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The night sky of Los Angeles had less stars now than it did the last time Ema Skye looked at it.
That was almost seven years ago, now.
It must’ve been the light pollution, it must’ve gotten worse. Delirium coursed through her jet-lagged brain as she wondered if the ground was really still or not.
There was more litter in LA than she remembered, too.
It seemed like the whole world had gone to shit, actually, now that Ema had thought about it. It started with SL-9, she thought. When Neil died, and then Bruce died. And then Lana went away to prison as an accomplice.
The night air slid across her skin in dry, cold rushes. Being back in her home country, she thought she would be happier at the sight of LA. Only, she felt the most miserable she’d been since…well, since just about everything bad that could have happened decided to happen.
A cab was called to pick her up at the front of LAX. She had rented a little apartment with the help of her relatives and the funds Lana had bestowed unto her before she had to leave.
The ground wobbled.
If this was some kind of movie, a shuttle would fly past Ema and (If it weren’t for that ongoing drought) spray her with puddle water. It would be a good representation of her mood at the moment. She didn’t remember when she had become so jaded and burnt out, but she noticed it one day, all at once too. She had been hoping SL-9 wouldn’t be nagging at her by the time she was in her 20s. For so long, it seemed that Ema had escaped all that grief and bitterness as a young teenager.
Everyone always told Ema Skye that she was so resilient, and she believed it so. No matter what had happened in Los Angeles, she was going to pursue her passions of forensic sciences. For a good amount of years, she thought that maybe she would never have to worry about her problems again as long as she became what she wanted.
Only, it all had caught up with her. It was all this terrible, no-good brooding that was concentrated in this very moment, outside the LAX.
Ema Skye had given up.
* * *
The Borscht Bowl Club was mainly deserted, as it so often was.
Phoenix Wright sat at the restaurant’s piano, playing out a tune. It was not a particularly good tune, as he was not a particularly good pianist. While it was recognizable as a composed song, it sounded sloppy and performed under the influence of alcohol.
It sounded this way because it was undoubtedly and absolutely performed under the influence of alcohol.
It was perpetually freezing cold inside the Borscht Bowl. Phoenix half-way expected there to be icicles hanging off the edges of the tables.
His fingers were stiff and chilled on the worn-ivory keys.
There was a crate of wine bottles directly next to a crate of bottled grape juice, both sitting right next to the piano’s stool. Some nights he would take a drink from the grape juice crate, and on nights where he felt especially at rock bottom, he would drink lots of wine. It wasn’t like the packaging was any different.
Life had taken a turn recently, to say the least. It was a development Phoenix had learned to look at not with rage, but with silent contempt and regret. At the start of this whole ordeal, he tried to at least retain a sense of normalcy.
By now, it had become devastatingly clear that these circumstances were anything except normal. He had begun to take a backseat in his own life. He would almost begin to think that there was no point in doing much of anything anymore. If it weren’t for a couple reasons, of course.
First of all, his recently-acquired daughter.
Second of all, even if it was with his dying breath, he needed to know who was behind the scandal which plunged him into this bleak life. He understood Mr. Armando a little better now, he knew what it felt like to have almost everything taken away. The more time his mind lingered on it, the more he was beginning to understand this obsession for justice. It could even be called vengeance.
The front door to the restaurant swung open inconspicuously, but Phoenix tensed himself up anyway because he knew exactly who had entered. The sloppy piano tune sputtered to a sudden stop.
Speak of the devil.
Kristoph Gavin was a tall, intimidating man. His blond hair was twisted into a tight, coily point falling down on one of his shoulders. Even his hair was as straight-laced and uptight as he was. His icy blue eyes unsettled Phoenix.
In fact, most things about Kristoph unsettled Phoenix: from the way he almost always had his arms crossed in a stiff, uncomfortable-looking position, all the way to his barely-concealed anger and passive aggressive mannerisms. Everything about his demeanour was menacingly, thinly calm.
Kristoph was like a bomb that threatened to detonate at any moment, especially around Phoenix. Only, it never came. They could have clawed each other’s faces off, and yet they didn’t.
“Don’t stop playing just because I’m here, Wright.”
Phoenix scoffed and stopped reaching for the crate of wine.
“Oh, we both know I’m terrible at piano.” He tried his best to conceal the tipsy tone of his voice, but couldn’t mask it completely. What he had learned after years of being close with Gavin was that any sign of vulnerability shown could and would be used against him. There were certain fears and traumas Phoenix carried with him, things he was glad Kristoph hadn’t dug deep enough to figure out and inevitably manipulate him with.
“Did you come here just because you’ve missed me?” Phoenix looked over his shoulder. He couldn’t remember the last dinner they had together.
”Just for the borscht. But I don’t mind company.” Kristoph took a seat near the piano, smoothing his hand over the wooden table.
That was just about the worst lie Phoenix had heard, despite his years as an attorney. He knew that Kristoph really did just want to see him. Though he was ninety-percent sure of the seething hatred that Gavin held towards him, the malice also resembled an obsession of extensive length. Maybe he got some kind of sick thrill, looking at the hollow, dingy venue of the man whom he despised so. He liked seeing the results of his work.
Phoenix didn’t want to think about it, but the duality of hatred and obsession was starting to rub off on him too. He liked getting under Kristoph’s nerves. He liked acting all like a slob so Kristoph would become disgusted. He liked playing grating piano music, and feigning incompetence just to frustrate the man.
He liked playing this twisted little game Kristoph had instigated, too. Neither of them would admit it.
Kristoph must’ve gotten something out of it. Otherwise, why would he keep coming back?
”Kristoph, it’s late,” Phoenix sighed. “No one’s here except me. I can’t cook borscht.”
“Maybe I’d just like to see a friend of mine.” Kristoph smiled in that controlled, even sort of way that just felt too damn clean and clinical to be genuine. “Play something.”
Phoenix shrugged and began pounding out the most reckless of tunes. It wasn’t skilled work, and he enjoyed seeing Kristoph have to hide his dismay at the careless technique. He had one hand propped under his chin with his eyes closed, maybe trying to ward off some kind of headache. Gavin was nicknamed as the ‘Coolest Defense in the West”, but it was clear to anyone who spent more than a few hours around him that he was incredibly terse, selective, and sensitive. The littlest obstruction in his preferred way wasn’t something he could take lightly.
Phoenix’s arm slipped out of its tenuous coordination with the other, and in his tipsy state, he clattered the wine bottle off the piano and led it to fracture on the floor. What must’ve been a hundred little glass shards burst out from the floor, leaving a puddle of purplish-red liquid in its wake.
“Everything alright?”
”Oh, I’m peachy, Kristoph. It’s—“ Phoenix hurriedly spoke. Maybe if he talked fast enough he wouldn’t sound so startled.
”You’re drunk, Wright?” Kristoph said, with thinly veiled contempt and judgment. It was more of an accusation than a question—and Phoenix knew all about accusations.
“Hey, now. Not drunk, Kristoph.” He was losing his edge. If he didn’t get himself all the way together, he worried the outcome would be disastrous. He might do something regrettable.
But he’d already done enough regrettable things while sober.
”I’d just wish you’d take better care of yourself.” Phoenix moved down to the floor to examine the damage he’d done, and blatantly ignored Kristoph for fear of saying the wrong thing. He was fine. He was taking fine care of himself. He was playing the long game.
The glass pieces were cold to the touch. And there were plenty of them, too. Bigger, chunkier slices were in the middle of the wine puddle and smaller, speckled shards were on the outer puddle.
“Be cautious, Wright. I can help,” Kristoph walked over to the crouched man. He begun to take pieces of spiky, wine-soaked glass from the floor and put them into Phoenix’s hands to be thrown away.
“It’s alright, Kris—“
Phoenix couldn’t tell if it happened or not, that’s how he knew he’d gone off the deep end, but it seemed as if Kristoph had just imperceptibly dragged a shard of glass against Phoenix’s hand. A sharp but trivial sensation coursed through his hand.
Miniscule beads of red blood started to appear along the line where the skin was cut.
“Kristoph.” He said, raising his eyebrows.
”What? You cut yourself?”
That was it. Phoenix shook the remaining glass out of his hands and felt like punching Kristoph Gavin in his face, but refrained from doing so. He didn’t know if Kristoph had meant to do that, or if Kristoph did really anything at all. Maybe he was at the end of his rope. Maybe he was going insane. Rock Bottom.
But it was just one look at his level, calm, and even face that made Phoenix just about lose it.
How could anyone stand there and smile at the person whose life they ruined?
“If you would excuse yourself, please.”
Kristoph sort of simply stood there and stared at Phoenix. He looked surely satisfied to himself, which was about to send Phoenix around the bend—he had successfully gotten under his target’s skin.
For one split second, Phoenix pictured Kristoph picking up a bottle of wine and smashing it bluntly over his head, leaving him dead on the floor in some awful, decrepit restaurant. They would find him the next morning, and it would be a sad type of ordeal but the world wouldn’t be much different at all. It came to Phoenix in this moment that if he died right then, in that terrible dive-bar, he wouldn’t be surrounded by loved ones.
Kristoph did not kill a man that night, not physically. Phoenix felt pretty dead for a breathing person, though.
“I’ll see myself out, then.” An empty, hollow voice. The thin veil of an amenable rapport between the two men had vanished.
Phoenix finally untensed his muscles as Kristoph left the Borscht Bowl. The cut on his hand still filled up with blood in one thin, straight line. It truly didn’t look like much, but he couldn’t close a hand over it without feeling sharp, stinging pains.
Now he actually was alone.
More and more, he noticed himself being consumed by the Great Big Scandal which got him disbarred. It was always on his mind. Kristoph Gavin was on his mind. When he first got dragged into that mess, he swore up and down that he would never let anger and contempt and fear get the better of him. Only, here he was, playing indecipherable, cryptic games with everyone he knew. Being around Kristoph were the only times he ever felt anything other than disappointment. How had that become his livelihood? He was living off of malice and paranoia; it was no way to be.
How had it come to this?
How had he come to this?
Phoenix sat back onto the piano stool. He felt like shit, and must’ve looked like it too. He poured out one last sip of wine and held a bitter cheer for no one but himself.
Phoenix Wright had given up.
***
The cab was hot and stuffy inside. Ema shuffled around awkwardly in her seat, thinking that maybe if she sat this way and that, then maybe she would finally be comfortable this time. It was a useless effort.
She never liked to drive. She never liked cars.
Her cab driver was an older man who seemed to always be squinting at the road. Despite how serious he kept his face, he certainly seemed chatty. Ema did not want to talk to him, mostly because she was in such a bitter, overcast mood.
”Where’re you coming from, miss?” He said. The way his voice dragged and rumbled made it clear to Ema that his lungs had been damaged by tobacco. Funnily enough, her craving for a cigarette was not curbed by this glimpse into her possible future.
“Germany,” Ema fiddled with the pins on her brown leather satchel.
”Ah, Deutschland. You’re from LA, though, aren’t you, miss?”
“I am—“ She spoke, but was then caught off guard by the car lurching violently. Her heart stopped for just one second, and for that second, she felt like a little kid again. She was begging Lana not to drive to work, and to walk instead.
”Sorry. Potholes, you understand.” The driver thumped on the dashboard.
“Mm,” Was the only noise Ema was capable of making. It was high-pitched and shrill and made her feel pathetic. She couldn’t believe herself.
”What brings you back here, anyhow?”
Ema thought about this for a bit. Maybe because there was nothing left for her in Germany. There was nothing for her in Los Angeles, either. Maybe she was just going to be aimless for a while.
“Family.” Sure. She could say that, except, her only family was locked up in prison for serious crimes. Her stomach churned. Maybe she should have never come back. She could think back to SL-9 with merely detachment and somberness whilst studying in Germany, but here, those awful memories were suddenly vivid and all-too-real.
It wasn’t a far away tragedy like it was thousands of miles away. She couldn’t mythologize what had happened to her anymore, she couldn’t use it to motivate herself for bigger and better things.
It was here, it was now. It was practically staring her in the face with all the horridness in the world.
She should’ve never gotten on that plane.
She needed to leave this car. Ema instinctively raised a trembling hand as they barreled through the streets to open the car door, but stopped herself.
Suddenly, she couldn’t handle existing in this space anymore. Her breath quickened along with the pace of her heartbeat. With all the effort Ema could muster, she asked the driver to Please Pull Over Right Now Or Else I Will Barf All Over Your Car.
He was old and was a cab driver in LA, so nothing surprised him anymore. With a nod of acknowledgement, he pulled the car over onto the curb. Ema’s head spun and her legs wobbled as if she was a newly born horse. She nearly tripped on the filthy sidewalk, but stopped herself.
She, now nauseated and delirious with jet-lag, pulled a wallet out from her satchel and began rifling through it for any semblance of payment she could give to the man for his trouble.
Ema held up the cash weakly to his rolled-down window, and he simply laughed.
“Go ahead, keep it, miss. I assume you’re going through some sort of young-adult crisis right now.” He wasn’t wrong. The driver, strangely enough, saluted Ema and began cruising in the opposite direction.
Ema stuffed the money back into her wallet, which then she stuffed back into her satchel. Part of her wanted to cry, but she just couldn’t.
What in the world had just happened to her? That had never happened in Europe. It was mortifying, and she worried that it was going to happen again. As Ema breathed in the night air, thick with all sorts of pollution, her heart rate finally began to slow.
Once she had gotten ahold of herself, Ema looked around at the city scenery around her. She seemed to be in some kind of small, dingy shopping district. Grime covered the sidewalk and some lower parts of the storefronts.
Turned around, she saw a half-depleted neon sign staring her down on a derelict brick facade. OPEN, it screamed. The weathered paint below the front window told Ema it was the Borscht Bowl Club.
Just then, a tall, blonde man with glasses and a bitter, cold look on his face swung the door and stormed out of the restaurant. He looked absolutely peeved, and dressed rather primly for such a…bleak location.
Ema caught the closing door with her foot and peered inside. It seemed to have a welcoming, but not classy interior. The first thing she did notice, however, was the sudden blast of cold air that hit her square in the face.
The night was warm, and she was so entranced by this chilled restaurant that she couldn’t help but move into the building.
The lights were on, coating the whole place with a yellowish haze. The decorations were vaguely Eastern European. There were round, wooden tables all around the dining area, and in the center of everything, an ivory-keyed piano.
On the piano stool, sat a man. A homeless man. That, or he just looked homeless. Disheveled, beaten. He was the only person in the whole deserted place.
Ema was startled by this regrettable scene. For a split second, she thought she had stumbled onto yet another murder scene. However, the man was still very much alive, just hunched over and breathing slowly.
Perhaps she had just stumbled into a money laundering scheme. Some kind of cover-restaurant for the organized crime scene of Los Angeles?
Everything about the Borscht Bowl Club told Ema to run, except the refreshing temperature. She was too stunned, though, and her feet were glued to the ground.
The man, who wore a bright teal beanie with the word PAPA embroidered onto it in hot pink, straightened himself up and looked ahead at the door. A chill ran through Ema’s spine. He looked just about as dead a man could be, in the spirit, at least.
”Excuse me,” He coughed. “But would you mind telling me what you’re doing here?”
Ema slowly, creepingly slowly, left her post at the door and heard it close tentatively behind her. She was much closer to the piano now, and noticed that the center of the room was more so freezing than refreshing.
“It’s a hot night, and I noticed a man who left this restaurant, and then I realized how nice and cool it was in here—but now it’s more freezing, so that’s—“ She began to recount her entire thought process, something most of her peers voiced their annoyance of while growing up. She fiddled with the three pins on her satchel.
“Excuse me,” The man repeated himself. A curious twinkle of recognition gleamed in his dark brown eyes, restoring them back to life. ”But do I know you?”
Ema stopped. She opened her mouth a little in surprise, and then closed it. She looked the piano man up and down, wondering if maybe he was mad. He was dressed unlike any adult man she had ever known (And Ema had known a lot of oddly dressed adult men when she lived in LA).
“Ema Skye,” He laughed in a way that only a hollow person could laugh. He laughed as if he was never expecting to say that name again.
Ema’s face flushed out of shame, because obviously this disheveled man knew who she was and she didn’t know him at all. Either that, or she just was incapable of recognizing him.
“You don’t know, do you?” He clutched his hand and winced in an almost phantom way. “You don’t know who I am.” It sounded like he had come to a realization he had hit some sort of low point. Like it was especially bad that she couldn’t recognize him.
Ema assumed that was fair to think, because it didn’t just sound like he had hit a low point; it looked like one too.
”I’m…I’m sorry, I just don’t—“ She stammered nervously. The way he spoke his words made her think that he was at least a bit drunk. She then took note of the wine puddle next to him.
The man rolled his nearly-dead-but-revived eyes as if to say ‘I can’t believe I have to do this right now’, and took off his hat. It was then, embarrassingly, she knew who he was.
From, of course, his familiar hairstyle.
Ema opened her mouth again with a lot more surprise than before. She gaped at Phoenix Wright for a few interminable moments that truly felt like minutes. Her grip on her satchel loosened.
“Oh my God.” Maybe it was from her awfully long flight, or from her episode in the car, or from what had transpired in Germany, but she immediately decided to tear up. Only so many raw, unadulterated feelings could catch up with her at once without leaving her eyes misted.
“What happened? What happened to you?” She abruptly broke into hysterical sobs that disappeared just as fast as they came on.
The piano man, who was indeed Phoenix Wright, but didn’t resemble him in the slightest, shrugged.
“Lots. Did—did anyone tell you?”
Someone did. Someone she remembered who was very important to the Phoenix Wright she knew, but she wasn’t sure if he was important anymore to this particular version.
Miles Edgeworth had phoned her late at night to tell her something of extreme urgency. His voice was firm and serious, but there was a small tremor behind it. Ema had admired Edgeworth since first meeting him, and was elated to hear from such a respectable man. It was because of this tremor that she knew something was terribly, awfully wrong with the world.
And something was; Phoenix Wright had been examined and stripped of his attorney’s badge due to accusations of forgery during a high-profile murder case. Only one person voted against the decision—Defense Attorney Kristoph Gavin. The prosecution, who was the first to bring up the forgery, was his seventeen years old and extremely gifted brother, Klavier Gavin.
That night felt more like a dream than anything. Edgeworth had kept everything very professional and calm, but she could hear a quiet devastation in his voice.
“I know he helped you, Ema. He helped me, too. I thought you should be made aware, that’s all.” He muttered, and then hung up, leaving Ema clutching her phone in bed. She didn’t cry that night, but felt an unbearable weight on her chest until she fell asleep (Which did not happen).
The world may have started to go to shit after SL-9. It was now that Ema realized that her coming back to Los Angeles and seeing what used to be Phoenix Wright in a musty, shady restaurant was the real shitshow.
***
“Oh my God.” Phoenix heard Ema’s voice break in two. He felt a twinge of guilt, which he had been feeling a lot of lately.
She had come in a bit earlier, just as Kristoph left. She looked a bit shocked at the mess of the Borscht Bowl Club, and even more horrified at the sight of a single, defeated looking man seated at the piano. She took one step back, but then two steps into the restaurant again.
It broke him a bit to say, but at first he couldn’t recognize her either. The first thing that came to him was the over-explaining of her inner train of thought, which quickly brought him back to his fifth case as an attorney. The second were the badges on her brown leather satchel. It was only then that Phoenix was able to recognize her face.
Her face was plain and pretty. It was still rather youthful, but there was no more hope in her eyes. It seemed like seconds before walking in, some sort of horrible reality had hit her blank in the face with no warning. It had completely jaded her in a second.
She hadn’t known who he was, before he took Trucy’s beanie off, of course. This weighed on him more than he would’ve liked to admit.
He had gotten to such a state in his life where he was unrecognizable to those he knew seven or so years ago. If Maya or, God forbid, Edgeworth had walked into the Borscht Bowl Club, would they realize it was Phoenix Wright?
Kristoph had done whatever his work was extremely well. Phoenix was no longer the man he was years ago. He was a ghost, a shell of his former self. He was practically haunting the earth before the day of his death.
”What happened?” She had quickly stopped her hysterics just as fast as she started crying. “What happened to you?”
Phoenix didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. She must’ve known what happened to him, someone must’ve told her. She might’ve found out online or in some published paper. What she was really trying to ask, he thought, was how in the world could it have gotten so bad?
”Lots. Did—did anyone tell you?” He responded with a shrug. There were too many things to say, to explain. By then he was done with explaining the own thoughts in his head, because they were just too crosswired and contradictory.
After Ema stopped staring at him in shock, she replied. “Yeah,” She shuddered. “Mr. Edgeworth.”
“Edgeworth,” Phoenix whispered knowingly, with a fond but fleeting tone. Apparently, Edgeworth and Ema kept in touch. He motioned to the glass fragments that were splattered on the floor. “Would you mind helping me out with this mess?”
He could see Ema untense about every muscle in her body. “Sure,” She said, “But I’m exhausted.” There was still a hint of disbelief in her voice.
She came over to Phoenix and his piano to examine the glass.
“Someone could cut themselves on that.” She said, which was blatantly obvious. In fact, Phoenix had already been cut by somebody else on that. He decided to not mention Kristoph or the stinging, sharp slice on his hand.
It was in the moment when she bent down to pick up the broken bottle, that he realized it was a bit of a shit thing for him to do; Make an old friend, who he hadn’t seen in seven years, clean up his mess.
“Hold on,” Phoenix held out his hand. Ema straightened back up to blink wearily at him. “Are you okay? You’re all good?” He knew the answer was obviously no. There was a flame of passion in Ema when he first had worked with her, but when he looked into her eyes again, it was absent.
It occurred to him that maybe she was seeing the same spark leave his eyes.
Ema chuckled to herself, and put her hand on her forehead, pushing her bangs up. She looked bewildered and confounded, but also exhausted and sad and terrified all at once.
“Are you kidding? Of course not! Look at you!” She shouted emotionally. “Look at you, Phoenix! Look what’s become of you!” Her voice conveyed the presence of tears but none were in her eyes.
“I mean, here you are, in some awful bar or restaurant or something…sitting at a piano, probably drunk…dressed like I-don’t-even-know-what!” She mumbled, gesturing wildly to the surroundings. “What is this? Who are you? I—I knew something had happened, but…”
”It’s okay,” Phoenix said. He used a gentle sort of voice that he formerly used to calm down Maya and Pearls and defendants who didn’t ever want to speak to him again. ”I could say the same for you, you know.”
It was at this time that the tears in Ema’s voice manifested onto her face. A single droplet rolled down her face as she let out a long, quivering breath.
“Do you know what happened to me?” She asked.
“No.”
She told him.
***
Ema could hardly believe her eyes, but he had the same eyebrows, the same nose, the same hair.
There were things about Phoenix Wright that had changed, too; his eyes. They were dimmed and lifeless. In that one moment, though, when he recognized her, his eyes had that certain smart, shining gleam again. It was almost enough to make her believe he was alive again.
He had lost weight. Not too much, but enough for her to notice. He had a stubbly beard now. His hair-spikes were concealed by a bright, turquoise beanie, which was in stark contrast to the rest of his outfit.
It was mostly the eyes, though.
He asked her if she was okay.
“Are you kidding? Of course not? Look at you!” She had spun out of control and was running her voice loose now. Like a misfired rocket. There were unchecked emotions in her voice, feelings that made her feel small again.
Had all the people she had loved and valued in life changed drastically and coldly?
”Look at you, Phoenix! Look what’s become of you!” She spouted harshly. She couldn’t believe his gall, acting all like this and pretending it was perfectly normal. How could it have happened? He was meant to be helping people, people like her! Now, he was drinking and playing piano in the worst venue in all of LA?
“I mean, here you are, in some awful bar or restaurant or something…sitting at a piano, probably drunk…dressed like I don’t-even-know-what!” Ema was running wild with her words now. She had no regard for how Phoenix would react to what she was saying, nor her volume, nor the way her voice was beginning to tremble.
“I—I knew something had happened, but…”
She could barely talk anymore. Maybe she was dreaming, it could have only been jetlag. It could’ve all been jetlag.
”It’s okay,” Phoenix said. He had, once again, been transported briefly back to the version of Phoenix Wright that Ema knew. His voice was kind and soft and sympathetic. She remembered their first frantic conversation in the Wright & co. Law Offices.
Ema supposed that now it was no one’s law office.
And just like the swift gleam in his eyes, his voice hardened all over again.
“I could say the same for you, you know.”
It was probably then that Ema had felt the worst in her life since SL-9 first happened. It was a miserably hollow and shameful feeling.
A fat, wet, and trembling tear fell down the side of her freckled face. It hurt because he was right—look what had become of her!
Look what had become of that bright young girl who loved science.
Standing in some awful bar or restaurant or something…near a piano bench, probably craving a cigarette…dressed like she-didn’t-even-know-what.
There was a reason nothing good was left for her in Germany. There was a reason for her dramatic and sudden departure, and it wasn’t about Lana or Neil or Jake or Angel or Bruce. For once in her life, it wasn’t.
”Do you know what happened to me?” Ema spoke, and now she had partial reign over her voice. It was low and stretched out like quivering strings on a tired instrument.
”No.”
“I didn’t pass the forensic exams.”
She said it out loud, for the first time. Her head pounded. Every syllable hung on to her tongue, unsure of whether or not it wanted to leave into the air. The words felt like they weighed one terrible pound each. She had promised she was going to work hard when she first landed in Germany. She had done everything to study and to prepare—but it still wasn’t enough. She wasn’t enough.
She had promised herself as a teenage girl that if she could do this one thing right, then she could never worry about anything again. Maybe all of her pain would disappear.
It stayed.
It followed her, like a looming spectre. She had run away from it already, and here she was back again. She was looking straight at it and cowering.
“How come you can’t take them again?”
“I have to study. A lot. Every year the program grows, and its different, and it costs money, and time—“
”Ema.”
”What?”
”Sit.” Whoever used to be Phoenix made room on his piano bench. Ema stared at him incredulously, but decided to join him anyway.
The bench was, unsurprisingly, cold. She tapped a finger onto one of the smooth white keys, eliciting a single note of music. It illuminated the silent venue with sound.
“Do you play here?” She asked.
“You could say that,” He grinned at Ema. His smile had changed too. It was exhausted, even strained. Lana had once told her something that Mia used to say: The toughest of times are when lawyers have to force their biggest smiles.
She must’ve passed that down to Phoenix. He was still smiling at the worst of times. Even if it was a spent and gone smile that didn’t give an impression of joy but rather silent regret.
Only, he wasn’t a lawyer anymore. Maybe it was just a force of habit.
“Does that blonde guy play here, too?” Ema asked. Suddenly, Phoenix seemed to tense up in some kind of defensive mode. He looked less tipsy and more sobered, as if something important was on the rise.
“No. Just a customer,” Phoenix spoke fast, his words had no more time to breathe. He seemed to want to switch the subject, and quickly. Ema sighed and noticed a thin, red line on his hands. Small dots of blood appeared along the length of the cut, which was nearly the entire back of Phoenix’s hand.
“You’re bleeding.”
”I realized.” He looked to the side.
“Are you going to do anything about it?”
”No, not worth it.”
”I’ll drink to that,” And Ema leaned down for a half-empty bottle of wine.
***
”I didn’t pass the forensic exams.” Ema choked out, fighting for control over herself. Phoenix could see that her hands were balled into fists. She was struggling to admit this.
He asked her if she could take them again, but she seemed too broken up about what happened to care about a second attempt.
Phoenix knew that the failed exams were what had caused the sudden crash of Ema’s fierce passion. It seemed alien to him, to see the hopeful young girl he once knew become so beaten down, so dim. He didn’t think she could have possibly gone through more than she already had.
It was a bad, guilty feeling because he knew that Ema was disappointed in him, too.
For letting this happen to him, for letting everything get this bad.
He wanted to say, “Don’t worry, I have a plan,” He’d explain, I’m going to make it out of here,”
But now? Looking over at that puddle of wine and glass? He felt finished. Things like regret, fear, and hatred had slowly been taking hold of him, creeping up like ivy on a trellis. It was a disease, a slow-acting poison. It was hard to imagine anymore that this was the act he told himself it was.
“Do you play here?” She asked after taking her spot at the piano bench. Oh, he played alright.
”You could say that.” If he learned anything from Engarde, it was that you could utilize truth and deceit at once. He smiled, feeling absolutely nothing behind it.
“Does that blonde guy play here, too?” Ema tilted her head, in a not unfamiliar mannerism that Phoenix vaguely, but fondly, remembered. It gave him comfort to know that she was not all gone, even if he may as well have been.
That comfort was immediately pierced by the mention of That Blonde Guy. The clinical, icy air of Kristoph Gavin entered his mind, the image of his face plastered everywhere. Phoenix glanced back at the cut on his hand, perpetually filling with blood. Kristoph could have done much worse, but he didn’t.
Phoenix wondered how long Kristoph was going to keep him around. Last time around the block, it was eight months.
This time? Four years and counting.
He didn’t need Ema knowing anything about Kristoph, or himself for that matter. She couldn’t possibly get wrapped up in the horrific mess he had created. There was no cause for concern, no cause for worry. He didn’t need her to know—didn’t want her to know.
“No,” Phoenix gritted his teeth, “Just a customer.”
Ema sighed. She wasn’t naive, and Phoenix didn’t know if she ever was. She had seen too much evil in the world, and here he was: being consumed by it. Ema was on her way to the same hell, too.
”You’re bleeding,” She said, and reached for his sliced hand with no preemptive warning. He snatched it away from under her grasp. Shit.
”I realized,” He spoke curtly.
“Are you going to do anything about it?” Ema pressed harder in a firm voice.
“No. Not worth it.”
She smiled and leaned down to grab up one of the half-empty bottles of wine. “I’ll drink to that,” She hummed absentmindedly.
As she held up the green-tinted bottle, Phoenix felt urged to take it from her. It was a natural instinct, only because he knew that she shouldn’t be drinking at her age—and suddenly he remembered that Ema was over twenty-one by now.
Phoenix poured them both drinks and set the alcohol down. He was already feeling somewhat buzzed, he could tell because of that mellow feeling that settled in his chest, but he wasn’t about to let Ema drink alone.
“Look at us,” He said, not in an exclamatory way but rather in some kind of guilty epiphany.
“Two dead stars,” Ema added. Phoenix looked at her, and he had a hard time piecing her face to match with the Ema he knew. Her features were all perfectly aligned, but someone had misplaced her passion and someone had mistakenly thrown away her smile.
As they sat and drank, the night passed beneath their attention. Soon, Ema’s head was nudging Phoenix’s shoulder as she was taken victim by drowsiness and drunkenness.
He thought about what Ema had said, Edgeworth telling her about the disbarment. About them speaking.
Phoenix knew he was too much of a coward to talk to Edgeworth. He had dug himself deep in this conspiracy, and didn’t want to look back up at the light any time soon. He remembered an old, pithy adage—before one embarks on a journey of revenge, one must dig two graves—If he was lucky enough, it would only be two.
Phoenix could hardly handle Ema seeing him in such a low state. He couldn’t imagine Edgeworth being here, looking at him with all the disappointment and contempt in the world. It was embarrassing, and it had turned Phoenix into a regrettable mess.
He would have no word of this getting out to Miles Edgeworth.
***
Ema was starting to feel the effects of the alcohol in her system. She never would have expected to be where she was, but the wine had made her forgiving of her surroundings.
Her eyelids weighed heavy. She felt welcome and warmed by the world for the first time in forever, settling into a half-aware trance.
It was miserably easy to relax herself. Ema blinked a few times, slowly. She set down her wine glass and crossed her arms in a resigned sort of way. “I can hardly believe myself. I can hardly believe you are you, Phoenix.”
Something about the way Phoenix looked back at her made Ema think that he couldn’t believe it either.
“You know, I read the paper when you were disbarred. The press were all excited because of the German-trained prosecutor prodigy who took you down,” She touched his shoulder, “But I saw that prodigy’s picture. He looks obnoxious—like a fop. Sure glad I’ll never work with him.”
Phoenix let out a sigh. “Just…don’t tell Edgeworth about any of this, alright?”
Instantly, Ema lost all sense of her tipsiness and her mind cleared out of shock.
“About what?”
”About…” Phoenix struggled, “About this awful place I work at. About how I’m barely scraping by.” He had gotten an intense, serious look in his eye. He wasn’t joking. “And absolutely nothing about that blond man. Do you hear me?”
Ema stared. She was suddenly caught up in a haze of old memories, memories about Lana. About her reluctance to talk about anything, when she was in so deep that she couldn’t get out. She had become a criminal, she had closed herself off completely.
She didn’t speak with Mia anymore. Or Angel. Or Jake. If Neil was still alive back then, Lana still wouldn’t have discussed anything with him either.
Ema knew Phoenix’s game. She had seen everything before. He was paranoid.
And although she wanted to scream and yell at her sister for being so neglectful, so impervious, for changing without so much as a warning, in the end Ema figured it was all in her benefit. Lana had only been trying to protect her, it was too dangerous otherwise.
Phoenix probably wasn’t speaking to anyone anymore. There must have been someone to protect.
“You are,” She uttered, in calm disbelief, “just like her.”
“What? Like who?”
”Like Lana!” Ema hauled herself up from the ground. She didn’t want a repeat of the worst days of her life. “Here you are; completely different from who you were, wrapped up in a years-long scandal!”
Phoenix squinted at her as if he had expected her to say something.
“And you think it’s too dangerous for anyone else to be involved. It has to be you. And you think it’s not changing you, not wearing on you? Because it’s your own struggle, obviously, and no one is allowed to interfere! Or help! Or know, they can’t know anything about piano, or drinking, or mysterious cuts on your hands, and pissed-looking blond men!”
Ema ranted, suddenly in a frenzy of anger. She didn’t know what had come over her. “It is, by the way. It’s changing you. It leaves scars, it leaves regret, it leaves shit, okay? This sort of thing does. Someday it’ll close you off completely and you will have nobody at the exact time you wish you had everybody.”
Ema caught her breath. She didn’t know why she had become so impassioned about how Phoenix was acting, it was just too eerily similar to Lana.
“You’re not strong enough to handle whatever it is you’re trying to do.”
”I know.” Phoenix whispered. ”I just can’t have people worry.”
”Too late, I’m fucking worried! Please. You can’t do this, I won’t allow it.”
”Go home, Ema.” He said. And at long last, Ema knew she was talking to a dead man. Dead in the eyes, dead in his spirit, and dead set in his ways. Just like Lana, he was long gone. Changed and closed, and nothing could bring him back. He was around the bend now, whisked away into the Right thing to do.
Even if it wasn't always the Good thing to do.
Ema stumbled out of the Borscht Bowl Club, leaving Phoenix inside. She had decided he was a lost cause, but it had only fueled her anger at whatever evil had dug itself into him. It only made her more resentful towards the people behind his disbarment. Her hair blew in the night’s wind, cold and unrelentless.
They had turned her friend into something far, far away.