Chapter Text
"Ow ow ow ow ow ow!" Zelda muttered.
Yunobo quickly let go of her hair and backed away, tears already welling up in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Miss Zelda! I won't try to get your attention again!"
She sighed, and crouched down next to the kid. "No, no, it's fine, Yunobo. Just know that it hurts when you pull someone's hair. Alright?"
He nodded and blinked the tears away. For how sensitive he was, Zelda was always surprised at how quickly a few kind words soothed him.
She smiled. "Now, what was it that you wanted?"
Yunobo smiled up at her. "We wanted to play a game with everyone."
Zelda raised an eyebrow. " Everyone? Even Link and Purah?"
He nodded excitedly. "Yeah! You've got to come!"
She laughed at that, but let herself be dragged along by his grip on her hand.
Zelda hadn't been sure if she wanted to take this class, but Link talked her into it, telling her how much fun it was and how she seriously needed at least one class that she was able to wind down from her heavy honors track and advanced engineering class load. But now, only a couple of months into taking it during her senior year, she was so glad he had convinced her. Even if a study hall might have been a good place to work on homework and study, this was so much better as a distraction , a way to get out of her head and de-stress, even if it were only for an hour a day.
When they stopped in front of the play kitchen, sure enough, everyone else was gathered there already, even Link and Purah. She smiled at Link, her long time best friend, and slid next to him, Yunobo eagerly going into the conversation with the rest of the kids and Purah.
"So?" Zelda whispered into his ear. "What are we playing?"
Link shrugged. "I don't know. They didn't tell me. But just look at then talking over there. They're plotting something. I just know it."
She rolled her eyes. "Do you think they'll make us the bad guys and team up against us or try to get us to kiss this time?"
"Why are they so convinced we like each other, anyways?" he snorted.
Zelda was glad that she had a lifetime of suppressing her blushes to rely on. Otherwise, Link probably would have found out by now that she had truly and properly fallen in love with him sometime around the beginning of high school. But she never said anything about that, never could say anything about it, because what might happen the risk of anything happening to their friendship, going strong since they were assigned to be seat partners in kindergarten.
"We've decided!" Sidon shouted, drawing Zelda out of her thoughts. "We're going to play house!"
Link raised his eyebrows, looking at them. "Oh? Who's going to be the mom and dad?"
Riju, the youngest one at three that really was only there because her Aunt Urbosa was the teacher over the class, ran up and held onto their legs. "You two are!"
Zelda narrowed her eyes in Purah's direction. "Really?" The kids interpreting their relationship as romantic was one thing, but the fact that Purah joined in was quite another. “Nobody else wants to?”
“Nope!” Sidon said eagerly. “We all wanted to be something different! I’m going to be the older brother, Yunobo wanted to be the dog, Teba wanted to be the neighbor, Riju’s going to be the little sister, and Purah’s going to be the baby!”
“How fitting,” she said, still looking at her friend. “She is the most childish of us all.”
In response, Purah made a peace sign and smiled. “Check it!”
“Daddy,” Riju said, looking up into Link’s eyes, apparently more than content to get into their roles and let the game start already. “Can you hold me?”
He looked down at her and smiled. Kids really were his soft spot. He had taken this class for a reason, and it fit him perfectly. Might actually even be Zelda’s favorite thing about this class, was getting to see him like this. “Sure.”
And the game began. Zelda going off to work, because Link was the stay-at-home dad because he was a “better” cook— or he made play-cooking more fun for the kids, though he was better at it than she was in real life— and then she came home to relax at the end of the day. They ate dinner, and then sat down and cuddled up to each other while they all “watched TV.”
That was when Teba, apparently, forgot about all their roles. He frowned at them. “Are you two dating? ”
Zelda sighed, and began to open her mouth to respond, but Link spoke up first. “No, of course not. We’re the mom and dad. We’re married .”
She snorted a laugh, turning her head and burying it into his shoulder, trying and failing to suppress it.
Apparently the pretend-tv had begun to lose its appeal, because everyone else seemed to latch onto the conversation.
“You guys are married!? ” Riju squealed.
“No, Riju! They’re just talking about the game . High schoolers can’t be married.” Teba turned back to them. “But… you’ve got to be dating. For real! Right?”
Each and every one of them was staring at them with puppy dog eyes, Purah included.
Zelda sighed, and turned her head towards Link, whispering, “One of these days, I’m half-tempted to just tell them that we are so that they’ll stop hounding us about it.”
He glanced at her. “Shall we, then?”
“ What!? ”
Now was one of those times she was glad she was able to avoid blushing so easily.
“Well,” he continued in those hushed tones. “I mean, like you said. They’ll stop bugging us about it. And they’re kids, all they’ll probably want to see is us holding hands, which I wouldn’t mind doing with my best friend, and act out love stories like we already do half the time anyhow.”
“And Purah? ” she countered. “I have engineering with her! She won’t shut up about it.”
Link shrugged. “Explain it to her. As annoying as she likes to be, I figure she’ll probably understand.”
He didn’t know Purah as well as Zelda did, and he definitely didn’t know that the girl had long since known about her crush and think that it might be real. But he did have a point, that it would be pretty easy to just explain. And would it really be so bad to date her crush for one hour every school day?
“Okay,” she sighed, turning back around to the kids, grabbing Link’s hand, intertwining their fingers and holding them up for all to see. “You caught us. We’re dating!”
The room burst into guffaws of positive joy. The only ones who weren’t were Urbosa at her desk working on prepping for a different class and Purah staring at them wide-eyed. Yeah… she would definitely need to talk to her later.
“Kiss!”
Zelda wasn’t sure who was the first one who said it, but the rest of the kids quickly joined in on the chanting.
“KISS! KISS! KISS! KISS! KISS!”
She froze. They were merely faking a relationship. Had barely started that , even, with probably not enough thought. And this just confirmed it. She wasn’t prepared to just go ahead and do as they wanted and actually kiss Link, especially because she actually liked him. How could they get out of this?
Apparently, Link was able to get out of his stupor and start talking first.
“Okay,” he said in an exaggerated tone. Zelda heaved a sigh of relief at that, knowing that he was putting on some sort of show to get them off their backs again. “We’ll kiss.”
Well, it was still a bit concerning to hear him say that so nonchalantly, even if it was just for a show. Especially once he turned her towards him and started leaning in towards her.
“We’ll kiss,” he continued. “We’ll kiss all the time in front of you guys, and hardly ever stop, since you seem to want to see it so much.”
“NO!” “EEEEEWWWWW!!!!!!” “STOP IT!” “We don’t want to SEE it!”
They all offered up their protests, and Link stopped leaning in, though he still stayed there, his lips hovering over hers so close that she could feel his breathing. Though he couldn’t feel hers, because she wasn’t breathing, just her barriers finally falling as she blushed and stared at his face as he glanced at the kids with a smirk in his eyes.
“You don’t want to see us kiss?” he asked, sounding incredulous. Zelda barely noticed it as things to process later, much more concerned with his proximity to her. “But you were just saying you did!”
“Not in front of us!” Sidon complained, and everyone else quickly chimed in to agree.
Link finally pulled away, and Zelda was still reeling from what had happened, but at least she could breathe now. “Fine, I guess we won’t . It’s more fun to be all kissy-kissy when we’re not in front of a bunch of nosy kids, anyways .”
The bell marking the end of the hour went off then, bringing them all out of the sense of lost time that always seemed to happen whenever they set foot in the classroom.
The high schoolers quickly grabbed their bags that didn’t get unpacked at all and started heading to their next class after bidding farewell to Urbosa and the kids.
Zelda said goodbye to Link next, at least until lunch later when they could meet up, and continued with Purah towards the engineering classroom, which was their shared next class.
Purah raised an eyebrow at her friend, who looked away. “So? Since when have you and Link been dating?”
Zelda glowered at her, and began to protest. “We’re not—!”
“I know, I know ,” she quickly interrupted. “That might have fooled those kids, but your reaction makes it obvious that it wasn’t like you’ve been secretly dating or anything. Otherwise you’d be ecstatic to kiss the boy you’ve been in love with for years .”
She sighed. “You’re right. We just wanted the kids off our backs, and figured that would appease them.”
“You could just confess to him, you know.”
“Purah,” she groaned. “I already told you, I don’t want to risk ruining our relationship. Even if he somehow felt the same way, if we might break up because something went really bad, I’d be losing my oldest friend, too. I’m not prepared for our relationship to change because of it, regardless.”
“I… think you ought to try. I think you have more of a chance with Link than you seem to believe.”
“Just drop it, will you? It’s my decision.”
Purah nodded. “Got it! Fake dating in front of the kids. Refuse to confess to Link for some reason I don’t really understand. I won’t say a word about it.”
Zelda looked away, not wanting to talk about it any more.
Because it hurt to realize that it was fake dating.
And she would love for it to be real.