From that point forward, things got a lot more stressful for Kurt. If he'd thought that the first few weeks had been a hell lot of work he'd been sorely mistaken. In fact, those first few weeks were still deemed sort of 'introductory' and projects upon projects started to pile up on Kurt's desk at home. In the beginning he'd been able to catch up in time but with every passing day there seemed to be a new design to make, a new deadline to meet.

When making his first few designs he'd still enthusiastically crafted a bowtie each for Blaine with the leftover fabric and sent them out straight away. Blaine had been so happy about them it had brought tears to Kurt's eyes and he had promised himself to make this a tradition. Something to look forward to for both of them.

But while Kurt still took the time to make them it had turned out to be sort of difficult to actually find the time to head over to the post office and actually send them. He hardly had time to go for a quick coffee in between, and the closest acceptable coffee shop was on campus.

Naturally, basically everything and everyone in Kurt's life suffered from that development. He was so determined to get this right, to succeed in this at least because it was what he was born to do - he could feel that now - that he basically worked 24/7. The routine he'd established with Tash so far fell to pieces, both of them only getting home late in the night and way too exhausted to even maintain a conversation. Rachel was just as busy and random, superficial texts here and there slowly became the height of their contact.

The people he left back at home in Lima were just as unlucky. Kurt very rarely called home these days and even his up until then more or less constant texting with Blaine came more and more to a stop. Skype calls became just as rare and brief as phone calls and without really noticing it, all ways of communicating shut down bit by bit. His facebook account was just as forgotten as his unofficial mail address and he hadn't heard from his old friends from New Directions in quite some time.

The worst thing, probably, was that neither did Kurt have any intention to ever let it come this far, nor did he notice that it was already too late for that. The first time it dawned on him that he might have gone wrong at some point was when he, during a vigorous cleaning of his room, practically stumbled upon the calendar on his desk. The one that was rather clear about the fact that today was the ninth of November, the day Blaine and Kurt had met - the day they had lost their virginities to each other just a year ago. It was marked so dramatically Kurt had no idea how he'd missed it up until now.

After the first wave of shock had worn off and Kurt no longer felt like he was frozen in place, he almost stumbled over his own feet in his haste to get to his phone, lying innocently on his nightstand. His hands shaking, he checked his messages - 0. Blaine didn't write him a text. Neither did he call. And knowing Blaine Kurt was one hundred percent sure that he didn't just simply forget about their anniversary.

Close to tears and trembling with fear, Kurt checked both his ingoing and outgoing texts, as well as all his calls. To his utter horror, he discovered that a week had passed since he'd last spoken to Blaine. He couldn't even recall their last Skype conversation. And apart from very short, random texts with absolutely no meaning that weren't even signed with 'I love you' once there had been absolutely no communication between them for just as long.

Now that he thought about it, more and more things came to mind. The fact that he hadn't called his father in more than two weeks. That it was about that time that he last had an actual conversation with his roommate for goodness' sake. He realized how little he'd heard from the friends that mere months ago had been so close to his heart and even his new friends hadn't seen much of him outside of classes. He always holed himself up at university or at home, burying himself in work.

Panicking, Kurt fell to his knees next to his bed, throwing his phone on the bed and letting his arm feel around under it until he found what he was looking for: the box he kept Blaine's letters in. He pulled it out, opening it with shaking fingers. On top of the bunch of papers covered in Blaine's untidy, tiny scrawl set a little pile of bowties. When he realized that those were the ones he'd made since he'd sent his last packet, an involuntary sob escaped him. Tears started to stream down his face one by one until they became a steady stream and Kurt was left kneeling on the floor next to his bed outright sobbing to himself, trembling all over.

It took a while until he'd calmed down enough to be able to see anything through the veil of his own desperate tears. Several deep breaths later, Kurt gathered all the courage his revelation had left him, pushing the bowties carefully to the side to see what was underneath. Immediately, his eyes fell on the unopened letter on top, obviously pushed uncaringly inside, upsetting the once neat stack of letters and mails he'd printed out beneath it. He felt the next wave of tears building but forced himself to keep them in until he knew just how bad it really was. Still breathing deeply, Kurt gently lifted the letter out of the box and examined the date stamp. The letter had arrived in New York more than a week ago.

Wrapping his arms around himself, Kurt let go and sobbed helplessly until he couldn't breathe anymore, clutching at himself and trying his best not to fall apart. He'd made all the mistakes he'd promised himself - hell, he'd promised everyone - he wouldn't make. He'd promised he'd stay in contact. That he wouldn't let himself get distracted by New York, by Parsons, that Blaine, his family, his friends would always be his top priority.

Curling up on the floor, hugging his knees to his chest, Kurt let the tears come, beating himself up for not noticing what was happening. He hadn't even meant to do it. It wasn't that New York had swallowed him up, it was his fear, his insecurities that had done the job. He'd felt inadequate among all those talented people. He'd felt like if he didn't work himself to the bone, he wouldn't succeed. That he needed to concentrate on nothing but his studies because ever since his NYADA audition he knew with a bitter certainty that giving something your all and working really hard for it wasn't always enough. He'd felt alone and lost and he hurt so much with missing Blaine, missing his Dad that he just... cut them out of his life completely. He'd been so afraid of appearing dependent, as if he couldn't make it on his own... he'd hurt so badly that making a clean cut had seemed appealing and all he'd done was ending up hurting both himself and the people he cared most about even more.

But analyzing his behavior, finally realizing where he'd gone wrong, didn't make things better. It just gave him more to beat himself up about and his sobs grew even louder. It wasn't until quite some time later that Kurt had gotten it out of his system enough to at last listen to the rational side of his brain again. The side that told him he shouldn't lie around on his bedroom floor crying over something he couldn't change anymore but get the fuck up and do something to fix it. He wasn't sure if there was anything he could do to make up for his mistakes, but he sure as hell wouldn't give up without trying.

With fingers shaking so much he could barely control his actions, he picked up the letter he'd dropped during his frantic dissolution into tears, ever so slowly opening it up. He needed to know how bad things really were, how much he had missed. Before he could do so much as look at the words black on white in front of him, he took a deep breath, closing his eyes and preparing himself for the worst.

What he was met with was even worse than everything his anxious brain had been able to come up with.

Lima, Thursday, 11/01/2012

Dear Kurt,

I don't know what I did wrong but your texts keep getting rarer by the day and I feel like we never call each other anymore, whether on Skype or via phone. Burt complains that he never hears from you as well so I'm just going to assume that it's not so much my fault as it is you being busy. You haven't updated your facebook account in forever and none of the people I've talked to about this have heard from you either.

I really don't want to appear clingy or dependent or like I don't want you to have your own life in New York without me. But I'm really worried for you. I'm sure you have met a lot of interesting people by now but is that really a reason to abandon the friends you left behind? I'm not saying this because I'm afraid to lose you and what we have - though I freely admit that I'm scared to death of that - but because I don't want you to make a mistake you will surely regret deeply soon enough. As your boyfriend as much as as your best friend.

I'm sure finally being in New York and studying at Parsons are overwhelming experiences and that Parsons takes up a lot of your time but even though none of them are saying it in those words exactly, both your friends and your Dad miss you. Hell, I miss you. If you found someone better, whether it be friends that understand you more than any of us or even if there is a new special someone in your life - we just want you to be happy and not forget about us. I won't say that it wouldn't hurt if you did but Kurt, I'd manage. I promise you you'll never have to avoid me, no matter how things are between us.

When we started this, you requested absolute brutal honesty in these letters. So this is what I will offer you here.

I'm lonely. Really, terribly lonely. I'm not saying this to make you feel guilty, I'm merely stating a fact. My parents are never there and even though they made a bit more of an effort recently, they are still very far from truly accepting me. Cooper calls every now and then but hearing from him only reminds me of what we could have had all these years if it wasn't for both of us being stubborn idiots.

And while I know that I'm always welcome to stay at Burt and Carole's I started to turn them down when your texts and calls started to get less. Because I miss you beyond reason and I hurt so much at any given time and not hearing from you, not being able to talk to you in some way, shape or form just made it so much worse. To the point where I feel I can't breath when I'm in your room. Hell, staying in my own room is enough of a hardship because as soon as I try to close my eyes to finally get some sleep, all I can see in front of me are the memories we made in there. God, Kurt, we lost our virginities to each other in that room. All the times we laughed, cried, sang in here. It's harder than I ever thought possible.

Do you remember our conversation with Miss Pillsbury after the whole Chandler incident (and it still hurts to even think of his name)? When I told you that I had distanced myself because I'd wanted to practice living without you? I'm feeling even more stupid for it now. Because the reality of slowly losing you, possibly for good, is so much more painful, so out of my grasp that I might as well could have enjoyed those weeks I missed out on you back then. Nothing could have possibly prepared me for this. Nothing.

Glee Club started to slowly become a real group again and Tina did her best to console me but as much as I love all of our friends - and even they are weighed down with memories of us - it's just not the same. I don't even care how pathetic and needy this sounds, but I need you in my live, Kurt. I stand by my word, you are the love of my life and it doesn't even matter that we're not even 20. I just know and please, if you haven't given up on us completely, I beg you, let us try to fix this. I'd do anything.

I love you, so much,

Blaine

By the time Kurt had read through the letter, it weren't just Blaine's dried tears that smudged the ink. Grabbing blindly for his phone, Kurt pulled it to him and pressed the call button without even looking, holding it to his ear trying to calm his hysteric tears enough to actually be able to speak. It rang five times before it went straight to mailbox.

Hi, this is Blaine Anderson, sorry I can't answer your call right now. Leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!