Linger
It's not true that Link has tried to forget. It is not false that he has been trying to remember. He tries instead to remain neutral, living in the present and focusing on his tasks. It's easy but sometimes he can see sunburst eyes and taste the sun and desert sky. He doesn't suppress them because that would be like trying to forget them. Sometimes he lets them linger, on the tip of his tongue and in the steady pound of his heart, then he lets them fade, like ghosts and whispers fade.
Then he works, he works so that there will be no reason for his mind to idle, for old things- he won't call memories because memories disappear and he won't let them disappear- to resurface and take control.
Sometimes they hurt like needles and sometimes they are the only way he gets to sleep at night, small comforts like warmth and the soft pressure of a kiss.
Link is only human. When he wants to remember it is usually after a hard day. He remembers cool water on his feet and fingers that weave like magic; he remembers blood and the gentle, calming voice of a lover that he won't allow himself to remember but can never forget; he remembers wanting, aching to be filled to be touched by those fingers that felt like clouds, to be named by that voice that sounded like the nighttime sky, effortlessly dark and alluring.
He doesn't want to see the face that belongs to those hands, the eyes that speak every emotion louder than that voice ever could.
He wants to remember but what he wants most is to forget.