Kurt had been at McKinley High for almost four years now, and most of the people there he’d gone through middle school with, too. If he transferred tomorrow, no one would even notice.

Within a week of the new semester, he’d heard rumors of every kind about Blaine. He’d heard from Santana that his parents had died in a plane crash and he’d been sent to live with an estranged aunt in Lima. He heard from two kids in his French class that he has an older boyfriend and used to live in Paris with him. He overheard at lunch that Thom Browne was Blaine’s uncle, and that the fifteen bowties they’d seen so far were just the tip of the iceberg. Rachel told him one day, while Kurt was smoothing his own hair in the mirror, that he does shampoo commercials. In the Philippines.

And that’s when he slammed his locker in her face.

It drove Kurt crazy, because only he saw the real Blaine. Granted, it was often in the reflection of his locker mirror or from the far end of the French classroom, but he knew him, and Kurt knew that he was absolutely, positively, head-over-heels in love with him.

Kurt dropped his books one day when someone in an oversized, sweating hulk of letterman jacket punched the locker beside him and he jumped ten feet in the air. They walked away laughing, and he stared at the rather neat arrangement around his feet. History to the left, Biology equidistant between himself and the locker opposite. He was so busy contemplating this that he almost didn’t notice when Blaine handed him the book farthest away - a copy of Pride and Prejudice - with a curled lip smirk and a wink, but as Kurt watched those bright red jeans disappear into the crowd, just a second too late, his heart was ready to fall out the bottom of his stomach.

Blaine knew that Kurt existed.

*

“You’re distracted.”

Rachel’s face fell, plummeted actually, when Kurt slipped into the seat next to her. He reached into his bag and shook off the comment, fingers pausing as they felt the battered edges of a certain book.

“No, no, you are. You don’t get distracted, it’s not your thing.”

“I do have interests Rachel, you know?”

He snapped, immediately regretting it but, quite honestly, still concentrating on the torn edge of the book’s front cover, and the way Blaine’s hands had looked so neat and soft, but heavy, and he wondered… Kurt turned to Rachel to apologize.

“I’m sorry, Kurt, it’s just, we do have sectionals coming up… I mean, you’re always so focused… and then there’s NYADA… and…” She shuffled her water bottle around on the table. “What interested you so much then?”

Kurt weighed up his options. Rachel was his best friend, and by that he meant that she was the only person he could really talk to about anything, and if he wanted to tell someone about the weird Blaine moment then he’d have no other choice.

“I dropped my books out there.”

She raised her eyebrows, but feigned belief.

“It was mortifying, honestly.”

Rachel just nodded softly and busied herself with her lunch. People mostly left Kurt alone; he didn’t make himself too conspicuous. He wore the same pair of jeans nearly every day, pairing them with plain sweaters and boxy collared shirts he found in the lowliest of department stores.

It’s no life, but it kept him out of trouble - the books, the brains and the blushing sincerity, the quiet acceptance.

The clothes, well, that was part of what drew him to Blaine so strongly. He was so vibrant, but classic and beautiful in every way, too. Kurt melted at the sight of every patterned bowtie, as ridiculous as they were, wanted to wrap his fingers in the cashmere button-ups and breathe Blaine in where he smelled like hairspray and coffee and probably something classic and strong.

And Kurt wondered… if he was everything he wanted to be, like Blaine, if he just wanted like Blaine did, wanted the world and everything it had to offer, he could be Blaine.

Be with Blaine.

You have your jocks, there’s no question, they’re popular because they’re feared. People like Blaine, they’re popular because they’re adored. They’re magnetic, and they’re impossible.

That look in Blaine’s eyes stuck in his mind all day, and for days after that. He almost wished he didn’t see them that close. He’d rather he never got that close, even once. That’s how he got to the point where he’d be hot and bothered and distracted, constantly, and unable to hide it.

He’d see Blaine pass by in the hallway, and he built up the courage once to sneak a look; see if their eyes would meet and whether Blaine would even, maybe, possibly, remember him. His eyes flickered over to the group of people streaming slowly through the crowd and there he was - winning smile and expensive leather messenger bag slung low on his shoulder - but he was talking to someone, laughing at a joke, obviously needed elsewhere. Permanently, painfully, distracted.

*

Kurt had been sitting in the same spot all year. The AP Literature class only had ten students, and it was one of the most difficult in the school, so it mainly attracted Kurt’s… type. That is, no one really talked to each other, and kept their heads down, cramming notebook after notebook with as much of what the teacher said as possible.

Blaine Anderson had clearly walked into the wrong room. He’s new, Kurt could forgive the incompetency, even though it usually would have infuriated him, losing five minutes of class time while someone pointed the new guy in the right direction.

A minute later however, the class started, and Blaine slumped into the seat behind him. He could feel his gaze on the back of his neck. Blaine was staring at him. Kurt forced himself to concentrate. He wasn’t about to turn around; he couldn’t face Blaine catching him looking, god, as if his life wasn’t embarrassingly oppressed enough.

The scratch of a pen - a nice pen, an expensive, old-fashioned one - distracted him throughout the class. Was Blaine taking notes?

He was about to raise his hand and answer a question when his chair thumped forward. Someone had kicked it. Someone behind him. He tried to regain his composure, although the soft chuckle in his ear sent shivers up his spine.

A few minutes later something landed on his desk. Kurt snatched the piece of paper away before anyone saw and, opening it under his desk, read the note.

Incredulous, he turned around for the first time. Seeing the look on Blaine’s face, he was a whole lot confused and almost in tears from the rising, hot shame in his throat. Mostly though, he was really glad that he did.