Blaine ignored all the glances, some curious, some disgusted, that their joined hands attracted as they strolled into the West Entrance of Lima's only shopping mall. Just like he always did, he pretended they were just jealous of the fact that he had this perfect man at his side, that they could never hope to have such a flawless person. It was definitely preferable to dwelling on the real reason for the sneers and, in some cases, the muttered profanities; that half of Ohio's population were homophobic assholes with nothing better to do than show their revulsion at two men displaying more affection than they even came close to experiencing in their 25-year legal marriage. Well, screw them, Blaine thought, tightening his grip on Kurt's hand.

"Where did you say we'd meet them?" He asked, stomach rumbling for what felt like the billionth time since they left the house.

"At the food court seeing as preventing your imminent starvation is kind of my priority." Kurt answered, smiling at Blaine's grin.

"Excellent. I literally could eat a horse right now. Or maybe just a large cat." His stomach chose that moment to grumble loudly once more, proving his point.

"Yeah, I reckon you may have to stick to a sandwich—don't want to alarm the others."

"You wouldn't be alarmed?" he asked curiously.

"Nope, I'm used to your ability to eat like a caveman, Tina probably isn't. Mind you, if you want to avoid another vapo-rape fiasco, maybe you should tell her..." Kurt squeezed his fingers to show he was joking, but before Blaine could reply, he'd suddenly dropped his hand and taken a step away from Blaine.

"Kurt, wha—" He started but Kurt cut him off.

"Hey 'Cedes!" He exclaimed, already striding through the entrance to the food court where he'd presumably just spotted the others. Blaine jogged after him, still a bit confused about his quick departure.

Kurt was hugging the little group assembled at a large table one by one by the time Blaine caught up. He kept his eyes on Kurt as Tina, Sam, Brittany, Artie and Mercedes hugged him, too, noticing that he looked decidedly awkward.

"How're you doing, Blainey boy?" Mercedes asked him, wrapping an arm round him. Blaine tried not to look too uncomfortable as Kurt stayed at the other side of the group from him.

"Uh, I'm good, thanks. You?"

"As fabulous as ever. These guys were just filling me in on the whole shooting ordeal last week—I'm glad you're ok. Kurt over here would've gone to McKinley and kicked their ass personally if anything had happened to you, wouldn't you, boo?"

Kurt just nodded awkwardly and then quickly started up a conversation with Tina. Blaine couldn't work out what was wrong; he'd been perfectly fine on the walk from the car.

"Uh, well, they haven't actually caught anyone yet, so..." Blaine replied uncomfortably. Mercedes took this as a sign that he wanted to change the topic and began soliloquising about the progress on her album for which Blaine was immensely grateful as it meant he only had to pretend to listen, nodding sporadically to show his agreement. Instead, his eyes remained glued on Kurt who was looking more at ease now that the attention was off him, but his posture remained stiff and his arms crossed as he chatted to Tina and Brittany.

When they sat down at the table, Kurt purposefully walked round to the other side when Blaine sat down just to avoid sitting next to him. Then, after the long process of deciding on all their orders, Kurt got up to go get them and when Blaine offered to help, he quickly said he'd be "just fine" on his own with a barely-there smile shot over his shoulder. Even Sam seemed to pick up on the awkwardness because he patted Blaine on the shoulder as Kurt walked off and made an extra effort to involve him in his debate with Artie over who would make a better Justin Bieber (for the record, Blaine had to agree that Sam had the hair for it).

Blaine felt the uncomfortable embers of hurt firing up in his stomach at this sudden rejection, but more than anything he was just confused; he didn't understand how Kurt could be holding his hand and joking with him one minute and then pretty much ignoring him the next. And then, when Kurt returned with a tray of food and let Tina (Tina!) help him go back for the others, it hit Blaine. It was because they were with their friends—Kurt didn't want anyone to know they were back together. Was he embarrassed by Blaine? Or just embarrassed that he had forgiven someone who'd cheated?

Blaine kept his eyes on his fries as he wondered why Kurt hadn't just told him so, hadn't just told him to act like friends. Then again, Blaine hadn't exactly been in a stable emotional state since Kurt had come back from New York, so maybe Kurt didn't want to risk setting him off again. But had he seriously thought ignoring him without an explanation was better? Blaine felt his frustration budding inside his chest and quickly got up and excused himself to the bathroom before he said something stupid, his chair scraping too noisily along the floor.

He made himself walk, not run like he wanted to, to the restrooms and once he'd pushed through the door, he crossed straight to the sink to splash some cold water on his face.

"No, do not make this about you, Blaine." He said to his reflection, glaring at the drops of water running down his face. "Kurt has every right to not announce your reunion to the world if he doesn't want to."

But these are only our friends, a small voice in the back of his head reminded him, and Blaine cursed loudly in frustration as he dried his face off.

"Someone's swearing like a sailor, I see." Blaine jumped when he heard Kurt's voice, oblivious to the door opening, and spun around quickly to look at him. He
opened his mouth to reply and then closed it again.

"Are you alright? You kind of looked weird when you left..." Kurt asked, his voice concerned, and Blaine had to stop himself from outright laughing.

"Yeah, maybe I just don't like being ignored for absolutely no reason." Blaine snapped, surprised at the acidity of his tone. He shouldn't have to tell anyone if he wasn't ready, he reminded himself.

"Honey, I'm not ignoring you," Kurt's eyes widened as he took a step further into the bathroom.

"Really? You're not? It just feels like you won't so much as look at me, then." God, he really needed to calm down. When had he turned into such a needy emotional wreck? Oh yeah, roundabout when he cheated on the love of his life.

"Honey, I am not ignoring you." Kurt said again, more firmly this time, and walked over to Blaine, wrapping his arms around him and pulling him into a hug. Blaine melted into the embrace, as always, and sighed against his shoulder.

"So why can't I sit by you? Have I done something wrong?"

"No, no of course you haven't. I just didn't—Can we talk about this when we get home? I don't really want to have this conversation in a public bathroom," he gestured to the somewhat manky stalls and then, just to prove his point, a man and his young son walked in, throwing them a disgusted look when he saw them hugging. Blaine sighed again and reluctantly pulled back.

"Yeah, ok." He said finally, waving Kurt out the door in front of him. "Just don't, like, shut me out completely. You can still talk to me, right?"

"Of course I can. I'm not—" Kurt snapped his mouth shut as they approached the table again and Blaine rolled his eyes as the whole table tried to discreetly look at them when they sat down with about as much subtlety as Rachel's early crush on Finn. They continued to side eye Blaine as they continued their conversations until Kurt huffed out an annoyed sigh opposite him and reached across to Blaine's fries, grabbing one and pushing it against Blaine's mouth until he bewilderedly opened it and took it off him. His baffled expression made Kurt roll his own eyes.

"For someone who claimed they could eat a horse ten minutes ago, you're not exactly tucking in," he gestured with his chin to Blaine's hardly-touched fries. The others had abandoned all attempts at discretion and were blatantly gaping at them.

Brittany broke the awkward spell by clapping her hands together excitedly and exclaiming, "Yay, the dolphins are swim-buddies again!" which earned a series of chuckles from the group as they continued their conversations, this time both Blaine and Kurt joining in as the former tucked in enthusiastically to his long-awaited fries.

After lunch, the group left the food court and began browsing in the various shops. The guys got dragged into various clothes stores by the girls (and Kurt), rolling their eyes when Tina wanted to try on another dress for her college interviews. Blaine wasn't too fazed (he'd spent many a Sunday afternoon shopping with Kurt) and found he was actually enjoying just hanging out and goofing around with his friends. It had been so long since he'd allowed himself to let go and just have fun, whenever he'd tried to engage in anything more exciting than a night spent in Sam's room playing COD, he'd always felt weird afterwards—guilty, almost, like he wasn't allowed to enjoy himself after what he'd done. And then there was that constant nagging sensation that this-would-be-so-much-more-entertaining-if-Kurt-was-here that always made him feel sad and then guilty about feeling sad and so it went on.

But now Kurt was here, walking at his side, close but not touching, asking Blaine's opinion on at least one garment in every store they went in (though, if you asked him, Kurt looked gorgeous in everything)and cracking Blaine up with his witty side comments on the other shoppers. They'd just come out of Armani Exchange, Tina moaning about how she'd finally found her dream dress only to find it was way out of her price range, when Kurt stopped the whole group, and gestured to the store on his left.

"I think we should go in this one next. Blaine in particular would like too, wouldn't you, Blaine?" Kurt grinned and Blaine turned to look where he was gesturing.

"Kuuuuurt!" He groaned, glaring at the big blue letters outside the store that read 'GAP'. "Not funny!"

"Why would it be funny?" Kurt asked, feigning innocence. "I just thought you might like to go in and woo one of the hot sales assistants, that's all."

Most of the others looked confused but Mercedes snorted, Kurt having told her this story a long time ago.

"Yeah, Blaine, I'd love to hear you serenade someone." She grinned and Blaine shot a glare at her, too.

"What's the matter? Don't you have any awkward, sexually explicit songs at the ready?" Kurt added and Blaine had the sudden desire to kiss that stupid smirk off his face. Clenching his hands to avoid doing something rash (like reaching forward and grabbing Kurt's face), he mock-stormed off after the others who had apparently spotted a hot pretzel stand, shouting over his shoulder, "Ugh, I hate you both!"

He had just joined the queue behind Sam who was trying to explain to Brittany that, no, they didn't sell cherry chapstick-flavoured pretzels, when Kurt and Mercedes caught up with him. The only warning he got was the two pairs of footsteps hurrying up behind him and then a pair of arms were wrapped around his shoulders as Kurt said right next to his ear, "You don't hate me really,"

"Oh, is that so?" Blaine replied, though he knew Kurt could feel his heartbeat thumping away unnaturally fast underneath his hands, giving him away, and Sam shot him a look that clearly said "seriously, dude, you're even gonna bother trying to pull that one?"

"Mmhmm," Kurt replied confidently, passing Brittany his money. "Two, please." He said, squeezing Blaine's shoulders. "One for me and one for this guy here, who just so happens to hate me."

Tina snorted. "Please, like Blaine would ever hate you—He pretty much worships the ground you walk on."

"Tina..." Mercedes said in a warning voice, but Tina just rolled her eyes. Kurt's grin grew wider.

"Wow, Blaine, I'm flattered. But that's not very good evidence for hating me. In fact, I'd say you looooove me!" He teased, giving Blaine's shoulders a final squeeze before letting go. Blaine instantly missed the contact and the faint, ubiquitous scent of Kurt's cologne.

"Yeah, I do." Blaine breathed, too quiet for Kurt to hear.