Journal # 36

It seems like Emmet gets harder to understand by the day. I don't understand why he's so optimistic about absolutely everything. I don't understand why he's constantly bothering me about how messy my hair looks or how I need to get more sleep. I don't understand why wherever we go nowadays he insists on holding my hand or trying to get me to smile or hugging me or even trying to kiss me. What is it with him and public displays of affection? He knows I hate that, and with ihim/i? Adding incest into the equation just makes it worse. He knows how much it bothers be, so I can only imagine he's doing it to purposely irritate me. That's really the only explanation I have. I just don't understand him. But I ishould/i. We're twins, for god's sake! We're supposed to understand everything about each other, but-

"Ingo!" Emmet called, distracting me from my journal. I looked up just in time to see my twin brother throwing his hands around my neck and tackling me down onto the bed.

"Emmet…" I sighed, gently pushing my brother off of me, briefly checking to see if my journal had been crushed. "What is it now?" I grumbled.

Emmet lowered his lip in a pout and tried to hug me again. I sighed and let him, hoping he'd be satisfied if I allowed him a few minutes of affection, and he smiled at my reaction, like he always did. "We're going to be late." He murmured after a while.

I felt my face flush at the obnoxiously sweet tone he used and shook my head at him. "No we're not," I told him, letting my voice slip into the same disgusting honey-sweet tone, much to my dismay. "It's our day off, remember?"

Emmet nodded against my shoulder. "I know."

"So what are you talking about?..."

Emmet released me and looked at me with serious eyes, although his usual obnoxious smile was still spread across his face. "Don't you know what today is?"

I sighed. He never stopped smiling, did he? "Sunday?" I asked.

Emmet rolled his eyes and linked one of his hands in mine. I tried to pull it away, but Emmet just held on tighter when I did so. "It's our birthday, Ingo. June 10th, remember?"

I gave up trying to regain mobility of my hand, blinking stupidly at Emmet. "Oh." I muttered, face flushing again and feeling like a complete idiot. How could I forget our own birthday?

Emmet let out a little squee, letting go of my hand and tackling me back down again. "You look so cute, Ingo~" he crooned.

"Sh-shut up!" I mumbled, struggling under his weight. "And iget off of me/i!" I added, managing to elbow him in the side.

Emmet rose with a giggle, kicking his legs off the side of our bed and swinging them the way a young child would. "Sorry," he murmured, still smiling, his eyes closed with delight.

"So, uh…" I muttered, rubbing my arm and feeling very uncomfortable in the gentle atmosphere Emmet had created. "Weren't we… going to be late for something?..."

"Oh yeah!" Emmet gasped, his hands flying to his face in a childish sort of shock as he remembered the reason he'd interrupted me from my writing.

"Soooo…" I prompted.

Emmet's smile widened and he grabbed my hand again, jumping off the bed and pulling me down with him. "I'm taking you out to lunch~" he crooned, grabbing my other hand as well, his eyes shining with delight.

"…Do you have to?" I asked quietly after a while, fearing the obnoxious amount of PDA Emmet was sure to cause.

"Of course!" Emmet exclaimed, squeezing my hands a bit tighter. "It's our iBIRTHDAY/i!" he insisted. "We need to do something special!"

I sighed, breaking our foolish locked gaze and dropped my head, staring instead at our hands linked together. I blushed, resisting the sudden urge to weave my fingers through his instead of letting my hands dangle there like dead fish as my brother grasped them.

"Fine. Where are we going?" I asked after a while, my voice full of defeat and my gray eyes blazing with frustration.

Emmet giggled for what to be at least the tenth time since interrupting me and threw his arms around my neck yet again. "D'awww, I can't tell you, silly…" he chided in the same honey-sweet tone as before. "It's gonna be a surprise~"

I groaned. I had a bad feeling about this.

And sure enough that bad feeling I'd had had proven to be an accurate portrayal of how my day was going to turn out.

In the three minutes that followed my acceptance to Emmet's little Birthday date, he'd forced me into the bathroom so he could fix my hair, grabbed his wallet from the kitchen table, and dragged me out into the busy streets of our home town, Nimbasa City.

"Close your eyes." He demanded, once we were outside.

"What? Why?" I protested, knowing that me closing my eyes would only serve as an excuse for Emmet to hold my hand in public.

"It's going to be a isurprise/i, remember?" My brother whined, grabbing my hands again.

"Yes, I know." I said, pulling my hands back. "But I just don't see why-

"Please Ingo?" Emmet continued. "PLEASE? Pretty pretty plea-

"Alright, ialright/i!" I shouted, cutting him off and trying hard to ignore the stares of passing townspeople. "I'll close my eyes…" I muttered, reluctantly letting my eyes slide down to temporarily disable my sense of sight.

I felt Emmet grab one of my hands a few moments later. "Thank you, brother." He whispered, a smile in his voice. His lips must have lingered in the space around my ear for longer than necessary because I could still feel his warm breath trickling down my neck…

I stiffened and felt my face grow hot as I blushed again. We were holding hands. He was too close. PDA, PDA, PDA…

Emmet sighed and pulled back, leaving my heart racing a thousand miles an hour as I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.

"C-Can we go now?" I practically whined, closing my eyes a little tighter to try and stop from blushing more.

"Okay." Emmet replied with a short laugh, gently tugging me in the right direction.

I let out a short whimper, horribly embarrassed to be holding my brother's hand like this in public, but I followed him anyway, trying not to protest too much.

Emmet lead me through the streets of Nimbasa, weaving his way around crowds of townspeople every so often and reminding me to keep my eyes closed about every five seconds. I reluctantly followed him, dreading every moment of our venture and groaning approximately… every five seconds.

Somewhere along the way I must have tripped on something because one moment I was walking, the next I was falling, and the one after that I was wrapped in Emmet's arms.

"Ingo! A-are you alright?" Emmet asked in a panicked tone, shaking hands clinging to the back of my jacket, probably shocked that I tripped right into him like that.

"Uh. Yeah." I blinked, my voice muffled by the chest I was leaning into. "I-I'm fine."

"…You sure?"

I nodded, shyly gripping the front of my brother's shirt to keep my balance. The position we were in was so awkward; so iunnatural/i… But at the same time it was nice in a weird sort of way. Emmet's arms were so warm and the way I could hear his heartbeat when we were this close was so comforting…

iWell Damn it/i, I thought, blushing out of frustration. We were in public; hugging. More than hugging, really, we were… clinging to each other like our lives depended on it…

"W-we should probably get going, huh?" Emmet stuttered, gently pushing me away from him, looking at me with a shy smile.

I gave a slow nod and closed my eyes again, not wanting to meet Emmet's gaze. My brother hesitated for a moment before grabbing my hand and pulling me in the right direction again. His pace was a little slower than last time and I could tell he was a bit more tense as well. I vaguely worried if he was alright.

"…Are we almost there?" I grumbled after a while, sick of the PDA and the sightlessness and the whole venture in general.

"…Yeah," came the quiet reply.

I sighed. God, what was I supposed to say to him? What was I supposed to do? I felt like I should say something, but that could only make matters worse. So what should I do? Apologize? Forgive him? iWhat/i?

We walked in silence for a while longer. I opened my mouth, finally working up the courage to say something, but I closed it again when I heard the sound of a door opening; then closing. I felt the slight breeze of nice, cold air conditioning, which I greatly appreciated. My huge coat wasn't exactly the best thing to be wearing in the middle of June.

"We're here!" Emmet called cheerily, grabbing my other hand as well.

"So can I open my eyes now?" I muttered cynically, biting the inside of my cheek in frustration.

Emmet giggled. "Nope~" he said simply, letting go of one of my hands and continuing to walk me to… wherever it was we were going.

"Oh, Emmet and Ingo, right?" a woman's voice asked us a few moments later with a small giggle. I blushed, practically feeling her eyes stare us down.

iPDA, PDA, PDA…/i

"Yep!" Emmet replied, ending our walk and forcing me to a stop, the smile he must have been wearing clearly evident in his tone.

I nodded to myself. iGood/i, I thought, hoping that Emmet's cheery attitude meant that he was over what had happened.

"Right this way, then," said the voice, fading a little at the end of the sentence as she must have been walking away.

Emmet started walking again, following the voice, I hoped, and led me up several flights of winding stairs, leaving me practically gasping for breath when the endless steps had finally come to a stop.

What kind of restaurant was this?...

"Here you are." The woman said a few moments later.

"Thank you!" Emmet replied politely, giving me an extra tug and leaning in close to my ear to murmur "This way, Ingo."

I heard the woman giggle again and then walk away, and I wished it wasn't our Birthday so I could smack some sense into my twin brother.

Emmet guided me a few more steps and then stopped abruptly, almost making me fall into him again. He released my hand, placing his palms on my shoulders, gently whispering "Sit down," and helping me into what felt like one of the chairs from a movie theatre.

I said nothing, terribly confused as to where we were as I heard Emmet sit down in a similar kind of seat next to me. My mind raced with questions. Where were we? What were we doing? We were even in a restaurant at all? Emmet ihad/i said he was taking me out for lunch, right?

"You can open your eyes now," Emmet murmured, distracting me from my thoughts, and grabbed my hand again.

I bit my lip, sort of scared of what I would see, but blinked my eyes open regardless, rubbing then a few times to regain my sight.

I marveled at the sight before me.

I recognized the scene as the Pokémon Musical, but we were… observing it from a much greater height than usual. I raised my head to try and figure out where we were, realizing that we must be located on a balcony of some sorts, which I didn't even know the Musical Hall had.

Emmet laughed at me and I blinked, remembering my worries from before. "I thought we were getting lunch."

Emmet's foolish smile spread wide across his face and I couldn't help but smile a bit, too. He was happy. "We iare/i getting lunch." He insisted, waving his hand to the area behind us.

I turned my head back to look, marveling at what I saw. Behind us lay one very large very long very fancy table adorned with a simple white table cloth and piled high with every kind of food imaginable. I ran my eyes up and down and up it again, picking out my favorites. I saw bratwurst and spaghetti and salt potatoes and… oh god was that a carrot cake?

"How did you… why did… how…" I was at a loss for words.

Emmet laughed again and threw his arms around my neck as I stared at the buffet. "Well, the balcony is only newly built but I've had a reservation for months. I wanted you to have a happy birthday…"

"…But what about you?" I asked after a few moments, more than a little upset with myself for forgetting our birthday so easily.

"I'm with you, aren't I?" Emmet murmured sweetly, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek before returning to his seat.

I blushed, absent mindedly touching where his lips had made contact with my skin., not really minding the display of affection now that it was just us with no one watching. I shook my head. I shouldn't be thinking about it like that. Emmet's awkward infatuation with me was wrong; idangerous even/i. We were ibrothers/i. biTwins/b/i. I sighed. I'd talk to him about it tomorrow. Right now he deserved to be happy. It was his birthday.

"Ingo, you alright?" Emmet giggled, distracting me from my thoughts and looking at me with a sympathetic glint in his gray eyes.

"O-Oh, yeah. I just… um…" I stuttered absently, having absolutely no idea what to say. He had done this all for me. How much had it cost him? "How can I ever thank you?..." I murmured

Emmet just smiled at me for a few moments, his eyes so full of delight that I thought he was going to cry. "You could eat some carrot cake with me," he said eventually.

I nodded. "Alright."

Emmet's smile widened and he jumped out of his theatre chair, grabbing my hand, and pulled be over to the buffet. He grabbed two plates and forks the center of the table and handed me the doubles, quickly saying "Dig in," before he started piling his plate with his favorite foods.

I sighed happily, piling my plate with salt potatoes, baked ziti, bratwurst, and what looked like homemade french-fries. I'd get carrot cake later.

The lights around us started to dim, then, and Emmet let out a short gasp, grabbing my wrist and dragging me back to my seat.

"C-Careful!" I cautioned him, nearly dropping my plate.

Emmet just giggled and sat down, motioning for me to do the same as he started cheerily swinging his legs, his gaze fixed on the sea of people that lay below us.

I sighed and did as commanded, giving a small roll of my eyes as I stabbed a few ziti noodles with my fork.

"It's about to start~" Emmet swooned, practically glowing. He let out a happy sigh, gently resting his head against my shoulder.

I flinched and started to push him off of me, but wound up letting him stay there. I wanted him to have a good birthday.

I turned my attention to the crowds of people below our balcony, listening as their conversations ended abruptly and watching as the lights around the stage flickered on. The curtains rose a few moments later, revealing four Pokémon dressed in various costumes and accessories.

I smiled. Emmet and I hadn't been here in ages. The subway usually kept us too busy, and we rarely ever went out on the few days we had off. We'd much rather sit at home and be lazy all day.

I turned my attention back to the stage, watching as a Whimsicott dressed in a Santa hat and red cape took its solo, dancing in tune to "Charming Munna." An Audino came after, throwing it's umbrella at the at the audience as it entered the spotlight, followed by a Woobat wearing a top hat, cane, and monocle, and then a Reuniclus with a red bandana and cowboy hat.

When the introductory solos had ended, the music faded and the Reuniclus and Woobat left, leaving the Audino and Whimsicott to converse with each other for a while a new track started. The two remaining Pokémon turned around a few moments later to see a Galvantula and Zwelious approaching them, both dressed up to make them look like ghosts or something of the sort, white garments and all.

The Zwelious growled something at the Audino and the Whimsicott replied in a shout and as the music sped up, the Pokémon engaged in engaged in something halfway between battle and dance. The Woobat and Reuniclus reappeared several minutes later, aiding the heroes in the defeat of the undead.

The lights dimmed, then, and the curtains closed, ending the scene. They reopened several minutes later with all six Pokémon on stage. The Woobat was now wearing a nurse's hat and seemed to be inspecting the unconscious undead, trying to figure out how to resurrect them. The other three Pokémon stood around, watching intently.

Several more scenes were played out in which Reuniclus, Whimsicott, and Audino went on a journey through various environments in order to retrieve some sort of antidote, acting in various dances along the way.

They eventually made it back to Woobat and the others, giving the cure to the undead and engaging in a celebratory dance when they were healed.

The Pokémon bowed.

The audience cheered.

The curtains closed.

I'd forgotten how long scripted musicals could be.

I watched as the crowds of people began to rise and disperse, conversations starting up again as they exited the hall.

I looked over to ask if Emmet was ready to leave, but froze when I saw my twin brother sleeping soundly on my shoulder. I stared at him with my mouth hanging open for a few seconds before closing it and continuing to stare. He seemed so small and peaceful and warm…

What was happening to me? I wasn't falling for my own brother, was I? I couldn't be. That would be… moronic. Emmet didn't really feel that way about me, anyway; he couldn't. He just… acted that way to get on my nerves, right?

But I knew that wasn't true. I knew Emmet had an idiotic little crush on me. I knew he didn't flirt with me just because he knew it bothered me. I knew he liked it when I blushed or when I let him hug me or hold my hand… And I knew how foolish it was. How iunhealthy/i it was. Why didn't I try to stop him? Why didn't I try to stop ime/i? What was happening to us was wrong. We were brothers… itwins/i…

"Ingo?..." came a sleepy voice next to me, distracting me from me from my thoughts. "Are you alright?..." Emmet asked with a yawn, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. He looked so… cute.

I sighed. "Fine," I grumbled, stuffing my hands in my pockets and averting my gaze with a slight blush.

Emmet sighed as well and clung to my arm. "I fell asleep, didn't I?" I looked back at him to see his gaze drifting down to the now empty hall below us.

"Yeah." I murmured, finding myself staring at him again. How is it that someone who looked exactly like me could be so idifferent/i? "Sorry." I added a few moments later.

Emmet giggled. "It's fine. I had a good time…" he trailed off and stared into the distance for a few heartbeats until turning back to me with a nervous sort of glimmer in his eyes. "Did… you have a good time?"

I nodded with a slight smile. "Thank you." I told him.

Emmet smiled wide and leaned forward to give me a quick kiss on the forehead (which I quickly wiped off with the back of my sleeve). "Wanna head home?"

"Sure." I said, standing and picking up my now empty plate from my lap. Emmet followed my example and stood as well, picking up his plate with one hand and still clinging to my arm with the other.

I sighed and walked over to the table in the back to set down my plate, dragging Emmet along with me. "Are you going to be like this the whole way home?"

Emmet grew tense, holding on to my sleeve a bit tighter and letting his gaze fall to the ground. "You don't love me, do you Ingo…"

I froze. That idiot!

"Of course I love you!" I shouted at him a few moments later. "You're my brother for god's sake, Emmet, why would you even say that? Why would you even think, ifor one moment/i, that I don't love you?"

Emmet looked back up at me, lip lowered in a pout and eyes glistening with the beginnings of tears. "But you don't love me the way I love you." He said simply; in an accusing sort of tone.

I swallowed hard. "Oh. Well…"

"I-It's alright!" Emmet sniffed, failing to put on a forgiving smile. "I know you don't, I just… get my hopes up sometimes a-and…" I saw a few silver tears slide down his cheek and drip to the floor. "Never mind…" he said, quickly letting go of me and wiping away his tears. "L-Let's just go home." He started to walk towards the exit but turned around when I didn't follow. "C-C'mon, Ingo…" he practically pleaded.

I didn't reply; just speed-walked over to him, wrapped my arms around him and pulled him into a hug. "I'm sorry, Emmet…" I murmured, close to tears myself. I felt like such a jerk, making Emmet cry on our birthday like that.

"I-I said it way okay…" my brother insisted, trying to pull away from my embrace.

I hugged him tighter, not daring to let him go. "It's not." I argued. "I've been denying you for so long. I've hurt you iso much/i…" I trailed off. I didn't know what to say to him.

I heard Emmet start to say something, but I cut him off. "I love you, Emmet!" I told him, feeling myself start to cry. "I love how you're so optimistic about absolutely everything. I love how you constantly bother me about how messy my hair looks. I love it when you tell me I need more sleep. I love it when you hold my hand or hug me and… and I love it when you kiss me on the cheek or forehead or wherever!" I sobbed. "I love iyou/i, Emmet… We're twins, and I know I shouldn't but-

"I love you too, Ingo…" Emmet murmured.

"…Good."