Chapter Text
KLAVIER GAVIN
The office is dark, quiet, silent. The instruments, once in perfect condition, shiny and worn, now lay on the floor and propped against the walls, neglected and dusty. In the place of a desk, a pair of speakers. Papers litter the floor, disorganized. Despite this being a place of work, there’s nowhere for said work to happen besides a comfortable looking chair.
The door swings open silently, and Klavier Gavin staggers in.
His long, blond hair clings to his face, sticky with sweat, and his hand clutches his stomach, fisting the fabric of his shirt between clenched fingers and white knuckles. He’s already thrown up once on his way up to his room, in the bathroom on the main floor. He’d have preferred to use a bathroom that was more private, less chance of someone walking in and seeing him in this state of disarray—worst case scenario—but his nerves and his nausea and his shaking, trembling, body had had other ideas. He couldn’t help it—he vomited into the toilet and, for a moment, laid his head on the cool, porcelain seat and let himself cry.
But, before a minute was up, his nerves had returned enough to let him know that he needed to get out of there before someone could see him—the famous rock star Prosecutor Gavin!—like this. He stepped out of the stall, quickly splashed water on his face, rinsed his mouth, and swaggered out of the restroom.
Once he’d passed all of the officers and prosecutors greeting him—“Hello, Prosecutor Gavin!” “How are you, Prosecutor Gavin!” “Do you know what today is, Prosecutor Gavin…?”—he’d barely had enough energy to get himself up to his room before collapsing onto his chair, where he is now.
Klavier makes a quiet noise to himself, not quite laugh and not quite sob. Do I know what today is, they asked. Of course he does. What kind of brother would he be if he’d forgotten?
Not that he was much of a brother, anyway.
Today is indeed a special day. A day that is the culmination of all the controversy in the law community for the past few years.
Today is Kristoph Gavin’s execution date.
His brother’s execution date.
Klavier sighs, placing his head in his hands. Distantly, he notices that he’s trembling. There’s an aching hole in his heart that had always been there in some way but is now ripping him apart from the inside and burning and his eyes burn too and he realizes he’s crying and—
He’s lonely.
That’s what it is. Loneliness.
He misses Vongol, adopted by Fraulien Detective after Klavier realized he would not have the time to give the dog the attention and care he deserved. He misses Müter and Väter, dead and gone while he was still young, taken suddenly under mysterious circumstances. He even misses his brüder…
But, most of all, he misses Herr Forehead.
No… Apollo. Apollo Justice.
Even in his own mind, Klavier usually refers to his courtroom rival by the nickname he’d bestowed upon him when they’d first met, but, when he needs to cheer up…he allows himself to say it.
“Apollo,” Klavier whispers softly, tasting the name on his tongue for the first time. He sighs shakily. He should not be missing him like this, not when he’d only just seen him in court this morning. Not when he’d been blessed enough to catch a glimpse of the small, childish smile of victory on Herr Forehead’s lips after he’d made a good point.
Needless to say, the point Herr Forehead had made wasn’t the only thing that had left Klavier speechless.
… The thoughts about Herr Forehead—Apollo—only keep Klavier’s brain occupied for so long. Soon, he is back to shuddering in his chair, feeling alone and vulnerable and just like a small child. He wishes Apollo to his office, to check in on him, while simultaneously praying that he won’t come, won’t have to see him like this. Won’t have any small amount of respect he’d possessed for Klavier destroyed at the sight of him—shaking and crying and stupid.
Stupid, you should not be feeling sad about Kris’s death. He is—was—is a murderer. A murderer whom you should now forget about and you should not be feeling this way and stop it stop it stop it.
He stands up quite suddenly. Once he is presentable again, he will grab his coat and hat and sunglasses and go to the Wright Anything Agency and see Herr Forehead. He will not talk about what is going on—with Kris and Daryan and the Gavinners and prosecuting—but seeing Herr Forehead will help him nonetheless.