Disclaimer: I am in no way claiming ownership over the Legend of Zelda franchise or making money with this story. No copyright infringement is intended.

Author's Note: This story has been in production since May of 2014, and is fully completed (with only minor edits to be made). It runs eleven chapters and will be approximately 40k words. It contains scenes of sexual activity, mature language, and one minor mention of a potential trigger topic (this chapter will have a separate warning).

"Much happiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid." – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Link was very, very late.

The realization hit him all at once. His eyes suddenly flew open, and he tore himself from his bed with such ferocity that he collided with his desk chair, sending them both hurtling to the ground. His elbow slammed onto the floor with a loud crack, and he clenched his teeth at the pain, fighting to keep the tears out of his eyes. He gave the chair a healthy kick before righting himself.

He typically awoke to darkness, but sunlight was streaming in through his window. He wrenched open the doors of his closet, hastily pulling on a pair of woolen trousers and a sweater. Fortunately, he had packed his bag the night before, and so was simply able to grab it on his way out the door.

The first day of school was always an exciting time, but he didn't like to think of his teacher's reaction at being late to his first class of the year. Link sprinted down the hallway until he reached the main doors and continued jogging past the other dorm buildings. The typically active campus was still, and his anxiety increased as the main Academy building came into view. He swung the door open as quietly as he could, but the noise still attracted the attention of several off-duty instructors, who scowled in his direction from the front desk.

After several minutes of traversing the massive schoolhouse, Link finally managed to find his classroom. He paused for a moment to still his shaking hand before knocking on the door. A very irate Professor Laymond answered. "Oh my, look who finally decided to show up."

"I'm so sorry, Sir. I overslept, and I promise it will never happen again."

"Yes, well you'd better see to it. Should this occur in the future, you will find yourself before Headmaster Gaepora. Do you understand me?" His tone was icy.

"Yes, Sir. Of course, Sir. Thank you, Sir."

Professor Laymond stepped to the side, allowing Link to enter the classroom. He immediately caught the eye of his best friend in the entire world. Zelda winked at him, attempting to repress laughter. She moved her bag from the empty desk beside her to the floor at her feet, indicating for him to join her. Link grinned and winked. He collapsed next to her, still shaking with anxiety.

"That's how you do it the Link way," he said, mocking his own mistake.

"More like the lazy way," Zelda commented wryly. "I came by your room this morning to make sure you were up but you didn't answer me, so I assumed you were gone."

Link frowned. "Maybe that's what woke me up. I'm not too late, am I? I don't actually know what time it is."

"No, class just started about ten minutes ago, although you did miss the entire orientation assembly." Link groaned, planting his face in his hands. "But it's not like we need it. We are finally seniors, after all!" she added gleefully.

"If Miss Zelda is quite finished!" Professor Laymond shouted.

Zelda looked down at her desk, blushing slightly. "I'm sorry, Sir. I was just informing Link of what he missed this morning."

Professor Laymond simply scowled more at this. "Yes, well I will be happy to inform him alongside you in detention if the pair of you do not stop interrupting my class." The Professor went on to explain the course curriculum, and Link caught Zelda's eye with a great heave of silent laughter. He reached across to her desk and scribbled a note on the blank piece of parchment.

Don't think anyone's managed to get a detention on the first day before.

Zelda narrowed her eyes at him playfully. I did not get a detention! And besides, it's your fault.

Link grinned and winked, but quickly busied himself taking out his own parchment after catching Professor Laymond's eye. He was soon lulled into a heavy stupor by Laymond's drone of information regarding maths, his least favorite subject in school.

After what seemed like hours, a loud bell toll sounded across the campus, and students immediately rose and began hustling to escape the classroom. Zelda and Link walked to their next class and sat beside Piper, another member of their group of friends. Piper was a quiet, intelligent girl who had led a sheltered life, and her friends often defended her loyally from bullying.

She looked exceptionally relieved to see them. "Thank the Goddess, I thought I was going to have to sit her by myself like last class."

Link plopped down in the seat next to her. "Well, fortunately for you, I'm here to save the day!" Piper giggled, and Zelda rolled her eyes, taking the empty desk behind Link. Just as he began to launch into the story of how he had been late to class, his second closest friend behind Zelda walked through the door at the front of the room.

"Pipit!" Link yelled happily. He jumped up and enveloped his friend in a warm hug. Pipit had been gone for two weeks at a Knighthood Leadership Seminar, and Link had missed him every day. Link took a deep breath, filling his lungs with Pipit's familiar scent.

"Hey, Link."

Link frowned and stepped back, examining his friend more closely. "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing. Just having a bit of a fight with Karane is all." His cheerful face looked so inexplicably wrong to be so serious.

"A fight? You've just come back, what, last night, right? How can she already be angry at you?"

Pipit made his way over to the desk beside Zelda, and Link sat down in his own seat. Piper turned around, and all three friends listened as Pipit told them the tale.

"It's really my fault. It all started on the first day of the seminar. There were two seats left when I arrived in the lecture hall. One was next to Cawlin, that goony of Groose's. The other was beside Orielle – you know, that girl who graduated last year?" At the affirming nods of his friends, he continued. "Obviously I was going to choose her over Cawlin. Maybe, had I chosen him…" He trailed off for a moment before returning to the story.

"Well, the instructor told us that we would have to be presenting a sort of speech at the end of the seminar, and that we should incorporate as much of the course material as we could. She said that a select few of us would be selected for full scholarships to the Knighthood Training Facility. I noticed throughout the course of the lesson that Orielle was taking really good notes – far better than mine. So I stopped her after class and asked if I could meet her somewhere to study her notes.

"She agreed, and wrote her room number on a piece of paper. She told me I could come by whenever I wanted to study with her, and that she would help me with my speech if I needed her to."

At this point, Zelda interjected. "You didn't notice she was hitting on you?"

Pipit frowned. "Hold on. You don't know where I'm going with this." Zelda laughed derisively but allowed him to continue. "Anyway, I went by later that night to study with her, and she was very helpful. I continued to go back each night after, sometimes staying late so that I could get the most of her notes. We ended up working together for the entire seminar, and helped each other a lot with the final speech."

"Wait, I'm confused. What does this have to do with Karane?" Link asked.

"Oh, come on Link," Zelda said disparagingly, "Cawlin obviously saw the two of them getting together and assumed they were, well, getting together." She looked sharply at Pipit. "Right?"

Pipit nodded. "I guess he must have told Groose, because Karane was really angry at me as soon as I got, and I had no idea why. She thinks I was faking it though. She thinks I was hooking up with Orielle during the seminar."

As Pipit said this, the Professor entered the classroom, ending their conversation. This class, however, seemed to go by much faster than his previous class, and soon Link was packing up his belongings, anxious to return to his conversation with Pipit.

The four friends parted ways at the door, Zelda and Piper taking a left down the hallway to their next class, Link and Pipit heading in the opposite direction. "So. What are you going to do about Karane?"

Pipit shook his head. "I don't know. To be honest with you, being away from her for two weeks made me think about breaking up with her anyway. I realized how much happier I felt without having to worry about what she thought, and how much more freedom I felt because she wasn't constantly on my back. But there's a reasonable chance she'll break up with me now, which is probably better."

"Yeah, she might think you're breaking up with her for Orielle."

"Exactly, and I'm not. I don't even know Orielle that well – but, get this; Orielle lives about a minute's walk away from my house, and Karane lives like twenty minutes away. How perfect is that?"

"Can't you just get Orielle to talk to her?"

Pipit shook his head. "If she thought I was lying to her, then there's no way she'd believe Orielle. You should have her some of the things Karane said about her last night. She's really upset about this."

Their last lesson of the morning was Combat Skills with Knight Commander Eagus. Link was pretty handy with most combat weapons used by Knights, but he didn't have to even pick one up. They spent the lesson going over safety procedures necessary. Most of them, Link thought, were simply common sense. Don't point a loaded crossbow at anybody. Don't run with unsheathed swords. Don't play catch with the flail.

Link and Pipit spent the greater part of the class sitting at the back of the Sparring Hall, trying to look halfway interested. Link spent a lot of his free time here, training, and Pipit worked for the Night Patrol, so they were both familiar with most of what Eagus was saying.

The class couldn't end quickly enough, and when Eagus dismissed the class, Pipit and Link were the first out of the door on the way to lunch. After a few minutes, the pair arrived at the dining hall. Pipit stopped, seeing Karane sitting at their normal table. With her sat Zelda, Piper, and Fledge and Peatrice, the final two members of their typical group. Link could tell Pipit was deciding whether he should sit next to Karane.

After a moment, he sat down hesitantly beside her. She threw a disgusted glance in his general direction before sliding her chair as close to Piper's as she could. Link sat down in between Fledge and Zelda. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence before Zelda pointedly turned to Link and started a conversation. "So, Link, apparently many of the teachers think we're a thing."

This caught Link off guard. "You mean like… you and me. In a relationship?"

Zelda nodded. They both fought to keep straight faces for a moment before bursting out laughing, attracting glances from other tables. "I'm sorry, honey, but I don't think you're my type."

"You would be lucky to have a girlfriend like me!" she said, pretending to be offended.

"Yeah? Well I can think of a few things that need to be worked on."

"Like what?" she said with mock curiosity.

"You need to be more… a man." They locked eyes for another minute but couldn't hold back their laughter.

"More a man? That makes no sense! I think we need to see other people."

"Yeah, okay. You can have Fledge here, and I'll take Pipit."

"Oh no, I want Pipit for myself. You have Fledge!"

"What's wrong with Fledge?!"

"Good question. Why don't you want Fledge?"

"Because I want Pipit!"

"Well, that's too bad. Pipit likes girls, I'm a girl, so there we go."

"I hope we won't be forgetting that Pipit has a girlfriend already." Karane slammed her drink onto the table, instilling a sudden quiet to fall over the table. She glared with more anger than Link had ever seen, not at Zelda, but at Pipit. He smiled weakly and tried to take her hand, but she jerked it away.

"I'm sure that they were just joking around. Right guys!" he finished pointedly. Link and Zelda both nodded profusely, not wanting Karane to turn her fury to either of them.

"Don't pull that on me!" Karane said hotly. "Moved on from Ostrich already have we? Decided you'd go for Zelda next? I'm impressed. It would take a lot of effort to keep that from me. You must like a challenge."

"Karane, please, you have to believe me when I say that I never did anything with Orielle. I will not deny that I went to her room almost every night during the seminar, but we were only preparing for the final."

"Yeah, how'd that turn out? Where's your scholarship? Obviously that study paid off."

"They aren't announcing the scholarships until December begins. It's September." Karane huffed and turned away from Pipit. "Karane, look at who you heard this from. Groose "let slip" that I had been "getting cozy" with Orielle at the seminar. He wasn't even there. And besides, how often does Groose talk about us? Probably never, unless he's in it for something."

"Pipit, nothing you say will convince me. I knew this would happen. I knew that if I let you go to that stupid seminar you'd come back with some college girl on your arm."

"Excuse me, but who says you let me go?"

"Oh, like you would have gone if I had said no."

"Actually, yes, I most definitely would have gone. The only person whose permission I needed was my mother, and she, unlike you, was able to appreciate the fantastic opportunity for what it was."

"So you're saying that you don't respect what I want for you."

"Karane, I love you, but I need a chance to be my own person. I can't do that if you're constantly trying to control how I live my life. Give me some freedom. You might learn to trust me more."

"Oh, okay, so I don't trust you enough. Oh, and the way to fix this is to give you more freedom? How much sense does that make?"

Pipit stood up in anger. "The problem here isn't that you don't trust me, the problem is that you don't think I can handle myself as an adult. I promise that I didn't do anything with Orielle, and if you can't believe that then I think you need to think about it and try again. If you can't get past this then we're over. I'm sick of you, and I'm sick of having to deal with your attitude. Until you're willing to move past this, I don't want to talk to you."

Karane stared at Pipit with a glare so full of hatred that Link felt sorry for her. She let loose a single tear before she stood up and slapped Pipit square across the jaw. He surged forward for a moment as if to retaliate but then stopped himself.

Karane grabbed him by the collar and pulled his face within inches of her own. "You have no right to talk to me like that, and until you apologize, I don't want to talk to you either. In fact, I don't ever want to see you again." With that, she threw him down into his chair and ran out of the dining hall, sobbing into her hands.

Pipit watched her go, holding a hand to the red mark on his cheek. He turned back to the table. Link, who didn't know what to do with his eyes, had been examining a rather interesting vase on the table next to theirs. Zelda had been intently straightening the cuff of his sweater, and Fledge had been quietly trying to deduce the reason for the slightly uneven footing of his chair. Peatrice was the first to speak.

"Well, I'd better go talk to her. Great job, Pipit," she added icily.

She rose and walked out of the dining hall. Pipit looked around at the rest of them. "You guys don't think I was too mean, do you."

"No," started Fledge, "but you were a bit scary for a moment. I thought you were going to hit her after she slapped you."

"I could never hit anyone, especially a girl. Somebody would have to really piss me off for me to hit them."

Fledge didn't offer a response to this, and Pipit looked around desperately. "Link?"

"Well, from what you said earlier, you were at least justified in what you said. I would have maybe worked on the delivery a bit. You did say you were sick of her."

"I am sick of her," he grumbled.

"Right, but my point is that we don't scream to people's faces in the middle of the dining hall. Because of that, I think she was also justified in slapping you."

"Yeah, I won't hold that against her. I really just hope this means we're over."

Zelda gasped. "You mean you wanted to break up with her?"

"Yes, I was thinking about it a lot while I was at the seminar. I'll go try to talk to her later tonight to see if we can at least not hate each other for the rest of our lives."

There was a pause, and Link caught a glimpse of Groose several tables away, laughing amongst his goons and reenacting Karane's slap. "Looks like Groose got what he wanted though."

Zelda made a noise of disgust. "What Groose wants is to cause as much trouble as he can."

"Maybe he and Karane will date," Pipit mused, "After all, they're perfect for each other."

This led to other conversation, and before they knew it, lunch was over.

The day could not finish soon enough for Link, who spent most of his remaining classes worrying over what had transpired at their lunch table. It was easy for anyone to see that Karane hadn't been very supportive of Pipit, and it was also evident that she was obsessive about keeping track of his goings-on. Still, Link couldn't help but feel as though Pipit may have gone too far in the dining hall.

However, he was also angry at Karane. She was lucky to be dating one of the best knights-in-training that Skyloft had ever seen. Pipit was, by anyone's standards, a fantastic student, a wise warrior, and a fierce, fierce friend. He was exceptionally kind-hearted, and unceasingly generous. And both Link and Zelda knew that what they had said about Pipit was not a joke; most girls who met Pipit seemed to fall for him instantly. He was extremely attractive, and very easy to get along with. He was funny and charismatic, and mature well beyond his years.

Link reflected on this later that night as he sat on the rooftop of his dorm building. It was as he watched children chase after fireflies in the rising darkness that he heard a melodious sound. He listened harder and realized it was a man singing the famous Ballad of the Goddess. He rose into a crouch and made his way along the rooftop, moving towards the sound of the music.

He poked his head over the eaves and saw Pipit, standing at the edge of the island, staring off into the sky. The near-full moon shone bright light onto the clouds below, transforming into an ethereal bed of pearly mist. Link realized with a jolt that he had never heard his friend sing, but the sound was absolutely beautiful. He looked up at the stars and couldn't help but see the epic battle between Hylia and the demonic evil that plagued the lands below the clouds.

The song came to an end, and Link watched Pipit as he remained motionless, gazing into the night. Then, he picked up a lantern that had been resting on the ground beside him, lit it, and began walking back towards the dorm buildings. Link swung himself down from the eaves and landed beside Pipit.

"Oh, Link! You scared me!" Pipit stepped back in fright. Then he blushed. "Did you hear me singing?"

Link nodded. "You sound beautiful. I didn't know you could sing like that." Pipit blushed again but said nothing. "Did you talk to Karane?"

"Yes," Pipit said hesitantly. "I stopped by her dorm earlier. Peatrice tried to pretend she wasn't there, but I didn't buy it. She's pretty angry about this."

"What did you say to her?"

"Well, I started by apologizing for what I'd said to her. She told me how angry and embarrassed she was because I had made her look bad in front of her friends, and I apologized again. I think she was starting to maybe forgive me, but I told her that I'd been considering breaking up with her for a few weeks and she about lost it."

"What did she say?" Link asked, bewildered.

"Well, she got angry because she thinks I was treating our relationship like a joke. I told her that she was too worried about me all the time, and that I was getting tired of constantly answering to her. Then she said she wouldn't have to worry about me if I would act more trustworthy. Apparently I am not romantic enough, and I never make the first move. She said that my apathy towards our relationship meant I was in love with someone else."

At this, Pipit faltered and looked at his shoes. "You're not in love with somebody else, are you?" Link asked.

"Well – not exactly." There was a long moment of silence, in which Link waited expectantly.

"What do you mean?" Link finally asked.

"Link, I don't know how to tell you this, but it's been going through my head for a while. I – I think that I'm…" he sighed deeply, and Link noticed that his hands were shaking. Then, he straightened up and looked directly into Link's eyes. "I think that I'm gay."

Author's Note: I hope you liked the first chapter! Please review and follow for more!