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The garden section of the store wasn’t somewhere Emmet frequented. He wasn’t really a gardener. He could barely keep a houseplant alive, usually didn’t truthfully. There was a reason he didn’t have any grass type Pokemon.
Ingo used to be the same. But that was before Hisui. Now, Ingo was wandering off constantly in the store to look at whatever section they passed, including the garden section.
“Ingo! There you are,” Emmet sighed once he finally found him this time. Honestly, as fun as it was to see Ingo get so excited about the store, it was not doing Emmet any favours to keep turning around and seeing Ingo had disappeared again. “Stop sneaking off.”
“I am not sneaking,” Ingo said, not looking up from the small set of shelves he was crouched in front of.
“At least announce you’re going off next time. I cannot hear you leave over the noise in the store.”
“Oh, I was unaware. Sorry.”
Emmet waved it off. “It’s fine. What redirected your tracks this time?”
Ingo looked up with bright eyes. “You can just buy seeds here! Ready to plant and everything!”
“Yes? Are seeds not like that?”
“I meant you do not have to harvest them yourself. You can just buy them.” Ingo picked up a couple packs. “We should get some. Tomatoes and onions. Oh! Some carrots too.”
“We don’t have a garden,” Emmet pointed out.
“We have a backyard.” Ingo grabbed a packet of zucchini seeds. “Isn’t that enough for a garden? We could dig up a section of it and plant the seeds there. Do we have a shovel? We should get a shovel if not.”
Emmet didn’t want a garden. But how could he say no to how excited Ingo was? He crouched down next to Ingo. “I will let you know that I can’t keep a plant alive.”
“That is fine. I can do it. Oh, this is going to be wonderful!” Ingo started grabbing more packets of seeds.
Emmet laughed. “You haven’t seen what is outside yet. You might want to put some of those back.”
Ingo looked at him with wide eyes. “There’s an outside?”
“Yup! Through that door.” Emmet pointed towards the automatic door a little bit away.
Ingo rushed off without a word, still holding the packets of seeds.
It took Emmet another ten minutes to get the cart and find Ingo again, looking at a small berry tree. Emmet knew that look in his eye.
“Ingo, we are not getting that,” Emmet said.
Ingo turned, arms already full of plants, pouting. “Why not?”
“We do not have space.”
“We could make space.”
“We cannot make space for a tree.” Emmet nodded towards Ingo’s arms. “What have you found?”
“Oh, yes! Could you help me?”
They carefully laid out the different plants Ingo had found over top of the rest of the groceries and the other impulse purchases Ingo had convinced Emmet to get.
Ingo listed off what everything was, “There are a couple tomatoes, some sweet potatoes, a cantaloupe which sounds fun to grow, some onions, and a squash plant.”
“That is a lot,” Emmet said, “Are you sure there will be space? You still have your seeds.”
“Well, I can put back most of the seeds since I found seedlings out here,” Ingo said, closing his eyes in thought. “Maybe we should get some pots. Those would hold the herbs I saw nicely.”
They couldn’t bring all this back to the house on the train. Emmet wasn’t sure they would even be able to carry it all. They needed to save this for another time. Figure out how big they were going to make their garden, because apparently Ingo was a gardener now, and what plants were going to fit in it.
Emmet interrupted Ingo’s thoughts, ready to break the news to him, “Ingo?”
Ingo opened his eyes. His excitement was so clear in his eyes and voice. “Emmet?”
Emmet sighed, “Let me call Elesa.”
One phone call and an hour later, Elesa was dropping Ingo and Emmet off at their place, groceries, garden supplies, and a small tree in the trunk, the free back seat, and the brothers’ laps.
Ingo went straight to the backyard with every plant he could carry. Emmet and Elesa carried the rest of the groceries and the plants Ingo hadn’t grabbed to the kitchen.
“Thanks for the help, Elesa,” Emmet said once everything was inside.
Ingo grabbed the rest of his gardening supplies from near the back door. “Yes, thank you,” he said before running back outside.
“No problem,” Elesa laughed. “You’re just lucky I was free this afternoon.”
“That is true,” Emmet said. “There was no way we would have been able to carry all that home.”
“Why did you get so much anyway?” Elesa asked. “You can’t keep a houseplant alive.”
“Ingo wanted them.”
“You could have said no.”
“You know I couldn’t.” Emmet gestured out the kitchen door. “Look at him.”
Ingo could be heard excitedly planning his garden. “What do you think, Tangrowth? Should the Pecha Berry tree go over here, or do you think it is going to need more sun? Yes, more sun would be better. Over there it is! Now, what about the tomatoes? By the deck perhaps?”
Elesa nudged Emmet as she started unpacking the bags on the counter. “You two just can’t say no to each other.”
That was certainly part of it. But it wasn’t the only thing.
Emmet looked out the kitchen window, watching as Ingo started pointing out where Excadrill should dig. “It’s good to see him excited again.”
Elesa furrowed her brows. “He seems pretty excited most of the time I see him.”
Emmet shook his head. He started putting away the frozen and cold things as he tried to figure out how much he wanted to tell Elesa. He wasn’t sure how much Ingo had told her about Hisui, and he didn’t want to overstep. It wasn’t exactly his story to tell.
“He has been excited about many things,” Emmet settled on, closing the fridge and moving onto the pantry, “Verrrry excited. About the toaster and the fridge. About our Pokemon and pictures. About me and you. About everything. But he is also sad. I can tell. This is the first thing I have seen Ingo be truly excited about since we recoupled. I could not say no to that.”
Elesa was quiet for a moment. Then she sighed. “I suppose not. But now your backyard is going to be covered in gourds.”
“A small price to pay for Ingo to be happy,” Emmet laughed. “And one I will gladly pay. You will get some once they grow. I am sure of it.”
“And so will the rest of Gear Station.” Elesa bunched all the bags together and handed them to Emmet. “I hear those things grow like crazy.”
Emmet took the bags and shoved them in their drawer. “Maybe we can give them out on the Battle Subway.”
“Maybe,” Elesa laughed. She took Emmet’s battle pose. “Please win twenty battles in a row, and fight with me! You can win this zucchini!”
Emmet laughed and gave Elesa a light shove as he walked passed her. “You do not even sound like me. I am going to see if Ingo wants help. Want to come?”
“Yeah, sure. I haven’t helped in a garden since I was, like, twelve or something.”
They got outside just as Ingo had finished planting the tree. He stood up once he saw them, wiping his dirty hands on his coat.
“Look! We got the tree planted!” Ingo said, voice loud and soaked with excitement, grinning as much as he could. “Now, we just need to get the rest of the garden set up. Did you want to help?”
Yes, it was good to see Ingo truly happy again.
“Yup! Of course!”