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The cafe they had settled in was busy. Edgeworth was leaning into his chair, both his hands around a cup of his choice as if the surrounding noise didn't bother him at all. The time difference between Munich was 9 hours, the flight time adding 13 to it. Tiredness lagged still under his eyes. Phoenix lay down his coffee carefully, not to stain any of the haphazardly thrown papers all over the table they were sharing.
"Don't you need more caffeine?"
Mmm, disagreed Edgeworth. He blinked willfully, facing Phoenix with his gaze just a fraction brighter.
"Sometimes it is better to indulge yourself then take what is necessary."
"Didn't know you do sentiment." Phoenix waved a report in his hand, deflecting Edgeworth's spluttered complaints slammed on to the table. "Is a simple tea in a cafe good enough for you? Figure there's lots of kind of red tea."
"It doesn't have to be a certain brand I like. You may think I acquired this taste during my time in Europe, but I have always had a taste for tea. Any would suffice." His expression as he had another sip was soft as it went. Phoenix didn't remember what kind of tea he had ordered, is enjoying. There was no green tea on the menu, he thought. The rest were names he didn't know, didn't bother much to read. Was there an Earl Grey in the mix? He eyed the teabag settled on the saucer. Brown... might as well be red tea, after all.
"Yeah... You did carry around a thermometer all those years ago." Phoenix also didn't remember which tea it was. Only that Larry had stolen his sip at it as any kid would do, just to wrinkle his nose to the taste. That Edgeworth had that look in his face like somehow he was hurt by it. That Phoenix hadn't even though to try thinking, maybe it was because of the lines stepped over. He didn't even have much chance to try a cup of tea. Young ages brought sweet tooth, and these busy times with work and raising a child and researching for the upbringing of the MASON system suited more with energy drinks and a cafe latte with two shots of espresso. Edgeworth carefully prompted Phoenix, still staring at his teabag.
"Do you want to have a go?"
"What?"
"As you stated, this is not a good place for a drink. Noisy, too much scent around to catch the subtle difference of each try. If you want..." Edgeworth broke off, his gaze sliding over. Past the large window, the street was filled with passersby. He answered.
"Don't really have the time for it."
"Couldn't be helped, can it." Edgeworth put simply, no remorse in his expression as he sipped at the tea. Phoenix emptied his cup and poked at the mounds of paper in front of them. It was a suggestion with nothing behind it, a refusal with no context. Even so, he couldn't forget that tired face just accepting it as nothing happened-
So he went to an exhibit.
The first time he had encountered art properly was in his college days. While he did major in act and film, bein in an art uni meant there were displays and projects sprawled all over the place and under his feet. He saw sculptures built with passion and distress, cleaned up after a mess someone left behind years after. He also took a class in the history of western art. He didn't remember if it was mandatory or not. He had, during the sweet autumn of 2013, tried to stumble through a commentary of sorts for Dahlia, coined together based on a subject he had just listened to half a year ago. The memory of her white dress scattering sunlight from the windows of the gallery lingered behind his eyelids yet. She laughed at his struggles, he quite in a bashful shrug. I don't know much, not really. Sorry for being clumsy.
Dahlia looked at him with her eyes, accepting as it always was. It is enough to like as it is. Reflecting on it, the comment was quite peculiar. Dahlia- Iris. Asked him to return that necklace even that day.
They looked at expressionism then. Monet, Manet, Renoir, he doesn't remember. Brilliant colors dragged across his eyes. The only thing left standing was a single moment, biting expression, something etched into his head like shards of glass. He stood in front of a modern installation now. Metals and whats-its tangled in queer angles stretched out and on. He couldn't get it. Couldn't get what it was, what it was going to give him. Just. It felt strangely melancholy, with a dash of promises of forever and a feeling of an impending breakdown, swift and easy and irrevocable.
Trucy loved the exhibit very much. She always had eyes that saw the world in its unique view.
"We should thank Mr. Edgeworth for the ticket." She said, bouncing on her heels as she did when excitement won over. Phoenix gestured at her to lower her voice.
"We should." Of course, they should. It was not the first or even the second time he sent over suspiciously coupled tickets for this show and that, claiming that they came in as a present that he couldn't spare his time for. It had been years since he and Phoenix talked about Trucy's reactions to each outing every chance they had. Those days, Edgeworth would laugh a rare one, carrying over the phone quietly, calmly. Phoenix made an effort to catch him with a call even when there was nothing to check over their project or plans, that sound never failing to surprise him.
Even so, he thought as he firmly pulled down a knitted hat over Trucy standing two steps above him, this time, there was nothing to say.
There was an unfamiliar drawing on the office wall, a detail catching his eyes even before the size of the room, the changed color of the chessboard. Splayed and whirled in passionate colors, it may as well not have blended into the neat and classic room. As if it broke through the crack in the expression, the drawing stayed. Belonging to Miles Edgeworth.
He must have noticed what had captivated Phoenix, as he said instead of a greeting. "A painting I acquired a few years ago... Not fancying it?"
"Doesn't suit you."
A blunder was what it was. He just hadn't expected this, at all. Although he was aware that the actions of one man called Phoenix Wright amounted a lot to the changes of that man, he tended to be surprised at things that didn't fit the mold of Miles Edgeworth as he knew of. Mellowed face in contrast to deepened furrows, clear gaze facing forward instead of long silence and transparent crystalline of his eyes only found from the sideline, tens and hundreds of times of corroborating evidence that he would always return. Facing the proof of his ignorance, Phoenix placed his hands on his waist. He didn't want to tell his heart.
"Society teaches it's members from a young age to art and its values. Even though I do not consider typical beauty important, I do find some good to enjoy."
"You enjoy art by going to a museum, not hanging one on the wall. Or is it some kind of bourgeois culture I don't know?"
"It reminded me of you."
Edgeworth turned around in evasion after that. There was still an armful of flowers Phoenix didn't know of. It was also not Edgeworth's taste. Probably. He still ducked his head as if he was scrutinizing the details of each petal. Maybe that was why Phoenix blurted.
"Thought it didn't matter, whether it was with me or not."
"What didn't?"
"Tea."
"Hm." Soft gaze met him back, searching yet strangely honest at the same time. It might have been the shadows playing at his eyes, sunlight too bright to turn on the artificial ones draping delicate backlight over Edgeworth's face. "It was all fine for me, whether you wanted it or not. Isn't it such a work of art, though?"
Phoenix looked at his painting. It was sincerely framed with wood and metal that fit with dashing strokes of brushes, that melted into the room. Red, Black, sometimes white with raging passion, firmly upright as the roots of something meaningful and not resembling just about everything of Phoenix Wright.
Even though he had reached close enough to his former self such that it would be okay for him to enter the quarters of Chief Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, it felt as if there were residues of past years that clung thickly to his skin. No, not like he hadn't shed away- like he was fundamentally modified. He had changed, by other's will, and also by his will to stand up against it, bringing down the hammers to himself as necessary. Removing the cause alone didn't amount to much. There were times when he was afraid that it might have been irreversible, like the shadows that dragged at his feet even with the sun on his lapel with his hand thrown forward as if it was carved into his soul itself. And.
There was a painting in Miles Edgeworth's room.
Phoenix looked at him again. Edgeworth was leaning on the desk, waiting for his word. It would be fine if Phoenix just, stayed silent as he had so many times before. Even though he still didn't have time for tea, even though modern arts were never of his liking, it would be fine. Rays of late afternoon sunlight were lightly caressing the air between them. No sense of foreboding, or any importance held in it. Long as they shared it, the silence was comfortable. No one turning away even as time stretched, looking into each other's eyes. Phoenix thought he wouldn't run. He thought, he knew, he believed it to the marrow of his bones. He gulped.
"I didn't say thank you then."
Edgeworth inclined his head, hair falling to the side.
"There is an, exhibit at that gallery. Klimt, I think."
"Mm?"
"If you want to go... I saw a nice tearoom around the corner, too."
Something he didn't know was spreading across Edgeworth's face. Perhaps surprise, perhaps fear, or a wonder of some sort. It was something Phoenix had never seen before. Edgeworth had that look on his eyes, telling he was also gazing into something unknown. He smiled.
"I have always wanted to."