After about a few hours of roaming the sidewalks of NYC, Blaine and Kurt finally decide to stop in a café to get some food. The place is quaint, with soft, acoustic music flowing from the strings of the guitar player off to the side of the café.

"This is my favorite place to go to when I have time," Kurt explains as they sit down. "I go to the musical theatre school near here, so it's basically the best hang out for all the students. Well, this and Callbacks—that's a bar that has karaoke sometimes, everyone at my college loves doing that." He adds in with a chuckle.

"Well it's definitely awesome here," Blaine smiles. "And musical theatre? I didn't know that was your major. What school?"

"NYADA—New York Academy of Dramatic Arts. It was actually really hard to get in...I almost didn't when I first auditioned, but then I did. Thank God, because New York has literally been my dream for as long as I can remember." Kurt replies as he looks through the menu on the table they're at.

"That's cool. So you can sing, act...anything else you're super talented at? I'm starting to get worried that you're way out of my league." Blaine chuckles jokingly. Kurt blushes slightly but laughs too.

"Well, I mean I do have an awesome fashion sense. That's my minor, in case my Broadway dreams never fall through." He answers, giving a playful smug look. "I actually interned at Vogue.com for a few months in the beginning of my first semester. But then it was hard to manage so I had to quit. It was a great experience though."

Blaine just smiled and nodded along as Kurt talked. He could listen to his angelic voice all day, even if he was reciting the Declaration of Independence. How did he get so lucky to meet this wonderful, amazing person? If he hadn't agreed to go on this business trip with his parents, he would've never been graced with Kurt's presence. And that is definitely not okay, because Blaine loved being in Kurt's presence.

"So Blaine, are you in college too or...?" Kurt asked after they both finished ordering their food and drinks. Blaine nods.

"Yeah, I just finished up my first year at Ohio State. I like it there, but honestly part of the reason I decided to even come here with my parents was to check out some New York schools." Blaine answers, perking up Kurt's interest even more. "I'm a music major, but honestly, I think I really wanna do theatre too. Maybe not Broadway, but I do love acting and performing on stage."

"New York would be perfect then. Between NYADA, NYU, Pace...you have a lot of choices." Kurt smiles, loving the idea that not only actually having the possibility of seeing Blaine again after these two weeks, but also having music as a common factor between them.

"Yeah I know," Blaine smiles. "Which is why I'm gonna try to visit some campuses. So did you do a lot of plays and musicals in high school?"

"Well, I was involved but there weren't a lot of lead roles for a guy like me," Kurt sighs softly. "I mean, my voice is obviously higher than most guys, and my singing voice is just as high. I can sing lower...but I was never the dominant male lead."

"That's okay, obviously there are more roles outside of high school for you to do," Blaine says encouragingly. "I was involved in plays and musicals all my life actually."

"Oh cool. I'm assuming you had a lot of the lead roles?" Kurt chuckles a little.

"Well I mean..." Blaine smiles modestly, not wanting to make Kurt feel bad. "Yeah. Not many people did theatre in my high school, so there's that. It was fun playing straight on stage." He adds jokingly. Their food gets to the table a few minutes later.

"I bet," Kurt laughs softly, still unsure if this is a dream or not. "I'd love to hear you sing sometime. Maybe we can duet." Blaine smiles with a nod.

"Definitely! I'm sure you have an amazing voice." Blaine grins, taking a bite of his grilled chicken salad. "I also did glee club back in high school too."

"No way! So did I!" Kurt squeaked out, mentally hitting himself for getting over-excited like that. He clears his throat. "It was the only escape I had from the idiot jocks at my school."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Blaine answers. "Imagine if we competed against each other? That would've been funny since we were probably like 10 feet away and didn't even know that we would've met a couple years later." Kurt smiles.

"That would've been quite ironic." He says as he eats his salad as well. "It's funny though, after we won nationals my senior year, people suddenly respected us. They were so rude to us, but after that win we suddenly were "cool" to them."

"High school works in mysterious ways," Blaine shrugs a little, causing Kurt to chuckle softly. "So do you wanna know how I was bullied? Since you did tell me how you were, and it's not like it's happening now still..."

"Only if you want to tell me, I don't wanna force it out of you." Kurt replies sincerely. He wants to know all about Blaine, but Kurt knows how hard it is to revisit those kinds of thoughts down memory lane.

"No, I want to," Blaine puts his fork down, sighing softly. He glances down at his hands a little. "It started after I had just come out. My friends were cool with it; I mean they didn't really expect it because I did try seeing if I liked girls before. Even went on a date or two. But I knew I liked guys after attempting to be with a girl. Anyway, there were people who weren't so cool with it." He swallows lightly as he thinks back on those dark days, ones where he wished he could just escape the world forever.

Kurt nods, urging Blaine to go on. He doesn't want Blaine to feel forced, because Kurt knows how hard bullying can be. He's here to comfort Blaine through this story.

"These guys in my school um," Blaine looks up at Kurt finally, but then back down. "They would pick on me everyday sophomore year. First it started off with name-calling, which didn't get to me as bad as it could have. But it got worse...I was pushed around too, a lot. I fought back though, because I wasn't gonna let them get to me." Blaine sighs shakily, and Kurt gently puts a hand on one of Blaine's comfortingly. "I did boxing so I knew how to fight, and I ended up getting beat up pretty badly...more often than not. When it finally got too much, that's when I transferred. I ran, Kurt. I did exactly what I told myself I wouldn't do from all the bullying."

Kurt watches Blaine's features screw up a bit, obvious that this isn't something he usually talks about. Kurt's semi-pleased that Blaine trusts him enough to tell him about his past like this...after all, they only met this morning. Kurt gently put his hand over Blaine's.

"Basically what happened was that I asked a friend of mine to go to this dance at my school, because he was the only other out gay kid, and it was fine until the end when we were waiting for his dad to come pick us up." Blaine takes a breath. "A few of the guys who pick on me...um they beat the living crap out of us. I almost had to go to the hospital. All because I was a 'fag' and I 'ruined the dance.' They pretty much got charged for assault and expelled from the school after that. I still stayed away for a year though."

"I...I'm so sorry you had to go through that, Blaine," Kurt says softly, his eyes slightly watery. Out of everything he went through in high school, he could never imagine being beat up like that. "Some people are just awful. Don't they realize kids commit suicide over being bullied so bad? I just don't get it."

"I know," Blaine nods, quickly running a hand through his hair. "I won't deny that I thought about...that. Because I did, but I knew I would never actually go through with it. Then that would just satisfy those guys." Kurt nods, moving his hand away lightly. He takes a sip of his Diet Coke.

"Hey, we both got through hell-ish high school experiences, and we're both just fine now. Besides, I'm sure most of our bullies are now working at low-paying jobs because they couldn't get into college." Kurt chuckles, trying to get Blaine to smile. And it did.

"Yeah, exactly." Blaine says, smiling once more. He didn't think he could find someone like Kurt to talk to here, but he's glad he did. No one else besides his parents and closest friends know what it did to Blaine, all that bullying. Not until now that is.