School's boring. Robin remembered a time when he was excited to learn, to discover new things, but that was a long time ago. Now, being someone who could learn something from just watching, he found an entire nine or so months of school as being completely unnecessary. But at least the teacher was hot, so it wouldn't be a full waste of a year. Though, Professor Chrom did look awfully familiar...

"He's Lucina's dad," Zelda said once lunch break came along. They were sitting at a big, long table at the edge of the cafeteria.

Robin dropped his fork. "What?"

Zelda nodded her head. "I'm surprised you didn't notice it earlier, I mean, they look exactly the same."

"In my defense, there's a lot of blue-haired/blue-eyed people in this school, from what I've seen at least," Robin pointed out.

"No, you're right, there are," Zelda agreed. "To be perfectly honest, I thought they were all just a gigantic family when I first started here."

"Fair enough," Robin said. "Anything else I should know about Lucina?"

Zelda smirked. "Why do you wanna know? Are you crushing on her?"

His expression didn't shift as he picked up his fork again, but the blush that tinted his cheeks gave her the answer. "I'm just curious, that's all."

"Riiiight," Zelda sighed, smiling. "Well, she's dating Palutena-"

And there goes the fork again. He picked it up quickly, though his hand was shaking now. "Is that so? Cool, really cool."

"You didn't know? She didn't tell you?"

"Nope, I, uh, never bothered asking either."

"Why would you ask, hmmm?"

"Uh-"

Just as he was trying to make up an excuse, someone, or something, bumped into his head, causing his glasses to fall off his face, shattering upon impact with the ground. Robin looked at the broken frames with a mix of surprise and lack thereof. Well, it was bound to happen at some point anyway, at least now he had a legitimate excuse to get new glasses.

He looked up to meet his new potential bully, but was instead met by the worried blue eyes of a blond, kinda short, and very pretty man. His mouth was agape and tilted down with worry. He held his hands up, like he was about to do something with them, but instead froze. He looked back and forth between Robin and Zelda, growing more panicked and worried by the second. Weird. Shouldn't Robin be the one having this reaction?

Zelda, sensing the growing confusion and panic, waved her hand at the man, drawing his attention to only her. She held her hands up and began moving them as she spoke. "Link, sign me what you want to say and I'll translate."

Ohhh sign language. Wait. But then, doesn't that mean...

Robin turned to this Link guy as he quickly and rather sloppily signed to Zelda. "I'm so sorry, are you okay? I didn't realize my backpack was that wide I actually thought it kinda empty still, I'm so sorry I'll pay for the glasses since it's my fault they got broken and-"

Robin, though hesitantly, put his hands on Link's, putting a stop to his maddened signing. "Zelda, do you mind translating?" She nodded. Oh boy this was awkward. "Um, listen, you don't have to pay for my glasses. Actually, I've been looking for an excuse to get rid of them for a while now, and you've just given me the perfect one so... thanks."

The relief that washed over the poor boy almost made Robin feel happy. He didn't realize he had caused this guy so much disdain, so he was glad he felt better now. Still, he did feel a little awkward. Even though no words had been spoken on Link's side, his behavior had been noticed by some of the people in the tables around them, drawing attention. Robin hated attention.

"Sooo," Zelda said and signed in an attempt to break some of the awkwardness. "Link, this is Robin, he's new this year. Robin, this is Link, the two of us have been friends since freshman year."

Ah. Well, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Zelda was really nice, of course she had friends. He also only just realized this was the same Link as the Link in 'The Hot Guy Gang,' and yeah, he got why he was there now. "It's nice to meet you," he said, extending his hand. Link smiled and very aggressively shook his hand. Gods, it almost popped out of its socket! Robin chuckled awkwardly and retracted his hand, waving his semi-limp wrist.

Link and Zelda signed back and forth with each other before Link waved goodbye and rushed out of the cafeteria. "He said he's going out of campus for lunch with his friends, but that it was really nice to meet you."

"We can leave campus?"

"So long as you get back on time, yeah."

"Oh," Robin said. Well, now he knew what he was gonna do from now on.

"Don't even think about skipping, I'm not letting you."

Dammit. "So, are you and Link close?"

"I mean, we were freshman year since we were both new to the district and I was one of the few people that knew sign language. He's always been more active and friendly than me, though, so after he started doing sports and hanging around other people, we started talking less and well, you know," Zelda smiled, almost sadly. He couldn't help but feel a little guilty for some reason. Or maybe it was empathy, having gone through similar things himself.

"Yeah," was all he could say. He picked up his broken glasses, staring through the shards of the frames at Zelda. "You ever worn contacts?"

She shook her head. "My brother does, though. I remember the first time he wore them he stabbed himself with his fingernail and couldn't open his eye for a solid hour."

Well, that certainly didn't help his unease. "I-I think I'm gonna have to wear them until I can replace these."

"Oh! Well, he got the hang of them eventually! He doesn't stab himself anymore, at least," Zelda said.

He smiled. He appreciated her trying to comfort him, but truth be told he was still very afraid of accidentally popping an eye with his nail.

The sound of light drizzling snapped him out of his thoughts. The duo turned to look behind Zelda at the set of large windows covering the back wall of the cafeteria. Rain. Everyone in the cafeteria started groaning, and he figured they probably noticed it too. Well, hopefully, no, surely it wouldn't get worse than this.

***

Zelda stopped by Nurse Aerith's office at the end of the day. She had to drop off some paperwork and she thought it would be a quick-and-done thing but Aerith was surprisingly talkative. She was very nice though, so she didn't mind staying back for a little while longer. Not like Robin would be waiting for her, since he got stuck with cleaning the classroom. She wanted to wait for him, but he insisted she went on ahead before the rain got worse. As if it wasn't already pouring.

The halls were practically empty, with the exception of a couple students probably waiting for the rain to lessen. As she neared the entrance of the school, she regretted not having brought an umbrella by the step. She stopped just before venturing into the wildly pouring rain, sighing as she devised a plan on how to get the least wet as possible. Though, with the wind that came with it, she somehow doubted anything she came up with would yield satisfying results.

"You don't have an umbrella?" She turned around and saw none other than Ike standing there with an open umbrella over his shoulder. Why was he talking to her?

"Um, no, I didn't," She answered. "I didn't know it was gonna rain."

"No one did, it was pretty sudden. Looks like hurricane season isn't over just yet," he said, stepping closer to her.

"Is this a hurricane?!" Zelda gasped.

He stood at her right, the direction the wind was coming from. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Well, maybe. Who knows, maybe this is actually a lead up to a tornado?"

"There's no tornadoes around here," Zelda said with a raised brow. Cute.

"Who knows? Anything can happen," Ike smiled. "Anyway, I'm Ike, it's nice to meet you."

"I know that," she said. That sounded way meaner than she meant it to, and judging by the surprised look on Ike's face, he took it to heart too. "I-I know that since you're popular! A-a-and stuff."

"Right," Ike smirked, leaning a little closer to her, eyes half closed. Shit. She could see why he was in 'The Hot Guy Gang.'

"Um, I'm Zelda, it's nice to meet you too," she said with an awkward smile.

"I know that," he grinned. Her face flushed. "Your brother talks about you a lot."

Oh. She almost forgot her brother was also a senior. "Y-yeah, almost too much, actually."

"He told me something about how you fell in a pond full of frogs-"

"He pushed me in there! I was minding my business being the pretty little fairy in my dreams then he pushed me and ruined it all! The frogs were nice though, they didn't all jump on me," Zelda huffed. Then she realized she probably sounded like a lunatic as she slowly took steps towards the battlefield of rain. "Sorry, I started rambling. Um, I should go back to my dorm before the rain starts pouring harder. It was nice talking to you, I hope we can do it again!"

"Hold it," Ike said, grabbing her wrist and pulling her close to him. Almost too close. The heat that burned in Zelda's cheeks only grew hotter. "You'll get all wet and ruin your uniform if you go out there, hell you'll probably catch a cold too. The junior dorms are next to the senior dorms, so I'll just drop you off there."

There was a moment of silence between them. Why was he helping her? Did he want something? But those eyes, they were filled with sincere worry. But why? Why was he so worried? Why should he care if some random girl got sick? Sure she might be his friend's little sister, but it's not like the two of them knew each other personally, they had never even talked throughout their entire high school career. So why..

Regardless, it would be rude of her to turn him down, especially after he gave her such valid reasons. "Alright then, thank you for the help."

As they walked, they were filled by a surprisingly comfortable silence. Zelda had expected it to be way more awkward, but she felt quite the opposite. Combined with the sound of the rain, loud as it may be, and the almost foggy look of their surroundings, she felt quite relaxed. Not to mention, Ike himself made her feel... happy, almost. Something about his aura made her feel safe, though that may be because he's a solid foot taller than her and very well built. Everything about this was weird, from him suddenly talking to her, to her being immediately used to it. Who knows, maybe her brother was sending telepathic signals to her brain telling her to trust him.

The dorm buildings came into view, finally, and she debated for a moment whether to make a run for it and get soaked. Figured it wasn't worth the risk. And to make things so much better for herself, as they went up the steps to the junior building, she slipped on a very slippery piece of pavement. How that was possible, she didn't know, and she didn't have time to think about it as she yelped and fell back. Well, there went the rest of her life. Life was short enough already, nice to know it was about to be shorter.

But instead of hitting the hard ground and getting covered in rain, a hand pressed against her back to stop her fall, then snaked to her waist to help balance her. She instinctively put her hands up, holding onto the first thing she could, which just so happened to be the strong arm of the very man who had prevented her fall in the first place.

"Are you alright?" He said in a quiet and gentle voice. Zelda couldn't help but stare at those bright, worried turquoise eyes of his. A feeling she could not describe bubbled up in her stomach and went up her head as a blush dusted her cheeks. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't bring herself to look away from him. Everything about him was mesmerizing: from his eyes, his Roman-shapped nose, his full lips, his wet hair- wait.

She looked up, only now realizing the umbrella was mostly above her, and just barely above Ike. She gasped, grabbing both of his arms and pulling him closer to her, her chest touching his. "Why did you do that?! Now you're all wet."

"I didn't want you to get wet," he said simply, smiling.

Her eyebrows furrowed. "You're... weird."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Ike chuckled. He reached into his pocket, and that's when she realized she was still holding onto him and therefore let go, and took out two little caramel hard candies wrapped in plastic. "You like these, right? You can have both of them if you want."

She looked back and forth between him and the candies as a headache nestled itself into her. It wasn't uncommon for her to get headaches, ever since her accident when she was little, it was basically a daily occurrence. But usually, they only happen if she's on her phone for too long, so why...

"You okay? The veins in your head are popping out," Ike said. She hadn't realized how much she was straining her face, but as soon as she relaxed, her headache only seemed to get worse.

"Yeah, I just... have a headache," she groaned. She took the candies from his hand and popped one into her mouth. "How did you know I like these?"

He flinched, surprisingly. He seemed to have grown a little nervous because he began to speak very quickly, "W-well, like I said earlier your brother talks about you a lot a-and he mentioned you liked these once a-and.."

"Riiight," Zelda half-smiled. There was probably more to it, but she was too tired and in too much pain to bother figuring it out. "Well, thank you for bringing me to my dorm, I appreciate it."

His nerves were replaced by a smile. "I'm glad I could be of service." She gave him a quick smile before walking towards the entrance, but before she went in, she took one last peak back at him. He was still there, still smiling. He even gave her a little wave. At that, she couldn't help but smile genuinely. What a weird guy. But, it felt nice to have such an oddity in her life. Still, she couldn't help but feel this was all a bit too familiar.