An Ordinary Man

"Listen to me, young man, and listen well," Mia says, gracelessly elbowing her way through a crowd of paparazzi. "Want a quiet life? Be the most tedious kind of lawyer there can be. Bore them out of their minds. It's the only way out."

"Mr. Wright, please! A word for our front page!"
"What are your impressions on the trial? What of the outcome? Did you suspect prosecutor von Karma from the start?"
"Three outstanding wins out of three trials! Mr. Wright, how did you achieve such a sensational feat?"
"Surely you wouldn't be able to put it all together alone. Did you work directly with the state police?"

The journalists surround Phoenix like thick fog, in the haze of an aftermath he can't completely believe in yet. To think this is all his doing – a miniature riot of consequences, ready to hang and sway on his every word – overwhelms him in ways he is not used to handling.

He is one who just rebuilt the truth. His lips were the ones that unearthed it again, breaking down fifteen terrible years of concealment. Even so, it is dawning on him just now – the change he brought forth has proportions he can barely calculate.

There is a knot of so many lives caught up in these events. For all the ones Phoenix could not save, his actions changed the course of just as many. There is more to helping people than he realized – it requires the power to mend, to listen, to suffer through it all with the victims.

In retrospect, he thought he wasn't doing anything special. All he did was follow his beliefs.

And then, in the blink of an eye, he had already conjured up a storm.

Mia was right, he dizzily thinks, walking in circles wherever the mass of chatter and human bodies lets him through. His choices always made a difference, and they caught up with him before he even knew.

But he has more pressing matters at hand. He is still waiting for the full load of the event to weigh on him – he has no energy to waste in meaningless talk.

He voices the least damaging thing that crosses his mind. So he hopes, at least.

Before they can ask for anything more, he is already gone.

"Mr. Wright, please! Your thoughts on your first defeat?"
"For someone you knew to be guilty, wasn't your defense a little too desperate?"
"The prosecution's role in this trial is mysterious to say the least. What were prosecutor Edgeworth's motives?"
"Did a kidnapping act really take place?"
"Given the outcome, many say you entered this trial for the money. What can you say to that?"
"Were personal matters of yours involved? Are the rumours true?"

To be blessed with run-of-the-mill trials was never his fate, apparently. Phoenix adapts to it, but he is growing tired of it all. The interviews are the first in line.

They ask interesting questions, these walking nuisances. They assume so much about what was behind his actions. If only they had a way to know what this trial truly meant to him.

His companions in this disaster, his friends, stay close to him, sunken in the same discomfort. They do not talk, for their eyes speak volumes on their own. Phoenix has no words to explain what they nearly lost, nor what they regained, in such a short time span – thinking of what could have been still makes him shiver.

The press won't hear it from him, he decides, angrily. The true importance of this trial belongs to no one else. Some things are not to be given to anyone.

He ponders the quickest way out of this, and finds the only solution he ever resorted to. Oh well. It worked smoothly enough so far.

He repeats the same words as always, until he is out of trouble.

"Mr. Wright, were you aware of prosecutor Godot's secret identity?"
"After the DL-6 scandal, the Fey clan is in the spotlight again. Anything to add to our story?"
"We hear there is a new Master of Kurain, and the Channeling Technique is likely to come back in style. What do you think?"
"The bailiff mentioned dark shadows returning from the past… care to clarify?"
"The public is eager for more details about this scandalous murder. If you have anything to say… please do, Mr. Wright!"

To say he is in a hurry would be a ridiculous understatement. Even so, the patience Phoenix faces them with has a different ring to it.

How these people can bother him through thick and thin is astounding as always; no one has ever ignored his need to be somewhere else so shamefully. Still, for every person and thing that stays the same, another changes radically. It was his turn to become a different person.

He has been through a lot, and treasures what he learnt. What all these people want from him – whatever it is – really counts for nothing. They want a passing emotion, a moment of elation in the misery of others; if people like him were born to solve troubles, many, many more are made to feed on them. That's the way the world goes, and he knows better.

There is no point in telling the truth, or even trying to fake it. Whatever enters their ears will leave them very fast – for fake involvement, he might as well give empty words.

It's not like it will make a difference. Readers and writers alike will stop at the surface.

What happens below it is their life – the one thing that matters. Phoenix is content with keeping it to himself.

He already knows what to say, and what will come of it. He tested out its neutrality many times. When the newspapers are sold tomorrow, neither his short line nor his life will have changed.

Funny how, even in that, there is a touch of irony. This is a story that comes full circle – he can see it whole, in the unity of its tragic outcome. For once, if bitterly, he actually means what he is going to tell them.

"I wouldn't be so sure. About what he is like, I mean. Maybe he just wants to avoid the press, and knows how that's done. Looks like he defends himself as effectively as his clients."

"I don't know. For the way he bluffs in court, he sounds like an awfully boring person. He says justice was served, and that's alright. But to say it every time? That's so trite, man."

"Yeah. His are the most predictable answers ever, that's for sure. His opinions on the hottest trial of the year are not worth the trouble, honestly."

"Not quite what I meant back then, but well done, Phoenix," Mia's spirit laughs in the wind. "You got the gist of it."

And Phoenix grins, though he does not know why.