(Hey guys! This is basically the previous chapter but from Link's point of view ^-^)
Link's POV
This might be the best unadon dish I've ever made. Zelda's gonna love it, I know she likes seafood a lot. No clue about her dad but he didn't really object when I suggested eel. It's hard to guess what he likes to eat. I hope Zelda gets here soon so I don't have to do small talk with him.
I take the dish out of the oven and place it on the stove to let it cool off a bit. I freaking love this kitchen. So much counter space. I take off the mittens to check the time on my phone. It's already 8 PM... I wonder what's taking her so long. I'm glad she's being a good friend by helping Pik with whatever he needs help with but did it have to be tonight of all days?
"Any update?" her dad suddenly asks me from the other side of the kitchen island. Where'd he come from? He just spawned there.
I look up from my phone to shake my head at him. Now he's giving me that judgmental look that he always gives people when they disappoint or annoy him but I think he's more mad at Zelda than me. I mean, why would he be mad at me, right? I didn't do anything wrong. I think.
"Should I call her?" I ask him.
"Nowadays, time is invariably accessible to humans. Technology enables us to be informed and to stay connected. My daughter is no exception." I'm confused but I'm afraid to ask. "I'm saying it is Zelda's responsibility to call when she fails to meet others' expectations. She should know to value punctuality."
I feel like my brain is fried. I have no clue what to say to that.
"Okay," I say to be safe and nod hesitantly.
"Is the dinner ready?" He asks, looking at the eel in the tray.
"Yes, sir."
"I see. Come join me in the living room while we wait."
"Okay," I say again as he walks ahead.
I put the dish back into the oven to keep it warm, then I follow him to the living room. He's a scary man. Not like creepy-scary but like math-test-scary. I've faced lots of scary situations but somehow Dr. Hyrule makes those other things seem easy. It's mainly just that I've always had a shit ton of respect for the guy. You'd think I'd be less tense around him now that I'm "part of the family" or whatever, but his scariness only doubled when I started dating Zelda 'cause he's the dad and all. But he's also the school's president and owner and my future boss. He's a lot of things that make me feel really small next to him.
He takes a seat on the couch first. Guess I'll sit opposite of him. I have a feeling I'll have to do small talk now. Please hurry, Zelda.
"So," he clears his throat. "Have you signed up for the fall semester yet?"
"Yes."
"How many credit hours will you be taking?"
"12," I answer. He doesn't say anything back but he looks disappointed with my answer. Sure, 12 isn't a lot, but I'm planning on working out a lot so I can get back on the soccer team and I might also get a campus job to make up for the money I owe him. Or at least parts of it...
"Will you be able to graduate in time?"
Yikes. He really thinks I'm slacking that hard? "Yes. And also, Zelda and I were planning on signing up for another class together. So I'll be at 15 or 16 credit hours."
"She is taking 19 credit hours in the fall."
Not sure if he's implying that she's too busy to take another class or if he's comparing me to her impressive amount of workload. What to say, what to say...
"She sure is taking a lot of classes. But she's double majoring so she kinda has to," I say to keep the convo alive. When he doesn't say anything back, I begin to look for other things to talk about. Luckily, he starts another conversation before the silence becomes awkward.
"I talked to your supervisor in Kyoto. He processed all your documents and will reach out to you by email in the next couple of days to send you your work schedule for the summer."
"Awesome. Thank you."
Dr. Hyrule nods, then I nod back. And just like that this whole situation just became extremely awkward. We ran out of small talk real fast. The only thing I know how to talk about is sports but Zelda said he doesn't like sports. I guess he likes golf though. Maybe I could talk to him about–
My phone starts to buzz in my pocket. I take it out to look at who's calling. It's Zelda! Thank god. I look up at her dad, he looks pissed and I don't know if it's because of her being late or if it's because I'm looking at my phone in the middle of a work related conversation.
"It's Zelda," I tell him in a calm tone before I answer the phone. "Hey."
"Hey Link..." She sounds nervous. I have a feeling where this is going... "I'm so sorry but it's going to be later than I thought..."
Yup... thought so...
"Oh?" I say so she can explain.
"I don't think we'll have time for dinner today. I'm sorry."
Wait what? Is she for real right now? Her dad's already pissed she's late and the food is ready, there's no way she's just gonna cancel the whole thing now??
"Um..." I don't know what to say. Her dad's just staring at me. "It's okay." Whatever happened with Pik must've been serious. She wouldn't bail on us otherwise. At least she called afterwards to let us know... If she leaves right now, I can keep the food warm until she gets here. "Are you on your way home now?"
"Not yet. I am just about to leave the dorms."
The dorms?! What's she doing there?
"The dorms?" I ask her. "You said he's at the beach."
"I'll explain tomorrow," she says.
What the fuck.. Why won't she just tell me now? She's making me nervous too now.
"Why not now?" I want to know.
"Because I'd rather talk in person."
"Why? What happened?" She can't just drop this and not explain.
"Nothing happened, I would just rather talk in person."
"Do you need me to come?" I ask her worried. Her dad and I look at each other and at this point I can't tell anymore if he's angry or worried. Even if it would make him hate me, I'd leave right now if she needs me there.
"No, everything is okay. It's just not something I want to talk about over the phone."
"Not gonna lie, you're making me nervous," I admit.
"There is no need to be worried," she tells me. I don't really believe that but what can I do? If she won't tell me, I can't make her...
"Alright..." I frown at the rug and rub the back of my neck. I'm so tense...
"I'm sorry."
"It's fine..."
"I'll talk to you later, okay?"
I let out a long, silent breath to calm down and give her another, "Alright," before we hang up.
The second I put the phone away her dad starts bombarding me with a million questions to which I have zero answers.
"When will she be coming home?" he asks me as if he was a cop and I a kidnapper.
"I don't know," I say.
"Where is she?"
"I'm not sure."
"What do you mean you're not sure? You were just speaking with her."
Looks like I'm not receiving the boyfriend of the year award huh... Not my fault she didn't tell me what she's doing or where she's been and why.
"She said we should postpone the dinner," I tell the man.
"This is typical," he scoffs.
"I'm sorry."
"What are you apologizing for? You managed to be on time and prepared dinner. It is my daughter that I am disappointed in. She should be the one to apologize."
"She did–"
"How hard can it be to be punctual? I did not raise her like this. Priorities must be practiced at all times, wouldn't you agree?"
I clench my fists, trying to stay completely calm. What does he expect me to say to that? I can't talk bad about his daughter but I also can't start an argument with my girlfriend's dad... This situation is just fucked. Best to just stay silent.
He can't really talk shit anyway. From what Zelda told me, he never prioritized her as a kid. So he shouldn't judge her for being late this one time. He's not even in the right with the whole "typical" thing. Her being late isn't typical at all. She's usually super on time. She'll yell at me for running even a minute late to things and will make sure we're always 15 minutes early wherever we go. She even cried that one time when she was late for class in her first semester.
"I apologize for my daughter's behavior," her dad sighs as he gets up. I wonder how many times he has said that to people when it wasn't even necessary, and how many times he didn't say it to his own daughter when it was.
"It's okay. She had to help a friend so..."
It's really hard to get mad at her knowing she's being there for someone else. I'm just sorta wondering if someone else could have helped Pik instead. He probably has other friends than her, no? And if they are so close then he definitely knew that she had plans with me tonight.
"You are welcome to stay and wait for her," Dr. Hyrule suggests. "I will be in my study."
I watch as he walks away, unsure what to do now. Why didn't he at least eat some of the food I made? Did he lose his appetite? Zelda always loses her appetite when she's stressed. I'm kinda the opposite. Right now I'm really craving some food. Guess I should take care of that now that dinner is canceled.
I walk back to the kitchen. Feels weird to be here without Zelda. Sometimes I still feel like I'm committing a crime by being here but her dad said it's cool if I wait so I guess I don't have to worry about that anymore. He's easily agitated which makes me defensive sometimes but at the end of the day he's always nice to me.
I search the kitchen for foil to wrap the food in. I'll probably just take it back to the frat house with me. It'll be good for Ravioli and Teli to eat something other than fast food for a day.
Before I wrap the food, I take a moment to look at the meal I made. Can't lie, I am a bit disappointed about tonight... But nothing I can do about it now. I'll wait until Zelda shows, she always makes me feel better. And then we can still have a good night. If she's leaving HU right now, it shouldn't take longer than half an hour for her to get here. It's past rush hour too so traffic should be light.
...
I wait for over an hour and a half but Zelda never shows up. Something's wrong. I grab my phone to call her: It rings for a while, then it takes me to her voice mail.
Shit, I feel so confused about whether to be worried or annoyed. Now I know how her dad felt I guess. But I'm not mad at her, I just want to know why she isn't picking up. Maybe her phone's on silent and she didn't see it?
I call again. Still no answer. I wonder what's going on with her. It's so unlike her... She'd at least text me that she can't call right now. She did sound nervous when she called me, maybe she couldn't really tell me what's going on because someone was listening? Fuck, what am I gonna do if that's the case?
Instead of overthinking this I should be taking action, so I grab my keys and make the spontaneous decision to drive to the dorms to check on her. I don't know what I'm gonna do if Pik did something to her. Just thinking about it makes me fucking sick to my stomach.
The drive feels endless but when I get close to campus I look at the time and notice that it only took me 25 minutes to get here. If it took me less than half an hour to get here, she could have been home a while ago, so where is she?!
I drive across the dorm's parking lot to find her car. It's hard to see in the dark but her car should be fairly easy to spot. I feel like a crazy obsessed boyfriend. I would never follow her somewhere unless I felt like I had to. I mean, I don't know Pik at all. I have no idea what he's capable of. She always defends him so I'm sure he's a good friend but guys can be assholes and as far as I know he's still in love with her and jealous of me, so much that he wrote a goddamn song about it. So who knows what he might try to do.
I drive along all the buildings and look at each car that is parked in front of them but hers is not one of them! Did I miss it?
I park in front of the dorms for a moment to take a couple of deep breaths. There's this horrible picture of Karusa stuck in my mind! I can hear his taunting voice too, saying shit to me about her. I think it was right before the baseball game. This is a memory I haven't fully recovered and part of me thanks god that I can't remember what exactly he said to me that day.
I shut my eyes... I see a hickey on her neck... I don't know if that's an actual memory or if it's just what I pictured when Zelda told me about the assault a few months ago. It doesn't matter, I can't shake it! Fuck! He's not even involved in any of this, why am I thinking about him?
For some reason I'm also thinking about fucking Ganon and the way he talked about Zelda's body whenever we'd cross paths. What a fucking asshole. An asshole who's locked up, I remind myself. He can't hurt her right now. I have to focus on that or else I'll probably break something.
My main concern right now is not Ganon, it's Zelda. And Pik, I guess. I really just want to call her again but I know that if she were able to answer the phone she would have already called me back. What should I do?! Can't enter the dorms without an ID, can't contact Pik.
I lean my forehead against the steering wheel as I tighten my grip around it. I want to text Mipha... I don't even know why. She can't help with this, it's not a medical emergency. I hope.
This sucks!
I hate how I'm acting right now. This isn't me. I'm acting insane. I'm acting out because of things that happened in the past. But at the lodge, Zelda made me realize that sometimes acting without thinking isn't good. Even if it feels like overthinking is a waste of time, sometimes it's good to think a little longer about things. So... I have to think rationally here.
Inhale, exhale. Calm down. Think...
Here's what I know... She went to the pier, then to the beach to help Pik, then went to the dorms with him. Now she isn't answering her phone and didn't come home. Hold up, did she ever say she went to the dorms with Pik? Maybe she came here with Impa or met with Mipha? No, her car would be here.
I turn my car back on. She's clearly not here and there's no way for me to find out where she went. So I think the best thing to do is to go back to her place and maybe ask her dad what to do. He'll know better than me.
The drive back feels even longer. Once I get to the mansion, I check my phone one more time. So many notifications but not a single one from her. I feel so embarrassed for driving to the dorms like a maniac... If it turns out she decided to grab a bite on her way home or had a flat tire and forgot to bring a charger for her phone again or some shit and finds out I followed her to the dorms, she'll be furious... She'll feel betrayed like when she found out that her dad was stalking her... She left him for that. Ugh, this blows... I want to confront her and ask her why she lied about being at the dorms but I can't tell her that I followed her there.
Cado lets me into the mansion. I walk across the house to Dr. Hyrule's study but stop there. My hands are refusing to knock on his door... He was so disappointed when he found out that Zelda wasn't gonna get here in time... He wasn't worried at all. Just mad. I don't want him to be mad at Zelda. I want to tell him why he should be worried. Why I'm worried. I want him to understand what happened between me and Karusa and why that all happened...
On my way here, I was determined to tell him about Karusa's disgusting assaults. I went over it in my head, over and over. But I remember how hard it was for Zelda to tell me about what he did. She made me promise not to make her talk about it and to keep it between us. I have to respect her privacy. It's not my place to talk about it. But if I don't tell her dad when she needed our help, then I'm wasting time thinking about it! He literally said priorities must be practiced at all times, and here I am debating if her trust is more important than her safety. Fuck, I need some air!
I turn my back to the door and walk out to the terrace to catch fresh air. I hate being stressed like this. I used to get anxious a lot but I realized that overthinking things only gets you lost in your own thoughts.
If overthinking and taking action are both useless options, maybe it's best to just take a step back and clear my head completely. I have to convince myself that she's safe, otherwise she wouldn't have called in the first place. That makes the most sense.
I take a seat by the fire pit. I wonder what could have happened between her saying she's leaving the dorms and her coming home? Would she lie to me?
I'm overthinking it again. I won't be able to get answers until she gets home. I gotta try to calm down and be patient. When we called she promised that there is no reason to worry. So she's clearly fine. I have to trust in that. Guess there was some other reason why she canceled dinner... She said she'll explain in person so it's clear what I have to do; wait for her to get here.
(Hi! Me again!
If you enjoy reading Link's POV make sure to vote on the chapter and leave comments so I know if I should do it more often!!
Also! We are soo close to 100K reads! AHHH (ง ᗒᗨᗕ)ง Love you all sm, have a great weekend <3 xoxo)