Upon the dawning of Saturday morning, Kurt’s fingers are shaky as he presses Blaine’s name on his contact list. He swallows around the lump of something foreign and useless in his throat as the tone on the other end of the line continues to ring.

“Hello?” a soft voice finally answers.

“Hey.”

“…Hey,” Blaine replies.

A moment of silence.

“Did you…need something?”

“Yeah,” Kurt says quickly. “Um, tonight. Instead of – of coffee, do you think we could maybe go to that restaurant instead? The one on the other side of the highway from where we normally go?”

“The burger place?”

“Yeah, that one. And, you know, maybe instead of tutoring we could just do the conversation…thing. Take a break from the books and just, uh, talk.”

“…Kurt, I’ve never seen you eat a burger. Ever.”

“Since when do you monitor my eating habits at lunch? And they have veggie burgers.”

Kurt hears a heavy sigh.

“Listen, if this is like, some kind of pity friendship thing, just don’t. You don’t have to-”

Damnit.

“It’s not like that,” Kurt spits out swiftly. “Just, you know, the last couple times we’ve tried to do the talking thing, I know I screwed it up and you left early and I cheated you out of your, um, payment. So this is like, uh, repaying a debt. Or whatever. Making up for what I didn’t give you.”

“I told you that you weren’t obligated to-”

“Just – please? I really just don’t like not keeping up my end of the deal on something.”

“Well…okay,” Blaine says reluctantly. “What time?”

“Same time we planned on studying. Six to eight. Ish. Around eight.”

“Okay. I guess I’ll see you at six, then.”

“Right. Okay. See you later.”

Without even saying goodbye, Kurt ends the call and curses his fluttering heart. It won’t stop now. He feels one hundred percent obligated to be nice to Blaine, despite the difference in their high school hierarchy because he just…

Because.

Obligation. That’s all it is.

“Glad I didn’t get stood up,” Kurt quips when Blaine slides into the booth across from him. “At least at a coffee shop, it isn’t weird when you’re sitting at a table by yourself. The hostess would have felt really bad for me if I had to leave after I already asked for a table for two.”

“Sorry,” Blaine grumbles, shrugging off his jacket. “My mother wasn’t impressed when I told her eightish.”

“Oh?”

“She likes precise time frames.”

“I see,” Kurt nods, already disliking Blaine’s parents even more so than he already did.

“That’s why I had to leave so quickly the other night,” Blaine explains as he opens his menu. “I didn’t think we’d be, um, talking after studying, so I told her I’d be home an hour earlier than usual. She doesn’t – doesn’t like it when I change plans at a moment’s notice.”

“Ah.”

They fall into silence until the waitress takes their order and brings their drinks. Beneath the table, Kurt’s legs are crossed as his foot taps nervously against his ankle. He can’t help it. He’s been a wreck all day. His stomach is a jumble of panic and anxiety and his head is foggy and most definitely confused.

Why does he feel this way?

“So…was there anything specific you wanted to talk about?” Blaine finally asks.

“Not particularly,” Kurt shrugs, fiddling with the straw in his water.

“Um…how was the football game last night?”

“Horrible,” Kurt says. “We lost. But we always lose, so no surprise there.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah.”

Another silence. Another long, strained silence and Kurt watches Blaine’s eyelashes as he peeks down at his straw to take a drink. He watches Blaine’s small frame shift in the seat, noticing the deep navy of his sweater vest and the dip from neck to shoulder and oh god, he’s losing it.

“We really don’t have to do this,” Blaine says, hanging his head. “We can just call it a failed attempt and go home.”

“No, no, that’s not – ugh, damnit.”

“What?”

“ You were just…right. You were right when you said that I wasn’t very good at - at this,” Kurt says, gesturing between the two of them with his hands. “And it’s even worse now.”

“What do you mean?” Blaine asks while his eyes are still focused on the tabletop.

Kurt sighs and uncrosses his legs. “I don’t know how to do this with you,” he clarifies, clenching his teeth. He doesn’t know why he’s being so forthright, not now.

“Because I’m a loser,” Blaine nods.

“No, not because you’re a loser.” You’re not a loser. You are but you’re not. “Because you’re – you’re-”

“Gay?” Blaine looks up.

“Well,” Kurt snorts, “that too. But you’re so fucking open and you’ve got this tortured look in your eyes and I don’t really know how everyone else misses it.”

“I…don’t know what you mean.”

“You’ve got this whole other life and it seems like so much. But it’s like only I can see it and I hate that and I hate that I know why I’m the only one who can see it.”

“What-”

And just like that, over two cups filled with water in an almost classy burger joint, Kurt can’t stop talking.

“You look like that because people hurt you and they hurt you so much but nobody notices, nobody cares and you’re lonely all the time. You look like the entire world has stopped and turned to stare just because you’re different or like you’re in a cage at the zoo and the only reason I know is because I used to be the same way. I used to look just like that and now every time I look at you, I see me and I see all the horrible, despicable crap that I had to go through and it’s all stuff I got away from so it’s like you’re haunting me and I just want it to stop but it won’t stop and it isn’t fair. I just want-”

“Kurt,” Blaine interrupts, reaching his hands over to pry Kurt’s fingers off of his glass. “Stop. Stop.”

“I can’t-”

“Why are you saying all this? What-”

“I don’t know,” Kurt says all in a rush. “I don’t know why I’m saying all this and I don’t know why I’m saying this to you.” His hands tremble beneath Blaine’s. “I feel like I’m going fucking crazy. I can’t stop thinking about all the stuff you said and I feel awful about it but I can’t change the way I am now. I can’t make things better for you. I can’t do anything.”

“Calm down,” Blaine says gently, rubbing a soothing thumb over Kurt’s knuckles. “Stop talking. Calm down. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Kurt wants to find the nearest open grave and throw himself in.

“You don’t have to do anything for me. I don’t need your pity. I don’t need your worry.”

“But you deserve a friend. Even I had a friend. It’s not fair that you don’t have a friend.”

“You’re not my mother,” Blaine says in a commanding tone. “It isn’t your job to set up play dates.”

“I’m the experienced one. I know how our school works. I should – I should be there to guide you and I can’t. I can’t do anything because I – I can’t. And my dad thinks I’m this great, thoughtful person. He thinks I’m some kind of saint or something but I’m not.”

“Okay,” Blaine says, releasing his hold on Kurt’s hands and reaching into his pocket. He drops a few bills on the table and slides out of the booth. “No dinner tonight. Come on.”

“But we made a deal and-”

“We can have a perfectly good conversation in private. We don’t need to be in public. Come on, we’re just going to my car.”

Kurt gives a shaky nod and climbs out of the booth. He feels like he’s having some sort of panic attack as Blaine leads him by the hand, out of the restaurant and into the parking lot. Everything has suddenly fallen apart. He feels like he’s unraveling, like all of the progress he’s made for himself is coming undone within the span of twenty minutes. Kurt Hummel is supposed to be Kurt Bitchface Hummel, Cheerio and sarcasm extraordinaire.

He isn’t supposed to be falling apart at the seams in front of some boy whose entire existence is one, big, horrific flashback.

“Get in,” Blaine instructs and Kurt doesn’t even question getting into the back seat of Blaine’s very clean car.

The door slams. Kurt’s ears ring. Blaine’s next to him. His fingers still shake.