Mute - Zelink Modern AU

You'll Never Know (24)

Slowly but surely, Saturday made its way by again, relieving the two. No more school until the exam. Although that was sort of relieving as they had every inch of time they had left dedicated to the project, it was also completely nerve wracking, a bit of a smack in the face reminder of how soon it was.

Although Link had made leaps of progress, he didn't quite know whether he would physically be able to do it. Optimism was his only way of being somewhat realistic.

"How does this sound?" He asked, clearing his throat a second afterwards. "Nowadays acceptance of people with things they can't help about themselves are progressing, but many still aren't realising that there are things they don't know about people that aren't visible to the eye, and they shouldn't be so quick to judge" He anxiously eyed over at Zelda, visibly swallowing hard.

"That sounds really good!" She was actually rather baffled at how well presented it seemed, especially since it was just to her. "If you can continue like that the whole way through, then I guarantee that you'll do fine" she flashed a smile, purely at how Link for some reason didn't expect to be complimented.

"T-thanks!" He said, nudging ever so slightly closer to her on the couch they were sat on.

Instead of over thinking and trying to make an excuse just in case things went south, he tried to take the initiative. After the situation in the school library, he realised he actually really liked to see Zelda a bit flustered. Of course if she was uncomfortable he'd stop immediately, but it really didn't seem that way, more that she was in a panic and didn't really know what to do, but it didn't really seem negative. He was determined to know how she actually felt.

"It's really impressive as to how good you actually are at English" She continued, marvelling at his carefully crafted handwriting.

Leaning over her slightly to get a closer look of what she wrote, Link started analizing how she wrote the little flicks at the end of her lower case 'a's. Unexpectedly, she pulled her work away rather quickly, refusing to let Link see it.

"Mine is no where near as good as yours" She chuckled slightly, slowly tucking a thin strand of hair behind her right ear, adamantly holding the notebook out of Link's sight.

Seeing her genuine embarrassment he decided to leave it. He'd have to listen to it in two days time anyway, so he was rather confused as to why she seemed to care so much. But of course he decided to respect her wishes, backing off rather slowly. Though he still was closer to her than he was before.

"I highly doubt that" He replied, smile visibly increasing as she eased up a bit.

The whole day she had seemed very tense and on edge. Link had just assumed that it was because of the exam stress, but it was so sudden that it was unlikely. Although determined to figure it out and get down to the root of it, Link didn't quite know how. So he did only what he thought he could.

"Are you okay? You've been a bit quiet today" His shoulders slouched as he fell back, sitting shoulder to shoulder with Zelda. She cocked her head quickly once feeling the sudden contact, but suddenly felt better once seeing what it obviously was.

"Y-yeah. I guess I'm just a bit nervous" She replied truthfully, letting her shoulders loosely drop a bit. "I want to do something but I'm scared of the conceqences" Unexpectedly she continued, trying not to be too obvious as to who she was talking about.

"Well, I think you should go ahead and do it. That may sound a bit hypocritical coming from me, but if you never do it you'll never know" Just hoping that he had helped at least a little, he sat up again and continued scribbling onto his piece of paper.

Zelda then sat up with him, after a few seconds of smiling at the back of his head. She didn't say anything, but she thought about an appropriate time to ask. Surely it would be close to her leaving, as that would make sense, and give her time to leave if it didn't go well. So while trying to write more to her project, she thought about how she was going to word everything, which admittedly almost led her to accidently start writing it down.

Every once in a while, Link would recite lines and things he weren't sure about, as to which Zelda would give brief feedback and give him ways to improve. However, she was having a rather hard time with that, as Link was actually really well versed. Of course the way he said things needed a bit of work, but as a whole it was really hard to try and give him advice. Majority of the time, Zelda was just baffled or in awe at the things he said or how he squinted his eyes slightly when trying to think while talking.

The time came where Zelda had to leave. Soon, much to her dislike, the day of watching Link finalising his speech. Although there were many things he refused to share with her, from what she did see and hear, she knew immediately that she was in for a treat.

As she had begun putting her things away, a deep inhale and exhale left her lips as she was preparing for potential rejection.

"Hey... Do you maybe want to have a sleep over at my house tomorrow?" She asked, almost immediately regretting it afterwards.

Link, although shocked, turned to face her with a clearly joyful expression on his face.

"That'd be nice. Actually, it'd probably help me waking up next to a familiar face on the morning of the exam" He smiled, speaking softly although his head voice was screaming.

Zelda's relieved expression was something that he would never forget.

Hey hey! I've started college so updates may be slightly less frequent, as I will have course work to complete more often than not.

On the bright side, my first assignment is to write about the audio, visual, and physical aspects of a game, as well as user psychology.

It just so happens that ya girl got Breath the Wild!!! At least I'll have fun writing this thousands of words essay.

Honestly I'm thriving. I could write for years about this game. Blessed by the goddesses!

I probably know more about botw than I do about myself.