#they're so precious ;A; <3 look at van zieks trying u-u

[tenacquity]

@hallowshaped || cont.

Ryunosuke had come a long way since first arriving in London.

In every manner of the word: his confidence in the courtroom, his trust in both himself and his clients, and—so he thought (or perhaps simply hoped)—his ability to keep his chin raised, his back straight, his expression steady under the distinctive coldness that resided in the so-called Reaper of the Bailey’s unwavering leer. On that last point, he rather liked believing he’d at least improved. Enough to stand before the towering man and not feel a tremor up his spine (and yet there was something… not trepidation, but a static energy humming just barely beneath his skin, nevertheless).

But as van Zieks began to speak from behind the veil of his cloak, voice deep and smooth, each and every word felt like a chip in the young lawyer’s composure. He practically flinched at one accusation, clenched his teeth at another, eventually found his attention slipping to the ground as if it were all the more interesting—and quietly, he mused that he was rather unused to seeing the prosecutor’s boots from this angle. Former confidence staggered into sheepishness, but when the color likely should’ve drained from his face…

By the time the long list of transgressions culminated into a single statement of gratitude, faint warmth blossomed in his cheeks. And Ryunosuke looked back up with no hesitation.

The delicate smile tugging at his lips might’ve mirrored van Zieks’s, if not for the latter’s remaining hidden. He listened with a new attentiveness—he’d even claim it to be fondness after all this time: for a man who used to terrify him viscerally—and some part of him wanted to laugh. Not at him. Not at any specific thing he’d said or was going to say. But when Ryunosuke took even a moment to think about it: they’d both come a long way, hadn’t they?

—considering that Lord van Zieks hadn’t stopped talking for the past several minutes without any intervention from the other side. And not even in the courtroom setting, prim and poised and proper (most of the time; today was an exception) behind his stand. Proof, if proof were needed, of how little of a bother Ryunosuke actually was despite the mentioned troubles he’d caused. Seeing this, that deflated confidence began to swell yet again.

His tentative smile grew at the same time as the prosecutor finally made his face visible.

“So, what you mean to tell me is that you were well aware of when I’d presumably be leaving,” Ryunosuke ventured, and his head canted almost challengingly while he steeled the other’s gaze, “but chose to ignore it altogether with the assumption I wouldn’t be bothered by it.” He didn’t care to add a questioning lilt to the end of that: it was a statement, firm and resolute. As much of a truth as anything he chased for the sake of his clients. And no different than those cases, Ryunosuke was determined not to let van Zieks get away with anything he could catch. (So far a shared sentiment, it would appear.)

His arms folded neatly behind his back, and without breaking that solid eye contact now, Ryunosuke moved one small step closer: a full, fluid motion that started with the slightest bend of his back and ended with his gaze now having to flick upward. “You don’t and never have owed me anything, Lord van Zieks,” he said, soft and earnest. “I didn’t stay because I required something more from you; goodness, you’ve done enough as it is. But I would be lying if I claimed you weren’t, in some way, part of the reason I’m still here.”