Blaine could kill his friends – that was, if that wouldn't be extraordinarily undapper of him, and if he could actually reach them. This, however, was made impossible by the fact that they were currently in a roller rink and Blaine couldn't skate for the life of him.

He didn't know what had possessed Nick to celebrate his (sixteenth!) birthday in a roller rink more an hour away from Westerville. Blaine had always thought that roller rinks were very uncool nowadays, but, apparently, Nick wasn't fazed by that. Still, even though it wasn't supposed to be cool, this roller rink was quite busy. Not busy in the sense that no one could skate properly anymore, but the group of Dalton boys wasn't the only group there.

That was where Blaine's problems came in. It had been years since he'd last skated, and he'd soon found out that he wasn't very good at it at all. In fact, the moment he'd stand up and put one foot in front of the other, he'd fall over. In the end, he'd accepted his fate, taken off the skates and sat down next to the rink instead. His friends came over to sit and talk with him every now and then, so it wasn't as if he was all alone and neglected.

Though, it had been a while since any of them had come over. Blaine was therefore doomed to just sit there and watch other people skate. He did a double take as he saw a boy in a wheelchair being pushed around the rink. He hadn't even thought about that possibility – now that he did, though, it seemed like the safest option to him. Safer, at least, than the skates that were still lying next to him on the bench.

When he looked a little closer, Blaine noticed that there were actually quite a lot of teenagers around. Apparently, roller rinks were more popular than he'd expected.

All of a sudden, something collided with the bench he was sitting on, and Blaine looked up, startled. "Hey, Blaine!" Jeff exclaimed happily. "How's it going?"

Blaine needed a moment to recover. Behind Jeff, there was a boy leaning awkwardly on the bench, looking between Jeff and Blaine uncomfortably. "It's not like I'm doing much," Blaine replied. "It's pretty boring, actually."

"I'll keep you company for a bit," Jeff told him. "Oh, and Kurt too!" He gestured towards the boy, who had, by now, sat down on the bench and didn't seem to know exactly why he was there. "Blaine, meet Kurt. Kurt, this is our friend Blaine."

"Having trouble staying on your feet as well?" Blaine asked, feeling like it might be a redundant question, considering the boy's collision with the bench a little earlier.

"Not really," Kurt replied, and frankly, his voice quite surprised Blaine. Obviously a countertenor, he figured, even though he didn't know if the boy sang. "I can skate just fine. Standing still is what's difficult for me, apparently."

"He's great on his feet," Jeff agreed. "Then again, I don't know if we should expect anything less from a cheerleader."

Kurt's face reddened, and only now did Blaine notice that the boy was, indeed, wearing a cheerleading uniform. "You're a cheerleader?" he asked in his surprise – now that was a redundant question. Jeff clearly thought so too, as he groaned out loud, hitting his face with his palm.

Kurt watched Jeff amusedly for a moment before turning to Blaine. "Obviously," he responded. "Only for about two weeks now, though."

All of a sudden, Blaine knew why Jeff had dragged this boy over. The cheerleading uniform, the high voice, the perfect hair… Jeff must've suspected Kurt was gay, like Blaine. "Still, that's… pretty cool," Blaine said.

"Jeff! You have to come see this!" Before any of them could react, Nick had already grabbed Jeff's arm and started pulling him back onto the roller rink, leaving Kurt and Blaine sitting there, baffled.

"That was the birthday boy?" Kurt asked after a moment, and Blaine frowned at him.

"How do you know about that?"

Glancing at the rink briefly, Kurt replied, "That's what Jeff told me, that you're all here for someone's birthday. Aren't you?"

"No, we are," Blaine responded. "That's why we're here. I was just surprised he told you all that."

Kurt squinted at him for a second. "You thought he just randomly grabbed me, demanded to know my name and dragged me off?" At Blaine's sheepish look, he added, "You're not that far off, honestly. Though he did tell me his name, of course, and we talked for about two minutes before he told me that 'there was someone he'd like me to meet'."

"Sorry," Blaine apologised. "You really don't have to keep me company or anything, if that's what Jeff told you."

"He didn't outright tell me that," Kurt assured him. "And that's fine. My friends all seem a bit preoccupied anyway. I doubt they'll miss me."

"Who are you friends?" Blaine asked, slightly curious. He glanced around the roller rink, as if there were people skating around with huge signs above their heads indicating who they were.

Kurt moved across the bench a little, to sit in Jeff's earlier spot – at least they'd be able to hear each other a bit better – and nodded at the rink. "I think pretty much all the teenagers here apart from your friends." Ah, right. That made sense. "Some of them are also on the cheerleading squad, so it's even easier to recognise them."

"Still, I'm sorry about Jeff. He and Nick are a little… weird, but I never thought they'd do something like this."

"It's okay," Kurt replied. "I have a fair share of strange friends as well, although I'm not sure if they'd do something like this for me."

"What brought you here anyway?" Blaine asked, attempting to make some friendly conversation. "Not… as in, to this bench, but… to the rink."

Kurt chuckled very softly for a second. "The cheerleading coach decided to take over our school's auditorium as the weather's not really good enough to have practices outside. As much as she wants her cheerleaders to toughen up, she doesn't want us to get sick, especially with Nationals in a few weeks. The director of the Glee club wasn't very happy about that because apparently, he needs the auditorium too, which is weird, because we've got a choir room. So he went looking for other places to rehearse and we ended up here." Blaine stared at him in shock. "Needless to say," Kurt finished, "we're not really getting anything done here."

"That's really the strangest plan I've ever heard," Blaine replied, and Kurt nodded in agreement. "So you're in your school's Glee club too?"

Kurt nodded happily. "Yeah, and it's a lot of fun. Most of the time, that is. Of course, we've got our fair share of drama."

"You're going to school in Lima, then?" Blaine asked, trying to sneak a glance at the cheerleading uniform without appearing as if he was ogling the boy wearing it.

"McKinley High, yeah. You're from some private school, aren't you?" Kurt asked, raising an eyebrow at him – which made Blaine wonder if he'd notice him not-ogling.

"Dalton Academy in Westerville, yes," Blaine said. "It's great. Very… safe. Most of us here are in our school's show choir as well. We're called the Warblers."

Kurt scrunched up his face in thought, but didn't seem to recognise the name. "Sorry, I haven't heard of you. Are you in the show choir competitions?"

"We are," Blaine confirmed, "but we were beaten by Vocal Adrenaline at this year's Sectionals."

Kurt nodded slowly. "We're up against them at Regionals," he said. "I'm not looking forward to it." Blaine could imagine that.

Suddenly, someone shouted, "Kurt!" At that, both boys looked up, just in time to see a couple of teens skate by, waving at them happily, including a girl in a cheerleading uniform and the boy in the wheelchair.

As Blaine looked back at Kurt, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye, and snapped his eyes back towards the rink. "Speak of the devil," he muttered, and Kurt shot him a curious look. "There's Jesse St James," Blaine said, following said boy across the rink with his eyes. "I didn't know Vocal Adrenaline members had enough time for stuff like this, or were allowed to go roller skating – I can't imagine his team will be happy if he falls and breaks something."

"He changed teams," Kurt told him. "He's in New Directions now. That's us," he clarified as Blaine just looked confused. "Most of us don't really trust him, but we can't do anything about it. He's officially at our school and thus, he can officially become a member of our group."

"That seems suspicious," Blaine agreed.

Kurt sighed. "Tell me about it." Just as Blaine was about to tell Kurt that he shouldn't feel obliged to keep him company, Kurt asked, "Do you know why Jeff wanted us to meet?"

Jeff hadn't told him? Well, alright. Blaine sincerely hoped that Kurt was really gay, or else this was going to be very awkward. "I think Jeff thought that you're gay," he replied, carefully watching Kurt's reaction. So far, Kurt's face was guarded. "And both Jeff and Nick seem to be of the opinion that I need to hang out with other gay people, because there's a disappointingly low amount of those at Dalton, even though it's an all boys school."

Kurt remained quiet when Blaine stopped talking. "So you're… gay, as well?" he eventually asked. When Blaine nodded, Kurt continued, "I suppose it makes sense. After all, straight guys our age normally don't want to talk to me in fear of catching the gay."

"Not everyone's like that," Blaine found himself saying. "There are people who know better, honestly." Just not in public school. Blaine knew that from his own experiences, and it appeared that the situation hadn't changed at all since he'd started at Dalton.

Kurt shot him a look that clearly stated that Kurt didn't agree with that at all. "Their reasoning seems good, though. I doubt my friends would come up with something like that for me. Sorry, that's mean. They mean well."'

"We should hang out some time," Blaine decided, and Kurt agreed. That was a good thing, as only two minutes after they'd exchanged phone numbers, two girls in matching cheerleading uniforms stopped by to offhandedly tell Kurt they would be leaving soon and he should really go with them for another round.

Both girls eyed Blaine with great interest, making him feel rather uncomfortable. As Kurt caught his eye and smiled at him uncertainly, Blaine motioned for him to go. They would hang out later, after all.

Jeff and Nick – for Blaine was absolutely sure that the two had planned this whole thing together and there hadn't actually been anything Nick had wanted Jeff to see earlier – would be proud.