Chapter Text
It was finally over.
Laughter echoed through the courtroom. It wasn’t joyous, no, it was cynical: the laughter of a madman facing his last stand. Its source had long since been dragged away to prison, but the echo remained.
Apollo looked across the slowly emptying courtroom. Klavier still refused to meet his eyes. The prosecutor had played his role perfectly, and now the mask was slipping away. As if Klavier could read Apollo’s thoughts, he hurried out of the courtroom before anyone else could try to get his attention.
A week passed, and no one in Klavier’s life had heard from him. The one exception was the finalization of the Gavinners’ split, which placed Klavier’s name in the headlines of every tabloid in Japanifornia.
Naturally, Apollo was beginning to grow worried. He and Klavier had been through a lot together. Hell, he had practically watched the man’s life fall apart before his very eyes. Even though they were rivals, Apollo felt compelled to make sure Klavier was okay. He had, after all, made a silent vow to help pull Klavier out of Kristoph's darkness once he realized they were both trapped in it. Apollo was just about to head to the prosecutor’s office to ask for a way to contact him when Ema slammed open the door to the agency.
“Hey, Apollo. I’ve got more forms for you to sign,” she said as she entered the room. It felt as dull and lifeless as it had the previous half-dozen times. The more charges came up against Kristoph, the more paperwork had to be done.
“Do you know where Klavier lives?” Apollo asked abruptly. “I want to make sure he’s okay, but he hasn’t answered his phone all week.”
“Yeah, I had to drop off some evidence at his place one time. I remember the way. But why do you care if the glimmerous fop isn’t answering his phone? Have you considered that he’s also just busy?” Ema asked in her usual tired tone. She set the file folder on Apollo’s desk with a soft thump and reached for her bag of snackoos.
“Sure, he could just be busy, or he could be totally freaking out over the fact that he just ended his music career and his brother got convicted of even more murders!”
“Okay, fair point. I still don’t see how it’s your problem. Are you guys like, friends now instead of whatever homoerotic rivalry you had before?”
“Wh-” Apollo paused, then shouted, “HOMOEROTIC RIVALRY?!?!” His face turned nearly the same color as his signature suit. “What the fuck are you talking about?!”
“You mean you didn’t know? The tension in the courtroom is so thick I’d need a tactical knife to cut it when you two face each other.” Ema continued munching agitatedly as she said this.
Apollo paled as the realization sank in: she might be right. He quickly shook the thought out of his mind. He had more important things to deal with than a potential gay panic. “That doesn’t matter right now! Call us friends, whatever. I just feel like someone needs to check on him, so it might as well be me, right? I did kind of put both his brother and his bandmate in jail…”
Ema stared at him, munching in thought. “Alright, fine, we can go do a wellness check or whatever. Just sign those forms first.”
“Thank you, Ema,” he said with enough sincerity that she felt it burning in his eyes. She had always been unsettled by Apollo's gaze, but could never quite figure out why. He sat down to sift through the file folder, anxiously anticipating the awkward encounter that would likely occur when the pair randomly showed up to Klavier’s front door.