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“Alright, rockstar, I know for a fact you can afford to spend your evening at a much nicer bar than this one.”
The barstool next to Klavier squeals against the floor, and as he turns towards the noise, into his field of view slides one Apollo Justice, looking at him with a single eyebrow raised. In his hand is a half-empty glass of…something on the rocks, though Klavier can’t tell what.
Before he has a chance to reply, Justice continues, picking up his glass from the top and swirling it thoughtfully, the clinking ice barely audible over the din of the bar.
“Just wondering what the internationally famous Gavinners frontman is doing sulking to a Maroon 5 song over a pint of $4 pilsner.”
“Hefeweizen,” Klavier corrects him. Then, after another moment’s thought: “And that’s former Gavinners frontman. Das ist jetzt vorbei.”
Justice’s eyebrows pull together a little, just enough for a crease to appear between them. “Alright, fine, why exactly are you spending your Guilty Love royalties on $4 hefeweizen at a bar that almost exclusively serves broke grad students? You don’t exactly look like you’re trying to pick up girls, unless I’m more out of touch with the dating scene tactics than I thought.”
Klavier scoffs and turns away, letting his hair fall in front of his ear, a curtain between them.
“I was in the area.”
It’s not a lie, but he makes sure his hands are out of Justice’s line of sight before saying it anyway.
Justice, as far as Klavier can tell through his bangs, seems to accept that answer. He isn’t sure how many drinks deep the guy is, but he supposes if Justice had the nerve to walk up and grab the seat right next to his three-time courtroom rival to start interrogating him, that glass probably wasn’t his first.
Then again, he is a rather small man. So who’s to say.
A pause lingers in the air, just for a beat, and then Justice cuts through it: “Look, it’s not really my business or anything, but Ema – Detective Skye, I mean – was telling me you’ve been weird this week. Since the trial, I mean. She’s not worried, but…” He falters.
Klavier brings his glass to his mouth, staring a hole in the bar counter.
“I’m perfectly fine.”
“Gavin, I am the wrong person to tell that lie to.”
He laughs at that, mirthless, and shakes his head. “One would think someone as perceptive as you would also know when to leave well enough alone, nicht wahr? My work will not be affected. That’s all that matters.”
Justice purses his lips and taps his fingers on the counter a few times, chewing on that.
“Look, I – ” He chews the inside of his cheek before taking another swig of his drink and starting again. “I’m not going to pretend I know what you’re feeling, but this whole situation has had me pretty fucked up lately too, so I guess just. Y’know. It’s not just you feeling crazy about everything, if that helps.”
“‘Misery loves company,’ oder so etwas?” Klavier traces the rim of his glass with a finger.
“Yeah, I guess.” Justice folds his hands and props both elbows up on the counter in front of him. “You don’t wanna talk about it. That’s – I mean, yeah, of course you wouldn’t. Sorry, this was way overstepping, your friends are probably all over you about this as it is, you don’t need some guy from work coming in and – and, you know. Assuming. Sorry.” He moves to stand up, looking away.
Klavier’s chest feels tight suddenly, and he fights against the tension slowly turning his limbs to stone until he trembles, almost imperceptibly. He feels sick to his stomach.
But he manages: “Have you been to see Kristoph?” God, he can’t stand how small his own voice sounds coming out of him right now.
Justice freezes, still halfway out of his seat, and stares at him.
“I don’t…have any friends, who – who knew him. Before.” Klavier flexes and relaxes his fingers, watching his own hand intently. “‘Oh, I heard the news, such a shame, Mr. Gavin was such a prolific defense attorney, it’s a loss for the legal world’ – always his work, wissen Sie? Everybody knows all about my brother’s work.”
“Yeah, I...heard a lot of the same kind of thing back in April. I guess people don’t want to go around talking about how he was ‘such a nice guy, aside from all the murder.’” Justice settles back into his seat, and Klavier feels his shoulders finally begin to relax, even if only slightly. Justice scoffs, a dry smile ghosting over his lips. “It’s like whatever the opposite of speaking ill of the dead is. Can’t speak nicely about the convicted.”
Klavier snorts out a laugh at that before taking a halfhearted sip out of his glass. “Have you been to see him?” he repeats, realizing he’d never gotten a straight answer.
“I went once. Back in May.” Justice’s eyes darken. “It was…”
Perhaps a bit cruelly, Klavier lets him flounder for a few seconds longer than he should, obviously searching for the most delicate way to say it.
“Not what you expected?” he offers.
Justice frowns. “I guess. I’ve been thinking about it ever since. I don’t know what I expected to see, or what I expected him to tell me, but I walked in there and he just…said hi. Asked what I’d been up to. Like I’d just walked into the office on a Monday morning.”
“Yeah,” is all Klavier can think to say. “What did you say to him?”
Justice puts his hands over his face. “Not what I wanted to say to him.”
“What?”
“You’re going to think this is so stupid.”
“Try me.”
“Ugh. Fine.” He runs a hand over his chin, avoiding eye contact. “I just – I just started bawling. All I could think about when he said that was how bad I missed the office. Missed my job, you know? It – it was good, I was proud of myself, I. I just…”
“That’s…not stupid at all.”
“You know what I missed the most, though? More than anything in the world, right that second? Mr. Gavin knew my coffee order down to the letter, and every time we went to trial, he’d always go out and get us both a cup before work so it’d be ready for me when I came in. And I thought about how that’s never gonna happen again, because now if someone buys me coffee before a trial I’m going to think they’re buttering me up because they’re a fucking serial murderer.”
“And you told him all that?”
At that, Justice actually laughs out loud, a short, sharp bark of a noise. “No. You want to know what I said to Kristoph Gavin when I went to see him in prison?”
Klavier turns his head slightly towards him, nodding for him to go on.
“I turned around, walked out of the building, stress vomited in a trash can on the sidewalk, and then I went home.”
Instinctively, Klavier claps a hand over his mouth, terrified he might laugh at Justice’s blunt delivery of the story alone.
“I told you it was stupid.”
“No, no, it’s – ” Klavier takes a deep breath, “You really never went back after that?”
“First off, I was never coming back from that. But even if I could, I never…wanted to. I felt like I had to go see him again, after the trial, like maybe it would give me some answers, I guess. But then, after that, it just…went away.” Justice picks up his glass, swirling the half-melted ice around a few times, but doesn’t drink from it. “I dunno. Trust me, I’ve been trying to figure it out myself for months now. All I know is I never wanted to go back there again after that.”
Klavier just nods his understanding.
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Your brother, Gavin. Did you ever go see him?”
Klavier runs a hand through his hair, finally pulling his bangs out of his face and praying that the dim lighting of the bar renders the wetness in his eyes invisible to even Apollo Justice.
“...I was in the area.”
Justice’s face falls. “Today?”
“Today.”
“You drop by there often?”
“Too often, I’ve started to think.”
“...Do you not want to talk about this?”
Klavier groans, putting his head down on the counter. “Doch, doch, I do. It’s just…stupid.”
“Come on, we’ve done this one already, Gavin.”
“No, I – I think I understand something now, and I realize I’ve been stupid.” Klavier rubs one of his temples with his fingertips and squeezes his eyes shut. “It was smart of you to leave. Going back is…I don’t know what I want from it, but I know that I do not have it. I think you just realized that much sooner than I could.”
“I refuse to accept crying and throwing up as an intelligent decision on my part,” Justice snaps, “and besides, he’s your brother. He was just my boss. It doesn’t matter how nice he was to me, it’s just different. I have way less stake in the guy than you, so. Quit beating yourself up.”
“I suppose.” Klavier doesn’t pick his head up off the counter.
The air feels heavy around them; maybe it was the entire time, but Klavier only notices it pressing down on him now. He doesn’t especially want to move. He’s not even drunk, he’s been nursing the same beer for forty-five minutes now and he’s only a third of the way through it, but he still feels like if he stood up right now his limbs would defy him all the same.
It doesn’t seem like Justice is going anywhere, either, even as the silence between them extends well beyond a lull in the conversation. Klavier begins to resent him a little for it, thinks of a dozen mean things he could say to send him off and return to wallowing alone, as is his right.
But the words falter on his tongue, and instead, resigned, he says: “I didn’t know that. About the coffee.”
“What?”
Klavier huffs and lifts his head, propping his chin up on an arm. “The coffee. I didn’t know my brother bought you coffee.”
“Seems like there’s a lot we didn’t know about him,” Justice says bitterly.
“No, I…I’m glad you told me about it.”
Justice just narrows his eyes at him – not distrustful, just confused.
“It’s as you said. No one will speak kindly of the convicted. Nor should they, but…” Klavier furrows his brow. “When someone dies, the whole family gets together, and they put up photographs and flowers, and they tell stories like they’re getting to know everything they can about that person one last time, and they laugh because oh, of course he’d have done that, it’s so like him, and. Well, all of that.”
“Right.”
“My brother is gone,” Klavier admits, and he feels his stomach turn just from saying it. “Wissen Sie? There is nothing that can happen now that will bring Kris back. Maybe he was never there, I don’t know, I.” He shakes his head. “I’ve had a brother my whole life, he took care of me, I loved him, and now that’s just gone. There is no party and no photographs and no flowers. He’s just gone.”
Justice worries the end of his sleeve between two fingers and meets Klavier’s eyes, searching his expression for a moment before looking away again. There’s something almost pitying in Justice’s face.
“There was…this fish tank in the office.”
“What?”
“Gavin Law Offices. There was a fish tank there.”
Klavier looks at him, skeptical. “I’ve been to my brother’s law firm, Herr Justice. I’ve seen no such thing.”
“Yeah, it was…it was just for a few weeks. Mr. Gavin said he thought it’d liven up the place, make it seem a little more friendly or something. He only got the one fish for it.” Justice pondered his drink for a beat, took a sip, and continued: “I showed up to work one morning and the thing was gone.”
“The fish?”
“The whole tank. All the stuff for it too, the food canister Mr. Gavin kept on his desk and everything. Poof! Vanished.”
Klavier leans forward in his seat now. “Just like that, overnight?”
Justice nods solemnly, steadily meeting Klavier’s gaze now. “Overnight! Like it was never there. So I asked Mr. Gavin about it.”
“Natürlich.”
“Good morning, Mr. Gavin, where’d that aquarium go? He said to me, and I quote: ‘Mr. Justice, I’m quite sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ He would not hear a word about it ever again.”
“...Oh, mein Gott. It died.”
“It died! That fish died in Mr. Gavin’s custody, and to this day he refuses to admit it to me. I could go into that prison right now and ask him, and he’d still swear under oath that I’m crazy and there was never a fish tank in Gavin Law Offices.”
Klavier shakes his head, biting his cheek. “Yeah. Yeah, that does sound like him.”
“Your move, then, Gavin.”
“Hm?”
“It’s your turn. Tell me something I don’t know about Kristoph Gavin.”
Klavier just stares at him for a few seconds before processing the question.
There’s no irony, no malice behind Justice’s eyes that he can see, no mockery in the small, lopsided smile he directs at Klavier. Just an expectant raise of the eyebrow.
“What is this? What are you doing?”
“Well, we don’t have flowers or a shitty iMovie with, like, pictures of you guys as kids or anything, and it kind of sucks to cry in a place that seriously still has Imagine Dragons on the playlist, but. I don’t know. It’s like you said, about how you don’t know anyone who really knew him.” Justice finishes off his drink, now roughly half water, with a grimace. “I know I’m just kind of…some guy from work, not your family or anything, but maybe we can at least do that part. Get to know…I don’t know, that’s dumb. Sorry.”
“No, I…” Klavier blinks. “That’s...you don’t have to do all that. You were here on your own anyway, you’ve already – ”
Justice taps his fingers on the bar. “What did I tell you earlier? You’re not the only one feeling crazy about all this. I’m not being selfless here. You’re the only person I’ve met who seems to want to talk about him at all. Mr. Wright just wants to wash their hands of this whole thing, and no way in hell I’m unloading all of this on Trucy.” He sighs. “Clearly Mr. – clearly Kristoph isn’t going to give us any of that closure, so maybe we can at least wring it out of each other.”
“Oh, well, when you put it that way, you make it sound so pleasant,” Klavier grimaces.
“Are you going to tell me lame stories about your brother in high school or am I going to have to torture them out of you, Gavin?”
Klavier puts both hands up defensively. “Alright, alright, Moment mal, let me think at least…Ah, there was one time…”
It’s not either of their first time staying out until closing time, but the call for last round startles them both some hours later. They shuffle out of the bar and into the autumn’s chill and, as the laughter of their conversation dies, they stand facing each other, unsure of what to say, or if there even is a right thing to say here.
It’s Justice who extends a hand, and, with only a slightly awkward nod, shakes Klavier’s.
“Thanks. I, uh…think I needed this.”
Klavier nods back stiffly.
“Agreed. Er, that is to say thank you.”
“Yeah.” Justice smiles that lopsided smile again. “Um, see you around at work, then, Prosecutor?”
“Ja, yeah, I’ll…see you around.”
“Cool.” Justice takes a step back, flashes a thumbs up, and then, seemingly second-guessing the gesture, puts his hand down suddenly. “Get home safe, and all that. Uh, you have my number now, so, text me, I guess? Yeah.”
“Yeah. You too.”
They set off then, in opposite directions, for the nearest train home. The city’s traffic is as noisy as ever, but still, Klavier thinks, it’s a quieter trip home than he’s had in a long while.