2020

“Blaine, we need to catch up,” Carole says cheerfully. Blaine looks behind her to see Kurt and Burt standing awkwardly. Blaine wants to tell Carole no, but she beats him to it. “Oh, is there a nice coffee shop around? I saw some coffeeshops in Rotterdam!”

Kurt puts his hand on Carole’s shoulder. “Carole, that’s not… that’s not for coffee.”

Blaine quickly nods. “Don’t go there, Carole.”

Carole looks at Kurt in confusion, who just frowns in response. Now is not the time to get some weed.

“Well, there’s enough around here. That looks nice,” Carole grips Blaine’s arm and she leads him to the Kroket Loket, one of the ‘market stalls’ that’s also a restaurant.

“Carole,” Kurt says in the same hissy tone, but Carole pretends to not hear. She’s ecstatic to see Blaine, which surprises him, since he didn’t show up to the funeral. Kurt’s definitely still mad about that.

“Well, a kroket sounds nice,” Burt sounds defeated. The four of them get seated and Blaine wonders how the hell he got in this situation? He just wanted a saucijzenbroodje.

Carole is incredibly curious. It’s almost as if they’re playing a round of 50 questions.

“How long have you been here?”

“Since the summer.”

“What are you doing in Rotterdam?”

“I’m studying law at Erasmus University.”

“Law? I never expected you to do law!”

“Well, same, but I fell in love with it. I want to, you know, use my degree to help people in need. That’s what appeals me the most.”

“How are you living in this building?”

“My dad owns the apartment.”

“Oh, how are the parents?”

“Divorced. My mum’s moved back to Cebu. I lived there before coming here.”

“And do you want to stay here?”

“No, I plan to go back to America after I do a bachelor and a master’s degree.”

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

“I’m gay.”

That shuts her up. She tilts her head in confusion and honestly, Blaine doesn’t feel like explaining himself. Sometimes he is a little bit embarrassed by how long it took him to find out and he doesn’t need other people’s judgement.

Carole squints her eyes, as if she’s trying to decide what’s next.

“Oh. What do your parents think?”

That’s not the follow-up question that Blaine expected. His eyes automatically go to Burt, but he quickly looks away when he catches himself.

“They don’t know. My dad still thinks I’m going to make him proud one day by dating Bella, and that’s fine with me.”

It really isn’t fine with him, but again, Blaine doesn’t want to delve into that. The Hummel-Hudsons weren’t exactly on his mind when he was going through his gay realisation, but now that Burt is in front of him, he remembers how much he admired the man for accepting Kurt with open arms.

He also would’ve accepted Blaine.

Same goes for Carole.

Once, Blaine was basically part of the family. He stayed over plenty of times. He was invited to Friday Night Dinner. Now, Burt and Carole are basically strangers to him. He lost them the moment he lost Kurt. It’s weird to see them again. Blaine knows that they moved to Washington, so they probably sold the house that was once Blaine’s home.

That house was Blaine’s second home and now it’s gone.

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry to hear that,” Carole says soothingly. She puts her hand on Blaine’s, and Blaine feels so stupid for almost crying at this simple gesture.

“Cooper knows, though. He’s cool,” Blaine quickly says before it gets too teary, but his voice cracks and damnit, now the Hummel-Hudsons know. If only Blaine hadn’t ruined it all those years ago. It would’ve been nice to have all three of them by his side when he went through his gay panic. The fact that they’re now in front of him, after seven years, shakes him to the core. He’s lost a family.

“Blaine,” Burt says, and the edge of his voice is gone, “What are your Christmas plans?”

Blaine, Kurt and Carole all are too shocked to speak.

“Oh. Uhm,” Blaine sputters, “Two friends and I are going to chill. No worries. I won’t be alone.”

Burt hums, and he looks relieved.

“We’re about to drop our haul at Kurt’s place. Care to join us?”

Blaine never thought he’d do this again. He’s lying on Kurt’s bed, listening to showtunes. Kurt’s walking around his room. He has a room in an shared apartment. He lives relatively close to Rotterdam Centraal, which is needed for his commute, but that means it’s expensive. That’s why he shares with Femke and two other roommates. Femke’s gone back to Limburg for the holidays and according to Kurt, the other two roommates are never there.

“As long as they pay the rent, I don’t mind,” Kurt says.

It’s really weird to think that Kurt lives here. It’s only ten minutes by bike.

“Your dad doesn’t like me,” Blaine says to Kurt. Burt and Carole are in the kitchen, making coffee.

Kurt shrugs. “He never really forgave you for hurting me.”

“Ah.”

Kurt’s staring at Blaine and it makes him really uncomfortable, so he starts to look around the room. It’s so typically Kurt. There’s musical posters on the wall, photos on a corkboard – and Blaine’s really happy to see Mercedes’s face – and a lot of fabric around the room. It’s nicer than Blaine’s. His apartment was furnished by his dad and Blaine hasn’t really decorated it yet.

Then Blaine’s eyes falls on something on a shelf. It’s a little clay figurine.

“I gave that to you for your birthday,” Blaine says.

Kurt follows Blaine’s gaze. He tries to shrug it off, but Blaine keeps staring at the figurine. He can’t believe Kurt kept it and took it with him to the other side of the world.

“It’s a good luck charm. That’s always needed.”

“Kurt, why am I here?” Blaine asks. Burt is almost as confusing as his son. First, he shows anger, then he invites Blaine over, and then he ignores him. Blaine realises that Burt’s probably on that same rollercoaster of emotions.

Burt really cares for his son. When Blaine’s parents realised that Blaine stopped talking to Kurt, they asked him if something had happened. They talked about it briefly, but that’s it.

Kurt doesn’t immediately reply.

“Like, why do we keep doing this back and forth thing? What are we trying to achieve here? You barely spoke a word to me today, and you also have a decade old gift on your shelf.”

Blaine doesn’t want to sound accusatory, because that would be hypocritical. He also kept a lot of Kurt’s gifts as well, although he didn’t take them to Rotterdam.

Then, to Blaine’s utter surprise, Kurt lies down next to him. Blaine turns his head to see him, but Kurt’s staring at the ceiling.

“We’ve talked about this,” Kurt sighs, “I don’t know what we’re doing. It’s like, wanting… but also not wanting.”

“Wanting to be friends again,” Blaine says, referring to their little moment in Blaine’s apartment. Kurt said that he didn’t want to be friends again, but in Nijmegen he said that it’s more complex than that. “Be honest with me. Do you want that?”

Kurt groans and he hides his face in a pillow.

“I shouldn’t.”

“But you do?”

“I never wanted to stop being friends,” Kurt says. His voice is muffled due to the pillow, but Blaine’s heard him and he looks away in shame. He knows that. If only he hadn’t clicked that block option seven years ago.

“Yeah.”

“And I tried to ignore you,” Kurt says and luckily he throws the pillow off the bed, but he’s still not looking back to Blaine, “We tried to talk several times and you’re right, it backfired. And I tried to stop being sad about that. It ended, I moved on. But just now at the Kroket Loket, Carole was asking you all those questions that have been on my mind since we first saw each other in the metro and I fucking hate it.”

Kurt did say, back in Nijmegen, that he wanted to ask everything.

“And, also, like…” Kurt huffs out some air in frustration. Blaine waits for him to continue. “This just sucks. I can’t ignore you, Blaine, no matter how hard I try.”

Blaine turns on his side. They lie there without speaking. They hear the sounds of the city and the Hamilton soundtrack, but they’re silent. Blaine wants to push Kurt to keep talking, but Kurt looks doubtful.

So Blaine waits a bit longer. It’s Quiet Uptime starts playing in the background and Blaine isn’t really paying attention to the song, until he hears a specific part.

Forgiveness, can you imagine?
Forgiveness, can you imagine?

Kurt continues: “But at the same time… should I fight this? We’re messing up every interaction that we have, because we can’t let go of the past. Maybe we can try again, but then I hate myself for thinking that, because God, we ruined each other. But also, Femke keeps saying that this is a second chance. Our friends have a groupchat, you know?”

“The lekker met de meiden klainen one?” Blaine nods. He’s definitely botched that pronunciation, but Femke isn’t here to scold him.

“Yeah,” Kurt says and he finally turns his head to look at Blaine, “Kind of ridiculous. But I also trust Femke to have the best intentions in mind.”

“And I trust Bella.”

“And my dad has his own grudge, but he also invited you over to my place, only to abandon us the moment we got in.”

Blaine snorts. Yeah, that was weird. Burt and Carole dropped the bags on the floor and then rushed to the kitchen. They’re taking their time with the coffee.

“Should we try to be friends again?” Blaine asks and he hates how hopeful he feels, “Like, actually try? Instead of that weird dance we’ve been doing in the past few weeks?”

“It might not work,” Kurt says quietly, “What happened between us runs deep.”

“I know. I’m not saying it will be perfect, but I really miss you, and you miss me, and we both want to be friends and the only thing that’s stopping is… is our past.”

“I can’t promise you that I won’t make you feel inferior again,” Kurt says sadly.

Blaine nods.

“I can’t promise you that I won’t shut you out in anger, but I will try not to.”

Kurt also nods.

“I will also try not to.”

That’s all they can do, isn’t it?