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Luke wasn't terribly skilled at drawing conclusions based on people's reactions, but he could at least tell that Emil was bothered by his family more than his words let on. That much was understandable, of course, given that the boy had run away from home in the first place, but it seemed to run deeper than that, if the evident fear in his voice and expression were anything to reference. He didn't know how much good it would actually do, but Luke decided his best bet at learning more without demanding details was to keep talking and hope it made Emil more conversational in turn.

"Uh, well, it's not a secret or anything, but it's kind of complicated..." That and it often angered him to think about. A persisting anger towards his parents' lies was a major factor in his refusal to return home, and if he weren't certain his mother would make herself sick with worry, he would have stopped writing to assure her of his health ages ago. "To put in as few words as possible, my parents raised my brother for ten years, and I was raised somewhere else. My brother disappeared and they couldn't find him, so they used me as a replacement." It was an exercise in futility to try and keep the tension from his voice and posture; it always was when it came to matters involving the ten years he'd lost and had replaced with deception and the name that belonged to someone else. It wouldn't do anyone any good to get angry, though, and he recognized that. Not him, and certainly not Emil.

"As far as anyone else knows, the fon Fabre household has only ever had one son," he said, shrugging slightly. "My brother and I are twins, so it was easy to swap one for the other without anyone finding out." It probably sounded really weird, and Luke couldn't blame anyone for thinking so. It sounded weird to him, too, if he tried to think about it objectively. Or at least, he could conceive how someone might find it weird. "Father was always going on about family honor and stuff and how it was important not to do anything that would hurt the house's reputation... I guess it wouldn't have been too good for that reputation for it to get out that he lost his heir or something?" Then maybe you should have looked harder for him instead of damning your other son to live in a lie, you stupid old man.

Garnering sympathy or concern or whatever was never his intent, so Luke answered the apology with a vague laugh, "Heh, it's just one thing on top of another nowadays. It's not like I can change it, though, so it's no use worrying over it, right?" A silent sigh; it wasn't so bad to pretend nothing was wrong for a change. It was better than dwelling on things over which he indeed had no sway, at least.

"Oh yeah, I guess you did run into him that time, huh..." He had nearly forgotten the encounter - or the avoided encounter. That was before he'd even known he had a brother... "Yeah, that's him. Asch." He crossed his arms in a faint pout. "He cut his hair a while back. Looks even more like me now. It drives me crazy." He really hated the idea of being mistook for someone else.

That was a good question, wasn't it? "I don't really know... All I know is that some time between then and now, he joined Team Rocket." Where Asch went after he disappeared, where Luke was before he rejoined the main household... There were still a lot of questions surrounding the whole matter, as well as considerable doubt that all of those questions would ever be answered. "I told him he'd ought to go home, if only to show our parents that he's alive, but he's really against it..." Luke supposed he could sort of understand it. He wouldn't be very happy himself if he went home to find that his parents had invited someone else to live in his place. At this point, in fact, he would likely be downright furious.

"Well, I'm not going home, at least... I said I was going to do whatever I could here in Kodo, and that's exactly what I plan to do." He didn't know what it was, exactly, that he could do, but he couldn't just give up and go home. Now less than ever.

The idea of Asch being afraid drew a brief spell of laughter; he might have felt bad about that if his brother hadn't displayed such obvious amusement in his own misery. "I dunno about that," he said, seating himself as well. "I mean, I guess it's possible, but if that's the case then I don't know what he's scared of. I don't know what kind of relationship he had with our parents, but if how they act towards me is any indication, it's pretty obvious that they miss him."

He frowned slightly at the suggestion and placed his chin against his palm. "He keeps telling me to go home. I think if I visited, he'd just be pissed off that I came back here after..." Besides, he didn't want to see his parents or hear their justification for the web of deceit they'd woven - or worse, hear them try to insist that it was all true.

He set his palms against the ground shortly behind him and leaned backwards against them, allowing his gaze to wander idly through the tree branches to the sky beyond. "If that's the case, then he's just an idiot. If they spent all this time thinking he was dead, how could they be anything but relieved and happy to see he's all right?" As bent as Asch seemed on the idea that Luke should return home, he was just as insistent that his brother return as well. He'd figure out a way to force them to meet somehow. He wasn't just going to sit around and let Asch believe he'd been replaced or rejected or whatever when Luke himself knew damn well otherwise.

Ah, Emil had never met Asch properly; he'd only seen him once, very briefly. "He's kind of angry all the time. And he apparently hates me, so if I came back after going home he'd just be even angrier..." Luke was vaguely aware of the fact that this was not how brothers were supposed to act towards one another, but what was there he could do about it?

"Don't think he's ever outright said it, but yeah, that seems to have a lot to do with it." That was an awful lot of hate to harbor towards someone who hadn't had any choice in their circumstances or even any knowledge of what was happening. Part of him could understand Asch's anger, but another part simultaneously found it completely unreasonable. And if there was more to it than that, then what? They hardly ever even ran into one another long enough for opinions to form beyond first impressions.

He nodded, "Yeah. Do you remember Rosie, from the spring festival?" He remembered running into her with Emil in his company, but he couldn't recall if they'd met properly or not. "He stole her Vaporeon a long time ago. We've been trying to get her back, but it's been kind of..." An empty effort. They'd lost their best chances from the fact that Asch didn't seem to carry the water-type around. It was disheartening, but there had to be some way to get Vahy'n back, somehow.