And yet there’s a feeling in the air that something’s going to happen.

Blaine Anderson taps his pencil against his desk as his friends chatter around him, waiting for homeroom to end. He has a headache already and the day has only just started.

The classroom door slamming open as he reaches for the aspirin in his bag doesn’t help the pounding.

The boys go silent as they turn to see where the noise was coming from. They're all staring in confusion, but Blaine is simply stunned.

In the doorway is a sullen face with delicate features. With porcelain skin, sparkling blue eyes, and a ski-slope nose, the boy is more beautiful than anyone or anything Blaine’s ever seen before.

But there’s an edge to the boy making his way to the teacher’s desk, too. His white button-down is un-tucked and he’s wearing a worn leather jacket instead of the Dalton blazer. His hair looks as if it’s been tugged and pulled in every direction, like he just rolled out of bed. Blaine is suddenly very aware of how much gel he's wearing and makes a note to use less.

The boy hands Mr. Thornton a note and turns the class, which is still stark silent. He looks over the classroom with a slight grimace. He raises his eyebrow once his eyes land on Blaine’s.

As Kurt watches him, Blaine bravely holds his gaze for a few moments, studying him before averting his gaze. He can’t maintain a staring contest with such piercing eyes.

Mr. Thornton clears his note after reading the note, bringing Blaine back to reality.

“Class, this is Kurt Hummel,” Mr. Thornton says. “He just transferred from McKinley High School in Lima.”

“Hey,” say a few brave voices in classroom. Kurt rolls his eyes and Blaine finally tosses two aspirin in his mouth and takes a sip of water to wash them down.

Mr. Thornton looks Kurt up and down. “I suppose you’ll be getting your uniform soon. We can let the dress code violation slide for today.”

“Fantastic,” Kurt says sarcastically.

“Why don’t you take a seat next to Blaine Anderson,” Mr. Thornton says severely, clearly not in the mood to handle his attitude.

Blaine sputters out some of his water and gets a few strange looks from his classmates.

Kurt makes his way down the aisle toward Blaine, whose head starts pounding louder in his ears. Kurt falls into his seat and turns to Blaine, looking him up and down before leaning in and whispering to him.

“Little early for popping pills, isn’t it?” He asks.

“What?”

Kurt nods to the aspirin bottle sitting on Blaine’s desk.

“Oh, no, no that’s aspirin,” he spins the bottle to show Kurt.

“Sure. I’m just as sure of that as I am that you weren’t eye-fucking me up there,” Kurt mumbles, nodding toward the front of the room.

Blaine’s speechless, so Kurt continues, leaning in so close that Blaine can count all the freckles dotting his nose.

“You like what you saw up there?” Blaine looks at him with scrunched eyebrows. “Don’t think I didn’t see you staring, I’m not blind.”

“I-I wasn’t staring, I-” Blaine’s interrupted by the bell.

“Save it, loverboy,” Kurt says, standing up and walking parallel down the aisle of desks. When they’ve both reached the front of the room, everyone’s eyes are on them. “You’re not my type.”

He winks at Blaine before pausing to look at Blaine’s ass. Before Blaine can move from his line of sight, Kurt gives his ass a quick squeeze. “Not enough ass back there.”

Blaine’s stunned still as he watches Kurt flip his head around and stride out of the room with an air of satisfaction.

“Dude,” Blaine’s friend Jeff says. Nick walks up beside him, the two of them staring toward the door.

“I-I-“ Blaine can’t form a sentence.

“I thought he seemed like a bad kid,” Jeff nudges Blaine forward so they can head to history class. “But geez.”

“I know,” Nick says.

“I just hope he isn’t in any of our classes today,” Blaine finally says as they walk down the hall. Jeff and Nick nod in agreement as he quickly and (hopefully) subtly presses his hand on the sore spot where Kurt’s nails had dug in, wincing slightly.

Is it bad that the sting wasn’t that bad?

--

For most of the day, Blaine’s classes are Kurt-free. He’s almost forgotten about him by the time he gets to biology class, his last class of the day. But as he walks in the door and looks to the back of the classroom there Kurt is, sitting sullenly in the back row of the class at a table by himself.

Suddenly his eyes turn up to face Blaine and he smirks. Blaine looks down, avoiding his eyes, and takes his seat in the second row as the bell rings.

“Alright class,” says Ms. Westerly as she hurries through the door with papers flying everywhere. “So today is the…” she checks her planner. “The 18th. So we’re starting our unit on anatomy and your first project is a frog dissection.” She motions to the side of the room where a bucket filled with dead frogs float in a bucket of water.

“You’ll be doing this in groups of two and—” She looks up and sees Kurt. “Oh, yes, we have a new student, Kurt Hummel, is it?” she asks. Kurt doesn’t make any move. “Okay, we’ll go with Kurt,” she says, scribbling his name on the attendance sheet. “Now, I’m going to assign the teams.” She begins writing pairs of names on the chalkboard.

“Jeff and Alex,” she writes. “Sebastian and Tom, Grant and Paul, Everett and Billy, Blaine and—”

Please not Kurt, please not Kurt…

“Kurt.”

Blaine squeezes his eyes shut and zones out on the rest of the names she writes on the blackboard. Why Kurt?

When he opens his eyes, Kurt’s standing next to him, his eyebrow raised yet again.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asks condescendingly.

“Nothing,” Blaine takes the worksheet from Ms. Westerly. “Okay, can you get the frog and I’ll get the instruments?”

Kurt shrugs. “Whatever,” he goes to get the frog.

“Man, I’m so sorry,” Jeff says, meeting Blaine at the instruments table. “If I could, I’d be your partner and switch mine. Seriously, Alex is such a smartass.”

“It’s okay. It’s just for today.”

“Aren’t these our bio partners for the school year?”

“Wait, really?” Blaine asks.

“Yeah, I think so,” Jeff pouts sympathetically. “Sorry, man.”

Blaine walks back to the table and sees Kurt slouched in his chair. I’m gonna try and be nice, he decides. I’m sure this is just a front, he’s probably just freaked out, being alone at a new school and all. He sits down in his chair and smiles at Kurt.

“Alright, so we’re supposed to dissect the frog and ID the organs. You wanna make the first cut?” Blaine offers Kurt the scalpel.

But Kurt just stares at him. “What are you doing?”

“What?”

“Your face.”

Blaine’s face drops. “What’s wrong with my face?”

“Your smile is creeping me out, stop it.”

Blaine sighs as he levels his lips into a slight frown.
“Much better.”

“Glad you approve. Want to make the first cut?”

They cut through the skin and muscle down to the organs and start filling out their worksheets. Kurt is smarter than Blaine gave him credit for, identifying some of the mysterious objects in the frog Blaine can’t figure out.

“Alright, now we have to ID the…” Blaine pauses. “The sex organs. We have to determine if this frog is male or female.”

“Well, you’d barely know it, but,” he points with the scalpel, “those are the testes.” He snickers as he writes the information down. “Small balls, but you know what that’s like, don’t you Anderson?”

“Why do you do things like that?” Blaine asks, dropping his pencil onto the table.

“What? You’re lacking in ass, so I’m just guessing you’re lacking up front.”

“Oh my god,” Blaine whispers harshly. “You can’t just talk like that. You’ve known me for not even a whole school day and you’re already insulting me?”

“What, you’re not proud of your small balls?” Kurt teases.

“SHUT UP!” The entire class goes silent and turns to face them. “Sorry,” Blaine says, his cheeks turning red with embarrassment.

“Don’t get embarrassed, just own who you are,” Kurt says sarcastically. He throws his worksheet at Blaine before standing up. “Chill the fuck out. Here, I finished the worksheet,” he tosses the sheet toward Blaine. “If you wanna copy the answers, go for it.” He picks up his bag, zips up his jacket and, as Ms. Westerly is facing the board, walks out the door.

Blaine sighs and answers the last question on his worksheet. He hands in his and Blaine’s work and asks to be excused early, which Ms. Westerly permits.

The hallways are deserted as Blaine walks toward the restroom. His shoes clack against the marble flooring and the lockers glint under the fluorescent lights. He’s about to push open the door when he hears a noise.

“I know what I'm needin', and I don't want to waste more time. I'm in a New York state of mind.”

Singing. Someone’s singing in the bathroom.

He stands outside and listens to the voice. It’s high and angelic, unlike anything he’s ever heard before. He waits until the song is over to avoid startling the voice. It’s one of the most beautiful things he’s ever heard.

He needs to recruit this voice for the Warblers, stat.

Blaine takes a second to realize the song is over; his eyes have been closed, taking in the sound. He turns and slowly pushes the door open.

Kurt swerves around and looks at him, a toothpick between his teeth.

“Kurt?”

“What’re you after now?” Kurt’s voice back to the familiar growl Blaine’s eard all day.

“Was that you singing?” Blaine looks under the stalls to see the feet of someone, anyone else the voice could belong to. “Your voice is so much lower when you talk, I would’ve never guessed!” Blaine’s voice starts to speed up as he gets more excited.

“What, were you were listening?” Kurt asks angrily. “Jesus Christ, there’s no privacy in this school,” he runs his fingers through his still mussed hair and walks up to Blaine. “You can’t tell anyone about this.”

“Why not? You sounded fantastic—”

Kurt turns and leans his right hand on the sink and glares at him, daring him to continue, which he does.

“In fact, the Warblers need some new voices, I’m sure they’d love to hear from you.”

Before Blaine knows what’s happening, Kurt’s spun around and shoved him against the wall. His nails dig into Blaine’s shoulders as Blaine puts his arms up in surrender.

“Don’t you fucking tell anyone what you heard.”

“But why?” Blaine regrets questioning him immediately.

“Because I fucking said so.”

“Okay, okay,” Blaine says, wincing from Kurt’s sharp nails.

Kurt squints his eyes and glares into Blaine’s eyes. He pulls Blaine forward just to shove him shoulder-first into the paper-towel dispenser.

“Ow, fuck!” Blaine yells as the metal corner of the machine stabs through his blazer.

“There’s more where that came from if you don’t keep your mouth shut,” Kurt sneers at Blaine and walks out into the now-bustling hallway.

Blaine stares at the closed door that Kurt just walked out of.

Do I even want to know who this kid is? Blaine thinks. But as he walks out the door, rubbing his shoulder, he knows his answer.