"WHAT!? Dark! You can't!"
"I-I'm sorry, Link....."
"Please, Dark, tell them you don't want to go!"
"But I do...."
"You'd leave us?! You'd leave Midna, and Zelda, and.... me?"
Silent tears slipped from Dark's crimson eyes.
"That's what I'll regret the most...." he whispered, turning his head away so his jet black, chin length hair shaded his pale, porcelain white face from Link's. Link had never seen his Dark, his beloved best friend and boyfriend, express weakness such as crying, and was shocked that he would do so now. Dark never cried. Never.
"So..... this is it, then?" Link chocked through the lump in his throat and blurry wetness in his cerulean eyes.
"Y-Yes...." Dark sobbed, and, throwing his arms around Link's neck, he sobbed onto his shoulder, shuddering and gasping and crying even harder, even when Link's soft stroking fingers ran through his hair, or his foresty, refreshing scent enticed him. Usually, these factors would strengthen Dark, and if he knew he was about break down and become weak, everything about Link would prevent this.
But now.... they only rained on the flood in his heart, and the tears kept pouring... down Link's neck and shoulder, as the blonde's own cries stained Dark's black t-shirt until it glistened in the evening sunlight.
* * *
Gazing numbly out the window, too preoccupied to take in the puffs of snow white cloud, the glare of the too bright, white-yellow sun, and several hundred passing vehicles streaking down the tar black road left and right, Dark tried to focus his attention more on his mp3, to which he was listening to In the End by Linkin Park. He struggled to not think of Link's tear-stained face from last night, before he had given him one last kiss goodbye, and turned away from the blonde's driveway and began walking home....
Link's pleads still rang over and over in his mind....
"Dark! Please don't go with them! You'll like it better here, I know you will!"
"I can't Link.... I need to put myself first this time...."
"But what about Midna and Zelda?! You don't think your cousin and best friend won't need you?!"
"You'll have each other...."
"Well, if you won't stay for them, won't you stay for me?!"
Dark had turned his scarlet gaze to Link, exposing his puffy red eyes and flushed cheeks, and murmured, "You're the only one who kept me here so long.... Without you, I would've been gone long ago."
And they had kissed one last time, their mouths mashed together passionately and forcefully, the heat of each other surging through their veins, before Dark had ripped himself from the boy he had loved and known his whole life, and began his trek down Link's driveway and to his house.
He hadn't turned back once....
And now, as the lyrics played in Dark's ears, he tried not to remember Link, tried not to see that miserable face, one filled with such agony at losing his best friend.....
I tried so hard, and got so far, but in the end, it doesn't even matter
I had to fall to lose it all
But in the end, it doesn't even matter-er
"It doesn't matter, Link.... It never mattered...." Dark mumbled through clenched teeth, willing himself to not cry again.
"Dark? You doing okay back there?"
Dark immediately glanced up at the sound of his aunt's voice. She was peering, concerned, back at Dark in the backseat of the truck, her clear, green eyes with an amused glint in them. His aunt was always smiling, always happy.
It was contagious to Dark, either that or he was glad to push the subject of Link to the darkest recesses of his mind.
"Yeah, everything's cool Aunt Yusuke," he assured her, and flashed a snowy toothed grin.
"Glad to hear it!" she smiled, and reached a hand back to ruffle his hair. She turned to face Dark's uncle and exclaimed, "I'm so glad he can finally live and come to school down here with us, aren't you, Hideki?"
Hideki, a good natured man who was a guitarist in his band and had the appearance of a regular punk rocker (complete with several piercings along his face and a wicked tattoo of a serpent that connected his arms and back) with light blonde hair and deep brown eyes, grinned and replied, "S'about time we got the little squirt down here."
Dark couldn't help but roll his eyes and grin back.
As the car fell silent again, except for the pulsing screams of People = Shit by Slipknot in Dark's ears produced from his mp3, Hideki sped down the freeway, everything a blur in Dark's eyes.... And he almost forgot about Link...
Almost.