We (Don't) Feel Pretty

…

"Link?"

Link sighed. "Yeah?" he asked in a miserable tone.

"I'm pissed."

Link sighed again. "Well, at least they're the uniform color."

While Link was trying to put a positive spin on their circumstances, there really was no way to appease Line this time. This was mostly because, of the two of them, Line had been hit worse by an unknown adversary's attempt to humiliate them. Link might have been able to bear this unsightly problem on his own, but having to sweep out the hold with Line was probably the worst thing he could be doing while trying to shake of yet another cheap shot from one of the other airmen onboard the Grand Sails.

Line spun to Link, causing the frilled skirt of his pale-blue dress to flair out. It was not particularly graceful, and Line did not seem to understand just how much exposure he chanced moving about as he usually did in something not made for a hard day's work. "Being blue doesn't excuse the fact that we're missing our clothes!" he shouted. "And this stupid thing makes me cold! How the hell do girls wear this stuff!?" He raised his broom and waved it at Link as if threatening him. "If I ever find out who took our clothes, I'm gonna shove this broom up his—"

"Just chill out, Line," Link told him in a gentle tone, one hand raised to calm him.

"I'm not gonna chill out!" Line shouted. "My balls are freezing off!"

"You're being too loud," Link tried to tell him in a hushed voice. "What are you gonna do if someone else finds out our clothes are missing? Besides, if you didn't wanna be that cold, you shouldn't have taken off your undersuit last night." As if to prove his point, Link tugged on the left sleeve of his lime-green bodysuit, the only piece of garment serving to keep hold on the last of his dignity as he wandered around in a dress of similar design to Line's.

"I took it off because Garfield dropped me in the aft shitbox," Line told him, placing the head of his broom back on the floor. "Next time, you get that duty!"

Link shrugged before he resumed sweeping. "It could've been worse. He could've dropped you through."

Line huffed mock amusement while he shoved the broom hard enough to create small clouds of dust. "At least I wouldn't be wearing this stupid dress."

"We could've had to show up for duty naked," Link pointed out.

"Oh, stop with-with the 'we could've' stuff!" Line snapped at him. "You keep trying to tell me things could've been worse than this! Nothing is worse than this! If he hadn't stolen my undersuit, I wouldn't have even tried putting this stupid thing on! Why does someone even have dresses onboard!? Who would even need dresses onboard!?"

"I don't know!" Link replied.

Line started hitting the head of his broom against the hull, creating an obnoxious clicking sound. The clicking became louder and faster until he raised the broom over his head. "This is an affront to our manhood!" he suddenly declared, throwing the broom across the hold.

"An 'affront'?" Link asked, pausing to watch Line. "Do you even know what that means?"

"No, but I know our manhood has been affronted! We should go to the captain right now!"

Link hesitated before speaking as he tried to weight the options. "Sooo… we go to Captain Alfonzo and tell him our manhood has been…"

"Affronted," Line said so that Link could conclude his sentence.

"Affronted. While we're still wearing the dresses. And without knowing who took our tunics in the first place."

"Well, I'm not gonna do it naked!"

Link scrunched his face for a moment. "Line, we're still on duty."

"We're sweeping the hold! Just what could possibly be so important that we can't ditch it for a few minutes!? We already killed all the spiders! We don't have anything for mold to grow on! Since wh—"

"Hey, shhh," Link said. Behind Line's complaining, he heard a sound he normally would not hear on the Grand Sails. He could not tell what it was because Line was being so loud, so he tried to shush him.

Not that Line cared. "No, I'm not gonna 'shhh'! This is ridiculous!"

"Line, shut up and listen," Link said with a little more force in his voice.

"What?"

Link paused for a moment, straining his ears. At first, he thought it had passed, or that maybe he had just been hearing things. Then he heard a sharp click, and his head swiveled in the direction of the stairs. "Hear it?"

Line frowned and leaned aside to look in the same direction as Link. "Yeah, I think I did. What was that?"

There was only one place where Link regularly heard that sound. That was at the company office. To be even more specific, he would hear it over and over again at the beginning of the year while he waited in line to have his picture taken with the rest of the crew. "Was that… a pictobox?"

"A-a pictobox!?" Line asked. Link listened more, and he became aware that whoever was nearby was trying (and failing) not to laugh. Both boys were annoyed, now knowing that their attempt to keep the loss of their tunics a secret had failed. Link was beginning to ponder if the man with the pictobox was also the man who took their clothing.

Then Link felt Line suddenly rip the broom from his hand. He jerked backwards as Line ran toward the stairs with the broom raised over his head like a sword. "CHAAAAAARGE!" he declared. The battle cry caused whoever was nearby to suddenly bolt up the steps. Link tried not to laugh at the sight of his best friend wearing a sleeveless dress with only a knee-length skirt, which left him a little exposed as he ran hollering up the stairs behind the spy.