"So thanks for the gift, and for a nice evening and everything, but I think I am gonna just head home, ok? You have a good time, and enjoy the rest of the Festival. Be good, now."

She leaned in and gave him a gentle - sisterly - peck on the cheek, and disappeared into the crowd as quickly as she could, never turning back so that the handsome young boy, the first one in so long to introduce hope into her own young damaged heart, couldn't see the tears in her dark scarlet eyes.

She had sworn when her grandmother died she would never cry again, and she didn't want to acknowledge the tears that came now. She forced her mind to focus on a mental checklist of all the tasks she had to accomplish first thing in the morning to get her food stand ready to open for the afternoon Festival rush. It would be a busy day, and if she wasn't completely prepared, she would never make it.

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Sanzo awoke to the sound of a weak croaking like a dying frog coming from across the room. He wondered what kind of wildlife Goku had brought into his quarters now, and sat up on his elbows, expecting to see the boy sitting there with a box containing assorted reptiles and amphibians in their last stages of life, having been taken from their natural environments (at least he wasn't keeping them in his pockets now.) He was suprised at the sight of his young charge, still in his cot, his face the color of a milky pea soup, his hair disheveled around his diadem, and his upper half in his pajamas, his lower half still in his jeans, one boot on and one boot off.

"Goku, what the hell..." He sat up and was abruptly reminded of what the cause of Goku's situation was by the sharp pain behind his own eyes, the ghastly taste in his mouth, and the large cold brick that had apparently landed in his own stomach -- all obviously remnants of too much alcohol consumption last night. It all came back to him, he thought clearly. But he only remembered the saru getting two or at most three drinks - how the hell had he gotten so hung over? He mulled over the events of the evening and remembered the unconsumed tray of fruity drinks made by the strange barmaid with the long hair and the bad attitude - they had never been drunk and had been sitting on the end of the bar the last time he had seen them. Shit on toast, the damn fool had probably drunk all of them when they weren't looking, and she had said something about the one for him having the "kick of a Tibetan ox...."

Doing his best to ignore the relatively minor hangover he had (he'd certainly had far far worse) Konzen slipped out of his bed, put on his slippers, and padded quietly to Goku's cot, sitting down at his side and gently brushing his clammy damp hair back from his face.

"I'll bet you feel pretty wretched, don't you, monkey?"

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