Disclaimer: The Legend of Zelda, its characters and locations are all property of Nintendo. Any and all OCs and original locations belong to me unless specifically stated to belong to someone else.
Fashion Disaster
Chapter 9
As far as Link was concerned, he had no sister. There really was no other recourse after this sudden but (in hindsight) inevitable betrayal. If Zelda had honestly been going out for supplies to feed the starving-looking models, he could have forgiven her, but Link had seen the look in her eyes. She was on the prowl, and she was going to have Paya, no matter the cost.
The only comfort he could take from it all was that she'd likely strike out. Zelda had no game whatsoever, and the prey she did manage to snag mostly let themselves get caught out of pity. Paya was far too classy to let herself get drawn in the by the likes of Link's sist—er, acquaintance.
There certainly wasn't any comfort to be found inside her office, where he was being sized up by about ten pairs of red eyes whose owners were already figuring out which cuts would be best.
Quads and glutes, most likely. Thighs and ass.
Man, he must have been hungry himself if this was what was going through his mind.
Well, it had to. Otherwise he'd start wondering about what kind of boyfriend Ishida had, and that was just a bad road to go down. He'd hated the guy up until a little while ago—it was far too early for heartbreak! This was the sort of thing he'd lament later in a bar somewhere with Saria and a large bottle of something unpronounceable that burned the inner lining of his throat off on the way down.
(And many other drinks, most with little umbrellas in them).
"Right," Kafei said, coughing to clear his recently punched throat. "Not game time, then."
"Seriously," Ishida said, growling. "Who the fuck forgets to call a caterer?"
"Hardly the first time it's happened," Rena said, making herself comfortable on one of the couches, her stomach growling loudly. "I'm going into hibernation. Wake me when the sustenance arrives."
And promptly fell asleep.
Out like a light.
It was honestly amazing to see. Only problem was, it left Link alone with the least sympathetic of the Sheikah. Ishida was like a yo-yo in temperament and Link never knew where he had him. Kafei was a wildcard at best, and definitely not to be trusted. Kiro...Link wasn't sure about Kiro yet. Kafei's minions, on the other hand, was an army of gremlins that he had no desire to cross on any day.
"She's been busy lately," Link said weakly, feeling a need to defend the person formerly known as his sister. "Something was bound to slip through."
He neglected to mention that, on average, Zelda forgot two out of ten things at any given moment. Usually, these were harmless things, but occasionally they were...less harmless things. Like double booking herself. Or forgetting to feed her clients.
Ishida stared at him with an uncomprehending look, his face screwing up in an attempt at expressing something, but he evidently failed to settle on one singular mood, whirling around to face his cousin.
"This is your fault!" he said, pointing an accusing finger at him. "You could have picked a big, professional photographing firm, but no, you went with the cheapest, didn't you?!"
Kafei looked affronted, gasping. "Excuse me?! I'll have you know these guys' fees are, like, way higher than some of the other companies I considered! And they took the best damned photos out of anyone!"
"Of my panties!" Ishida shrieked.
The room fell silent, and Link felt dread creeping up on him as Ishida's face went blank. He slowly, painfully turned to face Link again.
"Of...my...panties..." he repeated haltingly, voice turning to ice.
Oh no, Link thought. Not again!
"Mister Hyrule," Kafei interrupted before Ishida could make another volcano impression. "Don't you keep any food around the office? Snack bars and the like? I'm sorry, but my cousin is a grouch on the best of days, and when I've starved him like I have in the past week he is...well, that," he vaguely motioned in Ishida's direction.
Link looked around Zelda's office. Kafei's guess was as good as his. He had no doubt Zelda kept a tiny stash of something around here, but Hylia knew where. She'd always been so creative with her hiding spots, especially when they were kids and she hid her treats from Link.
That time she'd pried open one of the air vents and hid her chocolate inside was a stroke of genius.
Their dad hadn't been so amused, though, when a heatwave caused them to melt and made the house smell like caramel crunch for about two weeks.
"Uh, maybe?" he said.
"You don't know?" Ishida asked icily. Link felt sorry for his poor boyfriend who had to deal with such rapidly changing moods. Not that Link would handle it any worse, but—no, no, no, stop it!
"I don't spend a lot of time here," Link said, shrugging. "I'm usually out on assignments."
"Assignments?" Kiro asked. "Where?"
"Usually out of town," Link replied, and it actually wasn't a lie. "Zelda takes care of most of the jobs here."
"But you covered the show at the gallery," Kafei said, his eyes straying over to Zelda's desk.
"She wasn't feeling well that day," Link said, definitely lying this time. "I had to cover for her."
"Hmph, typical," Ishida said, walking around in little circles, as if hoping it would stave off his obvious hunger.
"Mind if we take a look?" Kafei asked, his eyes not even Link now. "See what we find?"
Link didn't like the look on the designer's face. It was a little too hungry, and not the physical kind. "I'll handle that, you just...control your people," he said, trying to be diplomatic.
"I'll show you control," Ishida muttered as he began to rifle through one of the boxes the Sheikah had brought. "Seriously, not even a candy bar or anything?" he muttered.
"No one cheats at Shinobi, Sheik, you know this!" Kafei said, giving Link a pleading look.
Needing no further incentive (anything to placate the rapidly boiling over Ishida—and not just because Link wondered if Ishida was cute when he ate), Link headed over to Zelda's desk and began to look through the contents. The desktop was still a disaster, though he could see that someone had made an attempt to organise things a little...far too neatly for it to have been Zelda. Paya, then, likely, overcome by the need to bring some order to the chaos.
Bless her, she'd soon learn what a mess Zelda truly was.
There were a lot of things on the desktop, but no food. He then looked through the drawers. No food, just a lot of fashion magazines with lots of sticky notes attached to them. Some were professional, with notes and question marks regarding the photographs. Others were...lewd. One was particularly interested in a model doing the split's flexibility.
He slammed the drawer shut, blushing. He and Zelda were close, but he did not feel the need to cross that particular boundary. Bad enough that she always needled him about his type. He never told her, but he certainly learned hers through her actions. Any girl with a pulse, it turned out.
Her standards were low, but she aimed high, bless her.
Link glanced at the filing cabinets. Promising, but doubtful. Even Zelda knew not to store food with important client information and photo samples.
Or so he hoped.
He opened the last drawer of her desk, finding it inexplicably...orderly? Office supplies—pens, scissors, a roll of tape, a nice little stack of sticky notes, even a box of paperclips, all arranged in perfect order, not an inch of space wasted.
Link raised an eyebrow.
Suspicious.
He poked some of the objects, finding them perfectly normal. Huh, maybe his sister had actually learned the importance of a non-chaotic supply drawer at least. He was about to close it, still suspicious, when he noticed something.
The drawer...wasn't it a little...shallower, than the others? He moved the supplies a little and rapped a knuckle on the metal bottom. It rang hollow.
Huh.
He rearranged the supplies and found, underneath the sticky notes, a little slit in the metal, just big enough to fit his fingernail into.
He pulled, and out popped the false bottom of the drawer, revealing a treasure trove of...snack cake wrappers.
Great, Link thoughts. Figures she hasn't resupplied after the preparations for this job.
He made to put the lid back in...but then he spotted it. An unopened, untouched, unspoiled maple bar. Warmth flooded his entire system at the sight of it, relief flooding his veins. It was like finding the gods...only better!
Except...there was only one.
He didn't really think about that before he'd pulled it out of the drawer and realised the entire room had gone silent. He turned around and found every focused on him.
Or, rather, the bar.
"Please tell me," Kafei said slowly, "that there's an entire box of those in there."
Link swallowed, moving his hand around, fascinated as eighteen red eyes followed the movements. "Um...there's just the one," he said nervously.
"Are you going to claim it?" Kiro asked, face intense.
Link was a little hungry, but the last thing he wanted to do right now was to claim the maple bar, as Kiro had put it. He shook his head, vocal cords refusing to cooperate.
"Well, girls and boys," Kafei said, "you know the drill. Mister Hyrule, I'd like to ask you to toss it into the air."
Link blinked. "Eh?"
"Toss the bar into the air, and step back," Kafei repeated. "Or you're liable to get hurt."
Link felt compelled to obey, and did so, tossing the bar into the air, aiming for the middle of the room.
The reaction was instant, and a giant furball erupted as every Sheikah threw themselves at the bar, snarling and growling at each other as they fought over the morsel. Hair was pulled, ribs jabbed, cheeks hooked. There was no rhyme or reason to the fighting at all, it was just a vicious, vicious life or death battle over the fucking thing.
And there, in the centre of it, was Ishida, looking like a cross between an angry god of war and a pissed-off kitten as he fought his way towards the maple bar lying on the floor. Wigs were snatched. Someone grabbed at his arm, but he simply made a pivot-like movement that sent them flying over his shoulder, hitting the carpeted floor with a loud oof.
One of Kafei's minions was within reach of the maple bar, his fingers nearly grasping it. Ishida lashed out and jabbed the poor guy right in his solar plexus, which sent him to the floor, curled up in a foetal position. Ishida then callously sent him rolling away with a well-positioned shove of his foot and tripping up anyone else within reach.
"Mine!" Kafei snarled, pushing one of his minions aside with his shoulder, but Ishida was ahead of him, the younger cousin's hand gripping the elder's. "Don't even think about it, Sheik!" Kafei snarled.
"What, this?" Ishida asked innocently before doing...something. The movement was too fast for link's eyes to follow, but in one moment Kafei and Ishida were standing—and in the next Kafei was on the floor, groaning with his arms trapped beneath his chest in what could only be a highly painful position.
Link could only watch with wonder as Ishida fended off each and every one of his fellow Sheikah, leaving them groaning on the floor or nursing battle wounds in the corner, glaring at him as he triumphantly grabbed the maple bar off the floor.
"Anyone dispute my claim?" he asked, receiving only a chorus of pained groans (and a loud snore from Rena) before grinning and ripping through the wrapper to devour the bar like he'd been starving.
Which, to be fair, he had been.
Link felt his chest go tight at the sight. Dishevelled and messy, his clothes rumpled and hair in disarray as one of the braids had come loose, Ishida looked stunning. Even missing one of his sandals (which had gone flying at one point during the fray), he looked absolutely incredible.
Gobbling up (or annihilating, really) the bar, Ishida looked and sounded like a gremlin, honestly, and yet Link found himself inexplicably attracted to the bastard.
Which was bad.
Because Ishida was an ass.
And wasn't single.
Not that it stopped Link's body from warming up at the sight of him, an idiot smile growing on his face (he felt the skin of his cheeks stretching), nor a certain southern part of him from finding this extremely interesting—
Oh gods, no!
Ishida caught his eye, and the Sheikah grinned. "What, first time you've seen a food fight?"
Bloody hell, how could someone go from asshole to gorgeous and back so quickly? And why did it have to confuse Link so much?!
"N-never seen one like that," Link said, trying to turn his body a little to the side to hide his situation. "Excuse me, I need to use the bathroom."
He missed Ishida's scowl.
And his pursuit.