It was another sleepless night where the air felt piercing cold no matter how many blankets young Miles Edgeworth piled on top of him. Von Karma owned so many blankets. His lifestyle was much more lavish than Miles' life had been with his father. Miles knew he should feel grateful for this grand new life, but to him the mansion just felt colossal and empty. The air was gloomy, drafty, and dead. How could anyone live like this?
Miles missed his bed. Not the one he lay in now, that was supposedly his, but felt like a stranger's. He didn't belong here. Miles yearned for his bed, his room, his house. He missed going to sleep knowing his father was just in the other room, reviewing case files before bed.
Miles remembered nights he couldn't sleep, or nights he would force himself not to sleep so that he could wander into his father's room, rubbing feigned sleep from his eyes.
"Hey kiddo. Want to help organize these?" his father would say.
"Yes, of course," Miles would respond. The light of the desk lamp warmed the room as Miles neatly placed paper upon paper, always the perfectionist. As he worked his father would tell him about the case; glossing over the nasty bits- Miles was just a child.
Thinking of that kindness now brought tears to his eyes. His father had always tried to protect him from the harshness of the world, but now when Miles thought of his father he could never forget that scream- the piercing, heart-shattering, almost inhuman shriek as his father was killed. As he killed his father.
"It was a mistake! A mistake!" he would sometimes cry in his sleep before Manfred came in to shush him, telling him to act his age. Miles would try to hold his breath, to stop his panicked breathing. He would squeeze his eyes shut, even though he now knew from experience that shuttered eyes wouldn't keep tears from leaking out.
Miles didn't want to cry. He didn't want to feel like this. But he could never forget the earth-shaking tremors that had sent his life crumbling apart. He remembered the ghoulishly red emergency light that lit the too-small too-cramped too-stifling sickening cell of an elevator-
Miles buried his head under the pillow. He didn't want to think about this. He couldn't. He couldn't! How was it that someone who wasn't even ten could feel this much pain? How was it that someone who wasn't even ten had to live the entire rest of his life feeling this guilt?
Miles loved his father. He wanted to remember those late nights organizing files, those kind eyes, the proud way he defended the innocent- but now every time he thought of Gregory his stomach turned with guilt and his heart raced with fear. He felt that he hadn't just lost his father, but he had lost all pleasant memories of him. They were now all drenched in sick guilt, and it hurt to think of them. Miles couldn't smile at the thought of his father like he used to. No longer would he brag about his dad's achievements in court. And this bitter end was all his fault.
A sob escaped him and fear followed that. If he didn't quiet down Manfred would come in to scold him. He didn't want to disappoint him. He had already failed his father, himself. He couldn't let another person down. Not when this man he barely knew had been kind enough to take him in, just because Manfred and Gregory worked in the same courthouse. Miles had to be quiet.
He tried to think of happy things. Warm spring days. A teacher praising him. Applause. Clapping loudest of all, the boy with black spiky hair. A wide smile filled his face, his blue eyes squeezed tight. Miles remembered Phoenix's laugh. Larry's too. He remembered the games they played after school. Children's games. Something told Miles he was no longer a child anymore. He would never play those games again, see those faces- that classroom.
Manfred had already told him he would be going to a different school after winter break. The Von Karma mansion was in a different part of the city.
Miles tried not to think of this. He had to pretend that everything was ok. That he was laughing with his friends. That his father was alive. He so, so desperately wanted to go back to those days, just a week ago. When he had been a child still. Free. Unburdened by grief or guilt. Happy.
Tears tore at Miles's eyes and sobs ripped out of his throat. He was sobbing, wailing, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Soon Manfred came in, tired and grumpy, hushing him, telling him he was too old for this. He had to be brave. He had to be strong. He had to be quiet. He had to get over this. But Miles wouldn't stop.
Over time he would learn to control his tears, but not that night. That night he just cried, much to Manfred's annoyance.
Over the weeks and months and eventually, somehow, years, Miles learned how to silence his sadness and other unnecessary feelings. He learned to distract his mind with hopes of his friends. His father was gone, but there was still the chance that one day he might run into Phoenix or Larry. They were on opposite sides of the city, but it was still the same city. There was a chance.
Miles imagined countless scenarios. Seeing each other in a grocery store. Running into each other in a park. Spending an afternoon together. Maybe Phoenix's parents would take him in. He knew Manfred just wanted what was best for him, but he didn't like the constant instruction. He didn't want to disappoint, however, so he listened. But he wondered what Phoenix would like him to do.
Gradually Manfred morphed Miles into the ruthless prosecutor Gregory Edgeworth had never wanted him to be. Gradually Miles accepted that he might never see Phoenix again. Or Larry. Miles missed Larry too, but Phoenix always filled his mind in a way that his other friend never could. It wasn't until he was older and more mature that he would realize why.
But there was nothing Miles could do to quench those feelings. Phoenix was gone from his life. It had been too many years in the same city without so much as a glimpse. Maybe he had moved.
Eventually, and with much difficulty, Miles accepted that he would never see his childhood friend again. He tried to vanquish the spiky-haired boy from his mind, but it was impossible.
It wasn't just that Phoenix brought Miles joy, and he missed that goofy smile- Miles missed his own smile. Nothing had ever gone back to normal after his father's death. The grief and guilt hadn't diminished. It had just become a part of life. Less exceptional, because it was constant.
Manfred taught Miles to be cold, serious, and to hide his feelings. This did nothing to diminish them. If anything, it made them lurk longer because Miles never healed them.
When he thought of Phoenix he thought of a happier time. When he didn't have these negative feelings to suppress. When he could laugh. When he wasn't kept awake at night out of fear that he would come face to face with his nightmares and trauma when he closed his eyes. When he was just a kid.
Phoenix symbolized everything good and pure in life, and Miles didn't think he would ever stop longing for that joy and the boy who brought it. But Miles also knew he wouldn't see Phoenix again. At least he thought he wouldn't. Until, of course, the day he did.
A lawyer. Phoenix Wright was a lawyer. Miles shook his head in stunned surprise when he saw it in the paper. Whoever would have thought that the goofy kid Miles once befriended would take up such a serious profession? But then again, Miles hadn't been this serious when he was a kid either. They both had changed, he supposed.
He wondered when he would see Phoenix in the courthouse. Because now it wasn't a matter of if they would ever reunite- it was when. The thought of it made him feel queasy.
He worried if Phoenix would remember him. Would he want to talk? If so, what would Miles say? What would Phoenix say? Would Phoenix like prosecutor Miles Edgeworth the way he had liked Miles Edgeworth, his childhood friend? Miles felt so different now. Would Phoenix think differently of this different Miles? How much had Phoenix changed? Was he mad at Miles for leaving?
No, no. He didn't have to worry about any of this. Phoenix was a defense attorney. Miles was a prosecutor. They would be working in separate parts of the building. Maybe they'd pass each other in the halls a few times. Maybe-
Oh no. What if they had to face off against each other in court? They would, wouldn't they? Eventually.
Miles pursed his lips and put the newspaper down on his coffee table. He would distract himself by preparing for his upcoming case. That was much more important than worrying about his first, and longest-lasting, crush.
Miles began to wish he had tried to forget about Phoenix. He had held on to the memory of Phoenix, and the hope that he would see him again, for over a decade. Phoenix was who Miles thought of when he needed to distract himself from anxious thoughts. He replayed childhood memories of the spiky-haired boy and imagined scenarios of romantic reunion in order to hold off the unpleasant memories that constantly resurfaced in his mind.
Phoenix had become a coping mechanism. But Miles couldn't continue that anymore. Not now that Phoenix was back. Now that interactions with him might become real again. Miles couldn't get his hopes up. Phoenix might not even like him as a friend. It had been so long. They had both changed. Miles couldn't even guarantee that Phoenix would remember him.
He shook his head, trying to snap out of this thought pattern. The case. The case. He had to focus on that. This was a very important trial, and Miles was lucky that he would be prosecuting this suspect. He had to do his best.
Miles adjusted his glasses and opened the folder for this case: the murder of Mia Fey.