Ghirahim had bitten his fingernails down to the bed. Disgusted with the state of his fingertips, he began tapping his fingers against his lips. But that did nothing but smear his lipstick. That was an even greater pet peeve of his.
He considered banging his head into the wall he was leaning against, but after years of recovering from self-harm, he figured he should not. His body was precious. It deserved respect.
Tingle rounded the corner, cradling a cappuccino. Ghirahim nearly pounced on the smaller man.
"Blimey, what's with you?" Tingle grasped at his heart, spilling his coffee. He wiped his onsie with the back of his hand with a pout. "I don't scare well!"
"You stopped for coffee? Are you kidding me?" Ghirahim flexed his hands, "I called half an hour ago! I said it was an emergency - and don't you dare give me that 'I work at my own pace' excuse you love to give me. Oh-no," he waggled his finger, sassily, but clearly miffed, "there is no time for that shit!"
Ghirahim knocked Tingle's coffee out of the smaller man's hands. Tingle looked down at the styrofoam cup, shocked. Then glanced up to the other man, squinting.
"Are you crying?"
Ghirahim threw his head back, "Well I'm clearly upset. And where did that little bitch Kafei go? I called him first, knowing he would take longer - and what do you know? I was right!"
"Ahem," Kafei had walked up from the opposite side of the sidewalk. "That 'little bitch' was talking to his son on the phone. Who, by the way, I haven't seen in seven years." He turned towards Tingle, "You look like a child, even in public. Are you shameless?"
Tingle's face turned beet red. Ghirahim rounded on Kafei.
"You shut your mouth. What's it matter, him wearing a onsie? If it makes him happy, let him. I don't need your negativity. We don't need your negativity. Or your judgement. Because in this society we live in...this society of people like you, filling the world with shame, when you should just leave people be and let them be happy." Ghirahim leans forward and screams, "How people choose to express themselves is none of your goddamn business! Is it hurting you? No! So shut up!"
Kafei leaned back and crossed his arms. "I didn't come here to be reprimanded on my political correctness. I came here because it was an emergency, unless you were just crying wolf to bring attention to yourself."
"Are you even listening to yourself? You think I would just make this shit up?!" Ghirahim thrust his arm out towards the single story house across the way in need of a new paint job. "That's Zelda's house. Come on, I can't….You just have to see for yourselves. I just can't bear to speak of it!"
Kafei eyed the taller man, arms crossed. After what looked like a period of great internal struggling, he finally conceded. "Alright. Let's go."
They got the attention of Tingle, who had knelt on the sidewalk and covered his ears during Ghirahim's outburst.
The door was unlocked. Inside, food was strewn all over the floor, and one of the chairs in the living room had a broken leg and was leaning off to the side. Ghirahim gestured to the couch while Kafei and Tingle suspiciously entered and sat down.
"Ghirahim?"
The taller man had reached for the black remote and pointed it at the smart tv mounted against the wall beside sparse furnishings.
"Just watch this."
The image of Zelda, bound to a wooden chair in nothing but her underwear beside an unmistakably familiar desk elicited a collective gasp in the living room. Hair down, matted with sweat. A bright red gag she'd been chewing on for a long while. She screamed and thrashed as a bulky form placed a hand on her shoulder and sat on top of his wooden desk.
"Hello Impa," Ganon rumbled, glaring at the camera. "You and your wife took something from me. So I've taken the liberty of relieving you of something precious." he produced a handgun from a drawer in his desk. Ganon leveled the gun at Zelda's shoulder and fired a round. Zelda screamed through the red gag, tears spilling out of her eyes and an unforgivable quantity of blood rushing down her arm in thick rivulets.
"You have one week to return to me what's mine," he growls, grasping a sobbing Zelda by the hair, and pointing the gun at her temple, "or the next one goes right here."
End. Ghirahim felt the remote shake in his hand. The second time viewing almost felt worst than the first.
"...fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!" Kafei lept from the couch and toe bashed a comfy chair with his toe.
Tingle had curled up on his end of the couch, hugging a pillow to his chest. "What do we do now?" He whimpered.
"Well we have to get her back," Kafei snapped, running his hands through his normally very well kept hair. "Where's Impa?"
Ghirahim spazzed. "You think THIS is bad? Take a look at this fuckery!" He flicked the smart remote and located another video on the device and played it.
The screen was dark, save for the sound of heavy panting. A spark; a flash of light. Screaming. A click, and a dim light covered the cement cell.
There was Impa, lying strapped to an iron table leaning into a tank filled with large blue stingers from the bottom of Lake Hylia. One jumped with a sharp splash, electricity jumping from the end of it's tail, eliciting another scream.
The camera turned towards a dim light, so as to show the silhouette of a Zora.
"Zelda, you've been a poor business partner," his computer modulated voice began, chillingly. "We thought you knew better than to try circumventing our payment. Your wife seems painfully oblivious, so let's make things clear:
"You have twenty-four hours as of this message to compensate us the two billion rupees promised, plus an additional three million for the inconvenience of making us wait. Failure to see us through on our end of the deal will result in your wife's death tomorrow at twenty-three hours and fifteen minutes."
The segment ended after acute spasms of light blast across the screen, followed by Impa's long, drawn out screaming. Once the segment ended, the tv yielded to the bright, abstract animations of the screen's natural backdrop.
Tingle let out a whimper before passing out and falling from the couch and rolling on the floor. Kafei turns to the side and vomits noisily into a nearby trashcan.
"And to make matters worse?" Ghirahim, whispers, kneeling, covering his face from Kafei's stench. " Word on the street says Midna just fled the country."