A/N: Sorry this took forever. I meant to churn these out faster but then I got some serious inspiration for another story I'm working on, which sort of precludes the need for writing exercises, and then DLC 2 happened, and then I went to Disney World, and then Star Wars (REYLO WHAAAAT!), and then aliens from another planet abducted my tooth fairy BUT THAT'S ALL BESIDE THE POINT.
Thank you very, very much to everyone who took the time to write a review, including Mr. Helpful who started his criticism with some (well-deserved?) name calling. I don't know if it will shine through too much in this story but I will do my best to apply it in the projects I'm taking a bit more seriously! If you like what you read here, or if you don't and have a good idea of why, please leave a review telling me so! Thanks!
Not My First Dinner
This isn't my first dinner at a terribly expensive restaurant where I can't pronounce half the menu items, but it's the first time I'm there to meet a man who's decidedly too good-looking that I know close to nothing about and who makes my pulse fly every time he sends me a stupid text message and Goddesses above what have I gotten myself into?!
I was suspicious the moment he asked if I liked Zoran food. He got us reservations at Zora's Domain, which is notorious for being booked months in advance, but when I asked him how he managed it he just texted me a wink emoji.
The restaurant is hybridized, with one aquarium dining room and one air dining room. The walls double as the aquarium hallways, all bedecked in shells and corals and silken kelp and exotic koi, and whatever isn't made of glass is carved out of smooth, iridescent blue and white stone—everything from the floor tiles to the spires to the chairs and tables. All the lighting is submerged in the floors of the aquarium hallways or in the shimmering pools scattered around the room, casting everything in rippling blue ambient light.
It is, without a doubt, the most beautiful building I have ever seen.
The pools themselves aren't just decorative, either, but also serve as the entrances to the underwater network beneath the building that connects to the river, and Zora guests and staff going between the two dining rooms emerge from them every so often. A stunning Zora woman in a floor length purple sheath dress steps out of the water onto the stone tile with unreal elegance as I take in the splendor, the sound of water droplets falling off her into the pool filling the cavernous room like otherworldly chimes. It overlaps hypnotically with the gentle, rhythmic music that resonates through the dining room: it's as soothing as a lullaby, filled with rich, low notes plucked from a harp and the answering crisp tones of a piano.
He's already seated, awash in ribbons of trembling light that match his wild eyes, and I've been spotted so it's too late to turn tail and run now. A grin spreads slowly across his face, and my pulse rushes in response. Not that I'm surprised; he's spontaneous and clever and ruggedly handsome—in many ways the exact opposite of the men I usually end up dating—and I find myself reverting to much less mature tendencies in his presence.
There's nothing practical about him. We don't have our academic pursuits in common, and that likely means we don't share any of the same social circles, or even the same values. This isn't smart or statistically promising or rational, but he just excites me, and I haven't felt excited about anyone in… well, a long time. The idea of him is new and stimulating and a little dangerous, and I rather like it. Not that I'm going to tell him that, of course.
The maître d' follows my line of sight, his sleek, pale blue skin pulling into a smile as he makes the connection, and he escorts me to the table and seats me.
"Hi," Link says once I've settled, and I resist the urge to laugh aloud nervously. I'd forgotten how much I like the sound of his voice.
"Hi," I respond, giving him as confident and dazzling a smile as I can muster instead.
"So, this was probably a stupid thing to do since I wasn't entirely sure you were going to show up and I don't know your preferences at all," he mutters, leaning forward slightly so I can hear better, "but I already ordered for you."
Another nervous chuckle bubbles to my lips and I can't keep it from spilling out. He laughs a little, too, sitting back as a trio of servers appear out of nowhere and start filling the table with small plates. The tantalizing scents of lemongrass and ginger, basil, fragrant fleet-lotus, cilantro, lime, chilies, and sweet papaya waft everywhere, and the presentation is stunning.
Link calls one of the servers back as I'm admiring the spread, and he saunters over with a knowing smirk. Link takes one of the plates—it's a delicate white fish on a bed of vibrant pink and blue seagrass—and hands it back to him, arching a cynical brow. "You're killing me, Mikau."
"You're serious about this one," he murmurs, taking it from him, and Link sighs.
"It's wilting. It should be glowing."
"It's a dead fish," he protests, but then he snickers at Link's irritated expression and assures him, "I'll have them redo it."
"Thank you," he mutters, rolling his eyes, but then he looks at me and hesitates, his expression turning tentative. "Sorry, are you mortified?"
I realize my mouth is slightly agape and click it shut. "No," I assure him quickly, but he doesn't seem entirely convinced.
"I just don't want you to think I'm a condescending snob," he says, one corner of his mouth tugging down in worry, and all at once his face goes from ruggedly handsome to adorable. "It's not like that. I can get away with it because I know all these guys. I work here."
"Oh," I smile, and he starts rearranging the plates.
He lines three of them in front of me, his eyes alight with anticipation. "Start with these."
I twiddle my fork, slowly composing a bite. "What do you do?" I ask casually.
He leans back into his chair, wearing a mischievous grin. "Garbage boy."
I take the first bite, and my eyes reflexively close. The flavors dance in my mouth and the sensation of the pleasant textures turn my thoughts into a blurry haze until I have absolutely no idea how long I've been savoring them, but the self-satisfied expression on Link's face when I finally get around to opening my eyes again tells me it's been a while.
"Wow," I finally manage.
"I'm glad," he says, leaning his elbows on the table and gesturing with his eyes to the next plate.
I laugh again. "Are you just going to watch me eat all night?"
"No, I'll eat," he promises. "I just want to see what you think of these first."
I humor him, though I suppose it doesn't take much convincing. My reaction to the next two plates is much like the first, though these flavors are completely different. The first was sweet and buttery; the second was aromatic and nutty; the third was spicy and sour. It takes me a while to recover from the culinary bliss, but eventually I remember he's still sitting there waiting for my appraisal. I curl a finger over my lip while I think, returning his stare.
"Divine," I finally tell him.
"Which one?"
"All of them."
"But which one do you like the best?" he insists. "You can tell a lot about a person by their favorite dish."
"No you can't," I scoff, but then tell him anyway, "The second one."
He smiles but doesn't say anything, reaching across the table with his fork and taking a bite of it. He doesn't have a gushy reaction; in fact, he eats it rather sacrilegiously. But then he swallows and nods, and murmurs, "It is good."
He's watching me intently with those tempestuous, calculating blue eyes, and I can't figure out why. I can feel heat rising into my face, and I scramble to get ahold of the situation and myself before my cardiovascular system can completely embarrass me.
"I don't know anything about you other than your name and the fact that you don't have your PhD," I start coolly, taking a forkful from one of the other plates. I try it and sigh involuntarily. That one's good too. And now he has that stupid self-satisfied smirk on his face again and my cheeks are starting to burn.
"And that I make an excellent last-minute-decoy-boyfriend," he adds.
"Surely there has to be more to you than that," I murmur, acting as disinterested in him as I can while I reach for another plate.
He shrugs as he takes another bite. Even his self-effacing face makes my pulse race. Goddesses, I am so predictable sometimes. "I like food," he begins. "A lot. I play piano sometimes. I drive an obnoxiously orange car."
"Not at all as you appear on the surface," I prod him sarcastically, and he chuckles.
"All right. What do you want to know?"
Waiters arrive before I can respond, taking away the two plates we've finished and replacing them with a small clay pot, the contents still bubbling furiously and smelling of savory fish and sweet honey.
I really don't know what to ask. Usually I would make sure we can tick off all the right checkboxes: Who are your parents? What are you majoring in? Shall we trade income figures, our last tax return, and graphs and spreadsheets outlining our plans for the next five to ten years to see if we're compatible in the long-term? But not with Link. He's unpredictable and impetuous, and I like that about him. It gives me leave to enjoy him and enjoy the moment without overanalyzing every square inch of the foreseeable future. That approach would be a pointless exercise anyway, since I doubt we have anything in common other than an inexplicable attraction to each other that might bode well for a promising relationship. But throwing it out the window does put me at a disadvantage, since I have no idea what I'm doing, and I'd like to put him on the back foot for a change.
"Tell me something you learned about yourself in the last week," I counter, hoping that such an unusual question will throw him off kilter. It doesn't.
"I found out I'm a sucker for blondes."
"You're unbelievable," I laugh breathlessly, refusing to meet his eyes as I feel my cheeks finally flush a brilliant pink, stabbing my fork into the clay pot.
"I'm unbelievable?" he gawks. "You were the one being a massive flirt the last time we met."
"That was different," I object, stuffing the forkful into my mouth and managing to huff exasperatedly instead of moan aloud as the flavor hits me. "That wasn't real! I was being ridiculous!"
"All right, all right," he placates me, finishing off another plate. "How about this: I found out that I was happy being miserable. But I've finally snapped out of it."
Mikau comes back again, bearing the dish that Link had declared wilting earlier, and trades it for the plate he's just finished, pointedly walking away without another word. Link isn't perturbed in the slightest.
I watch him a moment, absorbing his sincerity. His eyes are glimmering, casting the reflective light from the water back at me. I play with my food a little before I ask, "What do you mean?"
"It's kind of weird that I didn't notice before," he muses. "I had what I thought I wanted: the upscale apartment in my favorite building in the city, unaccountably successful career path—"
"Garbage boy," I echo.
"Right," he smirks, picking up his glass and taking a drink. "But when you dedicate yourself to something like that, it's easy to get unbalanced. I was neglecting areas of my life that I knew were important but I thought I could get on without. I wasn't happy, and I knew it, but I didn't know what I needed to change. Or maybe I just didn't want to."
"That's deep," I concede slowly, raising my eyebrows. "What made you change your mind?"
He swirls the drink in his hand absently, dithering for a moment, but then his grin widens and his eyes find mine, and he confides, "You did."
I plant my elbow on the table and rest my temple against my fingers, watching him resignedly. He says it with such ridiculous genuineness, I'm intrigued and disarmed rather than flustered. He's honest, and he's real, and I'm having more fun with him than I can recall having in years.
And I like what he brings out in me, because I feel more real.
"Sounds like you just needed a good kiss," I finally decide.
"Yeah," he smiles. "I think I did."
We eat in silence for a minute, and while I can only guess what's going on in his head, I know my thoughts are racing everywhere. I'm desperate to pick up the dialogue again—I'm already starting to overanalyze everything as though this might actually go somewhere in typical Zelda fashion: wondering how he feels about traditional gender roles in the home and if he plans on settling in the suburbs and if he wants kids and how many and are his parents in the city? Because my parents know everyone and if my parents don't like his parents that could complicate things and I don't know why social circles are so important anyway, I haven't had time for a cocktail party in ages and I never even enjoy them because they're always full of politicking and networking and why isn't Link saying anything?!—so I insist with as convincing a smile as I can marshal, "Tell me what you learned about me from my favorite dish."
"Nothing I didn't already suspect," he assures me. But while his words send an unusual tremor up my spine I'm not about to back down, and I tilt my head gently so he knows I'm waiting for more. "A lot of people would pick the first one," he explains. "It's straight forward—fatty and sugary and hard not to like. The third one is appealing too because it's loud and in your face and exciting. But the one you picked is more subtle. It's complicated. The flavors are layered very deliberately, and the fragrance is a big factor in the experience. It's all a little too nuanced for some people."
"So I'm not exciting or hard not to like," I conclude, bemused. "I'm too nuanced."
He barks a laugh. "No. You are… definitely exciting," he clarifies slowly, watching me with piercing eyes, "and you are uncommonly easy to like. And if you're too nuanced for some people, I think that's their problem."
My heart sputters, and I can't stop the smile that spreads across my face as I avert my gaze. I recover myself as quickly as I can, "What does it mean then?"
"That you're perceptive. And adventurous."
"Not as adventurous as I'd like," I confide. "But I'm working on it."
He smiles, turning his attention back to the meal. One by one, we're emptying the plates, and the attentive staff are quick to take them away.
"I have two favorite desserts here and I couldn't decide which one you'd like more, so I got both," he remarks casually as we tear into the last entrée, and just as I'm about to complain that I'm too full—because I always am—I realize that the courses were balanced just right so that I actually could sample a dessert or two.
"I don't think you're really a garbage boy," I accuse him suspiciously.
He smirks. "Why not?"
"You know too much about food. Like, more than anyone else I know," I muse. "And you're particular about it too."
"What, garbage boys can't have standards?"
I narrow my eyes. "Do you really want to start us off with a lie?"
He scoffs. "You're one to talk."
"Goddesses above," I complain. "How long are you going to dangle that over my head?"
"Well, you did say we're even after tonight," he explains, and I feel my heartrate climbing again. "I've got to get in as many jabs as I can, since I might never see you again."
I refuse to take the bait, bringing my glass to my mouth so he can't see me biting my lip. "I suppose that's fair."
The waiter Mikau appears again, laying two immaculate plates on the table and announcing them with minimal flourish.
"Mighty bananas flambé in coconut milk with rock salt black sticky rice, and champagne-soaked strawberries with Goron spice chocolate drizzle atop beurre noisette cakes." He turned to Link expectantly. "All adequately glowing, I assume?"
Link's eyes didn't leave mine as a smirk crossed his lips. "Go away."
The Zora complied and I bite back a laugh, turning my attention to the desserts on the table.
I don't wait for him to insist I go first. Every bite is a roller coaster of visceral reactions and flavors and textures that challenge all my preconceived notions about food and its rightful place in the universe. By the end of it I can't help but sigh and fall back into my chair, teetering somewhere between the verge of tears and needing a nap.
"This has been the most emotionally exhausting meal I've ever eaten," I tell him humorlessly.
His mouth tugs into a worried half smile. "I'm glad you liked it… I think?"
"It was delicious," I admit. Like he wasn't already well aware. "It went by quickly though. I thought you would've tried to drag it out for as long as possible, since you may never see me again and all."
"I shouldn't have ordered ahead of time," he agrees, grimacing a little. "That was dumb."
"Well," I decide with a sigh, "now we're even."
"Almost," he corrects me, gesturing the maître d' over.
"Almost?"
He doesn't answer me, turning his attention to the smartly dressed Zora approaching at an unhurried pace, and alarm bells go off in my head at once.
"Bring us a few scales, please, Evan," he says as he stands. "I'm going to give her a tour."
"Very good, sir," the Zora replies, leaving me alone with Link's schemes.
I stand to join him, not trusting the excited sparkle in his eyes one bit. He takes us to one of the pools nearby, where Evan meets us, handing him a box of genuine golden and silver Zora scales strung together on thin chains. He flicks one of the strands across his shoulder like it's nothing, and walks behind me to fasten another around my neck. I can feel the scales sealing against the skin over my collarbone, their natural adhesive activated by my body heat.
"Take off your shoes," he instructs, unbuttoning his collar so his necklace can drop under his dress shirt and fastening it around his neck.
"This is crazy," I mutter, slipping off my heels anyway even though I already know where this is going.
He steps into the pool and starts descending the stairs, turning and offering me his hand when I don't immediately follow. I sigh as I take it, scowling so he knows I don't approve of the ambush, and let him lead me into the water. It's pleasantly tepid, almost precisely body temperature. My dress clings to me, and I'm glad I wore something lightweight and opaque.
We both dive in headlong once we're chest deep, and I remind myself to breathe normally. The submerged lights in the floor shimmer against the translucent blue stone, but I have to force myself to move on since Link isn't stopping to admire the spectacle. He weaves through the smooth corridors until we arrive at the other end of the restaurant, in the aquarium dining room. Moonlight is streaming in through the glass domes in the elevated ceiling, bathing the Zora diners in an ethereal glow, and waterfalls spilling from the arches are refreshing the water, making turbulence on the aquarium's surface.
Everything in the aquarium moves with the currents: the seagrass, the shoals of fish, the cloth of the Zoras' elegant clothes and their curved silver jewelry, even our hair. On the other side of the glass wall separating us, the Hylian diners in the opposite room seem unreal, cast in rippling light and looking unnaturally still by comparison. And of course the meals are different, with everything served in the aquarium side belonging to the traditional "sunken" style that few Hylians are daring enough to try, all prepared without sauces or fire.
"It looks better from above," Link murmurs in my ear, his voice muffled by the water.
He offers me his hand and takes me inward and upward, through the dancing pink and blue seagrass centerpiece weaving back and forth around the massive center spire. None of them seem to notice as we swim above their heads, floating about ten feet up. The light pouring in from all sides ignites the room in colors that the two fathoms or so of water between us would normally shield from Hylian eyes, and when I glance at Link, drifting in the current beneath me, the light and colors are reflecting across his face. But he's not looking at the water and the seabed in the light.
He's staring at me.
I swim a little closer, and when I stop my hair splays everywhere. I take a breath to speak, and though it feels a little strange it really isn't any more difficult than speaking into the air.
"Enjoying the view?" I chide him, but as usual he's incorrigible.
"You look amazing," he tells me sincerely, and butterflies flutter in my stomach. I try my best to act insouciant.
"Thanks for noticing."
"Oh, I definitely noticed," he assures me. "I just didn't have the nerve to say so earlier."
"Goddesses," I laugh, pivoting onto my back and giving a gentle kick so I'm gliding away, too embarrassed to maintain eye contact but too proud to not at least attempt to camouflage it as flippancy. "You are a piece of work."
He grabs my ankle before I can get too far and I suppress a squeal of surprise, and he gently tugs me back. He lets go immediately, but my trajectory is already set in motion and I don't fight it, letting it run its course until I end up upright and inches away from him.
His eyes flick to my mouth and my heart stops.
"I want to see you again," he murmurs, his eyes burning.
Suddenly I can't breathe, and I'm not sure if I should panic or not because I don't know if it's because of him or because the scales aren't working.
"I'm moody," I warn him very quietly. "And I have a prohibitively busy schedule. And an embarrassing number of deeply ingrained control issues."
He nods, drifting closer, and I swallow reflexively. "I can work with that."
"Ok," I whisper.
His lips touch mine, and at once I have the oddest sensation of going weightless while actually being weightless, floating and disconnected from the world physically as much as I am mentally. His fingers slide up my neck and tangle in my hair, and his other hand snakes around my waist, holding me close as we drift in the glittering void between the surface and the seabed. The kiss is slow and gentle, but insistent, and my head is spinning as I let my hands wander up his arms around wrap around his neck. It's nothing like the fiery, spontaneous rush of our first kiss. It's a thousand times better.
I don't know how long we were floating, tangled in each other and blocking out the rest of the world, but in hindsight I can say it was definitely not long enough.