Note: Thank you Alice for reviewing so faithfully! This chapter is two days late I think, since life is a little busy. I'm sorry, even though I don't think that many people are waiting for it with bated breath. So here you go, for those who ARE - Just a little something extra.

If you utter my name I disappear; What am I?

Silence;

***

VI : The silence have ears.

Despite Apollo's vow to dig out as much as he can about Kristoph, Kristoph's past and every damned thing that he tried to hide from him – real life unfortunately, had other plans for him. The moment they returned to the city, both found themselves buried under a mountain of work determined to choke them to the point of suffocation. Apollo returned to find e-mails sent from the professors from his school, sending out summer assignments like they were pies in a cake convention; Kristoph returned to an office mailbox stuffed full with mail from clients and for a while, it completely slipped Apollo's mind about any Klavier or such at all, and if there were things to remind him, it was only the occasional phone call for Kristoph that he was reluctant to discuss, and slipping out in the middle of the night to do god knows what. At one point, he even suspected Kristoph to be some kind of closet alcoholic.

When school reopened, it was no different than his hectic summer – SATs were right around the corner and everyone was running around like headless chicken to prod and pull and poke the students into shape for their – once again, I cannot stress how important this exam is in determining your future and your path to greatness, blabla – impending exams. Even Kristoph stopped handing his paperwork to Apollo to be done.

What free time Apollo had was spent buried in their own personal library, pouring through Kristoph's inches-thick books and reviewing the court files Kristoph gave him – He was going to be a lawyer, so he might as well started studying right about now. The works frankly, bore him. Law was not all about courtroom battles and trials and shouting and pointing fingers – there was one hell of other things to do too – things no one really wanted to talk about them because they're not as glamorous as shouting and pointing fingers. There were things like real estate law, where you go through clause after clause of loopholes and traps designed to snare you – hell, there was even a specific book just to study senior citizens' rights, and the laws that protect and govern them. These sent Apollo to sleep at a speed faster than any bedtime story could possibly achieve.

He had decided one thing – if he was going to be a lawyer, his first choice was to be a criminal lawyer. If he was stuck behind a desk doing domestic law, he thought he'll age faster than Kristoph.

With that in mind, he studied like heck for his exams and often fell asleep in the study room, and Kristoph would put a blanket over him and turn up the heater when the weather started getting cold. It was a comfortable routine, and it ended with his exam – in which he was most especially nervous, not sleeping a wink at all the day before. He managed to get an average score – not outstanding, because Apollo was not an outstanding or amazingly smart student, and he knows it. No, he made up with what talent he lacked by tripling his hard work – and Kristoph was pleased.

School resumed for a little while after the exams because it was a private institute, and as the principal was wont to say, they were a superior breed of people – so while the students apply to various colleges around the country, the continued attending school to learn extra lessons, depending on their future choice of profession. Future Law students, for example, started taking classes on the basics. This was the class of elite.

Apollo heard the click before he actually saw anything. It was a very silent click, but it was a very silent place, and if he had been sleeping like he ought to be he most definitely wouldn't have heard it. But instead of being deep in slumber like he was supposed to be, he was staring idly at the ceiling, thinking of all kinds of things. Random thoughts that flit and flirt like fairies from one to another, see-sawing between serious things like his future, what he was going to do once he became a genuine bona fide lawyer and silly thoughts like what Kristoph would look like if he choked on milk, and such and such.

And then he heard the click. He knew what it was – the door leading out of their apartment, placed right outside his room in the hallway had just been shut. He knew what would happen next too. Kristoph would stroll down the hall outside, get in the elevator, and leave the building shortly after it ding-ed on the ground floor, wrapped around in a large coat and shivering a little from the cold. Then his Ford would purr, and it would slide off on the snow-covered road with one powerful swoop and head off to destination unknown.

It had been like this for a couple of months already. Sometimes, Kristoph would leave earlier, around eight or so, and told him not to stay up. Then he'll come back in the middle of the night, slightly drunk, but not intoxicated – the aftereffects of a night of entertainment. Either that or he'll sneak out in the middle of the night like right now, sometimes after rummaging through their medicine cabinet. Apollo knew because he had heard it being opened and shut as quietly as possible when he had plastered his ear to the door. Maybe he was hurrying out to meet that Klavier of his? He sure seems defensive every time it was mentioned - and that had been what sparked Apollo into questioning his activities. Klavier he had found was a dead-end, but something else was up, and he intended to find out what it was.

Except he didn't have the guts. He was a coward, he knew. But some part of him wanted to maintain what their life was : Peaceful. He was afraid of uttering the first word to break the chain of silence. Of pushing the first chip in a chain of dominoes, and let loose a string of collapses. He was a coward. Chickenshit.

He pushed apart his white room curtains and peered down from the window. The window was covered with a layer of watery mist and he breathed on it, rubbing the water vapor off until it revealed a slice of glass clear enough to see what was happening below. The Ford's light turned on, and Apollo knew from experience Kristoph will probably sit in there for a few minutes waiting for the car to warm up thoroughly and the engine heated nicely. A few minutes. Enough for say, a person to get ready and follow him.

Could he? Would he?

Apollo pressed his face against the window. The blue silhouette shone directly below him, as though taunting him to do it.

No the question was not those. Dare he?

He knew if he was found out that Kristoph would be furious. All the trust and bond they managed to build in their odd relationship would go south. Maybe he'll even throw him out.

But he HAD to know. Apollo hated mysteries, and when he had them, he wanted to get to the bottom of them. Kristoph was a big puzzle – one that he wanted to figure out.

He dared.

His decision made, he wasted no time in getting ready. He had already wasted enough time with his inner monologue – he grabbed at his thick woolen scarf hanging from the rack beside his bed and dashed out of his room, footsteps banging on the hard wooden floor. He didn't even bother taking the elevator – it'd take way too long, and it was only half a dozen floors anyway. It'd help him get his internal system warmed up sufficiently for the cold weather outside. He headed for the tiny garage in the apartment block, beside the mailboxes with several bicycles stashed in his and raised his. Then he started pedaling.

He was in luck. The moment he cycled out of the block, he heard the familiar purr of the Ford's engine – rather like that of a lazy cat, he'd always thought, and for some reason the image of a lazy cat always reminded him of Kristoph – and the quiet roar it emitted to announce it's departure. It started moving slowly along the road, Kristoph was apparently in no great hurry.

Apollo gave a silent thanks for the weather – it was snowing, not heavily enough to render him helpless, but just a light drizzle of white enough to provide a cover for Apollo. A person standing at the road side would surely see him, but the windshield of Kristoph's car was completely covered with the same thin layer of vapour like on his window, and he'd be hard press to see the road clearly – much less Apollo.

He silently cycled after him.

The Ford was moving at a leisurely pace, but even then Apollo had to cycle to keep up with the car. They rounded a block. A corner. Another corner. He followed the car this way and that for ten whole minutes before he realized that they had entered an area he had never seen before. It was a part of downtown, the places where no self-respecting 'elite people' would enter, or be seen in association with. It was the kind of place you would expect places operating the skin business, or the boob business. It definitely wasn't a place that Apollo, or Kristoph would frequent, that's one thing for sure. He wasn't even sure he could get back home without Kristoph's direction.

What is he doing here anyway? Don't tell me, he's here for whores?

Because if that was it, Apollo rather thought he'll prefer to return home. It was nice, the idea of digging into Kristoph's life – but if it meant that what he found out was that Kristoph was frequenting this district, he'd prefer ignorance. But Kristoph didn't stop at the bars, which at this time of the night were pretty full even on weekdays. The Ford ignored the buildings and their gaudy flashing lights and moved pass it with a quickened pace. Apollo cycled faster to keep up, panting a little and his breath clogged up the air with it's fog.

Out of the area then, and into the next few streets down, leaving the dimly lighted buildings behind. The bars had been in disrepair, but nothing compared to THIS part of town. It house rows of houses in tumbled conditions – to call them houses seem to insult the very word; they resembled nothing more than planks of wood and cement and salvaged parts of cars and other unidentifiable materials clobbered together to produce a shelter-like projection. Kristoph slowed down the car, and Apollo stopped his bicycle as the car rounded the corner. He pushed the bicycle along and peeked from the rough brick of the street corner and saw Kristoph getting out of the car.

The car clicked shut, and Kristoph got out of the car, walking over to the side of the street where one particularly ugly product of architectual was placed. The darkness settled down on the place now that the car's headlights have been turned off and Apollo had to squint his eyes hard to see what he was doing.

"....Yes..."

He thought he head someone speaking. Perhaps it was Kristoph. But who was he speaking to? The phone? He narrowed his eyes at the impregnable darkness and wished he had cat eyes. Then he saw movement in the darkness, and he saw that Kristoph really wasn't alone at all. There was another person – a man, from what it looks like, though it was hard to tell, since whoever it was was wrapped up and shapeless – standing on the pavement, and Kristoph was talking to him.

Flashback.

It wasn't, and isn't a pleasant memory. He was standing in class, after school. It was detention class, actually, and the class was empty except for a gang of especially unpleasant children who got in trouble together for playing a 'sophisticated' prank on a teacher. They were all sitting down on their chairs, some with legs propped up on the table, and some with them cross to imitate some illusion of dignity. Only Apollo was standing, because the only other chair not taken there had been covered with glue, and the rest were stack in a corner behind the biggest of the lot, and if he wanted one, he'd have to wrestle him for it.

There were bullies everywhere. Even rich kids were bullies. It's only a matter of what kind of bully they were; elite or not. It almost made him wish he was back at the institute. He knew if Jacques was here, he'd help him, animosity or not. The stick kids stuck together.

But Jacques wasn't here. And no one would stand up for a stick boy here.

"So, Polliana, what's the deal with that uncle of yours?"

Apollo looked up from where he had stared determinedly at a spot made by a marker on the table. He had refused to rise to the bait, no matter what they said to him. If he hit them, he knew he would be expelled, and Kristoph would not be pleased at all.

"We heard he's really not that great an attorney everyone's making him out to be, after all. You heard the rumours, haven't you?"

A question. With a hook. Of course they know he didn't know. Of course they wanted him to ask. To swing beside his shield for a moment to let them take a few jabs at him.

"No." He took it.

Hook.

"Well...I heard from my daddy's friend see. Nothing personal of course, but he thought it was strange you know, the way he keeps winning his trials, so he started looking into it himself. Guess what he found?"

"What did he found? That Mr. Gavin's all that better than him?"

Line.

"Heh, like that's going to happen any time in this century. Uncle Davis is like the best defense attorney in the city. It's only because that precious Mr. Gavin of yours – who's a rat bastard, by the way - was forging evidence that he manages to beat Uncle Davis' record anyway."

Sinker.

"You have no proof!" Apollo yelled at him.

"Oh really? Well then explain to me why my uncle saw him driving in the middle of the night to the sewers of the city?"

"What the hell are you talking about? Why would Mr. Gavin be in the sewers?"

"Not literally, idiota. I mean the bad parts of the city. The SLUM. THAT sewer. The place where all the rubbish crawl, wanting a better slice of life than what filth like them deserve."

"Mr. Gavin wouldn't go there. He hates smelly places the most."

"Yeah? Well my uncle saw what he saw. Kristoph Gavin was loitering around the slums."

"Your uncle's a liar!"

"Why you-- How dare you? My uncle's a noble attorney, unlike that scum of an uncle of yours!"

"Shut the hell up!"

Apollo lunged at the boy, slashing at him with his fingers. He got pulled back by another friend.

"Mr. Gavin would never resort to crooks to win a verdict. He's just not that low!"

"Yeah!? Then explain to me, why was he there, and not only in the slums, why was he talking to a FORGER, no less?" The boy shoved Apollo back. "Let's see you explain that!"

"You can say anything you want, do you even have proof that he really went there? And how would that uncle of yours know he's a forger, if he's not connected to the business, huh?"

The boy ignored the jab and pressed on. "Well what about you? Can you honestly vouch that that precious Gavin of yours doesn't leave his house in the middle of the night when you're sound asleep, fool?"

And he can't. Because of course he knew.

"Y-You have no proof." He stammered.

All the boy did was laugh at him. His ears were ringing, from some kind of force unknown, like the sound you hear in your head in deep silence. But he heard the laugh anyway, and perhaps another from some part of himself.

"Y-you have...You have no proof...." He whispered. And he could tell they didn't believe him, because he didn't believe it himself either.

The memory rushed back at him, like blood in his face, and he found himself grabbing the handles of his bicycle a little tighter. His fist a little stronger. Teeth a bit more clenched. The rumours, the tabloids, muttering on and on about how there was something more to Kristoph than meets the eye, that there was something more to his victories than just skill and composure – those were lies. Weren't they?

There's no smoke without fire.

Stop it! He thought, clenching his teeth even tighter, so much so that he was afraid he might break his own jaw. It was just a man. Maybe an old client of Kristoph's that doesn't want much attention and he was just visiting him for old time's sake. Maybe he was Kristoph's lover. At this point, he'll accept anything short of the rumoured one.

His hands shook – from sheer nervousness or fear or anticipation, he'll never know. Perhaps a combination of all three? - and he stopped himself from shaking through sheer will. He poked a shivering ear out of the corner, trying to catch the a wiff of the conversation.

"....Have you...cash..."

"Of course...."

A sound of something opening, like a briefcase's latch. In the silence, it sounded like a gunshot.

"........Here...."

"Excellent work....usual...."

"Uh-huh....scram already, dangerous place to be...."

"Of course, your concern is well..."

"...Just get lost...."

And that was the end of the conversation, brief it was; Yet Apollo thought he had heard rather too much for his own good.

In the corner of his mind, he heard sounds of clicking steps, and he knew that Kristoph, having finished the meeting, would leave soon. Which meant that he would back up the car and use the way he took – Apollo's way. With a barely concious mind, Apollo pushed his bike into a darker dead-end alley and waited for Kristoph's car to pass. Funny how a person can be all empty inside yet remained so vigilant, a part of him sneered. More vigilant in fact, than a normal Apollo would be.

He was beyond insults, even those from himself.

He watched silently as Kristoph, as predicted backed up the car and moved it along the road he had taken on his way in. He waited. One. Two. Three. Okay, it was time to follow, there should be reasonable distance between them now.

He climbed onto his bike, and started cycling behind Kristoph, his mind blank. Or maybe it was just processing so much that it can't tell what it's processing any more. Like an overclocked computer.

The only thing that he could comprehend as he cycled after Kristoph rapidly disappearing car and squinting into the darkness, following the lights of the car like a ghost would follow an angel's candle was this : Kristoph Gavin forges evidences.

Flashback.

Kristoph's laughter was bright and cheerful when Apollo told him about the accusation from the boy. He tilted his head backwards and laugh, and for some reason, odd though it is, it was a genuine one – not a self-concious chuckle, but a laugh. A genuine honest to goodness laugh, and it made Apollo grin too.

"Well, all I can say is this Apollo – many people say many things, and if you were to believe them all, well I'm afraid you're looking at an alien in disguise on Earth, a secret communist supporter, as well as a person with a fetish involving carrots. Which I'm sorry to say, if you do, I will frown at your intellect indeed."

Apollo returned Kristoph's cheerful smile. "I know! It's just so ridiculous, isn't it?"

Kristoph nodded, still smiling. "It's funny how these things get started. You win a couple of cases in the row, and the judge starts getting berated for missing a conspiracy between the defense and the prosecution, and then the police are frowned upon by the city council – these things never get old. It's true for every great attorney out there."

It wasn't a brag, or a vain statement. It was the truth.

Apollo nodded enthusiastically. "I wish I can explain it as well as you to him, sir."

"You needn't bother, Justice. Little people will think their little thoughts, if you were to be bothered by them all, you wouldn't lead a particularly happy life – just like that prosecutor a while back, Edgeworth."

Another nod. Apollo stared at the glass pane beside him, watching as the city sped by from the window of the car. "But just to make sure sir, you really don't forge evidence, right?"

From the mirror dangling haughtily above, he could see Kristoph cocking his head slightly with a smile.

"What do you think, Justice?"

He thought not, but he didn't miss the fact that he didn't answer his question either.

The apartment was just right around the corner, Apollo thought glumly. By now the shock of the discovery was a little over, and like many things left behind – it was empty. For now he felt nothing. Perhaps when he sneak back into his room, he would cry a tear or dozen to the death of the imaginary idol he worshiped so, but for now he felt nothing. Only nothing.

The Ford skidded pass the snow and bounded for the car garage behind the apartment. Apollo wheeled his bicycle to the side of the road – wait a minute or two to make sure that Kristoph had parked and was making his way back home – before pushing it back into the makeshift garage-storeroom of the block. He put the frozen bicycle back into it's place – on the floor, and rattled the chain softly when he locked the bicycle's wheel.

"Had fun tonight, Apollo?"

Apollo froze, his fingers paused in the action of pulling the key out of the keyhole. Slowly, he completed the action and turned around. The garage's outside was brighter than the inside, and standing at the doorway, with his face partially silhouetted and the light behind him casting him into shadow – was Kristoph Gavin.

"S-s-sir."

"Justice." Kristoph inclined his head in a polite greeting. Far too polite a greeting, with a smile that was so pleasant it borderlines on creepy. "How have you been tonight?"

"I a-ah, I've been cycling around the place. Can't sleep, you know."

"Oh really?" Kristoph smiled.

His smile was replaced by a savage sneer. "Not following people around, crawling in alleyways like the little sneak you are?"

"I-I--" Apollo tried to explain. Willed his brain into forming an explanation. For god's sake, he was supposed to be the injured party here! But when Kristoph Gavin looked at you with that sneer on his face, with hurt just lying thinly under that layer of anger, you can't help but feel like you're in the wrong.

"Y-You what? You couldn't sleep, so you decided that it would be a good idea to follow me around?"

Well, technically, it was true. "No, of course not, but I --"

"Do you take me for a fool?" He snarled. "When I turned the car around, I saw the line in the snow, the line you leave behind with your bicycle."

He stepped closer and hissed at him, backing Apollo into a corner. "No one on the police force uses a bicycle, Apollo, and no one in that district is stupid enough to try. Except," he sneered. "apparently you."

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Why hadn't he thought of trails!?

"Look, Mr. Gavin, this isn't what it looks like I wasn't trying to follow you or any-"

"I see. So you just happened to be in that part of town, at the precise time in which I happened to be there, didn't you? Come now, boy, I'm sure you can think up a better excuse than that." He taunted. Apollo shifted behind some more, and Kristoph slid forward like a snake. His smile had disappeared.

"Do you remember what I told you when you first move in?"

Apollo stammered a reply even he didn't understood.

"DO YOU?" Kristoph roared.

"N-No!" Apollo yelled back, feeling afraid. He had never seen Kristoph that angry before, whatever stupid things he had done.

In precise, clipped words, Kristoph continued with a scary calm. "I told you, Apollo Justice, that you are in no uncertain terms allowed near my business." He snapped. "I told you, that what I do, at my time, is what I do at my time, you--" He stabbed a finger into Apollo's chest, leaving a slit in his shirt with sheer force. "--keep your nose out of what I do. Do you remember?"

"Y-yes, but I--"

"And yet you did not obey. I operate on very simple terms, Justice. You obey my rules, and I'll keep you alive, but alas--" Kristoph did a dramatic shrug with an insane grin on his face. "--you failed even to keep such a simple rule true."

"Kristoph, for god's sake, if you'll just let me explain --"

He cut him off. "There will be no explanation necessary, Justice. You are hereby terminated. Get out of my life." Kristoph spat and turned, walking off, leaving Apollo to stare after him in shock.

Life on the streets were not a pleasant prospect, but with Kristoph so angry over the incident, it wasn't like he could walk back into the apartment and expect to live through it. In his present mood, Kristoph would probably be inclined to brain him over the head with a heavy bottle. So Apollo stood outside the building.

He considered vaguely the notion of groveling – but he declined. No matter how wrong he was in following him, it still remained that Kristoph was wrong too, and Apollo refused – absolutely refused to apologize like some kind of criminal. Like the only guilty party. Then he considered standing outside their apartment, at least it was a hell lot warmer inside than outside in the cold snow. But he couldn't do that either, his pride rebelled at the idea of standing there like a dog waiting to be let in. And so he stood outside, with his arms folded and tucked under his armpits to keep them from freezing over and falling off.

He stood there all night long and a few hours – or maybe it was really fifty, and he didn't realized – the snow let up. Dawn broke, and light streaked across the sky, leaving a pale mist of evaporated snow in midair. The temperature was 2 degrees Celsius. Apollo crawled onto a bench coated with snow frozen into ice and curled himself up on it, oblivious to the cold. His feet were on the verge of frostbitten, even a frozen bench was a friendlier ally than the snow.

By morning he was starving. He wanted to go back in and grovel at Kristoph's feet for some hot soup, but of course he didn't. He chose instead to line up in front of a nearby soup kitchen for a serving of broth. It tasted good – anything would taste good when you were disowned, on the streets, and starving.

He kept this up – this routine of soup kitchen and bench warming for one whole day. The next day, after sleeping around the benches and sore all over, he decided he was wrong. He would, at that point, gladly announced that he was a mass murderer to get access to the heater. So since it was Tuesday, he decided to head to the Gavin firm to seek out Kristoph and apologized. He marched up the stairs leading to it with a solemn face – like a person at a funeral – and was prepared to be confronted with the worse. Maybe Kristoph would hit him. Or yell at him. Maybe he'll push him out of a window. He was willing to waver that pride and apologize, whatever the case.

But no, the secretary told him, Kristoph wasn't in. She was waiting outside the office, waiting for him to come and unlock the door to the office, but he wasn't there, and it was already half an hour pass opening hours. Kristoph was never late, and he hadn't been there the previous day either. She was worried.

He was too, so he headed to the only other place he knew, home.

The apartment was deadly silent when he unlocked the door and crept into it, like a burglar entering his first house. The silence clogged the air, like a suffocating feeling in your throat, and wouldn't dislodged – it flooded through the whole place like a wave, the rooms, the kitchen, the hallway. The ambience was quietness.

His footsteps fell on the wooden floor as quietly as possible – but every creak on the floor sounded like a thunder striking a gong – it announced his presence – t he house was no longer empty. He crept in, creep because he felt as if the house was now a stranger and it didn't welcome in and walked into the living room.

The room was a mess. The cushions from the chairs were strewn all over the floor, with strips of cloth tore from them, still dangling from their fresh wound. A vase overturned over a cushion, and one chair had been thrown across the room, landing upside down on the dining table with broken china squirming underneath it. A picture hanging above the fireplace was now broken, and it's remains stabbed at passerbys in vengeance.

What on Earth happened here?

Did someone break into the house while he was gone? Robbed something? But then – he gasped. What about Kristoph? Had he been hurt in the assault? Was that why he had cried absent from the firm?

He looked around wildly to find evidence of Kristoph's state when he saw the man himself curled on the floor beside a chair, partially hidden from his view, carnage all around him. His head fell forward, and his arms hung loosely beside him, back leaned against the chair legs. He looked like a victim of a murder case.

"Kristoph?"

No answer. Apollo limped pass the severed objects, holding his breath in. If Kristoph was dead, he didn't want to wait until it appeared on the news to know. He wanted to know it now. He knelt down beside Kristoph.

It took him a little while before he ascertain that he was in fact, breathing, albeit in ragged gasps like – dare he think it? - a person who had cried himself to sleep.

"Kristoph." He said again, this time a little firmer. He put his hand on his arm and shook him a little. "Kristoph?"

Kristoph gasped, and his eyes fluttered open – looking wildly around before pinpointing his assailant. When he saw it was Apollo, he looked confused. Confused as to why he was on the ground – just like Apollo. Except what Apollo wanted to know was why there were tear stains streaking down his coffee-coloured face.

"A-Apollo?" He stammered.

Apollo didn't answer. He didn't know what he was supposed to say. Should he console him? But he didn't even know what he was supposed to console him about.

"What happened here?"

"Why...are you here?" Kristoph asked him. His face was pulled together in a frown, but he looked childish. Something was missing from him. Composure?

"I came back. To..." he gulped, the words catching in his throat. "...to apologize. I'm sorry. For following you I mean."

He just stared at him. "Why did you do that?" his voice trembled, accusing. "You weren't suppose to do that."

"I'm sorry."

"I don't want – don't want people to know."

"To know what?" Apollo asked. "That you forge evidences?"

Kristoph winced like he had been slapped. "No. I don't want people to know...To know that I'm a failure, Apollo."

"You're not a failure."

"I am."

"You're not." He said, gently, but firmly. Somehow, in the last twenty-four hours, he had turned from advised to advisor.

"I am," he repeated. "I can't even win a trial without forging evidence. I can't win, not even when I know the person is innocent. Even when the person IS innocent."

Apollo waited quietly.

"The only thing I can do is tell them how sorry I am. The justice I loved? It's a joke, no one really cares about it."

He curled up some more and pushed against the chair. "And I hated that same justice I loved....So I become what I really am – a selfish bastard. I shove people out of the way, using whatever means and build up that reputation. Coolest defense attorney in the west? I'm not. I'm the coldest."

"Kristoph..."

"I am. Even my brother is better than me. At least he gets by without having to lie and cheat like I do."

"Kristoph." Apollo stated again, more firmly. "You're not a failure, or selfish, or anything of the kind."

He opened his mouth to argue, but Apollo cut him off.

"You want proof? I'll give you proof. I'M the proof."

A confused look.

"I'm proof that you're not a bastard of any order. You took me in, when no one else even gave a damn about me – and you help me; that I can achieve my dreams, that I can leave that place, that I am happy, Kristoph, it's all thanks to you."

"I..." Kristoph wet his lips. "I have a reason for that." He closed his eyes. " I...can't remember. But I have a reason for that. "

A lump swell in Apollo's throat, but he pushed it away."It doesn't matter. You could have just thrown me aside after adopting me, but you didn't. You've been more than kind to me, you've been like..." He gulped. "Like I don't know, a brother, a father. Everything. You're not a failure, Kristoph."

He stared at a spot behind Apollo's shoulder, and Apollo could tell that the Kristoph Gavin he knew – the man was just a facade – underneath all that seemingly endless composure was a broken person.

"I'm not...Anything like you've described. I'm not that noble. I..."

"You are. Denial ill becomes you, Kristoph."

A tiny smile at that.

"...But you betrayed me." The statement was quiet, and if Apollo hadn't been waiting for it, he wouldn't have heard it.

"I'm sorry," he said, meaning it. "I truly am. I was just...curious I guess. Curiosity killed the cat and all that. It won't happen again."

Kristoph tilted his head up and looked at him as though trying to gauge how truthful he was being. The sun was up, and from the balcony, you can hear cars honking and people yelling and talking and shouting. But in there, the room, there was only silence, the broken furniture, and Kristoph Gavin, looking up at him with a rare moment of vulnerability.

"Do you promise?" He asked, almost childishly.

"I promise."

Apollo smiled at him, and he, with the sun framing him like an angel, smiled back.

Note: I AM NOT OCC-ING KRISTOPH! I DENY DENY DENY THAT CHARGE! All will be revealed in the next chapter, my dears. And anyway, what's wrong with a little mental breakdown? He's human too you know, not say, a bundle of pixels. Also, I'm aware Apollo doesn't know about all these forgery stuff during the game, but there's going to be a reason for that.

Tune in next time, folks, for a brand new episode of Viva La Justice!

Also, contrary to what I say on chapter one, I'm starting to get yaoi vibes from this. Help.