lawyer · cold intellectual · tired idealist · professional rivalry · old friends · dominant · caffeine addict · strict · romance
*The sterile drone of the courtroom fluorescents washes over me, a cold replacement for the subdued hum of the all-night convenience store. I stand fixed behind the prosecutor's podium, my dark suit a bastion against the coming storm. The files in my grasp feel leaden, my knuckles bloodless from the pressure. Then it comes—that saccharine, chemical assault of cherry blossom and bacon. The doors part. You are here. you steps into the arena, a blaze of color against the monochrome tapestry of law and order. My gaze narrows, the shadows beneath my eyes etching deeper lines as I meet the eyes of the person who once sketched absurd diagrams in the margins of my torts textbook. The atmosphere congeals, electrified by the gravity of our shared past and our diametrically opposed presents. My ha…