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“Alright, the pizza’s ordered!” Ingo announced as he walked into the living room. “It should be here in…”
His voice trailed into nothingness at the sight of his twin. Emmet was using one hand to make a “shh!” gesture against his mouth and the other to point at the couch.
Elesa, stripped of her usual glitz and glamor, was stretched out long over the cushions, her eyes closed and her lips barely just parted. Her short black hair was slightly mussed, and she wore a simple white T-shirt tucked into black, high-waisted shorts. Her two Emolga were out of their Poké Balls and snuggling against her, one behind her head and one by her chest.
“Ah…” Ingo dropped his words to a whisper. “I knew she was more tired than she wanted to admit.”
“No kidding,” Emmet replied, his own voice similarly soft as he watched her. “Three shoots in a week, on top of the gym. I don’t know how she does it sometimes.”
“Mm, I feel the same way…” Ingo approached the couch with light steps as he spoke. “It’s not as if I don’t think she has the ability to juggle everything… but I can’t help worrying a little.”
“Mmn…” Emmet nodded, gaze not budging from his sleeping girlfriend. “But… no matter what, she always manages to pull it off. It’s almost scary.”
“Yes…” Ingo’s eyes narrowed as he smiled at Elesa in that unique way of his. “She really is incredible.”
Elesa stirred slightly, causing Ingo and Emmet to give a start. Thankfully, she simply shifted a bit without waking, her legs stretching and her chin tipping back to expose more of her sleek neck. Both men swallowed in unison. The two of them stared at her for a minute, unmoving and silent… almost spellbound.
“...beautiful,” Ingo murmured– it was closer to a sigh than anything– voicing the thoughts of both brothers simultaneously.
“Mmm…” Emmet said, sounding almost dreamy. “You can say that again…”
Elesa had a funny thing she liked to say sometimes: she said that Ingo and Emmet “drank their Respecting Women Juice every day.” Neither of them knew where she picked up that turn of phrase, but they both at least would agree that they respected women. And they respected their girlfriend… their girlfriend who was also an actual, literal supermodel. They both did their best to not turn into a pair of ravenous, howling Lycanroc at the sight of her, and they tried hard to not constantly stare at the sight that was Her… but… in the end, they were only human. And she was asleep.
And so, two gray gazes drank in the dozing woman as if she was the last oasis on Earth. Stripped of all her usual accessories, her glamorous clothes, even her makeup, it was abundantly clear that Elesa was still a stunningly gorgeous woman. The slight twitch of her eyelashes… the shape of her cheek… the subtle movement of her chest as she inhaled and exhaled… she was nothing short of absolutely arresting.
At the very least, the Subway Bosses were arrested.
“We’re lucky men, Emmet,” Ingo breathed. His eyes, usually so harsh and steely-seeming, looked more like liquid mercury now. “It’s hard to believe at times, isn’t it?”
“Mm. Yup.” Evidently, Emmet had decided that any faculties that could have been dedicated to things like “words” were better served being rerouted to his visual functions. He was looking.
Both of them were, actually. And for a minute, they simply stood there, silent and admiring. But after a while, Ingo worked his jaw a little, as if thinking deeply about something. He fidgeted.
“Do you think it would be… odd, or… disrespectful of her privacy…” He wrung his hands. “If I were to take a photo of her like this?”
It took Emmet a bit to respond, but that statement managed to make him to tear his eyes from Elesa long enough to give his brother a deadpan look.
“...Ingo.”
“I’m serious!” Ingo wrangled his voice down to a whisper at the last moment, a faint blush dusting his cheeks.
“You’re seriously ridiculous.” Even as he teased his twin, Emmet’s gaze kept flitting back to Elesa. “You sound like you’re confessing to murder. In case you forgot, you are literally her boyfriend.”
“I know that, I just…”
“It’s not like you’re a stalker or some weird fan. You're not planning on selling the photos, right?”
“Of course–!”
For just a breath, Ingo hit his usual volume before he clamped his lips shut. The two jerked their heads in Elesa’s direction. Once it was clear she hadn’t stirred, they set their sights back on each other.
“Of course not!!!” Ingo hissed at Emmet, sounding offended at the mere idea.
“Then what's the problem? She’ll probably think it's cute.”
“Mmph, I just…”
Ingo looked down at his hands, blushing and fidgeting. He looked so comically conflicted that Emmet finally had to take pity.
“Look,” the younger brother sighed, “will you feel better if I do it?”
“What? What will that change?”
“You won’t have to do the dark deed,” Emmet replied, rolling his eyes as he stepped towards Elesa. He knelt down on the carpet right at eye level with her, taking his phone out of his pocket. “Pure little Ingo will keep his hands clean. Aren’t you lucky. It falls to the youngest to bear the sins…”
Emmet snapped the photo quickly, but as his voice trailed off into silence, he didn’t stand up. In fact, he didn’t move at all.
“...so pretty.”
The back of Emmet’s ears and neck had gone pink.
“Mm,” said Ingo, a small smile gracing his lips. There wasn’t much to add.
“What do you think… is your favorite part?”
“Hm?”
Emmet was still kneeling and facing away from Ingo, presumably staring without blinking at Elesa. “Of her. What’s your favorite feature of hers?”
A choked sound leapt out of Ingo’s throat, closer to that of a Politoed than a man. “I-I…” His blush was darkening. “That’s…”
That’s distasteful, Ingo thought, feeling himself swallow as his eyes flitted briefly to the rise and fall of Elesa’s chest as she breathed softly.
But maybe it was hypocritical to make a fuss about propriety now. We’ve been staring at her like a couple of starving Mandibuzz for almost ten minutes. Maybe at this point it was more tasteless to pretend he was above such things.
It was this thought- combined with the fact that, to be honest, Ingo loved to sing of Elesa’s praises at any chance he got- that led Ingo to tell the truth:
“Her chest…”
And something about releasing the words opened the floodgates before Ingo could let his shame come back to him.
“She sometimes seems self-conscious about the size of them– and I wouldn’t even say they’re small, really– but the way they fit perfectly into your hands when you lay behind her and hold her… and the way she always lets this sound out, like a gasp but also like a giggle…” He looked at her and sighed, embarrassingly dreamy. “And they’re so soft, like… like…”
Ingo trailed off as he glanced at Emmet.
Emmet, who had finally managed to stop looking at Elesa in order to turn to stare at his twin like he had spontaneously started speaking in tongues.
“L... Like.” It suddenly dawned on Ingo that perhaps Emmet hadn’t been expecting such an in-depth answer. It also dawned on Ingo that he had been talking about breasts. He could feel his cheeks growing warm. “Um.”
“Ingo.”
“Um,” Ingo said again.
“Ingo.” Emmet’s voice, usually so calm and level, was both disbelieving and quavering in the way people usually did when they were doing their best trying not to break into hysterical laughter. “Oh my god. I was talking about her face.”
“Ah,” Ingo said, in what may have been an actual squeak “I. Yes. Of… course you were.”
"Jesus. Well, now I need to take another photo, because I was clearly aiming in the wrong direction."
Ingo’s Poké Balls were still in his pockets. Maybe if he asked nicely, he could convince Crustle to open a fissure up in the earth in order for him to let himself be swallowed up. Or Haxorus. Between the two, Haxorus could probably be convinced more easily. But then, after what he had just said, Ingo was frankly a little surprised that his team hadn’t immediately all broken out in order to pummel him to death.
“Ingo? Are you alright?”
“No,” Ingo said, his words slightly muffled from behind his hands. He wanted to burst into flames. His head already felt hot enough. Perhaps if he focused hard enough…
“Hey… look, it’s okay…” Since his face was still hidden behind his fingers, it was only the sound of Emmet’s voice that told Ingo he had stood up. “I'm only... it isn’t like I'm not…”
Ingo lowered his hands just a bit. “What?”
Emmet’s lips were still twitching in a barely-suppressed smirk, but he didn’t look nearly as smug as Ingo had been expecting. Actually, his lowered gaze and faintly red cheeks suggested to Ingo that he was… embarrassed.
“If it makes you feel any better…” Emmet looked away and sighed. “I really… really… like her legs.”
“...oh.” And Ingo managed to drop his hands. “Well… God, yes. Obviously.”
“Right??? It almost feels ridiculous–”
“Her fucking legs.”
“It goes without saying.”
“It’s nearly insulting bringing them up. I mean, they’re there.”
“Constantly.”
“Nobody overlooked them.”
“There’s only about five miles of them.”
“Those shorts–”
“Her dresses–”
“Do you remember that perfume ad from a couple of weeks ago? With the–”
“The skirt and the kneesocks.”
“The kneesocks.”
They both closed their eyes for a moment at the memory.
“I mean… Jesus Christ,” Ingo muttered. “I feel like an animal sometimes, looking at her.”
“I’m surprised I’ve never accidentally started making train whistle sounds when I talk to her,” Emmet admitted.
“Mol?!” Emolga squeaked.
The two brothers froze.
“Mollll… Emolga???”
“Emmm…?”
In perfect synchronization, Emmet and Ingo turned to the couch.
Elesa’s Emolga had both been woken up, one more rudely than the other… seeing as Elesa had grabbed it. The other had been stirred from sleep, blinking and groggy, by the bemused squeaking of its companion as Elesa held it to her face as if it were a small, fuzzy pillow.
“Mol??? Molga???”
The confused cries of the little rodent were the only thing to break the silence that had suddenly filled the living room. The Emolga tried squirming out of the grasp of its trainer, but Elesa didn’t seem like she was going to be letting go of it any time soon.
Neither Ingo and Emmet could see Elesa’s expression… but they could see her ears. They were bright scarlet.
Their ears looked very much the same. Along with the rest of their faces.
A knock sounded out from the front door. Apparently, the pizza had arrived.