Chapter three

Link looked over at Anju with butterflies in his stomach. Wordlessly, he held up the mask that Madame Aroma said resembled Kafei and faked a corny smile.

"Ah! Y-you're looking for Kafei also?"

Link looked left and right nervously, then nodded slowly.

"I have a request! Kafei... I have a clue... that may help you find him. Tonight at 11:30, please come to our kitchen. We'll talk then."

Link's eyes widened. "Why not now?"

Anju put a hand on her hip. "I-I'm working. Please, just come back tonight."

According to the rotating wooden clock on the wall, it was hardly five. That would waste the whole first day, but maybe this 'hint' of hers would prove useful enough to point out where Kafei was immediately.

"Well... okay. Just know that I'm on a schedule, ma'am. In two days I'll be... uh... 'headed out of town'."

Anju nodded. "I'm aware. I find it likely most of us are."

Link thought for a moment, then realized that he wasn't the only one who knew the moon was falling. "Oh, r-right. Well, I suppose I'll come back tonight."

Link walked outside and immediately got reminded that he stole that poor Goron's room. Although he realized that giving the Goron his room back would put him out of a room, he sighed and trudged toward the Goron.

"Um... Hi, sir... How are you?"

The Goron sat on the ground next to a bench by the front of the inn. "It's a hard world to live in, goro..."

Link sighed. "So, um... There was a mistake earlier. You ever heard of transformation masks?"

The Goron nodded. "Sure, rumors, goro."

Link pulled the Goron mask from his pocket and put it on, transforming into what looked to be Darmani. "When Darmani passed, I got a mask from his tomb. I used it for a bit earlier and the receptionist confused me for you. My name's Link too."

The Goron stared blankly.

"I was excited to not have to pay for a room with my name on it, so I didn't question it. I should've gotten told there was no vacancy, but it was you instead. So..."

Link handed the Goron his room key.

"... Here's your key, Link-Goro."

The Goron stood and took the key from Link. He looked at Link for a second and nodded. "You can sleep in my floor. Just give the door a knock and I'll let you in."

Link took his mask off and grinned. "I appreciate it. I've been trying to stop that moon from falling for weeks, I may take you up on that."

Link-Goro gave Link a bear hug so intense he got PTSD of his time at the Hyrule Goron Village when he defeated the Dodongo, but he took it and accepted it.

And so, as the Goron went inside, Link sat on the bench, pilfering until eleven.

The sun seemed to take longer than the few hours Link waited to set, but he napped on the bench for a bit. When he woke up, it was about eleven-thirty. He hoped he wasn't too late, and ran inside the inn. He went back to the kitchen, and, to his relief, found Anju waiting for him.

When she saw him, she smiled; her smile, however, carried a sense of sadness alongside it. "Oh, hello! I'm sorry to trouble you late at night... It's about him... Kafei."

Link nodded. "As I assumed, yes."

She clasped her hands and began to twirl her fingers. "I received a letter from... him. Strange, getting a letter from a missing persons, isn't it? But there's absolutely no mistaking it's from him!"

Link lowered his eyebrows. "How do you know for sure?"

Anju looked away nervously. "It's clear... to me..."

Before Link could say anything else, she fumbled around in the waistband of her long, blue skirt and retrieved a letter.

"Please! Here is my letter. Please put this in a postbox. I wrote about you, so when this is delivered... When he receives my letter... you should be able to meet him!"

Anju nudged the letter forward, and Link took it from her reluctantly. "And..." Link asked, "... you want me to put this in the mailbox... about fifteen feet from the entrance?"

"Yes. Please tell him Anju is waiting for him."

"You want me to put a letter in a mailbox that's less than twenty feet away..."

"Yes," Anju said.

"... That you could walk to and back from in thirty seconds..."

Anju nodded her head back and forth. "Sounds right."

"... and then you want me to meet your fiance who has not been sighted for two days and who I have no idea the whereabouts of?"

Anju nodded. "That is correct, yes."

Link sighed. "I'd better get mad ladies form Madame Aroma after this."

Anju looked away, twirling her thumbs faster. "I-I know it's a tall order to demand, but please."

Link nodded. "Yes, the postbox thing is a bit much, but I think I can manage to get on with my life somehow."

"Just... Please tell him that I'm waiting for him. A-and after you see him... Tell me how he looked." Her lips curled and she wouldn't look Link in the eyes anymore. She covered her face with one hand, and twirled her hair around the other pointer finger. "I'm scared... I-I can't go."

Link didn't know what to say to her. The chances he'd find this guy in a town full of people after never having seen him were slim. He looked at Anju, a poor girl about to cry over having lost her fiance. There was a chance she could see Kafei again, and Link couldn't ruin that chance for her. Even if he could do it in another set of three days, he had already decided this was the last.

"I... I'll try my best. So please don't cry."

Anju wiped her first tear off her cheek, and rolled her shin-length skirt in her fingers. "Th-thank you. P-please mail it before the postman collects the mail tomorrow."

Link walked outside, dropped the mail in the mailbox, and went back in.

"That was so fast!" Anju seemed shocked, which only confused Link more, but he let it go.

"I know. Impressive, eh?"

After praising him once more, Anju watched as Link walked up the stairs. When she realized that he wasn't staying there, she went after him, but Link had already gotten into Link-Goro's room for the night. He would continue his search the next day, now it was time to drift into a deep sleep.