The game’s centerpiece sidequest involves a pair of lovers, one of whom has gone missing days before their scheduled wedding. There are events spread over all three days, ending shortly before moonfall. It’s possible – easy, even – to block off completing the event chain by helping someone else in the Bombers’ Notebook (the woman from the bomb shop; the thief who steals the bomb bags won’t show up for a needed appointment if he’s stopped). There’s a branch late in the sequence, and both versions need to be completed to get all the rewards. I’ve seen bits and pieces of this story, but haven’t been able to put it all together.
Until now.
Link can find Madam Aroma, the mayor’s wife, in her room preparing for a meeting with Gorman to inform him that their performance at the festival is off because of the situation with Lulu’s voice. Aroma mistakes Link for an expert she hired to find her son, Kafei, who’s missing with just days left before his scheduled wedding, and gives him a mask that resembles Kafei to help in his search. Kafei’s fiancée, Anju, is the innkeeper at the Stock Pot Inn. Early that afternoon, the postman delivers a letter to her from Kafei, but won’t say where he got it. While she’s still verklempt, Link can check into the hotel, stealing another person’s reservation due to having the same name. He can also talk to her with the Kafei mask, and she’ll say she has an idea, and asks Link to come back at 11:30.
There’s lots of time before then, so Link calls Epona to try to explore the canyon a little more. As Epona reaches the tall cliff, a man (the poe collector from Ocarina) calls down that the canyon is populated by regretful spirits, and Link needs a mask from the ranch before he can enter. Link puts on the Garo mask he got from the Gorman Brothers, and the man acknowledges it’s the right mask and summons a tree to the clifftop so Link can hookshot up. Inside the canyon, Link meets with the bomb thief, who takes an interest in Link’s sword. If Link foolishly offers to let him see the sword, Tatl drives the thief away, saving Link from his own bad decisions. There’s also a business scrub here. Link can cross the river by freezing a pair of octoroks, and can hookshot up trees to find an owl statue waiting atop a cliff, so Epona doesn’t need to be ridden through creepy roads anymore.
At their arranged meeting, Anju gives Link a letter for Kafei, since the postman knows where he is. Link puts the letter in a mailbox, and waits until the postman collects the mail in the morning, then follows him around the city for the better part of the day. Finally, the postman goes to the laundry pool and delivers the letter to a boy. Link can follow the boy into his hiding spot, the curiosity shop’s back room; the boy recognizes him from the description in Anju’s letter, and after confirming that Link can keep a secret, reveals that he’s Kafei. Kafei was transformed into a child by the Skull Kid, but that’s not why he’s hiding. He had a mask for the wedding, but it was stolen, and he doesn’t want to face Anju without the mask. He’s watching the curiosity shop until the thief tries to fence something there, and will follow him back to his hideout, get the mask, and return to Anju. As a token of his promise, he gives a pendant to Link to give to Anju.
Anju’s grateful for the message, and later that night when her family is planning to flee the city to Romani Ranch in hopes it’ll be safe from the moon, she doesn’t want to go. Also that night, Link can watch the thief sell the bomb bags; the curiosity shop man has all the power in the conversation and knows it, buying the whole shipment for less than Link paid for a single bag.
There’s lots of time to kill before the last few stages of this quest start, so Link can get a couple pieces of heart now. First, help the business scrubs move to new homes, and jump from the flower of the one in the canyon to get one last piece of heart. Also in the canyon, the guy from the cliff is in a house with four poes with lingering regrets. If Link can defeat them all in three minutes, he’ll get a piece of heart. First one of the poes attack, then two at the same time, and then the last has illusory doubles that surround Link. (It’s the Poe Sisters from Ocarina’s Forest Temple.) After Link is successful, the man says their spirits have been healed, and so has his.
The next phase of the quest begins when Link finds the curiosity shop man in the backroom the next afternoon. He says Kafei’s gone to Ikana Canyon to go after Sakon (the thief), and gives Link two things: Kafei’s Keaton mask, and a letter from Kafei to his mother. Link finds Kafei watching Sakon’s hideout, and at dusk, Sakon goes in and Kafei and Link follow. Kafei tries to pick up his mask, triggering a trap instead, and he and Link scramble to save the mask from being destroyed. Link returns to town and gives the letter to the postman. He follows the postman to the milk bar. When the postman comes out, he’s been relieved of duty so he can flee the city, so he gives his hat to Link before leaving.
Finally, an hour and a half before moonfall, Kafei returns to Anju with the mask. Tatl giggles at the age mismatch, but after everything that went into getting them back together, it’s a beautiful reunion. They give Link a couple’s mask and tell him that they’re going to stay together to meet whatever fate awaits them. Link’s not ready for the world to end, so he Groundhog Days it.
There are a few last things to wrap up. The mayor has a daily meeting that devolves into chaos and he can’t find the strength to take control unless Link comes in wearing the couple’s mask. He thanks Link with a heart piece. If Link wears the Keaton Mask and cuts one of the patches of grass that runs away after being cut, an actual keaton comes to him and asks questions about the world, with a heart piece as the reward for correct answers. Wearing the postman’s hat, Link can find a heart piece in a mailbox. And finally, after running most of the Anju/Kafei quest, Link can deliver Kafei’s letter directly to Madame Aroma, who gives him a bottle of Chateau Romani. Since this is it for the cycle, the bottle’s more valuable than the milk, but she doesn’t need to know that.
Saving the world may be the big thing, but it’s usually the smaller things that stick with me, and I doubt this will be any different. Even if moonfall happens, Link’s brought Anju and Kafei together so they can be happy in their final moments, and of course when he does finally save the world, they’ll have a full life together. So let’s get back to that.
Next: The land of the dead.
