The carriage ride to the hospital consisted of a thoughtful, grateful silence. Both Links housing their own separate interpretations and reactions to the situation the carriage returned them to. Vio and Shadow weren’t in the carriage because Shadow preferred the thought of walking to the hospital to try out his new gift, and, although Vio’s guilt enjoyed the idea of Shadow getting to leave the house, Vio would only allow Shadow to leave on foot with the condition that the two of them leave before sunrise. The two arrived at the hospital an hour before the others and 30 minutes after sunrise.
Now, the lack of their presence added a new strain on the carriage. The three teens, who had never felt so young in their lives, couldn’t help but notice all the emptiness. At least the negative space served as a reminder of where they were going. Never mind gossip and never mind nightmares. Red’s injury was the only thing to worry over now.
It took both forever and a second to reach the hospital. Green spotted it first through the black shading on the right window of the carriage and waved at Zelda to show her to start preparing to leave. Blue, tired from lack of sleep, sat, silently sulking but deep in thought, in the corner. The emerald colored Link saw Vio leaning against a wall before he realized that the wall was actually the hospital.
After the three teens left the carriage, Zelda separated from the Links to enter into the doctors’ side of the hospital. Blue passed Vio without a word, Vio followed Blue, and Green trailed behind, grabbing Shadow on his way past the waiting room. The boys reached Red’s door shortly after.
Blue didn’t like the thought of fear. He especially didn’t like for the others to notice how scared he was of seeing Red so when he reached the door, he opened it without hesitation. It was hard not to be immediately drawn to the red triangle on a nightstand next to the bed. A red shape on a white cube is generally hard to miss, and it was preferable to watch the hat than it was to see its owner, but it didn’t take long for the familiar cone to lose Blue’s attention.
The patient lie, pale-faced and eyes closed, on the white bed. If not for the head of blonde, playfully messed hair, one could hardly tell that the boy in the bed was the ruby of the Links. The shape, to a person who didn’t know, was almost perfectly normal, but to Blue, that one grotesque feature captured all of his sight. On Blue’s right side of the figure, the covers of the bed had a horizontal break in an otherwise perfect slope between the patient’s chest and the bed. On Blue’s left side of the figure, the slope continued from chest to bed in a perfectly curved path. The image itself wouldn’t shock even the newest of doctors or a squeamish civilian, but to Blue, Vio, Green, and Shadow, the knowledge of why the slope was unbroken served as a bone-chilling reminder of the danger of their work.
Blue stood stone still at the door. Green and Vio exchanged glances, but neither made a move towards Blue. Shadow looked quizzically at the clones. What had they expected? Red and Blue were always connected, if unwillingly, in the same way that a duckling always follows its mother. Of course the mother would grieve if its child were hurt.
Seeing that the colors didn’t know how to proceed, Shadow rolled his eyes as he placed his right hand between the tear-colored Link’s shoulder blades.
Blue flinched and turned his head angrily, but the resolute look in Shadow’s eyes, and probably the surprise of Shadow being the one guiding him forward, gave Blue the strength to move his left then his right foot.
It’s hard to imagine him being our enemy anymore, Green thought.
Blue slowly walked towards Red as Shadow gently guided him forward. Shadow felt forcefully glued to Blue’s side, but he didn’t mind; he was used to following others.
Green walked cautiously behind the statue and its shadow. He thought about trying to comfort Blue as well, but he quickly dismissed the idea. Blue was a bomb and Shadow was the flower keeping it from lighting. Some bomb flowers were more sensitive than others, so one had to be cautious of touching all of them, in case you accidently set them off.
Hey, that’s a pretty good metaphor. Green thought in a dim, but present, triumph. I’ll have to tell Vio that when this is over. He’ll probably like that. Vio lightly touched Green’s shoulder, nodded, and smirked.
Unnerving. Always unnerving. The grass-colored Link knew he would still have to tell Vio the metaphor, but the weirdness of having one’s thoughts analyzed to their basic emotion and reaction never seemed to leave.
Blue stood in front of a chair, one of the steel chairs with plastic seats that school students used. Shadow put his hands on Blue’s shoulders and lightly pushed him to a sitting position. The chair squeaked under Blue’s weight, and Red opened his eyes at the noise. With the half-lidded eyes of a tired child, he turned his head towards the chair. A weak, surprised smile transformed the sick boy with blonde hair into their clone, Red.
“Hi, Blue! Hi, Green! Hi, Vio! Oh, hi, Shadow!” He cheerfully exhaled. Almost everyone muttered a small greeting in response, but when Blue didn’t respond, he continued, “what’s wrong? Did I worry you?”
“What do you think?” Blue quietly growled through his gritted teeth, standing up as his voice grew into a shout, “What, do you think? What WERE you THINKING trying to run and get help YOURSELF in the middle of a Din damned AMBUSH? You could’ve gotten yourself killed! How could you be so damn stupid? How could you be so damn insensitive? Do you know how many hours I slept last night? None, because I was too Nayru damned busy trying to not worry, and you’ve got the gall to ask if something’s wrong?” Blue’s fists clenched and his eyes held an un-bottled rage Red had never seen directed at him. The water-colored Link’s cheeks shone bright pink, and his mouth bared a bright white snarl. Green had jumped away from the outburst, Shadow had his hands on Blue’s shoulders again to remind him of where he was and coax him to sit, and Vio stood at Blue’s right side, ready to stop Blue if another bubble of temper burst, as it so often did with Blue.
But it didn’t.
Without Shadow’s coaxing to thank, Blue collapsed into the chair, hunched over with his head buried in his hands, his elbows buried in his knees, and his bangs hiding his darkness-crossed face.
“How,” he asked again, “could you be so stupid?”
Red lie there for one second to think, one second to check if Blue was kidding or not, and another second to think again.
“It wasn’t stupid,” he replied, trying to find the words, “it was childish. I’m sorry. I thought I had a clear path to the castle.”
“Well, you were wrong.” Blue replied curtly, dropping his hands to cross across his lap and looking up at Red through his bangs, “It doesn’t matter what you thought. What matters is that you went alone. We’re a team, Red. The only reason I know that is because that’s what you’re always nagging me about. You’re the one always saying that I don’t have to do things alone. You beg me to follow you to places all the time. Why not then?”
“I thought you hated when I do that.”
“I hate it more when I have to visit you at the hospital. I hate it more when I can’t sleep because the thought of you lying alone in a hospital bed scares me too much. I hate when you beg me for stuff, yes, but I hate it more when I have to wait for a doctor to tell me if I need to borrow Shadow’s wardrobe because you were too scared of making me mad to make the right choice.” A stern, resolute look, similar to Shadow’s earlier one, filled Blue’s eyes, “don’t you ever do this to me again.”
Red lie dumbfounded, watching his best friend since always.
“And stop giving me that stupid look,” a small smirk brushed Blue’s face for the first time in two days, “You know I hate it when you do that.”
