Chapter Text
~Monday~
The guardians had turned against them, leaving the princess with no other choice other than to retreat with her knight to escape the overbearing malice, but the knight was wounded and could barely stand yet he still tried to protect her until his last breath. He shielded her from the guardian's ray but she couldn't accept his death, 'Noo!', she cried as she ran in front of him, a bird screeched an-, 'Wait- a bird? what bird?'.
Saki was pulled out of her imagination by the birds squawking outside and pulled open her floral curtains, cringing as the bright sunlight hit her eyes.
'How can the sun be up it's only-", her alarm clock read: 05:35 AM.
"Aw beans", she sighed. Saki had only meant to read one chapter of her manga before going to sleep but ended up reading multiple volumes and lost track of the time. The habit had started during her last school break but she was a month into her third year and still hadn't been able to shake it.
Saki knew that she had two options: curl up under her warm covers and have an hour nap, or just get up earlier than usual. Despite her strong desire to feel like the cheese in a cheese toastie, she reluctantly chose the latter as she knew that if she gave in to her heavy eyelids now, then there would be no chance of waking her in time for class.
She groaned as she reached over to her bedside table to switch on the radio resulting in a jazzy pop track softly reverberating around the room, "Revive me Takako-san", she mumbled, throwing off her duvet.
Saki stumbled over to her dresser to grab a wide hairbrush and brush through her pink, puffy short hair before sliding a blue headband back to keep it out of her face; it had become her signature look after she wore one every day last year in order to hide the bangs that she had spontaneously cut herself, and immediately regretted.
Her first makeup attempt was sabotaged by her sleep-deprived self rubbing her sleepy eyes without thought, completely smudging it. Her head dropped as she realised what she had done and she briefly contemplated just going into school looking like a strange combination of an emo and pastel aesthetic girl. But alas, she re-did it, covering up her dark circles, mastering the small winged liner look, dusting pink shimmery eye shadow on her lids as well as mascara to her lashes to make her not look as half-dead as she felt. Lastly, she slid slightly tinted strawberry chapstick across her lips and grabbed her tamagotchi from her desk before heading downstairs.
Even after going through the whole rigamarole of her routine, she still had plenty of time to spare so she decided to walk the long way to school, stopping by the convenience store on her way.
The drinks rattled as she opened the fridge door, ice-cold to the touch and beads of condensation sliding down the glass bottles, she grabbed one and held the cold bottle to her temple to soothe her aching head. 'Why can't the weekend just be one day longer, just one', she sighed before paying for her drink and heading out.
Luckily for her, there was also a bakery open on her way there and Saki supposed one of the benefits of waking up early was getting to eat the freshly baked buns. When she bit into the soft, airy bun, and revelled in its bounciness and the still warm red bean filling, she noticed her mood lifting ever so slightly.
The sun glistened on the river adjacent to the grassy hill and the path she strode along, the air was slightly warm, and the faint humming of cars and birds tweeting was all that could be heard until a small meow interrupted the ambience and she looked down to see a white cat trotting along beside her.
It yawned, its small fangs peeking out as it did so, turns out even cat yawns were infectious as Saki yawned too.
"I know how you feel kitty", she mumbled as she stopped walking, the cat's paws stopped too. It looked up at her and bumped its head on her leg, looking so fluffy and warm with its long fur swaying in the gentle breeze.
Saki picked it up and cradled the cat in her arms as she carried on walking after not being able to resist the temptation of a morning cuddle.
The feline slowly blinked at her and meowed, booping her on the nose with its paw; well more like it lightly whacked her in the face but still.
"And why were you up so late mister?", she asked but the cat merely blinked, because it was a cat.
With the sun on her skin, the sound of the river lapping, and the handle of her bag being slightly warm as the sun rays baked it, Saki started to not mind waking up so early.
Her feline friend was utterly adorable when it nuzzled up against her that she even contemplated just taking it to school with her, but she eventually reached the end of the path and found a good spot on a small wall to gently set it down on.
"You have a good nap kitty", she said as she petted its small head. Luckily the feline approved of the spot and curled up into a ball and closed its eyes.
"For the both of us", she added as she yawned once again and lightly booped its little nose before walking away.
It wasn't much further until she reached her school and looked at her jigglypuff themed watch which read: 07:36 AM.
"Of course it is", she sighed and decided to just wander around as the school was enormous and she didn't exactly have anywhere to be.
It was much quieter there with only a slight breeze lightly swaying the trees and a few birds chatting, she supposed that it made sense for no other students there at such a time.
After walking around for a while, Saki stumbled upon the path next to the kyudo dojo. It was a small building with wood-panelled floors, a high ceiling, and a large open wall that overlooked an open grassy area and a separate narrower building that was relatively far from the practice hall as it housed a row of targets. She happened to be facing the open wall where a lone archer was standing in position, but he didn't seem to notice her as he was completely transfixed on the targets ahead.
Although he looked around the same age as her she didn't recognise him, which wasn't too unusual as she didn't know that many students outside of her own class but she would have definitely remembered if she had seen him around the school before as he was unfairly handsome.
She watched as he took a deep breath and raised the tall bow above his head. His eyes were relaxed and his blinking was slow, much like the cat she had held earlier, as he looked down the range.
Slowly, he lowered the bow as he pulled back the string until he was looking down the length of the arrow and the gloved hand that held the string was beyond his head.
She wondered what he was thinking; was he calculating the shot? Focusing on the breeze of the wind? Or was his mind just...quiet? He looked calm, peaceful even, he was just so... beautiful.
The arrow was released, cutting through the air and embedding deep into the target on the other side.
The wind blew through her hair and her gaze was transfixed on the archer. Her lips parted and she took a breath, but when she tried to speak no sound came out.
Saki wanted to call out to him, to talk to him, to learn his name, to know what his voice sounded like, was it deep, soft, gravelly? She wanted to ask him so many questions, 'What he was thinking about?', 'What did archery mean to him?', 'Was he happy or sad?', she couldn't tell.
'Don't get ahead of yourself, he probably wouldn't even want to talk to you', she thought as her shoulders slumped.
He still hadn’t noticed her as he knocked another arrow. 'I should probably just keep going, head to class, maybe get a nap in after all', she reckoned as she took a step further down the path.
Suddenly, there was a chicken flying over her head and she turned about to see a boy jumping over the wall with a piece of toast in his mouth.
He landed in the bushes but quickly rolled out and scrambled to grab the chicken.
Holding the feathered beast under his arm, he took a bite of his toast and didn't seem to have a thought behind his eyes, 'Oh it's Link', she realised.
The blonde boy was a friend of a friend, Zelda, the student council president, who was also in her class so she saw him around quite often, but it was never normal.
"Good morning, Link", she said sweetly.
Link turned to her and gave a small wave in response but the sound of an arrow whistling through the air caught his attention.
He turned towards the archer, then looked back to Saki who was already back to looking mesmerised by the white-haired beauty.
The chicken wrangler pulled out his phone from his tracksuit jacket pocket and flipped it open. The distinct sound of repeatedly tapping brick buttons caught her attention and she wondered what he was typing. After being in his class for two years she already knew that the boy wasn't much of a speaker and mostly communicated through gestures, passing notes, and emailing.
Saki swayed back and forth on her feet as she waited, but he soon held up his phone screen in front of her and it read: 'Do u ♡ kyudo?'.
'No I heart pretty boys', she thought but would sooner let the chicken bite her than say that out loud.
"I love kyudo!", Saki proclaimed with a bright smile.
Link lit up at that, even the chicken squawked, and grabbed hold of her hand to lead her away.
"Wha-where are we going?", she asked, befuddled by the boy.
Link quickly led her to one of the entrances to the dojo, slid open the door, and brought her inside.
The archer turned to them and, 'Holy Hylia he's even prettier up close', she couldn't tell exactly what colour his eyes were but in the light, they looked like pools of shimmering gold.
Saki hoped her heart eyes weren't too obvious but he only looked at her for a moment before turning to Link.
"Why must you always be late?", the stranger asked in a deep voice as he looked towards Link.
'That was his question? Not hey, why do you have a chicken? Are we both just supposed to ignore the chicken?', she thought to herself as Link began typing again. She was also pushing down the thought, 'Why does he have to sound hot too? I don't have the time for a crush!'.
Link held his phone up to him and he stepped closer to read it before looking at her with his brows raised.
"You want to join the kyudo club?", he asked.
"What?", Saki squeaked as she was surprised as he was.
As Link turned his phone back to himself she saw the message that read: 'I found a new member'.
'A what now?', she began to internally panic.
"Well that's good timing, the principal was close to shutting us down if we didn't find any new members soon", the archer casually told.
'Oh you're kidding! How can I turn it down now?'.
"Yeah good timing", she awkwardly laughed.
'How am I going to get out of this one?', she wondered before another thought popped into her mind, 'Wait, should I? Zelda did say I need to join a new club after getting kicked out last year, archery doesn't seem like that bad of an option?'.
"Have you ever done archery before?", the stranger asked and she shook her head in response.
"I guess we'll take what we can get", he shrugged as he set down his bow.
"We've only got three members at the moment, being me, Revali and Link, when he feels like showing up that is. He still manages to do well in competitions so I don't mind too much but I'm hoping to not get a slacker", he told as he crossed his arms.
"You won't be", Saki said with vigour. Although her interest in archery was approximately one minute old her competitive drive had been blazing for years.
"Good", he said with a smirk and she had to use every ounce of her willpower to suppress a blush blooming across her cheeks as he looked back at her with a piercing gaze.
The door on the other side of the room slid open and there stood a boy with blue, braided hair who she did recognise as one of the popular boys from another class called Revali. He always seemed to have a group of girls fawning over him as many found him to be attractive; he wasn't her type but would describe his aura as oddly sparkly. However, Saki remembered him most as the boy who always seemed to have at least one rose petal on him, although she didn't know how as their school didn't have any rose bushes.
"Hey Teba- Oh? Helloo", the boy said with a grin as he noticed her and scanned her up and down with his eyes as he greeted her.
Teba promptly walked over, shoved his face out of the way, and shut the door on him.
"That person doesn't exist, erase your memory of him", Teba instructed.
"Hey!", she heard from behind the door.
Revali promptly opened the door again and shot a glare at Teba.
"Oh, I didn't know our school had a ghost?", Saki decided to play along.
"I know my beauty is so otherwordly that it's hard to believe I'm real, but I can assure you that I am", Revali boasted as he flipped his braid over his shoulder, and she noticed Teba roll his eyes at his remark as he approached her.
"You are quite beautiful yourself, though not as much as me of course", he remarked and she had to resist the urge to roll her eyes too.
"What are you doing here? Are you lost?", he asked and Teba chimed in, "Strawberry shortcake here's joining us".
"Hey!", Saki responded on instinct as she assumed that he was mocking her but he seemed slightly taken aback by her offence.
"I was kidding, your hair it's...cute", Teba responded, seeming rather shy as he awkwardly pointed to her hair like she didn't know that it was pink.
Her cheeks flushed the same bubblegum pink as her hair but she composed herself enough to reply, "Oh...well thanks, Legolas".
Teba seemed puzzled by her reference but Link got it and offered her a high five which she happily accepted.
"Who's that?", Teba asked, confused.
"Lord of the rings?", she prompted but he merely shook his head.
"No? Really! It's a fantasy book, Legolas is an archer character in it, you might like it! I can lead you my copy if you'd like?", she offered as she got excited at the idea of having someone to talk to about one of her favourite books.
"Sure, why not", Teba shrugged and Saki had to resist clapping.
Link then blew out a leaf that had gotten stuck in his toast and turned to leave as he seemed about done with the interaction.
"Bye, Link", Revali called out and Link turned around to wave them goodbye before leaving with his chicken.
"I have the keys to this place so as long as I'm here you can come practice, and I'm here most of the time anyway. We'll start on Friday though since I'm busy for most of the week and Revali would be a terrible teacher", Teba told.
"Rude", Revali commented as he went to grab his bow.
Saki wasn't being very subtle with her crush as she visibly lit up at the implication that he would be teaching her, "Okay! See you Friday then?", she exclaimed with a bright smile.
He seemed to stare at her for a moment before replying, "See ya Friday", his voice sounding much softer than it did a minute ago.
He turned away from her and she went to leave but she did notice Revali smirking at him before she did.
He was still smirking after she left and Teba said, "Oh, shut up", as he went to grab another arrow.
"I didn't say anything!", he complained, before laughing at Teba's glare.
Later on in the day, Saki asked Zelda who he was, as their president knew everyone, and discovered that he was a transfer student that had joined their school just a month prior but he tended to keep to himself most of the time.
Her mind kept drifting back to the archer throughout the day but she tried to hall those thoughts out of her head as she had other things to focus on other than a crush, but if she wore dangle strawberry earrings the next day because she secretly liked her new nickname then that was her business.