Kurt, after Blaine had left the room, slid slowly down the shelf. His fist loosened and tightened around the tie in his hand in time with his heartbeat, in time with the steady tick of his empty thoughts.
And really, they were empty. Blaine’s kiss had not only wiped out the “I’m gay” litany, he’d also just eradicated every other thought Kurt would ever had. He couldn’t even find it within himself to feel upset or confused or angry or heartbroken. All he knew was the steady clench of his own hand around the soft material of Blaine’s tie.

It was hours later before he tripped in the room of their dorm – dark and filled with the tiny sounds of Blaine breathing – and flung himself on the bed, still clothed.
He tried to sleep, tossing and turning, but it was only when he matched his breaths and the constant squeeze of the tie to Blaine’s breathing that he could sleep.

Blaine was gone when Kurt woke up, and he couldn’t decide if he was glad or heartbroken that he got to avoid the awkward encounter. He traipsed to the shower in a daze and went through the routine apathetically. (He missed the “morning wank” part of his routine, entirely convinced that after last night he would never be hard again.)
Padding loudly in the too quiet and empty room, he walked over to his bad and sat down, musing detachedly at his own numbness. He still couldn’t think or feel. The tie was sitting next to him, already crumpled beyond repair by Kurt’s compulsive grasping.
There was a note sitting on Blaine’s bed.
I’m sorry.
I can’t.
And that’s when the numb finally broke like a dam giving into the torrent and the heartbreak rushed in.

Kurt managed to pull enough of the shattered apathy into a thin veneer of a mask that he wore through his classes as he internally broke down.
Blaine’s words, while vague, represent it all. They create an overwhelming feeling of no. No, Kurt cannot get what he wants. No, Kurt cannot just breeze through life and assume his best friend will be there. No, Kurt cannot follow up what might be the best kiss in the history of forever with a relationship that might be worth all of this fucking pain to begin with.
No, Kurt is not loved back by Blaine.
The thing is, until Kurt sees those words, he doesn’t even realise he is in love with Blaine. Before the agony drowns out even his own wordless sobs, he doesn’t even consider it an option. Because the reasons he’s always said that he can’t love Blaine are ironically the reasons he loves him now.
[Blaine is his best friend. Blaine knows too many of Kurt’s secrets and heartbreaks and stupid thoughts. Kurt is always too embarrassed around Blaine to even think about that sort of relationships. Also, Blaine kinda has this annoying habit of tracking water all through their dorm that Kurt absolutely hates.]
So, as Kurt finally realises everything, he clings even more desperately to the fragile mask he is wearing as he waits for the time he can break down.

Four o’clock comes around again and students run past him in the hallway, eager for another weekend. The ones who leave for the weekend stream endlessly out of the foyer and the boarding students who stay are all gathering in each other rooms or the common room. It’s one of those days where no one wants to be alone, which of course means Kurt retreats back to their room, absent mindedly clutching the tie in his pocket.
He gets bumped into a wall by a student who throws an automated “sorry, dude!” his way then scampers off. It was such a little thing, really, but he wants to cry. It’s just proof to him that not only does his social life exist outside of Blaine, without Blaine defining him, he doesn’t exist within Dalton. It makes sense really, they clung to each other at such a young age that they didn’t even try to make other friends. But it still hurts, because now he doesn’t even have Blaine to make him truly Kurt.

The sun is setting and it marks 24 whole hours that Kurt hasn’t seen or spoken to Blaine. It’s the first time since they’ve met, and finally Kurt cries, drenching the tie that is laid out in his lap.

In the hours of sobbing that follow, the thought chases him. He dismisses it and then it just floats back. It’s a simple thought; one tied to the simple words I can’t and the pain in his chest that logically Kurt knows is his lungs crying for oxygen that his sobs aren’t providing but he thinks has everything to do with the empty feeling that he got when Blaine left him in the library. He thrusts away the thought again and picks up his phone.

[Kurt will find the messages in his “Drafts” folder later and throw his phone away from him into the nearest wall.
To Blaine: I love you.
To Blaine: Come back.
To Blaine: I have your tie.
To Blaine: Why? Why did you have to do this to me?
To Blaine: I hate you.
To Blaine: No I don’t.
To Blaine: I love you.]

In the end he only sends one message, one that ended up being a kind of double message and also strangely prophetic.
To Blaine: It hurts too much. I need you.

In the end, the idea finally gets him. He tires of avoiding it and just gives in. Maybe the stray thought was right, maybe it would make him feel better. And even if it didn’t, did it really matter now?

It was handy that Blaine, unlike Kurt, needed to shave and had a couple of razor blades sitting in their bathroom. Kurt grabs one and shuffles into the shower stall, fully clothed. He doesn’t know why, but he knows that he doesn’t want to leave a mess. He knows how angry it makes him when Blaine doesn’t clean up after himself. Even now, he doesn’t want to inconvenience Blaine. He starts to move the blade on his arm.

When Blaine finds him, his first thought it “Crap, I look like shit” and his second thought, after seeing the panic in the eyes he loves so much is “Oh no, I wasn’t trying to die.”
He thinks he may have even said that, but it is lost in a sob as Blaine gathers him into his arms.

Blaine puts him in his bed, and carefully drapes the tattered tie over the thin but deep cut. He then gets into bed with him and they cling together. Just once. And cry.