Apollo takes one look at the assignment he’s just been emailed and groans, resting his head face-down on his desk.

Clay, being the bastard that he is, just laughs and snaps a photo for his Twitter.

“What is it, buddy? Friend? My dearest pal?”

Apollo turns his head just enough to scowl at Clay—his best friend definitely already knows what he’s reacting to, given that he received the same email. And is, in fact, the reason Apollo’s in this situation to begin with.

Clay smirks. “Hey, I thought you’d be happy! After all, now you can get paid for the paragraph-long texts you send me ranting about whatever Klavier Gavin’s been wearing this week.”

Apollo groans, again. “Yeah, but that’s different—that’s just to you! The whole world doesn’t need to know my frustrations with how he refuses to button up his shirt even halfway!” He shoots Clay an imploring look, “He even does it in court, Clay. In court! I’m in law school and even we get lectures on “proper courtroom attire” if we show up with rolled sleeves or anything.”

“Dude. The world isn’t gonna know—we have a readership of, what, maybe 5,000 people per issue? Your secret massive celebrity crush is safe with me and about a high school’s worth of teenage girls.”

Apollo lifts his head and looks at his computer screen once more, as if to confirm that the details of the email haven’t changed in the past five minutes. They haven’t. In black-and-white, there it is:

He sighs, deeply. Clay’s right—Scooperstars Daily isn’t hugely popular, and any extra money is good when he’s trying to pay off his student loans. That’s how Clay dragged him into this job, despite Apollo having never paid attention to celebrity gossip. Clay had just laughed and said it’d give him the advantage of an “unbiased opinion.”

So now, five months down the line, he finds himself with an assignment to write about Klavier Gavin, the man whose existence has been plaguing him ever since his first day at Scooperstars, when his boss had pointed at a poster on the wall and joked that “because you’re a law student, you’ll be able to help us understand all the Gavinners’ lyrics, right?”

His conflicting feelings about Klavier Gavin stemmed from three main sources—

One: the guy was hot. Like, stunningly, ridiculously hot. If somebody claimed to not be attracted to him, Apollo would immediately peg them as a liar, because seriously? Klavier Gavin’s good looks were an objective fact.

Two: He was, by all accounts, a competent prosecutor. Apollo had seen recordings of his trials as part of his studies, had admired his dedication to finding a truthful verdict. He’s even caught glimpses of him in the law library in the courthouse, carrying a stack of books and files while Apollo was buried under six different textbooks.

Three: Klavier Gavin’s stupid legal-themed rock band and their dumb lyrics were the bane of Apollo’s existence. Ever since he’d become aware of them, it seemed like every person he met who found out he was studying law asked him if he liked the Gavinners, and what his favorite song was. Added to that was Klavier’s ridiculous, flashy rock-star personality! Apollo could not understand why someone as clearly intelligent as Gavin was (and he wasn’t going to dispute that; the fact that the guy was both a rockstar and a prosecutor by age 17 spoke for itself) would choose to spend so much time pretending to be this...shallow, glitzy, faux-German rockstar?

So, Apollo Justice has Opinions about Klavier Gavin. And now, thanks to Clay’s meddling, he’s expected to broadcast those opinions through the medium of gossip-columns for a teen magazine.

Well, he might as well have some fun with it, right?

“Dude, your article is going viral,” Clay announces as he steps into the office. Apollo, from his position under the desk, doesn’t answer.

Clay stops and drags Apollo’s chair out from the desk, and forcibly evicts him from his tiny sanctuary.

“Hey, it’s a good thing! Apparently your plight is so relatable to teenagers out there that it’s driven our hits up, like, 3000%.”

Apollo buries his face in his hands. “I don’t wanna be relatable to teenagers.”

Clay pats him on the back sympathetically. He’s not sympathetic at all, though, actually. Apollo peeks through his fingers to find that, surprise, surprise, Clay’s wearing the biggest shit-eating grin he’s ever seen.

“You know this means that Mr Deetz will want you to write at least five more articles on the guy.”

“I knoooow!” Apollo groans, and points at his computer monitor. Clay peers towards it, and laughs at the email that’s open on the screen:

“Do you think you’ll get paid extra for bringing in more readers?” Clay questions, ignoring Apollo’s despair. “Maybe I should start obviously thirsting after celebrities in my articles…”

Apollo shoves him, and they engage in an impromptu wrestling match that ends in a draw, but with Clay promising to let Apollo keep his monopoly on Thirst Articles.

That article goes viral as well. Clay buys Apollo flowers in celebration. Apollo starts furnishing the space underneath his desk with pillows and chocolate.

Clay’s live-tweeting about Apollo’s anguish gains the magazine another 4,000 hits in a single night, and Apollo resigns himself to forever being known as “the guy who’s, like, super into Klavier Gavin, but really angry about it.”

He keeps writing the articles anyway, because at this rate he’ll be able to pay off his student loans before he graduates.

Klavier Gavin is not in the habit of reading articles about himself in celebrity magazines, no matter what some of his most vehement critics claim. But even he has to take notice when thousands of fans start tweeting links to a series of weekly columns in a certain publication at him, and the Buzzfeed article that exploded across the Internet was the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak.

He reclines in his poolside deck chair, adjusting his sunglasses while he turns his head to sip from the tall, spiral straw stuck in his electric-blue cocktail. The quotes listed in the Buzzfeed article are certainly...passionate, he’d say that for sure. He snorts when he reaches the line about platypuses—the shirt sales from that collaboration had raised probably $600,000 in 24 hours, and he still thinks it’s possibly his best contribution to the world.

Scrolling to the top of the page, Klavier frowns at the name listed as being the author of the series of outfit-reviews articles. He swaps tabs and, one-handed, types Apollo Justice into the search bar.

Obviously, the first few pages of results all redirected to the Scooperstars Daily website. But, scrolling further, Klavier came across a link to a Facebook profile, and clicked, intrigued.

The page looks disused, with no status updates posted for five years and the only recent activity being other people tagging Apollo in photos or posts. But the profile picture makes Klavier’s eyes widen, because wait. He’s seen this guy before!

On stuffy afternoons in the courthouse basement, he recalls seeing two strands of gelled-straight brown hair poking up from behind a pile of textbooks, and craning his neck around a bookshelf to catch a glimpse of the mysterious student’s face without drawing attention to himself. He’s gone to the courthouse basement specifically on the hope that the man would be there!

Well, isn’t it a coincidence, that Klavier Gavin’s mystery courthouse cutie would be the same person writing extensive articles about just exactly how attractive he looks with his shirt half-buttoned.

Klavier checks his calendar, pushes his barely-touched drink aside, and stands up, typing another few search terms into Google as he does. Clearly, the universe is sending him a sign, here.

It’s a normal Thursday afternoon at the office. Apollo’s desk is buried under a fresh mound of Klavier Gavin-related fanmail, Clay is pulling weird faces as he tries out new Instagram filters, and the air conditioning is on the verge of giving out, as ever, wheezing its protests as it tries to combat the nearly-92-degree-Farenheit weather outside.

It’s a normal Thursday afternoon, that is, until Clay tilts his head to one side, and asks: “Hey, ‘Pollo, did you hear that?”

Apollo slides his headphones from over his ears and listens, but doesn’t hear anything. “Nope, nothing. Sure you’re not just hearing the air conditioner?”

Clay frowns and stands up, walking over to the window that faces the street. “Nah, I could’ve sworn….oh. Oh, ‘Pollo. How’re you feeling today? Calm? Serene? An air of tranquility?”

Apollo narrows his eyes, suspicious. “I’m...fine, Clay—what’s up?”

Clay turns to him, with a grin that does Not make Apollo feel in any way reassured.

“Because some guy on a motorcycle just pulled up right outside. I think he’s in a “no parking” lane actually. And, weirdly, it almost looks like….”

He trails off and presses his nose to the window, ignoring Apollo’s shouted warning about smudges on the glass. Then, abruptly, he pulls out his cell phone and begins typing furiously.

“Clay! It looks like what? Some asshole who should get a parking ticket?”

“Nope!” Clay checks the view one more time, before spinning on his heel and striding over to Apollo’s desk. “Klavier Gavin just walked into the building and I’d bet money on the fact that he’s looking for you.”

Apollo turns bright red. “What?! He can’t be—you’re just messing with me, there’s no way the famous rockstar that I’ve been writing articles about for months is here.”

“Well…”

Clay is cut off by the door to the room swinging open, and Apollo swivels his chair to face the entrance, out of habit. And, well, if the nearly-six-foot, blonde man who just walked in isn’t Klavier Gavin, he’s doing an excellent job of impersonating him.

“Guten tag, I’m looking for a Herr Justice? I believe he works here.”

Clay’s eyes shine with repressed laughter, and his thumbs blur on his phone’s keyboard. Apollo makes a noise akin to a dying teakettle.

“Herr Justice? Er, Apollo?” The man who is Almost Definitely Klavier Gavin peers over the generic grey office cubicle dividers, and catches sight of two distinctively-gelled hair spikes. A broad, sunny smile breaks out over his face, and he waltzes around the divider, leaning against Apollo’s desk and nearly toppling a stack of article-related letters.

“Ah, Herr Justice. It has recently come to my attention that you have written a very comprehensive series of magazine columns about my fashion choices, and yet all I know of you is your tendency to hide away in dark corners of the courthouse library. So, to fix this, I am taking you to lunch, ja? There’s a lovely Thai place down the road.”

Apollo wishes, faintly, that he’d paid more attention to Clay’s articles on the extensive catalogue of Gramarye magic tricks. At least then he might have picked up some knowledge about how to disappear in a cloud of smoke, or a shower of sparks, or just sink through the floor. He raises his head just enough to meet Klavier’s eyes, and curses the way his heartbeat picks up in response.

“Uh...I mean, I’ve got work, I don’t think I can just...leave—and I’m sure I don’t have the funds on me to cover a meal at the kind of places you go to eat.”

This does not seem to deter Klavier. In fact, he seems encouraged by the statement, leaning closer to Apollo. The shorter man swears he can almost smell Klavier’s fancy cologne—which he refuses to admit smells good.

“No matter! I will pay, as a way to say danke for your litany of compliments in the past few weeks. Come on, let’s go—time is wasting while we stand here discussing the matter, and I, for one, am starving.”

He wraps a hand around Apollo’s upper arm, and tugs, gently. Apollo, as if in a dream, stumbles up and out of his chair, letting himself be guided to the door of the office beside Klavier. Before he passes through the door, however, he looks back at Clay, who’s been suspiciously silent throughout the whole encounter.

He finds him staring down at his cell phone, wide grin plastered across his face, typing furiously. Wonderful—there’s no way this won’t be all over Twitter by the end of the day.

Obviously, they get photographed by paparazzi. Obviously. Because this is Apollo’s life, and of course he’s going to end up in the gossip rags, when he’s basically peer-pressured into accepting an invitation to have lunch with the rockstar prosecutor he’s been writing about for months.

Clearly, there’s only one solution.