2020

Honestly, it’s scary how easy it is to be friends with Kurt again. Kurt and Blaine don’t see each other on Christmas, since they both have their own thing, but Kurt asks Blaine to come over to send off his parents and it’s nice. It’s really nice.

Carole gives Blaine a big hug and she tells him to come over one day. Burt is still a bit distant, but he gives Blaine a firm pat on the back, so Blaine sees it as a win.

“It’s always sad to see them go,” Kurt says as he watched his parents board the train to Schiphol airport. Blaine nods. He has nothing to say. “The worst part of living here is that I don’t get to see them as much as I’d want to.”

“I get that,” Blaine says. His family has never been as close as Kurt’s, but they’re scattered and it’s annoying. Cooper’s in LA, his dad’s in Lima, his mom’s in Cebu and Blaine’s in Rotterdam.

Kurt lets out a deep sigh. Then he turns to Blaine. “Now what?”

Blaine raises an eyebrow.

“It’s still kerstvakantie.”

“Oh, well,” Blaine smiles widely. This is Kurt trying. He knows that. “There’s a Dutch Pinball Museum in Rotterdam. I wanted to ask Bella if she wanted to go there, but you know, she started dating Adeola.”

Kurt’s already on his phone. “It’s ten minutes by bike.”

“Let’s get going then!”

Sometimes, Blaine’s afraid that the renewed friendship is too easy. Their friendship still feels natural, even after an interruption of seven years, and Blaine’s finally learning more about Kurt’s life of the past seven years. Apparently he left NYADA to pursue a career in fashion. He got a job at Vogue and Vogue’s now paying for his degree here. He’s expecting to work there after he’s done in Amsterdam.

It’s really impressive.

Still, they’ve been on this road before. Blaine tries to be calm about it, but he also feels like he’s walking on eggshells. There’s a thin line between trying too hard and not trying at all.

“Driemaal is scheepsrecht!” Femke keeps saying, which is the Dutch equivalent of three times a charm.

Blaine, Bella and Femke are walking through West-Kruiskade, which is part of Rotterdam’s Chinatown. Now, Femke is the only Chinese person out of the three, but Bella and Blaine like this place as well. She’s taking them to St. Anny Bakery.

Now that Kurt and Blaine are becoming friends again, their friend groups are merging again. The five of them are already planning on spending New Year’s together. Since Bella, Adeola and Femke are already too unhealthily invested in Kurt and Blaine’s friendship, Blaine has no qualms about talking to them about it.

“I agree with Fem,” Bella says, “You’re not making promises this time. And you’re working it through.”

That’s true. When Blaine blocked Kurt the first time, they tried to be friends again, but they never really talked about what happened. Blaine asked Kurt to ignore it and Kurt obliged. This led to the resentment being part of their friendship.

But now, they’ve talked about it. And they will continue to talk about it. It feels right.

“I still want this to work,” Blaine tells them.

“And so does Kurt, obviously,” Femke adds, “It’s a goldmine for lekker met de meiden klainen. Keep it up.”

“Also, you’ve changed. You’re not going to make the same mistake thrice!” Bella adds.

“I shut you out, remember?” Blaine points out.

Bella rolls her eyes.

“Yes, but you immediately came back to apologise. Would the Blaine from seven years ago have done that?”

Blaine thinks back to the two times he blocked Kurt. The first time, it took him four months. The second time, it took him seven years. Both times made him miserable and that alone is enough to work on not letting it happen a third time. He’s just so happy to at least try.

Blaine looks at Bella real quick. She’s also the only person who knows about the feelings. It’s weird, because his feelings for Kurt have basically been dormant for seven years, but now that Kurt’s back in his life for real, they came back so easily. Yesterday, Kurt took Blaine to Theater Walhalla in Katendrecht and it’s a small, cosy theatre – or gezellig, as the Dutch say – and they had to sit close and Blaine felt like dying inside.

“I hope it works out for you two,” Femke says and Bella nods.

Blaine hopes that as well.

The Suicide Club is an inappropriate name for a club situated on a rooftop, but it has a nice view. Kurt’s leaning against the banisters with a glass of wine in hand. He’s an absolute sight to be seen, especially with the lights of all the buildings as a backdrop.

Blaine feels like a creep, but he quickly snaps a picture. In order to not be a creep, he immediately walks to Kurt to show it.

“Oh, wow, that’s actually a really nice picture,” Kurt says in amazement, “Send it to me, will you?”

“Of course.”

Kurt lets out a sigh and he stares to the city. He’s a bit melancholy. Maybe a bit sad, even. He left the others to stand outside in the cold.

“What’s wrong?” Blaine asks.

Another sigh.

“I ran into Yannick.”

Blaine takes a sip of his own wine. Damn, Yannick. Blaine’s completely forgotten about him. He still has his coat stashed in his apartment, but he wasn’t in a hurry to return it. Yannick doesn’t even know that Kurt nicked it.

“He apologised for that day at TOFFLER and he asked if I wanted to go out for a drink, but I declined.”

“You did?”

Kurt makes an affirming sound.

“You know, I never told you why we broke up.”

“Well, we weren’t exactly talking two weeks ago.” Damn, has it been two weeks already since TOFFLER? Time goes fast. In two more days it’ll be 2021.

“He got mad at me when I tried to leave to run after you,” Kurt says, “Obviously, he didn’t know what happened between us, so to him it sounded like I was ditching him for another guy. I tried to explain, but he wouldn’t hear it. I didn’t have time to try harder, since I didn’t want to miss out on you. But yeah, he got weirdly angry about it.”

“Dick,” Blaine mutters under his breath. Kurt hears it and he snorts.

The two stand in a comfortable silence. Kurt’s leaning over the banister, but Blaine isn’t afraid he’ll fall down. This is a nice place. Femke recommended it and she’s absolutely right. Femke, Bella and Adeola are still inside, tearing through the bitterballen, mini frikandellen, nuts, cheese cubes and other borrelhapjes.

“You know,” Kurt says with a laugh. He turns his upper body towards Blaine. “I used to be utterly in love with you.”

Blaine almost chokes on his drink.

“So maybe in another world, yeah, Yannick would’ve been right about the situation. In that world, I would’ve dropped him for you in a heartbeat.”

Kurt lets out another laugh, as if he’s saying something silly. Maybe it is silly to him. Kurt takes a sip of his wine and he looks back to Rotterdam. You can see his apartment from up here. He doesn’t see that Blaine’s trying to regain his composure.

Blaine knew, kind of. Back then, Kurt tried to be subtle, but Blaine noticed the small changes. He never said anything about it. He thought it was just him trying to be a decent straight bro. Yes, Kurt homo, but no homo between them!

Then the two big fights happened and he saw how the light in Kurt’s eyes died out. That’s probably when Kurt stopped liking him. It’s fair, since Blaine was acting like an asshole.

And then Blaine realised that he never mentioned it because he was in denial about his own feelings, but by then it was too late.

“If only I’d known back then that I was gay,” Blaine truthfully laments.

Kurt lets out a chuckle. “Yeah. How did you find out, if I may ask?”

“I realised that I misattributed some feelings,” Blaine says vaguely. It’s the truth, though. “I thought I hated someone, but it turns out that I actually couldn’t handle being in love with him.”

“Yeah?” Kurt raises an eyebrow. There’s a new glint in his eyes. Blaine’s probably seeing things, since wishful thinking is strong. Kurt just admitted to him that his feelings are in the past.

Before anything can happen, Blaine feels a strong hand on his back. It’s Bella.

“Guys! It’s so fucking cold outside!” Bella says and she’s indeed shivering, “Come back inside, damnit. Femke is eating all the bitterballen!”

Blaine doesn’t get home until 2am, but it was worth it. He’s finally exploring Rotterdam and it’s so much more fun now that he has a solid group of friends. He’s high on energy and he puts on his showtunes playlist. The neighbours can complain how much they want, but Blaine wants to ride out this high note.

He dances around his living room. No One Else from Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 comes on and he starts singing along. He’s twirling around with his arms outstretched, like Natasha.

And I catch my breath
And I laugh and blush
And I hear guitars
You are so good for me

I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you

His upstairs neighbour stomps the ground to make him shut up and Blaine doesn’t want trouble after all, so he turns it down. He falls on his couch with a smile.

Something happened between him and Kurt at the Suicide Club. Blaine shouldn’t rush into anything, since this is still a bit new and fragile, but the thought alone makes Blaine’s heart soar. Maybe he does need love after all and it’s a wonderful thing he shouldn’t hide from. Years of repressing his feelings haven’t paid off.

Blaine’s just fantasising, but now that the option is there, he hopes that Kurt’s feelings never ebbed away either and that Kurt, like Blaine, was just repressing it and telling himself that it’s better that way.

Well, Blaine can dream.