Copyright disclaimer: I won't try to be funny this time. I do not own the Legend of Zelda. But I do own a disheartening amount of merchandise.
CHAPTER 11:
The weekends at HONEY DROP were more than loud. They were lively, intense, and deafening, and the flashing lights and hundreds of bodies against each other were a beautiful sight.
At least, that's what Tott said.
Dovos believed the best part of the club were the bar snacks, and when I asked Peater his opinion of the work nights, he sneered and walked away. I was excited to see how things would play out that night and the next, but Tott told me that the dancers always made for the stage at 10:28 PM no matter what so they could start dancing at 10:30 on the dot. It was 10:20, and the blaring music from the dance floor was making me antsy. I rummaged through my bag for something I knew would calm me down—sugar. I found a few square caramels and offered one to Tott, who smiled and declined politely, offered one to Peater who responded with a grunt and an angered "Don't weigh me down," and finally, offered one to Dovos.
"Want one?" I asked, showing him my open hand and plopping a caramel into my mouth. I felt better already. Dovos looked at my hand and took one. He looked back at me.
"Thank you," he said, and stared at my palm. "You're strange," he announced, and walked away. I had a few blisters on my hands from holding too tight to the pole, but all the dancers possessed them as well. I didn't think I'd done anything weird. I ate another caramel and took a deep breath. I felt ready.
"This is just a trial period," Peater said maliciously. "If you don't make enough tonight, you're out of here. It's time," he barked at me, and stood in between Tott and Dovos in a line. I took up the rear.
"Ready?" Tott asked. We all nodded solemnly. As if on queue, we all turned our heads forward, fixed our postures, and walked out onto the floor on the quick pace of the music.
One, two, one, two.
The club was filled to the brim with people of all genders and colors. I thought Skyloft's population was small, but I had guessed wrong, as there were more or less 300 people I'd never seen before; and I'd seen a lot of people.
We walked in time onstage just as the lights and music went out. We stood at our poles in what Tott called "rest position" with our hands folded behind our backs, feet shoulder width apart, and heads down. The spotlight was first directed to Tott, who showed off a bit, then ended in rest position. An announcer introduced him as 'Tott, the World's Charismatic Dancer Extraordinaire.' Next was Peater. His dancer alias was "Ta-ke, straight as a cane of bamboo and just as swift." He boasted a bit of his ability and finished just like Tott. The spotlight found its way over Dovos—"Dove, man of grace." To show just a bit of his talent, he performed a perfect adage and ended in a plié.
It was my turn next. The light shone on me, and the announcer introduced me: "Lastly, we have a new dancer on the crew at HONEY DROP! Please welcome Kani, man of innocence!" The crowd cheered louder than it had for the other three men, and I knew somehow Peater would find some way to turn it on me like it was a bad thing.
I gave a formal bow, and the crowd cheered even louder. I wasn't supposed to show off much, it was a part of my character and the routine was to start right after.
The music started, and one by one, we climbed to the top of our poles. We slid down in unison and began to dance, sometimes off of our poles, other times on. There were people screaming, laughing, dancing alongside us, and it was a strange feeling.
After an hour, Tott and I took a break while Dovos and Peater performed a duet.
"You're doing a fantastic job," Tott said after taking huge gulps of water from a water bottle. "Keep it up, and be careful."
"Careful of what?" I asked, worried.
Tott looked at me for a while, his lips twisted as if he was thinking. "What they say to you... Don't get offended. If they touch you, don't freak out, just ask them to stop."
I tilted my head to the side. "Thank you," I replied, confused.
We switched places with Dovos and Tott and started our duet. Tott said he wanted the routine to tell a story, so he said it should be about forbidden love. Hence, I was dressed as a holy nun, complete with a white coif, a blasphemous tight black habit that showed off too much of my legs, and white socks that came over my knees that were connected to weird things Tott had called garters. Tott dressed like a heathen of a monk, and was worse than me.
The soundtrack was traditional Hylian music. I held up the Goddess' crest to the light, and pulled it to my chest. I bent my leg up, then slowly straightened it so my leg was straight and my foot was above my head. Tott came and grabbed my ankle, which I yanked away, gesturing to the symbol in my hands. Here, the music changed; a dubstep remix of what had played previously. We both clapped our hands together as if were praying and bowed our heads, but Tott pretended to hit my bottom. I jumped away and the music had the sound effect of a woman shouting in surprise.
Tott chased me around the poles once and we stopped at the ones we'd be using first. Holding on with one hand, I slid down until my back was arched and my head was near the ground, as did Tott. The bass dropped, and our routine picked up speed.
The highlight of it was when we jumped from pole to pole, which was when Father Tott began to chase me again. I didn't want to do it, but Tott and Dovos both thought I could, so we put it in the routine.
The end of our routine went as such: Tott began to tire of chasing me, and so I felt bad. He collapsed under my pole, and I slid down to kiss him on the cheek. Completely alive, he chased me up the pole and I hit him in the head with the Goddess' crest I had around my neck, causing him to slide down and slump to the ground.
The crowd laughed through the whole thing, and we walked offstage for a quick water break. My heart was pumping, and I was breathing heavily. Every time I inhaled, the black fabric across my chest stretched taut. I went to the bathroom and splashed water over my face and neck, cleaning off the sweat.
I enjoyed dancing more than expected.
Back on the floor, all four of us danced freestyle. We enjoyed ourselves and even pulled some of the crowd up to dance with us. After another ten minutes or so, a voice in the crowd called out.
"Kani! Come home with me!" He shouted. "Purify me! I'm so dirty."
He threw money onstage and I stepped on it, slipping into the crowd. At first, I was on top of the crowd, but then grasping hands pulled me under and pressed themselves all over me, wandering over my body. Someone pulled me against them and wouldn't let go, their hand slid down my back slowly.
"Stop!" I shouted over the deafening music. I hoped Batreaux, the bodyguard, saw me fall off the stage and was coming to pull me away from the clubbers.
"No way in hell," the man said. His hand slid lower, and I swallowed down bile. Suddenly, it was yanked off by someone standing behind me. Thank the Goddess for Batreaux! He put his hand on my shoulder and pulled me back, still holding the man's wrist. I watched his grip tighten until there was a sickening snap. I whipped around and there was Gear, with an angry look on his face. He grabbed my wrist and I was scared he was going to break my wrist too, but he mouthed "Come on" and yanked me through the crowd to the studio. The music was muted there, and my head buzzed.
"What are you doing?" He asked evenly, jaw working. "Did you give up being a—" I covered his mouth with my hand and mouthed Incognito. He slapped my hand away.
"I just started working here... Today was my first day on the floor." Gear's eyes slid slowly down my form until he'd seen all of me. It was unnerving.
"Of all the things... This is the most outrageous. I have no idea how to..." He trailed off and raked fingers through his almost white hair. He looked human in that moment, but his angry expression returned.
"If you fail to remember like the insolent peasant you are, I am blackmailing you. I should not be doing things for you." He shoved his finger into my chest. "You think you can fight me, you weak little shit? You were about to get abducted. Let's try to gauge our abilities better." He'd gotten louder, and it pissed me off.
How dare he get angry at me when he didn't even know me, forced himself into my life and threatened the lives of my colleagues? He'd–he'd violated me twice, broke into my house, gone through my work, followed me into a thrift shop... Not to mention that he was a terrorist. There was too much to name.
When I punched him, I swung so hard that it hurt my shoulder. It connected well with his rib, and the element of surprise had him stumble back. I spun around and walked right out the door, because I was tired of sitting in shambles while he walked out at complete ease.
It was twelve o'clock. The dancing was done. Peater, Dovos and Tott found me in the hallway, head between my knees against the wall. I was so tired that the room was spinning.
They ran to me, even Peater. "When you got pulled under, I couldn't see you anymore," stated Tott. "I didn't know what to do."
"What happened?" Peater asked with rare concern.
I lifted up my head, though it felt as though it weighed as much as the earth, and my neck felt like a twig. "After I slipped on the money into the crowd, I was on top, but they pulled me to the floor..." I trailed off, speaking near nonsense. "They were touching me everywhere, and one guy-he, he wouldn't let go of me." I began to mumble.
"Well, I don't want to make it feel worse, but these things kind of happen fairly often. Obviously, you haven't had advances made on you in such a way before, but you will need to steel yourself for that kind of treatment." Tott sounded like an expert, but he crouched down to me and smiled.
"Usually we have Sunday through Tuesday off, but why don't I give you tomorrow off too just for the weekend? We're going to the boarding house right now, you can just rest there." I nodded numbly. Dovos pulled me up and somehow, I was hugging my bag in the back of a black van with blacked out windows like the night, and I nodded in and out of wakefulness with Tott driving, Dovos in the passenger seat, and Peater a seat away from me. We arrived somewhere, I was shown a room and collapsed onto the bed immediately, with black dreams.
I was disoriented when I woke up. The walls were a deep green, and the blankets on top of me were much more comfortable than the ones I had at home. I shoved them off of me and stood. Right. Boarding house, I thought.
I cracked the door open slowly and looked into the hallway. It looked like a single family home, had thick carpets and the wall in front of me was a very bright orange.
I walked downstairs and into the small kitchen with outdated appliances. There was a note that had my name scrawled in thick black letters as the header. It read:
Link—
We went to the club early. Don't worry about us. We hope you're feeling better. Eat anything you want in the fridge.
We'll be back at 12:30. Don't throw a crazy party without us~! 3
-Tott, Dovos, and Peater
P.S. We need your phone number!
The writing was a bit messy, but I understood it all. Peater wrote his name in a different pen than Tott and Dovos, as if he'd left it and came back later. I opened the fridge. There were small plastic bags of baby carrots, so I took two and began to munch on them, glancing at the clock. It was 4 PM.
Then I got down to business.
Investigating the house was easy: they left all of their things out in easy access. Wearing gloves, I took genetic samples, leafed through papers and files, and was even able to hack Tott's email account. He had several messages to and from someone named Mr. Gilmore Kiffen, who seemed to be the owner of HONEY DROP. I'd never heard anything about him.
I finished my initial investigations at eight o'clock after scaling the entire house and leaving no trace. I briefly wondered what Hylia thought of deceitful people like me and then called Fi.
"Update," was her greeting. I gave her all of the leads I'd found: only a few. Gilmore Kiffen was not on the list of suspects for the case, and when Fi searched him up in the city files, he did not exist. Perhaps he was the sidekick to our opium mastermind? I said as much and we agreed to look into it more, then hung up. We couldn't chat idly (and it wasn't as if Fi or I liked to do as much anyway) because there was always a chance of the dancers coming back early.
With extra time on my hands, I let my mind wander to last night. I tried to set everything up in my mind so it was organized and easy to analyze. I didn't care about the guy who now had a broken wrist; he was taken care of. What was the bane of my well being was Gear's very prevalent presence in my life.
He was a grown man, I wouldn't question why he was at the club. I hadn't even an inkling of an idea why he helped me in the first place if he hated me enough to blackmail me! I was incredulous as to why he was angry. If he was already there, it's not like he traveled gross distances to reach HONEY DROP—and if he wasn't there, how would he know I was at the club?—he wasn't some man of justice. He'd done worst things to me than broken-wrist guy. Was he stalking me? It wouldn't be the first time I'd been stalked, but I'd be surprised if Gear was stalking me. Not because it didn't feel like he was stealthily creeping into my life (because he definitely was), but because he had too much pride to do something like that.
I blanched at the thought. I knew enough about him to be able to ascertain whether or not he'd do something. Ew. I need to change the locks at my apartment, I thought.
Tott and friends arrived, not at 12:30, not at 1:30 or 2:30, but at 3:30 in the morning. It's not like I cared, but they were all more than just a little buzzed, as Peater called it. They fell asleep immediately. I looked up food that cured hangovers on my phone and found one, then I walked to the 24-hour grocery store a few hours later.
In the deserted store, I gathered the ingredients for pad kee mao, or "drunken noodles". I also found a few ripe mangoes, coconut milk, and pre-cooked sweet rice. I paid the bored looking cashier and returned to the boarding house quickly. Tott, Peater and Dovos were dozing off, I began to cook without waking them. After I had the food cooking in the wok I'd found in a random cabinet, the three men were all sitting at the kitchen table.
"I was just getting hungry," Peater said.
"Are you almost done?" Dovos asked.
I nodded and set the table for the three men. Tott and Dovos thanked me, but Peater only grunted. I thought, I guess we're getting somewhere. They dug into the food and as they did so, I heated the sticky sweet rice and sliced the mangoes. They finished their meal and looked at me expectantly. They didn't seem at all drunk, so I laughed and it was infectious, and it spread until we were all in hysterics. I collected myself and served their steaming hot rice with cold coconut milk poured over it topped with mango slices. They seemed to enjoy it: Tott and Peater devoured it and Dovos ate slowly, as if it was the tastiest thing in the world.
The sun had come up, the voices and laughter of the semi-hungover men drifted into the midafternoon. The barriers were lifted, and nothing stopped us from getting closer.
So we did.
When they were completely sober, they talked to me about how I felt about my first day on the floor of HONEY DROP.
"I think I'll be fine next time," I said. "It was just unexpected," I said after explaining everything that caused me to fall offstage and what happened right after.
"What happened after the crowd pulled you under?" Tott asked.
"I actually saw an aquaintance," I replied without hesitation. "He pushed the guy off of me and pulled me aside."
Dovos explained basic self-defense techniques and Peater told me about Batreaux, and how I should tell him what happened so security would be heightened.
"I will," I answered with surprise. He was giving me advice. "Thank you." He grunted in response.
We continued to talk until 5:00, when Peater said he had to go pick up his daughter from work. I couldn't see him as the fatherly type, so when he was gone I asked Tott and Dovos.
"He has kids?" I asked with light curiosity.
"Yeah," Tott said. "He's quite the doting father. Wouldn't Peatrice be about Link's age?" Tott whispered to Dovos.
"She's probably older," Dovos theorized. "At least a few years."
The conversation transgressed until 6:30, when I needed to go home.
"Before you leave," Tott said as I descended the stairs with my duffel bag, "I have to tell you something."
I tilted my head. "What is it?" I asked.
"Club mechanics..." he began, but Dovos elbowed him in the rib. "Fine, jeez. It's about a few things that involve you. Um. Well, first, private shows, second, dance themes, and..." he trailed off.
Dovos rolled his eyes. "Patrons can make reservations for private shows, which are held in the V.I.P. rooms. They can request themes for the show, but the club has different themes each week as well, like the whole nun thing the other day." He paused. "You've been requested for twelve private shows for next weekend."
My mouth went agape, I had no idea what to say.
Tott spoke up. "We'll tell you more about it on Wednesday, can you just come early?"
I nodded and said my au revoirs, then made my way to the bus stop.
Twelve? Even after I fell offstage like a klutz?
I arrived at home and called Keet to update him on my info and asked him to forward it to Fi. I called Jakamar's Repairs to have my locks changed and picked a gold key with a triforce cut into it. I took a dazed shower and slept from Sunday night to Wednesday morning.
I dreamed of a field of blood-splattered poppies. Each one rang like twinkling bells to the tune of police sirens, and their collective sound was chaotic. It was cold and it had just rained. I was running.
"I know you," an indistinct voice said. It echoed and grabbed me by the ankles and pulled me down through the dirt. Lower and lower I went until my mouth and nose were filled with wet soil.
Lightning strikes near my window in the real world, waking me from my strange dream.
"I know you well," echoed in my ears in the minutes after.
A/N: Finals are over, this chapter took forever to get up, and Link is a pole dancing nun! I think he'd be a really cute and devout tsundere cleric. Thanks to all the new followers~! I'm going to try to end this like tv shows do, with overenthusiastic hypothetical foreshadowing.
12 people reserved Link for a private show after his debut at HONEY DROP! Will he be able to pull it off? Will the semi-psychotic Gear look for revenge against Link? Will the drug bust go well? Who is the mysterious Mr. Kiffen? And what is the strange voice Link has been hearing in his dreams? Found out next time on Aphelion: a Case Study.