Disclaimer: I do not and never will own the characters of The Legend of Zelda. Nor will I ever own Nintendo. Damn it.

THE DAYS IN FEBRUARY
by Cappucinno

o8. Cold

"One more time." Zelda requested, drawing a sigh from her sinfully handsome tablemate.

Link was leaning his cheek against his fist, staring at the blonde woman across from him. She, in turn, was still staring at him in a slack-jawed expression of disbelief. There was a single lock of blonde hair that had apparently either refused to go back into her updo or along with the pieces of hair framing her face and was hanging distractingly over the bridge of her nose.

It had been bothering him for the last ten minutes.

It was just sitting there.

Innocently.

As if it wasn't aware that it was obstructing his otherwise perfect view of the blonde woman who sat directly across from him at the romantically lit booth. The restaurant was, apparently, practicing for Valentine's Day and had declared them to be a 'lovely young couple'.

"She got lost parking the car, tripped over a daisy, supposedly twisted her ankle, was taken off by some pre-med guy named Sheik, and I haven't heard from her since." Link explained patiently, for the fourth time.

"Why doesn't that sound any better the fourth time around?" Zelda sighed, rubbing her temples as if to ward away the impending headache. Honestly, fifteen minutes with Link and she already needed some aspirin.

Or strong alcohol.

Too bad that really wasn't an option when she was around Link. Goddesses damn her baby-hungry ovaries or whatever the hell was responsible for her reaction the dizzying amount of pheromones that seemed to surround Link.

"Would you like me to repeat it again?" Link offered, staring at some random point on Zelda's face.

Zelda sighed and rolled her eyes. Some guys stared at her breasts. Other guys at her legs, ass, or what-have-you, and the occasional guy liked to stare at her face.

Link had to be the first guy to stare compulsively at the point just left of the bridge of her nose about a half an inch away from the corner of her eye.

"I don't think hearing it a fifth time is going to help anything." Zelda deadpanned and Link shrugged in a complacent manner.

"Just offering—"

"Goddesses, Link! Would you please stop unbuttoning your shirt?" The blonde suddenly hissed, shielding her eyes and staring pointedly at her plate.

"Well, that has to be a first," Link commented offhandedly, staring at the blonde in a perfectly amused manner. "You know, princess, the typical response is to just rip it off."

Zelda groaned, smacking her forehead with her palm, to Link's infinite amusement. The blonde managed to look up at her dining companion whose bedamned cobalt blue eyes were fucking sparkling with mirth.

Her gaze dropped infinitesimally and she shielded her eyes once more as they landed upon the first two undone buttons on the blonde's gray button-down shirt.

"Link!" She managed in a voice about an octave higher than usual, her cheeks flushing a bright crimson as said male laughed heartily. "Buttons! Now!"

"Okay, okay." Link said, still laughing as he buttoned his shirt back up. "It's a subconscious thing you know." He explained. "I grew up where it was always really hot—"

"Can we please not talk about hot things right now?" Zelda said rather desperately as she pressed her water glass to her frighteningly red cheeks. "Cold. Frigid. Snowy."

"What?" Link asked, raising a brow. "Are we talking you now? You know, I think you need to get laid because most virgins have this—hey!"

The blonde yelped and scooted back an inch on the booth, one hand digging desperately through his shirt in search of the soggy crouton that Zelda had flung at him. He shot the young woman an amused yet annoyed look as he finally fished the projectile out, holding the Caesar-soaked cube of bread between his index finger and his thumb.

"Now that, was not very kind." He chastised, eliciting an immature eye-roll from the blonde across from him. "You know, there's this thing called karma..."

Zelda sighed and fished another crouton out of her salad, flinging it at Link mid-sentence. The blonde stopped dead, cobalt blue eyes blinking in a stunned manner. After a moment the shocked young man picked up the offending crouton, shaking his head at Zelda with an unusually serious expression on his face.

"That is it," He began, and Zelda blanched. "It's on, blondie!"

"Hey! I didn't throw a meatball at you!" Zelda cried in protest she wiped at the marinara-stain on her white blouse in a frantic manner. When the stain remained stubbornly visible she scowled and threw her napkin at Link.

"What, that's all you've got?" He taunted, before breaking off mid-sentence with a manly shriek. "Shit! I hate anchovies!"

"And now you'll smell like fish." Zelda said smugly, crossing her arms in a self-satisfied manner and basking in her temporary victory.

In response Link merely stopped again, looking at her with an appraising look. He was, apparently, back to staring at that random spot of her face that made her feel oddly like maybe Malon had scribbled on her with sharpie again when she'd fallen asleep at their apartment the night before.

With an unnecessarily vicious motion Link deftly began unbuttoning his shirt, rousing a cry of protest from Zelda. "Hot. Steamy. Latte. Tropics. Sensual. Friction." He began ticking off, the first three buttons of his shirt undone.

"Link! Goddesses, would you put your clothes back on?" Zelda squeaked, covering her eyes as Link leaned forward, raising his eyebrows in a suggestive manner.

"I'd like to take you to the tropi—"

"Excuse me, but could you two please leave? You're disrupting our other guests."

Outside, in the cold, where Link had his shirt buttoned back up and Zelda was still fussing over the marinara stain on her blouse, people were giving the couple a wide birth. They had made it about half a block through the city on their way back to the apartment complex before Link stopped walking and fixed Zelda with a completely and utterly exasperated glare.

Zelda stopped walking, tugging at her clothes in a self-conscious manner and frowning at Link.

"What?" She asked. "Does my walking offe—"

"Stay still." He whispered, before completely invading her space, his face a mere scant inches away from hers as he focused once more on that spot just to the right of her left eye.

Zelda sighed, apparently Link—on top of being an insufferably childish and sinfully handsome young man—had some strange bridge-of-the-nose fetish.

Her thoughts came to a crashing halt as a warm palm cupped her face and she couldn't help the startled gasp that escaped her. Link reach forward with his other hand twirling that single lock of hair that had been taunting him all night around his finger and neatly resettling it in its proper position.

"Link?" Zelda questioned rather uneasily when his hand lingered on her face and he remained inside her personal square of space. "Umm…"

"Much better," He breathed, warming her cheeks with the warmth from his breath as he regrettably stepped backwards. He seemed to be oblivious to her stricken state and he began walking forward once more, in a considerably more amicable mood. "So, what did you want to talk about? Snow? You know, my friends and I own this great little lodge out in Hylia and..."

Zelda remained rooted to that solitary spot on the sidewalk, her heartbeat still pounding in her ears. After a moment she remembered herself and hurried off down the sidewalk after Link, marinara stain forgotten.

"I actually like the tropics," Zelda randomly interjected and Link broke off mid-sentence and gave her an odd look. Zelda shrugged, a grin stretching itself across her face. "My parents used to take me to this little island just off the coast, and it was just… what?"

Link was still staring at her, for some unfathomable reason, though she supposed it was because his brain couldn't comprehend the fact that she'd changed her mind about tropical weather.

"So, what?" Link asked in a childish manner. "Now we can talk about hot things?

"Well, it's cold out now." Zelda quipped defensively.

"Oh, you're cold?" Link asked, raising a brow in a wickedly suggestive manner. "Want me to warm you up?"

"Goddesses! Would you stop that? Let's just talk about snow!"

"But I don't want to talk about snow, I wanna talk about hot n' steamy things."

"Snow. Cold. Icicles. Hey! Stop pushing me off the sidewalk!"

"I was just trying to warm you up, it's not my fault you keep moving away."

A/N: Another one-day update. But it was much longer than the other ones, so hopefully that'll make up for something. This is their much-anticipated dinner date. Darn that mischievous Malon. Oh, does anyone have any random subject requests? I lost my original theme list, and I need some help coming up with things.

Your reviews are my inspiration,

Cappucinno