Her class was in 312 Gohma Hall. Third floor of the building, western wing, right side of the hallway. Zelda had pored over the floor plans for all the buildings her classes would be in last night again; rehearsed the directions she'd walk and the turns she'd take in her head until she could rattle them off perfectly even after thirty minutes of completely unrelated activity. She wouldn't be taking any of them for a little while yet; her Monday classes weren't until the afternoon, and she wouldn't be taking her Tuesday-Thursday classes until tomorrow—she should probably do a refresher of those tonight just in case, now that she's thinking of it—but here she was, practicing her route.
Surely it wasn't overkill? She'd heard too many horror stories about students getting lost and never making it to their first class, or worse, coming in late, for everyone to stare at. It wasn't too drastic of exaggeration to say she'd rather die than play that role.
Three-twelve Gohma Hall. Zelda recited the words in her head over and over, matching each syllable to the slap of her sneakers against pavement.
Walking through Nohansen University at last felt to Zelda like the strangest case of deja vu. She'd never so much as set foot on the quad before, having applied Early Decision the previous fall without even taking a campus tour, but she'd spent so many hours of her summer on the school's website and watching every student vlog in existence that it felt familiar, even though none of the memories trod into the halls were her own. It was the feeling of walking into the house next door and seeing what it looked like if the neighbors had the exact same floor plan: eerie, slightly uncomfortable, utterly unexpected yet intimately known.
Maybe the posters were different than in the website's photographs; maybe the fashion donned by the students was not charmingly out of date; maybe the grass was almost brownish instead of emerald green; but at least the layout of everything remained the same. Zelda knew exactly where she was: heading south on the main walkway across the quad.
She suppressed a shiver as she moved past the windbreak afforded by Morpha Library and its exquisitely imposing carved-stone facade. Nohansen University's academic calendar began in mid-autumn, and the sunbeams shining into Zelda's eyes weren't yet strong enough to rival the coolness of the breeze. She loved autumn, loved the chilly mornings and cozy sweaters and vibrant leaves, but that didn't stop her skin from rising to goosebumps under her thick cardigan. She rubbed her arms as she walked.
According to her research, Gohma Hall was located on the southeastern side of campus, and a bit of a trek from her dorm, which frustrated her. It was decently positioned to the main cafeteria, though. Her class—Intro to Biology, whose subject matter she seemed to already be familiar with per the syllabus, but was required for the Ecology major she was considering—was at two in the afternoon; after the very early lunch she'd caught, there was no way she'd be running across campus to avoid being late.
Sudden chatter swelled on the sidewalk before her as a flood of students exited Kindongo Hall. Most spoke in the Central Hyrule dialect of Hyrulean, but one halting conversation in Gerudo had her perking up her ears. One student's grammar was off: too much present tense, likely to avoid using past or future conjugations. She wondered if those students were upperclassmen—surely the courses hadn't gotten far enough along for students to be conversational after just one class period. Not that Zelda would know. She wouldn't have to step foot in the languages building herself for any of her four years if she didn't want to; her godmother had taught her Gerudo from a young age, which covered the language general education requirement nicely. Still, it might be nice to learn another—she would need to construct her four-year plan before she could be sure. She would be prepared now if she had her way, but with all the madness of move-in and adjusting to campus life, she simply hadn't had the time for a thorough perusal of the majors, study abroad, course catalog, and GE requirements. Maybe in another week or so.
Maybe she'd start making friends in another week or so, too. She was getting awfully tired of "waiting to find her people", as Urbosa had said when soothing Zelda's anxious tears over the phone the night before, after a long orientation week spent watching seemingly every other first year making boisterous, close-knit friendships.
As the path Zelda followed began to twist eastward, the sunlight she'd been blinking against became gradually more blocked out by foliage; the singular trees transformed into small shady copses. Gohma Hall was in the older part of the campus despite itself being recently remodeled, and either the administration from two hundred years before hadn't wanted to go to the trouble of removing all the trees, or a more modern iteration had decided to replant them, because Zelda was fairly certain the trees in this part of campus outnumbered those where her dorm was located at a ratio of two-to-one.
The sidewalk Zelda walked had become a little more worn, as well. She hopped gingerly over one particularly large crack. The action chafed her scientific sensibilities, but soothed the anxious voice in her head. No sense in accruing bad luck on her first day when there was no empirical proof of such a thing not existing.
It was then, as her head bowed to watch the cracks in the pavement, that she ran into the boy.
He was slight but somehow sturdy of frame, and the impact was a painful shock to Zelda's system. She recoiled immediately with a sharp gasp, pride and forehead stinging, and sidestepped out of his way. Which would have worked, if he hadn't moved in the same direction and banged into her a second, even more embarrassing time. She felt the tips of her ears flush hot as he grasped her forearms to prevent a third collision.
Voice caught in her throat, she rubbed silently at her collarbone where his own had banged into her. Fortunately, he was quick to speak for them both.
"I'm sorry! I was looking down at the map and didn't even see you!" High-pitched shame marred what she assumed was usually a mellow baritone, and she winced sympathetically.
"It's, um, it's alright. I was looking down too." She looked at the boy's hands, and found them smaller than expected, well-formed, but empty. "Didn't you say you had a map?"
"Not a map, exactly, my—" The boy's fingers clenched around thin air. "My slate!"
They both glanced back down, the boy's dark, wavy hair flopping into his eyes. If she'd worn it loose, Zelda's own blonde mane might have done the same, but she'd carefully braided it back before leaving her dorm that morning. Instead of her own hair, her gaze was met with the dusty screen of a slate winking up from the pavement.
"Here." She passed it over to the boy, who swiftly nodded his thanks and turned the slate over in his hands, inspecting it for damage. She noticed that his battered forest-green case had a sticker on the back—a trio of koroks. "I like your case," she blurted.
"Oh, uh—" the boy turned the phone over, as if he'd forgotten his own decoration. "Thanks! I like koroks, they're cute." His voice was quieter now that he wasn't so alarmed, but not so much that she had to strain to hear him. She found she rather liked it, and the Akkalan accent that softened and elongated his vowels.
"Me too. I wish they were real."
"I feel like they…are?" the boy confessed. A light blush painted his cheeks the color of rosewood. "Maybe we just can't see them anymore, or haven't gone deep enough into the forests to find them."
Zelda smiled. "Well, I hope you're right. They are supposed to be good at hiding, so!"
The boy smiled back, and shifted his weight on his feet. She watched as he tapped at the screen of his slate twice to zoom in on the map, brow furrowed like mountain ridges. It was a little odd that he hadn't replied, and Zelda fiddled uncomfortably with the burgundy hem of her cardigan in the silence.
"Hey, do you have a moment?"
The sudden question stopped Zelda short. Technically speaking, she did have time, lots of it—it wasn't like she was meeting any friends to study with, or had any material to study yet. She looked the boy over with fresh, slightly suspicious eyes, for any obvious organizational branding. Was this her first interaction with someone looking to recruit her for a club? It was a rather elaborate setup, if so. And his plain green hoodie hardly seemed to be advertising anything.
"Um…yeah, I do," she finally answered. "What is it?"
"Could you help me find my class? You seem like you know your way around, so…"
Zelda beamed reflexively. Not a setup! She knew she could trust that hoodie. "Yeah, what's your class? I can probably give you directions for it." She conveniently left out the fact that she had looked at the map so often that she had it memorized.
The boy glanced back down at his slate. "Uh…ENVIRO 112B?" ENVIRO…Environmental Studies? She hadn't thought Nohansen University had an Environmental Studies department; her impression was that the STEM departments were more specialized. She cursed her lack of time spent familiarizing herself with the majors. Maybe it was there and she'd just missed it.
"Well, usually STEM classes are in Gohma Hall, but sometimes they get stuck in other buildings." Her own Intro to Botany course had been shoved into the math building, apparently. "What's the room?"
He glanced down at his schedule. "428 Deku Hall?"
"What?"
"Oh, was I too quiet?" He smiled sheepishly. "I said, 428 De—"
"No, I heard you the first time." He flushed a little at her curt interruption, but she hardly noticed. "There is no Deku Hall. Are you sure that's the right building?"
"There's no—huh? But it says it right here." He tilted the screen her way, and she scanned over it quickly. That was his schedule alright, but…
"You're…you're at the wrong school."
"What?"
"You're at the wrong school." She pointed to the emerald green header of his student information page. "You're enrolled at Harkinian University, right?"
"Yeah…"
"This is Nohansen University. Completely different school. See, look–." She pulled up her camera rune and tapped on the most recent image. A screenshot of her schedule popped up, and she held it in front of him. "My header's blue. Nohansen University."
The boy went pale, as pale as the deep tan of his skin could get. His eyes were wide, unblinking. Zelda decided to give him a moment to process—if she had been the one to go to the wrong university, she would have perished on the spot and then at least one university would have to erect a monument in her honor and it would be a whole mess, so she could imagine how he might be feeling. She looked away delicately.
Not far away, a couple of students were having a rather dramatic conversation on the steps of Rova Hall, their voices echoing off the sandy brick. Did they know how loud they were being, for not even eleven in the morning?
Well, Rova was the theatre building. Maybe they were rehearsing a scene rather than making one; she'd give them the benefit of the doubt.
After what felt like an eternity, the boy spoke. The color had mostly returned to his face, and she felt relieved on his behalf. "I…went to the wrong university."
No point in sugarcoating it now. "Yup."
He burst out laughing, and she nearly jumped again at the sudden unexpectedness of it. The sound was throaty, infectious, and she found it pulling a smile from her own lips, even as sympathetic horror for his situation still pulsed in her veins. "How are you laughing about this? Aren't you…missing a class right now?"
The boy met her gaze, and her brain shorted out for a moment looking at the mirth that sparkled in his eyes like sunlight on the ocean. "Oh, I'm mortified. But I get lost a lot."
"Really?"
"Oh yeah. I need a map to get anywhere, and even then I get lost. So this is only the worst time, if that makes sense?" She nodded. "And at least I get a story out of it."
"That…makes sense," Zelda said thoughtfully. "And it's an easy mistake, honestly. Both universities named after dead royals, and all."
The boy laughed again. "True! That makes me feel better, actually. I was never good at history class. Always got Cs." He paused, then smiled. "From what I remember, though, the stories of the Hero Princess were always one of my favorites. Cool to have a princess saving the hero for once, you know?"
"Niche choice," Zelda said, intrigued. The tale of the Wand of Gamelon was certainly…an acquired taste, and of more dubious historical quality than others in high school curricula and as such rarely taught, so it was interesting that he knew of it at all. "You know, that's fitting for the university you attend—she was a Harkinian."
"Really?" the boy asked, his eyebrows raised in amusement. "They didn't mention that in my childhood copy of Hyrule Historia Jr."
"Yup!" she said brightly.
They stood in silence again, and Zelda cursed her awkwardness. She…wanted to get to know this boy, for more than just her own loneliness. She liked his korok case and his easy attitude. Maybe she could ask about his major? If he played any sports? His calves, exposed as they were by his cargo shorts, looked…quite built, really. But she couldn't get the words to leave her lips.
The boy scratched the back of his head. "...Well, I guess I should go find my actual class. On my actual campus." His tone was hesitant, as if he wasn't completely sure that he wanted to leave, and Zelda felt her heart rise into her throat at the thought that maybe he wanted to keep talking to her, too. "Thank you for trying to help me." He slipped his slate into his pocket and threw her a lopsided smile as he turned to leave.
"Wait!"
Both Zelda and the boy were startled by her outburst, but she didn't have time to mentally curl up like a pillbug in embarrassment. "Would you–I mean—do you want to get coffee with me or something?" He simply stared at her, moon-eyed, and she barreled on. "I mean, you missed your class already, right? So…you're not missing anything. I don't think. Well, you might be missing something I don't know about. But! I just think it would be nice to get coffee and talk! We're both first years, so we have that in common—"
"You're a first year?"
What a thing to comment on, out of everything she had said. "Yes?"
The boy scratched at the back of his head again, and she realized it was probably a nervous habit. "I thought you were an upperclassman. You just seemed to know what you were talking about."
"I…do know what I'm talking about. And I could tell you more about the school, too, if you wanted! Well, I guess you go to a different school, so maybe you don't want to learn more about this one. But I could walk you back to Harkinian University after coffee? You seem like the kind of person who would lose their head if it wasn't screwed on, so, really you'd probably benefit from my help. I mean, seriously, what if you ended up at a third school? I could see it."
She broke off then, mind catching up with what her tongue had spat out. Oh shit, why did she say that? "Oh, Nayru, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to be so rude–!" Her face flushed hot with shame. No way was he going to get coffee with her now—
The boy started laughing. Deeper and more from his belly than the laugh from before, and it was interesting how the sound of it carried so much more loudly than his voice. Zelda watched bemusedly as his eyes squinched shut and he even wiped at them. "No, no, you're right—don't worry about being rude, I don't take things personally. You're totally right. I literally can't get anywhere without a map. If it weren't for slates, I'd have to carry an atlas with me everywhere."
Zelda snickered. "That would be a little bulky."
"It would! That's why I'm grateful for Fi here."
"Fi?" She cocked her head to the side.
"My slate," he said sheepishly.
"You named your slate?"
"Yes? Is that weird?" He scratched at the back of his head again. "I guess it is a little weird."
"No! I think it's cute. People name their cars, so why not their slates? My car's named Storm."
The boy's cheeks had flushed again when she called him cute, but he responded perkily rather than uncomfortably, which Zelda took as a good sign…even if he hadn't accepted her invitation yet. "Storm! I love that. My car's Epona."
"You name everything, huh?"
He laughed. "Yeah, I guess I do."
"What's yours, then?"
The boy blinked, then jolted in surprise. "Oh, wow, I completely didn't realize! I'm Link."
"Nice to meet you, Link." Link was a pretty common name, just like her own, but it seemed to suit him. She smiled. "I'm Zelda."
"Nice to meet you too. And hey, um, I'd love to get coffee. If you still want to? It's okay if you don't."
Relief crashed over Zelda like a wave. He did want to get coffee! He wanted to get to know her too! She hadn't overstepped! "Oh, great!"
"Yeah!"
A beat. Zelda waited for him to fill the silence once again until she realized that she probably should be recommending a place for them to get said coffee. "I don't want to just choose for us, so—do you have any favorite places to go for coffee? I'm pretty open to whatever."
Link smiled bashfully. "I, uh, I'm new to Castleton, just moved from Ordon like two days ago. So I don't know the good places yet, unless the convenience store on my block counts. And believe me, it doesn't." He made a face, and Zelda grinned at the silliness of his poked-out tongue.
"Well, fortunately for you, you're getting coffee with a lifetime Castleton resident," she said, her boldness surprising even herself, but she liked it. And judging by the way his eyes crinkled up and a dimple flashed on his left cheek with his grin, he liked it too. "I know just the place."
On their journey through the underground subway system, Zelda learned that she and Link both tended to talk with their hands; and that Link liked to loosely wrap an arm around the standing poles if he held one at all, and try to keep his balance. When he stumbled, he smiled. Once, he tripped through several steps right into her, and it made them both burst out laughing until an old man glared at them, and they stifled their snickers behind hands grimy from public transit.
Apparently, he had missed his college's orientation period because he hadn't been able to find housing until the last minute, so he had never been on Harkinian University's campus. He was interested in the Outdoor Education major, and the reason his calves were so defined was because he went hiking and rock climbing a lot in the mountains surrounding Ordon, rather than participating in any organized sport. His parents were from Faron, near Lurelin, but he'd never lived anywhere besides Ordon (with the exception of a couple of summers spent in Lanayru). When he asked her about her own interests, he listened with a smile as she rambled about sciences and law and her love affair with the harp and how she hoped to audition for a chair in the orchestra at Nohansen.
The commute to Zelda's coffee shop of choice was about half an hour. Conveniently, it lay almost equidistant between their two campuses, although slightly favoring Link at Harkinian University. Zelda faux-pouted at this development—how come Link got to be closer to her favorite coffee shop and not her?—but was secretly delighted. Maybe, just maybe, if Link liked it, he might want to meet her here again.
It was with that hope fluttering in her heart on hummingbird's wings that Zelda stopped on the sidewalk in front of the Lumpy Pumpkin and turned to face her companion. "Here we are!"
Link stared up at the building, his eyes wide, before breaking out into a grin. "This building is funky!" She watched the childlike joy in his face with a strange sense of pride as he looked over the curved shape of the orangey-brown brick, the orange-stained roof, and the little green chimney that poked up like a stem. "It makes me think of home," he added, a little quieter.
"Oh yeah, Ordon is one of Hyrule's biggest producers of pumpkin, right?"
"Yup. There's like two hundred pumpkins per person, or something. Unevenly distributed of course. I always grew some in the patch behind our house because I wanted to help out."
"A fond memory, then?"
"Very." Link smiled to himself, then met her gaze. "Ready?"
"So far beyond ready for coffee, you have no idea," Zelda groaned. She reached for the door handle—although far removed from the usual metal-and-glass doors of many Castleton shops, the Lumpy Pumpkin's heavy wooden door was the simplest thing about it—and held it open for Link as he passed, grinning. Even from the other side of the threshold, her senses were awash with the best smelling space in all of Castleton. Coffee and cinnamon and caramel and a hint of gingerbread and altogether warm and heady and cozy.
"Caffeine addiction, or–?"
"Nope! Well, not yet, anyway." She made a face. Depending on her course load, she may end up just a bit dependent by the end of the semester. "Just that the pumpkin spice lattes here are to die for." She worried for a moment that he would judge her taste—pumpkin spice lattes had become the butt of the joke in the last few years, especially when drunk by a person that identified as female. But she needn't have, because—
"Oh, yum, definitely getting one of those!" Link crowed behind her.
They approached the counter to order their drinks: two medium pumpkin spice lattes with whip. Pumm greeted Zelda brightly, recognizing her from years of faithful patronage, and chattered about his daughter Kina and how her third year of university was treating her so far as he rang up Link's order. "And what about you, Miss Zelda? First year going okay?" She nodded. "Meeting people?"
What a question. If he'd asked her that question this morning, she would have had to shake her head, but… She bit her lip, nervous yet pleased, then hooked a thumb at Link. "I am now."
Pumm looked Link over again more closely, and she could tell by the twitching in his mustache that he was dying to ask Link some questions—or to interrogate Zelda about him—but he held himself back. "You come back again soon and tell me more about…school…when we're slow, you hear?"
Zelda laughed. "Will do, Pumm." She turned to Link, and jerked her head towards one of the empty two-seaters fringing the main floor. He nodded happily.
"I'll have those lattes right up for ya!" Pumm called after them.
Zelda plopped down into the wooden chair with a sigh. It felt nice to be able to sit down after so long spent walking and standing, and doubly so in her favorite coffee shop. She had only been away for a few weeks, but she realized that she had half-expected the place to feel differently now that she was different—or in a different place in her life, at least. Yet it was exactly the same, from the orange-washed walls that lent the space a cozy atmosphere, to the well-loved wooden tables, to the bandstand against the left wall, to the orange rugs under the tables.
"What's with the chandelier?" Link asked, and Zelda's gaze darted back to him from where she'd been perusing through the myriad of multicolored mugs on the shelf nearest to their table, and then up to the ceiling. The pumpkin-shaped sconces holding each light were quite unique, she supposed; she was so used to them that she rarely spared the iconic light fixture a glance.
"Pumm's treat for himself," Zelda said, smiling. "He doesn't do much nice for himself, but he really, really likes ambiance and interior design and especially lighting. That one was a special commission after some hooligan broke the first chandelier a few years back. I wasn't there, but it caused quite a stir, apparently. Pumm was in a bad mood for weeks."
"I can see why, if it was as nice as this one!"
"Not quite, but still pretty damn nice," Zelda said, then quickly stole a harried glance at Link's face to see if he had a negative reaction to her swearing. His expression didn't so much as twitch, and she breathed an internal sigh of relief. "And Pumm's chandeliers are like his children right after Kina, so."
"HEY! Two pumpkin spice lattes for ya!" Pumm's voice rang out suddenly from across the room, and Zelda and Link both jumped a little in their chairs. It felt slightly like a cozy little spell had been broken, and Zelda realized that even in those few minutes they'd talked amongst themselves at the table, she and Link had been in a world to themselves. Her cheeks went warm, and when she looked over at Link, she saw he was flushed too. Maybe…he felt the same?
"I'll go get our drinks!" Link suggested swiftly, and stood before Zelda could even offer to go in his stead. She nodded and smiled her thanks.
Ordinarily, Zelda would've been on her slate checking through her notifications or stealing a few pages of reading while alone at a table waiting for someone. This time, though, she couldn't tear her eyes off of Link. She smiled when she heard him call a thank-you to Pumm where the man stood half-hidden behind the espresso machine.
Zelda saw the muscles in Link's back and legs tense to turn around, and hurriedly redirected her stare to the tabletop, face burning. Footsteps approached, slightly creaky on the well-worn floors, and she kept an eye on him in her periphery to know when—now!—it would be socially acceptable to look up and not at all like she'd been watching him the whole time.
"Which one do you want?" Link asked, doing his best not to spill either very full mug. Pumm had been generous. "I think the one on the right has more whipped cream."
"I'll do that one, then, unless you mind?"
Link shook his head and grinned. "I get more of the pumpkin spice this way."
"Well, whichever mug, you're about to have a religious experience." She reached out for the proffered mug, careful not to tip it and waste any of that precious ambrosia. The ceramic was warm, and she wrapped her fingers around it greedily. Link set his cautiously down onto the table—one drop spilled over the side, and Zelda winced at its loss—and sat down himself.
"I'm expecting great things from this coffee," Link teased. "If it's the favorite of a lifetime Castleton resident."
"Maybe this is the moment where you figure out how bad my taste is," Zelda countered. It wasn't completely a joke, if she was honest; although she would never discredit the Lumpy Pumpkin's PSLs, she might let something else slip that Link might think was weird or cringey. He didn't seem like the kind of guy to judge, but…
"I sincerely doubt that."
She was seriously down bad for his smile, huh.
Well, whether or not this crush would turn into something romantic, or it eased into them being good friends and nothing else, Zelda would take and enjoy this coffee outing for what it was—for who he was.
Link went to take his first sip, and Zelda threw out a hand to stop him. "Ah-ah-ah! Wait!" Her sudden movement jostled her own mug, the coffee nearly spilling over, but she didn't notice. "Don't drink it yet!"
He froze. "Why not?" He didn't seem annoyed or scared, simply inquisitive.
"You gotta smell it first," Zelda said, then blushed. It sounded so stupid out loud.
Fortunately, he only looked more curious. "Oh, to like, get the whole package?" Zelda nodded empathetically. "Well, okay then!" His eyes widened a little along with his nostrils as he raised the mug up to his face, and Zelda thought she couldn't get any more endeared until he pulled back from it with whipped cream dotting the tip of his nose. "Ohhh, you weren't kidding, this smells fantastic." Link looked over at Zelda and blinked at her squirmy smile. "What?"
"You—" Zelda covered her irrepressible grin with her hand, "—you've got a little–." She motioned towards the tip of her own nose.
"Oh, do I?"
Instead of just wiping it away, Link crossed his eyes to see the little dollop, and Zelda burst out laughing. To her glee, Link joined in immediately.
"This was your secret plan all along, huh?" he asked between chortles.
"Yes, my evil scheme was to get you all—" she broke off. Creamy? Messy? God, everything seemed like an innuendo all of a sudden. "—er, relaxed, and then publicly humiliate you."
"I think I did that well enough for myself earlier!" Link said, shoulders shaking with a few final bursts of humor as he finally wiped off his nose with his sleeve.
"Nah, the only public you humiliated yourself in front of was me, it could've been way worse."
"I dunno." Link scratched the back of his head, and Zelda's interest perked at what he might say next, if his nervous tic was making an appearance. "Embarrassing myself in front of someone super, um, cool isn't the best thing that could've happened to me today."
"You think I'm cool?" Zelda's eyes went wide. She thought he was cool. Was she cool? Really?
"Uh, yeah?" Link said. "You're funny and you're smart and you know great coffee shops even if I haven't even had the coffee yet, and you know a lot of history stuff even though you aren't a major, and you're a first year but you know like, everything, about your university. That's really cool."
Forget cool, her face had gone hot. Zelda's brain shorted out. has stopped working.
Loading…
Loading…
We return to our regularly scheduled programming. "Haha, um, thanks! Um, let's make sure you have that coffee, then! Drink up!" Zelda gestured not once but twice as if she were drinking from a mug, before realizing that she had a mug of coffee on the table, and she should definitely busy her hands with it before she did anything else she'd regret.
Link didn't take a sip, though, or even pick up his own mug. His head cocked a little to the side, brow furrowed just slightly. "Zelda, I…hope I didn't make you uncomfortable with that. They're my honest feelings, but if that was too much or I've been picking up the wrong signals, or something, I'm sorry, and I'll back off."
"No!" Zelda shook her head frantically. "No, not too much, and you're getting the right signals, I think you're super cool too and funny and pretty and—" oh no why did she have to say pretty, too, even if she meant it?! "—I'm just really bad at taking compliments, so. Yeah."
Link's eyes went wide and glistened when she called him pretty, but to her relief, he didn't comment on it. "I'm glad, Zelda, and…I hope you get better at taking compliments. Especially if we hang out again. I tend to uh, compliment people a lot. Spread joy, you know?"
"You definitely do that," Zelda said shyly. She smiled at him, a little overwhelmed, but a lot hopeful. "Wanna try the coffee now? If we wait any longer, it'll get all lukewarm, and who likes lukewarm coffee?"
"You'd be surprised at what I'd drink!" Link quipped, but raised the mug to his smiling lips nonetheless. They sipped together, Link making a little "mmf!" of deliciousness.
Hot and sweet and spicy, with that hint of earthiness from the pumpkin Pumm himself boiled down for syrups, it was everything she had been craving all day. Warmth oozed through her body and into her soul. On her second sip, she realized: Link was awfully similar to a good pumpkin spice latte. Perhaps she would share that compliment with him sometime. A time more courageous than now.
Link pulled away from the mug and smacked his lips in appreciation. "Pumm knows how to make a latte!" His voice was awed, and Zelda grinned—she knew the feeling. "The balance of the flavors is perfect. And this pumpkin is delicious. I don't even know how this is possible. Like, I would have had to waste so many espresso pulls before I got to this level."
Zelda raised an eyebrow. "Espresso pulls?"
"Heh, uh, I was a barista in high school. Had to fuel Epona somehow."
"So I took a coffee expert to get coffee, huh? Amateur move." Zelda snickered.
"I wouldn't say thaaaat," Link drawled teasingly. "And this is the best pumpkin spice latte I've ever had, including the ones I made a billion times a day, four days a week, every fall for two and a half years, so you have absolutely zero reason to worry."
"High praise! We'll have to tell Pumm next time we come." Zelda froze. "Um. That is. If you wanna come here with me again?"
"Oh, absolutely. I need to befriend this man immediately for his recipe."
Zelda's lips turned downwards at the corners despite herself. Come here again to befriend Pumm? Not herself? …Maybe Link was just a super complimentary person after all, rather than particularly enjoying her company.
"Ah…yeah," she laughed nervously.
"Oh. Damn," Link sighed, and placed his hand over hers on the table. She felt every nerve in the back of her hand set alight all at once with tingles like some sort of hopelessly touch-starved heroine in a drama, and it took everything she had not to flex her hand under his own. "Zelda, I didn't mean–. I mean, I guess I already felt like we were friends? Even though we just met, I just…I dunno, I feel really comfortable with you."
"Me too," she said, voice nearly a whisper. She cleared her throat. What had she seen the other first years doing upon making their first fast friendships? "Do you have a Pictochat?"
"Oh, yeah, I do! Lemme pull up the rune." Link dug into his hoodie pocket for his slate. "Is that how people usually talk to each other in—" he waggled his eyebrows "—higher education?"
"Yeah, isn't that how your—oh, right, you haven't actually been at your school yet!" Zelda exclaimed. She held her slate over Link's to scan his friend code until the interface flashed the message Link Firly added to your Compendium! "Yeah, at least at my school, I've seen people just exchanging their Pictochats." She cocked her head to the side. "We both start pretty late, huh?"
"Huh?" Link mirrored the tilt of her head with his own, a gesture that melted her like the whipped cream in her latte.
"Oh, I meant the school year. Both our universities started on the late side."
"Oh, yeah! Yeah, it's weird to start so far into autumn, but I got to help more with the pumpkins and at the coffee shop and practice with my own espresso machine at home, so I'm okay with it." Link smiled. "Plus it means I got to meet you."
For what felt like the thousandth time that day, Zelda flushed. She had no clue she was such a serial blusher, but here she was, probably redder than a maple tree. She bit her lip, and then summoned that same boldness that had gotten her into this moment with Link. "Thank Farore for weird academic calendars, then!"
She raised her half-full mug for a toast, and Link met her in the middle with a festive clink and an infectious grin.
I could get used to this, Zelda thought, and took a long drink of the best pumpkin spice latte she'd ever had in unison with her new friend, or…well. She wouldn't rush it. She had a feeling, as she asked Link what he'd named his espresso machine and he answered with hand-gesturing excitement and affectionate eye contact, that she just might get the chance.