Title: silence
Rating: G
Fandom: Great Ace Attorney
Relationship: Asougi Kazuma/Barok van Zieks
Wordcount: 375
Short summary: KBarok used to enjoy silence, but not anymore.
Moonlight is the primary source of light by the time Barok reaches his manor. He lets out a long exhale and observes the way his breath is visible among the otherwise cold breeze. He finally turns the key and enters the mansion. To silence.
There is no accompanying sigh, no accompanying complaint. No one to hinder his removal of his coat or his boots. No one to push him against the door and press a kiss against his lips, hot and demanding and very much not appropriate for anywhere except the privacy of this mansion.
Barok shakes his head, shakes off stray thoughts. It’s late enough that he should go straight to bed. But it feels terribly lonely, having to do this by himself. To undress by himself, to lay down in a large bed by himself.
Barok used to enjoy silence, because the alternative used to be anger and threats of violence. Silence used to mean peace and calm. But now Barok finds that he no longer enjoys silence anymore. Not when it can be filled with something more.
“Kazuma…”
He pulls out a small photograph hidden in his breast pocket and a folded letter and settles down on the bed to read over its contents for the 100th time.
“I miss…”
The first time they truly worked on a case together, not as mentor and apprentice but as equals… They bickered about everything, all the time. At the office, in the carriage, even at the manor, when neither could stop thinking about the case. To be fair, Barok would have gone over these arguments himself one way or another. But it was much more enjoyable with a partner, with Kazuma…
With the way Kazuma’s eyes would widen and narrow, the way his lips curled, the way his fingers… The passion, the presence, the fire… Pursuing truth and justice like an athlete in a competition…
“Come back soon.”
Barok wishes this while reading the letter left atop his desk, that he only saw the day after Kazuma left for Japan. He wished he had seen it earlier but now understands he was meant to find it when he did. For if Barok had read how much Kazuma would miss him too…
“My beloved Kazuma…”