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Klavier looks down at Vongole. Then he looks up at Edgeworth. Edgeworth nods at him encouragingly—which, frankly, Klavier needs, because it’s after hours at the Prosecutor’s Office on a Tuesday evening, and he’s got his potential new boss and his potential new boss’s dog in to stage an intervention for Klavier’s brother’s dog, now his dog, because it’s been two weeks since he’s had her and Vongole just will not cooperate with him.
Klavier takes a breath. He looks back to Vongole and says, “Sitz, Vongole.”
Vongole doesn’t budge.
The anticipation—built purely by the presence of the eminent, slated-to-be Chief Prosecutor; Klavier otherwise knew Vongole was going to ignore him and so had nothing much to anticipate at all—dissipates almost cartoonishly, like air raspberrying out a deflating balloon. Klavier makes what he deems to be an apt noise of frustration, an ugh that is both cathartic and fuel for further, verbal frustration: “I don’t understand!” he says. “She was never like this with Kristoph. And I’m using the exact same commands that he did!”
Edgeworth, in contrast to Klavier’s outburst, merely hums, thoughtful. He studies the disobedient hound.
And then he says, “Sitz, Vongole,” and then Vongole sits, prompt and prim, paws tucked neatly underneath her, looking expectantly up at Edgeworth as if she does this all the time.
And she likely did with Kris. Klavier scoffs. Edgeworth shoots him a dry smile, sympathy perhaps hiding somewhere in those cracks. Klavier still isn’t too sure where he stands in that regard.
“I think perhaps you weren’t being firm enough with her,” Edgeworth says. “Too gentle. Or certainly more so than your brother. Ah—no, Pess, sweetheart—”
Klavier can’t help but laugh as he then also notices that Edgeworth’s dog is not only sitting right alongside Vongole, but is also now doing a sort of butt wiggle directed at her owner, staring at him with big, beguiling eyes. “She thinks she needs to sit too, does she?” Klavier asks.
Edgeworth makes a face. “She has a habit of assuming I’m always giving her commands,” he mutters. “Even when I’m decidedly not—she’s more than intelligent enough to know I was speaking to Vongole, for heaven’s sake...”
Klavier smiles to himself. Pess sounds like the dog version of a workaholic, and of course, there’s that phenomenon of dogs being uncanny canine versions of their owners; whether it’s through some chemical reaction catalysed by love and affection that sets in its physical effects over time, or sheer fate that makes them destined man and dog, no one really knows...
He looks back to Vongole and his smile slips. His brother’s dog is turned away from him.
When Vongole arrived, a few days after State vs. Misham, she did so with a neatly-packed crate of all her supplies plus a dog bed and two 10 kilo bags of premium-grade dog food that were too big to fit, and an A4 manila envelope from the solicitor. Inside the envelope were the certificates of Vongole’s pedigree and the transferral of ownership papers. That last document was signed by Kristoph’s hand. There was nothing else. Klavier checked more times than he’d care to admit.
Back home from the Prosecutor’s Office and from Vongole’s intervention, Klavier sits on one of his kitchen stools and asks her, “What am I to do with you, Vongole?”
Vongole sits on the tiles below and looks at him. Her black eyes glitter, unblinking, through the fringe of her golden eyebrows, like two pieces of flint. She’s a very handsome dog, if that wasn’t already apparent by all those important documents, littered with the facts of her prestige, that she came with.
He reaches out a hand. Her interest is piqued; she leans forward for a single sniff, but whatever she finds there she must deem disappointing, because she just as quickly returns to her previous bored slump. It’s a shame none of those important documents came with an instruction manual on how to get an active response out of her. How to get her to like him.
Three years, her birth certificate dates back to. Three years of being Kris’s loyal companion. Klavier has no idea what sort of life his brother had Vongole living, and that’s one half of the problem. The other half is that whatever life it was, Klavier certainly isn’t providing her the same right now. But as much of a frustration as that is, it’s not a surprise—he and Kris always did have very opposite approaches with the family dogs; Edgeworth was right with his deduction on that. Klavier was always playful, too soft, while Kris was always firm but fair. The ones that preferred Kris tended to not know what to do with Klavier. Vongole is just one final case of this in a long history of many.
He slips off the stool and crouches down to her height.
“I know you don’t really like me,” he murmurs. “And that’s fine, I understand. I know it’s just because you—miss him, but we’ve—you’ve got to move on, hm? You’re stuck with me now. And,” he gives her a rueful smile, “I am sorry about that, truly. But you’ve just got to move on.”
There’s little reaction of course. Her head cocks to one side, ever so slightly, but she still only stares at him—she’s just a dog, even if she agrees with his assessment, she’s hardly going to show it. Then she’s getting up from her sit, and then he’s watching as she pads through and out the entryway of his kitchen. No doubt to the front door of his apartment. She’s got into the habit of sitting there, sentinel and still. Klavier’s always thought she looks like she’s waiting for something like that. She probably is.
“Klavier, I’ve been doing some thinking,” Edgeworth says to him a few days later, having called Klavier into his office with absolutely zero warning nor context, and it doesn’t take much imagination to send Klavier spiralling at those words, “and I think it would be worth meeting up at the dog park.”
Klavier blinks at him. “The dog park?” he parrots back.
“Yes. Vongole’s a retriever, correct? I think maybe the dog park would be the best way to begin appealing to her nature. How does this Saturday morning sound?”
Klavier hasn’t quite managed to stop spiralling yet, but he does manage to smile on top of that, nod, and say, yes, this Saturday morning is perfect. Please let him know the details when you can, Herr Edgeworth, he’s looking forward to it. Please also don’t tell him the rest of this talk is about his past conduct and his current situation and how it is best, for everyone, if he resigns from the Prosecutor’s Office, effective immediately; except he doesn’t actually say that last bit out loud.
Ever since Vongole arrived, Klavier has found himself in the habit of spending the evening’s long, interminable stretch in the unlit lounge, plucking out old, sentimental melodies from his boyhood on his guitar in the dark, and trying his best not to think about how they’d sound much better with the grand piano harmonies that used to accompany them. Because he and Vongole are playing similar forsaken parts, after all. She takes her comfort by the front door, he from his guitar. Such similar parts, in fact, that the only difference between them is that Vongole doesn’t seem to be terrified of playing hers.
It’s 9AM sharp on an equally sharp Saturday morning. Klavier finds the patch of dog park Edgeworth said was his usual spot not by using the bafflingly detailed descriptions of landmarks the man had sent in his text of directions, but instead by wandering somewhat frantically around the park’s east side for a good ten minutes, looking out for a man in a maroon coat and a svelte, blonde borzoi.
(It turns out Edgeworth’s coat is navy blue on Saturdays. Who knew.)
Also according to Edgeworth’s text, fetch is apparently what’s on the agenda for today. Good, clean, yet rather pedestrian fetch. The first weekend he’d had her, Klavier had gone on a manic spending spree in the nearest petstore, buying anything Vongole would look at for more than two flinty blinks in a desperate bid to get her to warm up to him, and while it’s rather a long time coming, that whole stressful experience is finally bearing fruit: amongst his haul was a ball thrower, those ones that are an egg-cup at the end of a long flimsy stick, all of it designed with probably too much ergonomic precision to help you get more distance for your throw, more fetch for your dog. He’s brought it along with him today, of course. He has no idea if Edgeworth is familiar with them. Now that he’s here and has spied a tennis ball in the man’s bare hand rather than lodged into an egg cup on the end of a stick, something tells him Edgeworth is not, and that he should feel like a total fool for bringing it along.
Klavier waves his hello as he tries to put cool and casual into his walk up, and the first thing Edgeworth says to him is, “You’ve changed your hair.”
Klavier instinctively reaches up to touch it. He’s right: it’s loose today, draping down both shoulders, governed entirely by gravity and the light breeze in the air. In other words, it’s near enough completely un-styled.
Kristoph used to say that long hair, if kept at all, should be kept styled, and he’d say this right before tsk-ing, ushering Klavier down into the quilted seat of his vanity dresser, and taking a brush to him. Klavier had remembered this as he’d gone to do his usual hair routine that morning. Something external and appraising burning into him, like a side-long glance, had made him stop.
He goes to say something in response to Edgeworth but comes up short.
“I doubt you’re looking for my opinion, but it frames your face well,” Edgeworth continues into the quiet, as he bends down to clip the leashes off of Pess and Vongole, who immediately start vying for his attention. “Is that how they phrase it? I wouldn’t know, I’m not one for these things. I've had the same hairstyle all my life.” A corner of his mouth twitches in what Klavier is beginning to think is his version of a smile. “Regardless.”
Klavier smiles back while the two dogs continue to flutter at Edgeworth’s feet. “Regardless,” he says, “thank you. I’m not sure why I didn’t style it my usual way today. Something stopped me. Perhaps I just didn’t want to be late meeting you.”
Edgeworth flicks him a look. “Don’t let me stop you, Klavier.”
“Yes, well. It’s probably more than about time for me to try something new with it, anyway.”
“Why’s that?”
Klavier shrugs his shoulders and smiles. “Come on, Herr Edgeworth. I am the spit of my brother with it like this. And even if you say you don’t know much about these things, you’ve got to admit—that’s hardly the best of looks anymore, is it!”
He’d aimed for easy-breezy. He misses entirely. Edgeworth’s face, sombre but discomfited about it, televises this very well.
“Ah,” he says, eventually. “So that’s what this is about.” He faces front into the open expanse that is the dog park and throws the ball into it. Pess and Vongole streak after it, like a pair of mad blonde hares, and Edgeworth watches them go.
“Klavier,” he continues, and Klavier swallows a dry throat. “Do you like your old hair?”
He finds the brushing through and curling of it into its usual tight and regimented drill meditative, for want of a better word. Meditative, and rooted in nostalgia. And when it’s styled just-so, he doesn’t look in the mirror and see Kristoph as he and the rest of the world had last known him, on the witness stand admitting to murder and then attempted further murder, and fraud, and conspiracy. He looks in the mirror and sees what he’s always seen, and what the rest of the world never saw at all but has now cast out in contempt anyway: his childhood, and the older brother he’d spent it with.
The past doesn’t care what the present tries to rewrite. The past will leave its maudlin mark, on memories, minds, bodies, and he will be left trying to scrub out both it and the collateral staining guilt stamped in with it. Six months. Six months, Klavier has been reckoning with this, this relentless exercise of maddening futility, and for six months, he’s been failing. Failing worse ever since the whole thing basically reset with State vs. Misham, only three weeks ago now. Sometimes Klavier thinks of that second trial as being a warning to him. A don’t you dare, because look at all the evidence. And evidence is everything.
“Klavier,” Edgeworth says again, and Klavier realises he’s blinking hard and fast at nothing, and he stops himself. “It’s a simple question.”
Yes, he wants to say. Yes, he does like his old hair. He always has and he always will. That second part, it—
He doesn’t say anything. Just stares at Edgeworth, absolutely terrified.
Who says, “You’re not on trial. You can say yes, you know,” and then the dogs return, bounding around them. Vongole is victorious with the ball. Edgeworth bends down and pulls it from her mouth, deft and with barely a wrestle required. He stands back up and throws it once more, and once more the dogs streak after it.
He turns back to look at Klavier and something in his face changes. “Fine,” he says. “I won’t press the point. But let me finish with one thing for you to think about. And I’m going to make an example of myself.”
He’s ostensibly waiting for Klavier to answer, so Klavier says, voice soft, “Sure.”
“Klavier, do you see my suit and cravat and think I’m von Karma?”
“I—no. No, of course... of course not.”
Edgeworth nods at him. “No. Of course not. Because the notion is ridiculous—the idea that choosing to still dress that way in any way makes me like him, or like a bad person.” Edgeworth was looking at him right in the eyes before, but now something turns up a notch. Like the man’s pupils constrict and hone in and pin Klavier’s own against the cartilage in back of his sockets. “Do you understand, Klavier?”
“I do,” he says, “but—”
He can’t quite finish the sentence. Six months, and he still can’t quite put this into words; in between the words that he does understand and know, Kris, brother, murderer, nothing can be comprehended; it’s all just sea, both wide and deep, reaching itself endlessly between isolated little islands.
Edgeworth looks away. He’s frowning, and then he sighs, and it comes out a little shortly. But his eyes are kind when he looks back to Klavier, and he’s also kind enough to say, “Just think about it. What I’ve said. And give it time. It likely won’t come easily. It… certainly didn’t for me. But just think about it. Alright?”
Klavier can only nod. The dogs return again. Once more it’s Vongole with the ball, which makes sense; she’s a spritely youth in comparison to Pess, a dog with more than a few streaks of white in her muzzle and a tendency to sigh like the whole world is on her shoulders. Edgeworth gets the ball from Vongole, and throws it for a third time.
Like this, it’s just the man’s profile that Klavier can see. It helps him to ask, after a hard swallow, “Do you—do you ever miss him? Your old mentor?”
Edgeworth sighs again. “No,” he says. “No, unfortunately, our situations aren’t the same in that way.” His eyebrows pull together. What he says next seems detached from his other words. “I am sorry, Klavier.”
That kindness—it makes Klavier’s stomach drop. He’s had it from a few people now, Ema, Apollo, Trucy, and it still hasn’t gotten any easier to receive.
He forces a smile. “It’s fine, Herr Edgeworth. Thank you, in fact—it means a lot, coming from you. Given your relationship with—”
When Klavier can’t say his name, half for the guilt that’s still making up for seven years of lost time and half for the fear of having overstepped into personal affairs, Edgeworth gives him a small, tight smile that does little to reassure him of the second fear. Then they’re interrupted again, and Klavier nearly heaves with relief. Vongole’s panting is heavy now; she has a wild glint of frenzied pleasure in her eyes. Edgeworth doesn’t get the ball from her. Instead he smiles down at both her, and then at Pess, who is only just trotting up to them.
“I have to say, even though she’s my own, I feel rather bad for Pess. And she’s taking these losses so well...”
“She’s not a little madam, is she?”
“Oh,” Edgeworth says indulgently, “is she,” and Klavier laughs.
He stops when Vongole barks once and harsh. He looks down at her and the ball that’s fallen from her mouth. From the corner of his eye, he sees Edgeworth do the same.
“Throw it for her,” Edgeworth says. “And without that ridiculous flinging device of yours. It’ll be good for her to smell you mixed in with her saliva on the ball.”
“A dog saliva-covered ball, I have not missed those,” Klavier mutters, but he bends down to get the thing anyway.
He half expects Vongole to snatch it up and away from him when she realises it’s not Edgeworth playing with her anymore, but she doesn’t. She lets him take it. And when he throws it, she races after it. Pess doesn’t go with her this time, choosing to stay by her own owner’s side. It’s just Vongole and Klavier’s game, now.
Edgeworth smiles over at him. “Give it time. Remember?”