From the eyes of someone who was used to being preyed upon, it was most likely a bad thing. A larger dumpster, since there was no need for more than one. Smaller lockers, and—even worse—janitors’ closets, where it was hard to breathe. Fewer staff (even though appealing to them was a waste of time).

The optimism that Kurt had felt leaving Westerville had been sapped from him the previous day, when he and his father had gone on their first grocery run the night before Kurt’s first day. After a particularly nasty greeting from a man who they’d bumped into, they had found that Lima was even less tolerant of Kurt’s ‘choices’ than Westerville had been. At least there, people were civil around Burt’s son because he was the only affordable mechanic the town had to offer, and he’d been known to turn down big business for the sake of his only kid.

But in Lima, they were nobodies. So, to the mass of people that decided they wanted to be cruel to people that didn’t fit the bill, they were definitely somebodies. And it didn’t help that everything about Kurt, from his elfin features, to his hair, all the way down to his shoes, practically screamed gay.

So, since Kurt didn’t look or sound the way a seventeen-year-old should, a young woman around his age had decided to drop a jar of Ragu sauce on his Italian leather shoes. And the cashier had been deliberately slow with Burt’s credit card. And the guy that was parked beside them had dented the passenger side door just enough that it wouldn’t open without a good pull that had left Kurt with a bruise on his shins when it smacked him there.

When they had returned home, Kurt had insisted on looking after his own legs, since he hadn’t wanted his father to become suspicious about the half-dozen yellowing marks that accompanied the two fresh ones. He wouldn’t put it past his father to go storming back to the principal’s office and demand that something be done. He’d sighed and trumped up the new, wooden stairs, trying to get acquainted with this action.

At least the house was larger, newer, and in a relatively nice neighbourhood. The attached shop was more than enough space for his father to work in. The neighbours were nice-looking people, even though they had initially shied away from the people taking over the garage. It hadn’t been used in years, but apparently the last people to use it weren’t exactly... mindful of the fact that some people liked to sleep at night. But after talking to the two new patrons, they became the only people that seemed to be Lima’s redeeming qualities for a while.

So while Kurt was at school, Burt was setting up shop. He had insisted that he could stay and help, lest anything happen to his dad(‘s heart), but his father all but pushed him out the door and into his car. The neighbours had agreed to check in from time to time, and it was a new week, which meant that Kurt could scope out the school for a full week before deciding if he wanted to find another place to go. He wasn’t a stupid man, and knew that Kurt had been having problems at Jefferson, even if he wasn’t aware of the extent of what was inflicted upon his son.

So Kurt climbed out of the safety of his car, ignoring the blatant stares and glares directed his way, making his way inside the building that was barely larger than the houses on his small street put together.

The inside of the school smelled like old socks, pencil lead, stale sweat, and... fruit juice. So he was in a school that was not only potentially more dangerous and uninviting than his old one, but dirtier, too. Wonderful, he thought. Being pushed to the ground will be great.

The main office was easy enough to find, and he walked in alone, the receptionist pointing him to a balding, south Asian man in a horrible brown suit behind a desk.

“Kurt Hummel, sir,” Kurt said, standing in front of the polished, obviously fake wood desk.

“Ah yes,” the man—Principal Figgins, the nameplate said—said in a heavy accent. “Kurt Hummel, please have a seat.” Kurt sat on the worn leather chair directly across from the Principal, pulling a manila envelope from his satchel. He put them on the desk and slid them towards Principal Figgins’ hand.

“These are the transcripts and files that you wanted,” he said, crossing his ankles. The older man opened them and looked through them briefly. He hummed his approval.

“Okay, Mr Hummel. I’ll contact you if I find a problem, but these seem to be in order. Here,” he said, passing Kurt a folder emblazoned with what seemed to be the school logo, and “GO TITANS!” printed along the back, “is your schedule, electives sheet, student planner, and student conduct code. Return the electives to me by your lunch period, and I should be able to put you into any of the classes you wanted. Any questions?” he asked, leaning forward. “Any concerns?” Kurt hesitated, then shook his head, offering him a smile and a “Have a good day,” before he left the office.

The hallways were full by the time he left. Consulting his schedule, he found that his locker was right next to his first class—English with someone called Mr Monroe.

Knowing from experience that it was never a good idea to leave this kind of information out in the open, he licked his finger and rubbed it over his locker combination, effectively blurring it out enough so that the numbers were illegible. He turned the tumbler and opened the tiny metal door (he had been right about the tiny lockers—they were only half per student and would be hell to be inside of) and found that it was mercifully empty—no old lunches or dead animals. He shook his head—he’d been watching too many bad sitcoms.

He didn’t have much with him, since he had yet to receive his textbooks, but he shoved half of his notebooks in to make the locker used—like it was his. He also put up a picture of him and his mother and father, taken on his seventh birthday. The locker would take some getting used to, but it was his and he would learn to love it.

Straightening his jacket, he picked up his bag and stuffed his folder in to join his pens and binders and squared his shoulders. He could do this.
*************

His teacher was late. It made Kurt antsier than it should have, but he wanted to meet this teacher and do what he had come here to do—learn. From his seat in the third row, he could practically hear the clock behind the (absent) teacher’s desk ticking. His breathing sped up, and he clenched his hands on his lap, irrationally angry. He had held it together until now, and for what?—for the stupid teacher to be late on his first day at his new school.
What if he was twenty minutes late and the class got up and left? Where would he go? He hadn’t had time to make friends in the few minutes before class, and he didn’t want to sit in his car. Not only would he look like a loser, but it was a prime spot for his first round as a victim, and he wanted to hold that off for as long as possible.

It had only been about five minutes, but it had felt like an hour to Kurt when the teacher, a tall, young, good looking man walked in and dumped his black leather briefcase—what high school teacher actually had a briefcase?—on his desk, looking out of breath.

“Sorry guys,” he panted, rubbing a hand on his forehead.
“Got held up at Starbucks. Didn’t want to face you guys without my coffee,” he winked, and some girls in the front row giggled. Kurt rolled his eyes and watched the briefcase man and his drink. He took a quick sip of it and sat down at his desk, pulling the role call out from inside his (absurd) briefcase. Kurt zoned out for a few minutes, staring outside of the window he was sitting beside, watching the first period gym class trumping around the field, only a few boys actually running.

“Oh,” said Mr Monroe in vague surprise, after calling off ‘Henderson, Grant’. “I see we have a new student,” his eyes swept the classroom and landed upon Kurt’s frenzied ones. He tried to convey in that one glance that no, I don’t want to be introduced to the entire class, but his urgent message went ignored when this unfairly attractive teacher asked him to stand up. At least I don’t have to go to the front of the class, he thought as he got up and stood with his back to the window, in full view of all of his peers. He felt incredibly vulnerable.

“This,” Mr Monroe said to the entire class, as if Kurt was an animal at the zoo on a school trip, “is Kurt Hummel. He’s joining us from..?”

“Westerville,” Kurt replied, trying and failing to keep both the coldness and fear out of his voice.

“Ah,” Mr Monroe said with interest, oblivious to Kurt’s obvious discomfort. “Lincoln High? I have a nephew that goes there.”

“No, Sir,” Kurt said, his tone harder than before, wanting nothing more than to sit down and hide his head in his arms. “Jefferson.”

Mr Monroe nodded. “Well, I certainly hope that they taught you a little something there,” he said with a smile, and Kurt was finally released from the conversation. He slumped in his seat and waited for the attention of the class to return to the man he was sort of starting to hate. The man in question finished attendance, only one student missing.

“Ok, class!” said Mr Monroe, throwing the attendance sheet onto his desk, “today, we’re going to start something new! Can anyone guess what it might be?”

The class sat, silent and unmoving, until one tiny brunette shot her hand into the air. The teacher looked pleased.

“Yes, miss Berry,” he said, gesturing grandly for her to continue, putting his hands on the desk behind him and leaning on them.

“Well,” the girl said in a pompous manner, “I was hoping that we could do something Shakespearean, something that I- I mean we- can personally relate to, as students in the 21st century, whether it be in the form of art or simply the--

“Okay, Berry,” a boy from the back said, his menacing tone matched by the dark scowl on his face and his general appearance. His entire self, from the buzzed Mohawk perched on top of his head to the scuffed and worn sneakers (that said things that made Kurt wonder why he was allowed to wear them at all) screamed trouble. “We get it. Can you stop talking so I can get back to napping? Your banshee voice is kinda making it hard for me to really picture Jessica Alba in that position where her legs are—“

“Okay, Puck,” the teacher said loudly, seeming unfazed and resigned, like this was a regular thing. Kurt definitely hoped not—he liked English, and if these two were going to go at it every class, he’d never learn anything.

“Please, Rachel,” Mr Monroe continued, smiling kindly at the girl who’d been interrupted, “continue.”

Kurt expected her to keep talking the way she had before, a constant stream of words with no break for breath in between, but instead she crossed her arms across her chest and huffed. “If Noah can’t keep his words to himself and not appreciate my insight, I don’t think I’m willing to share it. Besides, the rest of the class is soon to follow—you’re all mindless sheep!”

Again, Kurt was surprised as he saw that nobody but their teacher had so much as looked up at her words. He covered his mouth with his hand, fighting down the random urge to break out into laughter. His eyes caught those of Mr Monroe, who smiled, evidently pleased that at least somebody was paying attention to what was going on in the class.

“So,” the man said, picking up a hardcover novel and slapping it onto his desk, jarring everyone’s attention, including Noah/Puck, back to the front. “Today, we’ll be starting something a little more unorthodox. The school board decided that apparently, we weren’t drawing the attention of the students where they want it to be.”

“What, really?” somebody in the back trilled. A few of the students tittered. The teacher laughed.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. So, since the school board has wisely cottoned on to the fact that you’re not interested in the workings of a practically medieval form of government, we’re going to be reading,” he picked the novel up off the desk, and Kurt heard the rustle of clothing as a few students straightened up in their seats despite themselves, “Fight Club, by Chuck Palahnuik, which many of you probably know because of the 1999 movie, directed by David Fincher, and—“

“Wait,” Puck interrupted, looking at him in disbelief.
“We’re actually going to read the only book I would actually watch the movie for? Awesome,” he said, leaning back in his chair.

“Yes, Puck. And don’t worry, I’ll be able to tell if you’ve read the book or watched the movie,” Mr Monroe replied, rolling his eyes and placing the book back down on the desk. “So your assignment,” the majority of the class groaned and he grinned, “don’t worry, it’s not difficult. Your assignment has two components to it. The first will be done in pairs,” at his words, the class seemed to come to life, everyone turning around, leaning over desks, and calling across the classroom to find a partner, until.

“I will be picking your partners!” Mr Monroe called loudly, and everyone turned to him, the shock in the air palpable. Apparently, this was not a regular occurrence.

“Yes,” he said, his smile widening in playful sadism. “I will assign you partners, since the last time I let you pick for yourselves, only two pairs got the assignment finished. So—“

Puck interrupted again, “But Blaine’s not here, teach.”

“Well, that hardly matters, Mr Puckerman, since you two will not be working together,” the teacher said. “Ever again,” he added under his breath.

“So. I’m going to put all of your names in a hat, and pick them out two by two. The person your name comes out with will be your partner and I will write it down before I tell you.” He turned suddenly stern, seeming more teacher-like than ever, “If I see you working with someone else, I will immediately give you a zero for this project. Understood?” There was a general murmur of assent, and he cheered once again in a rather boyish manner.

“Alright, then! Let’s get started!”

And so it went. Rachel Berry was paired with a boy named Matthew Rutherford, which seemed to please them both. Kurt wondered if they were dating. Noah/Puck Puckerman was paired with a hulking black boy that was simply called Azimio. Most people were happy with their pairings, except for one girl in the back, who had been put together with a boy who had the worst Jew-fro Kurt had ever seen. It was orange and there seemed to be living organisms inside of it. She tried to complain, but Mr Monroe wouldn’t hear of it.

“Okay, so who do we have next?” he said, mostly to himself, pulling out two more slips of paper from the tacky fedora he had pulled out from his briefcase and un-flattened. Kurt had nearly blanched when he had seen it. Not even he could find something to make that look good. The prospect of his name coming out of there, even in a representative state, was nearly enough for him to pull it away before anyone else got hurt and burn the damn thing.

A small furrow appeared between his teacher’s eyes as he read the two names he had yanked from the hat, and an almost imperceptible sigh fell from his lips. But he wrote them down anyway, and cleared his throat to call out the last two names.

“Blaine Anderson. Kurt Hummel.”
************

Clutching his French binder in his hand tightly, Kurt made his way back past the English classroom towards his locker, scowling slightly. Why did the vast majority of the kids in his favourite class have to be so moronic? There was the much simpler option of Spanish completely available.

He pulled the books he would need for the classes he had after lunch, and his electives sheet out of his locker and stored them safely in his backpack along with his wallet and checked his pocket for his phone before getting up—

And being met with a world of ice, cold and harsh and cruel. For one wild, irrational second he thought that he’d been attacked by the lovechild of Jack Frost and a giant snowman.

And then the stinging started, and on instinct he closed his eyes tightly, then felt like screaming because no, that did not help whatsoever and only made things much, much worse. His eyes felt like they were on fire, burning up quickly and shrivelling to nothing before coming back and being tortured over and over again.

The force with which he’d been hit had left his cheeks stinging and burning almost as bad as his eyes. The delicate skin on his forehead seemed like it would never recover and smarted as whatever-it-was dripped down from his hair down his face and onto his clothes.

He stood there, his eyes closed and shivering for a minute that felt like a million years before he felt a hand on his arm. His first instinct was to jerk it away, but the touch was warm and gentle, and the noise around his seemed to return suddenly at full volume, replacing the previous metallic buzzing.

“Come on, white boy. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Kurt’s feet shuffled down (or up, or across, he didn’t know) the hallway of their own accord, the rest of his still stuck back at his locker where there was probably a puddle of whatever was on his face forming. Unless it was napalm. Oh God, he thought, what if they hit me with napalm. He wasn’t ready to die, not yet. He had yet to get to the big city and show them all. Show them that he was better than them—that he could make it despite their intolerance and stupidity and cruelty. But he couldn’t do that if they’d killed him and good Lord—

His inner hysterical monologue was broken when he felt a warm sensation on his face. It was clean and soft and warm and soothing.

“Open your eyes, new kid.”

And when he did, the world was over bright and blinding for a moment before his stinging eyes settled and became accustomed to the light that was streaming down toward him. He was in a bathroom. The white tiled walls and floor, the green cubicles and multiple sinks with plastic hand soap dispenser would always be the same, no matter what school he went to.

And it was a girls’ bathroom.

Normally, he would have been offended and appalled at the fact that just because he looked a little... elfin (and he was totally gay), he was surrounded by tampon dispensers and the lingering smell of a thousand perfumes with lipstick and mascara marks all over the mirrors. But, as it turned out, it was a girl that was helping him—a dark girl with black hair and brown eyes.

“Ouch, blue eyes. I’m surprised you can see.”

“Does everything look like Candyland?” a second girl demanded. Rachel Berry, from his English class.

He was perplexed. “What?” he asked, his voice sounding strained and slightly nasal.

The girl smiled. “You know, because there’s corn syrup in your eyes?”

Kurt was still confused. He looked at her and raised an eyebrow, the skin on his forehead feeling stiff. He thought with despair that all of his creams had probably wither been washed off by the mysterious juice or wiped from the dark girl’s towel.

Rachel huffed. “Does nobody understand my humour? There’s corn syrup in your eyes from the slushy, which is sweet like candy, and Candyland is made from candy. Do you understand now?” she looked at him expectantly, and he smiled a little. Had he known what was going on, maybe he would have laughed.

“I’m sorry, but what’s a slushy?” Kurt asked, his smile fading.

“Iced juice. The jocks get it from the machine outside the cafeteria and like to throw them at the ‘losers’. Apparently, they’ve decided to welcome you, McKinley style.”

Kurt was horrified. Iced juice in people’s faces? And judging by the familiarity with which the girl talked about them implied that it was a regular occurrence for her to be attacked with one.

“That’s terrible,” he said while the girl continued to pat his face clean. Rachel was digging through her bag and emerged a second later with a stick of stain remover. Kurt glanced down at his clothes and almost began to cry. His white dress shirt was covered in red spots that mirrored the ones probably all over his stomach and chest beneath it. They weren’t bruises, but the icy coldness made him bet that if he put his hand on his stomach, it would be numb.

“Yeah, well, usually it’s not so bad. I think they got you with a lot more than one, though,” she mused. “Maybe three or four.” She took the stain remover from Rachel and started getting at the larget spots on his shirt, but Kurt shook his head.

“It won’t help,” he sighed. “The material requires a lot more preparation and pre-soaking.” The two girls looked at him, frowning sympathetically. Just then, the bell rang for the beginning of third period. Mercedes jumped, and Rachel grabbed her stain stick back and shoved it in her bag.

“We have to go, but we’ll see you around,” the darker girl said, picking up her things and shouldering her backpack, turning to leave. Rachel was already out the door.

“Thank you for all your help,” he said, giving her a smile that she returned. He stuck out his hand. “My name is Kurt Hummel,” he said.

She shook his hand. “Mercedes Jones.” Then she left, and he was all alone again in the girls’ bathroom, cleaning slushy stains out of his pants and hair.

But unless he was mistaken, he had a friend or two now.