Zelda grabbed a jacket from her closet. It was chilly, and definitely not an ideal first day back after the long weekend. But it was colder now than it had been earlier in the day; now, it was later in the night and just before rehearsal.
She'd had perhaps too much fun splitting her weekend between Makeela and Link, and she hated every second she had to spend at school, realizing her peaceful weekend with friends was over and she'd likely have to wait for their winter break in three weeks before doing anything more with Link, or to do any of the fun things she and Makeela had planned out.
She hadn't convinced Link to sneak over and defy her parents yet, but she was working on him. She missed being able to be spontaneous and invite him over if she wanted. But she loved his house too, and didn't feel any significant loss by not staying at home.
If anything, his home had a whole new set of memories associated with them. She'd only stayed over on his birthday, but gods, she remembered it over and over as if it happened daily… or nightly, she supposed. No, she wished.
They'd been comfortable on his bed… futon… she still wasn't sure what he preferred to call it. She'd resorted to using Link as a pillow, though she cited his own pillows as 'too thin', which was no lie. But she preferred Link anyway, and from the way he'd cozied up to her, he didn't mind either.
It had taken most of the night for either of them to actually fall asleep. It came in busts. Stretches of time that left them resting, and others that had them wide awake. They coincided with each other, so she figured one of them had to be jostling the other awake, though she didn't know which of them it had been.
In those moments of being awake with him, she could still remember the feel of the skin of his legs, bristled with fine hairs that tickled her foot as she ran it along his. Or after too much teasing, how she'd find her entire leg trapped down by his, making moving too difficult and leaving her a trapped target for his lips to find her again and again through their playful laughter.
She let her head fall back against her headboard as she thought of how Link's hand slid under her shirt to run along her back, almost like it were just a habit of his now rather than seeking something more. Gods, she loved remembering the way his eyes widened in shock, waking him right up, when he didn't feel the back of her bra. And more, she loved the almost pained noise he'd made when she revealed how long ago she'd availed herself of such a constricting item.
But they both whined, realizing just how tired and constrained their schedule was, and so they settled for a far tamer night… the evidence of which was on her shoulder.
At that thought, she blushed to herself, thinking of where she'd spent a significant amount of time covering a bruised mark that was too suspiciously shaped like a mouth. And her entire body doubled down on her when she thought of the mark she'd left on Link, though his had been much easier to hide. Despite being alone, she let out out an embarrassed laugh to herself… they'd been so careless.
Yet it had been so fun.
But today had been school: a reality that broke through their weekend with a reminder of work and responsibilities.
Since the moment she saw him that morning, Link had been experimenting with his new phone, often calling her throughout the day by mistake, and video chatting with her when he meant to text. She loved watching him struggle. It was cute, and he was trying, but gods, sometimes when he called by accident, it was while she was talking to her parents when she'd gotten home after school but before rehearsal, and she had to hurriedly hide the name.
Makeela had been far too interested in the details of her night at Link's. She'd admitted everything, though for the sake of privacy left out a few details. She'd told her just how much she wanted to keep going with Link, but that there was some godsforsaken reason that she couldn't take the initiative. She still felt some shred of insecurity, no matter how he made her feel. It was something he hadn't done to her, so it was harder to chip away.
And that conversation had led to a burning hotseat of questions from Makeela: do you think you love him? Are you ready for the next step? Should I kill Ravio for you?
And while Zelda appreciated Makeela's enthusiasm and willingness to engage, it was still a little too awkward to discuss, if only because she'd never discussed it before.
"Well," Makeela said, grabbing her phone from her pocket. "I've been talking to Pipit and I've been talking to Ilia, and they both think that—"
"Wait! You've been talking to Pipit and Ilia? For fun, or about Link and I?"
"Both," she admitted. "I like them both. But we all also like talking about you and Link and how we want your wedding to be on a nice sandy shore, maybe at Lake Hylia. Pipit thinks that you guys are going to have to get married barefoot so your shoes don't get messed up, and Ilia agrees, but more so because we don't want you to sink into the sand in heels."
Zelda rolled her eyes, unsure if she should actually believe this plan, or if Makeela was teasing her on the spot. Honestly, both were equally possible.
But as Zelda got ready to leave the house earlier than usual, pushing thoughts of Makeela aside for now, she stopped herself, noticing her father set something down on the coffee table before heading into his study on the phone, closing the door before raising his voice.
Zelda crept toward it and saw a large book. It took a closer inspection of the cover to realize that it was one of their family albums. She flipped to the marked page and saw herself as a baby, held by two smiling, tired parents. She left the mark in and flipped the page: her at age three, cake smeared on her face with a birthday hat on. She couldn't help but smile at her own excited expression, like being covered in cake made her the happiest child in the world. And she could see her dad laughing in the background.
She flipped a few pages this time, and saw her with pigtails in the pool, playing with dolls on a float. She remembered this one. She used to make believe that her dolls were on a cruise ship and then her favorite female doll would have to jump in to save the most handsome men who fell overboard while trying to balance on the edge. And, because she was innocent and they were dolls, she had her favorite fall in love with every single one of them, though none of them seemed mind their apparently open relationship.
Grabbing her phone, Zelda snapped a picture and sent it to Link. "You were right about me being a pigtails kid, fyi," she sent.
Not a full minute later, Link responded with one of his new favorite things: an emoji. It was the heart eyed one. And after, he sent back "You were adorable."
"Were? Rude."
And Link responded with his other favorite new item in his texting repertoire: gifs. He sent a gif of Castor flirtatiously staring at Amalia from Moonlight Howl in one of their introductory moments—when the writing hadn't quite hit its stride yet and was still a bit too cringy—and the caption read "Well, aren't you gorgeous?"
Zelda snorted. "Smooth," she sent back. And received the kissing emoji in response. Well, he was never going to speak again, she realized. Not while he had this new phone.
She flipped the pages again her head snapped up at the sound of her dad closing the door, watching her. She felt the need to come up with a reason for not hurrying to rehearsal. "What day are you going to come to my show? I can get you tickets."
"Likely the Sunday matinee. Don't get them yet. We may be able to do Friday."
"Okay," she said, fidgeting as she went to get up.
"I was reminiscing," he admitted, gesturing to the book. "Mind if I sit beside you?"
She stopped moving and nodded. "Of course not. Go ahead."
He took the book from her and flipped back to his page. "Do you remember any of this? I doubt it."
Zelda shook her head. She looked to be barely a year old in the picture.
Ramus tapped his finger anxiously against the page. "You'd just broken your grandmother's vase. But you were so happy about it. I think you liked the crashing noise. We fully expected you to scream and cry, but you didn't. After I grabbed you brought you into the other room, you were still smiling, so your mother grabbed the camera."
"So I was a menace even then?" She meant it as a joke, but the words came out with too much bite.
Ramus set the book down. "I didn't mean the things I said to you in the office the other day. I was busy at work and I was frustrated to leave."
"I know," she muttered halfheartedly.
"I…" he wavered, wishing Arina was there to back him up. "I still don't approve of you dating someone with a criminal past."
"You know what, I actually have to get going," Zelda hissed, standing up.
"No, we're in the middle of a conversation, Zelda. Sit back down. Rehearsal can wait a few more minutes."
She hesitated, torn between her desperate desire to get out of there, and her somehow still present inherent respect for her parents' word. So she sat.
"You're still seeing him?" Ramus asked. "Even knowing how your mother and I disapprove?"
He had to phrase it like that. "Yes, I am." She took a breath. "If you want to hate him so much, I'll just get it all out at once. He rides a motorcycle that he'll probably come over on someday, so he doesn't have to borrow his sister's car again. And he likes to wear short sleeved shirts, so you might see that he has a couple of tattoos, and two of them are to honor his best friend who died, but you won't look closely enough. And he's a recovering smoker, so he has the patch still because he's been struggling recently, but he's trying. And you won't see that either. And yes, he has a record, but you already know everything you need to know about that, don't you?
"But dad, he's not his appearance. He's not who he was as a kid. He's the best. I've never been treated so well by someone. He means so much to me, and so do you and mom. I don't want to keep fighting about this, but if you're determined not to like him, then add those to your list of stupid reasons to try to keep me away from him."
Her father looked damned near a stroke, but to his credit, he didn't die on the spot.
So, she kept going, as if her mouth couldn't stop.
"Do you want to know what else he's done? He gave me his jacket so I wouldn't get a detention when I didn't know a thing about him. He offered to fix my phone for free when I first broke it, even knowing that we have money. He got crackers to keep in his locker for me when he found out that I pass out. And he held me when I cried, because dad, people made me cry. So go ahead and hate him. Because he's the worst," she spat out sarcastically.
There was a long pause before Ramus shook his head. "Who made you cry?"
"I don't remember anymore, but it sure wasn't Link." She didn't want him involved in her school life. She didn't want anything from him right now. "Maybe it was you."
Ramus stiffened and shot Zelda a cold look, closing the photo album with a hard thud. "It wasn't my intention," he said, though it was emotionless. Her comment had hit a nerve, and he'd shut off.
She wished he'd do the opposite. She wanted him to get angry. She wanted him to yell, or deny that he'd ever made her cry. She wanted something. But his tone shut the topic down, like it meant nothing. Like making her cry had been the same as making her the wrong sandwich for lunch.
So all she did was nod. "I know." And sighing, she stood up and grabbed her things again. "I'm going to be late to rehearsal. Just let me know which day you want tickets for soon. I want to get them before they go on sale. It's reserved seating."
"I'll let you know, Zelda."
"Okay," she muttered before grabbing her keys, leaving their clanging to be the only sound that echoed in the heavy silence left between them before she could slam the door.
Link leaned heavily against the car in the garage. His back was killing him after being hunched over the hood for so long. His hands were covered in grease and oil that he was sure was going to be a pain to get off. He'd started the job with gloves on, but when they'd ripped over his already sweaty hands, he tossed them aside in annoyance. He needed to feel what he was doing with this repair, so he couldn't put his thicker gloves on, and the latex would never get over his hands.
He was an absolute mess.
He pushed his sweaty hair our of his face with his shoulder. It hadn't just been painful to bend over, it had been physically taxing to keep himself in that position. He wasn't leaning on anything, and honestly, he wondered if this repair could count as core exercise.
There were some repairs that went smoothly, and he'd be finished without even paying attention. Then, there were others that Gabe supervised, like this one. It was something fairly new to Link, and he'd put his all into making the fix, but it had been at the expense of his body. From being hunched over the hood, pinned tightly under the car, to sacrificing his hands, he'd gone for it all.
Gabe came back after spending a taunting amount of time with a book in his hand and his feet up on a shredded tire, rocking it back and forth in perfect contentment.
Giving Link an amused expression at the amount of grease the poor kid was covered in, Gabe moved him off to the side to inspect the hood, humming as he fiddled around.
"You're missing something," he said finally, grabbing his book once again and returning to his place.
Link groaned and glanced back at Pipit, who was happily playing on his phone at the quiet electronics counter. Before Link could run his hands along his face, he managed to catch himself. He knew he was already disgusting, but he didn't need to add to it by accidently smearing himself with car fluid.
He ducked his head back into the car and fiddled with everything he'd just taken care of, knowing that Gabe wouldn't help him unless he actually asked for help. And he would ask for it if he couldn't figure it out, but Gabe's silence had actually spoken volumes.
Whenever Gabe knew something was over Link's comparatively inexperienced head, he would take over and proceed to teach him. Since he'd said nothing, it meant he knew Link could figure this one out, and Link was determined to prove him right.
It took about ten more minutes for Link to realize that he'd forgotten to reattach something, and he stepped away, confident that he'd gotten it this time. So confident, in fact, that he grabbed the nearest clean-ish rag to run along his face. He knew it would leave a smear, but better than feeling the beads of sweat drip onto his eyelashes again and again.
Gabe brushed past him, sending a wave of air that had Link relieved at the chill it sent over his damp skin. And he waited, and he watched Gabe's reaction closely.
So, when Gabe smiled, Link couldn't help but mutter a quick, "yes!" under his breath.
Gabe snorted in Link's direction and went back to his book. "Don't get too good. I won't want you to leave on me one day."
Link smirked and finally went over to the sink, lathering his hands with soap and letting the cool water run over his slippery hands as he attempted to do a fair first round of cleaning himself up. When oil and grease wasn't running off his hands in rivers, he finally grabbed the towel and let it soak in fresh soap before running it all along his face, his neck, and onto his chest before rinsing it off and letting it dry naturally, reveling in the chilly air from the open doors before tossing the towel into their washing machine along with his coveralls. He hand-washed his hat and set it out to dry though.
When he was finally done, he went to sit with Gabe for a bit, stealing the tire-footrest for himself, letting Gabe's feet hit the ground with an amusing thud.
"Zelda wanted me to ask you if you wanted to see her show. She's getting tickets for everyone." He pulled out his phone and handed it to Gabe.
Gabe looked down at the text and chuckled, reading it aloud. "Ask Gabe if he wants to come too. But don't be weird about it because I don't want him to feel obligated. I just wanted to ask. But if he doesn't want to go, that's fine. I was just offering." Gabe shook his head, amused. "Tell her I'll go Friday night with Pipit. Maybe I can translate some of it for him, if he's interested in actually paying attention to something other than the girls."
Link snorted and glanced back into the electronics shop. "He's going because he's a good friend. He's not going to have any clue what's happening. We have no accommodations at our school. There won't be a translator at all. And I'm afraid that I might not be much help."
"She converted you into a theater-lover?"
Link let it sit for a moment before speaking. "Just a Zelda-lover."
Gabe's eyebrows shot up. "First time saying that?"
Nodding sheepishly, Link wrung his hands together. "Yeah."
Feeling a hard clap on his shoulder, Link winced while Gabe casually leaned back in his chair. "You deserve it." Gabe watched Link's reactionless expression before leaning forward again and hitting his arm a little harder. "Agree with me, Link, or you don't get another car to fix."
Anxiously running his hand across his face, Link nodded, though he couldn't say it aloud. But it was a step.
"Good. Now go clean up your shit and you can go home for the rest of the night. Take a shower. You reek."
This time, Link smiled, nodding as he got off the tire and rolled it towards Gabe for his feet to return.
And Gabe feigned interest in his book as he watched Link tidy up. Gods, he thought. He really was going to miss him one day when he graduated from the local college and went on to bigger things.
But he returned to his book with a smile. Because that was exactly what he wanted Link to do.
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