Work Text:
Friday, I’m In Love
Inspired by true events
“So… what did you and Urbosa talk about back there?”
Link shifts slightly in his seat, squirming. He trains his eyes on the television screen in front of him and keeps quiet. He and Zelda are watching a horror movie at her place, empty pizza boxes on the floor and half-full cans of soda on the coffee table. She was referring to their recent beach trip to Eventide Island. Urbosa wanted to get out of Gerudo Town for a bit, and she brought Zelda, Link, and Riju to unwind from having recently graduated university.
I’m pretty sure that trip wound me up instead, Link thinks to himself.
After a very long pause, he turns to look at Zelda, meeting her wide-eyed gaze with his own.
“Nothing much, really,” he says as he shrugs, “she was just telling me about the old song Kass sings all the time– the one about the princess and the knight– but I’m pretty sure you already knew that since you were there .”
Link raises his eyebrows at Zelda, but she only squints back at him in return. He doesn’t really know what to say next.
“Anything else?”
He clams up in search of a response. “I mean, we just talked about… life… in general.”
She rolls her eyes at him and pauses the movie. She exits Netflix and opens her Spotify playlist of favorite songs. A random song starts playing in the background as she places the TV remote on the table and folds her arms. “Anything new in your life you haven’t told me about yet?”
Link and his squirming. Zelda and her skeptical eyes.
“Why are you doing this to me? So nosy!”
She takes a moment to search his face for signs of annoyance. Once she is sure he was kidding, she shakes her head. “I’m pretty sure you already know why.”
His breath hitches. What did she just say?
“What I meant was, you know how persistent I can be when I want something.”
Link swallows. He wasn’t about to confess his feelings for her after successfully (in his eyes, at least) hiding it for months, but talking with her in riddles like this was tempting. “I have a feeling you’re already aware of how easily you can get the things that you want when you want them.”
Zelda leans back on the couch and stares up at the ceiling. She thinks. “Why did she bring up Kass’s song? That was kind of random.”
No, no, no it wasn’t and you know it. Her hands are sweaty and she doesn’t know where to look. Anywhere but Link. Anywhere. She was nervous, that was for sure, but she had been preparing for this. She had her own talk with Urbosa about her feelings for Link, and she knew that somewhere down the line, this conversation was bound to happen anyway. Maybe the matter of how soon it had to happen was her fault.
Link mimics her position and stares up at the ceiling as well. Their hands are close, so close , but not touching. “Because of you.”
He turns to look at her as he says this, and at the same moment, Zelda chooses to look at him too. “Me?” She breathes.
He nods slowly, unsure how to respond if she asks any further questions. You could cut the tension in the air with a knife. The two of them sit quietly on the sofa for a few minutes, absorbed in their own thoughts.
Oh, to hell with it. Link takes a deep breath and plops his head down onto her lap, vaguely hearing ‘I Will Follow You Into the Dark’ playing from the television. “Remember talking at breakfast? About your exes and right timing and Yunobo?”
Zelda snorts and rolls her eyes. He was talking about their last day on the island, eating hydromelons and reminiscing about the past they were about to leave behind. Around two years ago, Yunobo had quite unexpectedly confessed his feelings for Zelda, poor thing, and she didn’t know how to respond. Least to say that Urbosa found it an irresponsible thing to do.
“That’s the thing. I’m trying to be responsible.”
Zelda knew what he was talking about. If she wasn’t certain before, surely she would have guessed by now, right? I’m in love with you! I’m in love with my best friend and I don’t know how to say it!
But her face shows no emotion. Instead, she tilts her head and raises an eyebrow. “What exactly are you saying?”
Link feels like crying. He had always been awkward about these things, but he knew she wanted to hear him say it.
“Do I really have to? I mean, I think you already know what I’m saying.”
She smiles her Zelda smile and he melts, he melts like he always does when she smiles at him like that. “Yes. You have to be able to say it. Otherwise, I won’t know what you mean.”
Link shuts his eyes and sighs. “What I’m saying is, I don’t want to be irresponsible like Yunobo. You know, with him confessing to you without thinking about it. Without thinking about how you would feel. I care about how you feel. I don’t want to do or say anything that would jeopardize this friendship. You’re really important to me, Zel, and I’m a very realistic person. That’s all it is.”
He waits for her response but he is only met by the sound of her laughter. “And?” she asks, incredulously. She sounded so bewildered, it physically hurt him.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is…” He tries to continue but no sound comes out of his mouth. He takes a deep breath and tries again. Nothing.
“What you’re trying to say is…?” She repeats, encouragingly. Zelda’s heart is beating so fast and so loud that she’s scared he could hear it from where he is. The intro to ‘Friday, I’m In Love’ by The Cure starts playing and she almost laughs out loud at how unrealistic this situation was turning out to be.
“I-I…,” he starts, “I like you. I like you. There. Happy?”
And suddenly, just like that, he feels like a huge weight has been lifted off his shoulders. He looks up at her and finds that she’s looking away, nodding slowly, looking troubled. His heart breaks into a million tiny pieces.
Link tries to shrug it all off. They’re best friends . Of course what he just said was going to complicate that, but at the same time, well, she asked for it.
“Hey,” he pokes at her knee, “it’s your turn to talk now.”
He sucks in a huge breath and waits. Zelda turns to look at him, eyes filled with what seems like worry.
“You know my dad. He’s… very strict about these things. We’ve always had our differences– I mean, he was deeply upset for months after I moved out of our house– but we’re just starting to rebuild our relationship and something like this would bring me back to square one,” she pauses for a brief moment to shake the nervousness away.
“But I’ve been thinking about it for a long time now and I realized I can’t keep denying the fact that… I feel the same way. I like you too, Link. I think I always have. But I know that what you deserve is someone who can profess her love for you in front of everyone: her parents, the whole of Hyrule, even to the goddess Hylia herself. I’m not sure I can do that yet. Not with the whole dad situation. I just don’t think you deserve that.”
The world stops. Link is suddenly aware of every single thing happening in the room: the cool air coming from the window, the music blasting from the television set, the fact that he was lying on Zelda’s lap. He was lying on Zelda’s lap!
He hastily sits up, dumbfounded.
“Well, say something.”
His head snaps up and he suddenly remembers it was his turn to respond now. But how do you go about something like that? There were so many feelings aching to burst from inside of him all at once that it was hard to name any of them. Happiness? Giddyness? Guilt?
“I was preparing for a rejection, so now I don’t know how to feel. I… didn’t exactly prepare for this outcome.”
Zelda stays quiet. She looks sad, but there is a sparkle in her eyes that gives him hope. Hope that maybe, maybe , they could make this work.
“I’m not going to rush you into anything, I’m sure you don’t need any of that right now. Frankly, I don’t want to rush either. But let me say this: you don’t get to say what I do or don’t deserve. I’m going into whatever this is because I want to go through it with you, not for anything else.”
Zelda feels like crying, but simply nods. “I don’t want to rush anything either. Let’s just… take it day by day, yeah?”
Link smiles widely and settles down on the couch a little closer to her. They both stare at the Spotify playlist on the screen. Zelda glances at him and smiles to herself. This is okay for now, what they have.
“Hey.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s Friday today.”
“I know. Crazy, right?”
They’ve got a good thing going and they knew it.