Chapter 34

Karofsky’s departure from McKinley was quiet and virtually unnoticed until it was done. The next two days after it had been noted by the student body, it was the topic of mild gossip, sometimes tinged with sneer, other times with pity. But, the same way as they always did, the students of William McKinley High School went on to discuss more thrilling topics, than the ex-football player’s transfer to another school. Kurt and Blaine didn’t touch upon the subject anymore either, wordlessly acknowledging it as a matter of the past.

January continued on at a steady boring pace, with an occasional slushie or a weak insult to break the almost happy monotony.

Kurt spent his days either busy with school work and Glee, or wrapped up in his thoughts which almost exclusively concerned Blaine. He would try and come up with new things to do that his friend would enjoy, planning hangout sessions, or letting his mind wander into the nearly forbidden territory of daydreams. His brain was quite capable of coming up with the most ridiculously cheesy rom-com kind of scenarios of him admitting his feelings and Blaine responding with a similar confession. Those little mental trips in a more or less probable direction often made Kurt feel remorse tugging at the edge of his conscience at still keeping such a thing secret from Blaine; he hadn’t kept anything from Blaine in months. He couldn’t even recall not telling his friend everything there was to tell, ever.

His mind, however, had been already long made up. He wasn’t going to confess, unless Blaine gave him any reason to believe his feelings were reciprocated.

Blaine’s mind was beginning to turn to reconsidering his romantic options, as Valentine’s Day was drawing close, and he had to see all those happy couples ambling the hallways with their hands – if not lips – permanently joined.

The thought that he was probably destined to spend at least a few more Valentine’s Days single, watching silly romantic movies with his best friends, while eating away their loneliness, in connection with being surrounded by couples, caused an idea to start brewing in Blaine’s mind. It was most likely the craziest idea to have ever crossed his thoughts, so he kept it to himself, turning it around in his head for weeks. Every time he visited the mall he’d stop in front of the Gap for a moment, just to try and convince himself his scheme was brilliant.

But he couldn’t tell if it really was, because he was missing one thing – his best friend’s opinion.

He mentioned it to Kurt for the first time when there was still almost three weeks till Valentine’s Day, and they were slowly making their way to the choir room.

‘Kurt?,’ he began with a smattering of apprehension. ‘What do you think about serenading people? In like a… public place?’

Kurt’s heart skipped a beat, and he stopped for a split second, reminding himself not to get too hopeful; Blaine was asking about something in general, so the answer he was going to get had to be just as general.

‘Well,’ Kurt said, forcing the corners of his mouth up, ‘I think it’s incredibly romantic and endearing, and brave of the performer to do so. Why the question, though?’

He held his breath, as Blaine halted in the middle of the hallway to look straight at him.

‘Because I was thinking… With Valentine Day’s coming, I thought maybe I could try and ask Jeremiah out on a real date, not like the coffee we had in December,’ Blaine explained, feeling really silly for even bringing his idea up.

Kurt bit his lip and nodded. The now well known to him sensation of jealousy caught his ribcage in a firm grasp.

Jeremiah’s name hadn’t been mentioned in their conversations too frequently, but whenever it was, Kurt could see in Blaine’s eyes that his friend was still not entirely over the older boy. It was true that neither of the friends was even half as lonely as they used to be before they met, but they both had one more position to fill in their lives, and only one of them didn’t think he needed someone new to fill it.

This wasn’t about Kurt, though.

This was about Blaine and Kurt wanting him not to suffer.

‘As much as I’d like to tell you to go for it,’ Kurt said, picking his words with care, ‘I’m going to tell you that it’s not a good idea.’

Blaine was already opening his mouth to speak, but was silenced with a gesture from Kurt.

‘Just hear me out. You know little about this guy- I know, he’s nice and all that,’ he added, seeing Blaine was about to attempt to cut in, ‘but you can’t tell how he would react if you jumped out in the middle of the street and started singing, no matter how great a singer you are.’

‘I was thinking about doing this in the Gap, actually,’ Blaine interjected Kurt’s monologue.

Kurt shook his head in disbelief.

‘That’s even worse. That’s not just whether he’d like it, it’s about everybody else that would be around, including his colleagues and so one. Did he even mention to you if he’s out at work?’ Blaine considered it for a moment and shook his head, seeing the point Kurt was making. ‘Another thing is, I’m not even sure if it would be legal for you to date him.’

Blaine sent him a confused look, to which Kurt responded with a prominent roll of the eyes.

‘You’re a minor, he’s not?’

‘Oh. I didn’t think about that,’ Blaine admitted, starting again in the direction of the choir room.

Kurt followed in his footsteps, trying to convince himself the advice he’d just given his best friend was in Blaine’s interest, not his own. It was only partly plausible to him, so he decided to find a way to distract himself.

‘What would you sing to him, anyway?,’ he asked, catching up with Blaine.

‘My number one candidate was Robin Thicke’s When I Get You Alone.’

Kurt couldn’t help but snigger, even though a slight blush came to his cheeks at the mention of the song.

‘It probably wouldn’t be an appropriate choice of song to be performed at a family-friendly mall, Blaine,’ he said.

‘You’re terribly critical of me today,’ Blaine replied jokingly, as he tried to overcome the disappointment of his idea being mercilessly shot down. ‘Why wouldn’t it be appropriate?’

‘The lyrics, Blaine,’ Kurt clarified, barely stopping himself from giggling. ‘You know, the toys and the like.’

A wave of realization came onto Blaine’s face.

‘Okay, I thought I was the one with a dirty mind, and I never looked at it that way.’ Any traces of disillusionment disappeared, leaving him amused by his own stupidity. ‘Thanks you wouldn’t let me make a fool out of myself.’

‘Anytime.’

They grinned at each other, their conversation dying a natural death, as they’d just reached the choir room and were walking in, with their moods significantly lightened.

But as soon as their eyes fell on the group gathered inside, they stopped in their tracks, smiles wiped off their faces within seconds.

Everybody else was already there, Mr Schuester was standing by the piano with a sad tired look on his face. All the club members looked shocked more than anything else. Some of the faces showed disbelief, some sadness, others were torn between a variety of emotions that were difficult to separate from one another. For some reason it seemed that the boys’ arrival made the atmosphere in the room a hundred times more tense than before.

‘What happened?,’ Kurt asked in a trembling voice. His mind was going places he’d rather not revisit.

Mr Schue scanned his students to make sure they wanted him to deliver the news. He wished he was never given a task like this.

Stretching it out wouldn’t make any difference; it was better to just get this over with.

‘It’s Dave Karofsky. He’s dead.’

Kurt gulped; Blaine thought he’d heard it wrong. Was all this even real?

‘What? How?,’ Blaine asked.

‘He… took his own life,’ Will said. ‘If only his dad came home a half hour earlier, maybe he’d have lived.’

Kurt’s knees wobbled under him, threatening to give in, before he felt strong warm arms catching him by the shoulders to keep him upright.

‘Wh- why?,’ he choked out eventually, feeling sick to his stomach.

‘Apparently, someone at his new school knows someone here, and it seems they couldn’t keep things to themselves,’ Mr Schuester said.

‘They bullied him,’ Blaine stated, his mind still refusing to truly grasp the news.

‘Yes. And they didn’t keep it to vandalizing his locker or openly insulting him,’ Will went on. ‘They wrote some hateful comments on his Facebook page, and the next day – yesterday, that is, Dave told his parents he was sick and he stayed home. When his dad got home- It was too late.’

Silence pervaded in the room for a moment. Kurt was struggling to stand still despite the raging dizziness in his head, and blessing Blaine’s arms that wouldn’t let him drop to the floor. Blaine himself was consumed by remorse that began to flood his insides. He should’ve forgiven Karofsky everything when he had a chance to.

‘That was really selfish of him,’ Quinn finally broke the silence, shaking her head and looking down. ‘I’ve been in a bad shape myself and I would never consider doing something like that.’

Kurt frowned, almost sure he’d heard her wrong because of his persisting state of shock.

‘Excuse me?,’ he mumbled.

‘I mean, we’ve all been bullied at some point…,’ she added.

Suddenly, Kurt’s feet and head steadied as anger filled him.

‘Seriously, Quinn, you had a baby when you were sixteen and got a couple of slushie facials in the meantime, do you really think you can compare that to what Karofsky went through?’

She opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out.

‘But he’s been a dick to you, dude,’ Puck cut in hesitantly.

‘It doesn’t change anything!,’ Kurt said much more loudly than any of them expected. ‘Nobody deserves to be bullied, nobody deserves to get shit thrown at them, nobody deserves to be made feel like they’re worth nothing! No matter who they are or what kind of mistakes they have made! Killing yourself doesn’t mean that you’re being selfish; it means that the people around you have been selfish for too long.’

Everyone was quiet for a moment, Kurt’s words sinking in. A sob broke out somewhere in the corner, and all eyes turned with surprise to Santana, who was clutching tightly at Brittany. They wouldn’t have thought she was capable of sympathy, let alone of crying after someone she clearly resented.

But nobody said anything. The idea of having known someone their age who died – who committed suicide because of something they had seen and experienced themselves – was overwhelming. It really did not matter, whether they liked Karofsky or not. They could’ve wished he was punished more severely for harassing Kurt, they could’ve wished they got their chance at taking revenge, but none of them would ever wish him dead.

Kurt sucked in a breath to calm himself. There was one thing he needed to know.

‘When’s the funeral?’