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They’ve taken to spending nights on Mr. Edgeworth’s balcony, drawing the curtains so there’s little more than a silver of warm light from the living room slanting across the balcony floor. They can hear the soft murmur of Mr. Edgeworth talking to Mr. Wright over the phone; though it’s around ten o’clock at night here, it’s about seven in the morning there, which, as Kay and Sebastian understand it, is both past the normal time Mr. Edgeworth would go to bed and far too early for Mr. Wright to be awake, but they seem to have an understanding of sorts on the matter.
They’ve been in Europe for a little under a year, Sebastian studying to retake the bar under Mr. Edgeworth’s tutelage and Kay soaking up everything there is to know about international law in her efforts to become the greatest detective alive, bar only Sherlock Holmes. Mr. Edgeworth has them on a strict schedule when it comes to their studying, and there have been several times where Kay came very close to throwing a book out a window and Sebastian got so frustrated and bogged down in confusing legal jargon that he burst into tears, but they manage. They have time to explore in the afternoon and sometimes Mr. Edgeworth will take them to tea houses that serve little sandwiches and tiny desserts.
And at night, on the balcony, they share secrets.
Their secrets are never anything earth-shattering. The biggest secrets they have to tell have already been aired out like dirty laundry in the middle of courtrooms, so all they have left are small and inconsequential things that aren’t quite secrets, but that they haven’t had the opportunity to tell anyone else yet, such as Kay’s interest in technology or the fact that Sebastian has perfect pitch but never knew until he became friends with Klavier Gavin at Themis.
They take turns picking topics. Last night it was Sebastian’s turn, and he asked Kay what her favorite food was, because he couldn’t think of anything better.
(Her response, with a wry smile, had been Swiss rolls from the vending machine in the old courthouse, the one by lobby two.)
And tonight it’s Kay’s turn. She doesn’t often hold back, so Sebastian tries to prepare himself accordingly for whatever she might ask, because whatever her question may be, he has to answer. Except, not really, because Mr. Edgeworth once had a lengthy conversation with them about boundaries because in the beginning Kay wasn’t very good at respecting Sebastian’s touchy topics, as she labeled them afterwards. She’s much better about it now.
“So, Seb,” Kay says, a mug of tea in her hands so hot it sends curls of steam tracing her dark hair and tanned skin, “what are you afraid of?”
Sebastian frowns, staring up at the sky. There are chairs on the balcony but they often like to lay on their backs and make up stories about the stars when they’ve run out of secrets to tell, until Mr. Edgeworth comes out and gently scolds them into bed for the night. The summer breeze whispers across his skin as he thinks. He’s afraid of a lot of things, really.
He’s afraid of spiders, but not big spiders. You can see big spiders and deal with them properly; it’s the small spiders you have to worry about because you can’t see those, so you don’t know where they are until it’s too late.
He’s afraid of falling from a great height and breaking all of his bones, but he thinks that’s a pretty normal thing to be afraid of. Justine told him once that a lot of people are afraid of heights, but he’s less afraid of the heights and more afraid of the idea of falling, but he doesn’t know how to explain that properly to Kay, so he skips it.
He’s afraid of dying, but everyone’s afraid of that, except for maybe Kay. He doesn’t think she’s afraid of anything at all.
He’s afraid of fire and his father.
But Kay knows that already.
Sebastian isn’t sure what makes him say this over any of his other fears. His other fears would be easy to admit; maybe that’s what makes him say it, because sometimes secrets are difficult to say aloud. He sits up, feeling wisps of hair escaping his bun (he’s taken to wearing his hair up lately, as it gets hot in Europe in the summer), and looks at Kay beside him. “I’m afraid I’m a bad person,” he says, finally.
Kay scrutinizes him, silent for a while while her green eyes search his face. “I don’t think you’re a bad person.”
“I’ve done bad things.”
“No, you haven’t.”
“I have.”
Kay shifts, setting down her mug on the floor. “Like what?” she asks, leaning against the balcony railing. “What bad things have you done?”
He frowns at her. He doesn’t want to say his list of sins aloud; he doesn’t have the heart for it, not tonight. So he flops back on his back to look up at the stars again; they’re clear out here like they never were back home, drowned in city lights. He starts to count each star he can see until Kay’s face fills his vision, her long loose hair spooling on either side of his face like black rivers, and she flicks him in the forehead.
“Ow,” he says, pointedly.
She sticks her tongue out at him. “Stop thinking like that or I’m gonna get Mr. Edgeworth.”
“Don’t get Mr. Edgeworth.”
“Then stop thinking like that.”
Sebastian exhales and it stirs Kay’s bangs; she wrinkles her nose in mock disgust, like his breath smells bad (but she’s only joking). She makes a move to flick him in the forehead again but he shoves her face away before she can. She laughs and lets him do it, flopping onto her back beside him. They lapse into silence for a while, listening to Mr. Edgeworth washing dishes in the kitchen while he talks on the phone, the soft undertones of his voice mingling with the singing of crickets and the lonely calling of owls in the dark.
“Everything you did,” Kay says softly, then, “was for your dad. You did it to make him happy, and that doesn’t make you a bad person. It just makes you a good son to a really shitty father.”
Sebastian purses his lips, tracing the scars on the back of his knuckles with his thumb. “Did you…” he begins, then pauses. Kay waits until he starts again. “When you were little, did you want to be a prosecutor? Like your dad?” The rest of his question goes unspoken: like I did?
“No,” Kay says, after a beat. He’s not looking at her, but if he were, he might’ve seen the sad little smile that flickered across her face. “I wanted to be a garbage truck driver.”
Sebastian sits up at that. “You what?”
Kay snorts. “I’m not kidding. It was only for like, a year, though. I just wanted to drive the big truck with the crushy things on it and pick up all the trash cans and flip ‘em around. I used to think raccoons lived exclusively in garbage cans, so I thought if I was a garbage truck driver I could collect all the raccoons and keep them in my backyard and feed them hot dogs.”
Sebastian stares at her. “You…” he says, and then trails off. He doesn’t have the words.
“What?” Kay giggles. “I wanted to make an honest living as a garbage truck driver with all of my raccoon friends. Is that so wrong?”
“That’s weird.”
“You’re weird.”
“You’re weirder.”
“Yeah, well you’re the weirdest.” Kay sticks her tongue out at him. “Take that, Debeste.”
Sebastian opens his mouth, then closes it. You can’t really top the weirdest (except, of course, with the weirdestest to infinity plus one, which is Kay’s trump card against Trucy that Sebastian knows nothing about and therefore cannot use). Defeated, he slumps back down, and Kay continues.
“So…yeah. I didn’t want to be a prosecutor at all,” she says, holding her hands to the night sky and wiggling her fingers. “And then my dad died, and I found out about the Yatagarasu and then that was all I ever wanted to be. I guess I didn’t really want to be like my dad until he was gone, and then it was a way to feel close to him, I think.”
“Do you feel bad that you…” Sebastian trails off, uncertain of how to word it.
“Gave up?” Kay offers, and shrugs. “I dunno. I don’t think being a detective is really giving up on the Yatagarasu. I’m still gonna, you know, steal the truth and bring it to light.”
“I think you’re gonna be a good detective.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Kay hums. “I think you’re gonna be a good prosecutor.”
“Unless I don’t pass the bar.”
“You will.”
“I don’t know. It’s all really confusing. I feel like I’m learning it all for the first time.”
“You’ll get it.” Kay nudges his shoulder. “You’re Mr. Edgeworth’s protege, after all.”
Sebastian flushes. “I…don’t think that’s-“
“It is,” Kay interrupts. “It is.”
Sebastian purses his lips but doesn’t argue back. He’s learned by now not to argue with Kay when she takes a firm stance on something, because if she believes she’s right she won’t waver, and this is something that Sebastian secretly would like for her to be right about. But she didn’t ask him about that tonight, so he doesn’t have to admit it. He can keep that secret to himself.
“So,” Kay says, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. “Your turn. What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Sebastian frowns. “But we’re already grown up.”
“No we’re not! We’re only seventeen. We have a lot more growing to do,” Kay replies, grinning. “So what do you wanna be, Seb?”
“I already want to be a prosecutor.”
“Well, yeah, but besides that. If you could be anything in the world, anything at all, what would you be?”
Sebastian exhales. He stares up at the night sky, the stars shining so bright he feels like if he reached out he could grab one and hold it there in his palms, and in his mind he pictures a star as a small and delicate thing, made of glass and light and dust.
“Sebastian?” Kay asks, propping up on her elbows.
“Good,” he replies.
“What?”
“When I grow up,” Sebastian says, staring up at all those stars, “I want to be good.”
Kay is silent. Sebastian doesn’t look at her. And then Mr. Edgeworth is opening the balcony door and light spills across them, and he reminds them gently but sternly that it’s far too late for them to still be awake, and if they keep staying out on the balcony for so long they’re certainly going to catch a cold, and please, do brush their teeth before they go to bed because if they don’t he will certainly know.
And so they scuttle off, and as they take turns brushing their teeth in the bathroom mirror, squinting against the bright fluorescents and yawning, Kay nudges Sebastian’s socked foot with her own and grins up at him. “I think you’re already there, Seb,” she says brightly, and when he begins to tear up she kindly says nothing about it.