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Düsseldorf was always picturesque in the winter, like a carefully designed and composed painting, and the Hofgarten Park was no exception. The trees decorated the bright blue sky like painted black lines of ink and the snow seemed to glitter as it fell lightly above the world.
Miles glanced over to the man by his side, the very bundled up former (but hopefully soon to be reinstated) attorney, Phoenix Wright. He wore at least two layers of puffy sweaters underneath his puffy blue winter coat, trying his best to bury his nose into the plush off white scarf that Miles had to expertly tie and tuck in for him. Phoenix already had one arm linked to Miles’, and his gloved hands were stuffed into his pockets.
Miles chuckled at the sight of his partner, considering that he himself and Pess had been getting on just fine in the weather, the puppy happily trotting in the snow.
“Don’t look at me in that tone of voice…!” Phoenix huffed, a small puff coming from him. “It’s freezing !”
“All things considered, I think it’s a pretty tame winter,” Miles mused.
“You mean it gets colder ?!” Phoenix gasped, immediately pulling his blue beanie down further than it already was. “My ears are about to freeze off!”
“Now, Phoenix, you’re just being dramatic… Trucy’s been able to handle it well…!”
“I spent longer in LA…” Phoenix grumbled.
Miles tutted and rubbed his shoulder against his partner’s, “You have to admit that it looks pretty…” Miles said. “Almost like a painting…!”
“And it’ll look prettier when I look out of a window and I’m curled up by a fire!”
“If this is some roundabout way of asking for hot chocolate when we return to the chalet, fine,” Miles replied. “I will personally make you hot chocolate, fair enough?”
Phoenix snickered and kicked at the snow below, “Well if you’re
offering
…”
Pess yipped and tugged at the leash that Miles held onto firmly, her eyes trained firmly on a fat grey squirrel mere feet away from them. The borzoi stood at attention, her head pointed and her tail still.
“Ah yes, the great Pessus Maximus has found her prey,” Phoenix chuckled. “ Squirrelicus Greyicus …!”
“Ugh, was that supposed to be Latin ?!” Miles chuckled. “How on earth did you make it through law school for the first time?”
“Through the power of love, poo-bear,” Phoenix replied saccharine as he batted his eyelashes. “The power of love .”
Miles felt his cheeks run warm, definitely sure knew that whatever pink was present was not due to the chill. He huffed, fogging up his glasses, as he gently tugged the leash and whistled to get the puppy’s attention.
“Pess… heel,” Miles said, his voice firm. “ Heel .”
After a few moments, Pess whined and dropped her tail, losing focus of her rodent prey, as she sat down.
Miles pulled a treat out from his coat pocket and bent to her level, “Good girl…!”
She happily took the treat, her tail thumping against the snow, and she yipped. Smiling, Phoenix bent down, slow and careful due to his back pains, and scratched behind her ears.
“You spoil her,” Phoenix said.
“You feed her from the table…!” Miles retorted. “And you’re not strong enough for those eyes!”
Pess barked innocently and bumped her head against Phoenix’s hand, clearly not satisfied with the lack of attention on his part.
Just as Miles was about to give his protest, he felt something cold and wet hit him in the back of his head, knocking his glasses off. He reached behind to grab a few chunks of snow that had been stuck in the strands of his hair.
“What on earth ?!” Miles gasped.
“Hah! Bullseye!” Franziska laughed. “Good work, Maus…!”
Trucy giggled sheepishly, her hands behind her back, “Oops! Sorry Papa!” She apologized. “I aimed for your back…!”
“I still think it was a most perfect shot, don’t you, Little Brother?” Franziska ruffled the sixteen year old’s hair, eliciting a wide grin.
Phoenix brushed some snow off of Miles’ maroon jacket and chuckled, “Looks like I should have tried getting you into softball, eh, Truce?”
Before Trucy could reply, Phoenix managed to throw a snowball at her, causing her to stumble back into the snow.
“Hey! No fair!” She giggled, tossing her hidden snowball that hit her father‘s beanie and knocked it off, flying into the snow.
“Think fast, Little Brother…!” Franziska warned, holding her own snowball up in the air.
In an attempt to cover his face, he let go of Pess’ leash, who was happily trouncing through the snow, causing it to fly up in the air. Miles took his chance and grabbed Franziska’s ankle, causing her to fall back and shout.
“You will regret that, Miles Edgeworth!” Franziska shouted, kicking more snow in his face.
“‘Let it be war upon you both!’” Trucy cackled, half singing.
“You’ve been playing Phantom too much…!” Miles told Phoenix.
“Less talk about my musical tastes, we’re at war!” Phoenix replied, making as many snowballs as he could.
There were other ways a calm jaunt could have ended, yet despite it all, there were no objections to be made.
As soon as Phoenix was finished with the bar exam, he knew he could breathe easy for the time being. The results weren’t going to be released until sometime the next month, but the (hopeful) attorney didn’t want to spare any more seconds or thoughts to his impending doom, especially after the intense year of study that his partner put him through.
Instead, Phoenix tried to focus on the fresh air of People Park, the birds chirping above them, and the flowers in bloom.
What a wonderful spring day, Phoenix thought as he sighed.
There was a gaggle of school children out, most likely in the middle of their spring break, running and plucking flowers and puffy dandelions. One child was even skipping ferociously on a skipper toy; his face in total concentration as he quickly jumped over the ball and chain.
Phoenix watched, amused, even as Miles came back with the shaved ice from a nearby vendor.
“Now that takes me back…” Phoenix mused as he took his blue raspberry flavored treat. “You broke mine when I brought it to school…!”
“The skipper? I never broke it,” Miles protested, he had gotten his usual cherry flavor. “We just used it too much!”
“Mhm, sure,” Phoenix snickered. “You were weirdly good at it too, it took forever to get a turn!”
“It’s called keeping a rhythm, I just started my flute lessons so that’s all I could think about,” Miles replied. “Has he been going at it for a while?”
“Yeah, no slowing down… I bet he would have given you a run for your money back then,” Phoenix said. “Wonder if your skills got rusty…”
“Phoenix Wright, you are never, ever, ever getting me into one of those death traps…!” Miles retorted. “I’d break my ankle!”
“Coward’s speak!” Phoenix snickered.
“ Practical person’s speak!” Miles replied, smirking. “It would be a deathtrap if either of us tried ‘skipping it’ again!”
“‘Skipping it’, okay grandpa !”
“That’s what we called it!”
“Yeah, but now we’re old …!”
“We are only thirty five!”
“That’s ancient to kids these days!”
Just then, a gentle breeze brushed past them, bringing on a flurry of cottonwood and dandelion seeds in its wake. Phoenix felt a tickle in his nose as he batted the flying particles away, only to be jolted by Miles’ sudden foghorn sneeze.
The force of it all caused the prosecutor to jerk forward and sneeze two more times, equally as loud as the previous one.
Even the children nearby stopped to look at the commotion.
Phoenix gently pressed his hand against his partner’s back and leaned over, “Miles? Are you okay?”
Slowly, Miles sat back up, his face blotchy and red, his grey eyes were watering, and his nose was starting to run. He hastily pulled out a handkerchief and covered his nose, trying to stifle his sneezes.
“Do we have allergy medicine at home?” Miles asked, his voice scratchy.
“Oh my god!” Phoenix gasped, quickly unzipping his hoodie and draping it over Miles, trying to keep the seeds out and away from him. “I totally forgot, I am so sorry…!”
“You wanted to go to the park to celebrate!” Miles huffed, still adjusting the hoodie as a makeshift shield. “Didn’t think it was going to be this bad!”
Suffice to say, they both stocked up on allergy medicine.
Miles was never one for the beach, preferring to stay at home where the air conditioning was on full blast to read rather than dealing with sand and sunscreen, and yet here he was, setting up the umbrella and beach towels while Phoenix set up the cooler as Trucy ran off with Jinxie, Pearl, and some other of their school friends that decided to meet up that day.
Just as Miles flattened the towels to his satisfaction, he got a whiff of strong sunscreen coming from his partner’s spray bottle.
“Mind spraying that downwind?” Miles asked.
“Oops! Sorry about that, just wanted to get it out of the way before I forgot,” Phoenix chuckled. “Need me to get you?”
Miles pulled out a bottle of sun lotion and applied it instead, “No thank you, I prefer breathing…”
“Hah, I’m still surprised you actually had a pair of swim trunks…” Phoenix snickered. “I almost thought you were going to come here in a suit or something…!”
“Believe it or not, Wright, I do wear other things than my suit,” Miles tutted. “And I would prefer not to get a heat stroke.”
Phoenix laughed and started over to the shoreline, turning to be shocked that Miles was not going to follow and instead picked up a book.
“Oh no, no, no, not today, Edgeworth!” Phoenix shook his head, gently placing the book back into the bag and dragging Miles over to the shore. “No, we are at the beach , you can read elsewhere, but we are at the beach !”
“Phoenix Wright!” Miles sputtered. “I was almost going to reach the climax of that mystery!”
“You’ll reach it later,” Phoenix huffed. “You need Vitamin D!”
“I get plenty of Vitamin D!”
“You need the organic stuff!”
“Did you just call the sun organic ? ”
Phoenix grinned once they were able to float, far enough away from the sand and finally let go of Miles’ wrists, “Yes, and my point still stands…!” He added, emphasizing his point by splashing Miles with cool salty water. “We are at the beach to relax …!”
Miles smirked and splashed back pettily, “I’ll have you know that there is plenty of research finding reading to be a relaxing activity…!”
“Yeah, yeah, but I wanted to go swimming!” Phoenix added, reclining so that he was floating on his back. “And I decided that you were going to join me!”
“Oh? Looking for another client already?” Miles quipped.
Phoenix sputtered and splashed in the water, falling back creating a tremendous wave himself before snaking his arms around Miles’ waist and yanking him down and below the surface.
They reemerged together, Phoenix splashing Miles once more for good measure.
“That was last week!” Phoenix said, “And no one told me I was gonna defend an orca !”
“I know, but I will never let you live it down,” Miles replied, slowly easing himself in the water. “Where’s the fun in that?”
They continued to swim together, finding the water a cool respite from the hot beating sun above them, only shivering when a gentle breeze brushed past. Occasionally, the teens took snacks from the cooler and stayed on the towels and under the umbrella to take a break from their own activities.
Despite it all, Miles found that this excursion was more than tolerable, even more as he wasn’t alone.
Perhaps the mystery can wait for even just a moment like this, Miles thought, a smile slowly growing fondly at the newly reinstated attorney beside him.
He was pulled out of his thoughts when Phoenix gasped sharply, and he covered his mouth with his hands as his eyes bulged.
“Oh my god… we should get out now…” Phoenix said. “Did you also pack aloe vera?”
Miles recoiled and checked his arms, only to be faced with bright pink tender skin crawling up to his shoulders, the top of his chest and possibly his neck was the same.
“Wright!”
This was also one of the other reasons why Miles was never one for the beach.
The fall festival was one of Phoenix’s favorite activities, ever since he was a young child, it could never fail to raise his spirits, no matter what happened. The cool crisp air flew past, gently rustling his and Miles’ hair, some of the leaves were already turning orange, red, and yellow, much to the attorney’s fascination.
Gourd Lake looked its best during the autumn season, even despite the hopeful hunters that believed in Gourdy after all these years.
Hah… the spirit of adventure and cryptids never dies, huh? Phoenix wondered.
“Heh, why don’t we get a party popper or two just to really mess with them?” Phoenix quipped.
“Well, that’s just mean…” Miles chuckled. “Just like taking a broken squeaker toy away from Pess…”
“Maybe I’m a little nostalgic, sue me,” Phoenix snorted, glancing over to the now defunct boat shop, which had become a food and beverage stand for the park. “Oh! Cider and donuts sound great right now!”
“It’s the perfect weather for them, definitely,” Miles nodded. “Go ahead and grab a bench, I’ll get them while the line is empty…”
“Good plan, thanks, babe,” Phoenix grinned, kissing his partner’s cheek before sitting at the nearest bench.
He was overlooking the lake, watching how the sun danced through the ripples of water, turning it amber and gold. Birds and geese chirped and honked, the latter already making their flight southward for the coming winter.
Phoenix sighed and closed his eyes, taking everything around him, his body relaxed as the cool crisp breeze rushed past and rustled his hair.
This is perfection, I don’t care who says otherwise… Phoenix mused.
Eventually he was lulled back to reality when the warm sweet scent of apple cider pulled him out of his thoughts. Miles sat down next to him, holding two steaming cups and a paper bag of cinnamon brown sugar donuts.
“Order up,” Miles said, offering Phoenix a cup.
“Thanks, I probably was about to pass out…” Phoenix replied, grinning as he sipped his tart drink, warmth rushing through him.
“Old man,” Miles smirked, dipping part of his donut into his drink.
“You’re one to talk, four eyes…!” Phoenix replied, taking a bite out of the donut. “Trucy showed you a meme and you did the exact pose it was making fun of…!”
“The font was small!” Miles replied.
“My point still stands!”
“At least I’m not the one who still says ‘yeet’ to anything and everything…” Miles chuckled.
“It’s still hilarious to watch Apollo and Athena’s faces,” Phoenix added.
“I suppose there’s a joy in tormenting your younger underlings, I can admit that…” Miles said.
Phoenix laughed and laid his head against Miles’ shoulder, scooting closer to the other man. “I knew you’d get my point…”
Apple cider from the fall festival was always delicious, without a doubt, but it always tasted better when it’s shared with someone you love.