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By all accounts, Prosecutor Klavier Gavin was not exactly having a good day. It had been one month and thirteen days since the trial of Vera Misham, and though he would sooner join his brother behind bars than let this one simple fact show upon his face, Klavier had felt every one. Every slow and somber second. He didn’t know how long he would keep counting that laughter, cruel and callous in the face of complete, crashing defeat, every night. It haunted his halls and followed in his footsteps in perpetuity. Perhaps, if one were feeling particularly idealistic, one day it would finally begin to flicker and fade away. Or perhaps one day, under the crumbling weight of all the work that was left behind, the exact number would simply slip his mind. Apparently, the universe was aiming for the latter.
It was vexing enough that what meager sleep schedule he had still retained before was positively pulverized by the efforts of the Jurist System. Equally so, that one month and thirteen days was suddenly not enough to drown the whole ordeal from the media cycle. Then again, his personal affairs had already been afloat in every headline for five months, twenty days by then, and paparazzi stalked after him even now to poke and press at every little matter. The matter of Kristoph most of all, for which Klavier had no answers and even less desire to admit it. And finally, add on top of that, a particularly perplexing case involving a series of blackout murders in a desolate mansion, and no less than three possible culprits among some awfully colorful characters. It was passed onto him only because the Chief himself refused to take it, and running down the clock the night before it was due to come to court, Klavier could see an endless list of reasons why. Tracking down every thread of testimony devoured all of his spare time and then some: starving, but no time to eat, exhausted, no time to sleep. Vongole whined and whined at the foot of his desk, but there was nothing he could do for her. The constant crying grated at his ears, and the guilt of such a realization quickly followed through his chest. At some point or another, he simply stopped and stood up, and stalked out into the night.
And so he arrived at the Wright Anything Agency parking lot, gently pushing open the unlocked entrance door. He supposed it wouldn’t do for them to lock out what few potential clients they had, but at this late hour, they were lucky he only came weaponized with a bag of potential paper cuts. On the other hand, Herr Justice came equipped with his own natural sound cannon, so he would certainly be fine. Klavier reached up gingerly to his ear, fingers brushing the silver piercing; he wouldn’t exactly like to experience catching him off-guard again. But there was little he could do to avoid it either way… He could knock, or call out, or do anything to make his presence known short of shaking him by the shoulders then and there. The only soul still inside at this hour was sitting hunched at his desk, scribbling over a mass of files with such fury that he wouldn’t notice a thing. So Klavier simply closed the door behind him, and continued onwards.
“Herr Forehead!” he called, just to cover his bases, and having reached the lobby, he dropped his caseload at his feet with a heavy sigh. Eyes finally turned up to search for the familiar glow of golden light down the hall… but instead there was no such thing. In fact, a head of haphazardly spiky dark hair half-obscured the way. Klavier’s breath caught in his throat.
Phoenix Wright sprawled out on the couch in the Wright Anything Agency lobby, one arm slung over the back of it, and the other grasping loosely a wine-red bottle of grape juice. Two more lay at his feet, one already empty, the last of it bleeding from the neck onto the hardwood floor. As his head turned, and his dark eyes fell on Klavier, he simply smiled.
By all accounts, Klavier Gavin was decidedly not having a good day.
“Hey there, kid,” he half-gestured with the bottle in hand, sloshing around within his grasp. It was remarkable, truly, how drunk he seemed to be for a man who had supposedly sworn off a single drop. “Looking for Polly, are we?”
What an astute observation from the ousted attorney.
“Herr Wright,” Klavier greeted him in turn with a curt nod, shuffling a step closer towards his belongings scattered across the floor. A step closer to scooping them up and slipping out right away, knowing quite well by the darkness that surrounded him that Herr Justice was not here at all; the only thing to be found here was trouble, and it was looking right at him. He flashed a smile and a small chuckle, “If you know where I can find him, I’ll be on my way, ja? I’m afraid it’s urgent.”
Moving with the kind of slow, casual flow that betrayed no shared sense of urgency at all, Herr Wright lolled his head back to peer at the hallway, a dark space filled only with the heavy absence of Herr Justice’s office light. He turned back with a careless shrug, that smile still snaking across his face. “Urgent, huh…? Well, I guess you’re out of luck— sent him off on a few errands.” Of course, he had, today of all days… “Why don’t you sit down for a second? You look like you could use a break.”
Klavier’s eyes narrowed at the notion. It was true that he almost certainly looked like a mess, for such high standards he usually upheld… His golden hair was flying from place in strands that stuck out from his carefully curled style, falling in front of his eyes and twitching at his skin, glowing and bronzed less than usual. Thick layers of makeup did their job enough to obscure the bags beneath his eyes, the cracks forming in his lips, but even this was beginning to fade after a long day. Not to mention, he had rushed out in such a hurry that he had forgotten most of his usual accessories. Finding no jewelry to fidget with around his fingers, they now hung uselessly around his hips. What a complete and utter disaster he must be… If anyone else had seen him in this state, neither of them would ever live it down: the illusion that made up the man shattered into pieces. If only it were Herr Justice, he thought; anyone else would care but Herr Justice. With Herr Wright… it wasn’t really that he seemed to care at all, about anything at all. But Klavier loathed the idea of him seeing this nonetheless. Perhaps there would be another day when he could easily bite his tongue and entertain such an invitation, even coming from him, but it was not today. And it was not like this.
So Klavier smiled again, wider, brighter, and teased a lock of hair casually around his twirling finger as he said, “A break? Nein, nein. I just need to speak to Herr Forehead, then I really have to run.”
“Polly’s not getting here any faster. Sit down.” Herr Wright pointed the neck of the dark, glistening bottle towards the beaten brown couch that sat across from his. He didn’t break eye contact even once as he did, didn’t break his smile. Were it not for the slow drawl of his speech pulling slightly at his lips, one would think his face hadn’t moved at all. Still as a statue, and just as unshakable. With the dim and flickering light of the overhead lights casting a shadow over his eyes, there was something steadily growing more and more apparent in the atmosphere, something sinister. It sent a shiver down Klavier’s spine as his teeth grit within their grin. So the true Phoenix Wright showed his head once more, after all these years. Like a wolf bearing its fangs— he just couldn’t help it.
And thus it became quite obvious that Herr Wright’s request was no longer a request. And though he held no real authority over Klavier, what he held instead was one singular, superior advantage: Klavier was trained to please.
So with a sigh subtly slipped behind another breathy laugh, he assembled his bag from beneath his feet, slowly stepping forward to the couch. He perched by the end of the creaking cushions, hands still wrapped around the straps that hung from his shoulders: the perfect position to be polite, to not take up too much space, and the perfect preparation to leave, as soon as he could slip out with a smile and wave goodbye. With Herr Wright looking satisfied, turning away and taking a long chug of his drink, Klavier’s face flushed with fever as he glanced around the room. At the golden trophy perched atop some mysterious magician’s equipment, carrying Herr Wright’s hat and hidden camera pin. At the portrait of Zak Gramarye, poised above the piano with its keys covered up and coated in dust. There was a second portrait he didn’t remember being there, the last time he visited. It was too dark to make out. Nicht gut… Everything felt as if it were watching him in this suffocating silence. What was the point of convincing him to sit if not to speak to him at all?
Several minutes slowly sapped away at the clock as Klavier scrolled mindlessly through the notifications on his phone, and still Herr Wright said nothing. Concerned calls from former friends, and not-so-much concern from Frau Skye; a hundred news alerts in his name, and a hundred more messages from strangers, each trying to peer into his privacy for a hundred reasons… Even a long useless routine reminder to prepare for bed. With a single click, maybe then they would be cleared from his thoughts with the same sort of ease. Maybe then, they would stop pouring in with the same speed it took to swipe them away, day after day. But that day was never coming; he had already stopped counting. He turned his phone off, finally opening his mouth to excuse his exit.
And only then did Herr Wright begin to laugh, a raspy thing scraping its sound around the walls as he barely covered his mouth with one free hand. “Sorry,” he waved, “Just didn’t think this place could get this quiet. Especially not with our rock star around— you know I don’t bite, or anything.” He gave another chuckle as his lips spread in a crooked smile, enough to show off his teeth. The bottle swirled in circles in his hands like an afterthought, watching the liquid at the bottom catch in the light. “Not unless it’s a good old-fashioned bar brawl. Not that I’m getting any more of those at the Borscht Bowl.” He finally put the bottle to his lips for another swig before he sighed, “One too many times playing hooky… Might even miss it.”
Klavier glanced down. There was an incoming call from his manager again, not that Herr Wright would take notice; he had already turned off the ringtone long, long ago. With a bite of his lip, he pushed it to the side and placed his leg over the screen. Fine, then— he’ll bite, if only for the moment. After all, he had been in enough bad interviews to make this work, and smiled in the face of figures far worse than Phoenix Wright. So he did. “Ach, I’m sorry to hear it— the Fräulein hadn’t told me. What do you do now, then?”
“Well, I work at…” he scratched his chin thoughtfully, as if the answer really required such delicate deliberation. “You know that French restaurant by the park? Not by that Kitaki kid, but the other one. Trés Bien, or something like that.”
“Ja, of course.” Herr Justice wasn’t the only one who could recall every record of every case Herr Wright ever tried, page by page.
“Yeah. Not there.” A quick breath of air blew through Klavier’s nose, a scoff passable enough as a sense of humor. He really didn’t know how Herr Justice worked with this every day— how his brother did for seven years in secret. How anyone pried any bit of information from the man at all. “It’s a few blocks down from that place, actually, this seafood restaurant with a lobster for a mascot. Think it’s a lobster, anyway, might be a crayfish. The thing, whatever it is, is called Lou… I’m Lou.” He held up his hands in gesture, as if to show himself off for such a starring role. Klavier couldn’t help but let some tiny truth seep into his smile, a twitch of his lip as he pictured Herr Wright dancing about in a seafood suit. And Herr Wright chuckled too, even as he went on, “Not exactly the kind of suit I was hoping for after all this was over. But between that and Trucy’s gigs, it pays the bills until the bar, y’know?”
The bar. Klavier’s grasp turned taut as his fingers tightened around his bag, his nails digging into the soft flesh of his palms around it. He let out a practiced, polite little laugh. “I see,” he nodded, flashing teeth frozen on his face as his eyes bore into the dark, determined eyes of Herr Wright. The conversation drew its last breath, and died in between their shared and silent stare. His return to law was intended, then— inevitable. To think that the Turnabout Terror would ever be taking the stand again… he swallowed anxiously, a flicker of fire across his face. And what terrible troubles would he bring rolling in with the storm next…
“It’s funny, y’know,” he continued, barely giving Klavier a glance as he stared down the bottom of the bottle, not a care crossing his expression but the annoyance to find it not automatically filling itself again. “Out of everyone, you’re the first person I’ve told. Well, truly told, anyway, I’m sure Truce has her hunches— not much anyone can do to hide from her.”
There was a sinking feeling slowly bubbling at the bottom of Klavier’s stomach, shifting in his seat as if to brace for a physical impact. His eyes flitted frantically across the other man’s face, but he didn’t need studying to see what storm was already brewing. “Herr Wright,” Klavier hummed, a hiss underlying the words like a warning. A warning to stop whatever he was saying now. A plea. But whether he didn’t take notice, or didn’t take it at all, it hardly made a difference. Any further protest was already dying in his throat.
“I know now isn’t exactly a great time, but hell, there’s never gonna be a great time with you and me, is there? I wanted to talk to you before anyone else. To talk about seven years ago.” But Klavier could barely hear what Herr Wright was talking about at all. Heart pounded in his ears, his breath thinning out. He was feverish now, cheeks burning as if he were on fire, and all the while frozen in place, too trapped to turn and run now. The sinking feeling was right, and now it came to crash down on his shoulders. Guilt. The guilt he bore as a burden for all that time— for Trucy, for destroying what little family she had left, a betrayal of the promise he once made for the family of his own. For failing to catch the guilty Gramarye. For casting the guilt of the brother behind his back onto the soul of an innocent man. That dark and deep-rooted feeling held its unspoken weight in the room every time the two as much as exchanged a glance, and the reason Klavier was so careful to avoid this very moment. Especially on this day. This horrible day.
He stood abruptly, the scuffing of his heels across the floor serving to silence whatever Herr Wright was about to say as he paused, looking up at Klavier with eyebrows raised. Swallowing down the sudden panic, he summoned a calm, nonchalant expression as he placed his phone in his bag, still ringing. He didn’t bother checking who from. “Bitte, Herr Wright, there’s no need for the dramatics. I know everything you mean to say. You don’t blame me for your disbarment, ja? I was young and naive, manipulated by my brother and only doing what I thought was right?” He laughed carelessly, tossing his hair over his shoulder, and any thought of that trial with it. “You think I don’t know that already?” Of course, he knew it all: the truth, the only objective truth. He knew it, and so he told himself that he believed it, too. It should be so simple inside. So it was.
And Herr Wright smiled. Again, his stare was unbroken, setting his sights on something straight through Klavier: on something far, far deeper down, settled in his soul. As Klavier broke eye contact, he caught the way his hand wrapped around the bottle, the other buried between his pockets. It always seemed significant, those pockets, but it wasn’t enough to save him now. “Knowing something should be true… is different from hearing that it is. Don’t you think?”
A deathly silence, heavy as fog, hung in the air. Weighty, too, was the sensation of Herr Wright’s stare lingering on his skin. One moment passed, then another, and another. Perhaps he was waiting for a rebuttal, or perhaps he was waiting for some far greater reaction. As if Klavier would simply shatter where he stood, then and there. He looked at him as if he would. What a cruel, condescending thing. Klavier’s stiff shoulders bristled as he stared down at him in turn. “Do you want to know what I think?”
“Hit me, kid.”
His lip twitched, a sadistic streak sudden and short-lived as he thought no, he wouldn’t dare. After all, someone else had already beaten him to that punch, he had heard. Quite literally so. So with a sigh, he shook his head. “Never mind… I just need to speak to Herr Forehead— when will he be back?”
“Oh, not tonight. Told him to just pack it up and go home when he was done. Didn’t I mention that?” With a dry laugh, trailing off into silence as even it found itself unamusing, Herr Wright stared down the neck of his rapidly emptying bottle. Another sip, and he wiped his chin on the edge of his hoodie sleeve, a deep red streak across his mouth like a spatter of blood across a cut lip. Klavier’s eyes flickered across it, the corners curled up into a callous grin. “Heh… Whoops.”
Such a casual confession came crashing down upon Klavier’s shoulders, and with it, the setting in of every sign and symptom of the exhaustion, the stress he had suffered and stuffed down for so long. The realization of his time wasted came raring in with the simple sensation of time itself: the weight which hung heavy on his shoulders and the corner of his lip, the faint and fuzzy feeling in his head. The dark bags beneath his eyes, the tremor in his hand and stumble in his step. Everything he had endeavored for, all his life, falling apart at the very foundations and here he was still, picking up the pieces. To be met with this. It was such a small sting to shrug off— it shouldn’t have mattered. But on this day, of all days, from Phoenix Wright, of all people, and after all seven long, laborious years… The string that held the façade of Klavier Gavin, in all his cool, collected charms and careless smiles, snapped somewhere deep inside. Klavier snapped deep inside. It all poured loose. The heaving breath broke from his lips like a laugh, the shattered remains of a smile stuck in place as he scoffed. “Fine, then. Still want to know what I think?”
Herr Wright only beckoned him to go on, as little as a lazy wave of his hand. How little he could care only served to stoke the searing flames within Klavier’s chest as he scoffed, turning away as he ran his hands halfway through his hair. The truth was, there was more than one rotten thing rearing its head with every miserable moment shared with the man— not guilt alone, no, but one that intertwined itself so desperately as to only deepen what guilt he had. It was a festering feeling he could deny no further.
“I’ll never like you, Herr Wright.” His fingers fell limp at his sides as he said it… he had never once said it so simply, not to anyone. He… was the first person he told. “Fräulein Misham’s forgery may not have been yours— you may have been innocent seven years ago, but something has changed in you now. Seven years ago, I looked up to you. Seven years ago, I even thought I must have been wrong, somehow, some way, Kristoph must have been wrong about you. Now, you’re…” he gestured haphazardly with his hands, the right words for all the things he’d thought about Phoenix Wright over the years somewhere just beyond his grasp. “You’re aggravating. Dishonest. Nein, you’re shamelessly underhanded. And everything I hated about you, all these seven years…” His voice fractured and faltered in his throat. Everything he hated about Phoenix Wright was hidden just beneath the surface of the brother that he loved. He turned back to face Herr Wright now, dark ocean eyes icing over into what must have been such a familiar, freezing face to them both. “Kristoph was right about you,” he murmured. “That ace of spades could not exist.”
Herr Wright stared at him a moment: deep, dark eyes half-lidded and hazy, not an ounce of offense behind them. He chugged the rest of his drink down, and the sound of his voice was no heavier than the hollowed glass in his hands when he finally shrugged and said, “Maybe so.” Klavier narrowed his gaze, curled his lip— he couldn’t even care to refute it as he leaned over to leave the bottle beneath his feet. As simple as that… There was nothing Klavier say to shake him. “You’re right,” he sighed, “a lot has changed over those seven years. And includes you, kid.
“See, you can think what you want about me, and hell, I don’t blame you. But if you don’t mind me saying, I like you. Oh, cocky little kid back then, that’s for sure… still a cocky little kid now.” He chuckled to himself, again, always so amused with his own little antics. Audacious, too, to call him cocky without a second of self-awareness. Klavier scoffed, turning on his heel towards the door, stopped only by the sound of Herr Wright continuing on. “But you’re clever, both in and out of the courtroom. Charming. Compassionate. That’s what makes you a better lawyer than the ones that came before you. That’s what makes you a better friend to Truce and Polly than I was to…” He paused, and for just a fraction of a second, just a flicker before it faded away, Klavier could hear it. The fracture in his voice, all the same, the single erratic note in the entire harmony. Whatever he held in his hand, hidden away in his hoodie pockets, he held ever tighter as the fabric twisted and clenched from the inside. But Herr Wright swallowed and shook his head, and when he took that final bottle to his lips, he knocked it down like he willed it to turn to wine in his stomach.
“But you don’t need to hear all that, either. Just the ramblings of an old man.” And without another word, he held out the bottle to Klavier: an offering of an olive branch, in the form of green glass and grape juice.
Klavier’s eyes fell upon it as a sigh slowly slipped from lips, as he loosened the grasp around the shoulder strap he had clutched like his only lifeline. No longer paralyzed by the pressure of a clenched fist, he could feel the way his fingers twitched to take it, temptation tasted on the tip of his tongue. The desperate, dreadful truth: he wished it was wine, too. And if it was, he feared his will would be too weak to refuse. But he turned his gaze away: a harsh, jutting motion that revealed too much truth behind the thought, and yet he was far too fatigued to care. Herr Wright made no act to acknowledge it, either way. He should, at least, acknowledge him too— to decline the offer, politely as possible, he thought. He should say something. Anything. The scuff of his shoes sounded as he was already setting his sights to go. And so he only said, “I’ll be leaving a message by the door, for when Herr Forehead returns in the morning. In the meantime, I have a case to carry out.”
There was no need to wait for a word of reply, no need to return and find any reaction at all. All anger had drained from him in defeat, as all discussion died there. As he knew, in truth, that Phoenix Wright was never quite the devil part he played him out to be; he hated himself for what he had done to him, more than he could ever hate him for what he had done. That Phoenix Wright was holding out a peace offering in a popped bottle, for Klavier’s peace of mind more than it ever was his own. And though Klavier wouldn’t take it there, the softness seeping into Herr Wright’s smirk said, perhaps, that it had already been done. And he would say no more. Klavier shook his head as he retreated away. He knew it all, that only objective truth— it wasn’t his fault. That he was, then and now, a good lawyer, and a good person, still. It wasn’t his fault… for he could never have known the truth of that diary, of that day, and the dear brother forever by his side. This was the truth he knew already, and so he told himself that he believed it, too.
“Good night, Herr Wright.” And he shut the door behind him slightly too hard, so he didn’t have to hear the response. That hollow heartache, that pain wailing and rattling at the walls of his ribcage as Herr Wright spoke, that was nothing but the effects of exhaustion. Like any other feeling, it would fade away by the morning, leaving little but the lingering numbness in his chest when he woke.
He told himself that he believed that. And so he would… he had to.