The day Klavier realizes that he is in love with his courtroom rival is a quiet one.
It's just after rehearsals, when he finally finds his way home and his eyes catch on red fabric peeking out of his closet. It's just a shirt, nothing special, and yet…
It triggers a thought, his favourite defense attorney clad in it, the shadows of this room falling around his face in flickers too soft for the musician to handle. His mind freezes on fingers clasping sleeves too long and frame compact, fabric slipping off a bony shoulder. It's a thought that burrows into his head and under his skin, that dances just out of his grasp, as he tries to catch it in the palm of his hand and shove it back into the drawer it escaped from. It's just a red shirt and it's just his rival attorney, but the both of them scramble his brain and he thinks.
He thinks of dark bangs falling into vibrant brown blazing with determination, eyebrows caught in a frown as he mulls over evidence, fingers wrapped around that strange bracelet.
Objection! Echoes in his head, ringing in his ears even as a memory and Klavier laughs, he laughs and he falls on his bed and grins and hides his face behind his arms. Moonlight casts his room into silver and darkness and it's radiance is nothing against the light around Apollo when he finally finds that one red thread of truth in the testimonies. When Apollo finally grasps the strings of fate and wraps them around the true culprits throat. Power and confidence packed into a tiny form in red and white and Klavier will never ever be able to associate the colour with anything else.
I love him , Klavier thinks and admitting this is the easiest thing in the world. The sky is blue and I am in love.
Klaviers breath catches in his throat as he thinks of a gaze too fierce as Apollo interrogates a witness, he thinks of that tiny man and his big heart and the way he always seems to know when Klavier is about to lie. His grin widens and he stares at the ceiling through the gap between his arms and he yearns a bit, he wants and he needs, but in the end, he just basks in the sheer affection
He never lies to the other man. Or at least, Klavier tries to. He avoids and deflects, but he tries not to lie, because Apollo deserves at least this much. Klavier owes him this much, if not as a rival, as a fellow seeker of truth, then as a friend.
Nothing is worth the expression of shattered glass Apollo shows when he thinks that no one is watching. Nothing drowns his veins in regret like Apollo standing on the other side of court, eyes somewhat glassy and faded in the face of betrayal.
Nothing beats the sheer rage in Klaviers blood, when his brother betrayed them again, in the trial against Miss Misham. He will never forget the way Apollo recoiled like he was struck, like he had still at least a little bit of hope left.
One day, Klavier will have retribution for what his brother has done to all of them, to Klavier himself as his family, to Apollo as his student, to Phoenix as a man that deserved none of the pain he was put through. One day, he will find something he can do to inject regret in Kristoph's blood and he will stand there and he will not care.
He will not care the same way Kristoff Gavin never cared about him beyond the perks Klavier can offer him.
One day. One day, he will pay.
It's not today though and he refuses to think of his brother and refuses to allow it to taint his thoughts of Apollo. So he beckons back the memory of Apollo during their first meeting and their last, the bumbling, short form in glaring red, blushing and stammering, all indignant and loud and too much. And the young man raised by victory and brilliance, Phoenix Wright grinning at his side and Trucy twirling around her, confetti stuck in their hair. Smiles edged with grief but radiant nothenless.
His sun, his light, his beacon of hope for a future unknown.
Klavier snorts at his own thoughts, at the sap dripping off his fingertips and he reaches over towards his guitars, grabs the first he can find, strums a few chords.
Hums a melody and twists it to the image of Apollo's glare and Apollo's smile, tunes it to exasperation and kindness. Salty noodles and coffee and paper and ink.
Apollo and himself and all the moments shared between the two of them and he keeps thinking I love you I love you I love you.
For all of this he writes a song.