Work Text:
At quarter to five, Zelda looks away from the product report she is working on to look out the window. There was supposed to be a less than fifty percent chance of snow this afternoon and she’d been hoping that the weather would hold off. Whenever it snowed in Castle Town, everyone in town forgets how to drive and her commute time ends up getting doubled.
Unfortunately, outside, fat, wet snowflakes are dropping rapidly from the sky. The streets below are being covered with a blanket of snow. Already, cars are honking angrily as the white snow is churned into grey slush beneath their wheels. Traffic is going to be terrible on the way home.
With a sigh, she picks up her phone and cancels her dinner plans. Probably for the best, she reasons, since she wanted to get this report finished today anyway with Nayru’s Day coming up.
A few co-workers knock on her door on their way out to warn her about the snow; but it isn’t until the fluorescent lights switch off that she realizes how much time has passed. She blinks before rubbing her eyes wearily. Was it really eight o’clock already? She gives her report one last scan before hitting save. Time to go home.
She rifles through her bag as she steps through the door of her office–directly into someone.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t think–” she cuts herself off when she realizes who she’s talking to. “Oh. Hello Link.”
The newly transferred, office favourite, associate director Link is holding two cups in his hands. A little bit of whatever was in the cups sloshed over when she ran into him. Zelda meets his blue eyes and he gives her a small, lopsided smile.
“I thought everyone had left for the day,” she says.
He shakes his head. “Had a few things to finish up.” He offers her one of the cups. “Spicy pepper hot chocolate?”
She studies the cups in his hands. How did he know that her preferred hot drink after three o’clock was a spicy pepper hot chocolate? She glances back up at him. His expression is frustratingly bland and pleasant–she does not trust it. “No thank you.”
He nods, seemingly more to himself than to her, and tosses one of the cups into the trash bin beside them. Zelda laments the waste of spicy chocolate-y goodness. He sips from one of the cups and says, “Are you heading out?”
“Mhm.” She hopes that her short responses will put him off. She’s in no mood to deal with his eager, frustratingly charming small talk.
Link is undeterred. “Do you need a hand scraping the snow off your car? It was coming down pretty hard earlier.”
“I parked in the structure. So I’m fine, thank you.” She makes a beeline for the elevator.
“Alright. Be careful out there. Nobody in Castle Town can drive in the snow.”
Zelda glances back at him, startled by the way he seemed to pluck the words from her mind. “Right. Thanks. Um, do you need a ride…?” What was she doing? They weren’t friends.
Link looks equally surprised at the offer. “I…no, I live nearby.”
Thankfully, the elevator bell rescues her from the awkward pause. “Okay. Well…have a good night.” She steps into the elevator. As the doors slide shut, she catches a final glimpse of Link, rubbing the back of his neck and muttering to himself.
What is he even doing at the office this late? It isn’t like he had a ton of work on his plate, since he’d just transferred to the central office. Well, Purah did mention the other day that he was helping a lot of people close out end-of-year projects. And that is exactly the kind of overzealous thing that immediately endeared him to everyone in their department.
Zelda jabs grumpily at the button for the underground parkade. It just isn’t fair that this guy waltzes in a month before the end of the year and everyone falls all over themselves to praise him. She’d worked her butt off for several quarters when she was promoted to program director to earn the acceptance and appreciation of her co-workers.
Even though she rose through the company ranks as a technical engineer, she still feels like she has to prove her understanding of the technology to all her co-workers. But Link transfers in, with his fancy business degree and for some reason everyone trusts him immediately. Of course Robbie of all people takes him under his wing and, in no time at all, Link is out there hamming it up with the engineers.
“You sure you know what you’re doing, Princess?” Robbie had asked her once as she was setting up for a product review meeting.
This had led to a round of snickers that tittered through the attendees. Zelda’s face had burned with embarrassment.
“I’m fine, thanks for your concern Robbie. And while I appreciate the deference of the title, I’d ask that you only refer to me using titles I’ve earned.”
Robbie had conceded with a laugh. After the meeting, she saw Robbie and Link joking around as they left the room, with no apparent recognition of the demeaning lack of trust Robbie just exhibited. Zelda had seethed with anger. It was another strike against Link’s seemingly charming facade, no matter how much Purah sang his praises.
Link’s immediate integration into their department made her resentful of how long it took her to find her place. It took time, patience, and a strong set of allies, before she eventually managed to find her equilibrium. He got to take the shortcut of offering to help people close out their projects, but if she went around doing that, she had no doubt that many of the teams would expect her to continue doing so moving forward. Then, when she pushed back, they would inevitably complain about her being a stuck-up shrew. She sighs, stepping out of the elevator. Better not open that jar of Restless Crickets.
But still, as the click of her heels echo through the empty parking garage, she can’t help envying the ease with which Link stitched himself into the fabric of their company life. The weight of being a woman in this male-dominated technology industry coupled with the enormity of her family name sometimes feels like an impossible shackle to overcome.
Zelda tosses her heels into the back seat and slips on her flats before starting her sedan. Listening to the quiet hum of her engine as her car warms up, she can’t help but linger on memory of the half-hopeful expression on Link’s face as he offered her the hot chocolate.
The next morning as Zelda is driving to work, HPR continually repeats a warning of the snowstorm expected to hit Castle Town in the afternoon.
“And remember, dear listeners,” Traysi’s exuberant voice trills, “that there is no need to panic-purchase all the toilet paper at the grocery store. Whatever you have at home is going to be enough until the roads are cleared. And besides, you’re going to be at home. Just wash your a–”
Zelda switches her engine off.
As expected, the office is nearly deserted. As Zelda approaches the reception desk, she spots the receptionist, tapping at her Sheikah slate half-heartedly.
“Happy Naryu’s Day, Claree,” Zelda says. Claree startles and her phone clatters against the surface of the desk. Zelda laughs a little. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. Just wanted to make sure I gave this to you before you left for the break.”
Zelda hands the woman a festive blue envelope and her eyes light up.
“Wow!” Claree slips a carefully manicured nail under the envelope seal and breaks it. “That’s so nice of you. Thanks a bunch!”
With a parting smile, Zelda makes her way to the elevator. Her smile widens as she hears Claree’s exclamation of excitement at the giftcard to Rhondson’s Boutique. Claree had been the last person on Zelda’s Nayru’s Day gift list, since many of her other co-workers had already left for the holiday season.
As expected, her floor is mostly deserted. The design team wrapped up their projects earlier in the week, and she’d encouraged them to take off early since nothing new was going to be implemented until the new year. Some members of the accounting and management teams are still at their desks, giving Zelda wry smiles as she passed by. She knows that their work should also be near completion; she’d been monitoring it to make sure nobody was going to have to have work hanging over them during the break. When she pushes her office door open, she notices that, down the hall, light bleeds from Link’s ajar office door.
Zelda spends her morning answering frantic, last minute emails, dousing proverbial fires, and convincing the executive VP that everything was fine and that the company was not about to fall apart during the week-long holiday break. She indulges herself by reading some of the product proposals that were submitted for review for the next quarter. Some recent collaborations between the design and engineering teams were able to improve on the insulin management device that she’d invented years ago, so she was excited to see the new progress.
Several of her co-workers pop their heads in to tell her that they’re headed out. Each one of them warns her that she, too, should think about going home, since the snowstorm is looking to be pretty brutal. By lunch time, Zelda doesn’t see a single other person on the floor.
The walk to the break room is eerily silent. Bright light is coming in through the window, reflecting off the white of the falling snowflakes. It looks like the storm might have arrived earlier than anticipated. Maybe she should go home after lunch too…
Zelda puts her soup in the microwave, glancing absently through her emails as she waits for it to heat. As the microwave beeps, the lights overhead flicker. Uh oh. Luckily, the power stays and she manages to grab her lunch. But just as she’s sending a quick thanks to Hylia for small blessings, the lights flicker again and this time, turn off.
Cursing under her breath, she toddles awkwardly with her soup, making her way out of the breakroom into the office space lit up by the large windows. She sets her bowl down on a nearby desk to look outside.
The snowstorm has indeed come early. Even from within the building, she could still faintly hear the howl of the wind as it whips snow across the city. The snow is coming down so hard that the visibility outside is severely limited. Zelda hears, rather than sees, the chaos of traffic below. The snowplows probably haven’t been deployed yet and the swirling wind likely explains the power outage.
She lets out a sigh and a voice pipes up beside her. “Quite a storm, huh?”
Zelda yelps, nearly twisting her ankle as she jumps. Link appears behind her, coffee mug in hand.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” He looks out the window at the developing snowstorm. “Doesn’t look like it’s going to let up.”
She smooths down the front of her slacks, trying to swallow the embarrassment of her undignified scare. “Yeah. Hopefully we’ll get the power back soon.”
Link checks his phone, a small furrow forming between his brows as he reads the report. “Unfortunately it looks like there’s outages all over the city. Might be a while.”
She nods. Her mind races as she considers her options. There is no way that it’s safe for her to drive home now. But without power in the building, there isn’t really anything to work on. Besides, the temperature within the building will be dropping soon, if these conditions continue. It’s probably a good thing that most people managed to leave early before the power went out.
Wait…
Zelda turns to Link. “What are you doing here?”
He blinks. “Um…work? I mean, I was, before the power went out.”
“It’s the Friday before the holidays, why didn’t you leave early? Or just stay home? I know you didn’t have much work left to handle.”
He fixes her with a look she can’t quite decipher. “Why didn’t you?”
“I had things to get done. Responsibilities to other people to handle? I’m managing all the ongoing products.” She feels indignant that he would be questioning her.
His smile is wry as he looks away. “I’m managing the projects that go with those products, so is it so hard to believe that I have the same responsibilities?”
The prick of his reproach sends blood creeping up her cheeks and she immediately feels guilty for both her accusing tone and her prior judgement of him. From all accounts, he has been a boon to the company and since he transferred to their office; everything has moved much more smoothly with his help.
“Besides,” he continues, oblivious to her turmoil, “I know that you have your place here in the main office, but since I’m new, I’ve still got to earn mine.”
She studies him incredulously. His eyes reflect the glow of the falling snow, a blue that reminds her of her childhood summers in Lurelin. He swipes at his dark blonde hair, dislodging it slightly. He gives her that confusing smile again.
“I don’t really think you need to worry about that,” she tells him honestly.
He shrugs.
“No seriously. If I have to hear another word about how impressed everyone is with your work, I might…I don’t know–I might have to implement a Link’s name jar.”
“Thanks for saying so.” He looks genuinely grateful. It doesn’t seem like he’s fishing for compliments, which she finds unusual.
“I mean it. Everyone is impressed by your work.”
“Everyone?” he asks with a hint of a laugh.
“Everyone,” she says, only slightly begrudgingly.
“Even you?”
Her eyes shoot up to meet his. His expression is serious, with no hint of guile. Her mouth feels a little dry.
“Everyone,” she repeats quietly.
The corner of his mouth quirks up a little and, with the light from the windows, she can see the tips of his ears redden. She wonders about that as she tears her gaze away.
“A-anyways. I’ve got to finish my soup,” She spins quickly on the balls of her feet. “I’ll see you around.”
She scoops up the (now much cooler) bowl of soup and marches into her office. As she has her lunch, she can’t help but wonder about the ways she might have misjudged him. She hears his footsteps pass her office and half hopes that he will stop by. He doesn’t.
Zelda kills time by reorganizing parts of her office and occasionally looking outside to see whether the weather conditions improve (they don’t). Without the central heating, the temperature within the building is slowly dropping. After a few hours, Zelda pulls on her scarf. Her phone is pinging with blizzard warnings.
By mid-afternoon, with the snow not subsiding, she peeks into Link’s office. He’s sitting at his desk, twirling a pen as he squints at a document on his desk.
She knocks on the door. “Am I interrupting?”
“Not at all.” He sets his pen down. “Did you need something?”
“No, just…without the power, I can’t use my computer or anything.”
“You didn’t just pack up and go home?”
She shrugs, gesturing towards the window. “Snow’s coming down even harder than before, so I thought I would try to wait it out.”
Link glances outside. “Yikes.”
Far from subsiding, the snowstorm seems to have picked up. Almost nothing is visible out the window except the flurry of snowflakes.
“I was wondering if I should try to leave or if I should just bundle up for a night in the office.”
He turns to her, alarmed. “You’re going to drive in that?”
“Well, that or stay the night here.” She looks around his office. It’s sparsely decorated, but he has a calendar up on the wall, a few photos on his desk, and a trailing plant of some sort on the shelf. “Do you have pillows or anything?”
“You can’t stay here. It’s the holidays!” Link seems particularly outraged by the idea.
“I can’t drive in the blizzard and I can’t stay here. What am I supposed to do?” she asks, annoyed by his tone.
“You could–” he cuts himself off, seems to reconsider, but pushes through anyway– “you could come over?”
“What?”
“If you wanted. I live nearby. Within walking distance. So I just thought–I just thought it would be nicer than spending the night in the office.” He rubs the back of his neck, looking flustered. “If you wanted,” he repeats.
“That’s…” Zelda is taken aback by his offer. It was really kind of him, especially to a co-worker that has never been particularly friendly. “That’s nice of you, but I couldn’t intrude.”
“No–no you wouldn’t be. You’d be keeping me company as we wait out the storm. And besides, if you got into an accident driving in the snow or if you got sick from staying in this cold office, I would never forgive myself.” His eyes meet hers, bright and earnest. She is reminded of the way that she would sometimes catch him looking at her during their ‘All-Hands’ meetings. Hmm.
“Well…” She adjusts her scarf, feeling a little awkward for all the ungracious thoughts she’s had in the past about him. “Thank you, that would be nice.”
He beams at her, actually beams, and his smile is nearly enough to make her forget the blizzard raging outside.
Link’s place is within walking distance from the office. It’s one of the older apartment complexes downtown. As they make their way over, he explains that Telma, the building owner, is an old friend of his, so she let him have the place for a reasonable price.
The walk to his apartment is a struggle. The snow is piled up to their shins, and the wind somehow manages to constantly be blowing into their faces. Zelda is not dressed for a trek in the snow; her boots are waterproof, but have little to no traction. Beneath the snow, the sidewalk is icy and precarious.
“Woah!” Link half-yelps as he throws his hands out to grab her. “Careful.”
“I’m trying,” she responds grumpily, pushing her hair out of her face with her gloved hands. “I can’t even see properly!”
“Here, just…” He grabs her flailing hands and tucks it into the crook of his elbow. “Hold on to me, we’re nearly there.”
Having him there to steady her helps, as much as she is loath to admit it. But it’s also distracting. At work, she’d always kept a healthy distance from him; her resentment of everyone else’s easy acceptance of him kept her away. She was always aware that he was a good looking guy–some of the break room chatter centered around this specifically–but she’d never given herself time to ponder it. Up close, his features are striking. His jaw is strong, well defined, his eyes–the colour of the sky, are framed by long lashes, and his lips… she tears her eyes away.
“I’m just up ahead.” He points at a brick, three story building the next block over.
“Right.” Zelda tucks herself slightly closer into the crook of his elbow, certainly not revelling in the strength in his arms that she can feel even through the layers of winter gear.
When they finally reach the front door, they are both covered in snow. They do their best to dust off. Zelda laughs when Link shakes out his hair like a puppy, the dampness from the snow leaving his hair standing up wildly. But her laugh dies in the back of her throat when he reaches over and brushes some snow off the top of her head.
His hand lingers for a moment by the side of her face, as if he wants to smooth her hair back. She stares at his hand, willing him to…do something, but she’s not quite sure what. He withdraws.
“You, ah, you had some snow–”
“Yeah, um, on top of my head, yeah. I could feel it.”
“I was just–”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Link backs away a little to unlock the front door. Zelda takes a deep breath, incredibly conscious of the frosty air against her warm cheeks. What was that all about? She stares at his profile as he pulls the door open. He avoids her gaze as he ushers her in.
With the power out in his neighbourhood too, they take the stairs up to his third floor apartment. The interior of the building looks a bit dated, but everything is clean and kept in good condition. They stop in front of a door at the end of the hall and Link fishes for his key.
The door swings open and Link steps through. “Here we are. Home sweet home.”
Zelda isn’t sure what she thought Link’s apartment would look like, but she didn’t expect this. The large windows in the living room are catching the last of the setting sun. The first thing that catches her eye is a charmingly decorated Naryu’s Day tree set up across the room. It takes her a second to realize that the entire apartment is decorated for the holidays: boughs of cool safflina lay across the coffee table, clusters of blue and white candles set up around the kitchen.
“I really love the holidays,” he says a little sheepishly as he sheds his jacket. “It’s a bit of a family tradition to decorate the house, so I wanted to keep that alive here too.”
She’s charmed by the admission; the image of him hauling his Nayru’s Day tree through the building makes her smile. “We don’t get a lot of holiday spirit in Castle Town,” she says.
“Don’t I know it! I had to go all the way to midtown to find a tree.”
He holds out a hand to take her jacket and she hands it to him as she slips off her boots. He tucks both of their coats into the hall closet and pulls out a pair of slippers.
“Here,” he sets them down for her, “these wood floors can get a little cold. Especially with the heat off.”
She murmurs a quick thanks as she looks around for a place to set her work bag down.
“Oh, sorry, the place is kinda small. I don’t have a guest room. You err…you can take my bedroom if you want? The couch is pretty comfortable.”
“I couldn’t possibly. The couch is fine for me.” She sets her bag down against it.
Link busies himself around the apartment, grabbing essential supplies for a night without power. “It’s getting dark,” he points out. “Wouldn’t want to get caught unprepared.”
Zelda helps gather the candles, setting the stockpile up on the coffee table. Link sorts through his refrigerator, muttering about food waste as he picks out what might still be salvageable. She lights a few candles as he works.
Since they’re not sure when they’ll get power back, they end up throwing most of the perishable foods into a pot for a stew. They work together, preparing the ingredients in the candlelight. He teases her a bit for her unevenly chopped carrots.
“I don’t have a lot of time to practice cooking,” she protests. “I usually just get takeout on my way home.”
“Tsk.” He presents his own beautifully even carrots. “I’ll have to make you a homemade meal sometime then.”
She turns to him and the question slips out before she can stop it. “Why are you so nice to me? I don’t think I’ve ever been nice to you.”
He freezes in the middle of lighting a match for the burner. He studies her for a moment before his eyes dart away and he resumes lighting the burner. “You deserve it,” he murmurs, his eyes on the fire in front of him.
“I do?” She hands him the carrots.
He nods. The moment feels surreal: Link is lit up by the flickering flames and the apartment is silent around them. He pours the oil into the pot and waits for it to heat. He doesn’t answer her question until the onions are sizzling in the pot.
He glances sideways at her. “You do a lot for everyone at work, but I don’t think you get recognized enough for it.”
“I…” She can’t think of a coherent response.
“So I wanted to help you out a bit,” he gives her a small smile as he stirs the onions.
He doesn’t say anything else as they slowly add the rest of the soup ingredients into the pot. Zelda can only stare at him. She flips through her memories and thinks about all of the times he offered to take a situation off her plate, all the times he stepped in when the engineers got out of hand. This whole time she thought that he was trying to win her over like he’d won the rest of their co-workers or he was trying to undermine her, get under her skin on purpose.
But before she can speak, his phone rings. He slips it out of his pocket and answers it. “Hello?”
“Link!” Zelda can hear a woman’s voice on the other end. She’s about to step away to give him privacy, but he gestures for her to stay. He puts his phone on speaker, sets it on the counter beside him, and turns back to the soup.
“Hi Nona,” he says affectionately.
“Are you safe? I saw on the news that a blizzard– a blizzard –hit Castle Town today. They say there’s no power in parts of the city! Are you okay? Those city people don’t know how to handle a little bit of snow.”
Link’s chuckle is low and causes something in Zelda’s chest to warm. “I’m fine, Nona. It was a little bit of a walk back from the office and there’s no power in the apartment, but I’m fine.”
“No power! How are you on the phone then?”
“This is my cell phone,” he says patiently. “It doesn’t need power in the apartment to work.”
“Oh, right. Well that’s good then. Make sure you’re clearing out your fridge, Link. Don’t let dairy sit in there for too long.”
“Aye-aye, Nona.” He rolls his eyes exaggeratedly at Zelda and she can’t help but smile back.
“Well it’s good that you’re safe at home. Don’t go anywhere until the snow is cleared. City folks can’t drive and they especially can’t drive in the snow.”
“Yes, I know. I won’t.”
“Good. Good. Now what about that pretty blonde co-worker you have a crush on? Is she safe? You said that she is always at work late!”
Link’s eyes widen comically as he scrambles for his phone. He switches his phone off speaker and jams it against his ear. “Yes, she’s fine, Nona. I’ve gotta go. I’ve got dinner on the stove–yes I know–no, I won’t–okay, yup. Love you too. Bye.”
He shuts off the stove and the silence between them is so awkward that Zelda doesn’t know where to look so she settles her gaze on the remnants of a bag of potatoes in front of her.
“Look…” Link’s voice is strained. When she turns to him, he has his palms up in a placating gesture. “That wasn’t…” He clears his throat. “That wasn’t what you think.”
Zelda blinks. “Right, so that wasn’t about me?”
“Well…okay, it was. But my grandma was just confused.”
“Right.”
Link studies her for a moment before sighing. “Hold on.” He grabs one of the photos off the living room walls and hands it to her. “This is my grandma.”
She’s confused by the non-sequitur, but studies the picture anyway. An older woman with a sweet, round face and charming laugh lines has her arms around Link. He’s dressed in graduation garb and his grandma is beaming with pride.
“My grandma raised my sister and me after my parents passed when I was young,” he says, his eyes on the photo. “And she’s pretty severely diabetic.”
Zelda stays quiet, not sure where he’s going.
“After I graduated college, I wanted to get an MBA. But my grandma’s diabetes was getting worse. And Aryll was away for school, so there was not going to be anyone at home to help out.” His eyes are far away as he speaks. “So I ended up getting a crappy retail job in town and living with my grandma. We couldn’t risk her having an incident without anybody around.
“She didn’t want me to give up on the MBA, but it was way more important for her to be safe and healthy than for me to go back to school anyway. And it was good that I stayed, we had a lot of scary incidents. But then…” He looks up at her. “You invented the low cost insulin pump.”
“Well it was a team effort…” Zelda responds reflexively.
Link shakes his head. “You were the driving force behind the device. I know because I learned everything about it.”
“You did?”
“Of course. My grandma was one of the first people to get it and I needed to know if it would work. It seemed too good to be true, so I read every paper, watched every video, but it was true. And somehow, you were at the center of it all.”
Zelda feels her ears heat with the intensity of his scrutiny. He isn’t exactly wrong about what happened. She was the engineer on the team that had the breakthrough discovery for the low cost insulin pump device and since she was the youngest engineer on staff, they touted the story of her discovery in all their media releases. She’d also become heavily involved in product management when she found out that they’d planned to stall the release of the device for nearly five years. She knew that a device like that could change lives, so she’d switched career paths and worked hard to push the release date forward.
“That’s…very kind of you,” she says.
“I just wanted to meet you.” He scratches his ear lightly. “That device changed my grandma’s life and my life. So I wanted to work with you and learn from you. I guess I talked about you and your work a lot, so my grandma interpreted it in that way.”
“Oh.”
“Sorry, it’s probably a lot. I’m super embarrassed that you had to find out like this.” He returns the photo to the wall. “I um, understand if you want me to leave or something. If you feel uncomfortable.”
Zelda turns to stare at him. How did she get it all so wrong? Perhaps his affable persona at work is really his true self after all. He admires her? Wants to help her? Wow, she really let her personal vendetta cloud her judgement.
The longer she’s silent, the smaller he seems to shrink. She picks up the box of matches. “I’m flattered. Thank you for telling me.You don’t have to go anywhere.“ Some of the tension leaves his shoulders at her words. “Where would you even go? You live here. And besides,” she hands him a match, “I can’t cook, so you can’t just leave me here.”
He laughs as he takes the match from her. “Yes ma’am.”
After dinner, Link produces a deck of cards and they play a few hands of Gin Rummy. Even simple card games ignite Zelda’s competitive spirit and Link can’t seem to pay attention, so she thoroughly thrashes him at the game.
When she wins the third round in a row, he pushes his cards towards her and says, “This is too much thinking for a relaxing post-dinner game.” He squints at her. “You’re too good at this.”
She can’t help but preen a little. “It’s just patterns and probability. Keep up.”
“Alright then, Ms. Analytics, let’s see how good your reflexes are.” He shuffles the deck. “I challenge you to the age-old tradition of Slap Jack.”
“I haven’t really played Slap Jack,” Zelda comments as Link splits the deck.
“What!” His eyes widen dramatically. “What did you do as a child during recess?”
“Draw, paint, dance, read? Even break time at my school had a list of suggested activities.” She watches as he finishes dealing the cards. “I did play Slap Jack one time at a cousin’s house and my dad completely lost his mind when he saw my red hands. He lectured me and my cousins about hurting my hands and how it might keep me from my piano competitions. I was never allowed to play again.”
“Since we have lots of time to make up for, I’ll go easy on you.”
It takes a round for her to get used to the speed of the game, but by the second round, the two of them are laughing and swatting at each other. She slams her palms down on the Knight as hard as she can, but Link is faster, so he has to bear the brunt of her slap.
“Ouch!” He draws back his hand and rubs it. “I swear, you’re reacting slower on purpose just so you can slap me.”
She scoffs indignantly. “I would never. It’s just dark in here with the candles, I can’t see!”
“Sure.” Zelda resists the urge to stick her tongue out at him childishly.
Link’s reaction times are significantly faster than hers, so he has the upper hand in the game. Each time Zelda loses, she demands a rematch and each time, Link agrees, laughter dancing in his eyes. Finally, Zelda manages a victory, slapping down on the final set of cards. Link is half a second slower, so his hand lands on top of hers.
“Ha!” she crows, unable to keep the smug smile off her face. “I won!”
Link’s hand is warm on top of hers. “Sure did.” He gives her hand a squeeze and a tingle runs up her arm. His expression is soft and somehow familiar. It makes her feel strangely vulnerable. It’s like he knows her in a way that goes beyond their limited interactions as co-workers.
Zelda pulls her hand away and clears her throat, casting her gaze around desperately for something– anything– to distract herself. She focuses on the set of photos on the living room wall. “Tell me about these pictures.”
She walks over. Even though she’d only meant to find a distraction, she’s actually interested in the photos. Link has an array of framed pictures up on the wall, some feature him, others don’t. There’s a younger girl who features prominently in his pictures and her wide smile is a mirror image of his.
“Your sister?” Zelda asks.
Link joins her by the wall. He studies the photo she’s looking at: Link and his sister are standing in front of the Hyrule Business School doors. He’s in a dark blue suit and she’s dressed in a charming blue floral dress, they’re striking a cheesy pose together.
“Aryll,” he says, the corner of his mouth lifting unconsciously, “she’s four years younger. She works with the Coast Guard and the National Parks updating the maps of the shores of Hyrule.”
“You guys look pretty close.”
“We are. It was just the two of us a lot of the time growing up. But now she travels a lot for work, so I don’t get to see her as much as I’d like.” He turns to her. “How about you? Any siblings?”
Zelda shakes her head. “Just me and my dad. We’re not really close.”
Link nods, sensing her apprehension to share and turns back to the photo wall. He tells her some of the stories behind some of the other pictures.
“This is from the one time I visited Rito Village in the winter.” He taps on a photo of a dark, snowy landscape. Green lights dance across the sky. “I was visiting my college boyfriend and he took me to see Nayru’s Lights, but I have never been so cold in my life. I don’t know how the Rito can deal with it up there.”
“So a snowy day in Castle Town is nothing to you now, huh?” she teases.
“I mean, I would say it came with a different set of challenges.” His voice is light and slightly teasing, like he knows something that she doesn’t.
They’re standing close enough that her shoulders brush his whenever she leans forward to look at a picture. The warmth radiating off his body is distracting and confusing, so she moves to the couch to give herself some distance.
“Are you tired?” Link asks, already pulling out an impressive collection of throw blankets.
“No, just…” She shrugs. He hands her a handmade chunky knit blanket. As she sets it over her legs, she asks, “How come you’re still in Castle Town? Aren’t you going to spend Nayru’s Day with your family?”
“I was going to leave this weekend.” He makes his way over to the couch. “May I?” he asks, gesturing to the other side. When she nods, he settles himself in and tosses a different blanket over his body. “But it doesn’t look like the weather is permitting it.”
“You should have taken PTO,” she tells him. “Nobody would have blamed you if you wanted to spend time with your family.”
“I just didn’t want people at work to think I was a slacker taking time off even though I just transferred.”
“I don’t think anyone would have thought that.” She sighs wistfully. “It’s nice that you have family to go home to for the holidays.” The words tumble out of her mouth before she can stop them. She isn’t sure why she’s telling him, but he’s spent the evening being incredibly open with her and she wants to reciprocate. “My dad and I are not close. We had a falling out when I went to college and did an engineering degree instead of a political science degree.”
She fiddles with the edge of the blanket, feeling the weight of Link’s gaze on her. “You must recognize my last name. My dad is Hyrule’s Secretary of State and he always expected that I would join him on the council eventually. It was a pretty big disappointment to him when he realized I didn’t want to be President, I just wanted to invent things.”
Link doesn’t say anything and, for a moment, Zelda is mortified that she completely overshared. But then she feels the weight of his hand on her shoulder. His expression is so understanding that her eyes prick with tears.
She sniffles a little and rubs the tip of her nose. “I’m sorry for being such a downer. Anyways, I hope you get to spend some time with those you love this holiday season.”
He pulls his hand back, but his gaze is steady on her face. “Yeah, I hope so too.”
They change the topic to holiday break plans. Zelda had originally planned on just taking her work home and catching up on her days off, but Link convinces her to leave the work at work. Link tells her about his plans with Aryll to go hiking in his hometown. Listening to him describe the view makes her feel nostalgic for a place she’s never been.
The conversation between them flows easily, they move between topics smoothly and Zelda realizes that they have much more in common than she would have anticipated. They curl up in their respective positions on the couch. Her cheek is pressed against the headrest of the couch, and her knees are tucked up in front of her. Across the couch, Link mirrors her position and she can see the reflection of the dancing candlelight in his eyes. Their voices drop low as it gets later, closer to whispers than to speech, and everything feels comfortable and familiar.
The candles are burning down around them and eventually, they’re both lulled to sleep, their feet barely touching beneath the blankets.
The sun breaks through the apartment’s east facing window. The room is several degrees colder than it was the night before, but under the mountain of blankets, Zelda feels cozy. She fell asleep curled up against the armrest of the couch, so she can feel the knots that formed in her back overnight. She stretches her arms and legs out as her eyes flutter open. She realizes belatedly that her feet are tangled up with Link’s.
Her stretch wakes him and a contented smile creeps across his face as he sees her. “Morning,” he says.
“Good morning.” Carefully, she extracts her feet from between his. “We must have fallen asleep talking.”
Link muffles a yawn. “Yeah, sorry. I hope it wasn’t too uncomfortable for you.”
“No, it–it was fine.” And it was. Despite the stiffness in her back, her mind feels lighter than it has in years and a feeling of happiness seeps through my body.
Link squints out the window, the reflection off the snow nearly blinding in its brightness. “It looks like the snow has stopped.”
Zelda makes her way over to the window and looks. A pristine white sheet of freshly fallen snow covers everything in sight. It’s early enough that the sky is only just lightening, the rays of the sunlight sparkling across the winter wonderland below.
“The day after a big storm is always the best day for sledding,” Link comments absently as he joins her by the window.
“I’ll take your word for it,” Zelda responds, “I’ve never been.”
“Never been sledding!” His outraged voice is back. “Zelda! What kind of childhood did you have?”
“One that revolved around dance and piano competitions,” she reminds him. “Dad said that the risk of injury sledding was too high and I could get a concussion.”
“Well we’ll have to correct that then.”
“Even though I might get a concussion?”
His blue eyes are mischievous as he smiles. “Some things in life are worth a little risk.”
Link retreats into his room and returns with a cozy looking sweater and a pair of joggers with drawstrings. When Zelda emerges from the bathroom, bundled up for the snow, he’s in the middle of pouring something into a thermos. He goes to get changed and then the two of them eat a simple breakfast of buttered bread. Link manages to unearth a rather flimsy looking plastic sled. He waves away Zelda’s skepticism and promises that the plastic sleds are way more slippery and therefore way faster.
Luckily, there is a small city park close to his apartment. When they arrive, Zelda is surprised to see a few kids already streaming down the hill, shrieking with joy.
Link catches her eyes and nods in the direction of the kids. “See what you missed out on?”
Zelda watches as one of the children reaches the bottom of the hill, hits a bump, and is sent tumbling across the snow. “Hmm…”
“He’s fine!” Link says and they watch the child pick themselves up and run their sled back up the hill. “I got knocked off my sleds all the time as a kid and I turned out fine.”
“Well…” She draws out the word into several teasing syllables.
Link rolls his eyes and pulls out a green knit hat from his coat pocket. “Here, this will protect you.” He steps closer to her and all the sound around them seems to muffle.
She watches as he smooths some of her hair back with a gentle gloved hand. His eyes flicker down to hers for a split second, before he refocuses on the hat. From this close, she can see the red tips of his ears. Carefully, he pulls the hat over her hair and steps back.
“My grandma knit that hat, so I suspect it has a bonus to concussion defense,” he says, not quite meeting her eyes, a half smile on his lips.
Zelda can feel the blood in her cheeks, a result of the winter air and whatever that was. She clears her throat and says, “We should find a place to put down our snacks,” and takes off for a nearby tree before he can respond.
Link hooks his bag onto one of the lower branches of the tree and grabs the sled. His mischievous smile returns and he loses whatever awkwardness he’d picked up earlier. “Come on, let’s see how fast this thing can go.”
They climb up to the top of the small hill and Zelda feels a little bit silly, since the only other sledders are children, but Link’s happiness is contagious. She does feel curious about how fast that piece of plastic could really send them down the hill.
“It’s really easy,” Link tells her as he positions the sled. “You just scoot yourself forward on the sled until it gets enough momentum to take you down the hill.”
“I scoot myself forward?” She studies the children around them.
“Alright. Here. You sit and I’ll push you down.”
“And then what are you going to do?” She steps hesitantly onto the plastic sled and it warps a little around her.
“I’ll meet you at the bottom.”
Zelda looks over her shoulder at Link and he grins at her. Out in the snow, he’s a completely different person than the one she knows in the office. His hair is wild around him and his smile is freer, looser than the one that he gives everyone at work. She wants to take this smile and tuck it into her pocket, like the gift that it feels like.
“I’ll meet you at the bottom then,” she says.
He starts pushing her forward and it takes a moment before she really gets moving. But very quickly, the sled is moving on its own. Zelda tucks her chin down into the collar of her coat as she speeds down the hill. She goes faster than she thought she would and it’s exhilarating. She feels a moment of bitterness towards her father, for having robbed her of this as a child, but that thought is quickly wiped away as she hits a small patch of uneven snow.
The sled wobbles and, for a moment, she thinks it might recover. But then the plastic twists and, with the downward momentum, it’s enough to cause her to spill out of the sled. Suddenly she’s rolling down the hill beside the sled. She’s close enough to the base of the hill that she doesn’t roll for long. But it’s enough to leave her feeling dizzy as she stares up at the blue sky.
“Oh Hylia! Are you alright?” Link’s worried face appears above her.
Zelda can’t do anything but laugh. “I’m Zelda, silly. Not Hylia.”
He helps her up slowly. “I think I have to check you for a concussion, if you’re making dad jokes like that.”
“I’m fine!” She brushes the snow off her head and shoulders. “Let’s do that again.”
She grabs his arm and drags him up the hill. At her insistence, they take turns sledding down the hill, their laughter joining the kid’s whoops of joys. Zelda learns how to control the sled to minimize wiping out and excitedly explains the mechanics to a smiling Link.
“We should try going down together,” she tells him. “I think our combined weight would increase the momentum of us going down, so theoretically that would mean we could go even faster.”
“I don’t know about that…” He eyes the sled. “This thing is pretty old.”
“Can we try?” she pleads. “We can sit on it first and see if it can hold us.”
Link takes a look at her face and relents with a laugh. “If it breaks, you have to buy me a new sled.”
“Deal.”
They both climb into the sled, maneuvering carefully so that they’re both sitting on it. Zelda ends up in front, sitting between Link’s knees, with her back against his chest. They’re close enough that she can feel his breath tickling her cheek.
“Looks like this will work,” she says, feeling slightly breathless herself.
“Right.” The word rumbles through his chest.
Together, they position the sled at the edge of the hill. They rock forward together until the sled begins to descend. Her heart races in excitement. They slide down a few feet…and then promptly stop and fall over onto their sides into the snow.
Link bursts into laughter. His arms are loosely around her waist and, for a moment, she is cradled in a circle of joy and warmth. He lets his arm flop away. She flips over to look at him, unable to keep the giggles from her words. “Okay, so that didn’t work.”
He doesn’t stop laughing.
“I think we were too heavy and there was too much friction underneath the sled.”
He pulls her down towards him and says, “Stop trying to explain it and just laugh with me for a minute.”
Zelda lets herself get tugged down into the snow. “My coat will get wet,” she says half-heartedly. But she lays down in the snow next to him anyway.
She turns her head slightly so that she can see him. His joie de vivre sparkles around him and she wants to let herself be wrapped up in it. Her eyes trace the lines of his face. He’s really handsome, she thinks absently. She wonders what it would be like to press a kiss to the spot on his neck where she can see his pulse beating or whether his kiss would taste like first snow.
Wait what?
Zelda sits up abruptly. “I think it’s time for a break.”
Obediently, Link leads them down the hill and pulls his bag from the tree. He hands her a steaming mug of spicy pepper hot chocolate and a biscuit before helping himself to a serving. She can’t stop staring at him. Or she can’t stop pretending that she’s not staring at him. Sure, he’s a handsome man, but surely she wasn’t attracted to him like that. Was she?
“You’re different from how I thought you would be,” she says, unthinking. She cringes and she wants to shove her hand in her mouth, glove and all.
Link just turns to her with a smile. “And you’re even better than I thought you would be.”
Zelda gapes at him. Wow, it is absolutely unfair that he can just say things like that. “I–what do you mean?”
He dunks his biscuit into his hot chocolate. “You first.”
“Well…” She looks out at the park around them, searching for a way to organize her thoughts. “I guess I thought that who you were at work was a facade. Like it was a fake thing you did to get on everyone’s good side.” She gives him a sidelong glance. “Now I’m beginning to see that you’re just a kind person.”
“You doubted I was a nice person?” His tone is jovial, but Zelda can sense a hint of hurt.
“No, not really…but…” She recounts the incident with Robbie at the product meeting to him. “And you didn’t say anything and I saw you joking around with him after so I guess I just assumed you were like him and the rest was fake.”
Link hangs his head. “I’m sorry. That was a crappy thing for him to do and I’m sorry that I didn’t say anything in the moment to help you. But I did speak with him after. I told him about the way comments like that can harm peoples’ careers and alienate them–especially women.”
Zelda twists her body so she’s fully facing him. “You did?”
“I mean, of course. Though I’m not sure how much of it got through to him.” He rolls the mug between his hands. “It’s the least I could do, but I promise I’ll say something if it happens again,” he says, looking at her anxiously.
“Thanks,” she says. The word sticks in her throat and she kind of, maybe wants to kiss him. She takes a sip of her hot chocolate and says, “What did you think I would be like?”
He shrugs. “I always knew you were incredibly smart and driven. But working with you has taught me that you’re kind and giving.” He doesn’t look at her as he talks and stares off into the distance. “And these last twenty-four hours have shown me that you’re really funny and kinda dorky too.”
“Oh.” She has no idea what to say. “Thanks,” she says again. She feels a bit dazed.
He gives her a nervous, searching look and she’s not sure what expression she’s got on her face, but he follows up. “Anyways, we should probably head back. We’ll catch a cold if we’re out here too long with damp coats on.”
She nods mutely and they pack up the rest of their snacks. The walk back to his apartment is silent and awkward, with neither of them able to break the ice. When they reach the lobby of his building, they realize that the lights are on inside.
“Oh, nice,” Link says, looking at the overhead light. “The emergency line workers must have worked hard last night.”
They still take the stairs, since Link tells her that the elevator is old and creaky. The heating inside the building is slowly melting the snow of their jackets. By the time they get to Link’s apartment, Zelda feels slightly overheated.
“I think the roads should be relatively cleared out by now,” she says. “I should probably head out.”
The corner of Link’s mouth is turned down, but he says, “Sure. I can walk you back to the office.”
“No need,” she responds hastily. “I can look up the directions on my phone. I’ll um, see you back in the office after the break?”
Zelda grabs her bag from the couch and fishes her phone out. She types in the work address, but she finds herself lingering at the door. Link is there, shifting his weight back and forth.
She tightens her grip on the strap of her bag and says, “Well thanks–”
“Wait–”
She stops.
“Please don’t go yet,” he says. “I…I think I came on too strong, or maybe I wasn’t clear enough? I don’t–I don’t know. But I just wanted to tell you that I like you. A lot. And that I think you’re pretty incredible.”
She blinks. “What?”
Link runs his hands through his hair. “I don’t know how I can be more clear.”
“I’m confused. You like me?” It feels like her brain is working overtime.
“That’s what I just said.”
“I thought you said your grandma was confused and that you didn’t have a crush on me.” Zelda realizes belatedly that it was kind of a ridiculous thing to say, but the words spill out anyway.
“I said my grandma misinterpreted my admiration for your work as a crush. I never said I didn’t have a crush on you.” His eyes are dangerously blue.
“You…have a crush on me?” She repeats slowly.
“When you say it like that, it sounds extremely childish.” He laughs nervously.
“I think I have a crush on you.”
Link’s eyes widen and a smile spreads across his face. “I can work with that.”
Zelda feels a rush of relief. Whatever feelings she was having these last few hours weren’t crazy after all. Link’s grin is broad and joyous, like his happiness is too much to be contained within himself. She’s sure that her face hosts an equally foolish expression. This incredible man likes her!
“Will you make me dinner sometime?” Zelda asks. She slides her bag off her shoulder and it lands at her feet with a thump. She takes a few steps closer to him.
“I’d love to.” His words are barely a whisper, but she’s close enough to catch them. “Can I kiss you now though?”
She nods and he cups her face between his hands, smoothing his thumbs along her cheekbones. She smiles at him and his returning grin is so joyful that she leans forward and presses her lips against his. Their kiss is sweet, their lips move together easily and he moves one of his hands to thread his fingers through her hair. When Zelda’s eyes flutter open, the look in Link’s eyes promises more.
“Happy Holidays, Zelda,” he says.
“The happiest,” she agrees.