Year 4: Swimwear!? Are You Joking!?

…

Clank! Clank! Clank! The sound of metal tools striking together heralded Link's approach to the blue backdrop. Even the pictographer gave Link's footwear a confused look. Sometime between now and when he bought them, Link's boots had been vandalized. Metal piping had been glued to the boot. Then, the perpetrator had used a belt and more glue to attach four small wrenches, five strings of washers and wingnuts, and a pair of hammers to the tops of the boots so that they would make noise as he walked. The combination of pipes and tools had made walking difficult for Link, and he felt like an idiot for having just thrown away his old boots only to find this pair ruined.

He turned to the pictographer. When the pictographer met his eyes, he said, "Just… just take the stupid picture." The man nodded, inserted a new slide into the box, and blinded Link with a brilliant flash bouncing off the umbrellas around him. Link knew that the picture had been ruined by his scowl, but he hardly cared as he clanked aside for the next airman in line.

And he found Line waiting nearby with a large grin on his face. "I hate you," Link told him. Line snorted and quickly covered his mouth. But instead of replying, he doubled over as he slowly lost the fight to suppress his laughter. Link released a frustrated sigh and asked, "When did you do this? I bought these boots months ago and left them in our quarters this whole time!"

Line dropped to his knees as his laughter became harder to control. He had teared up by the time he started taking deep breaths so he could settle down. His breathing back to normal, he told Link, "I completely forgot about those, actually. I made them the last time we were on shore duty."

"Wha—… Line, that was last month," Link said. "When did you find the time?"

"Remember when you had the flu and spent the night snoring because you couldn't breathe right? That kept me up all night, and I couldn't get to sleep even after you went on-duty. So I tracked down some junk and decided to decorate your boots."

"My brand new boots, Line! What is wrong with you!?"

Line jumped to his feet. "Well, I couldn't do it to your other pair, could I!?"

"I wouldn't have caught that cold if you hadn't run a junk through our wall! It was bad enough that the captain threw us into the berth deck half a year before we were supposed to move in! You couldn't just wait until I found the key!?"

"Hey, I was tired," Line told him, poking Link's chest with a finger. "You couldn't stop until you were finished with that stupid report, so I had to wait for you!"

"You were supposed to have a key to our quarters! Did you even get one after all that!?"

"It's not like I need one now; there's still a big hole in the wall!"

"Because you wouldn't fess up to it!"

"Hey, I'm trying to be a model airman here! It's not easy being such a stay like you!"

"You take that back!"

Line held up his fists. "C'mon, you wanna fight? Huh? I'll deck you right here!" Link looked down at Line's feet. Then he picked up one foot and used the weight of his new boot to smash Line's toes under heel. "He—YAAAAAAHHHHH!" Line pulled his foot out and clasped it as he hopped away. "Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow…"