ad·den·dum
o3. Larry Butz

o1, a succession of ordinary days—

School is boring. It isn't his fault that it's that way, and the fact that their teachers don't have the spark in their eyes – which, by the way, they're supposed to – just lets him down even more. In television, the teachers are understanding and kind and funny (and impossibly curvy). In reality, they are cold, calculating and have a soft spot for the elite.

He's hated school ever since the Lunch Money Incident; so instead of going, he simply doesn't. Why should he attend to boring, ridiculous classes about chemicals and French and math when he can lie down on the grass behind the building and stare at the sky?

At least, he muses, he's not hanging out with the wrong crowds. But, honestly, he wants to. He wants to feel needed by someone (anyone!), because when he gets home, there's no one to greet him but a mother with cigarette breath and bright red lipstick—and she's always hurriedly leaving, anyway.

o2, a lost childhood memory—

The thing Larry is best at it making paper airplanes, and he is damn proud about it, too (because there is really nothing else he can afford to be proud of). In fourth grade, anyone who manages to make one fly for more than three yards is the understood king of the class. And Larry's paper airplanes are swift, are quick and strong, even in the wind; he works with scissors and rulers as if they're part of his body, and watching him work is a delicacy.

It's really the only thing he's good at, so he needs to make the best of it. He needs to enjoy these rare moments in which school (life) is actually worth suffering through.

He doesn't tell anyone of staying up all night trying to figure out how to cut and bend and throw, of course. If someone asks what the cuts in his hands are from, he makes something up in the spot because he needs to be effortless in his glory.

He remembers this after being hung-over, and traces an old scar in his thumb.

o3, faded paper—

He decides he wants to be a doctor, then an actor, then a doctor again; he usually ends up serving at sleazy cafés or working in the kitchen of some small restaurant. He knows why: it's because he is as simple-minded as he is an idiot, and it almost hurts that he can't do anything about it.

Larry's swam by security rooms, by kitchens, by warehouses, by shops; but he never manages to hold himself in the surface for too long. And then there is Phoenix, and Phoenix is successful in everything he does. And then there is Edgeworth, who is perfection embodied no matter how dark his past is.

Then he tries art, and he's actually good at it—but he doesn't know how to deal with selling scribbles in faded paper for high amounts of cash. He sees them hung in galleries, in luxurious glass frames, and he feels proud but nevertheless apathetic.

It's really very sad, he notices, the fact that he isn't at all used to being successful.

o4, the rumble of thunder of an approaching storm—

When Cindy gets killed, he finds himself not really caring. Not that he is a cold-hearted bastard—it's just that he can't get himself into a lasting relationship, and girls are easy to please for a week or two until they're tired of him. He compares his relationships to a storm: quick, hard and cold.

Sometimes he thinks he prefers it that way, no strings attached, a quick fling here and there, hurried kisses before he leaves to work, an unnamed girl in his bed. It's pretty much the ideal life for a guy his age, but Larry is a romantic. Larry wants love, he wants candlelight dinners, he wants to slowly make love under the stars, he doesn't want to take them out to eat, he doesn't want to rush things into the bedroom. To girls, he is the guy before the guy; he is the guy who distracts them, he's the rebound, he's the one they use to make someone else jealous.

Brandi, Gretchen, Lila, they're just names, not loved ones, and when the rumble of thunder approaches his ears, he starts packing up and drives to a hotel—only this time, he does it alone. It should bother him that the clerk already knows him by name, but he's too busy being drunk to notice.

o5, the source

His children's book sells wonderfully, and he buys a house with the money. It isn't anything like Edgeworth's luxury apartment, but it's perfect in its modesty. He decorates it tastefully, and actually thinks about taping posters of naked women before he does so. Because, maybe – just maybe – maybe this is the house. Maybe he can bring a nice girl over and invite her to live with him.

Larry buys pastel colored pillows. Larry actually buys cookware – cookware! – and a nice-looking fridge. There are carpets, there are curtains, and there's a glass coffee-table; he even tries his best to maintain it reasonably clean (he is only a man, after all).

But his phone is quiet, and neither Phoenix nor Edgeworth call him anymore—he supposes it's obvious, with Phoenix's disbarment and Edgeworth's disappearance into Germany, but it still sort of stings. Sometimes, he wakes up with a woman's voice only to find out that it's the radio, and when that happens, his heart breaks a little. He doesn't know what the source to his emptiness is, but he doesn't want to stick around and find out.

A month later, he switches jobs.