Tourniquet
Chapter 4
"Nick was so scared, he almost fell off the bridge! His face was priceless!"
"Hey! You wouldn't have found it funny in the least if I had fallen!"
"True, but you didn't! So it was funny!"
"Mystic Maya, that's not very nice! You're not supposed to do that to the person you love."
"Pearly! Cut it out!"
Miles set the hamburger he had taken about three bites out of back on his plate. He wasn't hungry, but they had all insisted on buying him a meal. He really didn't think he could eat it, though he hadn't had a bite in three days.
"Is that really all you're going to eat, Edgeworth?" Phoenix was looking at him with deep concern.
For a moment, Miles was about to snap at him, but he managed to bite his tongue. "I… I'm really not hungry."
Pearl looked at him with the most dramatic look of worry that he had ever seen. "But, Mr. Edgeworth, you have to eat! You should eat more than Mystic Maya because you're bigger than her."
Phoenix started laughing. "I don't know anyone who eats more than Maya."
"Hey!" Maya punched her friend in the arm. "What are you saying?!"
Miles watched the two pretend to wrestle with each other, but his thoughts were once again elsewhere. He absent-mindedly picked up his burger, taking another bite and chewing very slowly. Only Pearl was watching him, having become bored of watching the other two.
He didn't want to be here. He wasn't so irritated by these people now… No, maybe it wasn't that he didn't want to be with them, he just wanted to be somewhere else more. Oddly enough, that place happened to be the office. He wondered how soon he'd be allowed to excuse himself without being too rude.
"Mr. Edgeworth?"
"Huh?" He looked around to see who had spoken, and he finally found Pearl. "What is it?"
"You look sad."
"Oh?" He had no other response to this.
"Maybe you should come play with me and Mystic Maya!"
Edgeworth's mouth dropped open slightly at this prospect. Did she mean that colorful system of tubes and such in the back of the restaurant? "Um… I…"
"Pearly," Maya laughed. "Mr. Edgeworth is too big to play in there. Besides, he'd get his suit all dirty."
A look of disappointment crossed the child's face. "Aw… Okay… Man, being a grown-up seems really boring."
"I'll play with you, Pearly!" Maya said, jumping up from her seat. She had, of course, inhaled her food.
"Okay!" The two girls took off running, entering the back room and leaving the two attorneys alone.
Miles didn't look up at Phoenix; he was pretending to be suddenly very interested in his meal, which was now rather cold. He was forcing himself to eat just so he wouldn't have to talk.
Phoenix watched him closely, trying to figure out the appropriate conversation starter. "S-so… What've you been doing these past three days? I haven't heard anything."
Miles took quite a long time to answer, chewing his food as slowly as possible. When he finally replied, his voice was barely above a whisper. "Sleeping."
Phoenix watched him expectantly. "…And…"
"That's about it."
Phoenix took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to stay patient. "Why… Why won't you tell me what's going on?" he asked, carefully choosing the tone of which each word was spoken.
This time it was Miles who sighed, leaning back in his chair. "Because, Wright, I don't really know what's wrong myself."
"But, Edgeworth-"
"Look, I need to get back to the office. I'm supposed to be working on…something." Without giving Phoenix a chance to protest, he got up from the table, leaving a five dollar bill in the center of it, a rather large tip considering the entire meal had only cost fifteen.
Phoenix watched him leave, completely at a loss for what to do.
"Oh… You're back already?"
"Yes, and what are you going through my desk for?"
Franziska straightened up and closed the drawer she was digging through. "Well, if you must know, I was looking for th- Why are you staring at me like that?!"
"What?" He moved forward and passed her, sitting down in his chair and leaning back. "Now, what were you looking for?"
"Y-your box-cutter…" It was easy to tell that she was trying to look cold and angry like she usually did, but it was obvious that she was more keen on running away.
Without even shifting from his relaxed position, Miles reached out and pulled open the drawer directly in front of him, removing from it a sharp metal object that resembled a knife. He held it out to her and she cautiously took it, as if afraid to move too quickly.
As she took the tool from him, his free hand made a sudden jolt, but he was able to stay it. He had just been about to seize her wrist, but for what purpose he knew not.
She gawked at him, unable to comprehend this unbelievable change in him. "What… What the hell is wrong with you?"
"What do you mean?" He had turned back to the case file sitting in front of him and was now pretending to read over it again.
"Just this morning you… And now you're…" She didn't think these kinds of mood swings were possible for him. She couldn't even read him at this point. There was no telling how he was feeling, though it certainly wasn't depression.
"Hm, I guess you're right." He looked sideways at her. "Perhaps coming into work did help." He was smirking at her.
"You work too much, Mr. Edgeworth. You have to have fun sometimes."
"Why won't you give me a decent answer!?" She was now fed up with this display. It seemed as if he was toying with her.
With a soft chuckle, Miles stood and approached her slowly. She almost backed away, but stood her ground, unwilling to show her fear. She had never in her life seen him act like this, and it disturbed her. First, she had found evidence that suggested he had been about to attempt suicide, and now it seemed he was doing everything in his power to frighten her.
He looked down at her for a moment, observing the look on her face. She was clearly trying to hide what she was feeling as she usually did, but she wasn't doing a very good job of it this time. With his right hand, he reached up and took hold of one of her wrists. He held her arm still, as if keeping her from using the box-cutter against him. Then, with his other hand, he slowly reached up and took hold of the tool, taking it back from her with no resistance. "You want to talk?" he asked, his face now just inches from hers. "Fine then, we'll talk."
Still holding her wrist, he began moving toward the sofa; she followed, almost afraid to resist. For some reason, she felt like one wrong move would cause him to snap, and she had no desire to get into a brawl with this man in broad daylight inside a law office. She had never known him to become violent, but then again, she had never known him to do any of the things he had been doing these past few days.
When they sat down Miles continued to watch Franziska, who in turn kept her gaze focused straight ahead, determined not to look at him. She was finding it easier to maintain her stony expression this way. However, when he leaned back and threw his arm across her shoulders, she couldn't help but react. "M-Miles-"
"So?" he inquired. "You seemed to have quite a few questions before. Why so quiet now?"
"Y-you…" She wanted to move away, but something was stopping her. She looked away from him for a moment, cleared her throat, and then looked back, trying to compose herself. "I wanted to know… w-why. What were you doing here that night and why did you run?"
"I think you've already figured out what I was doing here," he replied, speaking as if the fact that he had been planning to jump from his twelfth-story window was no big deal. "And, as for why I ran…" He looked up at the ceiling for a moment, took in a deep breath, and then continued. "…I didn't want anyone to know I was here. I thought everyone else had left."
"But… I still don't understand how running would have helped you. I did knock on your office door, after all."
"Franziska." He was laughing again as he sat forward, his arm returning to his side. "If I had made it to the elevator and left the building before you caught up to me, you would have had no proof that I had actually been in the building. It could have been anyone in my office. I believe you already know that the note would not have been hard evidence either."
She listened carefully to this, thinking as he spoke. Yes, it was true; there would have been no undeniable evidence left. The note would have been a hint, and would have probably convinced her. However, it didn't prove a thing. That thing could have been written quite a long time ago.
But then, something he said caught her attention, and she only thought of it a few seconds after he had finished speaking. "You were…going for the elevator?"
The look on his face when she glanced up at him was unreadable. Had he really been so out-of-it that he had willingly tried to use the elevator as a means of escape? He turned his head to look forward, trying to remember what he had been thinking that night. Finally, he came to his conclusion.
"Hm, I guess I am pretty fucked up."
"Why, Miles? What could have possibly driven you to do something so insane? A von Karma-"
"I am not a von Karma!" His eyes were suddenly ablaze, causing her to jump a little in shock. He had just flipped completely. "You said it yourself, Franziska. I don't 'deserve' to bare the name von Karma, and I don't!"
She stared at him in disbelief. "Miles…"
"After I came back to prosecute that case, I had a new way of thinking. I set to work on that trial, not simply to defeat Phoenix Wright, but to find the truth behind it. That's my job! Not to be perfect, not to win no matter what. Finding the truth was what I was determined to do, and that's what I did. By working alongside Wright, I found the truth, and my verdict was supposed to be the one handed down."
"But, Miles-"
"I thought I could trust him, Franziska! He gave me every reason to, and he made me believe he trusted me as well. Still, he let that murderer go free, in spite of all that we had worked to discover. After all of the searching I had done while I was gone, I put my faith in that trial, and I was betrayed! That's why, Franziska! It doesn't mean anything anymore! Nothing means anything! I don't mean anything!"
A chilling silence fell over them. So, this was the reason, the story behind his madness.
