Starter for @turnaboutprosecutor - Seven Year Gap Era It had been a generally normal day, otherwise. They’d gone to their studies, discussed at length the differences in the German legal system compared to their own, and others they’d studied - what was good, what could be improved, what they could utilize if they ever wanted to make changes back home - and then he and his old friend Miles Edgeworth had gone to a little seminar after. It was woefully in German, which Phoenix knew only a smattering of, but he was grateful that Miles had at least been polite enough to translate the highlights for him so he didn’t feel like a total imbecile.
Even despite all that, it had been perfectly fine. He’d figured that they’d mingle a little, while he stood awkwardly to one side and hoped someone spoke English to him, and then they’d go eat dinner and head back to the flat they’d been sharing for the past month or so. In truth, it had been nice to get out of Los Angeles - the media still liked to pick up on his disgrace even four years after the fact, and while he weathered it easily enough, it still wasn’t fun. At least here, he was less well known. Things would have been fine, at least, until a striking gentleman named Lukas Jager had approached them, and struck up a genial, polite conversation with Miles. At first, the conversation had been in German, until he had noticed Phoenix, and then he had politely switched to accented but fluent English for his sake. There was nothing at all untoward about him - he clearly had known Miles from the past, perhaps past studies, and seemed to be closer to a friend to an acquaintance - but that wasn’t what had bothered Phoenix. He wanted Edgeworth to have friends other than him, he wanted him to be happy and free to be himself after all this time. No, it was...Jager’s body language. The way he leaned in just a touch when he spoke to Miles, the way his eyes softened just a little when he turned back to their mutual friend - that subtle invitation to dinner for only two, not three - Oh no. He’s into Edgeworth. But Edgeworth isn’t into him, he’s not into anyone! He’s as Ace as they come...isn’t he? Something akin to queer panic began to rise in his lovelorn little heart - Of course, he wanted Edgeworth to be happy, but that didn’t mean that he still didn’t...well, it was complicated. Phoenix had been made to come around to the fact that he’d harbored beyond platonic feelings for his old friend a number of years ago, during the course of his therapy and his efforts to overcome the trauma put upon him by Dahlia and poor Iris. He’d accepted it, settled on it, pined a little, and then done nothing about it for the past three years. It had been easy when Miles had been abroad, absent from his life aside from phone calls and text messages. But now they were here, together, living together, and there was this man trying politely to express his interest... In short, Phoenix had been stewing on this ever since they’d left the seminar. He found himself sitting on the sofa, a thick book in his hands, with the pretense of reading it and cross referencing the notes he’d taken that day. In reality, he’d spent the better half of the past half hour staring at the same sentence, his mind elsewhere. For all that he and Edgeworth had forged a close friendship, and for all that they were able to talk openly and freely about work and most regular life occurrences, talking about something as private as sexuality and the like had never come up. Honestly, Phoenix had been afraid to bring it up for some time, if only because he had been afraid of what the response might be. Perhaps...it was just best to at least gauge the situation - and if anything, let Miles know that he was a safe person to talk about such things with, even if his interests were not in him. “So, that Lukas Jager fellow was nice,” he said over the edge of the book. “You guys know each other from back when you still lived here?” He glanced up and offered his old friend a bit of a smile - if anything, he was at least glad that Edgeworth appeared to have made friends in those long years that he struggled. “Are you going to go on that date with him?”
