Fortunately, Science was the last class of the day, so I could go home and freak out about everything privately. Which is exactly what I did. Thank the Goddesses Shade and I had separate rooms.

"Why? Why did I do that? I could have just said no. Ahh, but then I would have felt guilty. Plus, she asked me...What am I supposed to do?"

"About what?"

I bolted up from where I was face down on my bed, spinning into a defensive stance. Why? No idea.

Shade was standing in the doorway, trying to look casual, but I could tell he was curious. "What have you screwed up now?" My eyes narrowed.

"Nothing, don't worry about it," I threw back, tossing myself back into my pillow. I heard Shade walk into my room and sit on my desk chair.

"Well, the way I see it, I have two options here. I can either let you sulk it out and have you generally miserable for the next week, or push you until you tell me about it. Plus, I'm curious, so spill. Or do you want me to put you in a headlock first?"

"Hah, you could try," I said, not caring that my voice was muffled by the pillow. I heard a low, rather sinister chuckle.

"Is that an invitation?" Joints popped next to me. I threw myself as far away from Shade as I could get on my small bed.

"No, it's not, you maniac! Get away from me!" Damn brothers.

"Like I said, tell me now or tell me in a headlock," Shade said, with a rather sinister smile in place. I sighed. I wasn't getting away from this one.

"Fine, fine, just...lay off me a sec." Placated, Shade sat back in the chair, perfectly attentive. I sighed and started haltedly.

"So... it's about the new girl at school...Zelda..."

"You like her, don't you?" I looked up to see Shade with a worried expression on his face, leaning forward again.

"Yeah, let's go with that."

"Oh, man, it's worse than that, isn't it? You full on have a crush on her?" I just shook my head. Sheik tried again "Even worse?" At this, I nodded. "Well, shit." I fell back onto my bed.

"Basically."

"What are you going to do? Cremia's going to be pissed as hell if she finds out you're basically in love with a girl you've sort of known for two weeks." Shade almost seemed to be enjoying my pain. Bastard.

"Dude, I have no idea. And to make things worse, I've got to do a project with her for science class now. So there's basically no escape," I sighed. This was the end. I was doomed. I couldn't tell what was worse, losing Zelda or having Cremia explode on me. Sounds absurd? Yeah, well, such is my life.

"Maybe not," Shade muttered. I gave a short, humorless laugh.

"Abandoning your pessimistic view, Shade? And how can this not be the worst thing to ever happen to me?" I asked, turning to look at Shade with a skeptical look.

"You're doing a project with her, right?" I nodded. Shade's smirk popped back into place. "Well, there you go. You get to know her, work together for a while, and you'll get landed solidly in the friend zone."

"And how is that supposed to help me get over my...problem?" I asked, wincing.

"You'll just have to get over her." I couldn't help but laugh.

"Dude, have you seen her? How do you suppose I get over possibly the most beautiful girl I've ever seen?"

"Well..." I turned to look at Shade, who was wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. "You could always take Cremia out to a nice dinner, and then come back here and..." This got me laughing for real.

"Yeah, as if. You know I'd never pull that off."

"I mean, it's not that hard. You just have to..." Shade was making various hand gestures at this point, and I couldn't help but laugh harder.

"Thanks Shade, but I'm perfectly aware of how it works."

"Besides, I know you're too 'noble' to have sex with Cremia. Your loss, but whatever."

"Well excuse me for having the moral high ground here," I snorted. Shade hadn't, at least to my knowledge, gotten any action either, but I was pretty sure that if the opportunity presented itself, he wouldn't restrain himself like I would. "Any options that don't involve compromising my morals?" Shade rolled his eyes.

"Probably, but that one's easiest. And the most fun," he finished with a wink. Hopping up, he strolled out the door and down the hall. "Good luck with that, man!"

"You're always so helpful, Shade," I yelled after him. I heard him laugh before shutting his bedroom door.

Fantastic, I thought. I'm still totally screwed. Just as I was starting to drowse, my phone buzzed in my pocket. Pulling it out, I saw it was a message from a random number. Curious, I checked it and promptly jumped back to fully awake.

"Hey Link! It's Zelda. I got your number from your girlfriend since I never asked you for it. I just wanted to ask you to think up some ideas for our project so we can get started on it right away. I don't like to put things off. If you could come up with a few ideas for us to talk about tomorrow, that'd be great. See you tomorrow!" I quickly shot back a response.

"Will do, Zelda. Thanks for letting me know." Great. Now I not only had a bunch of homework to do, but I had to think of science project ideas without thinking of the person I had to do it with. It was going to be a long night.

Somehow, Friday came, and I had managed to avoid both heart failure and evisceration by Zelda and Cremia. Of course, that doesn't mean I wasn't basically a nervous wreck all week, but you can't win them all. At this point, I thought I could handle whatever joke the Goddesses were playing on me, but, of course, I was proven very wrong.

It was during lunch, naturally. I was having my nice lunch, stealing Sheik's food, Cremia leaning on my arm, not a care in the world, until the worst possible thing happened. Zelda sat down. I almost fell off my seat.

"Hi Zelda," I heard Cremia say as I righted myself.

"Hello, Cremia. How are you?" she said with a gentle smile. She seemed more comfortable today than I had seen her in the two weeks she had been at our school. "Hi Link."

Of course, I had just taken a massive bite of Sheik's sandwich, so I did my best to give her a smile without losing any of 'my' food. Quickly swallowing, I greeted her as I fended off an outraged Skeik, who was quickly losing the rest of his sandwich to Shade. The girls laughed and carried on with their conversation. I didn't bother to listen in. I learned a long time ago that I didn't really want to hear conversations between girls. Instead, I stole Sheik's milk.

"Hey Link, are you free tomorrow?" Zelda said from my left.

"Probably. Why?" I asked, blocking the punch from Sheik that I could tell was about to hit me in the arm.

Zelda's eyes widened. "How did you know that was coming?" she asked, apparently impressed by my block. I shrugged.

"Uh…I've been dealing with him half my life. I'd be more surprised if I didn't know the punch was coming," I offered, slamming down on Sheik's hand trying to take my fries. Truth was, I wasn't exactly sure how I knew what Sheik was doing. I guess I was just that good. Zelda laughed.

"I suppose so. Anyway, want to meet up and work on our project? We only have a few weeks to do it before finals." Cremia seemed intrigued.

"You two are doing a project together? For what class?" she asked. I started fumbling for an answer, but Zelda beat me to it.

"It's for Science. We're supposed to do a partnered project, but I didn't know anyone in the class but Link, so I asked him." I couldn't help but feel relieved that I didn't have to explain the situation. Does that make me a wuss? Probably. Do I care? No. Fortunately, Cremia took it well.

"And of course he said he would. He can't turn anyone down. Isn't that right, babe?" she said, gripping my arm. I only gave her the satisfaction of an eye roll. She knew she had me pegged. "What are you going to do it on?"

"We're not sure yet, but I was thinking we could do it on the recent environmental instability. Maybe talk about what's going on with the earthquakes and storms and what could be causing it. Did you have any ideas, Link?" I finished off Sheik's milk before answering.

"Baking soda volcano." The girls laughed.

"That's my man," Cremia said, doing her share of eye rolling. "Always with the best ideas."

"Hey, this kind of genius doesn't come easily." Glancing at the clock, I saw that the bell was about to ring. "Anyway, when did you want to meet, Zelda? This weekend should be fine."

"Does early tomorrow afternoon work? Maybe around 12:30?" I gave it a moment's thought.

"Yeah, that's fine. Where do you want to meet? I'd offer my place, but between Sheik, Shade, and my uncle, I doubt we'd get much done." Shade leaned across the table to butt into the conversation.

"We can always go out and do something if you want the house to yourself, Link," he taunted, wiggling his eyebrows. I reached over and flicked him in the face, which only made his smartass grin widen. Zelda just cocked her head as the bell rang.

"That's fine, you can come over to my place. I'll text you the address."

"Well, that sounds like fun," Cremia said. "Sure you're not forgetting anything Link?" Oh shit. I looked over and caught a look in her eye that said I was definitely forgetting something. Shit shit shit shit. Kick Shade? No. Glare at Vatti? Nope. Ignore Zelda? Can't do that. Stop trying to steal my fries, Sheik. Wait, Sheik, interrupting, party, PARTY!

"Your birthday party is Saturday. In the evening," I said, relieved.

"What time in the evening?" Crap.

"Six…?" Cremia smiled cutely. Nice to know that my distress is endearing.

"Six thirty, close enough. Aren't you a good boy for remembering. Zelda, you're invited too, so feel free to come by whenever." I heard Zelda giggle and glanced over, raising an eyebrow.

"You two are great together," she remarked, causing Cremia to smile brightly and me to look down, embarrassed. Just then, the bell rang, once again saving me from certain doom.

"Well, time to go," I said, getting up from the table. Thank the goddesses that neither Zelda nor Cremia were in my last class of the day. "I'll see you both tomorrow."

"Bye Link. I'll text you my address."

"Goodbye honey! You'd better have a good gift for me!" I turned and threw one last smile at her.

"You'll see!"

"You do already have a present for her, right?" Sheik asked as soon as we were out of earshot of the girls. "Or is it going to be like Christmas all over again?" Shade chuckled darkly.

"Please say you forgot again. I didn't record you last time." I glared at them both.

"I've already got her present, moblin-brains. I'm not making that mistake again."

"Awww…"

After I got home, I pulled out Cremia's present just to make sure it looked okay and hadn't gotten magically ruined. Sighing with relief, I flopped down on my bed. She's going to like this, right? Of course she will, it's from me. She'll say she likes it even if she hates it. Not sure if that's good, but I guess it's better than the alternative. My phone buzzed over on my desk. Suppose I should get that. It's probably just Shade begging me to bring him food though. I hauled myself off the bed. Lazy ass.

Grabbing the phone and launching myself back to the bed, I saw it was indeed a text. From Zelda. Good thing I grabbed it, I thought, trying very hard to ignore my accelerated heartbeat. Opening the text, I could almost hear Zelda saying it.

"Link, my address is 231 Lanayru Lane. Since Cremia's party is later, you can stop by earlier if you want. That way we can get more done." Well, I thought, that's pretty considerate. Actually, I probably should have thought of that. Gah, whatever. Jumping out of my thoughts, I texted back a quick reply.

"Good idea. Is around 10 okay?"

"Sure."

"Alright, sounds good." I was about to end the conversation when I thought of something. "Is your house right by a park with a big fountain?"

"Yeah, how'd you know? Or is knowing every inch of this town one of your abilities too? ;P" I couldn't help but smile.

"Hah, not quite. You live a few blocks away from me. Sheik, Shade, and I would always play in that fountain."

"Really?! That's really weird! I guess you could just walk over if you wanted."

"Maybe I will. ;)" I put my phone down for a second, thinking about what I was going to do next. Food maybe? Grabbing hold of that idea, I opened my phone again.

"So, speaking of nothing, you don't have any allergies or extreme dislikes of any food, do you?" Zelda only took a minute to respond.

"Not really. Why?" Now I was smiling in earnest.

"You'll see…"

"Dang it Link, I hate not knowing things. This is going to drive me crazy." I took some strange pleasure from her apparent distress. And come to think of it, that's kind of messed up.

"Well, the answer is only 17 hours away."

"Fine, I guess I'll see you tomorrow then. Have a good night!"

"You too." I finally turned my phone off and let my arm fall back onto the bed. That went…surprisingly well, I thought. Maybe Shade is right and I can get over her. Wishful thinking, I know. Looking up, I saw that it was only 5 in the evening, and I realized that what I said to Zelda was incredibly ironic. The next 17 hours were going to be torturous for me too.

Chapter 3, in which there is light foreshadowing and nothing actually happens. Hehehehhe. Sorry to everyone who was hoping to see Shade and Link at each other's throats, but for now they're what I imagine twins to be like: pretty damn near best friends.

Thanks James Birdsong and xmana033 for reviewing last chapter, I do really appreciate it. Also, xmana033, I'm totally taking that idea, thanks. Which one? Read on to find out! *echoing* Hope everyone reading is enjoying. Remember, tell me what you think!

Last thing, did you guys know you can get emails any time I post a new chapter? Just follow the story and make sure your account settings are set properly. That way, you never have to think, "Huh, I wonder if that Aro dude posted anything new? I bet he's really good looking. I just love his story and Link is so funny and I can't wait to see what happens on Link's not a date." Just imagine never having to wonder. It'd probably be pretty nice.

That's enough for me, time to go to work. Cheers!

-Aro