(Headcanon states that ask-the-wright-family's AU's high school is the AU version of Themis Legal Academy. Because I wish it.)
"Ugh! He's just so...ARGH!"
"Hey, hey, calm down, Pollo! No need to get so angry. Klav's just doin what he's always wanted-bein a rockstar."
"At the expense of his friends, though?"
"It's not like he doesn't talk to us at all, Apollo. He just walked me and Junie home the other day."
"So, it's just me then. Good to know."
"No, dummy! It's obvious you and Daryan don't like each other at all, if first period is anything to go by! You-
"He butchers the French language, Athena, you should understand when I get upset."
"He speaks Russian, Pollo. Mr. Smirnov said that's one of the hardest language transitions to to do."
"Yeah, well, what does he know?"
"As my Russian teacher, I imagine quite a bit, you whiny baby."
"Hey-!"
"Apollo," Athena began, pausing to watch Daichi grab her chicken sandwich and eat the bacon off of it. "Klavier knows you two don't get along. He's probably trying to avoid a fight-which you would lose, also, so be thankful."
"Yeah. Dating a guy that no one approves of must be hard. I've seen them together, dude. Daryan treats Klavier like he's Jesus or something."
"Considering what Jesus's own family and friends did to him that does not make me feel better."
"You know what I mean, dammit!"
Apollo glanced at Daichi and Athena before sipping angrily at his soda. "How hard would it be to simply say, 'Hey, Herr Forehead, my boyfriend and I are busy right now, but ja, we can hang out, how does this weekend sound to you, katzchen'?"
"You hate it when he calls you kitten."
"Called."
"Maybe," Daichi began, fishing for the right words. "Maybe he doesn't wanna have to choose. We shouldn't make him, either. I mean, here's this guys, who like, adores him, no lie, and his friends can't stand his guts, like at all. I'd be pretty damn upset if my boyfriend didn't get along with my friends, dude."
Athena nodded. "And I can't imagine Kristoph approves of Daryan either, so there's that. I think Klavier is trying to forge a life for himself. It's not his job to make everybody happy, you know. Not even us as his friends have a right to tell him how to live."
"But we're his friends! We know him best!"
"Darya knows him in a way we distinctly do not, Apollo." The redhead rolled her eyes at his blush.
"Unless you'd like to. Is that what this is about?" Daichi raised his eyebrows at Apollo, but began fidgeting with the cuff to his jacket.
"N-no!" Apollo stammered, ripping a napkin apart rather viciously. "It's just-what good is being a rockstar if you have no one to give your backstage passes to?"
The table fell silent at his words, and Apolo sighed. He sat his chin in his hand as a bird flew by the window. A car alarm could be heard in the distance. Daichi played with the remnants of his Wisconsin cheeseburger, idly swirling the fries in the barbeque sauce. Athena tapped a rhythm out on her left headphone before taking them off and inspecting them.
"Am I...being selfish? To want him with us all the time?" Apollo asked finally, not sure if he really wanted the answer. His 'V' of justice drooped slightly.
"Well, I mean...whether you are or not isn't the issue. He's been apart of like, everything we do for years, man. You're gonna feel some type of weight after a while with him not here as much anymore."
"And it's more awkward." Athena shrugged. "He used to flirt with us all the time, but it's like...if Dad suddenly stopped making Monty Python jokes, it'd be weird, right? Or if he suddenly stopped saying 'I love you' when he drops us off at school. Not-he doesn't stop meaning it, he just stops saying it. That...would make me real sad, at the very least."
Apollo sighed.
"But Pollo…" Daichi started, giving his friend a sad smile. "There's something you gotta realize. You get mad at Klavier for doing his own thing, but...you I don't see you losing it over Ema and her weirdo science club buddies."
Athena inclined her head in agreement. "Or Junie and her new friends."
"I just…"
"Ask yourself this, Apollo. Are you mad that Klavier's moving on? Or are you mad that Klavier's moving on without you?"
Apollo choked on his coke at the question. "Now wait just a min-
The chorus to NSync's "Space Cowboy" interrupted his rant. "Ha, sorry," Daichi smiled as he answered the phone. "Dad, wassup? ...oh, yeah, okay. Sure, no problemo. ...The dark chocolate kind, right? We got sugar? ...Okie dokie, artichokie! What-no, Dad, it's a joke-nevermind, we'll be there. Love you~~~" Daichi cooed into the phone, and Apollo and Athena snickered at Aoi-senior's loud sputtering.
"What's up?" Athena asked, grabbing a handful of Apollo's fries.
"Youse and Mese gots a date with my Dad's and your mom's coworkers, that's being what's up." Daichi stretched languidly. "And Dad wants to make brownies. Not the good kind though, the boring kind."
"You mean the kind that won't get you arrested?" Apollo asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Argh, you look just like Mr. Miles when you do that! If I wanted to be regularly chastised, I'd join a convent."
"Abbey," Athena and Apollo corrected him.
"Same difference. Welp, you and me, Athena. Because I am not sitting through another lecture of 'The Artificial Mind and You' alone again."
"Hey, I was busy!"
"Danganronpa does not count as 'busy'."
"Hey. Hey," the redhead began, pointing at Apollo and giving him a look. "Dangaronpa is serious business, mister. Don't you mess with me."
"Whatever." Apollo waved the waiter over.
The walk home was annoying. Probably because Apollo had to pass by his school to get there, and as soon as the place was in sight, he could hear Klavier's dumb voice and dumb guitar ringing out the beginning of some dumb German song in the gym. He blew his hair out of his face. Why do they have to practice in the gym anyway? And why the hell was the place so damned huge? China could probably hear them with those acoustics!
Apollo sighed loudly and continued on, muttering to himself about how German was a dumb language anyway, and who cared if Klavier was a good-looking, German rockstar-prosecutor, it didn't make him cool or anything. But then Klavier's voice soothed over the words 'verbotene liebe' and shit-he knows what the means and-
"Fuck!" Apollo grabbed his hair at the same time a loud crash came from the open indoor Art stage. A loud curse followed his and he jumped at another crash. He made his way over to the large open doors, treading lightly. Peering inside, he spotted a brunette in a red tracksuit and what looked like a muscle harness appraising a clay pot.
He was about to ask if everything was okay when the brunette threw the piece of pottery to the floor as if it had just cursed his mother.
"NOOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOD MAAAAAAAAAN!"
Apollo looked at the broken pot for a beat before clearing his throat.
The brunette let out a suspiciously girly yelp before whipping around to face him. "Whoa, dude! YOU TOTALLY SCARED THE CRAP OUTTA MEEEEEEEE!"
"There's...no need to yell." Geez, this guy could give his 'Chords of Steel' a run for their money!
"Oh, ah! Uh, sorry." The teen looked a little sheepish before blinking in recognition. "Oh, HEY! You're one of Junie's friends. Ares, right?!"
"...Apollo, but yes. And you're...uh-
"ROBIN NEWMAN, JUNIOR PROSECUTOR IN THE MAKING, MAAAAAAAAN!" Robin posed dramatically.
Should I be glad his voice is only loud enough to deafen me partially? Apollo thought sarcastically. "What are you doing?" he stepped into the space, mindful of all the broken plaster on the floor.
"Oh, uh...when I get frustrated, I come here and destroy my work!"
"But why? Doesn't it take you a long time to make this stuff?"
"Nah. I keep the good things I make in the actual art room, anyway. Most of my stuff is on display in the halls."
Apollo nodded. He remembered Junie saying something about a friend who was going to major in Artistic Law. He was still sure that wasn't actually A Thing, but hey-to each his own.
"Does it help?" he found himself asking.
Robin looked at him for a moment before smiling. He held out a plain grey vase-Apollo still isn't sure where he got it from-and shook it.
The shorter brunet looked at the piece with some trepidation. He glanced up at his counterpart, who continued to smile cryptically, before gently taking the vase.
"Uh…"
"What do you hate?"
"Uh-what now?"
"What. Do you hate?" Robin was so much quieter now, it made him look a bit softer. He looked...God, he looked like, Trucy.
Apollo thought for a crazy moment that they could have been related.
"...Chemistry."
"FUCK CHEMISTRY!"
Robin slapped the vase out of his hands. It hit the ground with a loud shatter, making Apollo jup. He looked at Robin like he was insane. Which, he was right, because the brunette just continued to grin like a dope.
"Your turn." He produced a brown plate this time.
Apollo took the plate and glanced at Robin. The brunette motioned for him to 'go on'. Apollo dropped the plate and it broke on the floor. "Oops, there goes Physics," he declared cheekily.
Robin's face was about to crack with how hard he was grinning. "Oh noes, Mr. Trigonometry, look out for the-*CRACK*-wall."
"Alas, poor AP French, for he was such a-*SMASH*-tortured soul."
"As was his late cousin, AP Spanish-*Whipsh!*-the third."
Apollo looked at Robin, an odd glint in his eye. "How much of this stuff are we allowed to break?"
Robin handed him a green pair of goggles before putting on a pair himself. He then handed Apollo a chipped baseball bat.
He motioned at the room. "Have at thee."
Apollo was pretty sure all those devil jokes had some merit as he felt his face split in an evil smile.
"Ah, Daryan, cut that out~! I can't see, darling."
"I gotcha. Maybe if you wouldn't wear these fucking tight-ass pants-
"Ah, hm, but you love it when I wear these 'fucking tight-ass' pants, ja," Klavier reached up and pulled Daryan around for a kiss.
"Hell yeah I do. Come here, rasputnyy-
"Ah, Daryan~!"
A loud crash interrupted Daryan's assault on Klavier's neck. "Ugh, must be that wild little art student again. Doesn't he know he's disturbing the peace?"
"Hm, we're not exactly paragons of virtue ourselves, Hai." The blonde chuckled, pecking Daryan on the chin. "Come. I've already been chewed out once for my tardiness. Let's not give Kristoph and more ammunition, ja?"
"Don't care what he thinks."
"Hm, ja, but I have to live with him, darling."
"Hn." The taller teen shrugged and kissed Klavier's hair.
There was another loud crash as they made their way down the sidewalk, but the yell following it was deeper this time. Klavier paused, listening for the voice to sound again. Another crash, and a peal of laughter that always reminded Klavier of bells.
"That sounds like your little chicken nugget buddy from secondary school."
Klavier was caught between awe and happiness that Daryan remembered his friends and righteous indignation at his casual use of such an intimate nickname, when there was another crash. Music started, and the blond could recognize the beginnings of Sia's "Soon We'll Be Found" playing.
"That's a rather romantic song. Let's go spy on them." Daryan had that childish 'I'm doing it whether you approve or not' look on his face.
"Hm. You criminal." But all Klavier could think of was Apollo and romantic and Not Klavier and-
He began walking to the open Art Room, the laughter sounding from within growing louder and more breathless in nature.
The scene they arrived upon was not something out of a cheesy after school special like Klavier half-expected. Instead, the Art student-Robin, he thinks-is in the back, smashing what he thinks may have been a bust of Zeus to pieces. And Apollo-
And Apollo…
And. Apollo.
The cynical brunet had discarded his beloved red jacket, the sleeves of his red, red shirt rolled up to his elbows and his hair falling into his face as he swung a bat into some unknown sculpture; sweat flinging from his brow as a ridiculously manic smile split his face at the instrument cracking across the marble. A pair of rather ugly goggles adorned his face and obscured his eyes, but Klavier could practically see the mahogany orbs glowing through the polarized plexiglass.
Apollo wastes no time in turning around and smashing another statue to bits, before kicking a clay pot off of a show table. He then proceeded to crack the table right down the middle with one swing.
He looked like Apollo, the Greek God, bright and happy but still willing to exact his mighty wrath upon those who would ignore the truth, almost comically moving in time with the soft music, his crazed laughter a counterpoint to the melodic voice floating through the speakers.
He looked like Apollo, the Roman God, laughing because nothing can touch him, not even the Sun because it's his, and all the stars and the sky, and the Earth too, and he knows how weak it's be without him, without his light-
He looked angry.
He looked wild.
He's Fucking Gorgeous.
Klavier has to breathe. He's this close to going over there and dragging Apollo into a heat-searing kiss. He wants that passion, that fire; Apollo is the God of Music, please, play Klavier like the instrument he is, oh GOD-
Apollo smashed another statue in two clean pieces. Klavier has to cough to hide his groan.
"Tch, never knew the tyke had it in him. Not bad."
"J-ja. He is, how you say, the eye of a great storm. The calm, if you will."
"Small storm, I think."
"Does not change the fact that he is a hurricane," Klavier snapped. He cleared his throat. "We should-
Apollo caught his eye, and for a damningly silent moment, Klavier couldn't breathe. The brunet blinked, pointed the bat in Klavier's direction and whipped back around to slam the bat into something else.
Yes, please, wreck me like you're wrecking this room, mein liebe-
Klavier rushed away almost yesterday, not waiting for Daryan. 'Mein gott,' he thought to himself. When did Apollo get so...so-
He's always been like that, a traitorous part of his mind claimed. Just never where you could see him.
He thought he was over it, Apollo was not interested, not then, and he isn't now, he has a boyfriend, Scheiß-verdammt-
"All is good, rasputnyy?"
Daryan. He had Daryan, with his perfect hair ('V' of justice) and his Russian accent (Chords of Steel) and his love of the law ("I'm gonna be greater than even Dad, just you wait, Klavier, here comes Justice!")
"Ja."
No.
Everything's Fine.