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Link shot straight up in his bed to stare at the man beside him, baffled.
"I don't like women, Niko."
Niko blinked up at him from his place on their shared mattress.
"Well, that's a shit thing to say."
"Huh?"
"Tetra's gonna kick your ass if she finds out."
Link squinted at him, vision swimming only slightly in his drunken state, and tried to figure out what the everliving hell Niko's ale-addled mind was thinking.
"She's known for years, Niko."
The man's thick eyebrows shot up in blatant surprise.
"That girl's gotta have the patience of Nayru herself to still want you around, then, damn," he mumbled in awe.
Now that was just mean. Link groaned, dragging both of his hands down his face, thoughts drifting through his mind sluggishly as he tried to figure out where the conversation had gone so horribly wrong. Niko had never hinted to thinking like this, as far as Link could recall.
"Niko, what..."
Suddenly, Link was struck by a memory. It was years ago, before they'd stopped making voyages to the Great Sea. There was a night when they'd stopped to rest at Windfall, deciding to drink themselves silly at the bar after a few months of sailing. Of course, Niko was there too.
Niko, back before his hairline had started receding. He stood in one of the quieter corners of the room, chatting up a burly sailor from another boat docked at Windfall for the night. They seemed to get along well, leaning into each other with tipsy smiles. At some point, the two of them stepped out of the bar.
Link hadn't seen them for the rest of the night.
"Niko aren't you gay?"
Niko frowned, his bucktooth digging into his bottom lip.
"What does that have to do with you hating women?"
Link gaped at him.
"I don't hate women, Niko, what the fuck?"
Niko made an attempt at a placating gesture, but his open palms just flopped limply onto his chest.
"Didn't you just say you don't like women?"
Link buried his head in his hands, face red with embarrassment at the dumbest conversation he's ever been a part of.
"I don't like women romantically. I'm gay. Gods above..."
"Ohh..."
The two men stewed in the following silence.
Which Niko broke all too quickly with the mumble of a drunk man quickly on his way to sleep.
"You mean we could've been kissing this whole time?"
Before Link could respond with any sort of gasp, exclamation, or even a coughing fit brought on by inhaling his own spit, Niko's loud snore shook the mattress.
And so Link was left like that, still awake and cursed to imagine what it might be like to make Niko's words a reality until he, too, drifted into sleep.