But I Think You're Beautiful

Kurt sighed and picked up his books, watching the letterman jacket as it moved away down the hallway. A waft of unwashed socks and gag-inducing drug store aftershave lingered behind. The owner of the jacket laughed and accepted a high five as he met the rest of the team in front of the chemistry lab. Kurt stood up and brushed the smell and the embarrassment off his shoulder with a graceful sweep of his hand.
I may be a walking clich�, Kurt thought, but at least I don't smell like the inside of a homeless pedophile's shoe.
As he set his shoulders and resolutely continued on his way to class, Kurt caught the eye of one of the football lackeys. Kurt briefly tried to remember the dark-haired boy's name. He looked kind of small to be on the team. He was still staring, Kurt realized, so he gave him his best bitch-brow, raised his chin, and swept past the mob and into the French classroom.
Kurt didn't think anything more of the boy until Mme. LeBlanc asked the class to find a neighbour and practice speaking in the subjonctif. The two girls at Kurt's table had turned to each other before he could even open his mouth to ask one of them to be his partner, so he swiveled in his seat and found himself looking straight into the same pair of brown eyes that had been locked on his before class started. The boy had his hand out, as if to tap Kurt's shoulder, and he withdrew it quickly, crossing his arms on the desk and leaning back in his chair. The stitched name on his sleeve read, "Anderson," Kurt noticed. The boy cleared his throat.
"Uh, yep. Je m'appelle Blaine, et il semble que nous sommes des partenaires," he said, in remarkably fluid French.
Kurt blinked, slightly shocked that a) this jock was willingly partnering up with him, and b) that he could actually speak the language being taught in the class. Kurt recovered quickly and struck up a conversation about how he wished he could make a perfect Baked Alaska, but he could never get the meringue to brown without melting the ice cream inside. The subjonctif was a tricky tense, since it involved uncertain ideas: wishes, desires, possibilities, and so on. Kurt's conversation with Blaine the surprisingly skilled French-speaker quickly got more personal than he'd anticipated. Kurt found himself talking about his hopes for the glee club to make nationals this year and his goal of one day designing a royal wedding gown. He'd expected nothing but mockery from Blaine in response, but Blaine listened earnestly and responded with stories of how he wished his Dad could finally be as proud of him as he was of his big brother and how he hoped he could prove himself on the field this year.
Kurt was actually surprised when the bell rang. Usually French class dragged as he tried to stay focused on whatever garbled phrases his unfortunate partner of the day was managing to put together, but today it had flown by. As he wandered towards his locker, Kurt's mind was preoccupied with the bizarre conversation he'd shared with the football player.
Blaine, his mind helpfully supplied.
Kurt recognized the signs of another impossible crush, so he shoved his books into his locker much less tidily than he normally would have and made a beeline for the parking lot, determinedly planning a complicated dinner and definitely not thinking about big brown eyes and pink lips curling fluidly around French phrases.

***

Stupid, stupid, stupid, Blaine thought, climbing into Mike's pick-up at the end of the day.
Why did I have to pick him? There were plenty of girls around; there was one sitting right next to me, and girls like guys who can speak other languages, right?
"Dude!" Mike said, and Blaine realized his friend was staring at him skeptically.
"Sorry, what?" Blaine said, furrowing his eyebrows.
"I said AC/DC or Metallica," Mike replied, holding up his iPod and pointing to it like Blaine was a small child.
"Oh, uh, whatever, I don't mind," Blaine said.
"Did you fry your brain trying to understand Mme LeBlanc or something?" Mike teased.
Blaine shook his head.
"Nah, French is ok."
His team mates didn't know that Blaine spoke fluid French and Italian. It just wasn't the sort of thing that came up at practice. Plus, although everyone was required to keep a 75% or higher average to stay on the team, Blaine had learned that it wasn't a good idea to seem too smart.
"You must've sat behind someone smokin' then, because you look like you're on another planet, man!" Mike joked, pulling Blaine firmly into the present.
"Ah, something like that," Blaine said easily, smiling tightly. Thankfully Mike dropped it after that and took Blaine home, promising to pick him up the next day. Blaine's Honda was in the shop getting new brake pads. He thanked Mike and hopped out of the truck, ducking around back because he didn't want to talk to anyone on his way up to his room.
It turned out that he needn't have bothered, because there was no one home anyway. Blaine remembered belatedly that his parents were at a conference in Washington and his annoying little sister, Rachel, was staying at a friend's house tonight. He was lying on top of his comforter, wondering if he should make something or just order take-out when the unmistakeable strains of "All That Jazz" started playing in his sister's room. Blaine ignored it until it started up a second time, and then he rolled off his bed and went out into the hallway. Tentatively, he nudged open Rachel's door and saw her phone lit up on the end of her bed. She must have forgotten to take it with her. Blaine opened the door fully and walked over to it. The screen read, "DON'T FORGET: pick a song for glee!" He sighed and swiped the screen, turning off the alarm. He pulled his own phone out of his pocket to call Rachel's friend and let her know that he had hers, and then Blaine had a great/terrible idea. Glee club. Rachel was in glee, and so was Kurt. Before he could talk himself out of it, Blaine opened his sister's contacts, scrolled to the K's, and typed Kurt's number into his phone. Then he flung Rachel's phone back down on her bed, rushed into the hallway and back into his own room, slamming the door behind him. He instantly felt a little silly, but he looked down at Kurt's number on the screen in his hand and felt honest-to-God butterflies in his stomach.
He sent off the text to Rachel and then opened a blank new text. Sinking down on his floor, Blaine bit his lip to keep from smiling like an idiot and considered what he could say. Finally, he settled on, "I think you're the most beautiful person in the school, and I can't stop looking at you every day... X" Before he could over think it anymore, Blaine entered Kurt's name in the "to" box and hit send.

***

"So you have no idea who this 'X' person is?" Mercedes asked for the hundredth time.
"No, I really don't!" Kurt replied.
"And all you texted back was 'sorry, who is this'?" she said, grinning.
"Well, it's not like this kind of thing has ever happened to me before! I was trying to be polite," Kurt spluttered.
"Still, I can't wait to hear what he says next," Mercedes gushed, "Kurt's mystery man, 'X'!"
"Ok, I'm not even sure that the 'X' is an initial; what if it's meant to be a- a kiss?" Kurt said, blushing a little at the idea.
"Oh my God, you might be right!" she squealed, eyes lighting up, "Babes, you have a secret admirer," Mercedes said, stage whispering with dramatic flair.
"Ok, that's just ridiculous. It was probably a wrong number, not even meant for me," Kurt responded.
Although the concept did make him feel a little warm, right down in his belly, Kurt pushed the idea away and changed the subject to the state of the lunch menu in the cafeteria (which was, in his opinion, beyond appalling).
Throughout the day, Kurt couldn't stop his thoughts from wandering back to that text, and he checked his phone far more often than usual. He even risked a peek at it during math class, although he knew Mr. Jamison would disembowel him if he was caught. Nothing. All day, Kurt checked and rechecked his phone, imagining phantom vibrations against his thigh. By the time he was sitting in the choir room for glee practice at the end of the day, Kurt was feeling defeated and more than a little pathetic. Even hyper-focused Rachel noticed that something was up.
"Hey, Kurt, is something wrong?" she asked, not unkindly.
"No, I just... made a mistake," he said quietly, "I got my hopes up for nothing, as it turns out."
"Oh. That's too bad," Rachel said, giving him a sympathetic look before moving away so Mercedes could take her usual seat next to Kurt.
Mr. Schue swept in with an armload of sheet music and began talking animatedly about the latest lesson, and Kurt tried not to zone out too much. It was ridiculous to wallow in self-pity over someone he'd never even met.
Mercedes leaned over and said in a low voice, "Kurt, hey, you've gotta give mystery guy a chance. Maybe he'd gone to bed by the time your text got to him last night. Maybe he was in class all day. Chin up, babes."
Kurt smiled a little at that and tried to rally for the rest of the rehearsal. Soon they were up on their feet grooving and singing some ridiculous 90's hit Mr. Schue had come up with, and Kurt managed to briefly forget about the texting ordeal.
Once glee practice was over and Kurt had said goodbye to his friends and headed out to the parking lot, his good mood dissipated. He sat in the driver's seat of his Navigator and surprised himself by suddenly breaking out into tears. It was irrational, he knew, but for one moment, he'd let himself hope that maybe he wouldn't have to wait until he was far, far away from Lima to find someone who liked him. He wasn't expecting to find the love of his life or anything crazy like that. He just wanted to flirt a little, maybe hold hands, and go out to see some cheesy movies with someone, like all his friends did. Was that too much to ask for?