Before You Go

Perhaps... After School

Zelda hit her palm to her forehead. "How could I say that to him? Well he may not have heard me, I mean he was all the way at his door. Ugh, I'm so dumb sometimes."

She continued making her way to her house, another three blocks away. Her feet were beyond numb at this point, and yet she couldn't even notice with her thoughts feeding in the back of her mind.

The crunching of snow behind her caused her to turn around. "What are you doing here?!"

Link laughed and tossed a pair of gloves to her. "I thought you might want these in this cold and all. Is there something wrong for me to look after my friend?"

"No, of course not. But how long were you following me?"

"Following you? No, your just two houses away from mine. I just ran. Were you daydreaming again? Honestly, how do you ever make it home without me?"

"I wasn't daydreaming. I just lost track of time in my own thoughts."

"Really, Zel?"

"Yes. Now I'll be going home where it's nice and warm, bye," She waved and set her pace at an easy jog, watching her feet to keep her from slipping. Unfortunately, she wasn't watching where she was going and ran into street sign.

"What are you doing?" Link laughed.

"I-My head is just on a bit backwards today, don't worry. I can handle walking home, I promise."

"Isn't your head on backwards every day?"

"Go inside already, Link."

Zelda did eventually make her way home, fleeing from Link and her crazy mind.

The next day after school the two went home together as always.

Zelda's hands weren't as cold in the gloves she brought, having given Link his gloves back when she arrived at school.

"Hey, Zel."

"Nice to see you," she replied.

"Yeah," Link nodded.

Zelda took a deep breath, all night she had prepared herself to ask him something. It wasn't anything too grande, but she was still nervous.

"So, um, Link. I have a question I would like to ask you," she unconsciously blew on her hands, as she was used to having to do that. However, with gloves on doing this looked rather strange.

"Why are you doing that?"

"Oh, I forgot... That I was wearing gloves."

"What?" He let out a small laugh. "How could you forget that?"

"I get distracted?"

"That is very true."

"Hey!"

"I'm only agreeing with you. I thought you of all people could handle the truth."

She put her hands in her pockets to keep from accidentally doing something else weird. "Yeah, okay."

"So you had something to ask me?"

"Oh, yeah I did."

"And that is?" Link prompted.

She sighed. This was hard for her, she didn't have much confidence. "Wanna come to my house today?"

"For what?"

"Uh... Swimming? I have an indoor pool. You already know that though, don't you? Sorry."

"So you're saying you want to go swimming in the middle of winter?"

"Is that weird?"

"Yes, very."

"Well that should be fine then. We never were considered normal anyways," Zelda shrugged. "So... Can you come?"

"Your actually asking me?"

"What else would I be doing?"

Link thought for a moment. "Okay. We just need to stop by my house to get some things and drop off my school bag."

She smiled. "Okay!"

Link and Zelda made their way to Zelda's house, arrived a little after five.

"Do you remember then last time you visited?" Zelda unlocked the door with a slight laugh.

Link held his head high despite the shame he felt at the memories. "I wish I could forget. That's the reason I haven't come over since August."

"Wow, it's really been that long?" She threw her bag down and hurried into her room, Link following behind her.

"Yup," He replied.

"Huh. So it has. Well, let's hope this time you don't end up throwing up anything again."

Link shuddered at the memory. "Why did you have to bring it up?"

"Should I keep talking about it then?" She laughed, enjoying torturing him. "It was hilarious when you slipped on your own barf, and you got covered with the stuff." Zelda held her stomach while she laughed. "The best part is the fact that you threw up because of your own cooking."

"You can shut up now. It happened it the past..."

"I love embarrassing you."

"Which is mean."

"Yeah, whatever." She plopped herself down. "It's kind stuffy in here. Let's go down to the pool now."

"Okay, I'm going to the bathroom to change."

Zelda nodded, "Alright. I'll be in here."

Link left to go change his clothes, and Zelda leaned back on her bed. Link hadn't seen her in a swimsuit for over a year. Had she gotten fatter? Hopefully he wouldn't notice.

She took a deep breath. "Alright," Zelda sat up and pulled her swimsuit out of her closet.

She had a one piece, she wouldn't be able to live from the embarrassment of a two piece.

She threw her swimsuit down and ran into the pool room, just to make sure that nothing embarrassing was in there.

She ran back to her room quickly after checking that. Her fingers gripped at the bottom of her shirt as she began to peel it off.

"Uh..." Zelda dropped what she was doing and turned around, only to see Link sitting at her desk.

"W-What are you doing here?! I shut the door!"

"I--uh, I came in before that. I got dressed quickly I didn't want to leave you waiting and so I sat down when you weren't here," Link quickly spat out, fumbling on some of his words.

"W-well I don't really care. I've known you for like ten years anyways..." She pulled the edges of her shirt down, her cheeks blazing.

She looked at Link, and to her surprise he was even redder than she was.

"Y-yeah... Uh, I'll wait outside now," He scurried out of the room and quickly shut the door behind him.

It took Zelda a few seconds to process what had happened.

She soon realized what had occurred, and buried her face in her swim suit. How could she have let that happen? So much for going embarrassing free...