tipped over itself before his eyes, the wind utterly knocked out of him, and he only saw Yama, now upside down in his view, laughing again.

"Get up!" Hiro could only grunt as a heavy foot slammed into his side, rolling him over, and his ribs felt as if they'd caught on fire. "Get up, you brat! You were asking for a fight, weren't you? Weren't you?"

Head swimming, eyes stinging, Hiro dragged himself against the grass and staggered to his feet. This time, Yama's fist came again, but now prepared, Hiro instinctively blocked it and grabbed hold of Yama's wrist with both hands. Just an attempt at a tug forward and he launched his foot forwards into Yama's chest as hard as he could.

Yama let out a howl, stumbling back and barely catching himself before he attacked again. It wasn't long before the entire thing descended into a confusing chaos of a brawl, Yama constantly swinging and Hiro holding him off. Soon enough, Hiro was practically scrambling all over the place, evading the punches while trying to turn them against him and wishing fervently he had his sword.

"Hiro!" Wasabi was shouting, and he looked up. More than a few guests, not just the nobles in the party and the other samurai, were spilling out of the hall now and made a small throng against the doors. Krei looked torn between surprised and amused, the others shocked-including Wasabi. Numerous geisha had joined them, while the geisha from earlier was now gone. But it wasn't long before the older samurai had thrown himself into the fray, wrapping his arms around Hiro's torso and yanking him away from Yama's increasingly frenzied swinging. The moment he moved, two other samurai followed, and it wasn't long before they had grabbed hold of Yama and were dragging him back.

"Let me go! Let me go, you bastards, you fools!" Yama was screaming, thrashing wildly against the other samurai's hold in the manner of a fish in a net. "Let me go! Unhand me! Unhand me—"

"Lord Yama! Please, control yourself!" one of the samurai was pleading with him. "You have had too much to drink-"

"Hiro, what happened?" Wasabi demanded. He herded Hiro to the far side of the garden, at a safe enough distance away from Yama and the men restraining him. "One second I'm in the hall, just done talking to Krei so we can leave, and then outside I see you and Yama fighting? What is going on?"

Hiro let out a long breath, massaging his ribs as he flopped down on the grass. Nearby, Fred gave a groan and flopped over onto his stomach. "I got Fred like I said I would, we went outside, I saw Yama harassing this geisha and he wouldn't let go of her, so I stepped in. Then he let her go and hit me, and...yeah."

He trailed off lamely at the end, not sure what else to say. Everything in his body was burning and all the breath felt as if it'd been wrung out of him, akin to water from a washcloth, solely from what had just happened. Sweat had gathered on his face, beading his forehead, and he wiped it off with his sleeve while taking deep breaths. Oh, god, he couldn't wait to get back.

Wasabi sighed. "Well, let's hope this doesn't happen again. At least you didn't get any serious injuries. Do you think you're still up for training tomorrow after this?"

"Of course I am!" Hiro replied defensively. "You know I'm always training. I'll walk this off, Wasabi, come on. Don't worry about me."

"I'll assume you're right," Wasabi said, clearly not convinced. "But for right now, we need to get going."

"Insolent brat!" Yama was bellowing. "Half-breed! Dog! I should have known, looked just like him, like Hamada!"

Hiro froze. Everything inside him felt as if it was tightening, freezing over, at just that last word. He hadn't even actually said his name, but that was enough.

Wasabi's eyes widened in alarm. "Hiro-"

"Good for nothing bastards," Yama spat. "Both of you! That son of a bitch, if only he'd have died sooner, I'd be-"

"Hiro, no!" Wasabi slammed Hiro back against the grass with his arm the moment Hiro lunged, leaving him fighting to get free. "Hir-"

He glared at Wasabi, breathing hard. "He-Yama needs to shut the hell-"

"Hiro?"

Oh, god. As if this couldn't get any worse. Wasabi looked up, his expression equally puzzled.

There stood Baku, as if he'd just appeared out of nowhere, and that look he was giving Hiro was far too familiar for comfort. His expression still seemed neutral at first glance, but Hiro knew what he looked like when he was going to be stern along with his inevitable medical advice.

"Baku, why are you still here?" His tone came out more snappish than he'd meant to, but Hiro found he really couldn't care at the moment. Not with Yama still screaming for his blood in the background, anyway. Baku, for his part, looked completely unaffected, while Wasabi still looked confused.

"Your body heat has considerably risen," Baku commented serenely, his back to Yama. "This is indicated by your face being red. Methods of calming body heat include taking deep breaths—"

"—Baku—"

"—concentrating deeply on things the patient enjoys or finds soothing—"

"—Baku—"

"Baku, what are you—?" Wasabi began.

"—Baku, I get it." Hiro moved to get up, and now that he wasn't trying to get at Yama, Wasabi lifted his arm to let him wobble up on his feet. He brushed nonexistent dust off of his arm. "I'm calm now, alright? You can...go, or whatever. I'm fine."

To demonstrate, he took in a long, deep breath. Then another. In, out. In, out.

Baku was still staring at him. "Here. Have a wagashi."

With that, he dropped a small white cake, round and slightly sticky and still wrapped in paper, onto Hiro's hand. Hiro barely avoided dropping it, fumbling with it slightly before he had it cupped in his palms as was appropriate.

He stared at it, then looked at Baku. Then looked at Wasabi, who just shrugged. Then he looked at Baku.

"I...uh. Thank you," he replied lamely, with an equally half-hearted bow of the head, if only because there wasn't a lot you could say when someone gave you a sweet while an angry lord was being dragged back into a hall and swearing about your parentage and hygiene all the way.

Baku's gaze continued unwavering, clearly expecting the obvious. Hiro repressed a sigh and popped the sweet into his mouth. It was chewy, a bit overly sweet on his tongue, but at least he got it down in only a few bites.

But Baku was still staring, at least until Wasabi spoke up. "Hiro, we need to..."

"I know." The words came out sharper than Hiro intended. "Let's-let's just get going, alright?"

He gave a cough and turned away. Fred was still lying face-down in the grass, breathing heavily and occasionally snorting, and Hiro grabbed his arm to get him up. Wasabi rushed to help, soon enough supporting him between the two of them.

"Hiro?" Fred mumbled, blinking and tilting his head slightly. "You-wha-"

"Let's get His Lordship home before he starts puking on himself," Wasabi muttered dryly. "Come on, Fred."

"Drunkenness often leads to hangovers and vomiting," Baku interjected. "Common cures for the hangover are-"

"Thanks a lot, Baku, but we're done here." Hiro took a step forward and nearly staggered. Fred was sagging at this point, head starting to bob, and Hiro was now desperately hoping he wouldn't start getting the alcohol out of his system on the way back.

Wasabi gave him a significant glance. "I can carry him on my back, if you're not-"

"What did I tell you, Wasabi?" Hiro groaned. "I'm fine. Really. Let's just leave. Good night, Baku."

There was a pause. He'd forgotten something, hadn't he? That was it. "And...I'm satisfied with my care."

That seemed to be it for him. Baku dipped his head. "Good night, Hiro, Wasabi, Fred. I will see you soon."

"Good night," Wasabi replied, although the look he was giving Hiro when he said it was enough to tell Hiro that the older samurai had no idea what just happened. Hiro made a mental note to explain it in the morning, when they both weren't so worn out anymore.

One thing was for sure, he thought, as they made their way with Fred past the hall: he'd definitely had enough of the Yoshiwara for the night, if not the year.