May: Tokyo (Part 1)

With all that had happened, Kurt almost forgot that it was his birthday at the end of the month. He would be twenty-four and for the first time in several years, he wasn't looking forward to it at all.

When he was a kid, he'd loved birthdays. It was mostly because birthdays when you're a child meant presents and cake and getting showered in attention by your family and friends.

For his sixth birthday, he'd received a brand-new bike, although his father hadn't let him ride it until he'd mastered the art of riding his stabilised bike first. He remembered his dad and mom cheering him on as he wobbled down the driveway for the first time, a proud smile on his face and theirs.

For his seventh birthday, he'd received the complete set of Power Rangers action figures, something that he'd begged his parents for for months beforehand. Most of the afternoon that day had been spent constructing elaborate stories for each Power Ranger and numerous complicated relationships including marriages, divorces and several cases of adultery.

That year, his mother died and for his eighth birthday, he didn't ask for anything. Instead, he went to his mother's grave and left her daisies, her favourite flowers, his gift to her.

High school was completely different. The gifts he asked for were things like a new scarf, a sweater he'd had his eye on from Marc Jacobs, a pair of boots he'd lusted after. His sixteen-year-old self got a car and, when he was seventeen, permission to drive further than the grocery store, school and the mall.

For his graduation gift, his dad had spent hours and hours practising the dance to one of Kurt's favourite high school-era songs, and had performed it for him (rather well, he might add) with two of Kurt's old school friends, Tina and Brittany. It was one of the best gifts he'd ever received.

But now? Now he half-hoped everyone would just forget about his birthday and go on with their own lives.

Sitting at his laptop with his still-bandaged foot elevated (the bruising had turned an unpleasant shade of yellow-brown now), he meticulously filled in a spreadsheet for the monthly expenditure on fashion imports. Unfortunately it was a part of the job that he hated, but had to be done; he couldn't just buy the clothes as he pleased, he had to keep track of where he bought them from, how many and for how much. It was mind-numbing, time-consuming work.

But it had, so far, successfully distracted him from things that he really, really didn't want to think about. Like his birthday.

And Blaine.

He'd deleted his number from his cellphone and had it blocked in case he tried to call again - not that Kurt thought he would. He'd all but erased all memory of him from his mind. He didn't think about him, he didn't even mention his name. Even Rachel had learnt after those initial few days not to talk about it, a first for her since she never really listened to anything Kurt said and often did things she wasn't supposed to.

Like mention his birthday in the second week in May, after taking him to the hospital to have his ankle examined.

"So what are you doing for your birthday this year?" she asked him, quite companionably, as she drove him home (he wasn't able to himself).

"The answer to that question would be nothing." Kurt said. "I'm not celebrating my birthday this year."

"But, Kurt, you have to! It's your birthday!" she cried out, taking her eyes off the road to look at him in disbelief.

"I don't ‘have' to do anything." He grumbled irritably.

"Yes, you do. Because I'm throwing a party for you and you're going to enjoy it." She stated simply, pressing her lips into a tight line.

"Rachel, no!" Kurt groaned. "Can't you just....give me a cake and leave me alone?"

"No." She said. And that seemed to be that, because she didn't say anything else and they spent the rest of the journey in silence.

*************************************************************************************

Not for the first time, Blaine wondered whether he really had done the right thing as he caught yet another glimpse of a tall, pale, brown-haired passenger and had to remind himself that the chances of this person or that person being Kurt was practically zero.

For weeks, he had been seeing Kurt wherever he went. Or rather, people who reminded him of Kurt. The waiter who'd served him his coffee in a cafe a few blocks from his apartment had the same blue eyes as he did. The man he'd bumped into in the aisle coming out of the airplane bathroom wore the same kind of pants that Kurt wore. A passenger on his flight to Copenhagen spoke in the same high-pitched voice that Kurt did.

He was pretty sure that he was going out of his mind and he was powerless to stop it. Or maybe he didn't want to. He couldn't be sure.

The one thing he did know was that he would never have the courage to put it right.

 Because he, Blaine Anderson, was a coward.

 No matter how hard he tried, no matter how good he was at his job, no matter how friendly or kind or outgoing he tired to be, no matter how much he was thanked for his impeccable service on flights, nothing was going to change that fact. Nothing.

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Kurt was dreaming of Blaine again, just when he thought he'd gotten rid of the flight attendant from his mind. The dreams were frequent, and always the same. They'd fall into each other's embrace and kiss passionately, feeling sweaty skin and hot breath as they made love and came together in a dizzying rush. The dreams left Kurt feeling exhausted, and lonely, and in dire need of a change of pyjama pants.

In short, they were trying to tell him something important that he wasn't yet ready to face.

Determined not to think of the impending red letter event taking place at the end of the month that would involve forced celebration and enjoyment i.e. his birthday, he threw himself back into his work with as much gusto as he could manage. After falling into a bad depression for a week or so and now that his ankle was on the mend, he was able to take on more responsibility from home before he could return to the offices with both legs and feet intact.

He apologised profusely to Jessica, who had gone to Rio instead of him and had an awful time, promising to make it up to her by buying her a cupcake at lunch every day for a week. She reluctantly agreed as long as the cupcake was red velvet.

He also apologised to everyone under his supervision for ‘dropping the ball' work-wise lately and promised not to let it happen again. That one, he wasn't so sure about. Life could be unpredictable; sometimes it threw you curve balls you had never imagined and then you were left wondering what on this earth you were going to do with yourself.

Which is why, a week before his birthday, his depression turned into determination.

Instead of moping about the apartment like a limp cabbage, he decided that he would take action and do something about his life that didn't involve order receipts for geometric print skirts.

He enrolled in a Japanese cooking class.

Kurt wasn't really sure why exactly, but he'd always liked Asian food and he might as well expand his culinary talents beyond the traditional, basic cooking everyone could do. Besides, he'd always wanted to know how sushi was really made - although he wasn't too hot on the idea of having to skin and gut a fish himself.

Needless to say, Rachel had been more than little concerned.

"Why are you taking a cooking class?" she'd demanded when they met for their semi-regular lunch plans the day after he'd signed up for the class.

"Why not?" he shrugged, pulling apart a soft bread roll and dunking it unceremoniously in his coffee, at which Rachel pulled a face. It was actually quite nice that way, if you left the bread unbuttered.

"You're substituting a hobby for love." Rachel said with a shake of her head, taking a bite out of her tofu sandwich (Kurt didn't understand how she could eat it, it tasted horrible). "It's not good for you, Kurt. You'll know that one day when you're old and alone and the only person who comes to visit you is the home help nurse provided for your care by your non-existent grandchildren."

"Who said I won't have grandchildren?" Kurt snapped, dunking his bread roll again a little more ferociously. "I might end up having twelve kids and three dogs, Rachel Berry, which most definitely means grandchildren."

"You don't like dogs." Rachel retorted.

"That's not the point!" Kurt said through a mouthful of bread. "The point is, you're insane and I'm not listening to you anymore."

"You're just retaliating with anger because you know I'm right." Said Rachel self-righteously, and Kurt felt an inexplicable urge to slap her, enormous nose and all. He gripped his spoon rather tightly to repress the urge.

"Have you heard from Blaine since.....?" she asked suddenly, prompting Kurt to drop aforementioned spoon.

"No." He said tightly. "I blocked his cell so he can't reach me."

"Oh."

They ate in silence for a moment; Rachel her disgusting tofu sandwich, Kurt his chicken and mushroom soup.

"Maybe you should try online dating?" Rachel suggested, and Kurt nearly inhaled soup up his nose from laughing so hard. Please tell me she's not serious. She cannot be serious.

"No way." He said. "No freaking way, Rachel."

"It was just a suggestion." she sniffed. "I know a few people who've found perfectly decent partners on such websites, some of them are even married now."

"It's not my thing, Rachel. I like seeing a person face to face. I like to kiss and touch."

"You can do that after you've met them online." Rachel said, if he didn't know. He'd heard the horror stories that became front-page headlines; he knew the dangers, the risks. No. He'd rather meet a person, well, in person and get to know them face-to-face.

Maybe that's why Blaine doesn't want to see me anymore, he thought out of the blue. We hardly ever saw each other. It was never going to work out, anyway. He was too busy and so was I. But maybe he was only comforting himself with those thoughts.

Anyway, thinking of Blaine was too painful, so he concentrated instead on eating and his impending cooking class. It would be fun; he'd learn something new and maybe make a few friends outside of Vogue. Goodness knows he needed a wider circle of acquaintances.

**************************************************************************************

After running late at the offices and having to strategically deal with the catastrophe of an order gone wrong without letting his supervisor or the rest of the building know about his blunder, Kurt was glad to finally reach the small restaurant where the cooking class was being held - a Japanese restaurant, of course - and breathe in the intoxicating smell of Asian spices as he slipped through the door.

He hadn't been here before - it was new to him - but it felt homely. The walls were painted dark red and there were several Japanese plants in large terracotta pots placed around the main restaurant, which was filled with small black-topped tables with candles glowing on them. He followed the chatter he could here to the back of the restaurant, where the enormous steel door that lead to the kitchen stood ajar.

Kurt was relieved to see that the other members of the class were like himself, every day people who were decidedly non-Japanese. He thought that if they had been Japanese, he would have felt intimidated. It would also be cheating, since they had probably grown up cooking Japanese food and would already know the basics. If so, why would they sign up for a class like this?

But thankfully, they weren't.

He said hello to a few people and told them his name, and was surprised to find that most of them had rather banal, so-so jobs. There was a plumber, a painter, a kindergarten teacher, a woman who owned a spice store, a man who was a self-employed contractor, a husband and wife who owned an eco-friendly cafe and a few people who worked in construction, but nobody had a job title much higher than that. Kurt felt suddenly out of place, working in the fashion world and earning a pretty decent salary, compared to these people who probably earned a lot less than he did.

Luckily he was distracted from worrying about feeling self-conscious by the arrival of the instructor, a tall, friendly-faced Japanese woman - naturally - with dark hair scraped on top of her head in a topknot. She wore no makeup, but her face was pretty. She was already dressed in a chef's white outfit, and carried a white chef's hat under her arm.

She looked so....traditional that when she spoke, Kurt was shocked to hear a thick Brooklyn accent come out of her mouth.

"First thing you want to know? Forget everything you know about traditional Japanese cuisine from ordering from take-out menus. Those places don't know how to cook real Japanese food, they just slather it in sauces and chemicals and expect us to take for granted that it's authentic. Well, I can tell you from childhoods growing up in Kyoto that they're wrong. You won't find mass-produced factory food in my restaurant or anywhere else in Japan, not even in take-outs - yes, we have those there." She laughed. Kurt decided that he liked this woman.

She clapped her hands warmly, then seemed to realise something. "Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot - I'm Alice Reece. Just call me Alice. Now, for our first lesson we are going to look at the basics of good Japanese food - good, organic ingredients. It has to be fresh, it has to be clean, and it has to be free from any chemicals that they spray on the stuff you get at the grocery store. My advice? Buy from street markets - they will always have fresh ingredients, fruit and vegetables, that you can use."

I wish I'd thought to bring a notepad to write all this down, he thought. Oh God, I'm turning into Rachel Berry.

Then, Alice split them into groups to have them each learn about a specific key ingredient that they would be using over the next couple of weeks. It should have felt patronising, but it didn't; it was nice sometimes for someone to break it down for you in a way that you felt you could understand. Kurt didn't get that a lot and he relished the new learning environment.

The hour actually passed rather enjoyably and he found himself grouped with the kindergarten teacher and the eco-cafe wife, both very nice and easy to get on with. Then again, he'd always got on well with women - the teacher was also female and still quite young, perhaps only a couple of years older than he was. It was men that were rather more difficult because they didn't seem to like him as much, though there were plenty of male colleagues at Vogue who were happy to be polite. Then again, most of them, like him, were gay.

Except for Tim from accounting, but nobody talked about him. Or his estranged wife. Or his dog.

Moreover, Kurt really did find himself enjoying the experience. He certainly learnt more that he had in a while and was surprised by a few things - I had no idea the chemicals they put in take-out food - but above all, he found himself having fun for the first time.

He didn't even think about Blaine at all. Not once.

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Blaine was thinking of Kurt. Or rather, thinking of ways that he could possibly put things right with Kurt after things had gone so horribly wrong.

At first, he'd thought of finding a way to contact him - he knew that Kurt had blocked his cellphone number - but everything he came up with involved illegal methods, and he didn't think Kurt would approve too much.

Plus, he didn't think he would think much of himself if he did any of those things, either.

He wondered about calling his brother for advice, but then thought better of it. He wasn't sure he wanted to listen whilst Cooper listed all the ‘amazing' things that had happened to him and how great his life was, only to be told that he was busy and couldn't talk right now, so could he call back? No. Cooper was out of the question.

The answer came to him on a very boring, very uneventful flight to Tokyo.

 He couldn't help but overhear a middle-aged woman on the phone to someone who could only be her daughter, and she seemed to be comforting her about a relationship problem. He stopped stacking Styrofoam coffee cups with removable lids to listen in on the conversation; not an easy task when the rest of the plane was so noisy and full of chatter.

"Oh, honey, listen to me. You know what you have to do? You have to tell that idiot exactly how you feel about him, or else if you don't, he won't know. And if he doesn't know, you're not gonna get a proposal off that man anytime soon."

Okay, so maybe the idea of a proposal is a little extreme, he thought, but listening to her made something click inside his head. He'd always prided himself on his ability to be honest and speak with the genuine feeling that communication demanded. It was ironic that only now that skill was failing him.

It was so simple, so obvious, that he could have kicked himself for not realising it sooner. I just have to be honest with him. That's it. I can do that. I can.

I have to. But how?

*****************************************************************************************************************

The morning of his twenty-fourth birthday, Kurt was awoken rather violently by someone repeatedly hitting him over the head with a large pillow.

"Kurt, you need to get up now!" an all-too-familiar-voice shrieked, and he cowered back under the duvet away from the source of the noise. It's too early for this. And it's especially too early for Rachel Berry.

"Kurt, come on! You have to be out of the apartment so I can get everything ready for your party!" Rachel shrieked again, pulling the duvet away from him so that his pyjama-clad body was exposed to the cool air of the May morning.

Party. His birthday party. Crap. He'd forgotten all about it until now; in fact, it was only just registering that it was indeed his birthday until Rachel had mentioned the party.

He was turning twenty-four. Twenty-four. For someone in the fashion industry, he was practically middle-aged. Twenty-four. It was only his luck that he was born with infantile features which made him look younger than he actually was; both a blessing and a curse, as when he was a kid people on the street mistook him for a middle-schooler when he was in high school.

Not exactly helpful, when you think about it.

Grudgingly, he dragged himself out of bed on his crutches and moaned when he saw the state of his hair in the bathroom mirror. It didn't look the best first thing in the morning regardless, but now it looked like a bird had used it as a makeshift nest. Pushing his fingers through it and pulling it this way and that didn't help. He was going to have to wash it and start from scratch.

"Hurry up!" Rachel demanded from outside the bathroom door. "I want you out of this apartment in twenty minutes!"

Kurt almost dropped the bottle of shampoo he was holding. Twenty minutes? Did she even know him at all? It would take him at least an hour to fix the catastrophe that was his hair, not to mention his morning skincare routine that he'd been keeping up since he was thirteen years old, as well as finding an appropriate outfit for the day. And his sprained ankle.

"You can't be serious!" he yelled back.

"Oh, I'm very serious! I want you out of this apartment so I can get everything ready!" she replied.

"Rachel...." he asked carefully. "How many people are coming to this party?"

"A few people." She said, but she sounded apprehensive, even nervous. Kurt became suspicious.

"Define ‘a few'." He said, with caution.

"Thirty."

"Thirty!" it was his turn to shriek. "Thirty, Rachel? Are you serious? I know I make a substantial amount of money at Vogue but you and I both know my apartment isn't all that big, and it definitely isn't big enough for thirty people to spend the night here comfortably!"

What the hell is she thinking? She's insane. She's completely insane. There's absolutely no way thirty people, plus me and her, can fit in my apartment.

"What about food and drink?" he suddenly asked, thinking of it.

"I'll take care of all of that." She assured him. "Now, go get dressed. You have fifteen minutes."

I really don't know why I put up with her. Kurt stomped across the bathroom, biting his lip when pain flared up along his ankle and foot, seizing his hairspray and styling crème from the cupboard, a comb, and his usual day face cream. He wasn't happy about cutting his skincare routine in half by Rachel's ridiculous time constrictions, but he supposed he would have to be flexible.

"Oh! I almost forgot, Kurt - happy birthday!"

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Kurt was very, very, very bored.

He'd walked a quarter of Central Park - on crutches, no less - eaten three pretzels and drank two cups of coffee, petted a dog, thrown a ball back to a group of boys playing soccer and used the bathroom.

This was not how he had expected to spend his twenty-fourth birthday.

To make matters worse, he was sure he'd bruised a toe and his parents hadn't called him yet to wish him ‘Happy Birthday!'

Lifting himself up onto his crutches, he decided to walk back the quarter of the park to where he'd started, and see about getting a taxi somewhere - his foot really was hurting now. Maybe he could go to one of the art galleries or stop for something to eat that wasn't a salty, greasy - but delicious - snack in a cafe somewhere. Goodness only knew New York was full of them.

He really hoped Rachel was almost ready with whatever ‘party arrangements' she had, because he just wanted to sit on his couch and watch terrible TV and not have to worry about work or friends or even doing anything at all on his birthday.

The clock in the cafe that he stopped in read 12:01pm. He'd only been out for three hours. Surely Rachel would be done by now?

Sipping his third coffee - full fat milk, extra caffeine shot - he sat back and resorted to his old habit of people-watching. It always got him through particularly uneventful days at the Vogue offices. Perhaps it would give him the same relief now.

He watched as a couple strolled in and took drinks to go, hand in hand and making his stomach clench uncomfortably. An elderly lady ordered a slice of chocolate fudge cake and a large espresso and sat eating it with her fingers, crumbs falling down her baggy coral-coloured shirt. Two little boys came in with a dark-haired woman with wrinkles around her eyes and had juice made for them in sippy cups by the barista, which Kurt thought was cute. A man who appeared to be in his late forties ordered carrot cake and asked for a plastic fork to eat it with. He didn't order a drink.

It was slightly cramped and there wasn't much room to extend his aching foot under the table, but it was good enough for the time being. It felt nice to be out for a change instead of either at home or in the office - the latter he couldn't do anyway due to his situation - but he would have rather liked to be in his own apartment, especially today. However, due to Rachel's enthusiasm and insistence that he have a party, he wasn't able to.

Remind me again why I continue to endure her and all that she entails? He thought to himself, absently tapping his fingers in a nonsensical rhythm against the side of the coffee cup. Oh, it's because she knows too much about me so that if I ever cut her off she'd tell everyone my secrets and cause me lifelong ridicule and pain. That's why.

Plus, she got him cheesecake whenever he needed it which was as good a reason as any to keep her around.

Eventually, he got fed up and decided that he would call Rachel and see if he was able to return to his apartment yet. He was practically an invalid and making him stay out of his own home longer than necessary was probably abuse.

Right on cue and as if it had read his mind, his cellphone rang in his pocket, though it was a few seconds before he heard it due to the crowded shop and the noise around him.

"Can I come back yet?" he asked, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

"No!" Rachel said. "I'm not finished yet. The party isn't until 3pm and it's only 12:30." He checked the clock on the wall. She was right. Fantastic.

"Rachel, I have a bad ankle. I'm on crutches. How on earth am I supposed to stay out, in New York, on crutches for another two and a half hours?"

"Think of something. Go see a movie."

"I don't have any money since you forced me out of my apartment in such a hurry this morning." He quipped, rather more viciously than he should have. "On crutches, I might add."

"Yes, you've established your handicapped situation very clearly, thank you." Rachel sniffed, stung. "Look, I really want this to be perfect so just give me a little more time, okay? It's not every day you turn twenty-four, you know."

Kurt sighed. He knew that he would have to give in or he'd hurt her feelings, and that was something he really didn't feel like doing in his current situation. He also knew that if he did, she'd hang it over his head for the rest of his life and possibly even during his funeral, too.

"Sorry." He apologised. "Life's not been too great lately."

"I understand." She said, sincerely - so sincerely, in fact, that he actually believed her. "Okay, how about a compromise - two thirty instead of three?" she offered.

He thought about it for a minute. "That seems reasonable."

"Okay. Two thirty then. I'll have less time to prepare, but I'm nothing if not a fast and efficient worker. It's how I learnt all my lines and lyrics in seventy-two hours for a theatre production of Evita when I was at NYADA."

"Rachel, you already knew all the lines and lyrics to Evita and you have done since you were seven years old." He pointed out.

"True. But that's not the point here. The point is that I'm awesome and I'm going to throw you a kick-ass birthday party."

There we go, classic Rachel Berry, Kurt sighed to himself. He pursed his lips and swallowed the last of his coffee, now lukewarm but surprisingly just as good, as he thought of what to say next.

"I think I'll wait until after the event to thank you." was his reply.

**********************************************************************

When Kurt hobbled into the apartment just after two-thirty that afternoon, he was immediately accosted by his father and Carole - whom he was stunned to see and couldn't believe had travelled all this way just for a party - who enquired about his injury and whether he could walk, and whether it hurt, and when he was going to be able to drive again. His father also pressed a neatly-wrapped box into his momentarily outstretched hands - he was hugging Carole - and told wished him a rather tearful-looking ‘Happy birthday, kid'.

He noticed that Finn was also there - which he thought was a slight risk given that Rachel was also present, handing out snacks and offering drinks to various relatives and some of Kurt's friends. His colleagues from work, including his assistant Victoria, were there and greeted him enthusiastically when they saw him arrive.

It was all rather impressive considering it had been put together in only a few hours.

He could hear the faint strains of music coming from the CD player on the kitchen counter - regular Top 40 stuff, but he recognised a few of the songs and found himself awkwardly shuffling along in time to the music as best he could with the use of only one foot, as he caught Carole up on everything that had happened since he'd last seen her.

He, of course, left out the part about Blaine.

Feeling the ache in his foot returning, he went to position himself on the couch, where he was joined by Finn. His gargantuan stepbrother was as tall as ever but just as well-meaning.

"Dude, what happened to your foot?" he asked, swallowing a large gulp of lemonade. Kurt thought that he was far too old now to be called dude as a term of endearment, but since it was his birthday and he was feeling surprisingly generous all of a sudden, he let it slide.

"The sink broke and there was water all over the kitchen, so I slipped and sprained my ankle." He explained. "I can't work for another five weeks, at least not in the office, so I've been working from home."

"You can do that?" Finn sounded surprised; not that it was really anything shocking.

"Yes." Kurt laughed. "You can do that." He remembered something that Carole had mentioned the last time he'd been home. "Carole said you had a new girlfriend." He prompted.

"Oh, yeah. Mandy. She's really great, I really like her." Finn said.

"It's serious?"

"I'm not sure. I think so. I want it to be." His stepbrother smiled. "I think you'd like her."

"I'm sure I would." A pause. "Do dad and Carole like her?"

"They haven't exactly.....met her, yet." Finn said quietly, looking nervously to where their parents were standing, deep in conversation. "It's not the right time."

"Finn, you've been dating for months." Kurt pointed out.

"I just want to.....to make sure it's special, y'know?" he said carefully, downing the remainder of his lemonade and wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt. "I want it to really mean something."

"Yeah." Kurt replied. "I understand."

And he did. He did understand what Finn meant; if you really liked someone, you wanted to be sure that they absolutely felt the same way and that the time was right. If the time wasn't right, then there was no point wasting yourself on someone not worth your affection.

How ironic that sounds now, he thought. Where was this logic when I needed it two months ago?

"Cool." was Finn's monosyllabic reply. Not that Kurt expected much more; Finn was a man of few words. "Happy birthday."

"Thank you."

Not much of a party-goer, Kurt was happy to observe the guests rather than join in with them, even if it was his own party. He'd always been that way, and it felt nice to know that all these people, all his friends and family, were here for him. It gave him a warm, fuzzy feeling not unlike the sensation he'd had when he'd tried whisky for the first time at the age of nineteen, without the lingering aftertaste of solvents and the burning in the back of the throat.

Needless to say, he didn't like whisky.

In fact, he was more of a wine person, and gratefully accepted a glass from Rachel, who was passing around a rather expensive-looking bottle and a tray of equally expensive-looking wine glasses - where she got those, Kurt would never know. The sweet-sour taste and the warm aftermath that blossoms on the tongue is a far cry from the overpowering stench of Jack Daniels and anyway, wine is much more sophisticated.

Someone then turns the music up - Kurt suspects Victoria - and it's like an instant boost to his low spirits; music has always been able to do that to him. It's an old song, something that his father might have listened to, or Carole, but it makes him feel better and he wiggled the toes of his good foot in time to the beat, perfectly content.

It was nice. It was comfortable. And it was uplifting.

It was, in short, exactly what he needed. With everything that had happened, he really needed a good pick-me up, and where was a better place to find one than surrounded by family and friends?

Then one of his colleagues, a red-haired woman a few years older than him called Samantha with whom he was fairly, came to talk to him. She pressed a purple box into his free hand with a wink.

"How you doin'?" After two years working together, he would never get used to her thick Texan drawl.

"Okay, I guess." He smiled, taking a gulp of wine. "Life could be better, but I suppose that's just how it is."

"Oh, come on now. It's your birthday, have a little fun!" she glanced at his bandaged foot, the crutches resting against the arm of the couch. "Well, as much fun as you can with only one leg."

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, watching everyone else. He'd always liked Samantha; she was one of Vogue's better representatives. Plus, she was able to get Kurt cut-price materials and fabrics due to her ‘connections' higher up in the fashion industry, if there was such a thing as being higher up in the fashion industry than working at Vogue.

"You're not going to make a pirate joke, are you?" he asked concernedly, grimacing teasingly.

"No, not this time. But count yourself lucky." She laughed, and Kurt found himself laughing with her. Sometimes it was better to go with the flow rather than focus on one single thing and let it consume you completely; life was sometimes better that way.

This whole thing's really messed up my mind and I really don't know what to think or do about it. This isn't like me.

He excused himself to go to the bathroom, a difficult task considering he had to hobble across the living room navigating guests to do it. The quiet that enveloped him was strangely calming when he shut the door and blocked out the noise outside. It came to him that bathrooms were often tranquil places; it was why so many of them were painted blue. Blue was supposed to be calming.

It actually worked.

He felt calmer in here that he did outside, despite the warm, pleasant feeling he received from being the company of people he liked and loved. He didn't feel like people were walking on eggshells around him as much.

Not that there were any people in the bathroom, but the point remained.

To kill some time, he carefully unwrapped the bandage from his foot to assess the healing process. It was no longer swollen and the bruising had turned an ugly shade of yellow, meaning that it was slowly going back to normal. He tried wiggling his toes experimentally but then winced as pain shot through the front of his foot, making him recoil in his position on the toilet (he had put the seat down first, naturally).

I want to stay a while longer but if I do they'll think something's wrong, and I don't really want Rachel bursting in on me when I'm sitting on the toilet, even if I'm not actually doing anything in here except wallowing in my own self-pity despite it being a day I should celebrate.

He'd been doing a lot of that lately.

Deciding it was time to come out (pardon the pun), he took a few deep breaths, wrapped his foot back up and reached for his crutches unsteadily. He could hear loud chatter outside; clearly his own friends and family were getting along better when he wasn't there. This didn't make him feel better in the slightest.

"Hey, you're back! You were takin' so long, we thought you drowned." His father greeted him happily when he returned to the living room. "Are you okay? You look kinda.....unhappy."

Damn. I forgot that my dad can read me like a book.

"I'm fine, Dad. Just.....life getting in the way." He insisted. "It's nothing to worry about."

"You sure? ‘Cause if you need a break from the big city, there's always room for you at home, you know. You're always welcome there." His father said. The very thought of returning to Ohio made Kurt's stomach turn and his throat constrict simultaneously; he knew how much his father missed him, but there was no way he could go back to Lima on a semi-permanent basis. New York was where he belonged now.

"I'll keep it in mind." Kurt replied, smiling as best he could despite the pricking behind his eyes. He was so all over the place that a simple conversation like this could rouse such a strong reaction from him. Maybe a break from New York would be beneficial after all.

Luckily, Kurt was saved from another embarrassing display of emotion by the sound of the doorbell ringing, which he only just heard underneath the music and the clatter of glasses and bottles and general conversation.

Which was confusing, because everybody who had been invited to the party had already arrived and he didn't know anybody else who would turn up at 5pm in the afternoon. He'd already received his mail that morning and he had ordered no parcels.

"I'll get it!" Rachel called shrilly, "I'll get it! You all just wait right here."

Why Rachel was getting the door in his apartment he had no idea, but he didn't feel like going all the way over there on his crutches and fumbling with the lock one-handed looking like an imbecile whilst whoever it was on the other side grew impatient.

It was just as well, because what happened next would probably made him drop his crutches and keel over completely.

"Who the hell are you?!" Rachel demanded from the doorway, but Kurt couldn't see her from where he was standing. "What do you want?"

"I-I'm here to see Kurt. Is he here? Please, you have to let me see him." An all-too-familiar voice drifted across the room, strained and thin and pleading.

"Who are you?" Rachel demanded again, and Kurt could imagine the look of shock and confusion on her face.

He, however, felt as if the bottom of his stomach had dropped out and his whole body had gone numb. Because there was no way that this was actually happening. There was just no way this was actually happening to him.

"I haven't got time to explain. I just really need to see him."

Kurt just couldn't comprehend it. The questions how and what and why flew from his mind and all he could think about was please, not here, not now, not in front of everyone.

Because he was in love with Blaine Anderson, and he'd just turned up at his apartment.