This girl demonstrates the absolute barest understanding of the concept of personal space, Edgeworth thought as she leaned in close from over the top of his desk, her eyes wide and scrutinizing from where they hid behind her tousled brown bangs. To avoid Ema’s face coming into contact with his own, he leaned back considerably in his chair, sputtering in thinly-concealed surprise all the while. Miles had always considered himself a man with a significant reputation to uphold -- how on Earth was he supposed to accomplish something such as that with this high-schooler making him look like such a fool? He should have figured that the task of looking after the Chief Prosecutor’s younger sister might have involved her asking a few questions -- but this? She was beyond inquisitive and slowly creeping towards nosiness! To think that cool, collected Lana Skye, of all people, had encouraged such behavior . . . the very idea was laughable, to say the least.
The young prosecutor raised a questioning eyebrow, doing his best to keep his frustration from becoming too obvious; he’d always been something of a calm, calculating man, but in spite of this he was notoriously quick to anger and easy to annoy, and certainly had no qualms about letting others know when he believed them to be acting childishly. Still, he had to hold back -- at least, for now. Were this girl related to anyone but the Chief Prosecutor, he might not have been so inclined to pull punches, but today, he had to be willing to demonstrate some patience.
He had to hand it to her, though, she had the proper disposition for forensic work. Assertive, analytical, an astute observer, and certainly not shy -- when she grew older and gained more experience, Edgeworth had to admit that he could see her doing quite well in such a field. It would only figure that Lana Skye’s sister would be so well-suited for work in criminal justice; though he would never admit to as much aloud, he’d always admired her talents as both a detective and a prosecutor, and did look up to her in several ways. She was colder lately, more withdrawn, but he couldn’t fault her for that -- so was he, after all. In any case, it seemed that she’d passed on her talents to Ema . . . who definitely wasn’t afraid to use them if the opportunity arose.
“Hm . . . well, I wouldn’t necessarily go as far as to state that I have no concern for making a decent first impression,” he replied at last, finally deciding to humor her. “There is a definite correlation, yes, but one of the first things you will learn in your criminal justice studies one day, Miss Skye, is that correlation cannot be equated to causation. Just because there appears to be an apparent link between one’s personal style and the sort of impression they give, does not aptly prove that such a thing is always true. Now, if you were posed such a question in your field of work, how would you go about solving it? How might you assert that your evidence proves your point?”
Perhaps he was testing her, but he couldn’t help it -- he was curious to see how she would answer, and anyway, he felt confident enough that she would be able to figure it out. In any case, this was the sort of training she would require if she ever did truly wish to go into forensics, so he supposed this would prove once and for all just how dedicated she was to her dreams.
“Yes -- alright, alright,” he conceded to her last statements, fighting the smirk threatening to twitch into place at the corners of his mouth. “I suppose there is some merit in making observational statements, to a certain extent.” Just so long as the subject matter is not my personal tastes . . . !