Six minutes.
Six minutes left, until Link could leave his hell hole of a classroom and return to his home to hate himself even more, but this time without anybody around to witness it.
The class seemed to move slower than usual, with the professor still trying to teach (even though he knows mostly everyone is packed up and ready to go.)
Link's gaze wandered around the room before settling on his classmate Zelda, who he was ultimately not very fond of, as she was everything he'd hope to be, such as refreshing and popular. You could say he hated her for it, even though he knew it wasn't her fault that everybody loved her. Not one bit.
After looking at her for a good two minutes, four still remained, and during those four he contemplated the reasons for hating himself, and for why he can't be social. He came up with more than ten, and at the exact moment he looked up, the bell rang.
Thank goodness, he thought to himself, whilst picking up his books and shoving them into his bag. On his way out the door, he lost focus and ended up running into Zelda, and nearly knocking her over.
They made direct eye contact for a few moments before Link looked away, apologizing and walking off. He could hear Zelda's friends laughing, but not her own. Maybe she wasn't nearly as awful as he made her out to be. As he walked, he mentally scolded himself for being such an uncautious ass.
"Link!" He could hear her from all the way down the corridor, but he didn't really care at that point, and would rather save the embarrassment.
When he arrived home, he threw his backpack on the dining room table and reached into his pockets for his phone, but nothing was there except for a few dollar bills and lone gum wrappers.
Shit, he thought to himself. He just had to drop it in front of Zelda, the one person he'll probably never speak to again in his life.
Taking a few pills and running upstairs, he quickly changed into a navy t-shirt and grey sweatpants. Back downstairs, Link quickly fell asleep on the couch. But a little bit less than an hour later, his peaceful slumber was rudely disturbed by his doorbell ringing. The reason for this unknown, as he doesn't order packages and doesn't have friends, he stood in front of the door, opening it slightly.
The first thing he sees is a girl with blonde hair and bangs and bright, curious blue eyes. It took him a moment to realize it was Zelda, and she had his phone in her hand.
"How do you know where I live?" Was the first thing to come to his mind, and the first thing he said.
"You can hate me for this, but I had to look in your maps app to find your house." She handed him his phone and looked up, a small frown on her face.
Link took his phone and smiled gently. "Thank you. I appreciate it."
He was about to shut the door, but Zelda noticed something on his arm. A genuinely concerned look was on her face.
Link followed her gaze to his arm, where a very large scar was. "Oh, you.. This is from a car accident. The window shattered and glass got everywhere. I'm not.. I don't harm myself intentionally." But I am a bit depressed, he thought to himself, but that wasn't something he was going to share with someone he didn't know.
She sighed, relieved. "Well, I'll be going now. I'll see you around, yeah?"
"Yeah, sure." Zelda looked up at Link and smiled, before walking off to her car in front of his driveway, and waving once before leaving.
When he shut the door, he sighed in relief and layed back on the couch to continue his nap.
The next day, Zelda casually greeted Link in the morning as if they were friends now, which they weren't.
Throughout his classes, he sat alone but in the classes he had with Zelda, she would turn around and wave at him, but he didn't wave back or anything to that effect as he didn't want to ruin his reputation. Besides, she was too popular to even consider befriending a lonely student like himself.
And finally, at the end of the day, she confronted him, when all of her friends had already left. "Why didn't you wave back to me?" She said.
She sounded a bit defeated, or disappointed, but he couldn't tell why as he hadn't done anything wrong, albeit being impolite. (But what's the point in waving to someone you're not friends with?)
He tipped his head slightly to the side in confusion, before thinking of a response. "I just.. um, Zelda, we're not really friends. I don't mean to offend you, but wasting your time to return something to me doesn't make me someone close to you. It just makes you a kind person."
"Well, alright. But I'm going to keep trying until you can consider me a friend. Bye!" She grinned before walking off. He mentally kicked himself for being such an impolite person, and walked home to end another day on his couch.