Blaine stares intensely at his TV screen. He moves his pro controller in his hands with ease and his character on screen mirrors him. In the corner of the screen, the HUD indicates that Blaine can use his special and he presses the right button.

Blaine’s character explodes ink all over the map, just when Kurt’s character got close.

“Damnit!” Kurt yells. Blaine grins. Not that Kurt can see it. At this rate, they should be happy that Voice Chat works, so a video call is out of their reach.

Right then, the match ends. The last minute has passed. Blaine cheers loudly.

Maybe he’s a bit too loud, because his neighbour bonks on the wall.

Blaine lets out a sigh.

“Sorry!” he yells back.

“What was that?” Kurt asks.

Blaine rolls his eyes. “Just my neighbour. Don’t worry about it. I don’t think he likes having fun.”

Kurt barks out a laugh.

“Oh, I wish that were me!” he says.

“How so?” Blaine asks.

“My neighbour seems to have too much fun sometimes,” Kurt says, sounding a bit annoyed, “I just asked him to calm down.”

“Maybe our neighbours should swap,” Blaine says with a laugh.

“Maybe.”

Blaine turns back to the screen. The next match is about to start and even though Kurt and Blaine are on different teams, they still take playing together very seriously.

“Ready?” Kurt asks, while the intro music plays in the background.

“Ready.”

“Hold the door!” Blaine yells as he sprints towards the elevator. He feels relieved when he realises that the other person waits for him, but that relief doesn’t last long when he realises who that other person is.

“Oh. Hello,” Blaine says with a growl.

Mr. 21, which is what Blaine calls his neighbour from apartment 21, gives him a cold nod. The elevator ride to their floor is relatively short, but with this tension between them, it feels like ages. 

“Sorry for the loudness of the other day, by the way,” Blaine says, since unlike Mr. 21, Blaine at least has the decency to act polite. 

Mr. 21 huffs out some air. So much for an apology.

The elevator doors open and Blaine rushes towards his apartment without saying another word. Why bother trying? Mr. 21 moved in about a year ago and he’s never even said a word to Blaine, and that’s not Blaine’s fault. On moving day, Blaine knocked on his door to introduce himself. He even brought cookies as a housewarming gift, and as an apology for future music sessions.

Mr. 21 never opened the door, even though Blaine knew he was home. Some of his stuff was still in the hallway and some movers were walking around with boxes.

Blaine first saw Mr. 21 when they were both leaving their apartments. At first, Blaine needed some seconds to compose himself. He had to admit that his new neighbour was very attractive and Blaine wanted to get to know him.

“Going my way?” Blaine had said, trying to start a conversation with his new neighbour.

Mr. 21 had given him a half shrug and then he left without saying anything else. He didn’t even hold the elevator that time. Maybe that was partially Blaine’s fault, because after that cold reaction, he’d stood in silence, trying to understand what had just happened.

Back then, Blaine had brushed it off. Everyone has bad days.

But Mr. 21 never seemed to care.

Instead, based on Mr. 21’s occasionally annoyed sighs and grunt, Blaine seemed to be a nuisance in his eyes, so at one point Blaine gave up on trying to talk to his hot but unnecessarily rude neighbour. Every time they run into each other, they immediately avoid each other’s eyes. Mr. 21’s awkwardness and rudeness was a huge point of frustration.

The moment Blaine closes his front door, he fishes his phone out of his pocket in order to text his friends about today’s occurrence.

Blaine: Hot neighbour’s at it again

Wes: what happened this time???

Blaine: I actually tried to apologise for some noise disturbance, but he just ignored me as usual 😪

Wes: shocking

Wes: at least this time you can say for sure that you’re the bigger man

Wes: which is quite hard since, ya know, you’re super short

David: GET REKT

Thad: lmao Blaine

Blaine: I hate you

Blaine puts away his coat and he kicks off his shoes. Today was already stressful enough. His shitty neighbour’s behaviour is just a cherry on top.

He needs to unwind.

Blaine changes into something more comfortable, gets a cup of coffee, and he walks towards his office. It’s a music room, and a gaming room. Hopefully Kurt will be online. He turns on his Switch and he fast forwards through Off the Hook while waiting for Discord to start. Living in an old building in New York has its advantages, because it looks really nice, but the main disadvantage is that for some fucking reason, parts seemed to have stayed in the past, like the Wi-Fi.

It's even happened that Blaine got banned temporarily from Splatoon 2 because the internet kept ending the matches. Blaine gets that it’s done to prevent people from intentionally powering off when they’re about to lose, but it sucks.

Since Blaine always ignores Off the Hook (sorry, Nintendo), he uses the menu to check the current stages. Then, the tone of a Discord call rings from the computer screen.

Kurt’s online and he’s calling.

At that same time, Blaine gets a pop-up on his Switch screen of Kurt playing Splatoon 2. He’s here!

Blaine answers his call by saying: “You would not believe the day I’m having.”

“God, tell me about it,” Kurt says knowingly, but there’s something weary in his voice. Blaine immediately checks the date and he almost lets out a sigh of relief when he realises it’s not a significant day, so he hasn’t forgotten anything.

“What’s up with your day?” Blaine asks.

“Just one of those days, you know?” Kurt dances around whatever he’s thinking. Blaine doesn’t mind.

They don’t owe each other anything, and that is what makes their friendship so good. Discord is semi-anonymous. All Kurt and Blaine know about each other are basic things like name, age and the fact that they live in the same time zone. Of course, over the past two years, they have started to learn more about the other, because they talk about their days. Blaine won’t be surprised if Kurt knows that Blaine lives in New York, since Blaine complains about the subway a lot.

Some things are very personal, like Blaine’s now great relationship with his dad and Kurt’s grief, so Blaine considers Kurt one of his best friends, but there are also some boundaries that they never cross, like last names, phone numbers or addresses.

Even though Kurt and Blaine know a lot of personal things of each other, they don’t ever have to tell each other everything. That’s freeing, in a way.

They also haven’t seen each other yet. The lack of proper Wi-Fi isn’t to blame here. They can’t video call through Discord, but they can upload photos. Both have never done so. It’s almost an unspoken rule between them that no one understands. Blaine’s slowly thinking about breaking that rule, but he hasn’t brought it up yet.

“You still there?” Kurt asks.

“Yes,” Blaine says with haste. He’s indeed been silent for a while. Luckily, he has a great excuse. “Sorry, I was distracted. I was checking the current stages.”

“And this is why you never ignore Off the Hook, Blaine!” Kurt sing-songs.

“There’s Rainmaker at Goby Area and Kelp Dome for League. Should we do that? Then I can rant about my day during the match.”

“That bad?”

Blaine lets out a long exaggerated sigh.

“That’s very telling,” Kurt says, sounding sympathetic.

Kurt and Blaine pair up for the League game and they pick out their gear. While Blaine’s browsing through his weapons, he starts ranting. He has a lot to say.

“It’s as if the universe hates me or something. First, there was some technical disturbance on my way to teaching. Then, God, I know she’s a child, but some kids are the worst. You notice that she has no interest in actually putting effort into learning piano. She just stares at me with complete and utter disinterest on her face and she uses every possibility to be on her phone. Sometimes I just want to step to her parents and beg them to stop this, because it’s clear that they are the ones who want their daughter to be great at it, but I can always use the money and they pay royally to turn their child into something she’s not.”

“That sounds like shitty parenting,” Kurt says over the music. They’ve been matched with another pair. The game is starting. “My dad always used to be so open minded about the things I wanted, even if he didn’t understand it.”

Blaine hums in agreement. Every time Kurt talks about his dad, it’s nice. Blaine’s obviously never met him, but it sounds like he was a good man.

The match starts. Both Kurt and Blaine have been playing so much Splatoon 2 since release that they can easily multitask. They always talk during their plays, but it’s true that Blaine needs to focus a bit more. His story becomes a bit more sporadic.

“Yeah, it’s just, it sucks that I am so passionate about- wait, are you grabbing the Rainmaker? Oh, never mind. Anyway, it sucks that I am so passionate about music and yet teaching some kids is all I can do.”

“Didn’t you apply for that one position in- oh, fucking hell, fuck those Tenta Missiles- uh…” Kurt trails off, since his character is being chased by someone from the opposite team, but Blaine knows what he’s referring to. Blaine recently applied to another job.

“Yeah. I’m still waiting for a reaction, but I’m not too hopeful,” Blaine laments. After getting a ton of rejections, he’s learnt to not but all his hopes up. “I’m considering trying something else. I don’t know if I have the qualifications, but I will have to read into it.”

“Not music related?” Kurt sounds surprised.

“No, no, it’s still music.”

In fact, it’s Broadway, but not the way Blaine had dreamt of. Blaine’s always wanted to be on Broadway, no matter how. Playing in the orchestra pit is maybe not the thing that Blaine had in mind, but when Wes told him that he knows someone who’s looking for a musician to sub, Blaine knew he could at least try. Broadway musicians can miss quite some performances, as long as they find someone to substitute them. It’s all about connections, and thanks to Wes, Blaine has them.

He obviously doesn’t tell Kurt all of this, since it might be too personal, and Blaine first wants to breach into photo territory before they move on to more accurate locations.

“Well, in that case, I’m rooting for you. I’m also rooting for you to please use the baller special.”

“Incoming,” Blaine says excitedly. His character rolls towards enemy turf, explodes ink over a player from the other team, and Kurt’s character fires some long-range shots. Another team members swims their way up to the pedestal and slams the Rainmaker on it.

Both Kurt and Blaine hit their desks loud enough so that the other can hear. That’s their way of high-fiving.

“Another round?” Blaine asks.

“Maybe wait for ten minutes?” Kurt suggests, “Then it’s Splat Zones time on Snapper Canal and Blackbelly Skatepark.”

Blaine hums in agreement. That sounds good. Now he also has the time to finish his story. The two of them got a bit too caught up in the Rainmaker match, which was to be expected. He decides to get some more coffee and he takes his phone with him.

“But yeah, I’m definitely not blaming my friends for going back to school and investing in another career path, since the entertainment industry is rough.”

Wes has turned to law, although that wasn’t very surprising, Nick is back to school to become a teacher, Trent’s always had a passion for IT and he’s now working at a software development start-up, Jeff is a communication advisor, David is now studying economics and Thad is the only one who’s still doing something artistic by working in an art shop.

Back at school they all dreamt of making it big and what not. They moved to big places like Los Angeles and New York in order to be that one in a million. Right now, only Wes, David and Thad are left in New York.

Really, Blaine cannot begrudge them for choosing a more stable career path, but it sucks to be the only one left who’s still trying.

“The fashion industry is gruesome too, but I think I am having a much better time,” Kurt says, sounding sympathetic, “It’s great to slowly get back to work after everything.”

“I can imagine. I’m happy everything’s going better.”

“Speaking of things possibly going better,” Kurt says, “I ran into The Guy again.”

“You did?” Blaine asks and he walks back to his office. Blaine doesn’t know much about ‘The Guy’, but Kurt talks about him every now and then. Blaine doesn’t really know how to feel about it. “Did you finally talk to him?”

“Of course not, Blaine, who do you think I am?” Kurt deadpans and Blaine snorts. After a small beat of silence, Kurt adds: “But he did talk to me.”

“Did he?”

“And I ignored him.”

“Oh… Kurt…”

“One day,” Kurt says woefully, “But let’s not dwell on my inability to talk to this hot guy I vaguely know. We have a Splat Zone to hold.”