Raising the Stakes; Zelink Coffee Shop AU (The Legend Of Zelda)

Chapter Nine

"You made me lose my place," I grumbled.

"Ah, sorry..." he said.

~*~

Wednesday

2 Days Left

"What?"

"You heard me," he replied. "You said you liked to play, so come and play."

"But-"

"Come on, I'm closing up, this is my free time. This is your free time."

What if he's really bad at this game? And the TV is probably a quarter of the size I'm used to. This could be truly painful to experience.

But no, I quickly reminded myself. Link was a gamer, he couldn't possibly be bad at Smash Bros. That would make it somewhat easier.

"Okay, fine, we can try a few matches," I said as I stood up, putting all my things in my backpack.

"Awesome, let's go!"

He sounded as excited as if I'd agreed to take him to a video game store.

I followed after him, looking around curiously as I went through the curtain in the doorway.

He practically galloped up the stairs, then peeked back down.

That was fast. Well, I guess he does have a lot of practice.

"You coming up?"

"Uh, yeah." I set my foot on the first stair, then hesitated. What am I doing? I thought. I'm going into a strangers house all alone. This is so against all the life manuals.

Then I shook my head and sighed. He's not a stranger. Get over that.

I climbed the stairs, helped heavily by the handrail. "Those things are steep."

"Yeah, keeps me in shape," he replied with a chuckle.

"And your sports definitely don't play a part in that."

"No, of course not," he laughed.

"So where's the game at?" I asked, trying to distract myself from scrutinizing his place.

It was clean, cleaner than I expected a guy's house to be. Better than my place, that was for sure.

He must have been planning to invite me up. I shrugged to myself; it didn't really matter.

Yet, as a writer, I thought into everything. Calculating, guessing, compiling evidence to hypothesize over something that wasn't even any of my business.

"It's here," he said, pointing behind him at the small couch in front of the... very large TV mounted on the wall.

And I was wrong... "Wow, you do well with the shop, apparently," I said, trying to swallow my guilt at assuming he lived in video game poverty.

"Well enough to save up," he replied, smiling. "I'll set it up." Link knelt in front of the glass case underneath the TV. "Are you hungry?"

"Well, I would be having dinner at this time but-"

"Then we can have dinner," he said, "I can make-"

"Wait! I said I would just play a few matches, you don't have to feed me," I said, holding out my hands.

He looked at me with a slight frown, but then shrugged. "If you say so," he replied, that frown evident in his voice.

"... What?" I asked.

"My grandma just... she really trained me better than to let a guest leave hungry."

"Well let's give the game a go and we'll see how long I'll be staying." I set my backpack down. "And I'm hardly a guest."

"Why not?"

I frowned. "Well, I'm a customer, not exactly... I don't know..." and you're paying me in coffee to be your fake girlfriend? "I guess I've never really been a guest before."

"Well guest what, you are now."

I groaned. "Seriously, those puns need to stop."

He laughed. "You like them!"

"No one likes puns! They tolerate them!"

"Lies! I can see the appreciation in your eyes," he laughed.

I raised an eyebrow. "Can you really?"

His expression slowly slacked as I stared at him without faltering. "Uhm..." He swallowed. "...anyways," Link said. "Let's start."