He was a real life Ken Doll. Seriously.

Only more chipper.

I'm not kidding. He even had the glossy helmet of set, dusty blonde, wavy hair that looked as if it couldn't be chipped with a chisel. My hair is neat, but his was immaculate.

He was William 'call me Will' Schuester. Late thirties, sporting some textbook smart-yet-casual wear. He was the most overly cheerful man I've ever encountered. He couldn't trick me though. I know what it's like to hide. There was a set to his jaw and a faintness to his eyes that told me all was not well in the life of Will. Lucky for him, I wasn't exactly interested in the private life of my course advisor, so I was more than happy to play along.

"I can tell you're going to love it here."

I smiled, "Yeah, I really hope so."

"No, I can just tell. I'm sure."

Well, if you insist.

I was just smiling and nodding. We must have looked like a pair of deranged used car salesmen.

"So," he rifled some documents on his desk, "I'm going to double as your first year advisor too. If you have any problems at all, big or small, you come to me. My number's in your welcome packet and I'm on campus just about every day."

He was good. On campus every day? Trouble at home maybe? If that was the case, he didn't even flinch. Maybe I liked this guy.

"Great." I chirped.

Technically I wasn't a first year, having transferred from another institution, but technicalities had no place in my mind at this point. I was a new student, in a new school, in a new town, in a new state. As little as I liked to admit it, I really needed someone to hold my hand. If Will was offering his, then I'd take it for as long as required.

I briefly wondered if it felt as plastic as he looked…

He handed me a map and directed me to my dorm. As far as I knew there were four different living quarters at Albarn, but I would be staying in Grayson House, which he circled in red.

"It shouldn't be too hard to find, but if you have any trouble I'm sure anyone will be able to direct you. Once you get there you have to find the house supervisor. Her name's Rachel; she's the first door to the left on the bottom floor. She'll show you around and get you settled. Just… take her with a grain of salt. She's a little bit… um… fervent, I guess. Sweet girl, but a bit in your face."

"Thanks for the advice."

"My pleasure. Remember, classes start on Monday. Try get some rest before then."

I nodded, "I'll try. Thanks for the help."

"It's what I'm here for." He winked. He actually winked.

I dashed out of the room and hurried outside. Resting was the last thing I wanted to be doing. There was so much to discover in this new world I'd somehow landed in. I looked up from my map and gasped.

I wasn't in Ohio anymore.

The late autumn air was just that little bit too cold for a t-shirt, but it wasn't my bare arms that caused me to break out in goose bumps. Albarn was truly beautiful. All of the buildings were painted white with lovely green shutters flung open on the windows. It was like something out of a colonial picture book.

The commons were a vast stretch of grass, broken up here and there by brown gravel paths like veins. Various varieties of oak and maple were coloured orange and red, poplars towering proudly over them. In the distance I could even see a curiously neat row of apple trees, still laden with late season fruit. The air smelt beautiful. Clean and fragrant. I felt like I was inhaling the green of the grass and the moss of the shingles.

I walked towards Grayson in a sort of blissed out haze. I was experiencing everything with the volume turned up and it was overwhelming in a pleasant kind of way. So much had changed in my life in such a short space of time that I hadn't quite figured out how to cope. I don't think I'd actually thought it would be necessary to cope. I assumed I'd just slowly adapt to my change in scenery as opposed to this sudden, unexpected immersion.

Grayson was the same white and green, sunny early jonquils smiling up at me from the garden beds surrounding it. This was infinitely more lovely than I'd expected. My dorm back in Ohio was... well, let's just say it was squalid. I'd been under the impression that that was just the norm as far as student accommodation went. You know, the bare minimum. Worn and filthy. These dorms looked worn, but just in a lived in kind of way. Like a place that had been lovingly occupied and tended to when required.

I entered, eyes adjusting to the change in lighting, and sought out the room of this 'Rachel.' I'd barely ceased knocking when the door was wrenched open. I actually felt my head drop with my gaze as I took in the girl in front of me. I'm not tall, but she made me feel like a giraffe. I opened my mouth to greet her, but that's as far as I got.

"Blaine Anderson? I'm Rachel Berry." She flung her hand out at me and I shook it automatically, nodding, "Welcome to Grayson house. I'm the house supervisor and I'll be your first point of contact for any enquiries or problems you may have. Please follow me."

She closed her door and marched past me, chattering non-stop. She was wearing a cable knit sweater and ankle boots, pleated skirt twitching playfully as she bounced up a staircase in front of me.

"That said, I have a suggestion box just outside my door. You can't miss it. If you want me to take any suggestions seriously, please sign them legibly. I don't appreciate anonymous criticisms."

"OK, sure." I stuttered.

We stopped outside a door at the end of a well-lit second floor corridor. "This is your room, the kitchen is downstairs and you have a bathroom on this level. Unfortunately our laundry block is separate from this building, but it's only a short walk. Please, come in."

She opened the door and hustled me through, shoving my key in my hand. My room was plain, that same virginal white, with a single bed and large pine desk and chair. There were a few bookshelves, more than enough for my ostentatious paperbacks, and a lamp that looked at least thirty years old. It was actually quite charming. The large window next to my bed let in a great deal of light and it reeked of an Amish kind of simplicity that for some reason appealed to me.

"What do you think?"

I was slightly shocked that she'd finally asked my opinion on something, "It's… I love it."

She smiled broadly and seemed to relax out of her authoritative persona a little, "I know, aren't they cute? I don't know why anyone chooses to live off campus when we have such nice accommodation here."

"Maybe it's so they don't have to deal with you day and night."

We both turned to face the door. Standing, twirling a basketball was a stocky boy with a Mohawk and a smirk.

Rachel bristled, "Shut up, Noah! What are you even doing here?"

He shrugged, "Scoping out a potential friend."

"Maybe he wants friends who have interests in anything other than sport and beer kegs."

"Yeah, and maybe he wants friends who haven't got their broomsticks shoved up their asses."

Rachel's mouth fell open, "Puckerman! Get out!" She strode over to where he was leaning against the door and started trying to push it shut, but their drastic differences in size meant that her effort was futile.

I watched her for a second with an amused look on my face before the boy nodded at me, "Hey, I'm Noah, but if you call me that I'll kick your ass."

I raised an eyebrow, "OK, what do I call you then?"

"Just Puck." He threw the ball at me and I caught it.

"You board here too?"

"Yeah, I'm just down the hall. Poster of Gene Simmons on my door. Can't miss it."

I threw the ball back just as Rachel gave up on her fruitless mission, "Ugh, I hate you."

"Hate you too midget." He said it with no malice and a smile on his face. I figured, as much as these two appeared to rub each other the wrong way, they probably actually got along. He looked at me again, "Hey, I didn't catch your name man."

"Oh, sorry. I'm Blaine." I waved vaguely.

"Awesome." He gestured the bare room, "You got much stuff to move? Need a hand?"

"That'd be great." I beamed.

I was already on good terms with a sarcastic jock and a tiny brunette whose ability to talk non-stop was a force of nature. Pretty good start.

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Puck left me with an invitation to join him and his friends in the canteen block for dinner around seven and I spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking my few belongings and making my room feel more familiar.

I opened the window wide, surprised by how silent everything was. There was a slow trickle of students returning for the new semester, but otherwise the campus was pretty empty. I was glad that I'd already forged a couple of tentative friendships. As introspective as I know I am, I never want to come across that way. Every now and then I crave solitude to the point where I'll remove myself from social situations for days on end, but right now that was far from my agenda.

Even so, once getting things in a vague sort of order I lay down on my bed, suddenly feeling my lethargy catch up to my urge to explore. I closed my eyes momentarily and woke up to a near dark room, shivering a little at the breeze that was stirring my open curtains.

My watch told me it was a quarter to seven and I rushed to change my shirt and vaguely order my hair, grabbing the map and pausing to wash my mouth out before hurrying to find the canteen.

It was pretty hard to miss. A glowing glass fishbowl in the falling dark. There were only a few tables of people there and I approached Puck where he sat with four other boys. Two blondes, one thickset, one wiry, an attractive Asian boy and a brunette with a distinctive nose. Puck smiled when he spotted me.

"Hey man, take a seat." He started pointing to the boys one by one, "This is Sam, Jeff, Mike and Nick. They live over in Hoskins House across campus."

I waved to all of them, "Hey, I'm Blaine."

Sam took my hand, "First year?"

"Kind of. I'm a transfer from Ohio."

Jeff piped up, "Seriously? Nick and I are from Ohio too."

"There's tonnes of us here man." Nick nodded.

"Just as desperate to get away from there as me?" I asked.

Jeff shrugged, "Nah, just kind of floated over to Vermont by accident."

Mike laughed, "And by that he means that Albarn was the only place willing to take him."

Jeff punched him in the arm and Mike threw his spoon at him.

"Don't mind them. They aren't too bright." Nick said and a fork flew across the table, hitting him in the neck, "Hey! Try not to kill me, right?"

I wasn't sure how to react to the mayhem in front of me so I just smiled until they settled down.

"So, what are you studying dude?" Sam asked.

"Twentieth Century Literature."

"Seriously?" Jeff wrinkled his nose, "Isn't that kind of, like… boring?"

I shrugged, "It's what I'm interested in."

"Each to their own."

I nodded, "What do you guys do?"

"I'm doing teaching. Secondary education mostly." Puck said, "Mike does dance, like that's a real degree anyway," Mike rolled his eyes at me, "Nick does social sciences, don't ask me what that means, 'cause I don't think he even knows, and Jeff and Sam do music."

"Basically, we're bludgers." Sam grinned.

Nick cut in, "They're bludgers. I study Political Economy."

"What's the Music course like here?" I asked. I'd missed Glee club the past year and I didn't play my guitar nearly as much as I should. Maybe I'd pick up a music class as an elective.

"Yeah, It's pretty good I guess. It's less intensive than a straight up music school, so it's kind of sweet. It's mainly an excuse to jam with a bit of theory on the side."

"Actually it's a lot of theory." Jeff added, "Way too much theory. D'you play anything?"

"Yeah, I brought my guitar with me from home, but I haven't picked it up for a while."

Jeff slammed his fist on the table, "Dude, you should totally come jam with us some time! I play bass and Sam and Puck play guitar, not to mention our kick ass voices. Oh, and there's this total dumbass called Finn who plays drums with us sometimes."

"I'd love to." I smiled.

I really did want to. I hadn't even given a second thought to taking music up again in coming to Albarn, but once the opportunity was there, I wasn't about to pass it up. We exchanged numbers and pencilled in a vague time to get together in second week.

The five boys I'd somehow landed with weren't like any company I'd ever kept before, but they were friendly and harmless and just seemed to be out to have a good time. At the end of the night, just before Puck and I went to our separate rooms he invited me to a party at a fraternity just a little way off campus the next Friday night.

"It's being thrown by a bunch of guys who Jeff and Sam study with. Should be fun. We're all pitching in for a keg."

It had been a while since I'd been to a party, and I was feeling in the mood to let loose, "Yeah, definitely. I'll be there."

"Awesome." He punched my arm in a friendly manner and we parted ways.

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On Sunday I woke up with that odd feeling of not knowing where you are. I blearily blinked at my ceiling a few times in only mild panic, before remembering I was at Albarn. I peered out the window to another unseasonably gorgeous day, pretty psyched in the knowledge that all of my classes were in order and I could just use the opportunity to roam the campus and get acquainted.

I took my battered copy of Steven King's The Shining, a sort of trashy comfort book of mine, and strolled across the commons looking for a nice tree to sit against and read for a while. I found one a short way from a path and my unfocused reading quickly became shameless people watching.

There were noticeably more students present today, obviously moving back into their dorms and getting their curriculum in order. Even if I hadn't been aware I was in an arts college, the high percentage of black clothes, cigarettes and acoustic guitars would have quickly alerted me to it.

People mostly travelled in groups, books wedged under their arms as they laughed. A bunch of skivvy and thick-rimmed glasses wearing Philosophy students sat in a circle a few metres away. I could tell because I overheard the names Kant and Heidegger at least a dozen times in the space of five minutes.

It was an infinitely different vibe from that of my university in Ohio. There everyone crammed and rushed from place to place out of necessity, whereas here people seemed to dawdle aimlessly, chatting about their subjects out of interest. Sure, a whole lot of them struck me as a little pretentious, but I already knew from meeting Puck and his friends that that wasn't the case of everyone. I don't think I'd have been surprised had I seen someone skipping and singing.

Just as that odd image crossed my mind I actually did hear singing. A couple of girls voices, half guffawing half delivering what sounded like some kind of traditional song. It was quite unreal and I looked around intently to see if I could spot where it was coming from.

I was surprised when I did locate the source that it in fact wasn't two girls, but a girl and a boy. The girl had a sweet blonde bob and a face that was pretty as the sun. She wore a blue sundress and red pumps that stood out in the sincere art student atmosphere, and her arm was linked with that of a gorgeous chestnut haired boy.

He too stood out, but that may have just been to me. He had on a blue pea coat and skinny grey jeans, a black shawl scarf looped around his neck. I couldn't see the colour of his eyes from this distance, but they appeared bright, and his smiling lips were just as red as the girls. Basically he was dazzling. I'm sure I've seen more attractive men, but I was immediately drawn to him for some reason. I watched them until they were out of sight, hoping that I'd spot them again soon.

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I started my classes on Monday, enjoying them well enough. My Late Twentieth Century class assigned us a Kazuo Ishiguro novel which I already knew well and it even turned out that I had Will Schuester for my Masters of Style Class.

It wasn't until Wednesday, when I'd settled myself at the back of my Satire lecture, that I spotted the same chestnut head of hair from the commons, sitting near the front of the class. He wasn't with the blonde girl this time, but was flanked by a dark boy with some of the loveliest skin I'd ever seen, and a Latino girl with legs that even I was impressed by. I didn't even notice that I was craning forwards in my seat until a few people tried to get past me.

The boy was just as stunning as I recalled, but his eyes seemed duller today. It may have just been the artificial light, but it was noticeable.

Throughout the course of the lecture, in which I failed to take many notes and learnt much less about Austen and Dryden than I'm sure my lecturer would have liked, I did learn the boy's name. He was Kurt, and somewhat less important to me, but filed away in my memory nonetheless, his friends were David and Santana. She was obviously a class clown who hadn't managed to shake the habit even though she'd left high school. Full of barbs and wit whenever the professor asked a question that allowed it. David was more reserved and obviously well read, raising his hand many times. Kurt only spoke once, when the professor addressed him, but he was eloquent and he had the most interesting voice. High and singsong, level and smooth.

I honestly couldn't explain why I was so taken by him, and at this point I think it was just a shallow attraction. A nice body and a pretty face. And it was. David was handsome, Santana was sexy, but Kurt was most definitely pretty. I mean, there was unquestionably some kind of sensuousness there, in the tight jeans and the combed back hair, but his face was radiant like a china doll.

I don't want to make it seem like I thought of him constantly or obsessed over this boy I'd never even spoken to. I still hung out with Puck and the guys and paid attention to my studies, but from time to time he would pass across the front of my brain and I'd smile. He was probably straight anyway. That glowing blonde girl he walked with the first time I saw him was most likely his girlfriend.

He did make me smile though. Unfailingly. I think that's why I couldn't quite shake him. That's why I wanted to know more.

The same Wednesday as the Satire class in which I'd learnt his name, I was climbing up to my room after a quick chat with Rachel. I could hear voices in the my corridor and turned the corner, freezing immediately.

There Kurt stood outside the room of a tall, striking, strawberry blonde boy who was leaning against the doorjamb. The blonde was gazing down at him, and as I watched he put his hand on his cheek and bent down, kissing Kurt on the mouth.

I gasped quietly and ducked back around the corner, my mind falling onto two very specific facts.

Oh, so Kurt was gay.

Shit, he's kissing someone.

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TBC