A/N: Alternatively titled, "Not my first time writing a chapter whilst grumpy."

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Not My First Fight

This isn't my first fight, but it's the first time that every sarcastic remark and angry rejection makes me feel like I'm losing more than just an argument.

"Gods, Link, can't you take a hint? I have enough going on in my life right now without you constantly pressuring me to drop everything whenever it's convenient for you!"

"How is this constantly pressuring?! I haven't heard from you in almost two weeks! For all I knew you were lying dead in an overturned car on the side of the freeway somewhere!"

"I never asked you to keep tabs on me! I already have a set of overbearing parents; I don't need you demanding updates every hour, too!"

I sigh, trying to compose myself. I knew something was wrong, I just didn't know it was going to explode in my face like this.

"What are you saying, Zelda?" I try again, my voice gravelly from all the noise. "Do you want space?"

"Space," she laughs humorlessly. "Yeah, Link, I need space. I think we both need space."

I can only stare at her, trying to process that. But she won't even look me in the eye. "What is that supposed to mean?"

It all started after the party at her university. She was distracted and quiet the whole ride home, and was still acting strangely the next time we got together—which was unusually difficult to coordinate, even for her prohibitively busy schedule. When I tried to ask her about it, she gave me a sterile smile and said she was fine. We ate dinner and watched a movie, and I kissed her goodbye.

And then she shut me out altogether. She wouldn't return my texts or calls for more than a week.

Finally I just drove to her place and knocked on her door. She begrudgingly let me inside, looking a little bedraggled, and then tried to play it off like nothing was wrong. That lasted for all of five minutes.

She sighs, too, dithering before she responds to my question in a voice that's pointedly bland. "It means you've gotten too attached."

I blink once, certain I've misheard. "What?"

"We want different things. Our lives are traveling in different directions. If you can't operate under those conditions, then we should just call it off."

Maybe I'm just being unusually dense, but it almost sounds like she's trying to justify a breakup—and blame it on me. But that can't be, because the way she kissed me at the university not that long ago was definitely communicating something different. You don't have to be a Lanayru professor to recognize when someone you're crazy about cares about you too. I could feel it in the way she touched me, the way she pressed into me and met my every advance. I know she wanted me as much as I wanted her.

So if she thinks I'm just going to scurry away from her emotionless dissertation on the matter with my tail between my legs, she can think again.

I run a hand through my hair while I think, and then cross back to her, forcing her to look me in the eyes. "Zelda, where in the world is this coming from?" I confront her levelly. "What did I do?"

"It's not you, Link," she says. Her eyes are a little startled, but mostly they're sad, and that scares me more than anything. "It's me."

I can't help my reaction. My expression drops into an irritated deadpan. "You did not just say that."

She rolls her eyes, the sadness vaporized and replaced by more anger. "This is exactly what I'm talking about. You never take anything seriously! I live a different life! I have to meet different expectations!"

"I'm not asking you not to live your life, Zelda!" I protest, and then check myself, reining in my voice again. "You seemed fine with things the way they were until now. What's changed?"

"Nothing's changed," she groans.

"Don't pretend," I demand, unamused. "I deserve an answer."

"It's the truth," she frowns. "Nothing's changed. This was never going to last. It was just for fun. My parents have definite expectations about who they'd have me consider for a serious relationship, and you don't fit the bill."

"Your parents—" I try to interject, but she cuts me off before I can get going.

"Don't bother trying to blame them. They're right. I'm not going along with it just to please them. I'm doing it because it's smart. You aren't practical for me. You never have been."

"I don't believe this," I breathe, hardly able to register it all at once. "You're ready to end it, just like that? Give up just because I went to the wrong college?"

"There's nothing to give up, Link. I always knew this wouldn't go anywhere. And it's apparent you're more invested in this than you should be." She says it so calmly, so matter-of-factly, that I can't help but feel a twinge of doubt, that she might actually believe it. "And you're oversimplifying our differences. It's a lot more than attending the wrong college."

I try to stand my ground, but inside I can feel my resolve fracturing. "Enlighten me."

She folds her arms, and I wonder if she's going to give me a straight answer. I can see her running the calculations behind those stunning, clever blue eyes of hers, analyzing and compartmentalizing everything that's happened between us the last couple months and rummaging through the data for logical conclusions. The objectivity is making my stomach churn. But instead of spitting out a cascade of statistics and equations, she gives me a clipped, void response.

"I don't expect you to understand."

"Flattering," I sneer acridly, but the answering eye roll I'm expecting doesn't come.

"How could you? You've spent your life chasing after a dream. You don't understand what it is to do what you do or be who you are because it's expected of you."

"You're right, I don't, because that doesn't make any sense!" I fire back. "How can you resign yourself to living your life doing what other people demand of you? What about what you want, Zelda?"

"This is the difference," she says quietly. All the anger is gone. There's only the detached, cold aloofness of fact. "This is who I am. I've made choices you could never respect, or let lie; this is why this could never progress into something more."

"I see," I say curtly, stung. Her detachment is a thousand times worse than her anger had been. "And you didn't consider bringing this up before? Or maybe consulting me instead of just cutting me off when you thought I'd gotten in too deep?"

"Breakups are rarely mutual," she tells me remotely, like it was some factoid she read it in a peer reviewed paper recently. "I was trying to save us both this headache."

"That's what I am to you now? A headache?" I carry on, trying to reignite the spark that's been smothered out of her eyes. I'd rather have all the fury she can muster turned on me than accept what she's trying to force feed me: that she never cared.

But the strike glances off her shield like a dull, unwieldy blade. "I'm very sorry you've gotten hurt. I didn't think it would escalate this quickly."

It's like talking to a wall.

It's like she's rehearsed this, and nothing I say will change the outcome of this conversation.

"Zelda—"

"Please just go."

She's staring at the hardwood floor, and I'm staring at her, and I don't know what to do with myself. Do I stand my ground, refuse to walk out, insist on continuing the argument in the blind hope that I can get her to change her mind? Do I try to convince her that this can work, that regardless of the expectations she thinks having me around will keep her from meeting I can find a way to be what she needs me to be? Do I beg her to let me prove that I'm good enough?

Do I just leave?

The more I think about it, the more the disappointment melts away and the more I feel anger welling up in its place. She says she never meant for us to have a real relationship, which I'm not sure I believe, but if it's true I'm not going to humiliate myself trying to win the affections of someone who doesn't care for me as I am. But even if it isn't true, it isn't fair for her to dangle other people's expectations over my head. Not like this. If she came to me with concerns, if she was worried she would be chastised for wanting me, I could understand that. I could've helped her, done whatever it took to satisfy the people she's trying to appease so we could be together. But she didn't. She decided it would be better to just drop me; she wasn't even honest about it until I pried an explanation out of her, and I'm not even sure she's being honest with me now. That leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, and suddenly I don't feel like begging.

So I turn around and I leave.

The car ride home is an angry blur. I don't know what I'm thinking or where I'm going, and by the time I find myself up in the penthouse, staring over the glowing skyline, I feel like I've been hit by a bus.

I just can't wrap my head around it. I haven't felt this blindsided since…

Hmm. Maybe being hit by a bus wasn't the best metaphor.

I run a hand through my hair and cross the room to pour myself a drink, like that's going to help. It doesn't. If anything, the fogginess it pulls over my brain just makes my imaginings of her more vivid; the piercing blue of her eyes more vibrant; the phantom sensation of her tousled hair more silken; and I don't know if I regret drinking it or not. But it does get me drowsy enough to fall asleep, which I try to convince myself was the plan all along.

I spend the next two weeks engrossed in my work, thinking up every excuse imaginable to do overtime, from deep cleaning all the ovens to reinventing large sections of the menu. It isn't as riveting as it used to be, but it is familiar and sufficiently numbing. Sometimes I can stop thinking about her completely during the dinner rush because I just don't have the brain capacity to do both at once. But I can feel it bleeding into my performance anyway. I'm snapping at the guys over trivial mistakes, and everyone is giving me a wide berth.

Mikau was even brave enough to ask how things were going once, but my clipped response apparently communicated to everyone, very loudly, that Zelda wasn't a topic that should be brought up ever again.

It seemed like a normal reaction at the time, but eventually I get the feeling that something's not right, like there's a hole in my chest or in my head that I've been ignoring. But no matter how I run them in circles in my head, her arguments don't make any more sense to me than they did the night she said them.

The night of the party, when we'd been kissing each other breathless, she'd stopped to look me in the eyes, flushed and exquisite, and nearly said something. But then she'd changed her mind, smiling gently, and kissed me again. I had relived that moment a dozen times as I tried to fall asleep that night, wearing a dumb smile. I hadn't know what she had wanted to say, but I assumed it could only have been something good.

Now I wasn't so sure. Had she known, even then? Had she been considering making it clear that she wasn't interested in something serious? Was she going to warn me not to get too involved? What made her change her mind? And I kept rewinding, going through our exchanges and my memories of us with a critical eye. Everything was tainted. I couldn't keep the signals straight. I was driving myself crazy.

Zelda had been right about one thing: I had gotten too attached. I don't know how I let my guard down, or why, but the way this is eating me up is evidence enough. No girl is worth this; I'm irritable and distracted and the one good thing to come out of this is that I won't let it happen again. Or, at least, that's what I want to think. But my inner voice is contradicting me with more conviction than I can recall having towards anything in recent memory, and even though it's painful I can't deny that I feel it: She is worth it.

One night, after I brush my teeth and climb into bed, when I had worked myself into a frustrated mess and could only stare sleeplessly at the ceiling, I do the unthinkable. I pick up the phone.

And I call Ashei.

It rings four times, and her amused voice comes over the line, not even bothering to say hello.

"Trouble in paradise?"

I resist the urge to growl at her, doing my best to mask my response in dispassion. I'm tempted to just hang up. "What makes you say that?"

"Because there is literally no other reason in the universe that would compel you to call me," she snorts, like it's obvious and I'm dumber than a zol. "What happened?"

"I don't even know," I mutter humorlessly.

"So it's over, then?"

A breath I didn't realize I was holding rushes out of me and I plop a pillow over my face. "I guess so."

She pauses. "That doesn't sound like you."

"No?"

"You just got finished telling me she's the best thing that's ever happened to you. And now you're going to let her walk away without putting up a fight?"

"I don't know," I whisper.

"Get your face out of the comforters."

"It's a pillow."

"Whatever. You're such a baby."

I scowl and throw the pillow across the room with more force than is strictly warranted. "And you're annoying. This is so stupid; I don't even know why I called you."

"Because I'm the only person in the world you told about her."

Din above, I hate her sometimes.

"You're confused and you need to talk it out," she continues, a little less antagonistically. "What did she say?"

I take a breath and wait, wondering if it's worth it. But then it's spilling out like an avalanche. "She said that our lives are going in opposite directions and that she has expectations to meet, and that we're too different. That I could never understand what it's like to be who I am or do what I do because it's expected of me, because I've spent my whole life chasing a dream."

It feels good once it's out, like everything is clearer. She sounds so crazy, so ridiculous and unreasonable and so incredibly wrong.

Which is, of course, why Ashei chimes in wistfully, "Well, she's not wrong."

"What?!"

"She's not," she insists. "You're just too busy nursing your injured ego to consider it."

"I'm hanging up on you."

"Fine."

I growl aloud, barely resisting the urge to throw the phone. "How is she, in any way at all, not wrong? How can you even say that?"

"Because you've spent your entire adult life bucking people's expectations to always do what you wanted. That's not a bad thing, Link, it's the reason you've been so successful. It's just different. She's not like you. Did you even see how pompous that gala was? Lanayru University is an institution built on archaic rules and schools of etiquette that she's been groomed to live by her whole life. You probably didn't notice because you spent the entire party being a disruptive influence. Which only proves my point."

I swallow the bitter taste in my mouth and muster another retort, refusing to acknowledge the possibility. "I can't believe you're taking her side."

"I don't necessarily agree with her conclusion, or her actions. I'm just pointing out that her concerns are valid. Which I'm sure is more than you did."

"What—?!" I try to counter, readying a blustery denial, but she cuts in before I can articulate any of it.

"Did you validate her feelings or did you tell her she was being stupid?"

"I didn't use the word stupid," I mutter, but we both know her point is made.

"So," she moves on. "Why are you talking to me about it instead of her?"

"She said she always knew this would never turn into a real relationship and that it was just for fun." I pause, and she waits. I purse my lips, and she doesn't say anything. Followed by more silence. My voice is just a murmur when I finally reach the conclusion she's forcing me to admit. "And if that turns out to be true, it's going to feel pretty brutal."

"So you're afraid of rejection."

"Are you just trying to goad me?" I deadpan. "Because it feels like you're goading me."

"There's no shame in that," she says quietly. "You've lost two of the most important relationships in your life already, and you haven't let anyone else get that close to you in a long time. The fact that she might be lying is probably comforting in a way. It means that the relationship might not be lost. But if she isn't lying… well."

There's another strain of silence while I reflect on her argument.

"You do know me well," I concede.

"Just because I was dating you for your money doesn't mean I wasn't paying attention."

"Speaking of, how are things with Shad?"

"He bought me a sports car."

I shake my head, my lip quirking up into a sardonic smirk. "Atta girl."

"You'll figure it out, Link," she assures me, being uncharacteristically generous. "But I haven't seen you that happy, ever. Don't let this end in a question mark, unless you're sure that's what you really want."

"Yes, mother," I sigh.

"That's it, I quit," she drones, and then she hangs up on me.

I smirk as I turn the phone in my hand, shooting her a parting text.

Thanks.

I cross the room to retrieve the pillow I chucked earlier, and then go back to staring at the ceiling. I still don't know what I'm going to do. I don't even know if I feel better or worse for having talked about it.

So one can imagine there were a lot of conflicting emotions when I saw Zelda having dinner with someone else at the Domain the next week.