Archive of Our Own ^beta

A bright number beams on a far-off screen, blinking high above your workspace.

Sixty thousand, four hundred and fifteen shipments this year. That’s a new record for your floor. It’s got you feeling optimistic, provided that you ignore the backlog piled up in crates behind you.

The day is young. You’ve got a lot of work to do.

“Four—,” “Pack that one up!”

Voices spill around you, followed by the thumps of metal stamps thudding into red wax. Letters flicker between deft hands, passed along in a long line as they’re closed and sealed. Finally, they reach the end of the table, where they’re marked for their recipients by scratching ink pens.

You pace along the wooden table with a thick clipboard in your hand, crossing off numbers and quotas with a flick of your wrist. Charjabug, your steadfast companion, chirps a low tone on your shoulder, sounding pleased.

”—More.” ”That’s fifteen,” “This one to Kalos—!” 

The bright red number winks at you teasingly on the wall. At its farthest end, a five ticks down to a three. 

You suck in a breath. Letters twist and quiver. The number blips back up to a five again.

”Boss!” Call a nearby employee. You turn to find Charles stomping toward you, jittering impatiently.

“Charles,” You return. “What is it?”

“I need a Flighter to deliver this letter!” He waves a freshly-sealed letter in the air, his crimson uniform cap sitting crookedly on his orange curls. ”Where the hell is Randy?!”

You resist the urge to pinch between your brows, your eyes subtly flickering back toward that beaming number above. “Randy got a speeding ticket this morning. He’s still stuck in the Traffic Office.”

Charles throws his head back with a groan. “ Good Love, how many has he gotten now? Five?”

That’s his sixth, not counting the near miss when he’d gotten drunk on Dove-Tails. You decide not to say this aloud.

”Where’s it going?” You ask him, your eyes on the letter that your friend is now using to fan frustratedly at his face. “Is it far?”

”Paldea.” Charles intones.

You press your thumb into your furrowed brow with a muffled curse. Paldea’s the furthest track from the Clocktower—a Flighter is one thing, but for a normal cupid that run takes nearly fifty minutes round-trip.

Which is about the time it will take for Randy to haul his ass back into your office. 

“I think you can make it.” You decide, watching Nancy pass a letter to Janet, who writes a name in looping scrawl. “Surely Randy will be here by the time you get back. I’ll take your place for a bit.”

A vein bulges above Charles’ thick brow. “Are you telling me I have to go to the Paldea line? On the other side of the world?”

“I’m telling you to go right now, Charles.”

You’d do it yourself, but you can’t fly. It’s a minor inconvenience most of the time, but today you ache at the thought of it. 

Charles sends you another frown but you can tell he knows what you’re thinking. He darts off without another word, the yellow wings at the small of his back flickering as he flutters out the door.

You immediately take his place helping Danny haul supplies into the office. As you run in heavy loads, your eyes stay on that massive red number above your head. It gleams knowingly at you over the tops of boxes filled with letters, sacks of ink, and quill-heads.

This year, you’re hoping to move up a floor.

Your floor, floor Nine o’clock, has been aiming to be promoted to floor Eight o’clock for nearly a decade. You were promoted to Hour Hand about a year ago, and productivity here has admittedly increased since, but you’re still a hair's breadth away from beating the Eighties in total shipments. 

When you do, your incredible, hard-working employees will finally get the promotion they deserve.

But today’s a rough day. A speedy day. There have been more breakups with the winter depression. Since floor Eight o’clock is clogged up with undelivered letters, your floor is next in line for congestion. 

Again, you eye the looming pile of backlog. The sounds of creaking wood stick in your ears as Danny rushes by pushing a massive trolley of cardboard crates.

“We’ll have to work at double the pace today,” You announce as you set down another bundle of envelopes. “There’s extra overflow from Eight o’clock.”

“How do you know that?” Pipes in Junie’s curious voice.

“It’s just a rumor, but we can’t chance it.” You’d heard it through the rumor-mill—specifically from Nate, a young Flighter cupid who’s doing his internship there. 

The information arrived this morning in a neat, well-packaged letter stamped by a circle-shaped seal. Everything here is sent by mail. Spreadsheets. Speeding tickets. Food delivery receipts. It’s part tradition, part ‘something to do with the Pidoves in the air’ which is just some bullshit fed by the higher-ups. 

Not that it’s any of your business regardless. It’s helpful when Nate sends you information, though. You didn’t ask him to, and you’d actually been against it at first, but he insisted until you caved. 

Perhaps he feels obligated to help you out, since his twin sister’s interning under you. 

A blur of pink bursts to life in the corner of your eye. Your intern Rosa flickers into the room, her wide wings beating behind her. The long tails from her hair buns spin into windswept curls as she skids to a stop.

She beams at you, immediately handing you a letter with a familiar blue seal—a platonic stamp meant for friends and family. “The Eighties just jumped on the leaderboard!”

You stare at the letter. Another information delivery from Nate. You break the seal just as the floor erupts into protests over Rosa’s cheerful words. 

“Really—?”

“Those damn Eighties—,”

“What if they try to sabotage us again—?”

Everything travels by mail. Rankings shift by way of letter delivery. And mail, in its essence, tends to get around—not that you’re much of a gossiper, Randy’s the one in that column. 

“Keep it down and hop to it,” You state. You shove the letter in your pocket, simultaneously sliding Janet an extra inkwell. “We’ve got enough on our plate today.”

Once your hands are free, Danny throws you a bag nearly half your size. You grunt as you catch it, your smaller, left wing fluttering at the base of your back. It flaps again as you trot across the room and heft the sack into the growing pile of supplies in the corner. 

Your wings react to your growing sense of foreboding and frustration, their feathers tucking tight into the small of your back. Your right wing, a size larger than your left, stops moving with a twitch.

Keep an eye out, Nate’s letter had said. Attached was a monochrome photo of the leaderboard in central station—the Eighties’ total shipments have jumped by twenty-two.

You lug another crate with a huge, huffing sigh. Charjabug tucks himself closer into your shoulder with a snort.

“Boss—,” Starts Junie. You slap a few empty envelopes in front of her wordlessly and then move toward the hall.

As an Hour Hand, you’re in charge of all of the employees on this floor. Your duties include ensuring that they’re each supported and can do their jobs efficiently. It still baffles you that the Clocktower chose you of all people to lead them. 

It seems they found it apt to assign the managerial position to someone who’s very grounded, in both the figurative and literal sense.

“Where to next?” Bounces Rosa at your side, following you at a quick pace as you stride across the floor. Her wings flutter until she’s hovering in place. “The Unova line—? Please say the Unova line, I want to say hi to Hilda!”

You don’t want to overwork the Flighter intern, but you won’t stop her from flying somewhere she cares about. 

Relenting, you abandon your current task to stride into the center of the room. Rosa squeals in glee as you stop at the base of the stamp table. 

You eye her with a muted smile as she wiggles excitedly. An energetic Flighter makes for a fast Flighter. It’s an admittedly productive combination.

“Do we have any letters to Unova?” You call into the room.

”Over here!” Waves Kumo’s red uniform sleeve over a massive stack of letters. You can’t even see his face. “One to Unova, boss!”

Rosa practically launches over to his table, bursting into excited chatter. She yanks the mail from Kumo’s gloved hand and barrels out of the office, hooting wildly.

”Rosa!” You shout after her, “The letter needs to be signed!”

There’s a muffled stuttering sound. “I knew that—!”

Rosa darts back in with a bright red face. It doesn’t take long before Janet scrawls the recipient’s name on the letter’s front and hands it back to her. Then Rosa’s off, her rose-covered skirt fluttering behind her.

You force down a smile, turning toward your office in the corner of the room. There’s a single door separating it from the rest of the workplace, but you never close it to give both you and your employees easy access.

Charjabug shudders on your shoulder, shaking with a snore. It seems he’s drifted off again. 

A beam of sunlight curls over the soft wood of your well-worn desktop, where a few backlog letters have been scattered in a haphazard pile. There are photos of you and your friends lining a nearby wall, but that’s the only decor in the room.

You carefully cradle Charjabug down from your shoulder and place him on top of the letters on your desk, directly in the golden sunbeam. He coos and settles there, happily warm.

Pokémon partners are just as important to cupids as they are to humans in the human realm. Your partner is no different—he’s been beside you since birth.

You’ve heard humans and pokémon band together to do something called ‘pokémon battling,’ which most cupids assume is an odd mode of human relationship building. Here, however, pokémon partners serve as helpers, assisting cupids like you with their daily work.

Charjabug, admittedly, can’t do much. However, he’s an excellent and reliable paperweight. You feel a smile curl up the side of your face as you watch him doze.

”Good job,” You praise him quietly, placing a gentle pat on his flat, rosy-red back.

Charjabug snorts through a snore. A thin string of drool trickles from his mouth and onto the letters below him.

“Boss!”

You turn just as Danny shoves himself through the open door of your office, a letter held high in his grip. Your worker’s muscular form and wide wings clunk through either side of the doorframe. 

Perhaps ‘easy access’ was a bit of a misnomer.

“Danny,” you greet him.

Danny grins. The flower crown of fresh roses Rosa had plopped upon his head this morning are hanging awkwardly down one side of his face. “I have a letter here for the Unova Line. I can handle the rest of the bags, so can you run this?”

“Why—? Ah, Rosa’s just left.” And currently she’s your only Flighter. “I suppose I can make a trip down there.”

“Thanks boss! You’re the best, boss!”

You wave him off with a sigh before holding out your hand. “I’ll take that. Thanks for your help.”

Danny plops the letter into your palm. “See you, boss!” 

You nod. Danny makes a heart symbol with his massive hand that Rosa most definitely taught him. You think your employees should be the one making an influence on the intern, not the other way around. 

Danny’s wings clunk back out of the door frame as you look down at the letter.

It’s clearly a backlog letter—a letter that’s been delivered to a human who ultimately never delivers it to the letter’s true recipient. Letters like these are usually from humans who can’t decide whether to confess their feelings or not.

It can happen with platonic letters too, but unsent love letters are the most common. Sometimes they come back in rough shape—humans can be tough on themselves—but you’ve never seen one this bad before.

It’s clearly from floor Eight o’clock as they’ve taken poor care of it. The letter, stuck closed with an enormous amount of heart stickers and even a few pink-painted staples, has been crumpled and re-sealed several times over. 

It’s even covered in costume glitter, which is more than slightly suspicious. 

You can’t go and crack it open, however. That’s above your standing. Only a Conductor would have the clearance to check.

Regardless, you have your misgivings, and the longer you stare at this letter the worse they get. Someone has stuck an Emolga sticker on the envelope to cover up a huge tear in the side. Who in Love’s name is this for—?

You flip the letter around. Skyla, reads jolting, fast handwriting on the front. 

“Oh,” you intone aloud, your brows climbing up beneath the brim of your uniform cap. 

Of course it’s for Skyla. Love letters for her have shown up in your office perhaps a hundred times over—you've gotten to see a few of the undelivered letters before they were spirited away to Love-knows-where.

They’re from a human woman named Elesa, who seems torn between sounding like a poet from the eighteenth century or filling her iambic pentameter with hundreds of psychotic puns.

You’re not too fond of the look of this letter, but you’ll do your job regardless and make sure it ends up in Elesa’s hands. 

Perhaps she’ll finally gain the confidence to hand it to Skyla this time. Though—you once again eye the staples and glitter, grimacing—you’re not sure how Skyla will react to a letter like this.

With a sigh, you pluck up a disgruntled Charjabug to steady him back on your left shoulder. The day is young and there’s much to be done.

All you have to do is deliver this letter to the Unova line.

Which is fine. Perhaps even better than fine. It’s substantially easier than, say, delivering it to the Paldea line across the world. It’s right downstairs and you’ll actually make it there faster without flying, as you can take the smaller tunnel reserved for rare, but not nonexistent, walkers.

It should be easy. However, delivering the letter to the Unova line undoubtedly means you will be crossing paths with Emmet, who has recently become determined to make your life a living hell.

The road to your friendship with Unova line Conductor Emmet was a long and rocky one. 

Emmet’s close with Burgh, a former worker from your rival floor Eight o’clock, and had covertly hated your guts in his friend’s stead. Even after Burgh was fired from the floor and left calligraphy to pursue art, Emmet remained guarded around you as though you might disagree with his friend’s choice of work. 

Burgh must be a special fellow. You don’t know, you’ve never met the guy.

In the end, it took over a year for Emmet to open up to you enough that his permanent smiles became smoothed-out and genuine. You think it would’ve been that way even without Burgh’s inadvertent interference, but you digress.

You’d like to say you and Emmet are closer than coworkers now. Friends, even. Though it’s odd for an Hour Hand to be friends with a Conductor.

You make it through the tunnel into the Unova line with little fanfare. The subway line looks like a carnival as always, lined with enough banners and flags to cast the wide terminal’s white tiles in waving streaks of pale pinks and purples. 

As you turn close to the tracks, brilliant golden lights above illuminate the floor, leaving no margin for error for the Flighters rushing by.

You dodge a few as you jog past, darting along the yellow line near the tracks. Once a light above flashes pink, you wait for a cart of letters to barrel by before swiveling and crossing back toward the wall.

A train rushes into the terminal mere seconds after.

It whistles its loud, ringing horn, displacing air that whirls past to rattle all the flapping flags and hanging gemstones. Its brakes spark and creak as it slows to a stop, and you notice that a mural splatters over its white-painted side. 

Bright red roses bloom over most of the train car’s windows until they halt near two doors, where a painted Sewaddle is chewing on a painted leaf.

The doors puff open. You huff a sigh.

Huge crowds of Flighters burst from the subway cars, chattering wildly amongst each other and flapping their yellow wings. A Depot Agent directs the fray, their dark burgundy uniform a veritable landmark amongst the sea of pinks and gaudy reds. 

A brilliant grin. A flash of white. You grimace as you turn and begrudgingly dart toward it.

Emmet turns his head just as you stop a mere foot in front of him. Clad in his Conductor's uniform, he’s a beam of light in this red-pink terminal. Both his wings and his long white coat give a curious twitch as you nod in greeting.

Your friend smiles and states your name, his hand flitting to adjust the brim of his uniform cap as his eyes dart to the letter in your grip. “This is a sudden visit.”

“Nine-o’clock for Unova,” You answer his wordless query, holding the letter toward him. “For Skyla, to be delivered,”

“Oh, Skyla again?” Emmet snatches the letter from your hands, grinning snidely. “This one’s so wishy-washy.”

“Let’s hope Elesa can do it this time.”

“I would hope so. I would hope.” His grin spreads wider and wider until you spot his gums over his pearly, near-luminescent teeth. “I would rrreally hope she gets through to her.”

You twitch.

“This reminds me. Of someone.” Emmet flaps the letter along with his words, short and clipped. “Someone nearby. Someone rrright,” He whiffs the letter toward your face and the paper stops just over your nose. “Here.”

You avert your eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bzzt. Wrong,” Emmet lightly taps the letter on your nose. Your whole face scrunches as he continues, “This is exhausting. Every day I just have to suffer.”

Is he attempting to guilt-trip you right now? You wrinkle your nose as he taps it again, then state, “I’m the only reason you’re still in a job.”

Emmet looks seconds away from using the letter to slap you across the face. “We are not talking about that.”

“Nine-o’clock for Unova,” You reiterate, pushing his hand and the letter back toward him. “Please check the contents before you send it.”

“And read four thousand poorly-disguised puns? No thanks.”

“Emmet—,”

“Do not think I am letting you off the hook. We are speaking again later.” Emmet stares you dead in the eye, his irises colored characteristic cupid-gold. “I am Emmet, I have many things to do and I’m in a bunch of a rush. Check safety. Go to depart.”

He whirls on his heel and stomps off, his wings and white coat flapping wildly behind him. It appears he’s genuinely impatient—not just teasing you again like you’d thought.

“Good Love,” you mutter. 

Charjabug snuffles a long, low tone in sympathy on your shoulder. When you glance at him, you find that he’s actually just talking in his sleep.

Now that the wave of traffic has fluttered away into a dull murmur, the trip to central station feels pleasant rather than overwhelming. It’s a peaceful respite from your frantic morning running around and checking boxes.

That is, until you come face-to-face with the Clocktower’s leaderboard. You trot down the steps into the main terminal, neat tiles click beneath your feet as you come to a stop just below the digital sign. 

Your gaze pauses on the number beside a glowing red Eight o’clock— sixty thousand, four hundred and fifty nine. 

Floor Eight has, in fact, gone up by twenty-two points. You can tell they’re moving faster than normal—they must be growing nervous. If your floor gets promoted, you’ll be the new floor Eight o’clock after all. 

In time you hope to rise up the tower even further. You’ll have to put your best foot forward—only the most efficient floors rise all the way up to One o’clock.

Humming thoughtfully, you give Charjabug a distracted scratch beneath his flat chin. He buzzes, his eyes lighting up before he sinks into a deeper doze. When someone shouts your name, he flinches awake with a surprised snort.

You turn to see Rosa and her twin brother Nate jogging across the terminal. Rosa’s beaming, her arm swishing through the air like a propeller, and her brother’s smiling amiably at her side, his messenger bag filled to the brim with wax-sealed letters.

“I delivered the letter to Unova!” Rosa bursts upon reaching your side. One of her heart-shaped hair buns has sagged lower than the other, but she doesn’t seem to notice. “Hilda says hello!”

”Excellent job.” You praise. “If you see her again, send her my greetings.”

Your intern’s eyes twinkle. “Will do!”

”The Eighties are working even harder now,” Nate muses beside her, his eyes on the leaderboard. The huge dome of the central station casts him in a golden-blue glow. “They were up to something suspicious this morning, but I wasn’t able to figure out what. You got my letter, right?”

”I did,” You return, thinking of his foreboding message and monochrome photograph. “Though we may be assuming the worst. I don’t want you to do anything rash—you’re interning there, after all.”

“I won’t get caught,”

“That’s besides the point.”

”They’re all full of crud,” Rosa cuts in with tightly-folded arms. She pouts, her yellow eyes meeting her twin brother’s. “I’m not gonna forget what they did last year.”

”I could always mess with their backlog,” Nate suggests to her suddenly, holding up a hand with a polite smile. “I could easily get most of them fired.”

Rosa appears elated by this. ”Woah, really?!”

You stare at Nate with pursing brows. Why does this kind, gentle child suddenly seem so terrifying? “Please do not.”

“It would be easy for me to do,” He tries to convince you. “I’m only an intern—they wouldn’t suspect me.”

“Nate,” You start, but Rosa barrels over you.

“It’s not fair that they’re a floor higher than you!” She shouts, her hands closed into angry fists. A few heads turn as she shouts into the central station. “They lie and they cheat! You’ve always followed the rules! You an’ Nancy and everybody should be Floor Eight o’clock, not those losers! Not to talk about what they did to Mr. Burgh!”

She starts punching the air with a series of pow-pow! noises. “If those guys pull another trick again, I’m gonna beat the snot outta’ them, I swear!”

”Rosa, we need to be more subtle than that.” Nate corrects her, adjusting the sloped brim of his visor. “I’m thinking espionage, or blackmail, or—,”

This is quickly getting out of hand. You need to nip this in the bud before the twins try to set floor Eight o’clock on fire again. 

“Look,” You start exasperatedly, “I appreciate your willingness to help, but I don’t wish to start anything with them. If we do, it’ll be like..” You trail off. “Well, it’ll be like—,”

“Like the Joltik Incident all over again,” Rosa realizes.

“Don’t start.” Nate states, looking haunted. “We don’t talk about the Joltik Incident.”

Silence. The leaderboard blinks as the Eighties’ shipment total blips a number higher. Your floor quickly follows, leaping another solid ten.

“..Then you understand.” You fold your arms with a short sigh. “I won’t play their games. On our floor, we follow the rules so no one gets hurt.”

You tilt your head at the twins, Charjabug buzzing placatingly on your shoulder. “I don’t want you both getting hurt. Please keep out of trouble, alright?”

”Alright,” Nate agrees reluctantly. Rosa follows this with a sing-song, “No promises,”

You narrow your brows at her.

”Fine!” She relents, throwing up her hands. “I won’t throw Burgh’s paint-bombs and I won’t set fires or whatever!”

You shake your head, a twitching smile peeling over your lips. “That’s all I ask.”

The clock above the leaderboard bongs a low, panging bell, and a few smaller clocks below it wind around with gentle clicks. The world clock’s prompting you to go. It’s time for you to get back to work.

Rosa takes the hint. She links her arm with her twin and drags him off elsewhere, waving to you all the while. You wave back, your smile sloping up your face. 

The high sunroof of the station casts a beam of sunlight over you, warming you down to your bones. The bronze metal tiles glow a gentle gold and the muffled creaks of rolling carts make for a pleasant background noise as you adjust your cap and return to the traffic’s flow.

You turn your head through a slow blink at the entrance to the Unova line. Then you halt in your tracks, coming to a stop at the edge of the sunbeam.

Ingo meets your eye and the world seems to slow. The station fades into a gentle rustling of rushing wings. Your friend stands like a fixture in the crowd as it flutters around him, and when he looks at you his wings do a weird spasm as they rush to dart beneath his black uniform coat.

You walk over and pause just in front of him. Ingo clears his throat.

”Hello,” “Hello—!”

Ingo’s loud shout drowns out your greeting. You watch the fabric of his coat twitch. He reaches up to grasp at the brim of his cap, his eyes wide as though he’s surprised by his own volume. 

“I do apologize.” He blurts. “The trials of the day have been,” 

The Conductor's frown drags down the side of his face. “..Long. Directing traffic has taken up most of my hours. It appears I still cannot regulate my volume in most cases—,”

You watch his eyes flicker toward the adjacent wall. He often avoids eye contact with you like this, and when he hides beneath the brim of his cap like that you can’t see his face very well. 

Unlike his identical twin brother, Emmet—whose permanent smile can light up a whole hall—Ingo often wears a disgruntled frown that can be difficult to read. 

His frown has grown on you now that you’ve gotten to know him. You wish he wouldn’t hide it.

“—I, what I mean to say is I apologize for startling you.” He rambles stiffly. “How are you?” 

You open your mouth to respond, but he speaks again before you can answer.

“I apologize. That was unprofessional of me.” Ingo grows quickly flustered, and you watch, distracted, as a reddish hue speckles over his cheekbones. “What brings you to this station?”

”Mail from Nine o’clock,” you answer promptly, readjusting yourself by shifting your weight. “It was a backlog letter.”

Ingo turns his head away, still fiddling with the brim of his dark cap. You’re surprised he hasn’t worn a hole in it. “I see. And Emmet must’ve taken it already, I presume?”

You nod. Flurries of cupids brush past, their voices a dull murmur. 

You watch Ingo’s eyes flicker over you as a stray strand of violet-gray hair slinks down over his forehead. The sun moves overhead, and with it the beam of sunlight, which curls just over his hiking shoulder in a stripe of gold.

Pleasantries have been exchanged. You should both get back to work. But your eyes are on that stray strand of spun silver hair and Ingo does not move to leave. 

“Charjabug looks well,” He states, eyes flickering toward your snoozing pokémon.

You feel the side of your mouth quirk upward. “He’s getting plenty of rest, that’s for certain.”

“HAH! ” Ingo’s loud laugh rings in your eardrums like feedback from staticy speakers. His odd, warped grin somehow matches the sound. “I am sure he needs it for what’s to come. Anyway, I just wanted to say that,”

He averts his eyes and clears his throat into his fist. “Well, I am excited to hang out with you again. This afternoon.”

His voice only gets this clipped when he’s nervous. Your eyes subtly dart to the vague lumps of his wings, tucked deftly into his coat. The left one twitches every so often as though he’s holding something back.

“I am too,” You say quietly.

Your hand comes up to fidget with one of your jacket’s many gold buttons. You spare a glance at Ingo’s face. His face is a dusty hue of pink that makes you feel as though that patch of the sunlight has speckled all over your skin.

”I have a suggestion,” Ingo starts haltingly. The dusty hue slinks over the tips of his ears, poking out beneath his oversized cap. “Since we have both arrived at this terminal, how about we take our lunch break early? I’m certain we could both use a moment to refuel.”

You blink at him as your thumb moves over one of your buttons, but Ingo’s voice rises before you’re given a chance to respond. 

“Please do not feel pressured to accept. We can always resume our usual schedules. I understand a sudden change in plans can result in an untimely derailment—,”

“I’d be happy to,” You answer before he can go on. “I was getting hungry anyway.”

You’re not hungry in the slightest. But this fib feels worthwhile when a wobbly, Politoed-like smile peels over your friend’s face. 

“Excellent!” Ingo exclaims. Then, at a moderately lower volume, he enthusiastically repeats, “Excellent.” 

You force down an odd, twitching smile, feeling one of your wings threaten to quiver at your back.

A more composed frown fits over Ingo’s face as he clears his throat. “Then, shall we depart?”

The clicks of your shoes on the tiles eat up all other sounds. Ingo walks quickly at first, his strides long and swinging, until he notices you falling behind. He slows his pace to meet you, his shoulder nearly brushing yours as he moves at your side.

The moment you stepped into his orbit your world calmed. The seconds slowed until you were aware of every step, every breath, every heartbeat—every glance of his that darted to your face. 

You know what this feeling is. But despite Emmet’s nagging, you can’t say a thing. How could you tell this to Ingo? How could you explain this in a way he could understand? It’s as though the sun ate the moon and stars, chewed them up, then spat him out at you. 

When you stand next to him you feel as though you’ve never left that sunbeam.

Yet you can’t say anything to him. Truly, there’s nothing you can say. You’ve always been short with your words, and your wing—,

Well, your wing’s never done you any favors.

Wings, for cupids, play a huge hand in expressing emotions. Flaps of excitement, circles of endearment, trembles of nerves and flares of fury. 

Then flying—something you’ll never be able to do—is something that connects all cupids at their core. It’s nearly essential for making efficient deliveries and it permeates all aspects of daily life, too. 

Flying is how cupids find freedom. Flying is how cupids connect with one another. Flying is how cupids dance at the Spring Ball, floating around each other in gentle circles.

If you were to ask someone to the ball with you, they would have to pace around with you on the floor. If they wished to join the others in the air, they would have to fly with you in their arms, carrying your weight.

How could you ever subject someone to something like that? 

Emmet’s been pushing and pushing you, but you’ve always been good at staying stagnant like a rock. You cannot burden Ingo with something like this. 

So you won’t say a Love-damned word.

Ingo’s your best friend, first and foremost. The last thing you’d want to do is hurt him. A reality where you can no longer stand in his comforting bubble of warmth is a reality you never want to imagine.

Ingo chats about a recent delivery as he leads you out of central station. You follow him up the steps into the warm, early-afternoon daylight.

A smear of pink stops you in your tracks.

Another mural. This one covers the side of an entire building in hundreds of bright pink Joltik, whose beady eyes seem to blink back at you the longer you look.

“—I’d informed Emmet that perhaps we should deliver both letters at once, and ultimately the recipients would make their decisions together in conversa—,” Ingo’s eyes catch the painting moments after you do. “Ah. That is..”

“A Joltik horde,” You mumble.

It’s the first thing you see when you walk out of the station and it must’ve been painted here recently. The paint still looks fresh and shiny where it coats the building’s walls. It’s eerily unsigned.

Charjabug chirps nervously where he sits on your shoulder. You find yourself sharing the sentiment.

“Do you think..?” Ingo manages. He makes a pinched expression and clears his throat. “No, that would be ridiculous.”

Yes, ridiculous, you think, still staring at the Joltik wall. To think a mere reference to what happened on the floor above you last year would render you to such a state..you shake your head to smear the thought out of it.

“This way,” Ingo diverts your attention. “I know exactly where we can go to get our mind off of things!”

“Then I’ll follow your lead,” You return easily. 

Ingo starts off, his frown wobbling near the corners. You do your best to keep pace at his side. Once the Joltik mural passes from your vision it becomes easier to forget about it.

Like central station, the city’s main street is a flurry of activity, cupids fluttering about across the pale brick streets or calling out to each other beneath pink awnings. 

Ingo lets out his partner pokémon to join you on your stroll. Chandelure spins into existence with a coo, briefly warming your hand when you give her a pat.

All around you, Pidove chirp on park benches and strut about pecking the sidewalks, fluttering their gray wings. They chase sweeping spirals of Chandelure’s pink and purple flames, which she waves playfully as she bobs along.

You glance at a few of the Pidove as they hop out of your way. In the cupid realm, Pidove are revered, but no one really knows why. The Clocktower says it’s something to do with tradition, which just sounds like another load of bullshit.

In your opinion, they’re a bumbling, overpopulated species that likes to leave their droppings all over the sidewalks and fly right into unsuspecting windows. 

They certainly leave their mark, so, as the story goes, their unending presence created the ‘Doves,’ an astutely named group of cupids who specialize primarily in janitorial service. 

Doves are even higher than Conductors in terms of ranking. No one knows why that is, either. Perhaps you’re better off not knowing—ignorance is bliss when it comes to this job.

You and Ingo simultaneously nod to a Dove as you pass. The Dove waves back, their other hand holding a broom as they sweep up some Pidove feathers on the sidewalk. 

Heart-shaped flags flutter lazily in the wind. Charjabug chitters happily on your shoulder as the reflections of Chandelure’s flames cast the shiny painted bricks in an array of colors.

You mostly walk in comfortable silence. The sounds of the city become a gentle backdrop of rustling, chattering, and tapping as you stride beneath multicolored banners strewn over the square. 

You feel the gentle warmth of the sun on your face and bask in the comfort of your friend moving at your side. Soon even your footsteps align.

“We’ll take a detour here,” Ingo tells you, his voice carrying over the bustle around you. He takes hold of your sleeve and tugs it lightly. “This way.”

Young children flutter downy wings as they race around fountains spilling with crystalline water and red petals. Vines of roses crawl their ways out of alleys filled with posters. Many advertise the work of freelance cupids in the area. 

You recognize only one of them—a familiar beaming face and a head of russet curls next to the stamp of a Sewaddle in the bottom right corner.

The Cupid Artist Burgh. Emmet told you that after Burgh was fired from his job working on Floor Eight o’clock, he started his own practice of delivering artwork instead of letters. You’re not sure how that works, but to each their own.

It’s not uncommon for cupids outside of the Clocktower to deliver things besides letters—especially for relationships that can be hard to define. There are cupids who specialize in art, music, food, and so on. You even know a few botanist cupids who swear by their roses.

Much of these botanists’ gardens fill the center of town, packing the sides of the road with bushels of flowers growing so close together they spill out onto the path ahead of you.

Ingo leads you through them, still holding tight to your sleeve. Petals drift on the pale bricks and rustle above your heads as you pass beneath a wooden garden arch smothered in flowers. 

Your friends tugs you out of the garden toward a pink-painted café. A small sign hangs over its wooden facade. As you draw closer, you see that the sign has been painted with a single rose. How apropos.

So as you stand in line in the coffee shop, this recurring theme becomes the topic of conversation.

”I suppose it’s due to the proximity of the garden,” Ingo hums. The warm lighting overhead casts him in a glow of sepia tones. “You know..I used to dislike all of the rose bushes, but lately they’ve begun to grow on me.”

“Was that a pun?” You turn away from the menu sign hanging above the café bar to huff at him. “ Good Love, Ingo. Elesa would be proud.”

Ingo pauses. “Is that a good thing? I don’t know if that’s a good thing by the way you phrased it.”

”Hm,” You wave your hand around vaguely. ”Depends on how you take it.”

“I—,” Ingo opens his mouth then veritably glowers at you. “I don’t like it when you tease me.”

You widen your eyes comically but otherwise do not change your tone or expression. “Teasing? Is that what this is?”

“Emmet has rubbed off on you.” Your friend proclaims.

You suppress a shiver. ”He has not.”

“He has.” Ingo gestures between you both, a smile trembling at the corners of his lips. “You are joking with me just like he would. What else would you call this?”

“Coincidental evidence.” You huff and fold your arms. ”This has nothing to do with—,”

There’s a muffled giggling sound. You and Ingo both turn to find you’ve arrived at the front of the line. 

“..Are you two ready to order?” Asks the barista behind the counter. She has a small, squiggling smile on her face. 

Ingo stiffens and clears his throat. “I—yes! I do apologize, miss.”

”No worries,” Her voice quivers as she obviously swallows down a laugh, plastering a practiced smile over her face. “What can I get for you?”

You try not to wince as Ingo lists off the most sugary drink known to man. You follow this up with something utterly bland, which must give the barista whiplash. 

Neither of you order anything to eat, which means Ingo hadn’t been hungry for lunch either. Perhaps he just needed a break.

“What happened afterwards?” You ask Ingo, leaning against the wall as you wait for your drinks. “After you and Emmet delivered the letters at the same time.”

”Ah. Well, as I said, they both liked each other, but in different ways.” Ingo adjusts his cap, staring into the warm-lit café. Outside you can hear the distant thrums of a busker’s guitar.  “Emmet and I watched over them both. One had an inclination toward a steadfast relationship that was strictly platonic, while the other had intentions of the romantic kind.”

He thumbs the brim of his cap. “However, I believe they settled on something that worked for both of them. I believe they treasured each other most deeply. It was incredibly moving to watch.”

The gentle murmur of the café surrounds you both as Ingo continues to speak. “I have seen relationships like that that are difficult to describe. Mixtures of platonic and romantic..letters that can skew heavily from one side to the other..feelings that can change day by day, even..”

A Pidove near the end of the counter cocks its head, fluttering its wings.

”..But it’s all equally as powerful,” Ingo finishes. “It’s all love.”

”It’s all love.” You echo. Then you blink as the barista waves at you behind the counter. “Ah, there’s our drinks.”

The barista slides you both wafting coffee cups with semi-opaque caps. The pink cardboard cup sleeves have roses plastered on them too. Ingo gestures to the rose and you raise a brow in a silent response. 

Ingo puffs a huge sigh—which is the Ingo equivalent of rolling his eyes—and kindly places your cup into your hands. 

You immediately bring it close to your face to let the chocolatey scent of your coffee waft over you. As you inhale deeply, you hear your friend chuckle. When you meet his eye over the rim of your cup he tries to hide it by coughing into his fist.

“You two have a nice day now.” The barista’s cheery voice rings over the metal countertop; a reflection of gray curls through her visage as the nearby Pidove flaps its wings. “It’s the perfect weather for a—!”

You watch the pokémon lift off the table, shoot through the air, and slam right into a closed window pane.

The Pidove tumbles downward in a flurry of feathers. There are a series of loud sputtering sounds next to you. “—ate—? This is not—well, that wouldn’t be bad, it’s just not—,”

You squint, distracted. The Pidove stumbles to orient itself on the table, then begins bonking its head incessantly into the glass, trying over and over to get through. Can’t it see that the window right next to it is open?

”—apologize.” You turn back toward your friend and find him in a cold sweat, his gaze stubbornly trained somewhere behind you. “I hope you’re not uncomfortable.”

You blink a few times. “Did you say something?”

”I—,” Ingo stares at you. “You weren’t listening,”

He says this flatly, but the lax expression on his face appears oddly relieved. You’d completely ignored his words, and yet—,

You feel your face pinch as you realize your prolonged lapse in attention. With a huffing sigh, you pluck your hat off of your head to drag your hand through your hair.

”I’m sorry,” You return your hat to your head and adjust it wearily. “It’s been a long morning. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

”No, no,” Ingo waves his hand, a bead of sweat dragging down his cheek. “It’s nothing. It’s truly nothing, please don’t worry about it.”

“..If you say so,” The guilt sinks in your gut regardless. You scrub your brow as Charjabug chirps a low tone on your shoulder. 

The pleasant clinking of cups and saucers clatter behind you. Gentle chatter from guests float above in a comforting haze.

“I shouldn’t be so distracted,” You mumble. “I want to be here with you.”

A nearby cup clinks. When you look at Ingo you find him watching you with hazy eyes. The bead of sweat drags over his chin.

You hastily backtrack, blinking rapidly. “Present, I mean. I’d like to stay present.”

“Of course,” Ingo clears his throat, ducking his head. “Please don’t worry about it. I am not offended in the least.”

You watch him chance a glance at you, his skin flushing a rosy pink. The Pidove slams its bulbous head into the window pane again. 

“..Should we go?” He asks you kindly. “I suppose it’s time for us to return to our respective stations. I will escort you.”

You nod, glancing toward the lush rose bushes blooming just beyond the windows. Ingo shifts at your side then moves to open the door for you, but suddenly it’s difficult for you to look directly at his face.

To my dearest Skyla,

I remember meeting you years ago at the airport of all places. I was putting on a front—all cold-stares and clipped words and disinterested gazes—but I promise, Skyla, even during those days I was utterly enamored by you. 

Emmet delivers fourteen letters by the twelfth hour of the day, which is a new record by his standards. 

He hands his fourteenth delivery to a young human girl who could really use a haircut. She screams incessantly when he blinks into existence, fidgets nervously, then promptly forgets about him once he hands off her letter. 

That’s the infuriating thing about being a cupid. Emmet can bring a letter to a human, but ultimately they must deliver this letter themselves. 

This does not always happen. Emmet can’t count the number of times he’s delivered the ‘Skyla’ letter to Elesa, only for that same letter to return to his hands. Cupids call these ‘backlog’ letters. Emmet calls them a nuisance.

This happens with platonic, familial, and romantic letters alike, but love letter backlogs are the most common.

Luckily, this human girl decides to deliver her letter. Her courage newly found, she sets her tracks and meets the object of her affections on the school roof.

The resulting confession sends her off the rails. She rambles for nearly fifteen minutes and thirty-two seconds.

Emmet watches the whole thing out of a sense of morbid fascination. The human girl bows toward a young human boy, her face shrouded by her curtain of hair as she shoves her love letter toward his chest. 

Finally, she stops talking. The boy looks at the letter and thinks for a while, but he doesn’t take it from her hands. For a moment Emmet wonders if this is another rejection.

Rejections are fascinating. Some humans wish to stay as friends. The love letter-givers are always oddly disappointed by this. Why would they be? Emmet doesn’t understand them. Friendship is wonderful.

“Okay,” Says the human boy to the human girl, startling Emmet from his thoughts. “I’ll go out with you.”

This, too, is fascinating. Why had the boy taken so long to respond? What was he thinking about? Emmet’s partner Eelektross nudges his head into his side in warning, so Emmet dutifully returns to his schedule.

He lets his pokémon curl around his waist and shoulders as he strides to the end of the roof, but his questions continue to run wildly through his head. This continues even as he hops off the side of the building to resume his deliveries.

He wonders about the things people consider when they are in love. Humans call their romantic interests ’life-partners.’ Someone to spend every moment with. 

That doesn’t sound too different from friends or family. So why is it different? What makes it so revered, so important?

Is it really that different at all?

Eelektross squeezes Emmet’s torso and Emmet immediately gets back on track. After a few more deliveries, he lands back in Unova’s station within the hour, an empty parcel sagging at his side. 

Recently, when he thinks about love, he always thinks about you and his brother.

He didn’t wish for that catastrophe of a relationship to completely derail his headspace, but it has. Emmet supposes it was unavoidable regardless. Like Burgh, you are one of his closest friends, so he can’t just not be around you. Then Ingo, his older twin brother, is by his side by default. 

So he’s gotten to witness this trainwreck in slow-motion. It’s a botched love confession he can’t look away from. Except there’s been no confession—only two cabs halted at the tracks, hissing steam.

He hadn’t suspected it two years ago.

Two years ago, you hadn’t even been a blip in his radar. You’d been his friend, yes, but only barely. 

Burgh was working on floor Eight o’clock at the time, and some of his inadvertently ingrained prejudice against ‘Nineties,’—workers from the rival floor Nine-o’clock—permeated some of Emmet’s earlier interactions with you. It was unfair of him, and he knows it. 

The Eighties were always to blame, though, and this became abundantly clear when they unfairly dismissed Burgh a year later. 

The Eighties were constantly trying to frame your floor in order to keep you in check and they used Burgh as a scapeGogoat the moment they were caught.

That was a misstep Emmet will never forgive them for.

Anyway, he’d like to say you’re one of his closest friends now. One of his best friends, even. Yet your actions recently confound him. 

You are completely and utterly hopeless. Despite everything he says and does, you stubbornly refuse to confess to his brother.

He wasn’t sure about your and Ingo’s feelings at first. At first it was merely a suspicion of his. An inkling. A mere speck of a thought.

Then the evidence compiles, growing damning. Ingo’s ears flush red much too often. Your tone sounds uncharacteristically warm. You both linger around each other like moons in orbit despite being sticklers about your work schedules.

After about a year, Emmet’s suspicions finally come to fruition.

Ingo begins bringing you on his afternoon strolls with him. 

This is usually Ingo’s designated private hour that he’d use to spend quality time with his pokémon partner Chandelure. It’s a veritable sacred time for Ingo, a time he spends to recoup and recharge before rerouting back onto his usual tracks.

The implications are there. You are allowed to come on these walks with him because you somehow, someway recharge him.

It’s when you and Ingo return from the station from one of these walks that Emmet watches verrry carefully. 

Returning Eelektross to his pokéball, he slinks along the wall of the Unova line and keeps his gaze on Ingo’s head as it bobs down the adjacent staircase.

He watches the way you and Ingo walk together in the terminal. He watches the way Ingo holds a hand out and helps direct you through the passenger traffic: a crowd of Flighters and a flock of Pidoves who have somehow wandered down into the subway lines.

You face twitches and you say something to Ingo lost to the tunnel’s rushing sound. The two of you pause by the yellow line. Your usually omnipresent partner Charjabug is absent from your shoulder—perhaps you’d tucked him into his pokéball for once.

Ingo steps closer as a speedy Flighter passes by. This seems to be an inadvertent reaction on his part. You stumble and Ingo reaches out to steady you, his hand flashing out to hold fast to your arm.

Emmet can hear him sputtering from here. He watches his brother’s wings flap outward and almost smack an unamused passerby. 

Shoulders hiking, Ingo wrenches away his flushed, pinching face until your hand reaches up to tap his hiking shoulder.

Emmet strains to hear you. Unlike his brother, your volume isn't stuck at six decibels. He sidles closer, scooting along the wall, his wings stiff and straight behind him as he cranes his head toward you both.

Luckily, the two of you haven’t noticed him yet. The flashing passerby serve as good camouflage with the unfortunate side effect of drowning out every sound.

”—alright,” He thinks he hears you say in your ordinarily nonsensical monotone. Then softer, the slightest bit warmer, “Thank you.”

Another Flighter flutters past, rolling a huge crate of supplies. Excess papers sprawl forth from an untied bin and scatter themselves amidst the floor.

The station suddenly clears. You and Ingo have not moved away from each other. If anything, you appear to be drawing closer.

“It’s nothing to thank me for,” Ingo announces with his usual sincerity. “You are someone important to me. It is only natural that I would look out for you.”

You twitch. You open your mouth but hesitate. Then, for the first time in all the years Emmet has known you, he sees your wings move. 

It’s hardly anything notable. Just a gentle, back and forth swish. First the larger one flutters, then the smaller one follows in a half-second delay. Tufted feathers quiver minutely then curl closed at your back, comfortably settling into stillness.

You do not notice this. Ingo does. He turns brilliant crimson and yanks his hat down over his face, leaving you blinking in confusion and asking something Emmet cannot hear.

Emmet listlessly tips back against the wall. He watches, unimpressed, as you carefully tap his brother’s shoulder again.

Ingo still does not lift the hat from his face. 

This is a nervous tick of Ingo’s that most grow frustrated by, but you’ve always taken it in stride. So, as per usual, you chug along your tracks irritatingly unfazed and give Ingo’s shoulder one final tap. 

You do not realize that you are the reason for Ingo’s increasing nervousness. Because you are dense. And also an idiot.

“—go,” You’re clearly calling Ingo’s name, leaning to get a look beneath his hat. “Ingo?”

You blink as Ingo does nothing but mumble incoherently in response. He cranes his head away from you in a futile motion yet makes no move to step away from you.

Emmet withholds an exasperated sigh. This track is going nowhere again. He doesn’t know what he expected. He might as well walk over there and—,

“Ingo,” you say louder.

Emmet sees something bleed out from under the indifferent mask on your face. 

Your eyes linger on his brother’s face. They are soft and glimmering—a sea of golden syrup strung with glittering threads. You are silently writing a book of letters with that gaze, slowly looping together each word.

Ingo lifts the brim of his hat a little. His flickering gaze falls onto yours and when they take in that giving look in your eye he just as easily matches it. A pinched, nervous expression squiggles down the sides of his face.

“I wanted to thank you,” You tell him. “You’re important to me too.”

For a moment these words hover in the silence of the empty terminal. Then Ingo’s wings do a ridiculously large flap that kick up all the scattered papers on the floor. 

Emmet blinks as the station’s met with shrouds of blank papers that flutter through the empty space. You make a surprised sound, stiffening, and Ingo immediately bellows an apology as loud as an airhorn.

The papers settle and clear. Emmet is once again faced with his trainwreck of a brother.

Red bleeds down Ingo’s neck; he clears his throat and slaps his flapping wings with both his arms to shove them down under his coat. 

A few yellow feathers poke out regardless, but he does not seem to notice, his eyes locked with yours.

You have not stopped looking at Ingo. Ingo has not stopped looking at you.

Emmet knows that look. He’s seen it on humans before, humans both young and old who’ve spent years and years and years writing their letters in their minds. 

The two of you are not just crushing like high school teens. This is something worse.

“I had a nice time today,” His brother says finally.

You nod. ”So did I.”

“I will see you tomorrow?”

“Of course.”

”Next time we must take tracks toward that pastry shop you spoke of,” Ingo barrels on. “It sounds incredibly delicious. Floral-themed cakes—what an ingenious idea!”

”I’m certain you’ll like that place.” Your face shapes into a muted smile. “When I saw it, I immediately thought of you.”

These words are delivered bluntly with no hidden implications, yet they send Ingo into a silent fluster again. You look confused by his reaction as though you hadn’t expected it. 

Emmet can’t watch this any longer. 

He darts forward, his strides long and swinging, and sprints fast across the tiles. Ingo notices him first. You notice him second. Your eyes widen as he kicks up the scattering of papers in his wake, skidding to a stop just in front of you both.

Your impassive face twists into something pinched at the growing grin on his face. This reaction delights him. Beside you, Ingo is sending him his usual frown. 

“Emmet!” He greets jovially. It appears Ingo did not realize he’d been watching him. Excellent. “Wonderful to see you. We’ve just returned from our lunch break!”

“You went out earlier than usual.” Emmet notes.

Ingo clears his throat into his fist. “..That would be correct!” 

In a manner very uncharacteristic of him, he does not elaborate. Emmet looks to you. You immediately avert your eyes. This is also uncharacteristic. 

Emmet knows exactly what’s going on here, and he makes sure you know it by raising his brows up to his hairline in silent query. 

You are dense, but not as dense as his brother. You grimace harshly and try to hide it by adjusting your cap. “..I’ve got to get back to work.”

”I see,” Ingo does not want you to leave. It’s written all over his face. “Well, have a wonderful rest of your day.”

”You as well.” You nod. Then to Emmet, “Good to see you, Emmet.”

You slowly move to walk off. Emmet lets out a low, knowing hum. 

You begin to walk faster.

The plaque above Emmet’s head beeps with the arrival of a new train. He hardly reacts as another whitish-pink blur rushes behind him, turning toward his brother.

Ingo’s pokémon partner, Chandelure, explodes out of her ball. She twirls into existence with flickering pink and purple flames, her heart-shaped eyes on her trainer as he watches you leave the station.

There’s nothing interesting about it. You’re just walking. Yet Ingo continues to watch you until you’ve climbed up the staircase, out of sight.

Emmet huffs. Ingo finally notices his gaze, his thumb halting through an aborted fidget with the brim of his hat. 

“Emmet,” Ingo starts, tilting his head. “..Is something on your mind?” 

Emmet’s final consensus is this. You and Ingo are in Love with a capital ‘L.’ You have been for a while now.

Emmet doesn’t want to fall in love. It seems like a messy and incomprehensible affair. For as much as he’s involved in the business of love he still can't seem to understand it, which has only spurred on his curiosity in the long run.

So that’s why he can’t keep his nose out of his brother’s love-troubles. Perhaps it’s in a cupid’s nature to meddle. Perhaps it’s in a sibling’s—brother’s— twin’s nature to meddle, too.

That makes for quadruple damage. A super-effective critical hit.

“When are you going to confess?” Emmet asks his brother.

“I,” Ingo stares at him. “What?”

Emmet stands there and watches as his brother’s face turns an unhealthy pale that quickly fills with fiery color, reddish pinkish bleeding over his face in uneven blotches. Chandelure casts him in a warm glow, making his complexion look even worse. 

Another train rushes by in a gust of cool air. Ingo flounders. Emmet waits. It takes exactly one minute and fifty-six seconds for his flailing Magikarp of a twin to compose himself.

“Emmet, you—,” Ingo’s eyes flicker around the terminal as though he’s waiting for you to come back and surprise him. He lowers his voice to a semi-regular volume. “You are misreading this.”

”How am I misreading this?” Emmet asks. “Explain.”

“I just like them as a friend,” Ingo huffs. One of his wings does a series of huge, swooping flaps at his back but he doesn’t seem to notice. “Emmet, you and I both know that I cannot overstep. It’s imperative that I remain professional, especially at work. Besides, this is a minor thing—it is nothing to make a fuss over. I will reroute tracks and move past it eventually.”

He’s chugging in circles. Emmet can feel his patience boiling over, displeasure scrunching into the twitching smile on his face. “For Love’s sake.”

His brother’s frown twists. “Emmet—,”

Ingo is lying. He is lying to himself. It’s as obvious as it is infuriating and it sends his wings into turmoil, his feathers hiking upward with two furious flaps.

Ingo is always honest. Why is he not honest about matters like this? Why go to such lengths to hide it? To shove his wings under his cloak whenever that blasted Hour Hand is around—a nervous tick Emmet thought he’d grown out of when they were children?

”So you expect to wait it out. Until it fades.” He tries to smile in a placating way but his impatience bleeds into his voice. “You think it’ll just go away. Someday you’ll wake up and those feelings will be gone.” 

Ingo does not respond. 

Emmet’s grin tightens. “Do you want them to be gone?”

Ingo’s brows crease together as he tries to hide his face. “That’s not—,” 

He cuts himself off and does not continue.

Emmet sighs. It’s not unprecedented for cupids to fall in love with other cupids. They have emotions, wills, and physical forms like the humans they watch over. It’s not forbidden, either—it’s actually encouraged, especially during Valentine’s season or during events like the Spring Ball. 

You and Ingo have clear chemistry and care about each other enough that it is borderline disgusting. There should be nothing keeping the two of you from getting together.

It is frustrating. And for as long as Emmet’s known his twin brother—they’ve practically been attached to the hip from birth—he cannot know what he is thinking. 

All Emmet knows is that he’s stuck on his tracks. Ingo is a man of ideas but lacks forward action. Emmet will have to act as his sparking fuze.

“Think about it.” Emmet states, tapping his foot on the ground in a repetitive rhythm. “What is love to you? What does it mean? People change. The future is uncertain.” 

Ingo glances at him, his mouth opening and closing. Flags flutter overhead, casting him in odd striped shadows as another group of Flighters rushes by.

Emmet leans closer to his brother, probing. “What do you want, Ingo? What are you looking for?”

Ingo opens his mouth, but Emmet holds up a pointing finger before he can respond.

“Don’t answer that yet.” He states. “We are Conductors. We ride the rails to victory.” He pokes Ingo’s arm. “I am your brother, your two-car train. I will be with you on the tracks ahead.”

“..Thank you,” Ingo says, adjusting his tie. “I believe your words have brought me some much-needed clarity.”

“Yup!” Emmet grins. “Good. That was the point. I am here to support you.”

Ingo makes an annoying face. “What about—?”

“—I support that Hour Hand too.” Emmet groans exasperatedly. “Good Love, you are so dense. Why else would I be saying all of this?”

“Emmet,” His brother glowers at him, his frown pinching harshly. “We’ve known them for years now. You should at least use their name—,”

Another train barrels over the tracks but Ingo easily raises his volume over it, his voice echoing through the terminal alongside a loud, rattling gust of wind. “—ESPECIALLY SHOULD I DECIDE TO SAY SOMETHING!”

The train disappears. There’s a flutter and a tap as heeled boots land neatly upon the tiled floor. “Say what?”

Ingo’s wings spasm so harshly Emmet’s surprised he doesn’t launch right over the adjacent rails. “I—Hilda!”

Hilda, their resident intern, props her hands on her hips. It appears a Depot Agent lent her their uniform cap again. It sits crookedly atop her high ponytail of curly brown hair, the central station’s logo glimmering above its brim. Emmet thinks it suits her.

Hilda has expressed her uncertainty about her future, but he would like it if she stayed here. She would be an excellent Depot Agent. He will somehow have to convince her.

“Hello, Boss Ingo, Boss Emmet.” She greets. Her wings flicker curiously at the warped look on Ingo’s face. “Did I interrupt something?”

“No,” Ingo says at the same time as Emmet’s popping, “Nope!”

”Well, anyway, I just ran into Rosa,” Hilda hums, sticking her hands into the pockets of her shorts. She says your name—the catalyst. “She seems really happy to be working with them—,”

“I apologize but I have to go!” Ingo bellows.

Emmet blinks and his brother’s sprinting forward. 

Hilda sputters as he rushes around her. Set to his tracks, he nearly topples over two startled Flighters who yelp and stumble out of his way until he launches around a corner. 

Chandelure crackles exasperatedly for a moment before she flickers out of existence to follow him. Hilda blinks rapidly once she’s gone.

Emmet watches a few stray feathers flutter down onto the tiles—the only thing left in Ingo’s wake. He feels a huge, warped grin pull over his teeth, cold wind tickling his exposed gums.

“Did something happen, Boss?” Hilda asks him in bafflement. She squints at him. “You know, you..you have a scary look on your face.”

“Scary?” Emmet echoes. “I am Emmet. I am not scary. Nothing happened and nothing is wrong.”

Hilda raises her brows. Perceptive. She should definitely work here. “If you say so.”

Spring of Love Roll x2

     - Extra sauce

Steamed Heart Dumpling x1

Rose Petal Salad (Rg) x1

Cupid Special Noodle (Lg) x1

Utensils inc.

Total: 2000P

About two hours after your lunch break and three hours before you get off from work, Emmet explodes into your office in a flurry.

It’s not unusual for him to be moving quickly—you often find him toeing the line between a speeding ticket and record times as he darts about during his day-to-day life. 

This evening, however, he barrels through your half-open door so fast it nearly rockets off its hinges and slams into the adjacent wall.

“The contents got mixed up.” He announces.

”What?” You blurt, a bundle of papers slipping from your grip onto your desk. Charjabug shuffles as he snorts awake on your shoulder. “Emmet, what do you—,”

”Elesa’s letter,” Emmet manages, his eyes wild and wide. “It was a GrubEats Delivery receipt,”

Your mind runs through a series of things at once. Nate’s foreboding message this morning. The sudden competitiveness from floor Eight o’clock. A letter that’s been returned to your office so many times that you rushed it off again without thinking about it.

There’s only one likely conclusion. Someone on floor Eight o’clock—likely their Hour Hand, who’s pulled things like this before—opened Elesa’s letter without permission and swapped out its contents before passing it down to you.

Since your office took the letter and delivered it, you’ll be suspected of doing the swap. You and your employees will take the blame, and Emmet will likely take a hit too, since he didn’t check the letter before delivering it.

”It was Floor Eight o’clock again,” You state in summary. “Sabotage.”

“Agai—,” Emmet pales white as his uniform. ”I should have known. It’s my fault. I didn’t check it.” 

You quickly step around your desk to move toward him. “Em—,”

“I barrelled ahead. I skipped over safety precautions.” A cold sweat begins to bead on your friend's face as his grin widens into a veritable baring of teeth. “I was neglectful. I dismissed my duties—,”

“Emmet.” You cut him off as you touch his arm, your face flat with earnest sobriety. “This was not your fault. You couldn’t have known someone switched out the letter. We’ll work together to make this right.”

Emmet stares at you for a beat. Then he jolts forward, slams into you, and hugs you so tightly your back cracks in three places, nearly lifting you whole off the ground.

”Guh,” you grunt unintelligibly, choking out a wheezing breath. Charjabug makes a startled squeaking sound as Emmet’s shoulder squishes into his face.

Emmet wrenches back just as quickly and grabs you by the shoulders. His wings are flapping wildly as a determined smile tightens over his cheeks.

”We have a problem.” He states flatly. “The letter was never delivered. Elesa backed out again.”

You stare at him, absorbing this. It’s both good and bad news. Good because Skyla never received some Eighty’s GrubEats order as a love confession, bad because undelivered letters are automatically sent to somewhere even Hour Hands can’t reach.

It’s been a topic of discussion for as long as you can remember. Like the reason why Pidoves are so revered, the holding cell for undelivered letters is kept a steadfast secret in the cupid realm. 

Apparently the chosen few who know of the place aren’t allowed to breathe a word of it to even their close friends or family—,

“It’s in the Vault.” Emmet informs you. 

”Pardon?” You state blankly. Charjabug hiccups.

“The Vault,” Your friend reiterates, as though this is obvious. “It’s where they keep the letters that never make it to their recipients. You can only get clearance if you apply and are accepted. Then you can go in.”

Your mouth pops open and closed. “Why in Love’s name would you go to a place like that?”

”I go there sometimes when I feel..conflicted. About all sorts of things. The letters there are—,” Emmet makes an unreadable, pursed face. “Nevermind. That is unimportant. The Vault is the only place Elesa’s letter could be. We need to get to it.”

Before Elesa decides she wants to confess again and her letter ends up on a higher up’s desk. 

“Right,” You agree quickly. “Then let’s go.”

You step forward and Emmet grabs your arm. 

”Another problem,” He states. “We cannot get into it.”

You blink at him. ”Don’t you already have clearance—?”

”No. I lost my Love Pass.”

”How did you—?”

”Speeding tickets.”

You’re growing peeved by his constant interruptions, and even more peeved by his utterly mistimed divulgence of information. He should’ve started with that. “Should I just let you lose your job this time?”

Emmet’s non-existent eyebrows climb up beneath the sloping brim of his conductor’s cap. ”Only if you want me to—,”

Your face twists. “No.”

“—I could verrry easily—,”

”I’ll ask around.” Ask around? Easy. You’ll do anything to get that awful grin off of his face. “I’ll be back in twenty. Do not,” Emmet closes his mouth as you point a sharp finger in his face. “Do not say a word.”

“Yup!” Your friend pantomimes zipping his lips. 

You stubbornly ignore his gaze barreling into your back as you rush out your office door.

Good Love, you think to yourself, the words half-scathing and half-fond, the things I do for him. After everything that happened last year—,

—you decide not to finish that thought. Danny sees the look on your face when you cross through the main office and hurriedly stumbles out of your way.

”Stay safe, boss!” He calls behind you. 

You wave a hand to him, not turning back once. Your eyes are on the tunneling walls that seem to sharpen in your vision, pinks cutting into blood-reds.

If only you could fly. If you could fly, you could get down there much faster. All you can do now is run to the Traffic Office as quickly as possible and hope you can find someone to help you. 

You are not going to let any of your employees lose their jobs. Not now, not ever. The Eighties have always been underhanded and you’ve always taken it in stride, but now not only your job but everyone’s is in jeopardy—Emmet could get demoted, too.

Fine, you think to yourself, your mind searing into a furious boil, I’ll play by your rules. You cross under the blinking leaderboard, its crimson numbers flashing across its black screens. I’ll play by your rules, you Love-damned little—,

Someone exclaims your name. You halt in place as bright wings swoop along the wall. Charjabug squeaks, surprised by your sudden stop.

“I was looking for you!” Ingo announces, his footsteps carrying him across the terminal in sweeping strides. “Thank Love our tracks have aligned!”

“..Ingo,” You say. 

The tension bleeds from your shoulders like a string unwinding. Ingo’s eyes are wide and glinting gold under the fluorescent lights. There’s a sharp quality to them that they gain when he’s very focused. 

“I’ve heard word about your predicament,” He states gravely. “I will assist you in gaining access to your destination.”

You open your mouth but close it again. Emmet even told his brother about the Vault. Is he allowed to be so loose-lipped about that place? 

You have hardly a moment to wonder about this as Ingo barrels on. 

“Emmet’s skilled at delivering letters on time, and often badgers me for my inefficient deliberation.” He gulps in a huge breath, his brow scrunching in exasperation. “I am admittedly rather hesitant, which has caused us to stall and lose a few gallons of fuel on occasion, but Emmet over-exaggerates these incidents to an uncanny degree.”

His voice fills the entire terminal, loud and booming, causing nearby Flighters to stumble and lose their grips on their delivery sacks. Ingo never falters, however, a note of positivity popping into his tone.

“So—to be perfectly frank with you,” His frown squiggles upward into a Politoed-like grin. “Emmet’s loss will be my gain. I am excited to, as Rosa once put it, ‘have something on him.’” 

He pulls the brim of his hat up in a sharp move to adjust it, and the bright lights curl over his beaming face. The tips of your fingers tingle as he meets your eye.

“You see,” His smile pulls wider, devious and twinkling. “I will finally have something to tease Emmet about. It has been a long time since—,”

Ingo cuts himself off. 

You blink at him as his face suddenly falls lax, feeling a gentle swish of air from your larger wing, which is moving in slow circles at your back.

”—since. Well,” Ingo fails to continue. You watch as a slow dusting of pink curls over his ears, then slinks over the rest of his face. It soon bleeds to a rosy red, filling the pale skin beneath his eyes with soft color.

Stiffening, you force your wing to a halt, and thankfully it obeys with a slight twitch. The feathers attempt to tuck together but fail, leaving it awkwardly half-outstretched.

“It will certainly be amusing,” You attempt to rectify. You wince at the monotone quality of your voice.

”Yes. It will be.” Ingo’s staring at your wing, and in a single glance takes in your usual flat expression. For some reason his fluster does not fade. One of his wings does an odd, halting flap beneath his coat.

Ingo clears his throat into his fist, avoiding your eyes again. “Then..I will assist you in gaining access. I’m sure receiving approval won’t be too difficult for me, as Emmet is in a similar position as I am. Though, we may have to hurry the process along..” 

He hesitates. “Will you be alright stepping away from your station for a moment? I know you and your coworkers are steadfastly chugging toward higher ground,”

“They’ll be fine,” You inform him, confidence coloring your words. “Besides, if this letter loops back into a higher up’s hands, we’ll all be kicked from our seats. A promotion will be impossible at that point—even Emmet could be affected.”

”Right.” Ingo states, adjusting his cap back into place. “Then let us make tracks for the Traffic Office at once! Surely they will grant us passage!”

You nod. “Thank you for your help.”

“Of course! I am always glad to assist a friend!” Ingo, his frown warping, fixes himself into a stiff, upright pose, his arm swinging past you to point into the terminal. “All aboard—!”

”All aboard.” You parrot mildly.

“No, no.” Ingo huffs and shakes his head. “You must say it louder. Like this—,” He opens his mouth to bellow, “ ALL ABOARD—!”

A Flighter trips, knocking over a metal crate with a careening crash. Ingo sputters and immediately flutters forward to help them with a series of loud apologies.

A smile twitches over your lips and you force it back. Your wing shifts around in another small circle, its feathers quivering with a twitch of delight.

Skyla, I’ve always admired how easy it is for you to be your pure, unadulterated self. I’m on cloud nine each second I spend with you. You taught me how to stay true to my heart. You saw through my tangled wires and reached down to my core beneath.

Ingo admires the way you walk. It’s a strange thing to admire.

Perhaps because cupids are so used to their wings, they do not realize the simple pleasure that is walking on the ground. Ingo loves the feeling of the earth beneath his feet, the sight of the world ambling beside him, slow and so close by. 

There is something to be said about staying on the earth the way a train stays rooted to its tracks. From there, the view of the sky seems all the more beautiful.

When you walk, he thinks you seem stable. You move about the station with a flat face and a rigid posture that cannot hide how readily you support others. How readily you support him. 

He thinks if he fell, you would catch him. If he wavered, you would steady him. So he can’t help but rely on you to help him anchor himself onto the earth.

You are his best friend. He loves to walk beside you. It is his favorite way to travel about the world, matched only by riding the trains he takes with his twin brother. Even now, after a bump in the tracks, you continue to chug along smoothly. 

Your footsteps stride beside him in the sprawling terminal, your expressionless face set dead-ahead. Despite the challenges you face, you do not falter. 

Ingo tries not to look at you but fails.

You adjust your uniform cap, your brow furrowing in a manner that belays how many things are on your mind. Sometimes the even lighting of the station slinks beneath the brim and curls gently around the side of your face.

Ingo admires the way you walk. The way you talk, the way you speak, the way you think, the way you carry yourself—everything about you. 

It is impossible for him not to. Alongside your constant support, you also challenge him. You help him learn and grow. There is nothing about you that he does not—,

—admire. Admire is the correct word. Ingo locks his head forward, listens to the way your footfalls tap alongside his, and tries to forget the conversation he’d had with Emmet this morning.

He fails again.

“There was a letter I delivered recently,” Ingo starts, mostly to distract himself. When your head turns to meet his eye he smooths his hand down his shirt and has to look away from you. “A child who wished to tell her mother how much she cared for her. I believe the two of them recently had a fight..”

Ingo often tells you work stories. He adores his job. To travel around the earth with his brother and steadfast partner Chandelure by his side—to chug along every day with an incredible friend like you right nearby—there is nothing better. 

But there’s one work story he’s never told you. One he doubts he ever will.

Ingo did not often deliver love letters a year ago. It’s more that his brother always delivered them before he could. Emmet has always been intrigued by the concept of romantic love, and thus delivered most of the love letters, while Ingo had no preference regardless. 

There was a time, however, last year on Valentines’ Day, that Emmet had been swamped. For most of the day, deliveries had gone smoothly, despite Ingo taking tracks he’d never taken before.

Then came the last delivery—Ingo arrived in a small, warm apartment to deliver a pair of letters to an old married couple who deeply loved each other. 

They saw him for a moment as he handed them their letters, then he disappeared and they promptly forgot him. The couple spent nearly an hour pouring over each other's words, detailing the love they’d shared together for all their lives.

Their talk was long and lengthy. Ingo had to get back to work. But for some reason he felt compelled to remain parked there for a moment.

One of the humans got up from the couch. He slowly made his way to a turntable across the room and began playing a record of soft, scratchy music.

The other human stood up wordlessly, smiling. They stepped forward and met their partner halfway across the carpet. Then they slowly began to dance together.

Ingo watched and he found that he could not stop watching. The pair locked eyes and their eyes never separated as they turned around each other. 

Ingo had seen many acts of romance before. Kisses, hugs, and other such simple gestures of love. It had never affected him in any way—it’s a normal part of his world.

But these humans, the way they paced in parallel, the way they stepped in tandem, holding onto each other’s arms—suddenly he blinked and he was holding onto you.

He imagined that warm apartment filled with the gentle music of the Spring Ball. You paced with him, shuffled in front of him until your steps aligned with his, and danced with him the way those humans danced together. 

In the soft, speckled light he saw your face. He conjured your eyes in his mind the way the morning conjures sunlight—glimmering, milky-golden—perhaps scrunching slightly the way they do when you’re slightly embarrassed. 

You rocked back and forth with him quietly and the ground felt steady beneath his feet. Ingo stepped with you until you both grew tired and you drifted forward to curl your arms around him in a comfortable embrace.

He breathed and felt you hold him, your head pillowed softly against his chest. He imagined holding you like that every day of your lives, until you were both old and frail like the humans in that living room.

Then he blinked and his world smeared. One of the humans had accidentally stepped on the other’s foot, sending them sputtering into quiet laughter. 

Ingo suddenly couldn’t stay there anymore.

Months passed. He began delivering more letters of the romantic kind in order to understand his reaction better. This did not help in the slightest.

Ingo couldn’t look at you without conjuring those strange feelings. His chest felt wound-up and tight, his steps felt slippery and unstable. Yet beneath it all his heart beat its normal, steady beat in his chest, thudding loudly in his ears whenever he locked eyes with you.

It raced faster when you were nearby. Even when you weren’t, your presence lingered. When he delivered letters he felt you there, felt you standing beside him, felt you taking his hand. 

You followed him like a ghost and everywhere he went he smelled roses. He felt the comforting steadiness of your presence at his side, the faint, warm wisp of your touch. Everything in the world reminded him of you.

This grew worse, not better, the more time he spent in your company. 

Ingo’s experienced nervousness with friends before. Many of his feelings still encompassed the powerful joy of your friendship. But this added.. longing was completely new. 

So new, in fact, that despite all his years working as a cupid he could not find the words to describe it. He could ramble on for hours yet never find the words.

“..That is besides the point.” Ingo finishes his retelling of the human mother and daughter, resisting the urge to shake out his head. “I wish to ask you something.”

Your half-lidded eyes blinking slowly in askance. “Yes?”

”Have you ever seen humans dance before?”

Ingo pauses. You stare at him. He feels his shoulders hike to his ears as that was not what he meant to say.

”I don’t believe I have,” You return, sounding faintly curious. “I’ve actually never thought about it before. They don’t have wings, so how do they dance?”

Ingo wipes his hands on his coat again. They feel sweaty beneath the gloves. He begins adjusting his tie instead. 

“Well, you know that cupids fly in circles around each other in the sky, to put it simply. Humans, well—,” He swallows, glancing at you. “They do the same thing, just on the ground.”

You appear to be thinking about this. You’ve both stopped walking just a few paces away from the Traffic Office, and this subject change has finally loosened the knot above your brow. 

“I see,” You mumble. You rub distractedly at your chin. “On the ground, you say..”

Ingo stops pulling at his tie lest he accidentally choke himself. “I—well. I was thinking. For the Spring Ball—,”

”Boss! Is that you?!” Cries a familiar voice.

Ingos wings flap outward until he struggles to reel them in beneath his coat again. You drop your hand from your chin as a man in a red uniform flutters toward you, an empty satchel for letters flopping against his leg. 

It’s Randy, one of your floor’s employees. He’s sweating profusely, his dark skin shiny as glass as he skids to a stop with two flickering flaps of his wings.

”Randy,” You greet him tonelessly, not sounding at all surprised. “I was wondering when they’d let you out of there. Another speeding ticket, I presume?”

Flighter Cupids who fly through the stationways too fast are usually given warning fines—otherwise known as ‘speeding tickets.’ It appears Randy received another one. He tends to accidentally test the limits of his wheels.

“I’m so sorry,” Randy appears near tears, which is also not unusual. He has an unrelenting lack of confidence despite your constant reassurances. “Please don’t fire me,”

Charjabug chitters a giggle on your shoulder. You sigh. “For the last time, I’m not going to fire you, Randy.”

This reminder seems to make Randy feel better. He sniffles loudly as he straightens his posture, his eyes watery and shiny. “Thanks boss,” 

”That’s besides the point.” You distractedly rub between your brows. “There’s been a complication with one of the deliveries. I won’t be back for a while. Could you inform everyone? And make sure they take breaks.”

“Okay!” Randy bursts, beaming as though he wasn’t about to burst into tears mere seconds before. He lifts his hands and makes a cutesy heart symbol with them for some reason, winking at you jovially. “You got it, boss!”

“Thanks,” You say, then mutter, mostly to yourself, “..What the hell, Rosa.”

Randy rockets off like a shot, a mere scattering of feathers fluttering down in his wake. Ingo turns to you to find you running a hand through your hair, stray strands pulling loose to drop over your forehead. 

For a second he watches the methodical way you tuck the stray strands back. Then he realizes he’s staring and yanks his eyes away again.

”Shall we head inside?” He prompts.

You nod, appearing to steel yourself as you plop your hat on your head again. “Let’s.”

The Traffic Office inside the station greets him with its wide, paneled front full of shiny metals. Flighters burst from the open doors in flashes of feathers—it appears not one of them has learned their lesson.

Ingo strides alongside the train tracks, where a subway train has been momentarily parked for maintenance. The train tunnel to Kalos sits right beside the Traffic Office’s facade. 

It’s truly convenient that all the buildings are connected like this. He opens his mouth, about to say this aloud, but you shudder to a sudden halt beside him.

Ingo spots a cupid wearing a shiny gold ‘8’ badge stuck to his uniform jacket standing only a few feet away.

A cupid from Floor Eight o’clock. The moment this cupid spots you his face contorts into a horrible snarl and his ears go red enough to hiss steam.

“You! ” He shouts, stomping forward to jab a finger in your face. “What are you doing here?!”

“We’re here to fix the mess your floor made.” You state, matter-of-fact. Ingo, for as much as he admires your honesty, does not think now is the right time for it.

“You lot were the ones who took it too far!” The cupid returns, now thoroughly pissed off. “We just mixed up your backlog sometimes—no big deal! Then you—,”

He stalks closer. Ingo attempts to stop him, stepping between you both while holding up an arm as a barrier to block the Eighty’s tracks. “Sir—,”

“I know it was you Nineties who released all those Joltik on our floor last year!” The Eighty shouts.

Your brow twitches in frustration. “For the last time, that wasn’t us.”

“As if I’d believe the likes of you!” The Eighty hisses, then at once whirls to jab his finger in Ingo’s face instead. “And you —what kind of Conductor are you?! Get out of my way and go do your job!”

Ingo huffs, miffed, his back stiffening and wings reacting with a frustrated twitch. What a rude cupid. At least he can rely on you to be calm and level-headed—,

“Charjabug,” you start, holding your friend in your hands with his tusks pointed outward. “Tase him.”

“Bug,” Charjabug states.

“Wait, what?” Ingo blurts. 

You take a step around him toward the Eighty. Charjabug releases a small spark of electricity in warning, which crackles and lights up your face.

Your expression appears unreadable, but when it’s shadowed by that crackling light it suddenly appears terrifyingly flat. The Eighty sputters and takes a scrambling step back. 

“One moment,” Ingo reaches for you, fumbling. “Please hit the brakes. What are you—?”

”We’ll take it from here,” A firm voice states.

Ingo blinks. 

A pair of Traffic Officers are standing behind you. One of them places a hand on your shoulder in a brief pat. You stiffen and lower Charjabug as Ingo’s wings fall lax.

“Yeah, arrest them!” The cupid yells. “They just threatened to tase me— hey! What are you doing?!”

Two Traffic Officers trap the flailing Eighty on both sides, immediately taking him in their hold. The cupid resists frantically, his wings flapping wildly around him as he shouts in protest.

“HEY! LET ME GO!” The traffic officers don’t react even as his voice rises into a panicked shriek. “ Why in the world—?!”

”You’re under arrest for accounts of backlog sabotage.” One of the traffic officers states. “We’ve received this information from an anonymous source. Our officers will be removing your Hour Hand from their station as well. There will be an upheaval in management.”

The Eighty pales. “What—?!”

The adjacent subway train finally pulls out of the station and reveals a massive mural covering the tunnel wall. 

Ingo feels his jaw go slack. Even your impassive face widens with awe. All nearby cupids halt in their tracks to view the sheer amount of incident reports, fraudulent shipment receipts and incriminating images taped to a massive splatter-painting of a broken clock on the wall.

Ingo looks closer. The painted hour hand of the clock is stuck on eight.

For a moment he feels so overwhelmed by the painting that he cannot recognize its haphazardous style. Then his eyes pause on the familiar painting of a Sewaddle crawling alongside the clock’s shiny base.

“Cupid Artist Burgh,” You surmise mildly as you take in the damning array. “..Impressive as always.”

Ingo is inclined to agree. Burgh had been nothing but thorough in his revenge.

“Once we get our backlogs down to you, it’s over for you Nineties!” The Eighty’s howling furiously as he’s dragged away, flailing futilely in the Traffic Officer’s hands. “You lousy, love-damned little—!”

“LANGUAGE!” Ingo bellows—how dare this cupid insult you and your lovely employees, again and again and again? 

He jolts forward, feeling his wings flare at his back as his face pulls into something taught. The cupid’s nearly been dragged out of sight, but he can’t let him—!

“Ingo.” Your hand lands gently on his arm and suddenly he’s sizzling out of his skin for a completely different reason. “It’s alright.”

Ingo’s right wing jolts outward. He haltingly pulls it back in, forcing his mouth to move. It takes him two tries.

“I—apologize,” He manages woodenly. “For losing my composure.”

You shake your head. The burning warmth of your hand pulses like a heartbeat as your fingers gently curl around the fabric of his sleeve. “Thank you for defending me.”

He continues staring at your hand. “I was behaving irrationally.”

“If you call that irrational, then I wasn’t any better.” You huff a low sigh that sounds like a chuckle, then tilt your head. “Ingo,” 

“..Yes?”

A small smile curls over your face. “One of these days, won’t you let me thank you?”

He blinks, suddenly unable to speak or swallow. 

“..I’d like to thank you.” Your eyes trail away from him. “But if it’s too much, please let me know.”

Your hand slides away from his arm. You adjust one of the buttons of your jacket. Ingo watches the gold glint beneath the fabric of your glove and marvels at the way the color matches your eyes almost perfectly.

Those eyes shift back to him then crinkle slightly. You’re smiling again, a smile that just barely creases your cheeks. When he tries to match it, the smile spreads to your lips—a minute twitching at their corners as though you’re trying to force them down.

“It’s not too much,” Ingo responds faintly. 

“Oh,” Your eyes soften as though his words are the most relieving thing in the world to you. “..That’s good.”

Your mouth trembles near the corners again. Ingo’s struck with the sudden, riveting urge to just press his thumbs into those dimpling creases and push your expression into whatever it is you’re trying to hold back. 

He wants to see it. He wants to see your smile so badly he thinks he could go flying off the floor.

Ingo twitches and forces his wings to stop flapping around. He spots your larger wing move through a small half-circle and feels his face start to boil.

“Boss!”

Randy barrels across the terminal, his wings flapping wildly and sending sputtering bursts of feathers every-which-way. He nearly slams into you when he lands onto the tiles.

“Randy?” You say, sounding faintly flummoxed as you take a halting step back. “You’re back already? How..”

“Boss. I,” Randy rubs his hands together then scrubs the sweat off his nervous face. “I,”

“Did something happen?” You sound both concerned and impatient. “What is it? Tell me, Randy.”

Randy pulls his hat down over his face. “..I got another speeding ticket.”

What we have is electrifying. I’m bursting with life each moment I spend with you. It’s love, yes, but it’s so much more than that too. If I write it out here, will you understand? Or is there a way to tell you without all of these shocking words—?

“Really?” You blink, baffled, at the cupid behind the counter. “We have clearance?”

The wall to the Vault sprawls before you. It’s plain white and striped with the shadows of nearby bronze pillars. However, you don’t see any sort of door.

“That’s correct. A Cupid Conductor called ahead.” The green-haired clerk behind the desk stands from his chair with an unreadable look on his face. “I’ll let you both in.”

There’s a Zoroark curled up next to his desk, her crimson fur tied at the end by a huge pink ribbon. She doesn’t even stir as her partner walks past her.

You squint at the tall, thin clerk. The golden badge over his chest reads the letter ‘N,’ and nothing else, which is somewhat suspicious.

”Come on.” He sends you a flat look, prompting you forward. “This way.”

You feel as though you’ve joined some sort of secret society. And who in the world ‘called ahead?’ 

You and Ingo share similarly befuddled looks as ‘N’ picks up a clinking set of keys, walks across the carpet, and leads you both toward the blank wall.

Zoroark yawns. A rippling illusion pools away to reveal a huge golden door. 

The Vault was aptly named, it seems. The huge entryway, barred by multiple sets of deadlocks and gears, only begins to unwind itself after N simultaneously turns keys in two key slots at once.

“Please tuck your pokémon into its ball,” N tells you quickly as he tucks his keyring into his pocket. “We cannot risk anything happening to the letters.”

“..Right,” You agree, dutifully returning a chirping Charjabug to his pokéball. 

Ingo hums in awe next to you as the mechanical deadbolts unfurl themselves with hissing clicks. The last sets of bars pull away and the huge door hisses a rush of steam, creaks, then pulls open.

You and Ingo follow N through it, stunned into silence. Down a golden-railed staircase sits a room filled to the brim with letters. Bright sunlight streaks in from a huge floor-to-ceiling window at its furthest end, which overlooks the city’s lush rose gardens. 

Has that Zoroark’s illusion been keeping this place a secret this whole time?

“You’ll have thirty minutes before the letters are released.” N explains in a rush. You open your mouth to ask him what that means but spot a huge, hulking shape lift over the golden railing.

A shadow falls over you. You halt in your tracks.

A massive, three-headed dragon pokémon hovers in place above the staircase, drooping toward you and flapping feathery yellow wings. Streaks of purple and pink curl through their auburn fur which rustles as they flutter close—close enough that you can feel the wafting heat of their breaths. They’re draped in a huge striped scarf that nearly brushes your cheek.

Ingo stiffens, pressing close to you in shock. Neither of you move or even blink as the dragon’s lids peel away from their slitted red eyes.

“That’s Hydreigon. They guard the letters.” N informs you both. “Don’t worry, they’re very friendly.” 

As he says this, Hydreigon opens their largest mouth and attempts to lick you across the face. Ingo yelps, grabs your arm, and yanks you out of the way. 

You lose your balance. Ingo fumbles and grabs the railing, saving you from falling down the staircase. You curse and twist into him as he holds tightly to your arm, anchoring you in place. 

You both look to Hydreigon in unnerved anticipation. Drops of drool trail from the dragon’s largest mouth as they stare at you. Then they sniff, turn their heads away, and promptly settle into a floating doze. 

Ingo exhales a relieved breath then seems to realize your proximity all at once.

“I’m so sorry!” He shouts, letting go of your arm to fling his hands into the air.

“No,” You return, hurriedly stepping away from him. “You don’t need to—,”

”You should find what you’re looking for in the most recent backlogs.” N interrupts, his voice utterly bland. “Those are near the back of the vault under the sky roof.”

You crane your head toward the high ceiling and find it consists of two paneled sheets of metal that curl upward to form a dome. Perhaps they can open to reveal the sky? 

“I hope you find your truth,” N states.

Then, with this odd, foreboding sentence hanging in the air, the clerk turns and leaves out through the massive golden door. It slowly creaks shut and clicks behind him.

“..Well,” Ingo begins hesitantly, sending the snoozing Hydreigon another furtive glance. “How should we go about our search?”

You gaze into the massive mound of letters down the vault’s staircase. The white envelopes are as all-encompassing as an endless sea. “..What if we start at opposite ends and meet in the middle?”

“Excellent suggestion!” Ingo praises loudly. A few nearby letters rustle at his words. Hydreigon, thankfully, does not stir. “If that fails, we can switch spots to cover our tracks.”

“Sounds good.”

You both file down the stairs and through a hallway made of cardboard boxes. It smells of wax and paper, but thankfully not of dust. 

Once you reach the cleared floor beneath the sunroof, you turn toward your respective side with a sigh.

“Best of luck, my friend.” Ingo turns toward the opposite side of the room. “I will take tracks to you immediately if I find the letter you described!”

“It’s very glittery. With staples,” You remind him.

Ingo salutes. He whirls on his heel and immediately darts toward a large box of letters, his wings twitching impatiently at his back.

You feel similarly restless. You have no idea how you’ll find a single letter amongst thousands, but the only thing you can do is start searching.

So for what feels like hours, you search. The Vault’s organized by category but not by region, so love letters of different languages are haphazardly crammed together in unorganized piles. 

You dig through crates stained with unidentifiable substances, morbidly fascinated by their contents. 

You find one letter that smells oddly of sugar. Another that has a name on it that’s been misspelled three times. Yet these letters, however fascinating, are not what you’re looking for.

After a while you take a break, feeling frustrated by your lack of success. You’re on a time constraint too. N said something about the letters being ‘released’ in thirty minutes, but you have no idea how much time has passed.

Ingo doesn’t seem to be faring any better. You peer into the room, searching for him, but he’s been swallowed by a large pile of boxes—you can hear him faintly rustling around somewhere behind them.

You blink and refocus on a pile of envelopes at your feet.

A certain letter catches your attention. It looks just like all the others—it’s even packaged the same way, with a stamped wax seal and a neat white envelope. Yet something about it sticks out to you.

You pluck it from the pile and letters shift away from it as though you had parted the sea. The paper feels smooth and slightly warm in your hands. It’s also extremely thin and light—whoever wrote this letter certainly kept it brief. 

Curious, you turn it around to read the recipient’s name.

Ingo, reads the envelope in your neat, sloping handwriting.

Your heart leaps up into your throat.

“Ah! There you are!”

Flinching, you shove the letter into the breast pocket of your uniform jacket. It gets stuck on the fabric and you shove it down haphazardly as you whirl around.

“Ingo,” you manage through a choking breath. Your heart continues to hammer in your ears like a drum.

“Are you alright?” Ingo asks you. He's sweating profusely, and when you look at him he quickly hides something thick and square under his arm and coat. “Ah, I assume you had no luck finding the letter either? That’s a shame!”

He clears his throat, rambling rapidly in a manner that reminds you of that desk clerk. “It was quite difficult to find anything, as the letters aren’t sorted by region! I—anyway, you said Emmet found a receipt inside the letter, correct?”

You nod. “Yes, some sort of ‘GrubEats’ delivery receipt.”

“Then perhaps it has a scent that we can track!” Your friend suggests. “We could ask for Hydreigon’s assistance!”

“Good idea,” You agree. “I’m sure that will work. Let’s..”

You pause. Wait. If Emmet hadn’t checked the love letter before he delivered it, how had he known that it had a receipt inside of it?

You and Ingo come to the same conclusion at the exact same time.

Ingo’s wings sweep through a huge, frantic flap that nearly lifts him off the ground, kicking up a huge pile of letters behind him. “This was—,”

“Emmet tricked us. It was obvious,” You grouse, pressing a hand into your forehead with a huge, frustrated sigh. Emmet fumbling a quality check when he’s a stickler for the rules? It was plain as day. “He wasn’t even trying to hide it. He was making that stupid face—he even told me, albeit indirectly—,”

“I’m so sorry,” Ingo interrupts loudly, a fluster filling his entire face as he continues to wave his wings around. “I’m unsure—I’m unsure as to why he sent us on this wild Swanna chase, especially knowing how hard you’ve been working to raise your floor up the ranks—,”

“There’s no reason for you to apologize.” You say before he can spiral. He was dragged along with you, after all. You rub a hand down your grimacing face. “..It’s my fault for waiting so long.”

Ingo pauses. “..Pardon?”

You sigh again, ambling toward him as you pull your slightly crumpled letter out of the breast pocket of your jacket. Ingo’s still as a stone, his eyes blowing wide as you offer the letter toward him.

“Here,” You say, your voice carefully flat. “This is for you.”

Ingo makes an interesting face.

At first, he pales. You watch the blood drain from his tightening cheekbones. Then his eyes take in the heart-shaped seal and a brilliant crimson blooms beneath his skin, so bright his face nearly matches the wax.

”Are you.” You hesitate. “..Are you going to take it?”

Ingo’s wings twitch around. They’re braced, half-folded, pushing most of his coat back to reveal a thick parcel tucked under his elbow. 

He reaches out and plucks the letter from your palm with his other hand, the red bleeding down to his neck. Both hands now occupied, he can’t pull the brim of his hat down to hide it.

Your hand trembles as you bring it back down to your side. You resist the urge to adjust your jacket. Instead you watch—with a brimming, white-hot feeling tingling over the tips of your ears—as Ingo fumbles to shakily break the seal of your letter and pluck out the paper from within.

It takes him only a moment to read it. He inhales in a loud, audible breath and quickly flips it shut. 

You stare at the wall behind him. 

Ingo’s looking at you now. He says your name but it’s utterly impossible to look at him. The bubbling feeling spreads to your chest. To your neck. It burns incessantly as it slinks up the sides of your face.

Ingo says your name again. You do not respond.

You hear the crinkling of papers followed by his footsteps moving toward you. His shadow looms, blurry and drawing close, but you stubbornly keep your head turned away from him.

Something bumps into your arm and forces your attention. The thick parcel you’d noticed before. 

Ingo ducks down toward it as he offers it toward you, the brim of his cap hiding most of his face. His other hand clutches your folded letter so close to his chest that it nearly merges with his sweater’s fabric. 

You look back at his letter—if it can even be called one. Whoever packaged it had to use a file folder. There are so many papers inside it that it’s nearly three inches thick. 

Ingo’s thumb twitches. You blink. Your name is written on the front of the folder, each cursive letter huge, looping and ornate. You shakily take it from his hand, feeling as though you’re hovering an inch above the ground.

“You don’t have to read it all now!” Ingo exclaims abruptly. “It’s a lot! I realize! Much too lengthy for what it should be—I should have—like..like yours..” 

His voice fades into a series of incomprehensible mumblings, his face still flushed a brilliant red. “Like yours was. It should have been like that.”

You stare at him. He covers his face with his hand; his voice comes out muffled. “Please ignore me. I am not making any sense.”

Sluggishly, as though moving through water, you peel open the folder. It’s organized incredibly formally, typed in the standard format of an office report.

To my dearest and most treasured friend,

I am addressing this letter to you to speak about the time we have spent together. I have known you for many years now, and each year I grow more fond of your company. 

It would be an understatement to say that you have brought me more joy than I ever thought I could experience. I would like to tell you all of the things I love about you.

If you don’t mind, I would like to start with the day we met. You were hauling a crate of letters up to floor Nine o’clock. The box covered your head, so you nearly bumped into a wall. I guided you toward the staircase—I am unsure of my exact phrasing, please forgive my lack of recollection—and you lowered the crate to thank me. 

The moment I first saw your face—,

You slap the folder shut and hug the thick papers to your chest. The tight feeling inside of you squeezes the air from your lungs as though your ribcage is collapsing in on itself.

“It is. A lot.” Ingo says again. “I apologize.”

”Enough of that.” You state quietly, squeezing the files even tighter. “It’s nothing to apologize for.”

Ingo opens his mouth and closes it, for the first time at a loss for words. There’s a moment where you both simply stare at each other. 

”..Was mine too short?” You ask him finally. Your voice sounds oddly quiet. “What did it say?”

Ingo remains silent for a long, wavering moment. His eyes seem to glow, half-lidded and watery as he stares at the ground. 

Then his frown wiggles upward as he thumbs the brim of his hat. “I don’t want to tell you.”

Your mouth parts uselessly. ”Why?”

”I want to hear you say it again.”

”I—what?” For the first time, you fumble over your words. The heat returns to your face, buzzing and tingling. “Ingo—,”

“You were saying it to me this whole time.” Ingo’s staring into your eyes now, gold on brilliant gold. “Over and over again, and I would never let you.”

You’re not sure what he means, so his words make you feel jittery and embarrassed. You press your lips tightly together, your shoulders twitching upward. ”Was it strange?”

“It wasn’t strange.”

”I just—I’m grateful to you.”

Ingo’s smile wobbles. ”I know you are.”

He steps forward and his hand reaches out to touch your arm, at first hesitant, then landing there more assuredly. His hand slides down to brush your wrist, then even lower to take your hand.

His trembling fingers curl around yours. You squeeze them tightly together, your other arm bracing his letter against your chest.

”I’m just grateful to be your friend.” You grip the fabric of your uniform jacket; you can feel your heart thudding away beneath it in frantic staccato bursts. “I—,”

“I was nervous,” Ingo blurts, his hand shaking in yours. “Scared. I didn’t want to lose you.” There’s a rising tremble in his voice. “That’s why I didn’t say anything. I was afraid to have you so close. I was afraid of what you would think of me.”

“I’m afraid too,” you manage. “But you’re—I like all of you, Ingo. That’s what I think. I learn more and more about you and it doesn’t change, I just keep thinking it. But,” 

You stare down at the floor as your other hand crumples the front of your jacket. The files are dangerously close to slipping out from under your arm. “I couldn’t say it either. I couldn’t ask you to—,” you swallow. “I couldn’t burden you with—,”

”Your wings?”

You jerk your head upward to meet Ingo’s eyes. His gaze looks soft, his mouth pulling into the facsimile of a smile. 

“Nothing about you is a burden,” he tells you quietly. “Your wings are lovely. They’re the most wonderful wings I’ve ever seen.”

The files slip out from under your arm and fall distantly to the floor.

Your eyes go wide as something buzzing and achingly hot races across your face. Your small left wing does a twisted, stunted jump upward, then flaps around wildly.

“Well,” Ingo’s frown squiggles upward, his cheeks startlingly pink. “I’ve never seen it do that before.”

You twist your torso, mortified. The little wing keeps flapping. You push at it with your hands but it continues to jump around, its tufted feathers fighting against you as though they’ve finally been given the freedom to move. 

“Stop,” You fumble, sputtering disjointedly. “Why in Love’s name—?”

Ingo bellows a loud, booming laugh and your fluster spreads into a red-hot wave that slinks down your neck. 

Your wing bounds upward. It’s not stopping. You grasp desperately at its end but the feathers pull free to smack happily at your trembling arm. 

Warm hands grasp your shoulders. When you duck your head and make another frantic grab for your wing, their grip tightens. You lift your boiling face just as Ingo pulls you forward into his chest.

Your nose bonks into his collarbone and you flinch. Ingo makes a small, nervous noise as one hand comes up to touch the back of your head.

”You’re—you’re going to hurt yourself,” He manages; your lame wing does another hiking spasm and bonks against his stomach. His arm hugs around your shoulders and squeezes there. “Please take a few deep breaths.”

Silence. You stare wide-eyed at the wall beyond his shoulder. Ingo’s hand settles, pressing comfortingly near the small of your back. When his other hand carefully cradles the back of your head you take in a sharp breath.

You’re unsure if your wing has stopped twitching, but you cannot move your head without dislodging Ingo’s hold. 

Exhaling shakily, you concentrate on the feeling of his touch. Each brush, each press feels soothing and warm. Your lashes flutter at the flat wall beyond him, which blurs in your lolling vision as you slowly relax.

You’ve been cocooned beneath soft hands, pressed into soft fabric. It’s quiet here. Ingo’s breath aligns with his heartbeat. It’s a safe sound, a familiar sound, thudding against your chest. You wouldn’t mind listening to it forever, cradled in his bubble of warmth.

You tip your head into the side of his. His hair tickles your cheek as he exhales a soft sigh. Your eyes slip closed. It’s warm.

Ingo squeezes you with a sudden twitch. 

You woozily blink to the feeling of your small wing pressing into him. It’s wrapped itself around his side and most of his abdomen as though soaking up his warmth.

You stiffen, suddenly horrified. Your wing tries to hike itself backward until Ingo uses his elbow to hold it down.

”No,” He manages hurriedly, sounding simultaneously teary-eyed and concerned, “No, it’s okay,”

Hands curling into the back of his coat, you open your mouth, shaking. Your larger wing, which has been mostly motionless, begins stretching outward in an futile attempt to get away.

Then your vision’s shrouded in brilliant yellow.

Ingo squeezes you so tight your breath catches. You watch his wide feathers flutter. They’ve curled around you both completely; you feel them brush your body, soft and tickling. 

Ingo’s hand pushes your face at an odd angle into his coat collar until you’re forced to stare at the dark fabric. 

Your wings are dysfunctional. Twisted and utterly malformed. You can’t stand the way your lame one flaps crookedly and burns at the small of your back like a brand. 

Yet he’d called them ‘wonderful.’ He hadn’t pushed you away. How could he—?

”Would you come to the ball with me?” Ingo interrupts your thoughts.

”The Spring Ball..?” Your stomach twists as the implications register. You blink rapidly, trying to regain your composure, but a lump wells in your throat. “I..can’t fly, Ingo.”

”We can stay on the ground,” He suggests to you quietly. “We could dance the way humans do.”

You inhale. Ingo’s voice begins to quicken, his words loud and almost frantic. “Or we could fly if you’d like! I’m sure there’s a way!”

“You’d have to help me,” you blurt, trying to dissuade him. “I can get off the ground for short periods, but I can’t—,” 

Ingo presses you further into him. His head tips to rest against yours.

“To help hold you..” He murmurs, “It would be an honor.”

You blink slowly. Something hot and thick slips down your face. 

A tear. It drags crookedly down your cheek, slips down the bridge of your nose, and drops off the base of your jaw. You hear it plop onto the fabric under your face and make a small, weepy noise that has Ingo threading his fingers into your hair.

He’s shaking. Another tear drops over the top of your cheekbone to streak down your cheek. It’s not yours.

”Is that a yes?” Ingo asks wetly.

”Yes,” You manage. “..Yes.”

Ingo squeezes you tightly. Then, strangely, he begins to rock you back and forth. He nudges his head into yours, pressing your foreheads together, and brushes back some of your hair.

This must be the human way of dancing. You never want to stop.

”Emmet told me something recently,” Ingo begins, staring down toward the floor. “He said that people change, that the future is uncertain. That love, in of itself, is an uncertainty. He asked me what I think of love.”

You take in a breath to steady your voice as your rocking slows to a slight shifting of weight. “..What did you say?”

”I think..I think that even if we change,” Ingo mumbles, “Love lives on in our hearts. There’s always something that remains within us. Maybe it will return someday the way the roses bushes always return in the spring. They are roses that came from that same seed—they aren’t the same roses from the year prior, but they keep blooming, they keep growing.”

His arms curl around your back as he pulls you back into his embrace. “We’ll go on our walks together through that garden,” He murmurs. “It will change with time. Perhaps, one day, the roses will be gone, some other flowers blooming in their place. But I hope we will be together regardless.”

Then he pauses, his finger tapping thoughtfully near the nape of your neck. ”I'm..I’m not making any sense, am I?”

”No,” You mumble, “You make sense to me.”

Ingo loves you as you love him. Even if you both change—even if your love changes—he wants to grow alongside you. 

You’d always thought you were missing something. That you were crooked, perhaps—that this dysfunction outside of you had twisted something inside of you too. 

Your disability made you unworthy. Undeserving. Strange. You didn’t wish to give this load to anyone else, to burden them with your misaligned parts.

But perhaps there is a strength to sharing some of this load with someone who cares about you. Because here, in this moment, held upright in Ingo’s arms, you have never loved yourself more. In this moment you see the parts of yourself that are so worth holding onto.

“We’re both afraid, aren’t we?” You lift your head. Ingo’s hand curls with the movement until his thumb rubs away a tear beneath your eye. “But we can’t hide from each other. We have to take that leap.”

”We have to take that leap.” Ingo repeats. His pink face is covered in tear streaks. 

You watch him quietly. He squeezes his eyes shut and clears his throat. Then he abruptly opens his mouth to bellow: “Then I suppose safety checks are in order!”

You blink rapidly. “Safety che—?”

Ingo pulls your head in and smashes his lips into your cheek.

You make a stunted stuttering noise as the brim of his hat nearly takes out your eye. Ingo, undeterred, grabs your face and another kiss lands on your temple. You reach up to hold his wrists, shaking, and the thousands of letters in the Vault seem to quiver with you.

There’s a loud clicking noise. The room rattles as a meandering wind kicks up near your ankles. The letters tremble, a few fluttering upward, and Ingo pauses, his eyes locking with yours as the dome-like ceiling of the Vault creaks and splits open. 

Ingo shouts and yanks you into him. A huge gust of wind kicks up and lifts you both from the ground.

Letters explode into brilliant twisting whirls. You scramble to hold onto your partner as the gust lifts beneath his flailing yellow wings. He yells something lost to the rushing howl of sound, a tornado of air spiraling around you and lifting you both toward the golden-lit sky.

Ingo presses your face into the crook of his neck. you dig your hands into his coat and squeeze your eyes tightly shut. For a moment there is nothing but howling wind, so achingly loud it swallows all sound.

Then you hear Ingo shout your name. 

You open your eyes.

The gale carries you both into the clouds until you’re hovering in still blue space. White flashes sweep through your vision as letters swirl past you and rush into the horizon beyond. 

Ingo steadies himself with two buffeting flaps of his wings. Feathers pull free to dart amongst the clouds like wayward stars. Those wide streaks of yellow cut into the horizon line—for the first time Ingo’s opened them out to their full size. 

You watch the feathers tremble as they catch the air. They’re beautiful.

Ingo squeezes you as something slaps past your leg. Your wings futilely flutter then pull tightly shut as a letter tumbles by, curling and unfurling midair. 

You watch with wide eyes as it peels open and bursts into a flickering shape with tufted wings.

All the letters twist and transform, their wobbling creases of paper breaking into grayish feathers. Suddenly a huge flock of pokémon are fluttering into the sky, their small yellow eyes beady-bright and familiar.

“Ah,” You manage as a small one flaps past. “Pidoves.” 

Those silly birds with their hearts on their breasts. Perhaps the traditions behind these letters aren’t so nonsensical after all.

“PARDON?” Ingo yells at you. It seems he hadn’t heard you over the sounds of the wind.

“Nothing!” You call back, close to his face.

“WHAT?” He bellows even louder. “I CAN’T HEAR YOU—!”

Your wings sprawl outward in a series of joyous, disjointed flaps as you throw your head back and laugh. The sound never makes it even an inch past your lips as the wind picks it up and sends it spiraling into the open sky. 

Ingo smiles at you, his golden eyes crinkling. A shroud of cloudy feathers curls beyond his face and for a moment those eyes are a soft silver-gray. His arms tighten around you as the wind cradles you both in a gentle caress.

So this, you think, is flying.

—I suppose that’s why people have eyes. Why they have ears to hear with, mouths to speak with, and hands to touch with. We exist on this earth so we can love each other. Love the earth, love our pokémon, and love other human beings.

Before I met you, I was a shiny box with its lid clamped tightly shut. I lived for so long with my ears covered and my eyes wide open. I thought beauty was the only way to make sense of the world. I thought I could be loved if I could only just be beautiful.

But you taught me differently, Skyla. Even without beauty and aesthetics—even without all of those worldly things, we could still love each other. 

If we were clouds in the sky who could not speak, could not hear, could not see, and could not touch, I would search for ways to tell you. I would find a way to tell you this so that you could understand.

I love you, Skyla. I’ve always loved you and I always will.

Emmet stops scanning the paper to stare down at the human before him. She’s fiddling with a long lock of her dark, crimped hair, watching him with narrowed eyes.

“You didn’t need the letter?” He asks her, baffled.

Elesa huffs at him. ”Why did you come back?”

The wide-leafed tree above her head dapples her in the golden light of the setting sun. She adjusts one ear of her headphones, clearly waiting for Emmet to respond.

”I don’t understand,” Emmet states. “How could you confess without a letter. The letter’s made from your heart.”

“I didn’t need it to confess,” Elesa states, her chin propped in her hand as she gazes disinterestedly into middle-distance. “It was a good starting point for me, but Skyla and I didn’t need it after all.”

Emmet blinks at her blankly. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Elesa huffs a huge sigh. “Look—I was a coward. I couldn’t give her the letter. I couldn’t even say it out loud.” 

She continues staring off into space as a small smile peels over her lips. “..Skyla must’ve realized this. She held me until I traced the words into her skin.”

”That’s disgusting.” Emmet deadpans. “Why are you telling me this?”

Elesa stares at him, dumbfounded, that weird grin dropping off of her face. “Because you’re a cupid?”

“Irrelevant.”

”It’s kind of relevant.” The human squints. “Again, why did you come back here?”

Emmet rolls his eyes so hard they could go careening out of his head. He smiles tightly, taps his foot, and adjusts his hat. For once, the familiar motions fail to ground him.

”Humans can see a cupid until they deliver their letter. Once you take the letter, you’ll forget about me. Poof,” Emmet makes a wide gesture with his hand. “Gone. Just like that. So take the letter.”

He shoves it under Elesa’s nose.

Elesa glances dubiously between the letter and his face, but she does not move to take it. ”So you want me to take this letter, which I don’t need, so that I’ll forget about you.”

”Humans don’t need to know about the existence of cupids.” Emmet states, lifting the envelope higher. “Take it.”

Emmet watches as Elesa pretends to think for a moment. He can tell she’s pretending because her eyes are twinkling and her lips are pursed playfully together.

”Nah,” she states.

”Nah?” Emmet parrots dumbly, leaning toward her. “That is not an option. You cannot just say ‘nah,’ and not accept it. You—where are you going?”

Elesa, standing from her spot on the bench, completely ignores him. Emmet’s wings flap so hard they lift him off the sidewalk as he stumbles to follow her.

“Hey!” He calls. “What are you—?”

“I decided I don’t want to forget you.” Elesa turns around but only halfway, grinning at him with her hand propped high on her hip. “Talking to you gave me confidence, so I’d like it if you kept coming around. We’re friends now, right?”

“..Right,” Emmet states faintly, his wings falling lax.

“You can burn that letter if you’d like,” Elesa snaps a finger, giggling happily. “When I’m talking about my feelings..I’d rather just wing it!”

She laughs as she struts off, tossing her long black hair over her shoulder. Emmet slouches with a sigh, watching her disappear into the crowd. 

He stares down at her letter. He can’t burn something like this. Despite its horrendously gaudy packaging, it’s the best letter he’s seen from her yet. He hopes she’ll give it to Skyla someday.

He unfolds the letter and re-reads her words. People are clouds. They change. They can pass by each other without a word, without a touch. 

Ingo’s letter said something like that too. People are roses. They bloom then wilt then bloom again. 

People are a lot of things, Emmet thinks. Sometimes they never reach each other. Sometimes they separate from each other. Sometimes they try and try but they never understand each other, even if they say those special words.

Those three words can hold a whole world within them. They encompass things that can translate without ever being spoken. 

This is Emmet’s conclusion. Love seems to be something that’s different for everyone. Love can change with a person and change a person too. It’s incomprehensible. That’s what makes it so strange—so intriguing —it’s the fact that Emmet will never understand it.

Elesa might be right. It’s difficult to read a letter and understand someone else’s emotions, even if it’s written from the heart. People experience things in vastly different ways. Love can be different for everyone. The tracks people take on their roads to victory are different down to the metal of the bolts holding them together.

Maybe Emmet will never understand love. Maybe that’s normal. Maybe no one will ever truly understand it, not even cupids like himself. All they can do is try.

Emmet folds up Elesa’s envelope and tucks it back into his satchel among many others. He’s been a Conductor for a long time—he’s read hundreds of letters about millions of things, describing all sorts of people and places. 

Yet out of all the letters he’s read, he thinks yours was the most telling.

Dear Ingo, it said simply, thank you.