••

Today marked the first day of February, which to many meant that it was time for the month of love. For others, it was another month to remind them of how alone they were, but they didn't mind all that much.

For Groose and Lana, it was the perfect chance to finally win over the two they had fallen in love with. Valentine's Day would be such an utterly perfect day to woo their crushes over and turn them against each other. It was foolproof—there was absolutely no way this plan could fail. Not like the last one they attempted in January.

They were at the supermarket, searching everywhere for the perfect gift for their crushes. The tricky part of this shopping adventure was that neither of them knew what the other person wanted.

"What do you think Zelda likes?" Groose asked for the fifteenth time, boiling anger up in Lana's veins.

"How should I know?!" she exclaimed. "You're the one who likes her—why don't you know the answer to that question?"

Groose felt like he was going to cry again. Does this guy just cry every five seconds?! Lana thought angrily to herself, watching as the red haired boy bit his tongue to try and stop his tears from flowing.

"I don't know what Zelda likes!" he cried, causing an elderly woman to stare at him with an odd look as she traversed her way through the aisle they were in.

Lana covered her face with her small hands. "You're such an embarrassment."

"I know. That's probably why Zelda doesn't like me," he groaned and Lana couldn't help but agree.

"I can see why she wouldn't," she said cheekily, making Groose look down at the dirty floors in shame. "But don't worry! You can easily fix this lame personality of yours and boom! She'll like you. Just have faith."

Groose perked up at her words, sniffing a couple of times and wiping his eyes free of tears. "R—Really? You think?"

Lana forced a smile. "Sure. Now, I have an idea. We can just make Zelda—and Link—some chocolates or something. You can't go wrong with sweets, right?"

"Yeah, but that's such a predictable move," Groose complained, but agreed to it once he realized he didn't have any better ideas. "Let's just go with that. I'll make some brownies for Zelda."

"Then I'll just make homemade chocolates for Link," Lana said dreamily, swooning at the image of Link that magically appeared in her mind. She pictured out the situation—her giving the chocolates and Link receiving them, coming so close to her face and—

"Oh!" Lana jumped, realizing she had zoned out in her own world. "Quick, Groose! We gotta get the materials and plan this all out!"

So, they did just that, using Lana's money to pay for all the goods they bought. Exiting the store, they held onto their lightweight bags full of the necessities for creating their sweets.

"Well, neither of us traveled here by car, so we have to walk home," Groose observed, to which Lana just nodded along to.

"Alright. It's February first, and we need to have them done before the fourteenth, obviously," Lana instructed, beginning to walk home. Groose's home was in the same direction as Lana's route for awhile, so they had a couple minutes to discuss their plan.

"That's a Wednesday, right?" Groose questioned.

"Mhm. Therefore, we have about two weeks until Valentine's Day," Lana said.

••

Those two weeks passed by quicker than everyone had expected. Today was February fourteenth, Valentine's Day.

The moment Link walked into school, he saw people handing out their Valentine's gifts. Ranging from chocolates to superb gifts, Link felt like his own was pretty cliché and bland.

Holding onto it, he stared down at he box of sweets he had made for a special someone. Anyone who knew Link well enough knew that that special someone was none other than Zelda.

During the two weeks, Link and Midna had discussed over what he should give Zelda. After much debate and controversy, Midna came up with the simplistic idea of just making cookies for her. According to Midna, Zelda loved anything sweet related, especially chocolate chip cookies.

So, the night before today, Link spent most of his time after school making some cookies for Zelda. He felt like it wouldn't be enough, because someone would probably give her something much more extravagant.

Link and Midna had decided he should give them to her during lunchtime, or after school if the former didn't work out for whatever reason. So, he opened his locker once arriving at it, carefully fitting the box of cookies inside of it and grabbing his necessary books. Closing his locker shut, he passed by Zelda as everyone was making their way to class. Zelda seemed to be too focused on going to class, because she only glanced at Link for a second before speeding off.

It was probably nothing, but Link began to overthink it, as per usual.

During his Algebra class, Link dropped his pencil. Not a very exciting experience, but someone sitting next to him offered him a new and mechanical pencil, which was much fancier than his boring number-two pencil.

Gingerly, Link accepted the pencil from the person. "Thank you," he said, and the person just nodded.

"No problem," they whispered. "Isn't your name Link?"

He was taken aback. "How did you know that?"

"Sometimes I sit at lunch with Lana, only because I'm friends with her sister," they explained in a hushed voice. "You're all she talks about."

Link groaned, but then he recognized this person. "I remember you. You're Sheik, right?"

Sheik nodded. "Mhm."

Sheik was about to say something else, but the teacher caught them talking during class and began a frivolous lecture about how they would fail the tenth grade if they didn't pay attention. A lecture that occurred frequently in this class.

"Sheik, dearie!" Mr. Ghirahim exclaimed in a blasphemous tone. "You shouldn't be talking to others while I'm teaching!"

"Mr. Ghirahim, I was just handing him a pencil—" Sheik started, trying to end this pointless lecture, but the pompous man raised his hand firmly in the air and instantly silenced them.

"Silence! You either listen or my class, or you get out!" he exclaimed.

Mr. Ghirahim has anger issues, Link thought.

Despite how angry their teacher had become, his hair somehow managed to stay perfectly in place, the slickness of it not wavering.

"This makes me furious! Outraged! Sick with anger!" he yelled. "All I do is ask you to listen, and then you...you converse with classmates!"

"Mr. Ghirahim, you're overreacting again," a Gerudo girl with red hair, which Link remembered her name to be Riju, said.

Their strange teacher finally calmed himself down, brushing imaginary dirt off of his pristine outfit. "You are correct, Miss Riju. I thank you for calming me down."

Riju rolled her eyes, resting her knuckles on her cheek. "Yeah, no problem."

"Shall we carry on?" Mr. Ghirahim chirped, as if his outburst just seconds ago never even happened in the first place.

••

Lunchtime had finally arrived, and Link discreetly took the box of cookies from his locker. The box was small, so he just fit it in his lunchbox until he was ready to give it to Zelda.

As he nervously made his way to the cafeteria, Sheik ran up behind him.

"Oh, hi," Link greeted a bit awkwardly.

"Hello," Sheik said. "Do you mind if Cia and I sit with you at lunch? We'd much rather sit with you guys, as opposed to Lana."

"Oh, uh, I don't mind," Link answered. "You'll have to ask Midna, though. She's very picky about who sits with us. Zelda and I are the only ones who have been accepted by her."

Both of them entered the cafeteria, spotting out Link's usual table and shuffling over to it. Much to Link's dismay, Groose was sitting there and flirting with Zelda. It was a sad attempt at flirting, but he was still doing it, nonetheless. It annoyed Link, again.

Link sat down at the table, making sure to not give Zelda her gift just yet. He wanted to rid of Groose before that happened.

Sheik just stood there awkwardly. "Mind if Cia and I sit here?" they asked.

Midna looked up and shook her head. "No. Go away."

"Okay, whatever," Sheik grunted, making their way over to the table where Lana and Cia were sitting, with heaps of the popular crowd there as well.

Midna nudged Link's side. "Give her the gift," she whispered, making sure Groose didn't hear. He was too indulged in flirting with Zelda that he didn't even hear them.

"Not yet," Link whispered back. "I don't want Groose to be here when I do."

"Then you're gonna have to wait until the end of the day, because Groose isn't gonna leave," Midna said back in a quiet voice, forcing a smile when Groose glanced her way.

Link didn't want that to be the case, but that was his only option now. Otherwise, Groose would go berserk on him for giving Zelda a gift.

He was surprised that Groose hadn't given her anything at this point. Surprised, Link crossed his arms over his chest and just glared at Groose.

Thankfully, the school day ended quickly and everyone was released.

Just like Link's plan, tons of his peers were giving their dates gifts for this special day of love. They all looked so confident in doing so, but Link was never one to judge someone by how they outwardly acted. You never know what someone else is thinking. He wished other people had that mindset. Wouldn't the world work a little better if things were like that? It'd be too easy, then.

Link was staring at the box of cookies, when he heard the rustling of grass emit from behind his back. Peering over his shoulder, he wasn't very surprised to see Zelda standing there with a quizzical look on her face.

They just stared at each other for about five seconds, until Zelda pointed directly at the box he was holding.

He gasped a little bit, feeling his cheeks grow warm as he hid the box in front of him. Then, he stood up from where he was sitting on the ground, maneuvering the box around so that it was behind his back this time.

Inhaling and exhaling sharply, Link bestowed the box to Zelda, though it wasn't much of a surprise to her since she had seen it already. She was just surprised he was giving it to her.

Gingerly, she accepted the pink box, lacing her fingers over the delicate pink bow and strings that had been tied elegantly around it. Then, she opened the actual box, chuckling when she saw the batch of cookies.

Her eyes averted upwards, meeting his. Link froze a bit, waiting for her reaction.

It was almost subconsciously that their faces drew near each other, but they both wanted this to happen.

Zelda closed her eyes just as Link did, waiting for the impact of his lips meeting hers. That never happened. She opened her eyes and saw herself staring at the skies with puckered lips.

Warily, she looked around for Link, soon finding him being screamed at by Groose.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Groose yelled, pointing at Link as he screamed.

Link furrowed his eyebrows, shoving Groose a couple of inches away from him. "What do you think?! You completely ruined that!"

"Ha, that was my intention!" Groose exclaimed proudly, looking towards Zelda and seeing how heartbroken she looked. This made his happy aura instantly die off, and he slumped his shoulders in disgrace.

"Why does she even like you?" the red haired man wept, feeling anger slowly overtake him.

"How do you know she likes me?" Link retorted.

"You're being an idiot!" Groose yelled all of a sudden. "She tried to kiss you! Friends don't just do that—on Valentine's Day, especially!"

As Link was trying to make up a clever response to that, despite the fact that Groose could've been partially correct, he saw blue hair coming towards him out of the corner of his eye.

"Linky-poo!" Lana said in a singsong voice, handing Link a gigantic pink box. "Happy Valentine's Day! Those are homemade—by me!"

Opening up the box, Link saw tons of small chocolates all neatly placed inside of it. They looked delicious, but then again...it was Lana who made them.

He faked a smile. "Wow! Thanks, Lana."

The girl nodded and happily skipped away, not wanting to intervene on the fight between Groose and Link.

Turning around, Link handed over the chocolates to Groose—well, more like shoved it into his arms.

"Keep those. I don't want 'em," he said through clenched teeth, feeling like that this entire incident, one that lasted about fifteen minutes, had completely drained Link of all his mental energy. He didn't even listen to Groose's shouts, walking back over to Zelda and shrugging his shoulders.

Zelda just smiled sympathetically, her eyebrows lowering. She looked really heartbroken. But of course, Link didn't have any ounce of courage to do what he could've done minutes ago. He was living in the moment then, and during those times, anything was possible for him.

That moment was over, and he couldn't do that again. Not until another opportunity came up.

He desperately wanted to speak to her, but with his current knowledge of sign language so far, he didn't think that informing her of dairy products would benefit in any way. He still had a lot of work to do, with the help of Telma.

So, he briskly hugged her instead, mentally planning to apologize for this incident once he got home over text.

Once he let go, Zelda didn't look as sad anymore, which made Link feel a little bit better.

If Groose hadn't intervened, this entire evening would've played out much smoother.

Link despised Groose even more than he did before, if that was even possible at this point.

••

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