Almost ten years later, Kurt had all but forgotten about Michael Blaine Anderson.
He was a senior in high school and he had enough to deal with as it was. Being the only openly gay person at his school meant that he had had to get used to the continuous stream of insults, glares, slushies, shoves and crude practical jokes that always seemed to find him, no matter what he did to try and avoid it. The hockey players were the worst. They would seize any opportunity for some fun with Snow White, as they had taken to calling him, and Kurt made sure to always keep a towel and a change of clothes in his locker, in case they decided to slushie-bomb him. They had been absolutely thrilled when the mall had introduced a new apple-flavoured slushie, and that week, he had been slushied every single day, accompanied by guffawed comments about the appropriateness of Snow White finally getting her apple. To be honest, he did not know what stung more; the slushie syrup in his eyes, or the self-satisfied smirks on their idiotic faces, as if they had said something terribly clever.

It was not all bad, though. He had friends in glee club. Granted, it was mostly girls, but still. The guys in glee, while perhaps not entirely at ease around him, had taken him in to a degree he never would have expected. It was because of them that the football players had finally left him alone. After all, Finn, Artie, Sam, Puck and Mike were all on the team, and after showing up for glee one afternoon, sporting various light injuries, they had beckoned Kurt over and told him to let them know if he was ever harassed again. Kurt had refrained from hugging them with extreme difficulty and mumbled a quiet “Thank you” before scurrying off to find a seat next to Mercedes.

To have his friends stand up for him in such a way felt absolutely fantastic, to the point where he would find himself smiling whenever he was on his way to glee practice. It earned him more odd looks, of course, but he found he did not care. Slushies and shoves into lockers could only affect him physically. They could not dampen the warm, comforting feeling from knowing that some people actually cared about him. It was the same feeling he had at particularly tender family moments at home. Kurt was happy that his father had found someone. Even happier because it was Carole, whom he knew and who gave off an almost tangible warmth and comfort at times, who would cook healthy meals for his father and coax him into eating them without half the fuss Kurt would have had to endure, and who seemed to be able to sense whenever Kurt was feeling particularly sad and in need of a hug and a steaming mug of hot chocolate. Yes, Kurt was very much a fan of Carole and Finn having joined his family.

On the fifth of November, a Wednesday, he managed to avoid any slushies and slurs all morning. He was not pushed into a single locker and nobody was waiting to throw him into a dumpster. All in all, he had a perfectly peaceful morning, apart from a minor wardrobe crisis at one point. He thought later that he ought to have known it could not have lasted.
He saw them as soon as they came around the corner: thee big, beefy boys in letterman jackets and, quite frankly, atrocious haircuts. They had slushies in their hands and he thought he recognised the tallest one from a dumpster incident once. Before he had time to turn around and head for the relative safety of the bathroom, they had looked up and spotted him. Identical goofy grins spread across their faces and they made a beeline for him. Kurt hastily stuffed his phone in his bag. He had already had one drowned in slushie syrup and was not keen to have to explain to his father that it had happened again.

The boys came closer and he held his head high in defiance. At least they could not take his self-respect. Three arms reached out simultaneously and he was pushed into the nearest locker. The impact was a little too much and his legs gave out, sending him stumbling to the floor. He had just managed to sit up against the lockers when the slushies came, drenching him from the waist up and leaving him with the familiar, unpleasant sensation that his skin was being simultaneously burned and frozen. Laughter rang in his ears, muffling with the retreating footsteps, and he got to his feet slowly, wiping at his eyes to get the syrup out so he could see. He managed to find his way to his locker and his spare set of clothes and towel, but by the time he had reached the bathroom, the melting slush had trickled down his back and waist, staining his trousers and running down his legs. It might have looked like he was peeing himself if the slushies had not been a deep blue colour.
He was going to be late for glee practice now, but there was nothing for it, so he stripped down to his underwear and started to wipe himself down with wet paper towels.

Kurt was putting on his clean pair of trousers when the door opened and he froze, awkwardly hunched over and balancing on one leg. He inwardly cursed himself for not using a booth which could, at least, be locked. Then he looked up. Karofsky was standing in the open door, a shocked look on his face. Kurt squeaked and wriggled into his trousers as fast as he could. If he was going to be beaten up, he would very much prefer to be fully clothed, thank you very much. He reached for his clean shirt and the movement seemed to startle Karofsky out of whatever was going on in his head. He turned on his heel and rushed out the door, as if he was afraid Kurt would pounce on him and infect him in some way.
Kurt let out a sigh of relief. He was not sure he could have handled being slushied and beaten up on the same day.

He was late for glee practice, of course. Mr Schuester threw him a mildly disapproving look when he sat down next to Mercedes, who leaned over to ask, in a whisper, why he was late.
“Got slushied, well, triple-slushied, so I was completely soaked and I had to go change.”
Mercedes made a sympathetic cooing noise and patted him on the knee.
“Too bad they’re so stupid it wouldn’t really make any difference if you slushied them in the head. I swear, some of those guys would be more intelligent if they actually had slush for brains.”
Kurt gave a small smile.
“Well, maybe if you slushied them in the groin instead.”
Mercedes snorted.
“Boy, you are bad! Now I can’t get that mental image out of my head.”
Kurt giggled.

He was walking towards his car when, suddenly, he found himself hauled back and pressed up against the back of a pickup truck. He looked up and found Karofsky staring at him, his face close, too close, and his eyes focused on him in a way that was deeply unsettling. Kurt squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on trying to breathe around the lump of fear in his throat. Any minute now the first punch was going to rattle him. But no punches came, and he opened his eyes to peer up at Karofsky, who was still just staring at him with dark, unfathomable eyes. Kurt could feel his lungs trying to knot themselves together, but just as he thought he was going to pass out from lack of oxygen, somebody called out his name and suddenly, the heavy arms pressing down on him, pinning him to the car were gone.
He gasped in huge lungfuls of air and clutched at the side of the car while his vision danced and swirled. When he could finally breathe properly again, Will Schuester was standing over him, looking worried.
“Kurt, are you alright?”
Kurt nodded, not trusting his voice. He suspected he might sound like a mouse on helium if he tried to talk.
“Are you sure? You look a little pale.”
Kurt nodded again and waved his hand in goodbye before stumbling away to his car and getting in. He sat there for a while, heart still pounding, mind still reeling, before he finally calmed down a little.
He knew his father would be able to tell if he came home out of sorts, but he really did not want to stay at school any longer than necessary. He needed to find somewhere to calm down, somewhere nice and quiet and relaxing.
He turned the key in the ignition and pulled out.
To the bookshop, then.