Legend Of Zelda Fan Fiction ❯ Contemplations on Condescension ❯ Into the Pool ( Chapter 9 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Chapter 9: Into the Pool

Having heard the glass break, my wife arrived from the other room in a fuss. She was surprisingly indifferent to the ink stain by the door and the severely damaged guestbook. However, she was profoundly upset by the dusty pile of shattered glass that had once been a turtle. Upon discovering the broken-off head of the thing, she described to me in horror that it had been her father’s, that her grandfather had bought it and given it to her father when he was just a child, and that he had then given it to Anju when she was similarly young. It happened to be shortly before her father had abandoned their family. At this point in the history, my wife began sobbing openly, collecting the sharp, shattered pieces with her bare hands.

Well, if the thing were so valuable, then what was it doing in the desk?

I walked over and knelt beside her, brushing off her sparkling hands and picking up the rest of it myself, and the inkpot. I threw the remains of the former in the trash and replaced the latter in the desk, along with the broken pen, which I’d slipped from the bulging pages of the book. When I glanced back at Anju, she was still crying discreetly away from me, looking at a small nub of glass in her cupped palm. I sighed. Now what was I supposed to do, honestly. If I were crying, I would hope my wife would be good enough to ignore it. If anyone else were crying in my presence, I’m sure they would excuse themselves and leave. But not Anju, no. Not my wife. She probably expected me to do something about it. And what was I supposed to do? When we were children and I’d broken something of hers, or had hit her too hard and she’d started to cry, I’d told her to stop it, to be more like a boy, and not to cry (as I had been taught). Crying was stupid. And she, as a child, had cried all the harder for my yelling and had run off. It had consistently gotten her to leave, at least. It had also consistently gotten me yelled at by her mother, then by my own, then by my father at the direction of my mother. Despite the repetition of this lecture, they’d never taught me an alternative method of dealing with the situation, so what good had it done? I’d learned nothing because I’d been taught nothing; yet I was still - even now - being blamed for it.

My wife sat at the far end of the room from where I stood, and yelling was obviously not going to solve the problem now anymore than it had then. What other alternative was there? I could ask her to leave, but this also seemed out of the question. I had to do something, however, because it didn’t sound like she was going to quit anytime soon. I looked at the desk for inspiration, then at one wall, then back to Anju. Nothing. Finally, I decided to take the direct approach and asked, “Is there anything I can do?”

She stopped sobbing, holding her breath as if this would hold back the tears as well. In response to my question, she leaned forward and shook her head but said nothing. I watched cautiously as she stood then, her back still to me. Anju turned fully and smiled despite the redness of her eyes and cheeks. “No, thank you,” she said, then looked down once more and walked past me, still holding the little piece of glass in both her hands. The next moment she was out of my sight, and I wanted to throw myself in a river to wash off the guilt. It wasn’t an altogether bad idea, really. Water. Drowning. I heard her climb the stairs, and as the door to our room was shutting, I shut the outside door and left the inn. It was cool out, and I reveled in the breeze, tossing back my hair as I walked the short distance through South Clock Town. I reached the laundry pool and immediately jumped in, fully clothed. The frigid water alerted me with a start, and I came up gasping for breath. Alright, so it was a bad idea. Why had I done that? Idiot. And all I’d gained was the assurance that this ordeal wasn’t some surreal, sadistic nightmare of mine. It was sickeningly real. And now I was wet, too. I swam the few strokes to the bridge and leaned my arms on it, then rested my cheek on one dripping, translucent sleeve. That hadn’t gone very well at all, any of it. This whole day had been a horror, and of course the one to blame was obvious - but he wasn’t here to accept my condemnation. No, he had run off with a rock to go help another civilization for a while until it suited him to return and play games with me again. Insolent, manipulative brat. And I would be here waiting, of course, and he knew that. He knew it! I slammed my fist on the bridge and it hit with a wet smack; the pain lanced up my arm and I clenched my jaw against it. Another thing that was his fault.

He knew it. He knew I’d be here waiting for him whenever he deigned to return. “In under a year,” my mind supplied with the sarcastic bite of my own voice. Certainly, the boy in the green hat would return, and I would be waiting here for him. There was no doubt. And then I would kill him. ...It was, unfortunately, an idle threat. I couldn’t kill a dog if I tried, and I certainly would never try, much less come close to killing a young boy, however irritating. But the thought of strangling that little neck was somewhat comforting, however hollow. I hated him. I hated him passionately and completely.

How could he leave? It was a stab at me, as much as his attempt to prance around in the field earlier. But then he had restrained himself, and now he was gone. Obviously the goron had been the deciding factor in his decision - or rather, a convenient excuse. Either way, it would be a long time before I saw the little terror again; that much was for certain. I had no doubt he would stretch that “year” term out for as long as he could, if he even chose to remember that aspect of our bet. “I’ll return when I can” he had said to my wife. “I don’t want to tell you when I’ll return, but think well of me anyway” is what he had meant. No, it wouldn’t be any time soon. I pulled myself out of the water and sat shivering on the wooden bridge, resigning myself for a long wait. I consoled myself with the knowledge that he was a lying, ruthless, vicious little creature, but he was also terribly stubborn: and if he said he would return, I didn’t doubt his word. He wouldn’t give me the satisfaction of never coming back and, thus, proving him false.

I sighed. He did have the right to forfeit. I could admit it now. ...But it was certainly a cheating way of losing, as a decision to lose on purpose can never technically be called a loss. Duplicitous... But if he wanted to lose, then I should let him. All the better for me. I wouldn’t have to worry about his ridiculous “anything” term (What could he have possibly asked for, anyway?), and he would have to answer my questions, giving me exactly what I’d wanted from the start. It was a definite victory, however delayed. I won, and much quickler than expected. Why should I count it as a loss, just because he’d been the one to declare the game over?

...For exactly that reason. I’d be damned before I let the brat have his way, making a fool of me. And here he’d done it again, as predicted: said a quip and flitted off without any attempt at an explanation. Arrogant, infuriating child! He was invariably annoying, if reliable in no other aspect. Invariably frustrating.

It grew colder as the sun lowered, but my clothes were long-dry by true dusk. I needed to return to the inn for dinner, and the thought was enough to make me lose my appetite. But I couldn’t allow my wife to eat alone, and there were still remnants of guilt in my gut to atone for that my dive into the pool hadn’t cleansed. So, to dinner I went. Anju didn’t seem surprised to see me at the table, but she didn’t seem delighted by my presence either. She didn’t smile, and the absence of it was strange and unsettling, like a still-smoking candle. We ate in silence (as I’m not prone to talking while I eat, and my wife made no effort at conversation), and the silence stretched even after the food was gone. I considered any topic I could possibly bring up, but nothing suitable came to mind. And I’d be damned before I deigned to discuss anything as asinine as general health or the weather. Instead, I complimented the meal, which was poor even for her standards, and Anju thanked me quietly. I offered to do the cleaning, and she thanked me again with her eyes downcast. The dwindling conversation died there. After a few more moments of absolute emptiness, and still without looking at me, my wife asked if I would close up the inn, because she wasn’t feeling well and thought she would go to sleep early. I “of course”ed, and she retired to our room. I assume she stayed there for the rest of the night. I did not remain to verify it. Besides, I was relatively unconcerned by her odd behavior. Let her sleep it off; I was sure this mood of hers would pass.

I locked up with my own key and was once again back at the laundry pool: the inn - and particularly my room - being far too forbidding to sleep in. I lay on the bridge, watching the stars for the better part of the night. At some point, Ric left the shop and walked into the better part of Clock Town, stepping over me as if I were no more than a protruding nail in the wood. He returned some hours later with a long, cloth-wrapped package dangling over one shoulder. I looked inquisitively up at him as he stepped over me again, and he looked down at me in return, his shaded glasses falling forward onto his nose. “By the way,” he said, “You owe me fifty rupees for the books.”

I glared up as defiantly as one can in that position. “They were worthless,” I lied, “And you should pay me for disposing of your trash.”

“That bad, huh,” he said, already walking back to the shop without even the decency to stay put for our conversation. “Make that fifty a piece, then.”

“I’m not paying!” I shouted, still glaring up at the sky. I heard him laugh deeply, and the door to the shop was opened and shut behind him. I didn’t hear the door lock, and I assumed this to be a gruff invitation (and an unnecessary one, since I’d had my own key for years) - but one I didn’t care to accept. And I certainly would do nothing to atone for my destruction of the books. They weren’t floating in the pool anymore. I wondered vaguely if he’d fished the bloated things out of the water or if they’d simply sunk to the bottom. It didn’t matter, but it would have been amusing to watch him strain to reach one of the floating books without falling in. Maybe he had fallen in. I hoped he had. On my meditations of Ric, I was also curious as to what he’d bought of that size and shape that had required concealing. Weaponry, most likely, though the package looked a bit too thick and oddly-shaped to be a cluster of spears and too long to be swords or axes or anything likewise short. I was sure I’d find out eventually, anyway. Whatever they were, they’d no doubt be on display in a day or so.

The sun was rising beyond the walls by the time I was falling asleep. When I woke some hours later, it was to a blinding, bright white sun. I kept my eyes closed and remained still, wondering what I could possibly do now. No more Green-hat, for a year. I would have to return to that routine, again, I realized: the one where I spent the morning here, the afternoon working at the inn, and the night here once again. And the thought of doing this for another year was horrifying. Given, there was nothing truly terrible about the schedule. I had, after all, made it myself, based around my own desires. But the sheer emptiness of it, on so long a scale as a year, terrified me. But what else could I do? As I lay there thinking like this, I felt no desire to move. I imagined that I would lay there forever in the sun, not eating, not sleeping, completely ignored. I imagined my body drying out and shrinking as it shriveled from the lack of food and abundance of heat, until I was no more than a pile of dust on the bridge, just waiting to be blown away completely by a strong summer wind. Somehow this fate was preferable to another year of my current life as it was.

I decided to start dying right that moment and see how long I could last. With one hand up for shade, I watched the sun as it moved slowly across the white-grey sky. And when my arm grew tired, I switched hands. And when that arm grew tired, the sun was low enough to watch directly, turning orange as it fell over my head and out of my sight. Then I watched the sky as its grey melted, revealing the radiant pinks beneath. Then the water, too, melted from blue to orange, to purple, to grey-black. Then it was night, and I watched the minuscule white moon and the flickering stars. By this point, I was sore, hungry, rather bored, and surprisingly thirsty. But I refused, still, to move. I would die here, I told myself. And what would Green-hat do then, when he condescended to return and found only dust?

I managed to fall asleep without trying sometime in the night. I hadn’t realized it until I was abruptly woken by something sharp digging into my left shoulder. I started and swatted at it, only to discover the offensive thing was the toe of a hard grey boot. Ric set his foot down and squatted beside me, watching me as I struggled to sit up with his amused dark eyes. “You look like you haven’t moved since yesterday,” he said.

There was a bitter humor in that, and it shone in my retort, “I haven’t.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound healthy.” He replied immediately, readjusting his weight on raised toes. “Did you eat?”

“No,” I spat, leaning my back, then my head against the solid stone wall. Why ask me that? Wasn’t it obvious? Where would I have gotten food from; I wasn’t a fish. Ric was an imbecile if he couldn’t see that, and I just wanted him to go away. Dying had put me in a foul disposition, and I didn’t want to deal with his uninspired opinions. However, I had no say in the matter as he sighed dramatically and grabbed my arm, pulling me up by force. “Hey!” I shouted at the affront, but it did nothing to stop his efforts.

“C’mon,” he said, dragging me along the side of the pool; the grip on my arm was rough and secure. “You’re such an idiot sometimes.”

I snarled and fought against him, finally managing to get his hands off me before we could reach the door. I dusted my shirt and vest down ceremoniously, then glared at him. He merely looked at me with a long-suffering expression. After a moment of our staring, me growing more and more frustrated by his nonchalance, I lunged at him, struggling to get a good hold of his shirt. The move was unexpected, and Ric shouted. Before he could catch his balance again, I angled him ever closer to the pool, and finally shoved him back towards it. He, in turn, caught a hold of my shirt with one hand and pulled me down with him. It happened instantaneously, and there was nothing I could do to halt our momentum. The end result was a rather large splash, and the shocked floundering and gasping and shouting on both our parts. Wet again.

Once Ric had caught his breath again, he stared at me accusingly. I noted with some annoyance that, though his glasses were disarrayed, they hadn’t fallen off. Damn, a minor loss.

“What was that for?!” he shouted, pushing my head with the heel of his hand.

“It’s your fault!” I sputtered, swatting at him and only managing to splash water in his general direction.

We continued struggling for a number of minutes before he pulled himself onto the side and sat there panting like a half-drowned dog. I remained treading water, feeling the blood warm my face in anger despite the freezing cold water I was submerged in up to my shoulders. Ric leaned forward towards me, resting his elbows on his knees, and he said with a caustic slur, “You awake now, precious?”

“Bastard,” I spat, using both hands to splash him... which really did little good as he was already soaked through, and the motion caused me to stop treading and the water to rise up over my head. I came back up coughing.

“You’re such an idiot,” Ric said, and there wasn’t much I could do about it this time. “What did you think you were doing?” he accused, wiping the water off his head and face. “You’re not a damned cat.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I shouted back, trying to glare at him despite the wet hair falling into my eyes.

“It means,” he said slowly, “Go home, Kafei.” He stood up in a huff. “Go change your clothes. Go eat. Go to bed. And go stop being such an idiot.” Thus pronounced, he strode back to the curiosity shop’s door.

“I’ll do what I want,” I called back. He seemed to ignore me, pulling off his boots and over-turning them, spilling the swampish water out. “If I want to drown, I’ll drown!”

“So drown already!” he said, and accentuated this statement with the slamming and locking of the door behind him.

I yelled inarticulately, but there was no further response. Bastard.

Bastard. Bastard. Bastard. I hated him!

I swam to the opposite shore and pulled myself out, and when I turned back, everything was still unchanged and silent, save for the chirping of bugs. Go home, he had said. How dare he. What right did he have to tell me what to do? And after kicking me, and insulting me, and pulling me into the pool. And telling me to drown! I should drown, and see how he liked it then! I stood there in the cold, contemplating the best way to get my revenge for these treacherous acts. My words obviously did nothing to him. My death would be similarly ignored. Living would be more of a nuisance to him. And I doubted vandalism of any kind would even affect him, the man was so insufferably tolerant. What else was there to do... After a number of complicated and unsatisfactory schemes, I decided the best plan of action was simply to ignore him for as long as possible. My existence would bother him far more than my death, and my indifference to him would grant him less than my anger. So, I would avoid him entirely. And, really, how hard could that be? It had worked in the past, after all - though this offence was considerably more jarring than anything he’d done before.

Refusing to stay in such close proximity to his shop, I returned to the inn and heated some soup. I did so because I was cold and hungry, mind you, and regardless of Ric’s words. My will and his will for me just happened to coincide. I was not, by any means, taking his loathsome, offensive advice. As far as I was concerned, the man no longer existed. Good riddance.

I ate the bowlful quickly in an attempt to satiate my vicious hunger, then another. The clocks read was well-past midnight when I finally went to bed, and my wife was sound asleep on her side. She didn’t stir from my weight, which I considered a small blessing. I realized then that I hadn’t slept in my own bed - here - in quite a long while. It was unfamiliar, completely alien from the laundry pool’s airy atmosphere which I so preferred. But the warmth of the blankets and the satisfaction of a full stomach after a day of fasting lulled me, and I fell asleep easily enough. As I did, the previous day’s thoughts were completely gone from my mind; only my longing for the bridge beside the pool and my vehement detestation of Ric remained. Still, disturbingly enough, I dreamt not of Ric, nor water, nor Sakon. Instead, I dreamt of Green-hat, and our deal. I asked him what he wanted, what he would have asked for had he won. And he replied simply, “I got exactly what I wanted.” And then he laughed. I reached out to grab him, but he was gone, and I was alone. There was only darkness, and the mocking echo of his mirth.