(A/N: I thank everyone who read the first chapter. Yep. It's a teen!Kristoph drabble-thingy set in 2008! He would be about fourteen, I think. Klavier is six. Inspired by the realization that if Kristoph Gavin were real, right now he would be around my age! Kinda. Sorta.
Disclaimer: It belongs to Capcom, ja? If I owned it, music in 2026 wouldn't be MIDI files.)
Proper Grooming
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Even villains were innocent once.
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Fourteen-year-old Kristoph Gavin was a somewhat of an elitist. He turned in all his homework on time, made the honor roll, forced himself to get perfect attendance (What did he care if the other students got sick? So long as he went to school, all was well.) and was an amazing older brother. Because he was such a perfectionist, he took the time to properly groom himself.
Yes, it's perfectly natural to want to stay groomed, he thought as he painted his nails at obscene hours of the night. Once his new manicure dried he would brush his shoulder-length blond hair to perfection and then read himself to sleep. It was a weekly ritual he had kept ever since--
Creak.
Kristoph jumped at the noise and growled when he realized it was merely six-year-old Klavier. A steady stream of profanities was hissed when he accidentally knocked over the (limited, extremely expensive) bottle of varnish.
"What do you want?" Wide-eyed, Klavier watched as his older brother mopped up the clear mess with an old blue towel.
"Can I paint my nails, too?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"You'll get poisoned and die."
"No I won't! You're lying! Liar!"
"Klavier, please. Just let me clean this up. Why are you even awake?"
"You're always awake really really late on Friday."
"Because I'm a big boy. Now go to sleep."
"But I wanna brush my hair, too!"
"It's too short."
"No it's not!"
"Fine. Go get the purple brush from the drawer." An ecstatic Klavier opened the drawer with glee and held the brush with a sort of reverence. He sat down next to his brother on the floor and tried to slide the brush through his hair, but he was dismayed to find that there were knots, and that he couldn't pull it past his ear. Kristoph, being the the perfect older sibling he was, sighed and pulled the brush out of his poor brother's hair. Then he decided that since, Hmph, my hair is fine anyway, he would fix Klavier's hair. They sat in a sort of awkward silence, and he thought that Klavier had fallen asleep. Until a high-pitched voice spoke up.
"What does 'gay' mean?" Kristoph twitched and froze.
"Why do you ask?"
"Well earlier Mama and Papa were talking and Mama was scared and she said you might be gay and- and- and- I think it means that you're sick but I don't think you're sick so-"
"Klavier." Kristoph was seething.
"What?"
"Get. Out."
"So you are gay?! Does that mean you're dying?!"
"GET OUT OF MY ROOM!"
Klavier squeaked and scampered away in fright. Sometimes his brother was scary, but that was what made him so cool!
When I grow up, I'm gonna be Kristoph!
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'What happened to you, big brother?'
'I lost.'
'But it was just a silly poker game!'
'Precisely. It was just a miscalculation on my part. I didn't realize there were auditions to become his defense attorney.'
'You didn't have to become so vengeful, though!'
'I was always like this. You just never knew.'
'Nein, mein älterer Bruder. You were good once.'
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(A/N: Ah, brotherly love. In case it was too vague/confusing, that tidbit at the end was Klavier talking to Kristoph in prison. Forgive any discrepancies in characterization, events, etc., since I haven't actually finished Apollo Justice yet. I know what happens, though. Klavier is based off of a certain little five-year-old I know. The German was stolen from an online dictionary and supposedly means 'No, my elder brother.' Correct me if I'm wrong. I (kinda, sorta) didn't like this very much. Review?)