Chapter Text
The earliest memory of Klavier’s childhood took place when he was barely five years old. A cold hand on his shoulder, burning through thin fabric, as he is seated on the grand piano in the foyer. Thin, reflective glass separates himself from his parents' eyes as his mother flips to a page of music he can barely read. Imperfect and unpracticed, he struggles to memorize the notes before he is expected to play. He can barely hear his parents' words through the static in his ears, unable to yet recognize the feeling of panic setting in, but they’re instructing him to play.
His brother’s eyes are the only ones he can see, but he wished he couldn’t. Pity. When Kristoph leaves the room, Klavier finally breaks, tears hitting the keys, his small body shaking because he never feels more alone than when he is left with only his parents in the room. His parents only have mere seconds to snap at him to pull it together before Kristoph is back kneeling beside him, violin in hand. His brother's hands don’t burn when a tear is wiped from his cheek, Kristoph grimacing in pity before plastering a fake smile on his face for Klavier to mirror. The two of them learned how to mask their emotions too young; to show what you truly felt was nothing but weakness.
“May I play with him? It would do me well to practice violin today, and I have this song memorized.”
Kristoph’s words are calculated and polite, a slight shake Klavier can't place as nerves or anger. His words are too old to come from the slim frame of a 13 year old boy. He's the golden child, though – he fought his way there through nothing but perfection for longer than Klavier has been alive. His parents nod in approval for the two of them to play together and Kristoph positions the violin as Klavier turns back towards the piano, breathing in before playing the melody as best as he can. His fingers are too short and he can't read the notes fast enough for the music to come out smoothly, his brother either adjusting the speed of his playing or letting the violin sound a note just loud enough to cover up a false key on the piano. As the song comes to an end, Klavier watches his parents compliment Kristoph’s playing, his brother nodding in acceptance as Klavier pushes himself off the seat.
He would do anything for the same praise, but Kristoph is older, more practiced, and risks his spot as the golden boy too much to cover up for Klavier's mistakes. Klavier knows his brother deserves the spot. The memory would be bittersweet for years to come, Klavier conflicted between the knowledge his brother grew up too quickly to protect him from their parents, and the knowledge that Klavier grew up just as quick anyways, constantly fighting for recognition.
They were made to be pitted against each other. For a few years, they are able to do the opposite.
Nothing lasts forever, unfortunately.
~
When Klavier was nine years old, tragedy changed the way he and his brother viewed themselves and the world.
By nine years old, he has already “graduated” middle school and his peers glare at him in either confusion or hatred as he scrambles his way through the halls of Themis, dodging teenagers twice his size to make his classes. He is young enough to escape physical threats, and Kristoph’s presence occasionally by his side does well enough that jeers are done behind his back. Kristoph didn’t get in physical altercations, but his glare is enough to give anyone a fright that they wouldn’t dare mess with Klavier if they knew they could face any consequences.
His teachers mostly leave him alone – he is top of his class despite his age. Nothing but perfection will be tolerated when he enters his home. Constance Courte is a teacher in the judge course, but acts as a mother figure to him regardless, and he visits the fine arts club often despite being more musically inclined. Kristoph doesn't take part in club activities, preferring to rather go home and study instead of choosing to interact with anyone he isn't forced to speak to. His parents choose to pick up his brother and send for a car to pick up Klavier when he chooses to stay for club activities. Prof. Courte lets him mess with supplies as long as they don't require a specific strength or size, only coming over to encourage him with a warm smile. When she nervously crouches beside him one day after he's asked to step outside, he knows something is wrong before she even speaks.
“Klavier, I need to tell you something important,” she begins, looking visibly pained. “Your parents and brother got into an accident. They're currently being treated at a nearby hospital.”
Panic sets in and Klavier lets his perfectly plastered smile drop in front of someone who isn't family for the first time in his life. The fear that he has no one left, that he has no one but the teacher that is kneeling before him with a warm hand on his shoulder is enough to finally make him break. Frantically, he asks questions that are dodged or answered delicately vague. He has no idea if they are alive or dead, and if she knows the answer, she won't tell him any time soon. Instead she offers to take him to the hospital and he answers nodding frantically through sobs, unable to stop crying even as they enter the hospital building. To let yourself show emotion is weakness, he has been taught that all his life, but for once he lets himself be nine years old and cries into his mentor's shirt as they wait to see if he has any family left.
When a doctor finally comes out, he kneels in front of Klavier with a sad smile and Klavier knows then that he will be receiving bad news. His parents are dead – they had died before they reached the hospital, most likely dead on impact. The doctor lets himself sigh with relief as he reveals, however, that Kristoph has survived. Warning him before he makes his way into the room that his brother is beaten and broken, Klavier pushes open the door to see Kristoph attempting to sit up against his nurse’s pleas. For the first time in his life, Klavier has no idea what emotions his brother is feeling, his eyes a cold dead blue, seeming duller than they looked only hours before. Klavier crosses the room slowly & Kristoph looks at him through muted eyes.
“They’re dead,” Klavier sobs, letting his tears hit the cold, sterile floor.
Kristoph finally pushes himself up, shooting one last glare at his nurse, who backs off with a squeak. He attempts to move his right arm, forgetting it was in a sling and wincing in pain. Awkwardly, he twists around, letting his left hand ruffle Klavier’s hair.
In the coldest voice Klavier has ever heard from his brother, Kristoph responds –
“Good riddance.”
~
Their parents' funeral is a closed casket, and although they were cold and uncaring most of his life, he pleads to see them one last time. Kristoph holds him back as he cries, never shedding a tear himself. He explains to Klavier in the most delicate way possible that they had been mangled beyond saving. His bruised and broken body was the cleanest one out of the three. Despite the niceties, playing the caring son in front of the crowd of mourning friends, Klavier barely recognizes his brother. Kristoph always liked him more than their parents – he made a point to protect him when he messed up. He acted the part of savoir to his “pathetic” brother in front of his parents well, but when they were alone he dropped the facade. It was as though the accident killed that other side of him, and the facade is all he has left.
Suddenly he can't see his brother's eyes through the thin glass lenses anymore.
The funeral only lasts a few hours but it feels days long – too many people asking him too many questions he didn’t have the right answers to. He holds onto Kristoph the entire time, letting his brother skillfully answer any questions he can't find a good response for. Does he miss them? Of course he does, they were his parents, but at the same time, he feels like shackles have been lifted from his body. Where will they stay? Kristoph will take care of him long enough for them both to graduate, and then Klavier will be sent abroad to stay with their family in Europe while he finishes University. Their parents' fortune will sustain them long enough. What had their parents been like at home? Klavier hides behind his brother to answer that one, playing shy so no one will dare ask him again. Kristoph is able to spin a lie well. That they were pushed to succeed out of love instead of a narcissistic projection of themselves. That they were given the means to pursue their passions instead of being handed instruments they didn't choose, too young to play what they were made to learn, and forced to perfect them. They had been mere pawns to their parents, pets instead of children, and Klavier loved and hated them. He misses them and is relieved they are gone, mourning despite having nothing to mourn for. His brother is the only family he ever truly had, and that was true before and after their parents died.
That doesn't mean he doesn't despise the person who killed them. Scott Free, a student at Ivy University, who had survived the car crash as well, despite his BAC being ridiculously high at the time. It's a simple DUI case, an open and shut manslaughter, but Free’s defense attorney comes from as much money as Scott does, and more than Klavier & Kristoph inherited. The defense argues he was just a “kid,” why ruin his life “before it began?” Klavier feels ill. Scott Free plays the pity card well, but the way he is able to look a nine-year-old in the eyes and call himself a kid, say this trial could ruin his life. You took my family from me. The judge still takes Free's side, leaving Klavier kneeling in the bathroom, choking on vomit and his own tears, unable to process the “not guilty” verdict. It was manslaughter; he wouldn’t have gotten the death penalty, he just would have had to serve time. A fair enough trade for ending two lives too early, and leaving two others orphaned. Nauseated and clutching the sides of dirty porcelain, he doesn't stand until he hears his brother's voice from outside the locked stall. Wiping his face, he turns towards his brother and the nausea comes back full force. He has been sick of Kristoph’s now cold and calculated eyes, but the spark he sees in them now is somehow worse. How could he sit through that verdict and feel anything but anger and sorrow?
“Come on Klavier, it’s time to go home. I want to be able to go to class tomorrow, I still plan on graduating this year.”
Klavier finally snaps at that. “You still plan on pursuing defense? After that? That man was a monster! It was manslaughter! That attorney cared more about money than people’s lives; you can’t possibly want to do that.”
The glint in Kristoph’s eye is back. “Precisely.” Klavier’s stomach drops. “Don’t get me wrong – morally, it’s abhorrent, but people die. You can’t change that. You can’t change that we’re on our own now. What’s trading my soul if it means we don’t suffer?”
“I don’t want to live on blood money, Kris.”
“You’re young enough to change your path – become a prosecutor. You weren’t there though. You didn’t see how fragile we are, how easily someone can go from a living, breathing thing to nothing more than a cadaver. Changing my path now won’t bring our parents back.”
Klavier feels ill, but he secedes, dropping his head and letting his brother wrap his arms around him. For the first time in his life, his brother’s hands burn. When he lets go, Kristoph adjusts his glasses and the scar on his hand where a glass shard pierced through forms the mouth of the devil. Trading your soul, indeed. But he lets himself grasp that hand for dear life anyway, unable to part with his only family. He's still Kristoph, even if he has changed. He saw their parents die in front of him, of course he isn't the same. It still hurts.
“I'm going to become a prosecutor, Kris. Guilty people don’t deserve to pay for innocence.”
“I’ll look forward to standing across from you in court.”
~
After moving to Germany post-graduation, Klavier doesn't speak to Kristoph again until he's seventeen. He tried calling him, but with his brother graduating law school & starting his career as an attorney, Kristoph was too busy to spare enough time in the few hours they had to talk with the time difference. During his time away from his brother, Klavier had changed but he doesn't see it as a bad thing. He shot up to almost six feet tall, slim, but not as scrawny as he was before he left. He stopped playing the piano, electing to pick up guitar instead, and ended up loving it. Loud and brash chords feel like music to his ears in comparison to the dainty sonatas his parents had him play for them and their guests on the grand piano. He is finally free from their grasp and is able to find himself and be successful without them. They would have hated his band, law themed that borders between rock and europop, with band members as ostentatious as the music. They would have hated that he split from him and his brother's assigned path, choosing to prosecute instead of defend, but the idea of having to fight for a guilty party makes his stomach churn. His parents would have hated how he turned out, despite his success in music and early debut to law. He was never good enough, but at least now he gets to be himself.
His first case should have been open and shut: a man was shot, there were two possible suspects, and the time of death narrowed it down to a single perpetrator who was already in custody. Zak Gramarye – or rather, Shadi Enigmar – is surely the killer. He has prepared thoroughly, he knows every piece of evidence by heart and has gone over the facts with the detective more times than necessary. The defense is his brother, he has to be prepared. Until he isn't.
“Kristoph…? Odd seeing you at the prosecutor’s office the day before the trial.”
“Ah… I won't be appearing in the trial, actually.”
It comes as a shock to Klavier, watching Kristoph’s neutral expression shift into one of annoyance for a split second before the glare of his glasses shields his eyes.
“I won’t be facing off with you on your first trial, apparently,” he trails off. “But in exchange, I brought information.”
“Information…?” Klavier repeats.
“The attorney who'll be there in my place tomorrow is not to be trusted. Don't even give him the benefit of your respect. Listen... I want you to call in a special witness. Then...”
Kristoph tells him exactly what to do, but he refuses to tell him the name of the attorney he will be facing in his brother’s stead. "Don't trust him, don't even give him the benefit of respect," he says… Kristoph has gotten even colder than before. If the opposing attorney is to present fake evidence, however, trusting his brother's word on the subject, he supposes whoever it is isn't worthy of his respect anyway. What kind of lawyer would prepare fake evidence against a teenager’s first trial?
When he finally meets his opposition, his stomach drops, but he masks it with a celebrity smile and shades that cover his eyes. The Turnabout Terror, Phoenix Wright. Had he really been so successful because he was using falsified evidence? Pull yourself together, show no weakness. Kristoph told you what to do. He pushes through the trial with snide remarks and cocky references to his own music, watching as Phoenix grows more and more desperate. He has a decent argument, all he needs is the right evidence. Please don’t present the forged note, I don’t want to win like this.
“It’s not too late to rethink this and avoid more… embarrassment,” Klavier warns.
Phoenix presses on anyway and Klavier lets himself finally call his opponent on his misdoing. You just couldn't resist, could you, Herr Wright? As his surprise witness takes the stand and reveals his hand in creating the forgery under oath, Klavier watches Wright’s expressions from across the room. The elder attorney’s face scrunches from confusion, to panic, and then to desperation as Klavier step-by-step takes him down. Wright’s face looks genuine, but he can't be, he presented the forged evidence on his own terms and Klavier has sufficient proof that the evidence was created under false pretenses. He has to be acting. His surprise when his client disappears, however, is genuine, the pitch of his voice just as frantic as everyone else as they search the courthouse to no avail. Zak Gramarye is gone, Phoenix Wright is a hack, and Klavier has unofficially won his first trial. He feels empty.
He had given Phoenix ample opportunity to back down, to play it fair, there is no reason to feel guilty about dethroning a false tyrant. However, the look Wright gives him before walking out with his client's daughter grasping to his arm is too painful to have been faked.
Kristoph takes him out to celebrate his first “win.” He feels like he has lost.