Killer in Shadow

4.

It was a calm, peaceful night, accompanied with callings from the summer cicadas. His window half opened, without curtains to block away the moonlight, Blaine was sitting on the floor against the cold wall. He was exhausted.

He could go to bed, and just a few steps away, he could sleep on a soft mattress and find his rabbit hole to fall into tonight. Things, however, always go against one's will. Blaine felt unsettled. He knew he was sitting on the floor but he couldn't feel it. Everything was so lost in his head, he had no clue why was he feeling the way he felt now, and neither did he understand what that sensation was about. He might have regretted the bad choice he made in the past, he might have felt guilty about the action he took in the past, and he might have been confused for all night about the past, he had never felt so different, so lonely. Blaine thought of today and could not make sense out of it. He did his audition, he met Kurt again and hung out at school for a while, and he also knew one of Kurt's friends. He was surrounded with people, with Kurt, how could he feel so lonely like he had never been there before now?

Moving with time, the Moon slowly changed its position in the sky. The shadow of Blaine cast on the floor, distorted into a long figure reflecting his gesture.

He gasped.

Night used to be his guardian angel, his comfort. Sometimes things went wild and sometimes he let his mind rested on pillows. He would never feel like tonight if it were a week ago. Now that he had met Kurt, his angel was turning into an evil that Blaine could not recognize. Kurt was just a person he had met for a few times, why would such a tiny corner of his life impacted so much in his whole world?

On the other side of the bed, Blaine knew his angel was laughing at the human error in him, twisting his fate as a result of the betrayal in their deal. His existence suddenly seemed like a joke in a game that his angel was playing.

“Go away.” Blaine left off his sore voice speak. “Please.”

But he knew it never would.

As he stopped rocking, Blaine could feel his body was an empty shell he left on Earth. Not a point to focus at, he looked to the plain wall lifelessly until the Moon was gone.

- - - - -

“Quiet please.”

Mister Schuester wrote down ‘New Chapter' on the whiteboard and faced to his students. Blaine stood behind him, his hand holding onto the strap of his shoulder bag, his mind was filled with hundreds of ideas on how to ease himself into a new group.

This morning the results from the audition had come back. In Kurt's hands he was holding a piece of A4 paper and posted on the school noticeboard. There were a few names under ‘callback' category on the top half of the page. Blaine scanned to search his name but failed to find so, he could instantly feel his heart turned ice cold. But on the second half of the paper, it said ‘and congratulation to the new member of New Direction', which only two names were presented. The first name was a girl called Sugar Motta and the second name, as Blaine found himself staring for such a long time that the crowd who came to see the results had already been gone, written his name on it.

After classes had finished for the day, he walked swiftly to the choir room as Kurt had shown him before. He met mister Schue and waited for the girl to come. Mister Schue explained briefly about why he was put straight in the club. Emotions were the answer. After waiting for about fifteen minutes, they had decided that the girl was not coming at all, so it was just Blaine himself to face the new adventure in a new world.

“A new chapter.” Mister Schue said. “After we had caught up with fun stories and songs we had missed after a long holiday within our first two weeks, I think we can say that it's time to begin a new chapter!”

The students cheered. But Blaine spotted one girl who was also looking at him. The girl was wearing a high ponytail in her cheerleader's uniform. She had no smile or excitement written on her face, she seemed so angry with him for some reasons. Her stare was making him uncomfortable, it made him wonder if he shouldn't be here at all. He switched his attention to Kurt, who was sitting just below that girl.

Kurt was surrounded with a few other girls too, and the only one he knew was Mercedes. But with guess, he thought the girl who assembled a few Jewish features with long dark brown hair had to be Rachel Berry, who was one of the lead singers in competitions he had watched. Then it was a girl who was wearing cheerleader's uniform with dirty blonde hair, her body was leaning toward the boy in a wheelchair but her eyes were focusing on somewhere else. Blaine then looked back to Kurt.

Kurt was grinning at him, like he had seen it coming. Occasionally he or Rachel would chat into each other's ears.

“And for our new chapter, please welcome our first new member! Blaine Anderson!”

“Hi.” Blaine said. “I'm Blaine and I'm new to McKinley. It's my honour to be here and thank you so much for having me.”

“You deserved it.” Mister Schue said. “But tell us more about yourself, like why do you want to join the glee club?”

“The reason I wanted to join is,” He took a breath and looked to Kurt. Kurt was waiting for the answer as his eyes were shinning with his curiosity. Blaine tried to look somewhere else, but it was tiring to fight against his body, so he rested his sight on Kurt.

“I like how singing can make me forget about the unhappy moments, and...” He paused for a second.

At this moment, Blaine realized he was on the path to honesty. A few years ago when he joined the Warblers, the glee club in Dalton, he made his reason clear and simple. “Because singing is what I enjoy.” A quick answer like that and everybody would have no doubt in it. But today, standing in a similar situation, he couldn't open his mouth to lie. His tongue would stop him from speaking if he were going to make up excuses to pass the question. His heart was suddenly awake, eager to tell the truth under his skin. It didn't make sense to Blaine. All these feelings he had been experiencing recently just didn't make any sense at all. He didn't understand why couldn't he just do the same like before. When he looked right into Kurt's eyes, his heart forced him to speak more of himself. But he couldn't do that. He couldn't reveal his dark side to anybody under the daylight. He had to hide himself in a quiet space without anybody noticing. The ugly truth would even be too hard for Blaine to handle.

“And having a big group to belong to just makes everything better.” He explained.

Kurt, who looked slightly surprised by the genuine answer from Blaine, he was the first one to applaud loudly. Followed by the others, Blaine shyly walked to the empty seat as mister Schue told him to do so.

“That,” mister Schue emphasized, “is a brilliant respond. And in this new chapter I think we should also focus on belonging too.”

Kurt put up his hand in the air for his permission to speak.

“Yes, Kurt?”

“Do you guys remember last year's sectional and regional? Remember the performances from Dalton Academy?” He asked.

“No way!” An Asian girl gasped. “Blaine was that lead singer!”

The girl in high ponytail crossed her arms and gave it a sarcastic laugh. “Oh yeah, the pips.”

Rachel looked up to that girl but then turned her head away. “Not now, Santana.”

Santana rolled her eyes and bumped into the back of her seat.

“How could I possibly forget that?” Surprised, mister Schue asked himself, but he quickly changed the topic. “And since we've such a strong group now,” He went to the piano where put his bag, and pulled out a pile of song notes. He divided the pile and handed them to the members, “we should start our preparation for sectional as soon as we can.”

“Oh whoa. Wait a second.” Santana stood up. “Are we just going to let a guy who happens to be the lead singer from the enemy school to spy on us?”

“Was.” Rachel corrected.

“Santana – “

“Please. We had like ten people auditioned and why only this guy got in? Why can't we have another lousy Broadway-wanna-be or a gay guy who wears rainbow flag?” She argued.

Red in the face, mister Schue appeared to be very angry at Santana. On the other hand, both Rachel and Kurt looked furious and upset. Blaine was confused and he did not understand where he did wrong. He looked at the group in puzzle.

“You are kicked out from this group.” Mister Schue snapped.

Perhaps a little in shock to hear, Santana's chest was moving up and down fast. She walked down the stairs and said to mister Schue. “You're just replacing him.”

The boy who sat next to Blaine spoke. “I'm Sam.” He whispered. “Welcome to glee club.”

- - - - -

It started to thunder in a humid afternoon. The heavy rain refreshed the stifling air. A few empty cans of cokes on the road that were probably left by the students got washed down by a stream of water to the side of the storm sewer. Blaine sat on the stairs under the roof of school front door and waited for Kurt to come.

His first glee rehearsal turned out to be a cold war. Although everybody else welcomed him and made him feel warm, one disgraceful sniff was all it took to ruin one's hope.

Blaine knew he didn't do anything wrong, but the sense of guilt sat strong in his gut. He felt he was responsible for what had happened.

“I'm terribly sorry.” Kurt came from behind and sat next to Blaine. “It has nothing to do with you, I just wish you know that.”

“It's okay, I can understand.”

“It's just that...” Kurt waited. He was biting his lips in grief. “Before the summer holiday started, we had a member who passed away.”

Blaine frowned in surprise. “I'm sorry to hear that.”

“His name was Finn.” He continued. “Everybody was in shock, we still are, but we are starting to accept the fact that he was no longer with us.” Kurt sighed. “I think Santana is just... not over with her guilt for Finn yet.”

Blaine didn't speak.

“They used to be very close in sophomore year, but Santana didn't treat him nicely.” He told Blaine. “It was just Santana being herself. She isn't a bully, you know? She says mean things to you, but... in the end she's always the one who cares about us the most.”

Blaine nodded.

“We're like family. And losing Finn...” Kurt exhaled, looking at the rain; he then gave a faint smile to Blaine. “I'm so sorry you have to put our grief on your shoulders too, but give us time and we'll be fine.”

Blaine nodded again.

A slience followed.

“What do you think life is, Blaine?” Kurt asked.

“I don't really know.” Haven't said anything for a while, Blaine's voice turned hoarse.

“I mean it's funny isn't it?” Kurt began. “We live and we die... Not knowing why we're here or why we're feeling in a certain way we do, and then we just sleep forever. I think about how my death would be sometimes.” Kurt now faced to Blaine. “I imagined myself an old man, lying on a soft bed, surrounded by the people I love. That's the only way I could think of it.”

Blaine gazed on the sadness in Kurt's eyes. His pulse jumping in a mess, his hands were cold and he could not think of anything to say. He looked down to the ground.

“And then you heard the news everyday that somebody died in an accident or killed by a cold-hearted murderer, and you just selfishly feel relieved because it wasnt yourself, or not somebody you know.” Kurt bit his lips. Maybe he realized the conversation had gone too deep, he brightened up his tone.

“I'm sorry. We should talk about something else.”

“No, don't be.” Blaine replied.

A loud car horn sounded from the car park, it was Puckerman.

Kurt opened his umbrella that he was holding earlier and shared it with Blaine as they walked to Puckerman's car.

“Hey I'm taking Quinn and Artie home, wanna squeeze in?”

“Yeah come with us.” The girl who wore a floral print dress, Quinn, said. “Did you hear the news today? The police found that poor missing girl's body just outside of Lima. It makes me scared to walk home alone now.”

“But there's only one seat – “

“It's okay, I can walk home.” Blaine said. “It's only a few minutes away.”

“Alright then, hop on, Hummel boy.”

“You sure?” Kurt turned to Blaine.

“Yeah.” He confirmed.

“Okay, then at least take my umbrella.” Kurt gave the umbrella to Blaine and got onto the backseat. “I'll see you tomorrow.” He waved.

Blaine stood at the same spot and waved. He waited the car was out of his sight before he closed the umbrella and let himself soaked in rain.

He couldn't take that kind offer. He didn't deserve to be treated nicely.

He closed his eyes.

A cold-hearted murder. A voice in his head said.

Maybe he really was a monster.