Well, this is a little late, I suppose. It is still Saturday, technically, but I was intending on getting this out a little earlier, but, you know...pre-release jitters and all that. My good friend Alpha has, once again, helped me out of it, so many more thanks to him for beta reading! (Yes, I realize you're getting sick of hearing this by now, haha!)

Now, onward!

The two girls didn't mutter a word to each other for what felt like eons. Zelda rattled her brain as much as she could while Karane eagerly waited for an answer to her question, but none came easily for her. She hadn't even thought about it when she had written her plan down and meticulously predicted and calculated all the moves she would make. It figured that only now a spanner in the works would reveal itself to her. It was something she'd completely overlooked, and now she was kicking herself for it.

What if Link really doesn't win? she asked herself as fear gradually clouded her heart and her face. What if he doesn't win and I have to end up performing the ceremonial ritual with…Groose? Just the thought of the ridiculous spike of bed head that somehow passed as a hair style made her feel dizzy, and Link's work ethic in regards to flight training had always been more subpar than he could probably afford; that was sure helping the matter a lot.

As much as it pained her, she had to admit to her plan's egregious shortcoming. "…Good point."

"Still," Karane replied, her uncannily-useful rationality in this kind of situation keeping her on track, "don't forget that it's not the end if it turns out he doesn't win. If he has a less-than-stellar performance—and let's face it: He's not doing himself any favors by lazing about—you'll think of something else."

Regardless, Zelda's distinct pout of worry just wouldn't leave her face. "I know, but it's the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Knight Academy, and it's his test for promotion to the senior class, and it's during the same time that I'm playing the goddess… It can't just be a coincidence, can it? Heck, it's definitely more memorable than just going up to him and saying, 'Hey, I have something to talk to you about. Can you see me in the plaza in about ten minutes? Thanks, bye!'"

Karane chuckled. "You know, Zelda, I don't think he'd really mind all that much."

Zelda looked away as she tried letting that sink in, and it only took a few seconds for her to acknowledge her doubt and attempt to dismiss it. "You think so?"

Her roommate nodded. "I'd either have to be blind or in denial to say that I don't. It's clear there's something promising between you two, and no ceremony's going to change that any."

Zelda's face looked like a wine-stained tablecloth at that point, and true to actual wine, she feared it would take a while to return her tint to normal. "Eh…maybe…"

"Oh, come on, Zelda! Everyone can see it!" Karane stopped herself as soon as she realized the ridiculousness of her generalization and almost slapped herself in the forehead for such a hasty oversight on her part. "…Well, almost everyone…"

She was, of course, referring to Groose, and Zelda quickly picked up that part of the nonverbal portion of the message, almost like a mind reader; indeed, she agreed, he was oftentimes so preoccupied with his "awesomeness" that he had trouble admitting when he had dirt on his face.

Karane continued her pause for a moment to read Zelda's response. Aside from a little uncomfortable shuffling in her makeshift workspace, she actually kind of looked like she wanted her to continue. Maybe it was a way for her to open up without actually saying anything. Perhaps she thought that by having others acknowledge the elephant in the room for her, she would be able to more easily talk about it. It was a flimsy hypothesis for her to come to, but a little querying would have revealed quite strong support for its validity. Without noticing any raised objections, she resumed.

"I mean, you worry about his academics, he carves you statuettes, you guys hang out together all the time… I got more examples if you want 'em." She leaned in closer to the opening in the partition, which somehow managed to get the younger student to face her despite her manifest vulnerability. "Trust me; it'll be easier for you to do it if you first admit it instead of going about it like he won't reciprocate unless you tell him in a certain way."

Zelda sighed at this acknowledgement of the meaning behind her plan. She knew she was right…again. Still, the spur of the moment, not to mention the fact that the very core of her intentions was being critiqued instilled in her the insatiable desire to hide under her bed despite her legs feeling like lead. She immediately shrugged off the shame of entertaining the idea to resort to such a childish response, but the metaphorical spotlight in her face was making her sweat.

Then it hit her—an epiphany. Zelda finally thought of a way to escape being the subject of that conversation! She wasn't one to rely on personal tactics to redirect topic focus of something so trivial as a casual talk between roommates, but the reward of no longer having eyes on her was too enticing. "Ah, right. I almost forgot that you speak from experience, don't you?"

And just like that, the situation flip-flopped. She didn't know what happened, but Karane suddenly felt just as vulnerable as she did, if the wide eyes and open mouth weren't any indication—not to mention the audible gulp. The lack of context behind her statement did little to dampen its effects, to boot.

Even Zelda was impressed with how quickly and effectively she threw the subject up into the air and got herself out of any more embarrassing slipups. But even more than that, she was glad that the connotation of her question, the tone of which probably being a bit excessively emphasized, didn't go unnoted.

Oh, no, it didn't. She knows! Karane screamed in her head. But how! I never told anyone! Clearly, it had to have been a baseless accusation, one she couldn't have had a logical chain of ideas that led to it. She covered her tracks and got rid of the evidence when she needed to. How could have Zelda found out?

"Uh…what are you talking about?" Karane asked, the façade of ignorance, however, about as transparent as a clean window in the shade.

"I can see your journal from here, Karane. I know what you were doing in class this morning." Sure enough, right across her room was an open diary. From a typically-serious student like her, one would normally find detailed notes of biological nomenclature or maybe a mathematics theorem or two—a school notebook, basically. That day, however, none of those were to be found; instead, there was nothing but a nice, colored doodle of Pipit's face right next to a little heart.

So much for it being a baseless accusation. "You looked at it! ?" she exclaimed, her breath nearly gone; her heart, down to her feet.

"You were sitting in the row in front of me," Zelda deadpanned. "Judging by how your quill moved, I was sure you were going to set your section of the desk on fire. It was kind of hard to not see what you were doing."

Based on Zelda's tone, she realized it wasn't very likely that she was exaggerating too much. She couldn't have been drawing that furiously, could she? She was sure she was being low-key enough and that people would just assume she was taking notes. But then again, perhaps it wasn't that great of an idea to bring an extra couple bottles of ink to class—bottles of colored ink, actually, which were expensive and, frankly, impractical compared to regular ink. "Ah…well…" she mouthed while nervously fiddling with her hat.

A calm hand from the now-invulnerable Zelda silenced her and, hopefully, reassured her. A smile forming, she said, "I don't blame you. I knew you expressed initial interest in him years ago, and other than today, you did do a pretty good job of sneaking it by everyone."

Then Karane sulked, no longer messing with her headgear (for one, the static in her hair was starting to get on her nerves). "At this point, I wish I hadn't…" she muttered weakly.

A combination of her recent commendation and the low volume left Zelda confused and quite concerned. A quizzical squint from her side, complemented with a slightly-raised eyebrow, urged the upperclassman to continue.

"It's just that…" she resumed, trying to ignore the trip in her words. The lack of coherence in her train of thought was, from what she could see, making it hard for Zelda to follow, so with a few frustrated pauses in between tossing out garbage words to help her collect her thoughts, she eventually formulated her intended message. "I think maybe it's worked a little too well."

"How so?"

Deep down, she knew the answer, but once again, the words wouldn't come easily for her. In many ways, she really was in the same situation that Zelda was now in. She, too, planned gutsy, almost-zany schemes to try to get Pipit to notice her; however, for the sake of keeping things under wraps, that was the extent of what she could actually do—plan, not execute. Her fear of the weird looks and the imminent rumors spreading like wildfire and all the other relationship-related school matters kept the breath from ever leaving her lungs; her cries for help, from ever leaving her head.

In fact, she wondered how she was even able to help Zelda's situation at all; the latter was way more suited to the situation than the former and was fully able to build the courage to carry out the plans she so-carefully constructed. The best she could do was to continue her studies and act as if there were nothing wrong at all.

With her time in school running shorter and shorter as graduation approached, she feared she'd never get Pipit to notice her. That was the bulk of the problem, after all. They were friends and all, sure; but at times, it seemed her feelings toward him were as polished glass—clear; invisible; and, thus, fragile. He never seemed to notice her almost-advances that she, indeed, tried to resist a good percentage of the time. She was quick to assume the same thing applied to everyone else, including Zelda, the one person whom she would usually trust with situations that desperate but, for some reason, couldn't utter a single cry for help until just that night. It was a spiraling nightmare that, instead of scaring her into eventually caving and asking for that help, only increased her anger at herself.

Karane conveyed this as best as she could with the state of mind she was cursed with and cringed in the anticipation of some kind of blank glance or perhaps a short burst of giggles or two. To her surprise, she was met with quite a bit of encouragement, the blank glance revealing itself to actually be another one of Zelda's trademark smiles. "I don't think you have anything to worry about," she said. "It's hard, but I know you can break through that barrier. I've been there."

"You have?" Karane asked with wide, hopeful eyes.

"Oh, yeah!" Zelda said with a cool and collected hand wave accompanied by a tone filled with the implication of empathy. "People gave me and Link strange looks all the time. They still do, even. The trick is to look the situation in the eye and firmly declare that you just don't care."

She wasn't exactly surprised that the troubled redhead would find her advice disappointing. In a sense, she was reluctant to say anything because of the expectation that any advice she'd give her at all would be unsatisfactory. She couldn't just keep her hanging, though.

"One way you can do this," she resumed, practically pulling stuff out of thin air at this point, "is to look at yourself in the mirror and chant, 'I want to go out with him. I want to go out with him.' Rinse and repeat!"

To Zelda's delight and, admittedly, astonishment, Karane didn't look disappointed this time. She put her palm to her chin in thought, a little habit of hers that everyone picked up on but that she herself never noticed doing, and wistfully questioned, "Is that all?"

"That's all," Zelda answered with gusto—but still with a small twang of uncertainty. Being deep in thought, Karane, fortunately, wasn't tipped off to the slightly-corrupted tone and, instead, responded brightly, all the weight seemingly removed from her shoulders.

But then they snapped their heads as a muffled voice burst from the walls that separated them from the cold exposure of the foreboding academy corridor. It was full of panic, almost like someone was being pinned and wrestled against, something like what Groose or his cronies would do when no one was looking—although there was definitely no auditory sign of a struggle. However, they recognized the deep, somewhat-dopey-sounding voice as that very same Groose.

What was he doing in the upstairs corridor that late at night? What was he doing in the upstairs corridor after they explicitly complained to the higher-ups after his little "project" last week? Not even a few days into it, and already someone was breaking the rule of avoiding the upstairs hallway after dark. Knowing him, it couldn't have been a good thing.

"Don't tell me you didn't hear that," Karane piped irritably behind door-piercing, glaring eyes. Zelda responded in earnest, all too willingly expressing her newfound vexation for the young man with the ridiculous red hair.

Oh, someone was going to pay, alright.

Looks like the guys have been caught! ...Or have they really? Who knows? It's hard to calibrate readers' temporal senses with all of the POV switching in-between chapters. Still, I hope you look forward to the continuation next Tuesday!

Also, congrats to silverheartlugia2000 for catching the NintendoCapriSun reference I made in the last chapter! (I'm actually kinda surprised someone would notice. Glad to see someone did!)

...And finally, a big shout-out to FF(dot)net's text parser, which cuts out my interrobangs for whatever reason, much to my dismay. Rock on, man. Rock on.