A/N: I wrote this for the Phoenix Wright Kink Meme (my first fill there actually), which is also what the title of this fic is from.
Just in case you're wondering, the reason I'm using all of the Fey character's Japanese names, but not Phoenix's, is that for the purpose of this fic, all of them are supposed to be Japanese, not their localized American counterparts. Phoenix however is American.
One last thing, I know next to nothing about how this type of thing actually works, and only did minimal research. Just so you know.
Mayoi twists her hair around a finger as she sits on the office couch beside Phoenix, The Steel Samurai, playing on the TV in front of them. She's spent a lot of her time in the city with him since her sister died, and he's been gracious enough to let her stay at his apartment - in a separate bedroom of course - without even asking for anything in return except that she continue assisting him in court when she can. He's saved her three times now, first when she was accused of murdering her own sister, then when she was accused of murdering a doctor, and finally when she had been kidnapped by an assassin and used to force Phoenix into defending a guilty a man. He's proven to her over and over again that she can trust him with her life if it comes to that, which it often does. He is absolutely the best friend she has ever had.
Which is what makes it all the more difficult when she realizes that somehow, between all of the murder accusations and court trials she attends with Phoenix, she has managed to complete her education, and her student visa is going to run out, meaning she'll need to head back to Japan soon enough.
The only thing she can think of now that will allow her to stay in America is to get married in order to apply for a green card. And the only man in America she trusts enough to help her with that is Phoenix Wright. But she has no idea how to broach the subject. And even if she does ask him, what makes her think he'll agree to it? They are close friends, sure, but she'd only just turned eighteen a few months ago. He's twenty-five, seven years older, which seems like a huge gap at this point in her life. She's sure he won't want to marry an eighteen year old immigrant that he's not even in love with when he has his own future to think about.
But still, she has to try. He's been relatively distant and quiet since she told him about the end of her studies and having to return to Japan, and she hopes that's a sign that he's brooding about her leaving. Maybe he actually does want her to stay and would be willing to help her make that happen.
She clears her throat quietly, but Phoenix is still focused completely on the TV, not even registering the noise. She tries again, coughing lightly into her fist, which causes him to finally tear his gaze away from the TV to look at her. "You okay? Do you want to get some water or something?"
She shakes her head, letting her hair swish in order to cover her face, to hide the blush creeping across her cheeks. "I wanted to ask you something, Nick." She likes calling him by a nickname. It's another way she feels close to him, being one of only a privileged few who gets to call him that.
"What is it?" he says, turning to give her his full attention.
She wrings her hands in her lap, then gets an idea. Maybe if she can get him to suggest it first, it wouldn't be so weird to ask if he'd be willing to do it? "You know I have to go back to Japan soon, right?"
He looks at the floor, face downcast. "Yeah."
"I wish I didn't have to go. I really like it here. Spending time with you, helping you out at court. It's fun."
He nods. "Yeah it is, even if we do get into some dangerous situations sometimes. I'll miss you when you're gone, you know."
She manages to look at him. "Do you know if there's any way I would be able to stay? Any way to apply for another type of visa or… or something? Anything? I would really like to stay longer."
He sighs and rubs the back of his neck in that way he always does when he gets caught bluffing in court. "I think the only option you have now is to get married to a U.S. citizen so you can apply for a green card right away, which I think would be a little difficult." He laughs nervously. "Unless you want me to marry you-"
"Would you?" she interrupts. She can't believe her plan has actually worked. She was just hoping he'd mention marriage as an option to give her an opening, but he went and proposed the idea himself! She ignores the fact that it was said mostly as a joke.
He can only stare at her. "W-What?"
"Would you marry me, if it meant I could stay here with you?"
"Are you serious?"
She falters slightly. "Y-Yes. It doesn't have to be like a real marriage, everything can stay the same as now, except on paper we'd be legally married and I could apply for a green card so I can stay. I practically live at your apartment already, Nick, and I love working with you. Don't you want me to stay?"
He takes a deep breath. "I do want you to stay, but marriage? Is that really the best way to go about this? It's not something to take lightly-"
"There is no other way, you just said so yourself. At least not one that won't take years to go through, and then what? I'm here now, and I want to stay. We don't even have to tell anyone. I know what people might say about the age difference, especially since I started working with you when I was only seventeen, and I don't want anyone to think badly of you. We can just… keep it between us." She smiles playfully. "You don't have to buy me a ring or anything."
He runs a hand through his hair. Is he actually considering this? It's not like he has a girlfriend or anything standing in the way of it, and he's always felt some sort of connection with Mayoi in particular. It's like she's meant to be here with him. She's his best friend, probably the best friend he's ever had, and he can't imagine not being able to see her for months at a time, assuming one of them would even be able to visit the other in their respective country a few times a year. He'd had a hard enough time when she'd taken a break from working with him to focus on her studies a year ago, and had even refused cases because she wasn't around. How he's going to get over her absence this time - when she'll be countries away and not merely hours - he's not even sure.
He lets a breath out slowly and Mayoi reaches over to touch the top of his hand. "I don't want to make you feel obligated or anything. You've done so much for me already."
He turns his hand so he can grasp hers. "I'll do it."
She actually gasps at the sudden declaration. She'd expected him to take much longer contemplating it. "Really?!"
He nods. "I can't believe I'm going through with this, but yes."
She's so ecstatic that she throws her arms around his neck and plants a kiss on his cheek. "Oh, thank you, Nick. You don't know how much this means to me."
He's trying not to appear too flustered at her sudden affections. "Yeah, yeah. You're welcome."
She giggles and stands up in front of him, pulling on his hands to get him standing as well. Once he's in front of her, her expression turns serious for a split second, but she can't hold onto it and it's replaced by another grin right away.
He gapes at her when she kneels in front of him, still attempting to control her giggling fit. "Phoenix Wright… will you do me the honour of becoming my husband?"
"Oh, God." She gives him a look which prompts him to roll his eyes. "Yes. I will."
"Yay!" Another leaping hug from her causes them to fall back onto the couch, Mayoi sprawled across his lap. She turns over so she can look up at him, resting her head on his leg. "Who knows, Nick. Maybe we'll fall in love after getting married and still be together ten, twenty years from now. Maybe we'll grow old together just like married couples are supposed to."
He allows himself to run a hand through her silky hair piled in his lap as he smiles down at her. "Yeah, maybe."
"So the next day we went to City Hall and got a marriage licence, I applied for my green card, and then I got to stay here in the U.S."
"Wait… So that's really how you and Dad got married?"
Mayoi nods happily, resting her head against Phoenix's shoulder, who's still smiling at the recollection of her strange proposal. "Yep."
Ten year old Chihiro Ayasato is seated on the chair opposite the couch where her parents are sitting, and is the spitting image of Mayoi at that age, save for the strange way her chin length hair flings out and up in weird little curls all around her head, and the zig-zag shape of her eyebrows. Those characteristics are all from Phoenix. The magatama around her neck is green jade just like the one Phoenix still carries, and at only ten years old she's another spirit channeling prodigy. Her parents, now thirty-eight and forty-five, look almost the same as they did all those years ago, with only the slightest hints of aging starting to show on their faces.
Chihiro stares at her mother, flummoxed. "That's not romantic… At all."
Mayoi shrugs. "Sorry to disappoint you, sweetie." Chihiro is so similar to how Mayoi's younger cousin Harumi used to be when it comes to romance that it's unbelievable. It's no wonder she's less than impressed with the story of how her parents got married, something which to her you were only supposed to do if you were in love. "You wanted to know the story. It's definitely not a conventional love story. After all, in all the fairy tales, the prince and princess fall in love, then get married and live happily ever after. We just happened to do things in the wrong order. We love each other very much, it just took us a while to realize that we did."
Chihiro looks a little happier now. "But I thought the man was supposed to propose. Dad, why didn't you propose?"
"Because your mother was just as big of a goofball then as she is now." Mayoi nudges him with an elbow. "Ow…" he rubs his side, looking back at his daughter. "I did get her a ring eventually though, and I got down on one knee and everything when I gave it to her. Just like you're supposed to." Mayoi holds out her hand to show her ring off, not that it's the first time Chihiro has seen it. It never leaves her mother's finger. Phoenix scratches a cheek. "It was kind of weird though, since we were already married."
"It was sweet of you," Mayoi says. "I think you said something like, 'will you continue being my wife'?"
Phoenix laughs. "Right, I did. I thought it was funny."
She places her hand in his and turns back to her daughter. "But Chihiro, please don't come home one day and tell us you're going to marry some man from another country just so that he can stay here, okay? Do as we say, not as we do, right?" She nods and Mayoi smiles at her. "Good. Go play with your brother."
Chihiro jumps out of her chair and heads across the room where her four year old brother Ryū is colouring, this time the spitting image of Phoenix. He has the same blue eyes, the same hair, every little thing about him reminds Mayoi of Phoenix, she can hardly see herself in her son at all. The older kids, adoptive daughter Trucy, and Harumi who became more like a daughter to them than a cousin, are twenty-seven and twenty-eight respectively, both off with their own jobs and lives now. Mayoi misses them, but having two younger kids to deal with still keeps them busy.
Phoenix wraps an arm around her while they watch the two younger children, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. "Who would've thought you'd actually be right. This year it'll be twenty years exactly, you know."
She nods, snuggling into his side. "I always had a feeling it'd work out."
"Oh really?"
"Mhmm." She stretches up for a kiss, but their lips don't manage to meet before Ryū's loud voice, another thing he inherited from Phoenix, screeches "OBJECTION!" across the room when his sister points out that he's colouring outside the lines.
Mayoi frowns at Phoenix. "I hate you for teaching him that word."