The boy reached up to flick his brown hair back with his thumb. His father was going to need to ask a more specific question than that; what did he think of what? Of the building? It was huge, easily three times the size of his old school - and this was only the main academic building. The dormitories were made up of four buildings approximately the same size over on the north side of campus. From looking at the map he had been handed upon arrival, he wondered how in the world he could get from the housing area to his classes in less than about fifteen minutes, for all the lush green lawns and athletic fields settled between the two. He tried to remind himself that at home - back home, now, he corrected himself; this would be his day-to-day home for at least the next year, probably the next two - he had to drive about that long, but somehow this seemed more daunting.

Of the school? He didn't know yet. All he knew was the name - Dalton Academy - and that the academics were rigorous, which he suspected would be a welcome change from his previous classes. Oh, and of course he knew that it was a private boys' school, but that much everyone knew: it was written right there on almost every piece of paper he had received from the school, from the informational brochure to the acceptance letter to the orientation packet, almost part of the school's name, right there on the masthead. They seemed to take an inordinate amount of pride in that part of their identity, and he wasn't sure what that meant or whether it was a good thing yet.

Or was his father asking what he thought about all of it, about the fact that this was his life now?

This wasn't how the year was supposed to go, that much he did know. He wasn't supposed to be here, at some private academy that looked like it was trying to be a junior Harvard, surrounded by boys whose families probably earned more money in three months than his dad did in twelve. He was supposed to be at McKinley. He was supposed to be celebrating the first year that he and Mercedes were actually allowed to go to the same school. He was supposed to be sitting in the auditorium while she proudly auditioned for the glee club - his glee club - and knocked the ever-annoying Rachel Berry off her pedestal. He was supposed to be able to sit with her at lunch and pass notes with her when the science teacher droned on for too long. He was supposed to finally have his best friend - his only friend, really - at school with him.

But no. Some crazy racist had sufficiently scared enough parents to get the school board to announce that they were going to defy the Ohio legislature and the Supreme Court of the United States alike. No way was anyone going to force them to obey what had been the law of the land for literally more than three years already. They weren't going to be compelled to do something so radical as allow their white children to mingle with non-white children.

He didn't understand it. But then, he never had. Just one of the many ways in which he was different from pretty much every person he'd ever met in Lima.

So when the school board stated that two, four, six, eight, they had no intentions to integrate, a group of families from each of the other two schools in town - one for black students, one for Asians - had brought a lawsuit to force the school board to do it; after all, they argued, Brown v. Board said they had to, and when schools in Virginia tried to close the entire public school system to resist compliance, the Supreme Court had said that was unconstitutional as well. The board saw an opportunity; after all, the cases in Virginia had taken years to work their way up the judicial ladder, and they required a substantial amount of both money and drive. If they could hold off an immediate change, there was a decent chance - they believed - that the non-white families would run out of steam and cash and drop the case like the families in Hillsboro had last year. They announced in April that William McKinley Senior High School would be closed beginning for the 1959-60 school year and continuing either until the status quo was upheld, or until the court "came down here to force us themselves."

That quote had come from the mayor. Kurt had never felt so lucky to live in such an enlightened town that prided itself on being in line with states that would secede from the country tomorrow if they thought they could restore slavery.

The summer had been filled with tense negotiations, including an interesting side-argument as to whether the Asian school should exist at all; because the only Ohio laws ever passed to specify which races were separate referred only to "negroes" (and even then only in the context of marriage, and the law had been repealed in 1887 anyway), there was strong argument by the Asian families that their children should have been going to McKinley all along and should certainly be allowed to do so now. However, because laws did specifically say "white" and "colored" and technically the Asian children weren't white, that argument got derailed quickly. But by the time August dawned, the parties had stood on the front steps of City Hall to announce that McKinley would indeed remain closed. The subtext that dripped from everyone's speeches but was never spoken? "Your children will not be getting an education this year, and we all know who's to blame for that."

He doubted he would ever understand what people found so frightening about his best friend, but he had long ago resigned himself to not understanding most of what people in Lima believed.

"Are you sure about this, Dad?" Kurt asked, squinting a little as he looked over at his father. The man was wearing a tie; that meant this was definitely a formal occasion. He looked horribly uncomfortable, and the tie was a hideous shade of green that made Kurt kind of want to rip it off and replace it with any other accessory. "Are you sure we shouldn't be sending Finn?"

His stepbrother was a senior this year; it didn't seem right to take that away.

"Don't you worry about Finn," Burt instructed. "He's turning 18 soon anyway. I got him pulling hours at the shop. He doesn't need another year of school - but you do, if you're going to those fancy colleges you keep looking at."

Finn probably would have refused to go anyway, would've refused to leave his friends, his girlfriend, all to live two hours away at a school without so much as girls to look at. And if the academics really were as challenging as the literature led them to believe, it was probably a good idea they hadn't elected to send Finn. Kurt loved the guy and all, but he wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer.

"Besides," Burt added. "It's prob'ly gonna blow over by Christmas, y'know, open the school up for the spring semester." Neither Hummel wore optimism enthusiastically or well, and Kurt's raised eyebrow let his dad know how he felt on the subject. Burt just nodded and let out a breath slowly. "Let's get you over to the room," he suggested, picking up the larger of the suitcases. The decision of which clothes to bring had nearly killed him - even if the school did require uniforms, which he hated thinking about. They weren't even attractive uniforms, ones that would look smart and distinguished; the hideous red piping on the navy blazer, the indescribable and peculiar shade of grey used for the trousers, the surprisingly nondescript tie, it all just served to make students look boxy and wholly uninteresting.

They earned a lot of stares on the way across campus; Kurt sincerely doubted it was because he wasn't in uniform. It was the first day of the new year, which meant that most of the new students hadn't yet collected their uniforms from the on-campus store, so he was hardly the only one wearing colours other than red, white, navy, and grey. None of the others were getting the same looks he was. That wasn't unusual. He couldn't remember a time he hadn't gotten that look just about anywhere he went. It could be the corner store where he had been shopping with his dad for literally his entire life - well, with his mother first, then with his father after she had died, and now with Carole - and he would still feel everyone's eyes on him, burning into him...then the way they looked at his dad, as though they wanted to ask him where he had gone wrong in raising such a son, how such a sissy could have come from such a strong, masculine guy.

Kurt had wondered that for awhile, but now? Now he was almost 17 and had been this way for as long as he could remember. He'd stopped caring. So he liked things that other boys didn't like - who cared? So he had listened to the Connie Francis album so much it had worn out and he'd needed to buy a new one. So he liked to wear something that wasn't the same boring buttondown shirt, pressed slacks, and a sweater. Time hadn't made the people around him any more accepting, but it had made him care less if they liked him.

Until that moment. As he trudged along the path that ran beside the baseball diamond, watching boys stare at him as he passed, it suddenly occurred to him that he was going to be surrounded entirely by teenage males. Those had never been his biggest fans. The girls at school liked him okay, were always hinting at him that they would like to go out with him, date him, and even if he wasn't particularly interested in any of the ones who asked, at least they were nice to him. They treated him like his differences made him interesting, almost intriguing, like someone with a kind of international, cosmopolitan appeal. The boys at school, on the other hand...

He hoped there wasn't a drive-in across the street from Dalton that sold milkshakes for a dime if you went before 4:30 the way the one across from McKinley did.

A year - possibly two - of being surrounded only by boys who had relatively little supervision did not leave him feeling very optimistic about the year. Maybe the uniform would turn out to be a blessing in disguise, he thought glumly as he trudged up the steps to the second floor of Everett House, dorm to which he had been assigned. Shifting the suitcase into his left hand, he pulled the key and slip of paper out of his pocket with his right hand and fumbled to unfold the paper using only his thumb and first two fingers. Room 207. He checked the numbers on the wall, glanced over his shoulder to make sure his dad had made it up the stairs with the larger suitcase, and strode down the hall with as much fake icy confidence as he could muster. It didn't stop the stares, but no one shoved him into a wall they would have at his old school.

His room was unoccupied, but the suitcase on one bed and a row of uniform pieces hanging neatly in one of the two armoires let him know that his roommate had already arrived and left. He wasn't so sure about this sharing a room bit; his only experience had been with Finn for about a month between when their parents married and when they moved into the current house - the three-bedroom ranch over in one of the newer subdivisions in Lima. That hadn't gone so well. Finn wasn't the cleanest of boys and they had spent an awful lot of time fighting over the fact that yes, clothes should go in a hamper instead of on the floor, even if Carole gathered the garments without a chastising word on laundry day. He wasn't sure sharing with a stranger would go any better. Kurt sighed and hoisted his suitcase onto the bed, flicked open the latches, and began unpacking the contents into the bureau. He had a feeling he was going to need a bigger dresser to fit everything he'd brought.

"I'd offer to help, but I know you've got some system or something for all this," Burt offered as he set down the second suitcase, and Kurt just nodded. "They've got a thing for the parents now, some kind of talk and then a reception. You okay here for now?"

In truth, Kurt wasn't sure. With every shirt he unpacked, every sweater he folded neatly and placed in the bottom drawer, it was becoming more and more real - he was staying here. He wasn't going home, to his nice safe bedroom with his record player and the phone close enough to the door that he could stretch the cord around into his room and lie on the bed while he talked to Mercedes. Here he would be stuck standing in line in the hallway with a bunch of boys trying to talk to their girlfriends and make plans for Saturday night every time he wanted to tell her about the next movie they should see or what great tidbit he'd read about Ricky Nelson in a magazine. He had no idea where he would be able to listen to his music; that thought didn't thrill him.

He wanted to tell his dad to skip the orientation and reception and stay here while he unpacked, even if it meant not doing anything productive with the time. He wanted to tell his dad that he could unpack his six sweaters and four shirts, place them back in his suitcase, and they could turn around and go home as if nothing had ever happened. He could work at the shop - he was better at it than Finn by a mile, he'd been doing it most of his life - and read on his own and go back to school when it opened again next year because, if nothing else, the courts would step in and tell them they had to open like they had in Virginia.

Instead he simply replied, "Yeah, Dad, I'll be fine."

"Good. I'll meet you at the big welcome thing in the main building later, okay?"

"Sounds good," Kurt replied with a nod.

And with that his dad was gone, and he was alone in an empty room that was supposed to somehow become his new home. It didn't feel homey at all - cold, stark, white, with boring slab-style furniture and a hardwood floor that looked like it had been trod on by a century's worth of dirty feet without a single scrubbing. He saw a blue rug on the floor over by the other bed; if he'd known he could decorate, he would have done so much more, he would have brought rugs and comforters and curtains...and lamps because he hated this kind of overhead lighting. But sadly that would have to wait; he might be able to bring a few things back the next time he went home, which right now was looking like two or three weekends from now.

He could make it that long, at least. He could handle two or three weeks.

He made quick work of both suitcases, stashing the empty vessels under the bed, and wandered slowly around the room. It wasn't large, maybe 2/3 the side of his bedroom at home and meant for two people instead of just him. Each side had a bed against the side wall, a dresser at the foot of the bed, with two desks along the wall opposite the door just below the window that looked out over the west side of campus. Flanking the door were two armoires...and that was it. There wasn't really room to put any additional furniture, but Kurt felt as though it needed something, or at least a rearrange. Maybe this elusive roommate wouldn't mind - he could ask once they met. After all, the boy had thought to bring a rug, and it coordinated well enough with the darker blue throw blanket at the foot of the bed.

Maybe this wouldn't be entirely bad. Maybe the roommate would be okay, possibly even like some of the same things Kurt did. He doubted it, but it was possible.

He was tempted to snoop a little - not because he was the kind of person who instinctively violated personal privacy, just because the room felt too empty and the silence too loud and the afternoon too long. He glanced at the open armoire - aside from the uniforms, a pair of dark slacks hung there, along with a few button-down shirts, a few with an unfortunate plaid pattern. None of it looked all that different than what Finn's closet contained - a little more blue, but that was probably the only difference. Apparently the guy liked that colour. There was a box on the desk that Kurt didn't dare open - that would be snooping, unlike what he was doing now which was simply looking at items that were already in plain sight.

Like the guitar in the corner.

That was intriguing and a little different. He doubted he and the boy would have anything in common when it came to types of music - he didn't listen to as much on guitar as a lot of people did, most of what he preferred involved full orchestration, but if this elusive roommate of his was also a music fan it might make him easier to convince that one of them should bring in a turntable so they could switch off listening to what they wanted. That might make the year more bearable, at any rate.

Out of things he could look at without venturing into inappropriate, Kurt drew in a deep breath, pocketed his key, and left the room. There was plenty of campus to explore, plenty of areas to familiarize himself with before classes started tomorrow morning. After all, the last thing he wanted was to be late on his very first day at a school that he suspected was extraordinarily strict about technical rules - anywhere with uniforms was bound to be. After a quick loop around Everett House, which revealed nothing except the typicality of his room, he strode out the front door and down the steps. A few boys were tossing a football around on the front lawn but largely ignored him as he passed - refreshing. He walked along the path in the direction of the academic building, knowing that would be the first place he needed to figure out. As he reached the back door of the building, he realized he hadn't thought to bring along a copy of his class schedule - some good that did him. How was he meant to find his classrooms and familiarize himself with the numbering system if he didn't have the timetable with him?

Shaking his head at his own thoughtlessness, Kurt turned to walk back, but noticed that students seemed to be streaming towards him, towards the building, at a surprising rate that was well beyond what one might expect for a day best spent milling about. Curious, he followed the throng. Had he forgotten about one of the scheduled pseudo-mandatory events? Was he late already for some kind of event?

The main building was more magnificent on the inside than out; from the front of the building, it looked like a relatively nondescript preparatory school that was attempting to emulate the classic look of the highly-regarded educational institutions in New England. Once Kurt stepped inside, though, he was taken aback by the art that seemed to be everywhere. Rather than walls covered in lockers as he was used to, he saw paintings and portraits on almost every surface, with polished wood accents that highlighted the geographic features. It was like going to school in an art gallery - even if visual art had never been his primary area of expertise or expression, he could appreciate what it said about the school, how different it looked from anything he'd envisioned.

That was before he made his way through a hallway with walls painted in their own mural. Students walked past, blase, as though this was something they were completely used to - halls that looked like a rococo Michaelangelo had been let loose and just done with it what he wanted. He couldn't even imagine- He was so distracted looking up that he accidentally ran into the tufted leather wingback chair. What kind of school had tufted leather wingbacks in a hallway?

Probably the same kind that had a grand staircase leading from the main level to the basement, he supposed as he got there. There was a large domed window overhead, and he wondered how he had managed to miss seeing it from the outside - wouldn't he have noticed what looked like a gothic bubble sticking up from the ground like that? If it was even in the front of the school; he had no idea where he was by now, still following the seemingly endless gaggle of students all heading the same direction. The marble stairs were slick, and he cheated close to the railing as he moved a little slower. He wasn't looking forward to trying them for the first time in the new uniform loafers, even if no one else seemed remotely fazed by it. He looked around, wide-eyed, trying to look inconspicuous but finding it next to impossible as he took in the grandeur of it all.

He should figure out where they were going. Everyone just kept streaming into the basement, passing him quickly on the stairs - they all knew where they were going, that much was obvious. They seemed excited by it, and as much as he kind of wanted to just walk along with them and see what the fuss was, a part of him felt like this might be some kind of returning-students thing. None of the other kids he'd seen out of uniform before seemed to be following the crowd - just him and a thousand boys in navy blazers.

"Excuse me?" he asked to no one in particular, wondering if anyone would even hear him above the excited jostling of old friends being reunited after a summer apart. The boy in front of him stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned to look up at him. "Um, hi. Can I ask you a question? I'm new here." He felt like it was the most obvious statement he could have possibly made, standing there in his own clothes and looking lost despite his best efforts to appear inconspicuous.

The boy's left hand was clutched around the strap of his brown leather satchel, but he extended his right and introduced himself. "My name's Blaine."

That hadn't been the response he was expecting - at McKinley if you asked if you could ask someone a question because you didn't know where you were going or what you were meant to be doing, in the best case scenario you got a polite response from one of the girls with a fake smile and too much blush; in most cases, the response was much shorter, less informative, and probably contained an expletive of some kind. "Kurt," he replied shakily. Glancing sideways at the boys who continued to pass - but who seemed to thankfully have the good sense to keep a bit wider berth at the bottom of the stairs rather than plowing right into this Blaine like would have happened at his old school - he asked, "So what exactly is going on?"

Blaine's face broke into an enthusiastic grin. "The Warblers." He'd heard of them, he remembered that much, he knew it was in one of the brochures, or maybe on the official list of school-sanctioned extracurriculars. They were...one of the choirs, that much was obvious. The acappella one? He thought so. Possibly. "Every now and then they throw an impromptu performance in the Senior Commons, it tends to shut the school down for awhile." Blaine kept glancing to the side, in the direction the group was going, like he was trying to make sure he wouldn't accidentally miss the performance as a result of talking to the clueless new kid. A couple of the guys nodded in his direction and he gave a little flick of his head in response, but he didn't try to excuse himself.

Kurt wasn't sure what that even meant. "So, wait - the glee club here is kind of cool?" Surely all of these boys couldn't be moving so enthusiastically to see one of the choirs. He was used to feeling lucky if he didn't get things thrown at him when he performed. To say that the population of Lima was not exceptionally interested in the arts would be a gross understatement; if anything, they tended to take a certain perverse pleasure in tormenting people who enjoyed any form of artistic expression even beyond what they otherwise would have done.

Even so, he missed it already. He missed his glee club, he missed the closest thing he had to a niche at McKinley. He missed getting up on stage and singing about something - anything - to let out all the emotion he was holding back. He missed the people. God only knew why; most of them weren't people he would have chosen to hang out with anyway, but until or unless Mercedes was allowed to join him at school they were the closest to a safe place he was going to get. Even if he would never get a solo. Even if they made fun of his penchant for music sung by incredible female artists - or, as they insisted on putting it, "girl songs." It was still better than the rest of the day. He thought of the six of them now, back in Lima, with no real creative outlet until or unless the school opened back up - Finn, his girlfriend Quinn, Puck and Sandy Lopez who would just spend the entire year making out in the absence of anywhere concrete they needed to be at a particular time, Brittany would be missing Cheerios more than music, and Rachel...well, it was a good thing she was in so many creative activities outside of school, so many lessons and community theater groups, otherwise she would be going completely crazy.

He couldn't imagine the looks on their faces when he told them there was a place that people actually flocked to see the glee club performing.

Blaine grinned as he stated proudly, "The Warblers are like Elvis."

"They perform obscene pelvic movements that upset mothers and violate decency standards?" Kurt replied dryly. Oh god, why had he tried to make that joke? Why had he tried to make a joke at all? Why couldn't he ever manage to remember when he was nervous that no one thought he was funny?

Blaine laughed - laughed! - just a little, a kind of quiet chuckle like he hadn't been expecting that response but thought it was great.

No one ever laughed at his jokes - or at him, in a good way. Usually he ended up forcing an awkward, nervous laugh or grin that left everyone else silent and staring at him like he was either crazy or unfailingly stupid, and in either event they weren't sure whether or not to humour him. But Blaine seemed to genuinely find the comment amusing.

"Not quite. But c'mon - I'll show you." Blaine's hand reached out to grasp Kurt's, and he felt for a moment like he had stopped breathing. No one really touched him much - his dad occasionally, Carole now, Mrs. Jones was the kind of mother (or surrogate mother, in his case) who liked hugs, and he and Mercedes weren't shy around each other, but the kind of casual, day-to-day, nonchalant touching that he saw his peers engage in had always eluded him. The boys would pat each other on the back after a good play or cuff each other's arm or sling an arm around a friend's shoulder when trying to appear casual...but never with him. None of them were friendly enough with him for that; no one wanted to associate with the resident sissy. The girls were a little better, but most of them said things about not wanting to give their boyfriends the wrong idea and kind of refrained.

Blaine hadn't even hesitated. Before Kurt could collect his thoughts, Blaine was leading him down a hallway, then a left, then through another mural-covered room with dark wood wainscoting and leather-upholstered furniture. It was like everything faded away in that moment except the sound of two pairs of footsteps running along the elegantly-tiled floor, the blur of dark colours and stark bright light of windows in his peripheral vision, and the feeling of Blaine's warm, strong hand clasped around his. It felt rougher than his but not as rough as the guys who worked in the shop, not dry but not clammy, square and muscular and powerful, and the sensation of it squeezing his own smaller, smoother hand sent a rush of excitement through him, like he didn't know precisely where Blaine was taking him but wanted to follow him anyway - wherever it was.

The moment ended too quickly as Blaine dropped his hand to push open an enormous pair of double doors to reveal a bright room packed with students. The light wood paneling reflected the light from the floor-to-ceiling windows, and Kurt had to wonder how it was so light down here because he could have sworn they should be underground by now - he came in on the main floor, he thought, and then took the stairs down...was it some kind of strange split-level thing where he had come in on the second floor and made his way down to ground-level? Who were all these kids - all students? All seniors? Because there were a lot of them but this couldn't possibly be the entire school's worth - not judging by the dorms at least.

He was the only one not wearing a uniform, and he felt painfully obtuse as he stood in the doorway. His grey and black jacket, his blue trousers, his gold and blue vest...it was obvious immediately that he didn't belong there. That he was an outsider - an intruder on what was obviously a common ritual around here, judging by the way the boys in varying assortments of red and navy vests, cardigans, and jackets moved chess tables and chairs out of the way. They all knew each other, talking and laughing and comparing what looked like course schedules, swapping stories about summer vacations gone awry and sweet girls they'd met over the break. He remained in the doorway, frozen, and drew in a nervous breath. "I stick out like a sore thumb," he stated on a quivery exhale, cursing himself for not seeming more confident. He was used to seeming like he knew what he was doing even when he didn't, to appearing like nothing bothered him even when it did. He should be better at pretending to fit in here - he needed to be if he wanted to survive even ten minutes in this school where everyone else fit so seamlessly.

"You won't once you get your uniform," Blaine assured him, reaching out to smooth the lapel of his jacket and carefully readjust the bow portion of his tie, straightening it. Kurt knew it was his imagination, but he swore he could feel the warmth of Blaine's fingers through the thin fabric of his shirt, up by his neck, and it sent a kind of warm shiver through his entire body. He offered a nervous smile, and Blaine added "Don't worry, new kid - You'll fit right in," with this confident, winning smile like he genuinely believed it.

With a look like that, Kurt found himself maybe believing it, too.

A group of boys was gathering in front of the window, forming what essentially amounted to a couple mostly-even lines, and Blaine glanced over his shoulder, then nodded. "If you'll excuse me," he said, then turned and handed his bag to a friend as he walked over to join the group as the music started.

Kurt had heard acapella groups before - his mom used to play old recordings of the Yale Whiffenpoofs while she cleaned the living room sometimes, so he certainly knew what emotional energy and intensity the perfect harmony could invoke. He'd heard doo-wop music on the radio and enjoyed some of it, but this was like a whole other league. They weren't just singing along with the four lines that the original recording had - no, they were singing that plus the instruments - the saxophone, adding in tones where the percussion should be that didn't feel sufficient with just finger snaps. Even the parts that were originally vocals were so much more intricate than the record.

And there were people singing in his range, too. That never happened. He wasn't used to any boys singing like him, but he heard a few clear falsetto "oo-wa-oo-wa"s - and they sounded right. They didn't sound like at McKinley, when it constantly sounded like he was trying too hard and he had to convince people that that was just what his voice naturally did. That he just sang that high and he wasn't going to try to force it down to make it less obvious because that wasn't who he was. These boys were singing notes usually only he could hit, and no one looked ashamed of it.

He watched as Blaine kind of danced his way around with one of the guys - a boy of average height with slicked-back blond hair that was straight from a peroxide bottle - snapping his fingers and waiting for his part. Just waiting, but with this kind of grin like he knew whatever was coming was going to just blow someone's mind. The lines stopped moving on the first line they all sang together:

Why do fools fall in love?

Then Blaine began his solo, and it took everything in Kurt to not let his jaw drop. His voice wasn't as smooth or high as Frankie Lymon's, but somehow that made the song sound better, less young and ridiculous. Unlike the original singer, Blaine sounded like he was actually old enough to be wondering from personal experience - it wasn't that much lower, probably a third Kurt guessed? But it was just enough to make the version sound completely perfect.

Why do birds sing so gay?
And lovers await the break of day?
Why do they fall in love?

To say that Blaine had a charisma when he sang would be the understatement of Kurt's life. He was beyond charming, with this grin like there was nothing Blaine loved more than what he was doing that very moment - singing in front of the school with these boys backing him up. Even though he was side-step-touch-ing like everyone else, he stood out even if he wasn't that much in front of the rest of them. The way he held himself was different, was more genuine somehow even though he looked completely overexaggerated - like a caricature of an enthusiastic singer, complete with rubber-faced mugging.

Why does the rain fall from up above?
Why do fools fall in love?
Why do they fall in love?

The feeling he got watching Blaine was familiar and yet indescribable, nothing he could put his finger on precisely or say what it was about Blaine's performance that was causing it. It felt like a warm knot in the pit of his stomach but at the same time like his stomach was weightless and floating up into his chest, leaving a void in its wake. He felt a grin spreading across his face without having any idea why, which was unnerving only because he honestly couldn't remember the last time he had smiled, let alone like this; this was the jubilant grin of a four-year-old who got the toy he wanted on Christmas, times about fifty. He had to remind himself to keep breathing, sucking air roughly through his open mouth. His eyes were wide and awestruck as he watched, and every time Blaine would look in his direction he felt like his stomach had dropped then picked back up again, like the time his dad had coerced him onto a roller coaster at Cedar Point when he was nine only without the sensation that he was going to vomit all over his shoes. And all the while, he had this uncontrollable urge to start laughing, to giggle like he hadn't done since he was easily about five years old, and that was just ridiculous. What was it about this that was so different from any other incredible performance?

And how could he repeat it as often as possible?

Love is a losing game
Love can be a shame
I know of a fool, you see
For that fool is me

The way Blaine punctuated the notes on that last line was accompanied by this little hand gesture, not quite a flick of the wrist but not quite a playful punch, with a wide-eyed mugging expression like it was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever admitted to, and Kurt couldn't help himself - a tiny laugh escaped, luckily not loud enough for anyone to hear, and he rolled his eyes at the entire thing. This was crazy - Blaine was crazy and he was making Kurt lose his mind.

Then Blaine hit his high notes.

Tell me why-

Blaine closed his eyes as he floated the note, but not from exertion or oversinging - eyelids fluttering shut, eyebrows raised, with his hand kind of up at jaw-level, like he was so into the moment and nothing except that note and the emotions fueling it existed.

It was the most beautiful, most entrancing thing Kurt had ever seen. He wondered if he'd ever looked like that over a note; he wondered what it would feel like to be so lost in that singular moment like that, if it felt as incredible as Blaine looked like he felt right then.

Tell me why

And then they began an instrumental break - with no instruments. Singing and 'da-da-da-daaaa'-ing where a brass section would be, where a piano would bounce its way through accompaniment, where a bass would pluck along, in such a way that it made Kurt almost wish that there was only vocal accompaniment to songs; every song should sound like this, should have this much technical perfection and musical passion and have every single note be just right like this.

Still, with Blaine not singing for the moment, it was the first chance he'd had to tear his eyes away from the Warblers to look around the room. He was used to his performances with his old glee club, where if he was lucky the crowd was ambivalent and, under most situations, they received a far more hostile welcome. But this audience? They were entirely, completely into it. They were enjoying the performance, most of them bopping along with the music or snapping along in time with where the drum line would go. A few looked coordinated as they did it, but most didn't - a few looked downright ridiculous, including the guy closest to him.

No one cared. No one stared or made fun, just let him dance as ridiculously as he wanted while he cheered the group on.

Everyone (well, except for him) was in their uniform, but somehow they all looked so different. Some looked like Finn, like they played and watched sports every weekend; some seemed like they would be hopeless nerds at any other school but had found a place here - and that place didn't only exist in a library. A few even moved as he did, with short, quick, precise gestures, stood with a hand splayed on their hip or just with their hip jutting out a little bit. And even though he stood out so badly, it was the least like an outsider he had ever felt.

He might fit in here. He might be able to be like these people, these boys. They might not torture him like at his old school.

And if he got to keep listening to Blaine singing, he could definitely be happy here.

Why do birds sing so gay?

As the next verse began, Kurt found himself noticing something else.

They weren't all white.

He didn't know why it hadn't occurred to him earlier, why in the three or so hours he'd been on Dalton's campus he hadn't noticed that, among the many reasons it didn't look anything like McKinley, the fact that there were people of all colours walking and talking and - oh god, probably even rooming - together would be sufficiently huge. And their choir was no different - to one side of Blaine was a black guy, an Asian on the other, with at least three other non-white singers in the group just from Kurt's vantage-point. They were all singing together like it was no big deal.

Maybe to them it wasn't.

The feeling of euphoria almost overwhelmed him, the sense that it really was possible - that people really could feel what he'd known to be true since he was seven. That people in Ohio could genuinely look at a person and see the person and not some dividing line...it seemed so impossible when he was in Lima, when practically anywhere in town he went someone was protesting something having to do with segregation and trying to hold onto the last vestiges of a disgusting system. But here, only two hours away, was an entire room of boys his age who saw nothing queer about it at all.

He couldn't wait to tell Mercedes, to start planning their dream choir together.

And lovers await the break of day?
Why do they fall in love?

Why does the rain fall from up above?
Why do fools fall in love?
Why do they fall in love?

He was so lost in thought that he missed a verse and a half completely, and what brought him back was the realization that Blaine was looking right at him. He wasn't sure how he knew, he hadn't been paying attention, but it was like all of a sudden he could feel the boy staring at him, singing in his direction. He felt his cheeks grow hot and tingly, and he cringed how red he knew he was - he turned pink if he even thought about feeling something, let alone this...whatever this was.

Why does my heart
Skip a crazy beat?

Blaine sang directly at Kurt, like he was waiting to finish the song until Kurt could answer the question. He didn't know - he didn't know why his own heart felt like it was fluttering in his chest and pounding in his ears all at the same time, why he couldn't do anything but grin like a lunatic whenever he met Blaine's gaze.

For I know-

and Blaine did a little spin that made everyone else kind of roll their eyes, which made Kurt think he either did that a lot or had a history of falling when he tried; he wasn't sure which version he liked better.

It will reach defeat
Tell me why-

That same magical moment happened for a second time, just as entrancing as the first, but with a pleading motion this time - knees bent, hands in a praying pose, eyes skyward, waiting desperately for an answer.

Tell me why
Why do fools fall in love?

The song ended with Blaine's gaze rooted firmly on Kurt, and all he could do was clap so quickly and enthusiastically he thought his hands might snap off at the wrist. He was almost laughing on every heaving exhale, feeling so good for no concrete reason he could identify. He'd seen people perform well before, it shouldn't be this big of a deal. Even with the heady combination of the knowledge that some places weren't Lima, and the hope for the entire future of the world, and the...whatever this was that Blaine was stoking within him...it shouldn't have felt this overwhelming and amazing.

His father's hand clapped on his shoulder brought him back to reality, grounded him a little, but couldn't wipe the grin off his face. "I think you should be okay here - see? They sing girl songs like you do."

Glancing around, he saw that a few parents had started filtering in around the edges of the room; their meeting or reception or whatever must have just ended and they came to see what the commotion was about. His smile faded slowly as he responded, "It's not a girl song."

"I've heard it on the radio, that girl sings it."

"It's Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, they're all boys."

"Even better for you, right? With the high voice like that?"

Kurt supposed it was, and he appreciated that his father was trying to encourage him and didn't try to tell him to change who he was or how he sang - and never had. But at the moment, he was a little more preoccupied with trying to figure out where the mystically intriguing lead singer had vanished to and how he could find him again.