Cents and Kents

The week passed without anything too exciting happening. Éxy started hanging out with that group of cents he fake-fought more. I can't really blame him, cents prefer being around other cents. I wouldn't know, but most of the groups of friends are one gender, with only an occasional exception. Though he still usually takes an opportunity to hang out with us.
"Hey, Agápe! Me and Fili are going to go into the forest today, we're going to ask Éxy to come too." I ignored the automatic grammar correction in my head about her saying ''me and Fili' instead of 'Fili and I.'
"I'd love to! Do you know where Éxy is?" I asked.
"Yeah, he's at the library." Fili said.
"Alright, let's go ask him." Dia said.
I saw him at one of the tables, reading.
"Hi, Éxy. We're going to the forest, do you wanna come?" I asked.
"Sure."
"Cool, let's go." Dia said.
We walked along the road for a few minutes before walking off it and into the forest.
"So where's the trail or some sort of path?" Éxy asked.
"We don't need a trail, we've been down here a lot of times." Fili said.
"What about the first time you came here? Didn't you need a trail then?"
"Back then we were about 8, we didn't really follow the rules."
"I used to. Before we met I couldn't bear the thought of getting in trouble." I said.
"My name doesn't mean fun for nothing." Dia said.
"Why don't you guys get any annoying things about your name? I have to have a new crush every day but you don't have to do something fun every day, Dia." I said.
"There's a much more annoying setback. Whenever an opportunity to do something fun arises, no matter how much trouble I could get in or how hurt I could get, it's really hard to resist. Not impossible, but I'm more likely to do it than not."
"What about you, Fili? I asked.
"I'm friends with so many people, I say hi to someone like 100 times a day. Plus, if I try to be friends with someone and they don't want to be friends with me, I go a little crazy. How 'bout you, Éxy?"
"I have to do some sort of schooling every day or I get a little crazy too. I also take as many extra projects as I can get, which can get stressful if I have too much schoolwork."
"So I guess mine isn't so bad. It doesn't make me do anything I don't want to do." I said.
"But you've never had a boyfriend so all the potential of your name might not be out yet." Dia said.
"That's true. Oh look, here we are!" I said.
We came into a large area that thinned out a lot more than the other parts of the forest. The trees that were there were pecan trees and this was the perfect time of year to come here because all of the nuts were ripe. A lot of them fall on the ground when they're ready, so we scoop some of them up, peel the outer part off, and put them in our pockets.
"I wonder what it'd be like to climb trees." Fili said.
"It'd probably be fun, if it wasn't impossible." Dia said light-heartedly.
"Oh well, I'd prefer to stay on the ground anyway." Éxy said.
"So you wanna start peeling them?" I said.
"Sure." Éxy said.
We each started picking up whatever we could find and sat near a tree when we all got a lot.
"So I've just been wondering about this for a while. Why didn't you get a crush on me when you accidently looked me in the eyes a few days ago? I never got a chance to ask you."
"Your eyes met?" Fili said.
"Yeah you were... Somewhere else for some reason but yeah I accidently did. And I really don't know why I didn't feel anything. Maybe it wasn't long enough of a look." I said.
"We could try again, just to see what happens." Éxy said.
"Yeah, I'm not sure what would happen since I've never looked in a cent's eyes for more than a few seconds before. Don't be surprised if I propose to you."
"Haha. Okay, let's try." I didn't know why I was nervous, I guess I just couldn't predict what would happen. We both turned our heads and our eyes met.
"Green eyes. I was wondering what color they'd be." I said.
"And yours are hazel. Do you feel anything?" he asked.
"No, I don't understand why it isn't working."
"They have a book at the library that says a bunch of information about each name. Maybe we can find out why it isn't working." Éxy said.
"Okay, let's go!" Dia said.
We went out of the forest by taking several complex turns, a path we've mastered since we were 8.
"We’re here." Fili said. The plaza that the library is in is right next to the forest. We walked over there, Éxy and I walking a little faster since we were a little more anxious about why I wasn't able to get myself to have a crush on him. I was especially careful not to look in any other cent's eyes, just in case the book told us to test something out. We got into the library and found the book, then Dia and Fili caught up with us. We all stood next to a table and put the book down on it. We only had to flip a few pages since my name started with an A.
"Here it is. Agápe, translated into Αγάπη in Greek, means love. This will cause anyone who is named Agápe to fall in love with the first person he or she sees. This crush will only last a day and then he or she will find a different person to love." Éxy said.
"I already know all this, what does it say about the name not working?" I asked.
"Here's something, the name's power will cease to work under two conditions, the person named Agápe is already married to someone else through his or her own feelings and not the name, or the person whose eyes he or she met is of a... Family relation to him or her."
We were all shocked.
"That... That can't be right. I don't have any cousins, both my mother and father don't have any siblings."
"Agápe... I was adopted. I never knew who my real parents were."
"You're to suggesting that... No, no that's impossible. My parents would have told me."
"So would mine."
"I mean, it's more likely that I'm already married than you being my... Brother."
"We have to go ask them."
"I'll see you later." I said running out the door. Éxy put the book back and then came out shortly after, neither of us remembering Dia and Fili were still there. We walked there together for the first few blocks.
"My parents wouldn't lie to me. I'm an only child, the book can't be right." I said.
"We should probably prepare ourselves just in case it's true, instead of denying it." Éxy said.
"I just... Don't feel like this is happening. My parents have never told me about me having a brother." I said.
"My parents have always told me that they never knew who my birth parents were. If that's true, then I'm not sure if I'd learn anything by asking them about this."
"You can come with me to ask mine. If we are... Related... Then that has to mean they lied."
"Okay, I will. I'll ask mine later, but I have to know for sure as quickly as possible."
We arrived at my house and I found myself frozen at the door.
"You know, even if we are related then it wouldn't be that bad. We might not even be related." Éxy said.
"It's not a matter of how bad it would be. I think it'd be cool to have a brother, but if this is true then that means my parents lied to me all my life. I would never know what to believe." I said.
"We'll never know unless we ask."
"How are you so calm about this? I noticed the look of disappointment when I said I didn't have feelings for you. Can you honestly say you didn't have feelings for me before we knew we might be related?"
"Not really. I logically thought that we should be together, and when you said we shouldn't then I didn't know who else I should be with. Before this started, I just thought... We'd grow to have feelings for each other."
"I've never had a boyfriend, but my name is Agápe so I know a lot about love. It isn't something that's based primarily on logic, that's just something that's helpful in something long term. Pretty much all of it is how you feel when you see someone. Your heart just fills with desire and content and just... Love. Neither of us felt those things, and I think this whole thing is why."
"Does that mean you're ready to know for sure if we are?"
"Yeah. I am."
I opened the door and found both my parents at the table.
"Welcome home, who's this?" My mother said.
"Mom, this is really crazy and probably isn't true but... Do I have a brother named Éxy?" I said. They both stared at me and Éxy with panic and confusion in their faces.
"I’m sorry, sweetie. We would've told you but we didn't want you to try to go on a wild goose chase to find him. He was in a different village, we had no idea where he was and we didn't want that to bother you." she said.
"I can't believe this... I just can't wrap my mind around this. I mean I already was coping with it when it was just a possibility but it's true..." I said.
"Does that mean you're... Our son?" my- our - father asked.
"I guess so." Éxy said. They both ran over to him and hugged him and despite how odd it felt, I joined in too. We stayed like that for about a minute before we released each other.
"I can't believe we found our son. I never thought we'd see you again." our mother said.
"So... Why did you give me up?"
"Well that brings me to the other part. You're not just siblings, you're twins. Fraternal of course, but still twins." she said. I couldn't believe this, I was a twin. Éxy was my twin.
"We were expecting one child, we only had the money and the resources for one baby. When your mother had twins, it was completely unexpected and we couldn't afford to have you both. We had nowhere to turn but adoption. We wanted to keep in touch with you, but the family who was adopting you was set on moving somewhere else. You were gone soon after they adopted you." our father said.
"So we're... Twins?" Éxy said, this was the first time I actually saw shock in him about this.
"That's right. We wanted to have both of you in our family, but the circumstances were out of our control." our father said.
"Wait a second, so you chose me over him?"
"We didn't want to choose, it was the most difficult decision of our life." our mother said.
"It wasn't because of my name, right? You didn't choose me because you thought I'd love you more."
"No! No, of course not. Several factors went into our decision, but the time came where we had to give one of you up and we just had to choose."
"It's fine, I don't blame you. I know you did everything you could in that kind of situation. I just... Need time to process this."
"We understand that. Are you okay, Éxy?" she said.
"I think so. I mean, I would've loved to know you were my real parents before so much time passed, but I'm just glad I know now." We all hugged again, this time it lasted for probably about 5 minutes.