Junior year was here. Only two more years stood between Kurt and New York. Technically, since Nationals this year was in New York, sectionals and regionals were standing between Kurt and New York, but what he was really waiting for was getting out of Lima and moving on to a bigger and brighter place. Somewhere more accommodating of his differences, willing to embrace his style and talent, and somewhere that felt more like home than this place did.

"Look! The homo didn't die of AIDS yet! He's back!"

Kurt winced at the words as they came out of the mouth of one of the red jacketed jocks in a cluster of his kind by the gymnasium doors and kept on walking, reminding himself to keep his chin up and his shoulders back. Don't let them get you down. Don't let them get you down.

Easier said than done. He heard the group laughing and high fiving behind him as he continued on his way to his second class of the new year. He took a quick glance down to the paper on top of the binder he kept in his hands as he walked, confirming the room number before briskly stepping into the classroom. He had purposely hightailed it to the class to optimize his seating choice. So many of the teachers were complacent enough to make seating plans based on where students sat the first day of the class that Kurt had learned to be there extra early for the first day.

He set his binder down on a desk that looked less chewed up and drawn on, near the window so he could get some sunlight. He was still debating whether or not to continue with football, Cheerios, or both. They would look good as extracurriculars on his college applications, but he also enjoyed having a social life and taking on one or both in addition to Glee club would seriously limit his free time. Best to choose a seat near the light since he wasn't sure how much daylight he'd end up getting in the school year if he took on those extracurriculars.

Slowly other students streamed into the class, always pausing in the doorway to determine where to sit. Most students gave Kurt a wide berth, either not accepting of him, or, more likely, not wanting to get caught in the crossfire of the teasing he was victim of. Idle chatter began to ramp up as students saw each other for the first time in months after summer vacation, or at least since the first time since before school started. So far, none of Kurt's friends from Glee were in this class. He wasn't exactly surprised. This was Advanced French and most of his friends were in Spanish since it was considered the easy language option. Of the more academic students in Glee, Mike, Tina, and Rachel were enrolled in language classes outside of the school since McKinley didn't offer the languages their parents wanted them to take, and Artie was a year behind him, leaving Kurt alone in Advanced French class.

Mademoiselle Bouvier tapped her fingernails on the board, signalling that the bell would be ringing soon and the conversations should wrap up. Kurt relaxed a little into his seat as the talking around him slowed and he happily noted that this would be a smaller class of students and joyously empty of the bigots he had to contend with in other classes.

The bell to signal the beginning of class was just going off when one more student burst into the class. His dark curly hair askew, tattered jeans hanging low off his hips, and a white T-shirt stained with a few splotches of different colors, nobody could mistake Blaine Anderson for someone else. Suddenly Kurt was tense again and inwardly chanting to himself 'Don't sit by me, don't sit by me...'. Mademoiselle Bouvier arched a solitary brow at Blaine and gestured towards the chairs.

"Monsieur Anderson. There are many free spots yet. S'il vous plaît s'asseoir." [Please sit]

Kurt kept his eyes glued on Blaine, watching as the mess of boy sat a couple seats ahead of him and slouched down in place. The stink of cigarettes wafted his way and Kurt let out his breath then, glad the notorious Blaine Anderson hadn't gotten any closer. Cigarette smoke gave him headaches.

In true Blaine Anderson fashion, he hadn't brought any school supplies besides a pencil which was so stubby that the tip of the pencil was an inch away from the eraser. Kurt could see scratches and a bruise along the back of his neck from where he was sitting, and recalled the gossip from last year about Blaine.

Mr. Schuster, once again being a little too free with his knowledge about staff and students, let it slip that a couple of the teachers had reported the Anderson's to child welfare, as Blaine regularly come to school with cuts and bruises. However, since Blaine wouldn't say anything against his parents to the authorities, and because of his reputation at the school for getting into fights, no one could pin anything on his parents.

Teachers seemed to love Blaine. Despite his unkept appearance and troublesome reputation, he had no trouble doing well in class, and, more importantly, when he was in the class, other troublemakers behaved in class too. He was the bully to the bullies, and the teachers turned a blind eye to it, not unlike they did to Kurt's tormentors. No one dared to act up in class when Blaine was in it because he seemed to snap at random things, and no one wanted to be in the line of fire, so they behaved when he was around so they didn't have to face his fury.

It was actually quite a sight. Kurt had a home economics class with his last year, and witnessed Blaine pin another student, twice his size, to the wall when the teacher stepped out for a minute all because some egg splatter got onto him. Considering how messy Blaine looked most of the time, Kurt could scarcely believe something so minor would set him off, but it did, and the other student was left a whimpering, whiny mess begging Blaine to leave him alone. Kurt was usually neat, but he made sure to not spill a drop in that class ever again.

And then there was the event that Rachel had reported to the rest of Glee club. Apparently in English class, a new student, not knowing about Blaine's reputation, had tried to correct him on the pronunciation of a word. As soon as that class ended, Blaine had the student shoved into the janitors closet with the door jammed shut. The student was left there for the remainder of the day since no one wanted to be the one to free a student that Blaine Anderson had locked up. Apparently when the janitor came in that evening and found the kid, he had used the mop bucket as a toilet and the little closet stunk.

Why wasn't Blaine Anderson expelled or, at the very least, suspended yet? Well apparently the Anderson's had some money and had funded several programs at the school, and, most students were too afraid to further aggravate Blaine by reporting him. The new kid he shoved in the janitor's closet was about to report Blaine the next day, but was intercepted by several students who warned him not to do it or else he'd likely face much worse than being locked up in a small room for a day. Blaine had no problem finding students he deemed his adversaries and beating the crap out of them.

"Hey. Pissant. Give me paper."

Kurt snapped out of his daydream and found Blaine staring at him, hand held out expectantly towards Kurt.

He knew better than to quip back or demand a more polite request, simply removing a few sheets of blank paper from his binder and handing it to Blaine who grabbed it and turned back around, scribbling notes from the board furiously with his too short pencil.

Kurt wrinkled up his nose and looked to the board. Mademoiselle Bouvier had written down the details for the course including major due dates and expectations. Kurt jotted down the due dates, already familiar with her expectations and turned his focus back towards French and all its wonderful grammatical rules. A small class, with the school bad boy in it to make sure everyone behaved - so long as Kurt managed to stay on Blaine's good side, this could be the best class of the year.

By the time Kurt got to the first Glee practice of the year, he was bogged down in due dates for the semester and course packages and already changed into a new outfit after being slushied during an interview with Jacob Ben Israel. Well, not so much as an interview but his attempt to stand up to Jacob Ben Israel after being verbally lambasted by the wannabe journalist. His hair was still a little sticky, but he had managed to at least coif it back into place so he looked somewhat presentable. At lunch he had been harassed by Coach Sylvester wanting him to sign onto the Cheerios for another year, while he had been able to avoid the new football coach, a female version of Coach Tanaka. Aside from French, all his classes were overcrowded and had one or more of his tormentors in it. He had already survived several more insults about his sexuality, a paper ball to the back of his head, and nearly falling to the ground after being tripped.

He was grateful to be in a room composed entirely of his friends, though most of them he had seen throughout the day in various classes, and certainly at lunch, but it was always special for them to have a room dedicated to their friendship where no one would dare pick on him to the extent David Karofsky and his friends did.

They were discussing how to recruit new members when Mike yelled at them to come look out the windows, and in a flash, all of them were tippy toed up on the chairs and peeking out the windows at the back of the class, Mr. Schuester included.

Out in the parking lot, Blaine Anderson was having a yelling fit at an older, well dressed man. The older man had a shorter set of black curls, marred with grey streaks, and stood only a couple inches taller than Blaine. Blaine was slamming his fist down repeatedly on the hood of a far too expensive vehicle as he swore at the man, who was yelling back as good as he was getting from Blaine in front of the car.

"I swear to god you little bitch - if I could shove a hanger up your mother when she was carrying you I would have!"

That earned another fist to the hood of the car, and Kurt winced as only the child of a mechanic could, almost feeling the pain of the car.

"Maybe if you kept your dick in your pants then you wouldn't have to worry! Instead you shove it into every whore and skank you can!"

A collection of whispered gasps filled the room as everyone couldn't believe what they were listening into, but also didn't want to be so noisy that they would get caught by the pair outside.

"At least I know what to do with my dick! Now get into the fucking car!"

Blaine kicked at the bumper and again Kurt felt himself wince in needless empathy for the vehicle. "I'm not going!"

"Like hell you aren't!" Anderson the elder spat back and tried to reach over to grab his son by the scruff of his neck. Blaine twisted out of the grasp and jumped away. Seeing this, Mr. Schuester seemed to recall he was a teacher and not a teenager, hopping down from the chair and rushing over to the phone to call the office to report the situation while everyone else continued to watch the drama unfold.

The Glee club watched at the duo ran around the car, Blaine's father rushing to try and catch him while Blaine consistently evaded him and laid punches and kicks to the car whenever he was given the chance. Kurt briefly wondered if he was a bad person for feeling more sadness for the car than for either of the men outside before shaking off the thought and going back to watching the reality TV quality drama unfold outside.

An entourage of teachers led by Principal Figgins appeared after a minute, prompted by Mr. Schuester's call, and the show of force seemed to calm both Anderson men. Blaine finally got into the car, though gave it a good slamming, and Mr. Anderson apologized for the scene to the educators gathered, who assured him that these things do happen, before getting into the car himself and driving off.

"Oh man. I won't need to watch any drama for a week after that!" Mercedes sung out, hopping down from the chair and sitting herself down.

"If I talked to my dad like that I would be sent to live with my Grandmother in China..." Mike murmured in disbelief.

"At least you'd still be alive if you talked to your dad like that. Mine would kill me." Tina added.

"If my dad were still alive, I'd never treat him like that." Finn noted, and Kurt sent him a weak smile, knowing that the tower of a boy had been adopting his own dad as a surrogate to the position.

"Well it's not like his dad was being very kind to him either..." Rachel noted, receiving a few nods of agreement.

"I just wish I could have seen what was going on..." Artie said and the room got very quiet as everyone suddenly realized that Artie was left out of the conversation as no one had bothered to relay to him what was going on outside of the window.

A clap of Mr. Schuester's hands snapped everyone back to attention and before long they were all back on track, deciding on moves and a song for recruiting new members into the group. Blaine and his dad were forgotten by everyone it seemed, though the incident weighed on Kurt's mind throughout the rest of practice. His mind kept jumping back and forth between feeling sorry for Blaine, his dad, and the car. Ultimately he felt grateful for his own father and the love and respect they shared. He knew that whatever trouble he might get into, his dad would be there to support him and help him through it - whether that meant a helpful kick in the pants or a hug. Blaine obviously didn't have that, and whether that deficit was because of something he had done or something his father had done, it didn't seem right. Kurt wasn't sure if he wanted kids in the future, but he did know that if he did become a dad, he would make sure the kid felt loved no matter what.

The New York courtyard performance was a flop, no one even batted an eyelash at their rendition of Empire State of Mind. In fact, the sign up sheet for Glee Club was defaced.

So when Rachel interrupted Kurt and Mercedes playing piano together to inform them that there was a new student who would be a threat to their ability to get any more solo's in the group, Mercedes and Kurt had to talk her down and make sure she knew just how terrible her idea to have them all slushied in front of the potential new talent to scare her away. While Kurt knew that another very talented member might take away more chances for solo's, he had accepted that his ability to get solos with his unique vocal range was already limited and, besides, the club was nearly at the point where they were going to have to beg for new members.

That being said, Kurt wasn't really surprised when Mike and Tina informed everyone that Rachel had sent Sunshine to a crackhouse under the pretense that it was to audition for the club. What was surprising was that Rachel actually apologized and convinced Sunshine to audition - and what an audition it was. The little girl had a huge voice that blew them all away with its power and range. Kurt also had to appreciate her sense of style - he was looking forward to getting to know her better.

And then of course, the good news went bad. Vocal Adrenaline stole Sunshine away and a potential new audition that Finn scoped out didn't audition because he was worried about being seen as a loser.

Kurt was infuriated. In fact, he was ready to throw a slushie at Rachel just to cool himself off, but Finn convinced him not to. Even though his crush on Finn was long over, Kurt wasn't able to refuse him a request.

And of course, every day in French class, he was being trained by Blaine to supply him with paper and finally a new pencil after his stubby pencil finally retired. Blaine had also taken to sitting just in front of Kurt instead of two spots ahead, forcing Kurt to have to breath in his stench of cigarettes which apparently he always partook in right before class. Kurt had to compensate by taking aspirin before class to ward off the inevitable headache from the odor.

Despite that, it was still his best class. He was insulted and sneered at in his other classes, subject to pranks and stares.

Two weeks into school though, it was time for the first paired French reading.

"Blaine, with Kurt." directed Mademoiselle Bouvier, causing Kurt's stomach to flip flop.

Blaine turned in his seat to face Kurt, and Kurt forced a small smile, noticing that Blaine was in desperate need of a haircut as his curls bobbed in front of his eyes.

Blaine didn't return the smile, instead just speaking in flawless French with Kurt who responded back just as quickly. At least this pairing was better than most Kurt had suffered through, where he wondered if the students actually knew how to even say hello in French.

As directed, they read through a passage together in French, and answered context questions about it. Throughout the exercise, they were expected to only speak to one another in French, though Kurt knew from experience that lots of the other students would write out information to each other in English since they had trouble with the language.

Kurt remained on edge though. He didn't want to say or do anything that might set off Blaine, so he monitored himself and did his best to stay on task and avoid daydreaming about giving the curly haired boy beside him a makeover. Blaine's eyes would certainly be complemented by wearing something in a deep green.

"What?" Blaine suddenly asked in French, looking intently at Kurt.

Kurt must have looked confused because Blaine immediately spoke again.

"You said hazel would go nicely with green. We're reading about schools in France."

Kurt swallowed, his eyes growing wide as he realized that he had blundered and not kept track of his mouth.

"What the hell?"

"I... Sorry. My mind was elsewhere." Kurt stumbled on his words, trying desperately to play innocent and avoid any confrontation.

"Well focus."

Kurt watched Blaine for a moment as the boy looked back at the passage and began reading again, not freaking out on Kurt or snapping. Kurt wasn't about to let his guard down though - retaliation could come later, after class. For the remainder of the period, Kurt made sure to be especially focused and speak as perfectly as he could to, hopefully, convince Blaine not to snap on him.

Kurt was relieved when Blaine left the class ahead of him. He let the calm go through him and gathered up his books, noting that he would need to book a massage with all the tension in his body having built up over the course of the first two weeks of school.

As he left the classroom, he quickly realized how wrong it was to relax. Blaine was there, waiting for him just outside the door.

"Hummel."

Kurt swallowed and hovered in the doorway, biting his lower lip gently as he awaited whatever it was Blaine was going to do.

"You didn't suck today. Must be a nice change from what you normally do."

Blaine spun on his heels and walked off, twirling the pencil Kurt had given him a few days earlier in his right hand, while carrying the rolled up notes in his left. Kurt remained frozen in place, wondering if that was a compliment or an insult, but ultimately thankful that he had been spared anything worse.

Hopefully he would be partnered with someone less stressful and more inept next time.