Never in his high school life did he think he would find another gay guy--and cute, nonetheless--at McKinley. He’d seen Blaine before, they shared three classes: English, Trig, and Mixed Media. Kurt just never paid him much attention. But seeing him in English after getting the paper bird, it felt like he was seeing Blaine clearly for the first time.

The first thing Kurt saw were Blaine’s terrified hazel eyes staring back at him in panic. Then he took in the dark curly hair and full parted lips and his mouth dropped open a little, because Blaine was gorgeous. Then he’d blushed and turned away, and spent the rest of the class period trying to figure out if the bird was a joke or--Kurt almost didn’t dare believe--an attempt at flirting. By the end of the class he’d decided that Blaine must've been serious, because no bully would have looked like a deer in headlights when Kurt looked at them. So he took a chance and scribbled down his phone number quickly before he lost the nerve.

It wasn’t until Kurt got into his car and started driving that he realized he had given a cute stranger his phone number. And that said stranger could text him at any second.

The mere thought made Kurt’s hands clench on the steering wheel.

“Focus, Kurt,” he breathed. He took a few deep breaths and finally began to relax and focus on driving, and then his phone beeped.

The sound caught Kurt by surprise and he had to swerve to avoid hitting the lightpole on the sidewalk.

“Sorry!” he called lamely to the driver behind him, who gave him the middle finger and drove off. Kurt rolled his eyes and pulled over, holding his breath as he opened the message--

From: Mercedes
Hey boo, what was the chem hw?

Kurt couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed as he typed out a quick reply and pulled back into the road. Blaine could be a great opportunity as a gay friend, someone who understood what he was going through and who could relate. But he couldn’t be more than that, could he?

Maybe Blaine just was kidding, and Kurt just embarassed himself in front of another straight guy again.

Maybe it was all too good to be true.
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Blaine was freaking out.

The second he’d gotten home from school, he ignored his parents and ran up to his room with his phone and the sheet of crumpled paper and collapsed onto his bed.

That was 10 minutes ago.
Now, Blaine was still sitting on the edge of his bed with an empty text message on the screen. When he’d first seen the 7 numbers on the sheet of paper, he’d gotten so excited that Kurt would even consider talking to him.

But now he was stuck. How was he supposed to start a conversation? Blaine never had experience with this before. Ever since the applesauce and stapler incident, he’d been pretty much isolated from people. And even though he knew it was for his own good until he got his powers completely under control, he still missed the loss of his social life.

He let his phone fall to the bed and his head fall into his hands and groaned. This shouldn’t be that hard. All he had to do was type “hey” and be done with it.

It was then that he heard a clicking sound, and turned around to find the phone typing of its own accord. He dove, but it was too late, the message had already been sent.

He grumbled to himself as he looked at the message that read “hey”, sent to Kurt. Then his stomach flipped horribly as he realized that hey, this was going to be a conversation, and Kurt’s going to actually reply. He bit his lip and threw his phone onto the bed as he started pacing. He had to calm down, or something was going to happen. Something always happened when he got this agitated.

A few minutes later, his phone beeped again. He tripped over his feet rushing to his phone. But just as he was about to hit the ground facefirst, he froze, floating an inch above his carpet. He let out a breath and pushed himself up and grabbed his phone, opening the message and reading it hungrily.

From: asdfghjkl; (Kurt)
Hey, Blaine.

“He typed my name!” Blaine thought excitedly to himself. He jumped extraordinarily high off his bed and came down softly, holding his phone to his face as he thought of what he should reply next. It was times like these that Blaine was grateful his parents bolted down all the heavy furniture in his room, because he was so excited that he could’ve probably thrown his dresser against the wall without even looking at it. He knew he was acting like a 12 year old girl but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Not now, not when he was texting Kurt.

Blaine was just about to type something when another message came in.

From: asdfghjkl; (Kurt)
Okay, look. I don’t want to start this all awkwardly with “hey”s and “what’s up’s”, so why don’t we just start over? Like, pretend you never threw that uh...note. So. Hi Blaine, I’m Kurt. Tell me more about yourself?

This time Blaine couldn’t contain himself, and his sock drawer rumbled ominously before shooting a sock out at the back of his head. He burst out laughing--whether from pure relief or from the sock, he didn’t know--and texted Kurt some basic things about himself.

Soon, conversation came easily and they were texting like they’d known each other for years. By the time they texted goodnight, Blaine knew all sorts of things about Kurt, like the fact that he wanted to design something for Fashion Week in Paris someday, and that he had a step brother, and that his mom had died and that his favorite color was cerulean (and not blue, because blue is stupid).

And Kurt knew a lot of things about Blaine, but not quite everything. Blaine didn’t tell him about his powers. Not yet, at least.

That night, Blaine fell asleep with a smile on his face.
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“Kurt!” Mercedes called, walking up to Kurt’s locker. “Did you understand the chem at all yesterday?”

“Yeah, I did, actually,” Kurt said, pulling books out of his locker. “Why, do you need me to help you?”

“Yes, please. I didn’t understand gas laws at all.”

Kurt hummed knowingly before sinking down onto the floor beneath his locker and pulling out his notes. Mercedes sat next to him and listened intently as Kurt went through their homework last night.

Right in the middle of the explanation for PV=nRT, Blaine walked past.

He didn’t notice Kurt at first, but then they locked eyes and Kurt’s stomach flipped. He gave Blaine a small smile as he walked past and blushed when Blaine smiled back. He didn’t notice Mercedes glancing confusedly between the two until Blaine turned the corner and walked away. When Kurt turned back to Mercedes, she closed her book and Kurt’s notes.
“Alright. Who is that, and why did he make you smile like that?”

“He’s just a friend, Mercedes, calm down.” Kurt said dismissively. “And he didn’t make me smile a certain way, I always smile like that. See?” He smiled brightly at Mercedes to emphasize his point. Mercedes gave him a doubtful look and rolled her eyes. Then the bell rang.

They stood up and gathered their things and began to walk away from each other.

“He’s gorgeous, by the way,” Mercedes called after him through the crowded hallway.

Kurt gaped at her, and she only smiled charmingly in return.

Well, he was gorgeous, but Kurt didn't want to get his hopes up. Sure, their text conversation last night had gone way better than he'd expected, but he promised himself he wouldn't fall for Blaine too quickly.

He knew what happened if he expected too much, if he got carried away with what could be. Even if, technically, Blaine had been the first to do that, with the paper bird.

But truthfully, Kurt was just scared of getting hurt again.
______________________________________________________________________________

Blaine had English next.

English meant sharing a classroom with Kurt.

Sharing a classroom with Kurt meant talking to Kurt.

Blaine was understandably nervous. Texting Kurt was nice, but actually talking in person was something entirely different. It involved eye contact and quick responses and body language. He dearly hoped they were able to have a conversation as easily as last night.

Sitting in his current class, Spanish, Blaine stared at the clock nervously. He wanted time to speed up so he could talk to Kurt, but he also wanted the bell to never ring so he would never have a chance to possibly embarrass himself. It was a tiring dilemma.

Blaine clenched and unclenched his hand, feeling the smooth surface of the zhayrr in his palm. It was basically a rock, but it had special properties that made it mold to any shape, but remain unbreakable. His parents found it in a small Armenian village in the Middle of Nowhere, Ohio. Blaine was with them on a trip to his aunt Milda’s house (whom he hated dearly) in the summer of 7th grade, and they got a flat tire from a strange stone lying in the middle of the empty road. Upon getting out of the car, Blaine noticed that there was a trail of these stones that led to a small, rackety shop with a sign outside advertising, in messy handwriting, “magic rocks”. The little old Armenian man inside smelled of cabbage juice and socks, but Blaine found something interesting about the rocks, so he bought one. Once he was in the car he squeezed it, and gasped when it squished like play-dough in his hand. But once he let it go, it was solid as steel. His parents were unable to give it the same effect, nor were any of his other friends. He’d kept it since, using it as a sort of stress reliever.

Right now, nerves made him mold the zhayrr into several different shapes. He held onto it with both hands and focused on releasing his stress into the rock, and not onto innocent students. His stomach flipped nervously as the clock ticked closer and closer to the bell, and when it finally rang, Blaine’s heart began to beat like he was running a marathon.

Blaine walked into the English room and took a deep breath. The room had no desks, it was just couches and squashy chairs. He collapsed into a couch and pulled out his notebook, just as Kurt walked in.

Kurt sidled easily over to Blaine’s couch and plopped down next to him.

“Hi there,” he said, grinning.

“Hey, Kurt,” replied Blaine. Could Kurt hear how loud his heart was beating? He was sure people in China could.

Kurt looked like he was about to say something else, and Blaine was dying in anticipation, but then the teacher walked in and ordered everyone to take notes on the lecture she was about to give.

Kurt smiled apologetically before turning back to the teacher.

Throughout the class, Blaine became more and more aware of little things about Kurt he hadn’t noticed before. Like how Kurt smelled like a gentle cologne and berry gum. It was intoxicating but he wouldn’t dare lean in closer.

Or maybe he could scoot in a little closer, just a little...

“Mr. Anderson? Are you paying attention?” said Mr. Weiston. The entire class went silent and stared at Blaine blankly. This included Kurt.

“Uh...could you repeat the question?”

Mr. Weiston sighed before speaking. “What was Jay Gatspy’s actual name?”

“Uh...James Gatz. Sorry, Mr. Weiston,” Blaine said. The teacher seemed to accept this answer and turned away, firing another question at a girl who wasn’t really paying attention either.

Kurt stayed staring at Blaine and mouthed “Are you okay?”

Blaine nodded shakily, embarrassed about having spaced out so much in front of Kurt. Because he was thinking about Kurt. Ugh.

Blaine took out his zhayrr and squeezed it, feeling it squish between his fingers. Kurt turned around to look at him a couple times during the class, not saying anything until the final bell rang and they were dismissed from school.

“Hey, Blaine,” Kurt said, smiling a bit nervously.

“Hey, Kurt,” Blaine said. He could feel his powers swimming under his skin. They were strangely overactive. Blaine just shrugged it off and continued talking. “Do you, uh...Do you want to go grab coffee? We could talk about the book, I was kind of confused about Gatspy.”

Kurt smiled brightly and his face flushed a bit as he replied. “Sure, that’d be great. Let me just get my stuff, I’ll meet you outside.”

“Sounds good,” Blaine smiled. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately.

They walked out of the classroom together and parted ways. As soon as Kurt was out of sight, Blaine did a small victory dance that earned him a few bewildered stares. He didn’t care, though. Because Kurt said yes, and now they were getting coffee. He was too excited to even be nervous.

He stuffed his backpack with books from his locker quickly and made his way to the front of the school, and found Kurt waiting in front of his own car. Kurt smiled at him and said, “I’m gonna follow you in my car, is that okay with you?”

“Yeah, of course. See you there.”
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