Kurt didn’t dislike Blaine Anderson.
He almost hated him.
It happens that they’ve been sharing biology classes for a short time, since Blaine transferred from Dalton to McKinley High. Kurt was wondering why, why would he give up a civilized place full of rich, polite boys to be in some kind of ghetto, where you have to strive for popularity if you don’t want to have some cold slushee showers everyday after the jocks’ football training.
It wasn’t the fact that Blaine was messy, noisy and basically a dork, but that he was so arrogant and full of prejudices. He wasn’t a bully, thank you very much; actually that was the problem – he didn’t care. He didn’t care at all about anything, nor about nerds, nor geeks, nor non-straight students. He wasn’t even in the bad guys’ gang. He wasn’t wearing black clothes and he didn’t seem to have any bruises on his face so he wasn’t in the Fight Club either. He was only a strange, curly-haired boy. And he definitely wasn’t handsome. Not at all. Kurt couldn’t feel any shivers on his spine when Blaine was looking at him with those big, hazel eyes, with long, seductive eyelashes… Of course not. Nor when his muscles were contracting so hard under the stupid amount of sweat, during the P.E. classes.
But Kurt tried.
He really tried to befriend Blaine when he first met him. But things didn’t work out as expected.
“I’m Kurt Hummel, and you must be…?”
“I didn’t ask for your name so why should you know mine?” Blaine asked harshly, sipping of his Coke. “You’re clearly full of rainbows and fluffy cute things, aren’t you?”
It didn’t take long for Kurt to realize that Blaine knew he was gay. Of course he knew – what straight guy would have such a pitchy voice, such a nice temper and such a fabulous taste in fashion?
Things got worse some days after Kurt had introduced to Blaine, when Burt came home one evening with a friend from work. His name was Alan. Alan Anderson.
“So do you know my boy? Blaine?” he asked Kurt during dinner.
Kurt choked on his juice and took him half a minute to recover his breath.
“Yes, I do. We share a course at school and I had the chance to meet him one of the other days.”
Alan smiled as he tasted the steak Kurt had prepared before his dad came home. He was a great cook, or at least he was a better one than his father.
“Interesting,” Alan went on. “What do you think of him?”
“He’s… err—he’s complicated, I guess. We didn’t talk too much,” Kurt answered staring at his piece of steak.
Kurt saw Alan looking concerned at Burt, frowning as he was chewing the meal. Burt cleared his throat, put his fork and knife on a napkin and looked carefully at Kurt.
“We… we’d like to talk to you about something a bit delicate.”
The little piece of potato Kurt had just swallowed seemed to stick in his throat.
“Go on, what is it about?”
“My son,” Alan said, his eyes getting teary. “I’ve been friends with your dad for a long time, a time when I had thought I’d had Blaine under control. But now that he has transferred, now it’s when I see his true behaviour. It’s too much sometimes, we don’t even speak to each other anymore. Is he that arrogant at school, too?”
“Yeah, kind of,” Kurt admitted, looking concerned. “But why is it my business?”
“He’s gay.”
Alan’s words seemed to affect Kurt only after Kurt himself had repeated them twice in his mind. “He’s gay. He’s gay.” What? How? Arrogant, filthy Blaine Anderson, being a total bitch just because he was gay?
Kurt sighed. He remembered how proud he had been after he had helped Santana come out. He had been so proud that he even told his father about his methods. “Dad,” he’d said, “I’m so going to write a Kurt’s Guide to Coming Out in 10 steps!”
Now he wished he hadn’t been so noisy about that.
“So?” Alan insisted. “Could you please help me?”
“What? Make your son less rude? Less arrogant? Less gay so he can stop being an asshole? Or--”
“Kurt!” Burt barked at him. “Now you’re being the rude one.” And then, his harsh voice got into a begging one. “Please. He’s my friend’s son. He’s going through the same pain you had been going two years ago. Remember?”
Of course Kurt remembered. The jokes. The insults. Spending hours locked in the janitor’s room because some stupid bullies decided to try the school’s new set of keys. Being slushied every. Single. Day. There are things you can’t just forget. And the thought that someone could go through the same things as he had—
“Fine. I’ll do it. But if he doesn’t seem to cooperate, then I won’t go any further.”
Alan left the Hummels’ with a much brighter face, while Kurt went to sleep with the hope that Blaine would finally accept his friendship and stop being a pet, rude, extremely attractive boy.
But of course it wasn’t as easy as Kurt had thought.
“Why would you help me with my biology project?” Blaine asked him while he was eating some Nutella from a big jar.
“Just because I know Mr. Johnson is very severe when it comes for individual projects. I’ve been his student since freshman year,” Kurt answered and sat down next to him in the cafeteria.
“Oh,” Blaine raised his eyebrows and bit his lips. He frowned at Kurt and thought for a couple of minutes, while going on eating from his jar. “Fine, you can help me. But we’re not friends. And I don’t like you, Hummel.”
“Good, because I don’t like you either,” Kurt smiled at him as sincerely as he could.
But he wasn’t sure anymore whether he hated Blaine or not. He felt bad for him. There aren’t a lot of people who act like Kurt when they find out they’re gay. Some of them live in suffer and sadness for the rest of their lives, not being able to come out. Kurt had to make sure Blaine wouldn’t be one of them.
“Come at my house tonight,” Kurt said and stood up. “My parents and brothr will be there too, but we won’t be disturbed. We’ll work in my room.”
He heard Blaine muttering while standing up too.
“Fine. Just give me the address and I’ll be there at 6. And promise me we won’t be suffocated by plush stuff and gay rights posters.”
“I promise. And you promise me you won’t bring your rudeness tonight.”
Blaine hesitated.
“Promise.”