AN: The Zelda adaptation of a story that I wrote in Creative Writing (best class ever!). The original was basically the same, with a few name changes here and there. So you could say that –disclaimers- I own everything when I actually own nothing. All rights to Nintendo.
Longest one-shot I've written yet! Enjoy!
The shop smelled like a gardening disaster- rotted mulch, overdosed fertilizer, wood smoke, grease, and onions all laden with the distant and distinct odor of dying flowers. In the places not chipped and peeling, mottled shades of pink splattered the walls in detestable hunks. Some sort of slow motion elevator music meandered in the background, a thick and nauseas tune that he was sure would never be caught playing anywhere else on the face of the planet. He questioned whoever had the nerve to write that stuff to begin with.
Snatches of conversation floated about in the air, lost to the disastrous polka-metal-elevator jingle. He strained his hearing, catching snatches of obscure phrases about pesticide, thorns, and pesky old ladybugs.
He fidgeted up and down as he waited for his turn at the counter. His foot, adorned by black converse, tapped a harried backbeat on the checkered floor. A muscle on his face twitched, and he tried to keep himself from wincing at the sight of chaos before him. He gave a disgruntled sigh. The old lady in front of him re-counted her change for the thousandth time that evening, doling out quarters only to pull them back and exchange them for shinier dimes and brazen pennies.
His fists clenched tighter than his teeth already were. He nearly screamed, but he looked down at the gift and breathed in deep, letting all the impatience flow from him. He reminded himself that it would all be worth it as soon as he could high-tail it out of here.
She would love them. He decided she would even if her birthday had passed all of months ago. He was sure he could find a holiday somewhere in the middle of August that could justify such a gift. There was bound to be some sort of date he could use. Heck, he could even make up a holiday if he wanted. It's not like he needed an occasion anyway, not with her.
He checked his watch and his brows furrowed. Just when he thought his limit had been breached, the slug of a woman in front of him grabbed her belongings and cleared the counter. He stepped up in confidant strides.
The cashier smacked her bubblegum with abandonment, slumping an over-pierced face in a manicured palm and peering up at him through lashes so thick there was no way they were real. "Welcome ta Agitha's. Can I help ya?" she drawled in a monotone, paying more attention to the way she chewed her gum than anything else.
He resisted the urge to kill somebody, as tempting as it was, shoving the money onto the counter instead. Waiting for half an hour in this dink of a place was nowhere he wanted to spend the only free Saturday he'd have all month, but he hadn't had anything to do and the wallet he had been given, overflowing with newly-earned cash, had spent all of Friday burning a guilty hole in his pocket.
Zelda, he reminded himself. The crease in his forehead softened at the edges enough for the blood to start flowing properly to his brain again. I'm doing this for Zelda.
The cashier opened her mouth to say something, but he blatantly ignored her. He spun on his heels, not bothering to grab the change or the receipt. He almost sprinted towards the door. Almost, until he remembered that he was in a shop full of elderly women and hyper teenage girls and he was holding a parcel the size of the rooster waiting for him on the couch at home.
The door closed behind him a little too softly for his liking, safety hinges catching the crimson wood from slamming in the nick of time. An automotive bell bid him adieu, its gentle chime the last thing to reach his ears before he was gone from that place. He hoped for good, but then again it was the only shop of its kind in town so that possibility was doubtful.
Laughter from across the street let him know he wasn't alone. Three adolescents, drunken on mirth and high on who-knew-what, caught his attention, bellowing his name amidst their snickering. Fingers pointed, pitiful excuses of sentences mocked. Classmates he whose names he barely registered gave one last, taunting look at him before they took off running into the waning light.
He should have guessed someone would notice. A guy in ripped jeans and a crumpled green hoodie running out of a fuchsia flower shop didn't exactly do wonders for his already slacking reputation.
Not that reputation mattered. If one person liked him, that was good enough.
He ripped his phone from his pocket, flipped it open, and dialed the number he had memorized since kindergarten.
A handful of rings later, a voice answered. He grinned. Her dulcet, lyrical tones never ceased to impress him.
"Hello!" He breathed in to answer but then the same voice cut him off. "If you've reached this number, chances are I'm not available right now. Leave me a message and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Ciao!"
His smile faded. His body sagged on its tall frame. The phone clicked shut. He pulled the package to his chest, listening to the way the tissue paper crackled with the motions of his lungs. He peeled back a corner and inspected the gift. He moved towards the crosswalk, and tentatively stepped onto the street.
The roses glinted oddly that dusk, saturated with something far too dark, far too sinister for his liking. They seemed to leer up at him, petals wrenched into miniscule frowns. When he had arrived at the florist's just moments ago and checked the price tag, they had looked absolutely beautiful, a wondrous crimson hue that glistened enough to make anyone want to bust out in song. But tonight, as a sunset painted the canvas of the sky, they looked… ominous. Shrunken and deformed. They seemed like they were trying to tell him something, pleading stems just waiting for him to decode their riddle.
It was a pity he didn't speak flower. Their eeriness made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
He shrugged the feeling off and let a thin speck of amusement slip from between his lips. He held flowers for the girl of his dreams. He was going to give them to her, and she would be happy, and all would be right with the world. He would make up for the birthday he had missed, and they would go out somewhere fancy and gorge themselves on blazing hot coffee until they reached beyond the levels of maximum hydration. And then maybe they would hold hands and walk the long way home. And maybe they would kiss. He smirked to himself, and in spite of the fact that he was clearly male, he gave a small skip.
Suddenly there was a car in front of him.
He was so caught up in his fake victory that he failed to notice the headlights of an ebony van careening around the corner and heading for him at speeds he was sure were illegal.
He tried to take a step forward, but it was too late.
Here he was, in the center of the crosswalk. And there it was. There, growing larger and larger until its hood seemed to swallow him whole and his mind turned blank and he quavered like a child lost in a crowd. Nothing but him and that car, and soon there would be nothing left of him at all.
In every sense of irony, his life flashed forward in front of his eyes. A stuffed teddy bear dangling at the end of his bed. That rumpled graduate certificate he'd gotten what felt like a hundred years ago, bearing his name, Link Harkinian, in saffron letters. The time when he'd fallen off his bicycle and broken his arm. The first time he'd listened to Metallica. That smile Zelda had given him, the one that made his heart beat like an erratic bass-drum.
Her face swallowed his vision. His breath caught in his throat. His eyes slipped shut, and he prepared for the worst. In the back of his mind, he replayed the way her voice sounded when she said his name.
The bouquet of roses fell to the ground.
She left the bookstore in a leisurely walk, plastic bag jangling as she paced towards the parking lot. She hummed a soft melody, and its subtle, trembling notes drifted up into the air and coalesced with the amethyst clouds. She pulled a pair of car keys from her back pocket. She jammed the keys into the lock and cranked them in a huge circle, feeble grasp barely able to turn the keys properly. She prepared to get into the car, but she paused halfway. She tossed her books in the passenger seat, grabbed the keys again, and smashed the door shut. She took off down the street again, hilarity brimming on her face.
Zelda saw him, not even thirty feet away. He casually shook his head, obviously debating something with himself. Strands of yellow hair flailed about his face. His cerulean eyes cast a pensive look at nothing in particular. He clung to a monstrous package like it was his lifeline, calloused fingers digging large creases into the wrapping paper. She chuckled as he took a quick skip, a gentle smile blooming on the edges of his lips.
That's when the car rounded the corner.
She watched it careen towards him, and her heart stopped. She took a deep breath, as deep as she could. The air filled her lungs until they felt like they were going to explode into a thousand pieces. Her hands trembled by her sides and they twisted into miserable, lopsided spheres. As much as she wanted to turn around and leave she had passed the point of caring only about herself. There was no going back anymore, not even if her stomach ached and her head throbbed and her mind screamed in every possible form of protest.
She concentrated on the contours of Link's face and the trajectory of the van soaring towards him.
She looked down at her shoelaces. No time to tie them now. She would fix them later. She told herself she could sprint thirty feet without tripping.
Zelda started running.
Suddenly, there was a car in front of him. And suddenly, there wasn't.
The world turned clear and somewhere within the murky depths of his mentality cogs and gears began to spin. His half conscious mind registered the fact that he was flying backwards, not sideways as he ought to have been. No pain hit him, no sudden, clinching end of breaking bones and shredded rubber. To the contrary, asphalt and concrete dug into his back. His nerves still worked, his thoughts still flowed and his breath still puffed out in astonished gasps.
His eyes snapped open. The first things that greeted his blurred vision were strand of long, golden hair billowing about and a flash of sapphire eye flecked with the oncoming moonlight. A wave of despair and confusion washed over him. He wanted to tell her something, wanted to get up and scream at her to get the heck out of there, but his vocal chords barely allowed him to breathe, let alone form a coherent sentence. Time froze mid-moment, and their gazes locked: hers confident, warm, and whole, his shaken, desperate, pleading.
She mouthed the words "I love you" and he dove to his feet.
When the thoughts of oh God no please not her collided in his brain, the car collided with Zelda's body.
The remains of a person that once was spiraled though the air, twisting and turning in a descent that could have rivaled any professional ballerina. It could have been called graceful, he realized much later. It could have been called the greatest leap mankind had ever taken. It could have been called beautiful.
Except it wasn't.
The van came to a stuttering standstill, tires hacking and wheezing, brakes lurching into a sickening, shuddering halt. The engine coughed out a blur of greasy smoke. A thin plume of dust detached itself from the car's dirty exterior and floated towards Link in an irritated swarm.
Silence saturated the streets, a dark and desolate silence so solemn and peculiar his ears rang with it. He speculated that there should have been noise, maybe the shriek of the car horn or the far-off wail of an oncoming ambulance. Static from a fading radio station, or perhaps the sound of his screaming would have sufficed to break the quiet that had descended.
It was then that it dawned upon him that the absence of noise was the loudest sound of all.
A single rose petal drifted in the air, the tiniest fragment of a ruby, the most minuscule drop of blood. The wind gently tugged at it, and it gave a subtle jerk as it fought against the winding gale. It darted in a maze of complicated escapades, forcing itself to remain in the world as long as possible. But at last, it gave in. It spiraled up into the clouds, drifting higher and higher until it finally curled into the heavens and out of sight.