Blaine couldn’t explain it, but it was like there was a constant energy emanating from him. A poised, graceful air that made Blaine feel like a clumsy giraffe when he stood next to the boy with the long neck, the perfect hair, the pale skin that glowed with self-confidence and a rare kind of genuine optimism.

He’d watched this boy—Kurt, he later learned—and wondered how he should go about approaching him. Having been homeschooled for most of his life, Blaine couldn’t say he had much experience interacting with those he liked—or people in general, really. Blaine’s parents worried constantly about his powers getting out of control, which they did only occasionally. A certain event in elementary school with staplers and applesauce had them paranoid beyond belief. So when the time came for him to apply for his junior year of high school, he begged for two days for them to sign the papers.

And two months later, he was an official William McKinley High School student.

It had gone well for a while, since the work was easy enough and he stayed out of everyone’s way. Then he saw Kurt for the first time and immediately had a crush, his biggest yet since Taylor Lautner. Infatuation was a better word for it. Blaine spent most of their shared classes looking at Kurt, watching how he would stare blankly at the board with an extremely bored expression, and blue-green eyes that travelled far from the city limits of Lima. Blaine became so enraptured one day that he didn’t notice the pen hovering next to him, shakily outlining a picture.

He also didn’t notice the paper folding itself neatly into a paper bird, and floating beside his head momentarily before launching itself into Kurt’s lap.

It was then that Blaine panicked. He didn’t know what his subconscious had scribbled onto the paper. It could have been anything.

Blaine’s stomach dropped and his mouth went dry as Kurt looked down at the paper in confusion. He reached down and started to unfold it and Blaine could swear his heart was about to beat right out of his chest. Kurt held it in his lap as the paper slowly crinkled open. Blaine couldn’t see what it said, but it must have been bad because the moment the sheet was flat, Kurt went beet red. He glanced around the room and Blaine tried his best to seem uninterested, as if he hadn’t been watching Kurt for his reaction, and he sank down into his chair in embarrassment, hoping Kurt wouldn’t see him, please, please, don’t—

And then Kurt’s eyes landed on Blaine’s, then widened in realization as he took in Blaine’s red cheeks and anxious eyes. He spun around quickly, away from Blaine. His posture seemed a bit too forced and a bit too poised for the rest of the class.

The minutes ticked by agonizingly slowly. Blaine wished he could just disappear, that a hole would open up underneath him and swallow him whole. He just wanted to be away from here. There was no way he’d be able to live this down.

The bell rang and Blaine packed up his things purposely slowly, so that everyone left the classroom before him and he didn’t have to talk to anyone. He saw Kurt glance at him out of the corner of his eye, biting his lip as he walked out the door. Finally picking up his backpack, he saw the crumpled sheet of paper on Kurt’s empty desk.

Blaine+Kurt it read, in a heart with an arrow through it. “Oh god,” muttered Blaine under his breath. He was mortified.

Then he looked closer at the paper and stopped breathing. There, in small neat handwriting, was a phone number. Under it, Kurt had written his name and a “text me”.

Blaine stared in utter disbelief for a few seconds before breaking into a huge smile.