THE DAYS IN FEBRUARY
by Cappucinno

Day 11. Swim

Zelda sat at her desk pointedly ignoring the clutter of flowers and get-well-soon cards that had been there to greet her when she'd arrived at the office that morning. She ignored tidings, worried coworkers, and the occasional attempt at small talk. She stared only at the Microsoft Outlook display on her computer, fingers laced tightly together, foot tapping anxiously.

"Zelda?"

The blonde in question didn't lift her eyes from her computer screen.

"Hm?" She responded, arching an eyebrow at the disembodied voice of her boss.

"Is everything alright?"

"Hm."

"It's six o'clock. You can go now."

Zelda glanced at the time in the bottom left hand corner of her monitor, then shifted her gaze back to the e-mail inbox.

"I'll just be five more minutes."

"I'm not giving you any overtime pay for that."

"No overtime, just five more minutes."

Nabooru frowned, crossing her arms. "…Are you sure you're alright?"

Zelda didn't look up but her expression became contemplative. After a moment of silence she finally responded. "I think he's ignoring me."

"Who?"

"No one." Zelda closed her inbox tab abruptly and flashed a plastic smile at her boss as she all but slammed the lid of her laptop shut. "I think I'll just go now, actually."

"Zelda?" Nabooru continued to frown, her long lacquered nails tapping against her crossed arms.

The blonde continued to rapidly pack away her things.

"You know, normally you'd have calculated what five minutes of overtime was worth and try to coerce me into paying you."

"It tends to work." Zelda responded, distracted as she zipped up the laptop component of her leather bag. She slung the bag over her shoulder and brushed a strand of hair from her face as she offered up a tight smile. "So then, I'll see you tomorrow."

Nabooru raised a hand, effectively stopping Zelda as she moved to brush past the redhead and towards the elevators.

"Okay, stop. You're seriously off."

Zelda's mouth opened to object, but Nabooru steamrolled on.

"You're normally funny. At least in a pretentious, clever, mock-polite kind of way—that's a compliment by the way—but today your timing is way off, your dialogue is nonexistent, and you haven't even sent any remotely witty comments on the e-mails you've been forwarding me."

"You don't pay me for that, ma'am." Zelda responded in a clipped voice, plastic-smiling. "But if you want to compensate me for staying late to have this discu—"

"Ugh! Stop stop stop. That just came off bitchy, not witty at all—"

Zelda threw her hands up in the air in exasperation.

"Well excuse me then! But I've been sick and then I got this damn news and then I wasn't sure if the bakery was going to stay open and I'm addicted to this godforsaken bread and then the place was closed. Closed! Of all things, with no notice! And then I text him and I get nothing! Nothing, Nabooru, nothing! I never have to text a man first. And then I send him this e-mail and still, nothing! And god, he's so frustrating, it's like he keeps throwing me into a river and I don't know how to swim!"

Nabooru raised an eyebrow in response. Zelda sniffed defensively, twirling a piece of hair back around her ear as she straightened her posture.

"But I do."

"…You do what Zelda?"

"I do know how to swim."

Day 12. Stoic

Raprapraprap rap rap.

Zelda sighed deeply, summoning all of her willpower as she rolled over and burrowed into her comforter. Blissfully warm, she dutifully ignored the knocking on her apartment door. Sleep began to come back over her as the noise ceased—

RAPRAPAP RAP RAP RAPRAPRAP

The blonde frowned, pushing herself halfway up on the bed to look at her clock. Saturday, eight a.m. With an irritated sigh she flopped back down onto the bed, pulling the covers up over her ears and determinedly shutting her eyes.

POUNDPOUNDPOUNDPOUNDPOUNDPOU NDPOUND.

Her eyes flew back open and the blonde yanked the covers off of herself with an angry flourish as she stormed towards the door. Still numb from sleep her fingers fumbled over the locks as the pounding continued until, finally, she wrenched the door open and almost off of its hinges.

"WHAT IN DIN'S GOOD NAME—"

A small brown bag was abruptly thrust into her face, effectively silencing her. Zelda blinked her eyes back into focus, pulling her head far enough from the bag to read the letters. A second later she wrapped her hands around the familiar bakery bag and took a half step back.

Link's face came into focus, uncharacteristically stoic.

Self-consciousness crept up on her and she cleared her throat, tucking her hair back behind her ears as if doing so would make it look less like she'd just woken up. Inexplicably, Link refused to make eye contact. In fact, he seemed determined to stare at the wall over her shoulder.

Silence stretched between them.

Zelda cleared her throat again, shifting on her feet. "Sorry."

"I just came by to say sorry about not responding yesterday, I was out at some meetings. I had a feeling you might be missing this." Link gestured vaguely to the bakery bag and made a sound somewhere between a cough and a laugh. "But I must have woken you up."

"You could tell?" Link remained silent, stoic, and focused on the wall. Zelda self-consciously checked her breath, taking advantage of his refusal to look at her. Was it that bad? It didn't seem all that bad.

The silence morphed into a pregnant pause as Zelda straightened her spine, summoning all of the dignity and dream-muddled logic she could muster in her newly woken state.

"I can, just so you know. I don't know what my boss might have said or if you saw her, but I can."

Link seemed to hesitate for a moment, before meeting her eyes. In that moment Zelda noticed a gamely hidden smile in the set of his lips and angry indignation bloomed in her chest at the idea of being the victim of some strange joke—

"Oh, I know."

"Know what? What do you think I meant by 'I can'—"

"Answer the door in your underwear, apparently."

Zelda's mouth snapped shut muffling a loud squeak as her face went from pink to crimson. Link's eyes slipped down and that carefully stoic expression remained firmly on his face.

"So then, are you gonna—"

The door slammed in his face. Link allowed himself to smile, one hand covering his mouth as he filed away the memory.

"—Evidently, yes. But I was kind of hoping that if I tried to be a gentleman about the whole thing then maybe you wouldn't shut the door on me."

Zelda's voice was loud and clear from behind the door.

"GO THE HELL AWAY, LINK. JUST GO. NOW. GO."

He obediently did so in hopes that she wouldn't notice the blush on his face or his awkward gait.

A/N: My only excuse for this lateness was going back to college. Except I wrote this my first week back at college. So really, no excuse. But let me know what you think, and if you're still here! Pardon the cliche naked-door scene.

Love,

Cappucinno