From his bed, Kurt heard Blaine’s laugh and rolled his eyes, knowing that he wasn’t exaggerating in the very least. Whenever Kurt got home, Blaine had usually changed into his pajamas or was still in his uniform. Kurt had never really gotten to see Blaine in normal clothes except for those few weekends when they’d Skyped immediately after Blaine had returned from somewhere. From what he could tell, the boy only wore polos, cardigans and jeans, and it made him laugh to know that Blaine had seen him in all of his fabulous outfits at least somewhat and yet he had only seen Blaine in a few of his own pieces. The thought crept into his head as he continued to look through his closet for an outfit for tomorrow’s shopping date with Mercedes and Rachel, just as he tried to not think about how very marital this seemed. He focused on the clothing.
Still, with his back turned to his screen, Kurt continued, “I’m actually serious. Do you even own any other clothes aside from pajamas and your uniform, Blaine?”

He glanced over his shoulder at his laptop, looking at Blaine and the way his hair curled over his head just slightly. Kurt silently thanked whenever a loose strand fell away from the usual gel to fall over his forehead. He tried to pretend he wasn’t picturing Blaine as Superman, because Superman had blue eyes and not the strange green he was now deciding to call them after months of debating.
“Kurt,” Blaine said, just as Kurt laid the sweater down on his bed, moving closer the screen as Blaine spoke. “Is this your way of getting me to open my closet so you can scrutinize it and determine if you need to give it a complete makeover or something?”

Kurt laughed though, smiling as he turned away from the screen again to look for jeans to match the sweater. It wasn’t fair that someone could know him so well that Kurt didn’t actually take any offence to that, let alone actually get him to care about what he wore for reasons aside from that. Kurt wanted to know what Blaine wore because to him, fashion was his everything. Fashion explained who he was. Maybe he’d find out something about Blaine if he saw his normal clothes. Kurt wanted to find out everything, really.
Shaking his head, he looked through his pants before shrugging. “No, I just wanted to see. Although you put a very good idea in my head, Blaine Anderson.” Turning around slightly, Kurt made direct eye contact with Blaine through the two computer screens and winked, a devious smirk sprawling onto his lips as he slowly turned his head around.

“I’m not letting you touch my wardrobe, Kurt Hummel.” As Kurt continued to look for the right pair of jeans, Blaine’s voice reached his ears. It was clear, but there was something strikingly timid about it. As if Blaine was blushing. He wondered how an actual blush would look like on Blaine’s cheeks, and licked his lips at the thought of possibly ever being the cause.

“You should!” Kurt sang, laughing and keeping his back turned to the screen, which Blaine was thankful for. Kurt, however, remained oblivious as he had started humming, hands gracefully moving over the hangers. There was no reason for him to feel bad. All the thoughts that crept into his head, the thoughts that made him want to cry at night, the thoughts that made him turn to Blaine; they were gone. And all it took was a few weeks without seeing the football team. He had all the reason in the world to start humming.

“Found them!” Kurt held up a pair of white, and what seemed to be unbelievably tight, jeans with such a large smile on his face that it made Blaine laugh. Rolling his eyes, Kurt set them down on his bed and grabbed his white doc martens and nodded at the outfit. He turned to Blaine though, and smirked as he raised an eyebrow, “And what are you laughing at?”

Sitting down on his bed, making sure to cross over to the side without his impeccable outfit, Kurt set his laptop down on his lap. In front of him, Blaine could only shake his head; the movement stalled a bit by the camera, but soon picked up again. “I was laughing at you, but in a good way,” Blaine said, the smile on his lips as he finally looked at Kurt breathtakingly contagious.

Ever since Kurt had come to terms with his feelings, he’d found himself noticing things about Blaine he never had before. The way he laughed, the way he smiled and what they meant. He knew the one that said ‘sorry,’ he knew the one that said ‘you’re really funny and I’m genuinely happy right now,’ and he knew the one that said, most importantly, ‘I’m flirting with you.’ And that was the smile he was staring at.

He blushed before shrugging and glanced at his outfit simply because he needed somewhere to keep his eyes on that wasn’t Blaine’s face. Clearing his throat, Kurt smiled and turned to Blaine finally, before saying, “I wish you could meet Mercedes and Rachel, you’d really like them.”

A look of confusion passed through Blaine’s face, and he leaned closer as he asked, “But I thought you hated Rachel?”

Kurt could only chuckle, shaking his head lightly. “I used to. I mean, she still annoys me and I still think she’s crazy, but we’ve warmed up to each other. And I guess I just wish you could meet all my friends, even Finn. It would be nice.”

“Yeah,” Blaine’s voice was low, and the smile on his face appeared to be vaguely artificial. His eyes didn’t meet Kurt’s, and all he could do was sit there and stare at him from across the world and wonder what was going on in his curl covered head. “I really wish I could too.”

The comment is silent, and Kurt could only nod, afraid he had said something he shouldn’t. There were topics they could touch and there are topics they couldn’t. Although both of them had made it clear that they could say anything to each other, the ice beneath their feet was sometimes still too thin.

There was a soft beeping noise, and Kurt watched as Blaine leaned over to his right. There was a phone in his hands, and for a moment Kurt stared in disbelief because he just realized he’d never really seen Blaine on his phone. Ever. Part of him had imagined that Blaine simply didn’t have one because it wasn’t like they could text each other. Kurt had already looked into the rates and begged his father for international texting; no luck.

But he watched as Blaine read the text, waiting for him to say something back only to find him staring at it.

Laughing, Blaine eyes locked onto Kurt’s for the first time tonight before he smiled. “Apparently I’m going out tonight.”

Kurt raised an eyebrow before cocking his head. There was a slight smile that crawled onto his lips as he asked, “Oh?”

“Yeah, the fencing team wants to grab some dinner to celebrate our win last week.” Blaine didn’t look up though; his face glued to his phone as he texted them back. Kurt tried to not feel strange at the pang in his stomach as he saw a real smile spread across Blaine’s lips. He tried to tell himself he was happy that Blaine had plans. It seemed like Blaine never really hung out a lot.

Looking up though, Blaine sighed, “Great, I have to get ready now. Kurt, I’m gonna turn off my cam, but we can still talk on Skype. Is that okay?”

He blinked, but Kurt nodded instantly. There was no reason for him to feel weird about this. There was no reason that he should want to say no and tell Blaine he wanted him to stay on cam. There was no good reason for him to explain that all he wanted to do was be around Blaine. Because Blaine had every right to go out with his friends. Kurt was going out with his friends tomorrow, anyway. Maybe it was the fact that they were all boys and that they were all able to be with Blaine in a way Kurt could only dream of, but Kurt threw away his worries and gave Blaine a real, wide smile.

“It’s fine.”
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He forgot how sometimes he hated crowds. Not people, just crowds. He didn’t like the shoulders brushing past his, he didn’t like the way people stepped too close to him. Kurt hated the way images of strong hands pushing him against lockers would flash across his mind when he accidentally bumped into someone. He forgot how much he hated North Hills Mall’s food court at noon.

Finally sitting down, Kurt groaned and at the two girls sitting across from him. “Remind me why we’re eating here and didn’t find some nice little restaurant in the mall to go to instead?”

“Because they’re all over ten dollars a plate?” Mercedes answered, shrugging as she picked up her pizza and took a bite.

Sighing, Kurt took a bit of his salad with his fork and ate, all the while trying to think about the new outfits he could make with his new boots, which he had found on sale at Macy’s. It was strange though, the way that no matter how many times Mercedes and Rachel made him laugh, no matter how many deals he found, the fact that he hadn’t spoken to Blaine directly in almost a whole day was eating him up inside. He had woken up to a message on Tumblr telling him he was sorry that he had come home so late and that he hoped Kurt had a good time shopping, adding a little something about not spending too much at the bottom.He didn’t want to feel like he needed Blaine, although he did miss him.

It was just strange. Kurt, who so often prided himself on not clinging to people, was feeling like he was being avoided. Blaine hadn’t met his eyes yesterday, and that one smile, the obviously fake one, chilled him to the bone. But Kurt shook his head, and allotted all of his paranoia to the fact that he knew what the feeling in his stomach was every time Blaine gave him a real smile was. He allotted it to the fact that he was in love.

He sighed again, taking a bite and continuing with his reverie, while across the table, the two girls exchanged a look.

Putting her drink down, Mercedes stared at Kurt. “Okay, that’s enough. What is it? You’ve been sighing to yourself all day, and the last time I’ve heard someone sigh that much was Rachel when Finn was dating Quinn.”

Next to her, Rachel frowned, but nodded as he turned to look at Kurt. Raising her hand as to show she was ignoring Mercedes comment, she added, “I resent that, but I agree. You’ve been strange. What is it?”

It was Kurt’s turn to frown then. How was it that he had walked through the halls of his school trying not to cry for weeks and his best friends had said nothing, but now, that he felt relatively normal and was simply suffering from what he had just self-diagnosed as ‘paranoid but smitten teen syndrome,’ they noticed something was wrong? Shaking his head, he took a bite of his salad and said, “There’s nothing wrong. I’m just tired, that’s all.”

“Kurt.” Rachel cooed, but he held up a finger to hush her as he reached for his phone. Tracking Blaine’s Tumblr from his phone was easy, and with one quick tap, the page reloaded, but no new posts showed up. Sighing again, he put his phone back in his bag and blinked to find them both giving him a suspicious look.

“I told you, it’s nothing!”

But he could tell they weren’t buying it. Dropping his head, he went back to his salad, and the table went back to normal for a few minutes as they continued to eat. It was Mercedes who broke the silence by leaning in and whispering, “Is this about Blaine?”

It was as if the large cafeteria went quiet at the drop of his name. Kurt glanced around, but everyone seemed to be normal. Nothing had changed, although the Blaine he had in his head became a little more real each time he talked about him with someone else. As if the mention of his name made the distance shorter. Chewing on his cheek in annoyance, Kurt shook his head, “No. No it isn’t Blaine.”

But he could tell Mercedes didn’t believe him. Still, she knew him well enough to not continue. It was Rachel who spoke up this time, pointing her crepe-covered fork towards him accusingly.“What are you guys, anyway? I mean, you’re always talking about him. And you have his post card in your locker and the last time we hung out you were wearing that scarf he gave you…but, what are you two?”

“Yeah, you know I was wondering the same thing…” Mercedes’s said. Kurt could hardly hear her over the hazy, confused thoughts that screamed inside his head.

It was a simple question, one that he should have answered quickly. One that he should have said instantly. Best friends. That’s what they were. Best friends. It was what Kurt thought of Blaine as, it was what Kurt had always referred to him in his head as. Only since Christmas, since before he had even touched the beautiful scarf Blaine had gotten him as a present, Kurt had been sure of his feelings for Blaine. The feelings that had been so painfully elusive finally showed themselves. And despite the fact that now he blushed harder and worried more about how he looked when he spoke to Blaine, nothing had changed.

He loved Blaine. He loved Blaine more than he had ever loved Finn. He loved Blaine and yet Blaine hadn’t spoken to him in almost a day. He loved Blaine and yet he had no idea what he meant to Blaine, had no idea what was going through Blaine’s mind when he flirted with him. Things were a little harder to read from a distance.

However, up until that moment in a crowded mall cafeteria, Kurt hadn’t worried about what they were. And suddenly it became another thought to add to his growing worries.
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Blaine yawned, and Kurt couldn’t help but shake his head affectionately at the screen. Resting his head on his palm, Kurt smiled and said, “You should sleep.”

He awaited the little grumble. The little signs of annoyance because he didn’t want to go. The way he leaned in and told Kurt to stop telling him what to do, adding a little wink as he back up. Kurt watched the screen as Blaine nodded tiredly and sighed, mumbling, “I will in a few.” That wasn’t what he was supposed to do. That wasn’t what Blaine did.

Clearing his throat, Kurt raised an eyebrow and murmured, although sounding somewhat irritated, “So, I’m guessing you had a lot of fun last night? I was already in bed by the time you got home, which means it was nearly three…”

“Kurt,” Blaine said, and Kurt frowned at the slight annoyance in his voice. Or whatever it was, because it certainly wasn’t something he had heard before. “You always go to sleep early. I came in late, but you go to sleep early, so it means I didn’t come in as late as you think I did.” There was a slight raise in one of Blaine’s eyebrows, and Kurt tried not to take that personally as a sign of challenge.

Sighing, he nodded, “Well, I was just wondering.” Picking up a pencil, Kurt began to sketch a design for an outfit he would never wear as he added, “I was just asking because you asked me how my shopping date with Rachel and Mercedes’s went, Blaine. I just want to know if you had fun. Excuse me for wanting to know about your personal life.” It came out a lot harsher than it was meant to.

The webcam froze for a second and Kurt frowns as he looked at Blaine’s distant and guarded face. Where had the puppy-like teenager he had known gone? Where was the one who was so eager to talk to him? Why had he been replaced with someone who sometimes seemed annoyed with him? Why was it that discovering your feelings for someone made everything more difficult when it should have been the opposite?

“You know about my personal life, Kurt,” Blaine said, his voice soft as the camera comes to focus. His eyes looked down, and Kurt noticed the way he played with his headphones, somewhat nervously. “You know everything about me, pretty much. I just…you wouldn’t…” His voice trails off, and Kurt bites down on his lips as he feels the Blaine in his mind, the tangible thing, start to dim. He doesn’t notice the way something clicks on Blaine’s face and how he looks pained and guilty for a moment. “It was fine. I did have a lot of fun.”

Kurt tried to fight past the demon in his chest telling him something was wrong. He tried to fight past the buzzing noise in his head that told him that Blaine was being distant and avoiding him. He smiled instead and rolled his eyes without any harsh meaning, “See? Why didn’t you just say that? Problem fixed. I’m glad you had fun.”

Blaine smiled, and Kurt relaxed. One show of reassurance from Blaine and everything was alright. Kurt wanted to slap himself for turning into a smitten teenager, but when he remembered the boy he liked, he knew it was worth it. He knew that Blaine was different than anyone he had ever met.

Grabbing a pen and starting to outline his sketch, crosshatching for shading, Kurt smiled as he glanced up. “So, I was thinking…”

“Yes?” Blaine said, almost on cue, with a smile on his face.

“We should do what we did last week. Remember? One of us picks a movie we both have or can find online and hit play at the same time after its done loading and watch it together. That was really fun last time. How does tomorrow night sound?”

Kurt straightened, putting the pen down as he finished the sketch. Looking at Blaine, he cocked his head at the way Blaine glanced at the bottom of his screen. He noticed Blaine’s phone, visible in the darkness of his room, glowed just as he spoke and the way Blaine bit down on his lip but didn’t reach for it. However, his eyes looked up and he answered, his voice hesitant, “I have a date tomorrow, actually.”

His heart stopped. Kurt swallowed hard and his eyes went huge, and he blessed the stupid orange coloring that didn’t compliment him at all in his webcam for hiding the fact that all the color in his face drained. His voice was hoarse as he croaked out, “Date?”

“Yeah,” Blaine said, almost too quickly for Kurt’s liking. It went silent, as Kurt stared at Blaine, who wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Dean, this guy who does …p�e in fencing. Apparently he broke up with his boyfriend a month ago. Anyway, well, he asked me out on a date and I didn’t want to seem rude.”

“Oh.”

Blaine’s voice had been quiet, but Kurt’s had been loud. Loud and to the point. The one syllable dropped and rippled, hitting both of them. His heart had gone from racing to back to normal, but every beat felt like drum, rattling his chest and exploding until it was difficult to breathe.

“So how about we do it the day after tomorrow, yeah?” Blaine’s sounded sad, but Kurt imagined it differently. In his head, Blaine sounded somewhat reassuring, in the way parents did whenever they told their child after promising them something that they would get it tomorrow instead of today. It was condescending, and Kurt told himself it was in his head. His Blaine would never do that. He told himself it was just a date. He tried not to feel like shit.

With a quick nod, Kurt smiled curtly. “Yeah. Yeah. The day after tomorrow is great.”

But it didn’t stop him from sitting there, hours after Blaine had gone to sleep and thinking about what Blaine had said. It was like a slap to his face. After weeks of writing letters, after a few presents sent, after hours upon hours of Skype conversations and flirting, Blaine was going out on a date? It didn’t make sense. His finger went over the cursor as he scrolled through his dashboard, and Kurt shook his head. He was in idiot for thinking so much into this. He wanted reassurance, but if it meant losing Blaine by telling him his feelings, Kurt wouldn’t risk it.

Rachel Berry’s words hung in his mind. Taunting him, jabbing at him, whispering into his ear as he attempted to fall asleep without images of his Blaine laughing at someone else’s jokes popping into his head. What were they? And was the feeling of jealousy in the pit of his stomach even warranted? Or had Kurt fallen in love with the Blaine that seemed so real in his mind and forgotten about the Blaine that was real, the one across an ocean.