Disclaimer: I do NOT own any characters from Ace Attorney series, especially the characters of The Great ace attorney.
Home is where your heart is
Homesick.
That's how Susato Mikotoba felt as she stared out of the window.
She knelt in front of it and looked unblinkingly out into the cool evening night.
Shuddering thanks to the room being caught in a slight draft, she hugged herself to keep a chill at bay, as she continued to stare out the window, burning holes into the acrylic as she reflected upon her current situation.
Both herself and a young man named Ryūnosuke Naruhodō had been taken in by the one and only Sherlock Holmes and were currently residing in the attic.
The room was pretty spacious and the floorboards were covered in a thin layer of dust, indicating that it hadn't been dusted in quite some time, and the walls had some peeling wallpaper that was beginning to grow some dark patches.
Clearly this room wasn't the prettiest in the world but it would do for now.
The room was softly lit by a small candle that sat near the window that the young woman sat in front of, the small flames flickering every once in awhile. Clearly it would be awhile until it would fizzle out and leave the room in near-pitch black darkness.
Her heart felt heavy and her chest felt tight as she thought only about her homeland.
The twilight of London England was beautiful while the ground was a slight fog hovering just above the ground, covering it like a blanket.
The streets were brightly lit by the street lights that decorated each side path.
It had been a solid month or so since Susato and Ryūnosuke had arrived in London, England to travel down the path of preserving law and justice. Neither of the two could deny that this country was very different than their home of Takumi Japan and this place had introduced the both of them to machines, designs and other things that they had never seen before.
However, it was easy for someone in their situation to miss their home.
Make no mistake, she was absolutely floored by London and all it had to offer. She also loved being with her utmost favourite book author, Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Iris Watson.
But it's felt like a lifetime since Susato actually seen Japan.
She missed her father, she missed standing beneath the protective shelter of cherry blossom trees, she missed walking through the market with a basket in hand, she missed the rich and unique architecture, she missed the constant hint of Meiji tradition made by their ancestors sprinkled across the entirety...she missed everything about her home.
She had never even been away from home this long.
But, being a young judicial assistant, she knew that she would have to get used to travelling far from her home.
She just felt...displaced in this country, though.
Minutes passed of endless window-gazing when she finally ripped her eyes off the glass that revealed the world outside and she hung her head. She looked over towards a clock that perched itself on a small desk that had basically collapsed but was somehow still strong enough to support the small object. The desk looked as though someone had karate-chopped it in half, actually.
The time read 2:45 PM.
Susato felt a surge of defeat flow through her.
She had a feeling that she wouldn't be able to go to sleep now...
The judicial assistant glanced across the space to the small sofa in a darkened little corner of the room. She could hear the deafeningly loud snores coming from the blanketed lump laying on the sofa, fast asleep, but she could also hear soft and mumbled whimpers coming from it too. Ryūnosuke had fallen asleep on the sofa hours ago and he looked (and sounded) as though he was dreaming.
He fidgeted softly and groaned beneath his breath.
She could not control it as the corners of her lips curved up only slightly as she couldn't deny that the young man was seriously adorable. Her now-pounding heart swelled to the point where it doubled in size and her face flushed. She was almost convinced that she was running a bit of a high temperature her face was so heated and reddened, she even placed the back of her small, slender hand against her forehead.
She was hot, but she didn't feel sick.
What was happening then?
Susato looked down at herself and she felt her gut clench.
She shook her head, internally changing the subject.
She wondered what her father was doing right now and what he was doing right now. She didn't know if she just had indigestion or something but it just left her feeling more depressed than she was already.
The young woman glanced back at the window with a nostalgic gaze on her face.
That was when she came to a decision as to how she could hopefully get her homesickness out of her mind...
Ryūnosuke woke up with a sudden jolt.
His eyes snapped open and he clung to the soft blankets that had previously covered his chest and had now dropped to his torso. He could feel a cold sweat soak his skin and he was pretty certain that veins on his neck and forehead were pulsating as he tried to regain his bearings. His heart was pounding so hard in his chest that he was pretty sure that a rib or two were cracking like a twig.
He panted breathlessly, his lungs heavy and his chest tight.
He just suffered a horrific night terror that continued to plague him almost every night...it was about the friend that was sadly killed during the ferry ride to this country.
Kazuma Asōgi was his name. Asōgi was killed when a young stowaway Russian girl had been guided into his cabin and, in a fit of panic during a misunderstanding, she shoved the headband-wearing young lawyer and he whacked his head hard and apparently ended up breaking his neck. Asōgi was not only the attorney who had rescued him from receiving an unfair guilty verdict but he was also the man who had helped him into travelling down this path to discover what the law truly was.
The budding defence attorney constantly had nightmares about that incident where Asōgi would constantly demand to him in a tortuous moan as to why he didn't come to save him since he was right in the same room, asleep at the time.
He had a feeling that these dreams would haunt him for a very long time.
He raised a hand to his face and sighed with exasperation, he didn't like those nightmares in the slightest.
"Why...? Why did you have to go, Asōgi?"
He sobbed whilst his eyes watered slightly with his palm still pressed to his face, tears leaking through the gaps of his fingers and trailing down the back of his hand. These nightmares were a huge torment for him and it was so gut-wrenching when he thought about what his friend was probably thinking about during his last few moments.
He had a good cry in the darkness as he wept over the loss of his best friend.
Asōgi was the one who had protected and defended him when he was being accused of something he didn't do, risked his own grand opportunity to smuggle him aboard that ferry so he (himself)could come and lend moral support to the one who saved him, he gave him some companionship when needed, stood by his side in court, taught him everything he needed to know and was the guy whom helped him down his path to becoming an attorney just like him.
It felt as though he had been crying for hours until he finally came up for air, his eyes had become red and puffy thanks to the hysterical weeping he had just done. He blinked his bloodshot eyes a few times to try and moisten them and to stop them from feeling as though they were having acid dropped into his eyeballs each time he blinked.
The Japanese student gave a shaky exhale as he surveyed his surroundings and was struck by a bolt of concern when he couldn't find Susato anywhere in the room. He was quick to raise his arm and wipe his eyes with his sleeve before he tried blinking again to refresh his vision.
Despite the darkness, he couldn't see her anywhere.
"Susato-chan?" He called out, voice raspy.
She was still nowhere to be found.
Without a second thought, the young man swept his legs over the side of the sofa and he leapt off of it whilst tossing his blanket aside. He staggered a bit yet quickly shook it off as he knew that Susato shouldn't be wandering the city of London alone where she could get easily lost and hurt.
What was she doing up at such a late hour anyway?
His heart and head were simultaneously pounding with worry as he felt sick to the stomach.
He bent down and grabbed his cloak from the floor where he had disregarded it before he went to sleep and basically thrown it on, he made a break for the stairs and thundered down the staircase. It was dark since the lights had been turned off while the others were still sound asleep but he couldn't think about that right now, he didn't even care that he was going outside in bare feet.
He couldn't have Susato be all alone in a country they barely knew!
He clomped down the staircase hurriedly, his darkened and bloodshot eyes wide with panic as he made a rush out the front door.
Ryūnosuke walked out into the cold wintry outdoors with his deep blue eyes filled with nostalgia. His posture was rigid and still, his shoulders were broad and his expression was steadfast and stiff with a serious tone. He wrapped his arms around himself to keep warm despite the red scarf he wore and his body gave a very small shiver whilst the frigid air nipped at his nose and rustled his ebony black, curved-upward spikes of hair.
He kept walking and his eyes lifted up towards the black/blue skies which were dotted with the tiny twinkling stars that would fill the blue plain most evenings.
The condensed yet freezing atmosphere of winter made almost made the young man falter from how chilly he was becoming yet he didn't bother to look where he was going. He was too lost in his own thoughts and he felt like doing naught but walk anyways, it wasn't like he was content with doing anything else.
Besides, he wanted to explore the city of London a bit to keep his mind off of his inner turmoil.
He looked around searchingly to try and see if he could find the judicial assistant.
It felt like forever as Ryūnosuke wandered around the streets, his hands were numb and so was his bare feet. He swore that if he didn't find Susato soon then he would be in danger of getting hypothermia and he really did not want that to happen because then if anyone needed him to defend them in court then he wouldn't be able to, at least not to the very best of his ability...
Finally he had wandered to the docks and his reddening nose was running, his skin was turning chalk white, he was shivering more than he should have been, his lungs felt as though they had become crystallised with ice and he got such a bad headache. He stuck through it, though, and stubbornly pushed on ahead as he finally approached the docks.
He could hear his own footsteps cause the wood of the docks creak.
He briefly wondered how old this platform was if it was creaking beneath the weight of one man? He doubted it could hold too many people if it was that unstable and it made him feel really uneasy about what could happen if some unfortunate soul were to meander on to this too.
He stopped when he saw a silhouette in the distance.
After squinting his eyes to see through the darkness, Ryūnosuke felt immense relief wash over him.
It was Susato.
She was stood at the edge of the docks where a few small boats had already been tied to wooden poles placed around the harbour to keep them from floating away. She had cast her gaze longingly towards the ocean and she had her back turned to Ryūnosuke so he couldn't tell whether she was aware of his presence or not.
The young Japanese student lawyer crept up to her cautiously (surprisingly not even the faint creaking of the wood beneath his feet broke her concentration) until he stood right behind her. He could now hear —in-spite of his frost-bitten ears— that she was sobbing and he saw her tense shoulders shake with her heavy wracks of sniffles and even more sobs.
His breath was a mere fog as he exhaled and looked at the young lady with eyes agleam with sympathy.
"Susato-chan?"
Susato whirled around to face him and gasped in shock, her face paling until it was almost as white as the specks of snow starting to fall, and started to quickly wipe her eyes with the sleeve of her kimono. She was frantic and was trying to not look so weak in front of the law student in front of her.
"N-N-N-Naruhodō-san!" She had a choked undertone in her voice, "I didn't see you!"
It didn't take long at all since it clicked In the young man's mind as to what was going on here. He should have guessed that the young lady was simply missing her birthplace, he wasn't the only one with a heavy heart and struggling with emotional hardships. He felt his heart sink into his stomach, his ocean blue eyes clouded over as he stared deep into her gaze with nothing but understanding. He, too, missed his homeland and he felt like a black dot on an otherwise pristine piece of paper, like an outcast.
He tried not to let his own homesickness get to him and stuff it down deep inside of him, but he also knew that his friend needed his support right now.
He set his hand on her shoulder and murmured softly, "...I miss it too."
Susato looked dumbstruck as she seemed to let his words sink in.
That was it, Susato felt her lower lip quiver and broke down into a flood of tears right on the spot. Her rib cage rattled as she tears flowed down each of her cheeks like waterfalls; she could have certainly collapsed to her knees if it weren't for Ryūnosuke holding her up by the shoulder before he pulled her in close for a comforting embrace.
The air around the two got colder, snowflakes swirling and whirling in the air.
Susato, although she was still sobbing hysterically, felt her cheeks brightening and she could feel her face growing redder and redder —whether this was from cold or from something else, she didn't have a clue. She buried her face into his chest and just wept, her bottled-up emotions being spent on the clothing on his chest.
Ryūnosuke furled his arms around her frail form, enveloping her in a tighter embrace.
The soothing sound of the ocean waves lapping was the only sound between the two and the small and juvenile tides came in and swept itself out in a rather cool cycle. Japan may have been far across the ocean and its tides, but it would always be the home for both Ryūnosuke Naruhodō and Susato Mikotoba.
"Don't worry, I promise that we'll get through this together..."
Japan would wait for them to return and, one way or another, they would go home someday.
A/N: Hi, everyone! Sorry its been a few weeks or so since my last Ace attorney fanfic.
This is my first Great ace attorney fic and I made this a "sort of" shipping fic between Ryūnosuke and Susato but it can be interperated however you want. Btw, I know what happens in the second game so I know what happened to Asogi and this is before anyone knows anything about that (no spoilers).
Anyway, I sincerely hope you guys enjoy this short fic.
-Chloemcg