Day 37: Men's Showers

[pleading-ngri.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't really call this a locker room. More like a bathroom with lockers. The place was uncomfortably crowded, with almost every adult male patient being hustled into the showers at once, but Phoenix wasn't as annoyed by the claustrophobic, milling throng of bodies as he might have otherwise been. Every extra person was one more person who might end up standing between himself and Edgeworth.

He knew that the prosecutor would have a fit if he found out about this. He'd known since he'd tacked that first response up on the bulletin board. And in a way, he couldn't blame him. Phoenix knew that he jumped into things all-or-nothing more often than most people. At the same time, he had some kind of reality testing. He wasn't going to learn the basics of how to defend himself and suddenly decide that he was Rambo.

He found an unoccupied locker in the southwest corner and glanced around, trying to gauge how long he could possibly stall in a locker room, looking as if he was expecting something, before people started looking at him strangely. It would have been easier if he'd known something of the description of the man he was supposed to be meeting. As it was, all he had was handwriting and a military rank, neither of which guaranteed any particular appearance.

It's not as if there was a better way to plan this, though. "Yeah, meet me by the lockers. I'll be wearing gray and a smiley face, just like about a hundred other guys."

[for Hughes]

Comments

[justice-to-a-t.livejournal.com]

At first, Mikami only looked up quickly and froze, staring and dripping for a long moment before his mind finally made sense of what was being said and provided a memory for the man addressing him. His own reaction threw him off a bit, although of course it would have been fair if he'd chosen to admit to himself that he didn't recognize Siegfried because the first time he'd met him, it was dark and he'd been going into shock. The whole experience had bordered on the realm of nightmarish.

"I'm healing," he admitted, "faster than I should be, really." He couldn't help but feel at least a little bit humbled. Pride was a hard thing to hold on to when confronted with someone who had basically saved your life. "It's unfortunate we didn't have the chance to meet properly. I'm Mikami Teru."

[requiemforasoul.livejournal.com]

It was only when Mikami stared blankly at him did Siegfried realise that he may not be recognised. He wondered if he would need to prompt the other man to remember, but Mikami soon began to speak.

“I’m Siegfried Schtauffen. It’s good to know you’re healing, Mikami. If there’s one positive thing about the Institute, it’s that injuries don’t last as long as they should.” Of course, if the patients spent all their time injured, then the Head Doctor wouldn’t have nearly as much fun during the nightshift. The accelerated healing was probably to keep things interesting for him, yet it benefited the patients too.

[justice-to-a-t.livejournal.com]

Siegfried Schtauffen. Wonderful. There was no way Mikami would be able to spell that by himself, and of course he wasn't prepared to ask the man about it for fear it would seem unusual.

"This place should do better than to let animals run loose," he said, turning back to rinse. He was probably at the best he could be in a place like Landel's, so the fact that the memory of the confrontation in the Sun Room still caused adrenaline to surge through him was particularly concerning. The fact that he had lost control so soundly was bad; that he couldn't even remember the whole thing even worse. He turned back, asking quietly, "Do you know who it was who attacked me?"

[requiemforasoul.livejournal.com]

It said something about Mikami, Siegfried thought, that he’d referred to his attacker as an ‘animal’. Understandably he was still angry, but Siegfried hoped that there wasn’t enough vitriol left for Mikami to seek out revenge. That would only end badly.

“No, I don’t. There’s a possibility that it was a brainwashed patient.” He couldn’t know for certain though. If it was a brainwashed patient then they weren’t wholly responsible for their actions.