Chapter Text
And, oh, my soul, unconscious voyager,
Now float beyond the earth on nimble wings,
Into the magic circle of the night,
Finding a life a thousand times more deep.
-Hermann Hesse
The palm of his hand collided painfully with the pavement, and Apollo bit his lower lip to supress the inevitable hissing.
He had stumbled over his own feet while trying to catch the bus for his economics and law study group. He stared helplessly at how it drove away.
Whatever, it’s not like he really had wanted to spend his Saturday morning there anyway.
With slow movements he picked himself back up and sat down on the edge of the sidewalk, and inspected the damage. The heel of his hand was bleeding, his jeans were torn, and he could feel the sticky and hot blood soaking the new rip, staining it with an almost reddish brown.
He sighed and looked around, to see if anyone had cought sight of his embarrassing fall, but the streets were blissfully empty. It really was still the ass-crack of dawn and no sane person should be up at this hour.
But Apollo was still a high school-student, so he was neither sane nor really a person.
(In his opinion, it was a gross violation of the human rights having to ask for a restroom break, so he probably just wasn’t human enough. Yet .
He sure hoped human rights would apply to him too once he went to college.)
While looking the street up and down, his gaze caught on a small item reflecting the rising sun. Without thinking much, he crawled closer and grabbed it, feeling cold at the touch. It turned out to be a silver ring.
He turned the small trinket between his fingers and mindlessly slipped it on his middle finger. For a heartbeat, he inspected the ring on his hand, curiously regarding the light sparkle against his sun-kissed skin.
“Entschuldigung?”
Apollo whipped around as he heard the voice behind him – and for a second, he felt like his heart might stop.
Then it resumed to beat in a too-fast irregular rhythm, as he continued to stare in awe.
In front of him was a rather tall boy who looked around his own age who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. But that was not what had startled him, not even the fact that he was translucent, but that his legs didn’t seem to resume after his knees.
He was just floating.
Apollo continued to stare while the other one ran a hand through his transparent hair, a sheepish smile on his pale lips.
With careful movements he stood up from the pavement, his gaze never leaving the … ghost?
He cleared his throat, and opened his mouth to talk, but he felt like his tongue was sticking to his gums. A croaking sound escaped him, which made the incorporeal boy examine him with worry-knitted brows.
“Are you alright?”
Apollo just nodded and promptly found his voice again.
“I’m fine!”
First it had forsaken him, now it returned with a vengeance. Maybe he should have just stayed in bed.
The ghost laughed and the sound sent a shiver down Apollo’s spine.
“I am sorry to bother you, but it seems like I am having quite the pickle, ja ?”
Apollo just nodded along. Not only he was seeing a ghost, but a crazy one at that too, who smiled at his own demise. Just great.
The ghost continued to speak.
“I really don’t know how to phrase this but... Am I dead?”
He gave Apollo rather impressive puppy-dog-eyes, and seemed to be really distraught at the question.
Apollo cleared his throat once more, in the hope it would stall him enough time to answer the question.
He opened his mouth.
And closed it again.
The sad ghost never disappeared. Had he hit his head? Maybe he had a concussion. Was it normal to have hallucinations after having a concussion?
Should he engage in his hallucinations if he had any?
Or just ignore them?
He wasn’t sure.
Apollo opened his mouth again and decided to tell the truth.
“I don’t know.”
The translucent boy looked like he was about to cry but he nodded and forced himself to smile.
“ Danke anyways, ja ?”
Wait a minute.
The ghost was speaking in a language Apollo didn’t understand.
Hallucinations couldn’t produce anything that the suffering one had no knowledge of, right?
“Wait!”
Apollo tried to grasp out to the other boy, who had just turned away and was in the process of sitting (floating?) down on the sidewalk – but it felt like he had dipped his hand into a bucket filled with ice-water.
The distraught ghost raised his gaze to Apollo’s eyes, face oddly hopeful.
“Ja?”
“What’s your name?”
That seemed to make him think for a second; his brows knitted together and he seemed to chew on his lower lip.
“Someone called me Klavier ... I remember that.”
His whole face brightened up like somebody had switched on a lamp – the smile was almost dazzling and the ghost came closer, seemingly excited.
“I remembered!”
Apollo wasn’t sure if he could see him literally bouncing on the spot.
“What’s your name?”
The ghost seemed to be eager to talk to him and Apollo decided to humour him.
Being probably-dead was likely a very boring affair.
“My name is Apollo Justice.”
Klavier gave him another dazzling smile, and waved his hand in the air.
“Hallo Apollo!”
He forced himself to smile back at him, but his gaze soon dropped to his shoes, inevitably catching on his still bleeding knee, coming down to reality fast and hard.
“Klavier,” he called out to him, the strange name sounding stranger and foreign in his tongue. “Talking to you has been nice and stuff, but I think I should do something about this.”
He gestured vaguely to his legs and took a few steps away from him, hand raised in mid wave, and quickly said:
“See you around then, bye!”
Apollo didn’t turn around to see the ghost’s reaction, instead, he sped up to a jog and took the next turning to take the shortcut through People Park. He only slowed down when his sneakers touched the gravel path.
“Where are we going?”
The voice startled him so much he almost tripped over his feet again.
“ Gack !”
His eloquent response didn’t seem to bother Klavier the slightest, he looked very amused.
Apollo dragged a hand down his face and squeezed his eyes shut for a second.
When he opened them again, Klavier was still there.
“Look, Klavier . I wasn’t really planning on taking you with me? Could you just... do what you were doing before we talked?”
The ghost looked terribly sad all of sudden.
“Ah, but... You took my ring with you?”
He phrased it as a question, and the insecure expression on his transparent face made Apollo feel bad for the poor boy.
“Do you want it back?”
He pulled it off his finger and presented it to Klavier in his outstretched palm.
The ghost bit his lip and moved to pick it up – just to have his hand sinking right through Apollo’s.
“I can’t.”
The tears were obvious in his voice now and it was a sound that constricted Apollo’s throat.
“Take me with you. Maybe my ring will bring you good luck, ja ?”
Apollo sighed and adverted his gaze, but he couldn’t escape Klavier’s pleading words.
“Please. Don’t leave me all alone. You are the first one I have talked to in... in...” He shook his head and pressed his hands on his ears, as if to lock his own words out.
The sight pained Apollo’s heart.
“What would I have to do?”
Somehow Klavier must have heard him, because his gaze met with Apollo’s.
If he would have a body, Apollo would have suspected him having tears glistening in his eyes.
“Just... Wear my ring. I... I kind of... am wherever it is, ja ?”
Apollo thought for a second, but he felt like this decision had been made as soon as he had set eyes on his now personal ghost.
“Fine.”
This time Klavier’s delighted laugh didn’t chase a shudder down his spine, but it pulled the edges of his mouth up into a smile .