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Klavier got lost in the supermarket when he was four years old. He doesn’t even really remember how, just knows that one moment he was trailing after his mother and their shopping cart with the wonky wheel and the next he was all alone.
He didn’t cry. Didn’t run to either end of the aisle in a panic or cry out for his mother or Kristoph; just stood there, staring at all the different kinds of laundry detergent, a little dazed at most. The next person who came down the aisle was a woman. Klavier doesn’t remember her face, but he remembers how she slid a package of dryer sheets into her basket before noticing him. She crouched down low and spoke softly, asking where his parents were and complimenting his shirt. There was a freckle in the center of her palm, one he saw when she grabbed his hand and started to lead him through the store.
He remembers how she nodded along as he told her about Kristoph and counted as high as he could. She had a cat and was a film student at a university nearby. Her laugh was bright when Klavier’s clumsy tongue couldn’t figure out how to say university.
They got to the front of the store and she picked him up, balancing him on the back of a chair as she talked to a man behind the counter. He remembers the man's voice booming across the whole store, his mother’s relieved face as she rushes forward and scoops Klavier up into her arms. But most of all, he remembers how the nice lady smiled and told him he had a nice name. “Klavier Gavin? What a good name. A strong name. You’ll be a star one day, I just know it.”
Sometimes, he wonders if she remembers him. He did become a star, to some circles. Well, a lot of circles. It’s a very big circle.
Childishly, he wonders if he cast a spell on him that day, destining him for greatness. More realistically, he realizes she was just one of the first of many to see that his name had star potential. It rolls off the tongue nice and easy. Uncommon enough to be exciting, but not too hard to pronounce. It’s easy enough to chant, if you split up the syllables. It’s a part of him in ways last names aren’t to most people. Prosecutor Gavin, rock star, lead vocalist and guitarist Klavier Gavin of the Gavineers.
He’s had stadiums of people screaming his name, but that’s never what comes to mind when he thinks about his name. He thinks of the woman in the supermarket, and he thinks of his great-aunt. She lived out in the countryside, so visits were rare.
“You should be proud to be a Gavin,” she’d murmur into his ear when he crawled up into her lap after dinner. But she never said it like his parents or Kristoph or his teachers did, she drew out the syllables, savoring every sound. Ga-veen, she’d say, rocking him back and forth. It was a little strange, how he missed the way she said his name more than he missed her.
At the time, Klavier didn’t really know why he should be proud to be a Gavin. Instead of asking, he chose it for himself. No one in the band really cared that it was named after him, but that was probably just because none of them really knew how big it was going to get. They were just stupid kids who liked sitting in Klavier’s basement, writing stupid songs instead of doing their homework. It was enough for them to have all the girls swooning, but they didn’t protest when things got bigger.
And then the trial against Herr Wright happened. Exposing the Turnabout Terror as a fraud in his first ever trial? Really, there was no better time to be Klavier Gavin.
Mother and Father weren’t very happy about the country hopping right out of high school, but he couldn’t give less of a damn. Concerts one day and trials the next wasn’t a very sustainable lifestyle, but god was it fun. Defense attorneys around the world had grown to fear his name, dreaded the thought of losing against some kid who was fresh out of law school and slept every night on a tour bus.
Klavier made the name Gavin a worldwide sensation. It wasn’t until he came back home that he learned how Kristoph made it synonymous with “the best defense in the west.”
It was kind of annoying, how all the prosecutors and detectives gave him a strange look when he introduced himself. When he complained to Kris about it, he just rolled his eyes and snipped about how maybe if he prosecuted a few more cases in LA before he left, that wouldn’t be happening. He was right of course, Kristoph was always right, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t annoying as all hell. The thought makes Klavier sick to his stomach now. It’s no wonder Kristoph got away with his lies for seven years, he was used to getting what he wanted— no matter the cost. Ruining a life or two, even killing a man was child's play to Kristoph. There wasn’t a worse time to be Klavier Gavin.
There were detectives in and out of his office multiple times a day, searching for any sign of foul play; he wasn’t getting cases anymore, the chief prosecutor too busy breathing down the back of his neck to assign any. Cleaning out Kristoph’s apartment was the worst part, though. His parents were there too, but they didn’t say much. Klavier caught his mother crying in the bathroom, clutching a picture frame to her chest. He let her be.
Even when he was in jail, Kristoph always seemed to have the last laugh. That much was obvious when Klavier ended up taking Vongole home with him, his parents refusing to take her when they learned it was what Kristoph wanted. Klavier wants to bitch about how what Kris wants doesn’t matter anymore, but he keeps his mouth shut. She’s not a bad dog, but she doesn't like him much. They’re more like roommates than anything else. It’s a little sad his closest friend is a dog that doesn’t even like him, but what else can he do? He hasn’t talked to the band since Daryan’s arrest and he doubts any of them would want to see his face right now.
Klavier wonders if his ancestors would be proud of him. He remembers doing a project back in grade school about great-something grandparents of his, an astronomer and a psychologist. They did great things in a world that was so much harder to live in than his own and here he was, moping over not having any friends.
He also wonders what the world would be like if he didn’t listen to Kristoph all those years ago. Herr Wright would still be a defense attorney, though one without a daughter. Trucy would probably know nothing of the legal world, raised by a shifty uncle and an even shiftier father if he was even around. Vongole wouldn’t be sleeping on his bed downstairs, and definitely wouldn’t be named Vongole of all things.
Klavier doesn’t want to think about what he’d be like, but he does anyway. A lot happier is his best guess.