THE DAYS IN FEBRUARY
by Cappucinno
Day 15, The Morning After: Part II
"Well then, let's just put that behind us." Malon, to her infinite credit, didn't make a break for it when Link flashed that terrifyingly polite, insincere smile. "So, Malon, how was your Valentine's Day?"
She wasn't particularly brave either, still leaning back into her seat as if perhaps it would open up and swallow her and take her away from the situation that she had in fact created for herself.
She made a mental note to stop plotting and trying to play matchmaker for her two blonde friends, because things never seemed to pan out quite the way she intended them to.
Of course, she probably should have seen that one coming. Had she really expected Zelda Harkinian to start gushing and spilling her soul over a cup of morning cup of coffee? Had she expected the notoriously stubborn and prideful blonde to maybe swoon and sigh and admit to even possessing some semblance of human emotion?
Because in retrospect, it did seem kind of stupid.
Moreover, inviting Link to join them without telling Zelda had also probably not been the best idea. And despite Link having shown up exactly at the time she'd planned for him to arrive, he had not in fact walked in on Zelda sighing into her coffee and talking about how she liked him.
No, no. Because her friends were freaking idiots and this was some sort of sadistic reality where none of her carefully laid plans played out the way they should have.
"Goddesses, Link." Malon said, placing a hand on her forehead and trying to think of a way to rectify what was at best a minor setback and at most a small disaster. "Okay, Link, wait."
Link carefully arched an eyebrow at her, still smiling that unsettling smile and looking altogether too relaxed.
And if Link looked like he was in an Abercrombie and Fitch ad, perfectly relaxed and casual in that I'm-trying-too-hard-to-look-completely-chill in his white hoodie with the arms rolled up to his sleeves, Zelda looked the exact opposite. The blonde was looking paler (Malon hadn't known that was possible) than usual and the second Link had set his things down at the table her head had dropped immediately into her hands and had failed to resurface since.
"What am I waiting for, exactly?" Link asked, his voice cheerful and his head cocking slightly to the side the way it did when he was working at Beyond Bizarre and laying on the charm for a rude customer despite being well-and-truly annoyed.
"Oh wow." Malon breathed, her hand dropping from her forehead down to her chest in an attempt to not hyperventilate in Starbucks. "Okay. Uh. Wow. Alright. Let's see. Um—"
"Link, I wasn't drunk." Zelda said, finally lifting her head from her hands.
"I know, Zelda." Link responded, his smile widening a little more and his head tilting a little further to the side.
"You do?" Zelda inhaled deeply and looked a little less pale. "Well, alright then—"
"Of course I knew." Link went on and went on neatly steamrolling over her words without so much as stopping to take a breath or pretend to acknowledge that she had spoken in the first place. "I would have to be a fucking moron to have actually believed that you were drunk, seeing as at no point in the night did I give you any alcohol. Firstly, because you were on duty. Secondly, because alcohol has a huge profit margin and I don't give it out for free."
And somehow, he still managed to sound polite and charming.
"Thirdly, because getting a girl liquored up at one in the morning when I plan on walking her home is kind of a sleazy thing to do because there's thing where drunk girls really enjoy trying to sleep with me and maybe it's considered arrogant to say but I know it."
"Oh shit." Malon said, dropping her own head into her hands. She suspected that if he smiled a little wider and tried to tilt his head anymore sideways that it might fall clean off his neck. "Oh boy."
"And then, finally, there's the bit where I just so happen to prefer that if a girl I like enough to actually agree to open my restaurant on Valentine's Day for just for the sake of having a reasonable excuse to see her and not sound like a love-struck idiot is coming home with me and happens to kiss me that I have the peace of mind of knowing that it's not just the alcohol talking."
"Damn it all." Malon threw her hands up in the air. "I give up. I'm going to hell."
Zelda's complexion had not quite improved throughout Link's version of a tirade, but her expression had gone from sickly to bewildered to angry before settling on a unique combination of the three.
"…You like me?" Zelda asked incredulously, her eyebrows rising up towards her hairline.
"Really?" Link asked wryly, smiling and shaking his head. "Out of all that. That's the thing you choose to focus on?"
"You like me and you chose to manipulate me into working for you instead of just asking me out for real?"
"That's what I'm thinking. You know, I said you should just open the restaurant for the two of you. I thought that was the plan." Malon, as ever, was ignored.
"Well, yes." Link said, nodding along. "But if I had asked you, would you have said yes?"
"I…" Zelda frowned, puzzling over it. Malon beat her head against the table. "I don't know. Maybe."
"Maybe. See?" Link said, shrugging his shoulders and turning back to his coffee. "There it is. Hakuna matata, we'll just forget the whole thing."
"But it doesn't work like that, Link." Zelda said, all but slamming her coffee cup down on the table and earning a startled jump from Malon. "You can't just 'hakuna matata, hur-dur, I'm Link, here I am, look I like you. Also, I used you as free labor, but hey let's put it all behind us'!"
"I don't see why not." Link demurred, appearing unfazed by Zelda's display.
"Oh, oh you don't see why not? Well, I'll tell why the hell not Mister Link Forester if you can't seem to wrap your thick skull around the whole thing: You can't just show up in my life of out nowhere one day with your godforsaken bread and this stupid coffee mug, and then suddenly you're everywhere and you're buying me purses, and you're having dinner with me and my friend and you're visiting me when I'm in the hospital and then you're all I freaking think about to the point where I can't even focus on my work because of something stupid like you not responding to some stupid ass e-mail and and and—and you see me PRETTY MUCH NAKED AND THEN SOMEHOW, SOMEHOW I'm jumping at the opportunity to come work my ass off on Valentine's Day because I thought that I'd get to see you and somehow that would make it all worth it! And then I actually, actually kiss you and I'm thinking and it's totally crazy but I'm thinking, yeah, you know what, maybe this isn't so bad and then here you are this morning and you somehow just magically show up like you always do—and then, just, hakuna matata?"
"We couldn't have just started with that part? Really? We had to start with the shitty stuff to get here?" Malon asked, largely ignored by both of the blondes at the table, and threw her head back in frustration. "Is this happening right now? Really."
"You're still not saying it."
"I'm still not saying, what? What do you want from me? What do you want me to say?"
"The part where you would rather say you kissed me because you were drunk than that you did it of your volition."
"Goddesses. Damn it. Damn it!" Malon banged her fists on the table, once again ignored. "Seriously? Seriously?! Come on guys, can we focus on the good things for like, five seconds maybe? Can we just focus on the fact that she actually did kiss you? No? Too much to ask?"
"Are we fighting because I said I was drunk?" Zelda asked, after a moment of flabbergasted silence. "Of all the things we have to pick a fight about, it's this?"
"Right?!" Malon shrieked. "Right?!"
"Well, I'd rather the 'hakuna-matata' approach but—"
"Goddesses, Link, forget the hakuna-matata thing!"
"Then yes, Zelda. That's exactly what we're fighting about."
"Well, what do you want me to say, Link?" Zelda's face turned an alarming shade of crimson and Malon prayed that her friend didn't erupt into terrifying fury.
"I want you to be honest with me." Link bit back, finally losing his composure. "Because, two weeks ago you were a total stranger to me, and now here we are and I don't know if I'm on board with it, but I like you. And liking people hasn't exactly worked out for me in the past, so if you can't actually admit that maybe you see something in me too then it's not worth it. It's not worth it and I'd rather just forget about the whole thing."
Zelda was, for once, silent. And Link sighed and, after a moment, managed to put his smile back on and lose the aggravated flush. Without saying anything, he picked up the coffee cup marked CM and put it down in front of Zelda as he stood up.
"So there it is." Zelda opened her mouth, but couldn't manage to say anything. "You know where to find me."
And with that, Link Forester picked up his coffee cup, cast a fleeting glance at Malon who couldn't quite meet his gaze, and left.
Zelda sat quietly and stared at nothing, one hand covering her mouth as if that were enough to disguise her expression. After a long while, she finally roused herself her face pale and devoid of any angry flush and looked across the table at Malon who was looking back at her with sympathetic eyes.
"Malon?" Zelda's voice was small.
"Yeah, Zel?" Malon whispered back, mirroring her friend's tone.
"I think I'm an idiot."
"Well…" Malon nodded, smiling crookedly. "Yes. Yes you are."
"I messed up."
"Yes."
"I should have kept my mouth shut."
"That might have been best."
"I really should have just shut up. I could have let that hakuna-matata thing slide."
"You really could have."
"He just makes me so angry sometimes."
"He really does."
"He's good at that."
"He really is."
"He likes me."
"Yeah, you know I kind of figured but he hadn't really come out with it yet."
"It's really creepy how he can just keep smiling and turning his head like that."
"I know, right?"
"Malon?"
"Yeah, Zelda?"
"I kind of do like him."
"I mean… Yes. I knew that."
"But I don't like that I like him."
"I can't really tell whether or not that's a messed up thing to say."
"I'm really irritated about liking him."
"But you're not… embarrassed about it, right?"
"No, I'm just kind of pissed off about it."
"That's not really romantic."
"I didn't come here to try and meet someone. I just wanted my own life. And it's been two weeks and here he is and here I am and it kind of pisses me off."
"Well, Zelda, honey, you do that a lot."
"What? Get pissed off?"
"Yeah… You should probably take Prozac."
"I probably should."
"It might help."
"But if I'd just shut up about it, then it might not have been so bad."
"Between that and the hakuna-matata rant, it was kind of a shit show."
"Malon?"
"Yeah Zelda?"
"Is this the part where I'm supposed to go chase after him and win him back or something?"
"Well, yeah I think that's normally how this thing goes. Or you could take Prozac?"
The door to Beyond Bizarre Bakery slammed behind Link as he stormed in, looking more flustered than Shane could remember seeing him. The blonde was flushed as if he'd been running for a long time and he kept pacing back and forth, mumbling to himself and running his hand over his face.
"Hey man… Link…?" Shane asked cautiously.
Link snapped around, as if he were surprised to see Shane there. Despite knowing that Shane worked there. Despite having hired him to work there and having assigned his shift.
"Oh. Shane. Hey, what's up?" The blonde asked, sounding distracted.
"Are you like… okay, dude?"
Link laughed, raking his hands rather violently through his hair as he resumed his pacing. "I don't think so."
"Oh. Do you like… want to talk?"
"No. No, I think I've done enough talking today."
"Oh. Okay man."
"It's been a rough morning."
"Did you ask her about the money thing or the dad thing?"
"No, I kind of just threw the 'look-here-are-emotions-I-have-them' thing at her."
Shane didn't quite know what to say to that, so he said nothing.
After a moment of silence Link perked up, straightening up and looking a little more chipper.
"But you know what, last night's service had a pretty huge profit margin because of the crowd and the free labor so all in all, it's not total loss."
A/N: Hint: what Shane asks about becomes important in later chapters. I hope you enjoyed this installment (or at least tolerated it)! There will be more updates soon, because it's February and this fic is obviously in February so it's conducive to writing it and finding inspiration. To all of you who are pissed off that they're kind-of-sort-of-fighting: this is a romantic comedy. These things happen. But also, this is a romantic-comedy. So I think I can safely say (without giving out any real spoilers) that everything is okay in the end. See you all again soon!