Kurt can’t figure out what’s gone wrong. Blaine seems to be avoiding him and he just doesn’t know why. Everything had been fine – or at least, everything had seemed fine – when they’d finally hung up late last night, and he hasn’t spoken to him since.

And it’s already lunchtime.

Not that it’s unusual, per se, not to physically speak to Blaine before lunch; their class schedules are such that some days they can spend the entire morning at opposite ends of the school from each other, with only flurries of text messages between classes to sustain them.

But it’s Thursday. And that means that 2nd period, when Kurt was in US History, Blaine was in English just four doors down the hall. With Blaine’s 3rd period trig classroom just across the hall from Kurt’s calculus, this usually affords them their one real opportunity in the week to walk each other to class.

It may only be a few short minutes of conversation – and sometimes some stealthy handholding when they’re feeling particularly brave or needy – but it’s enough to put Thursdays firmly at the top of Kurt’s ‘favourite weekdays’ list.

When he’d made it to the door of the English classroom today, however, Blaine was already gone.

Kurt knows he’s in school today – he’s caught brief glimpses in crowded hallways, too packed for him to get through – which only leaves him to conclude that Blaine is, for some reason, purposefully avoiding him. And it hurts.

He’s tried texting, asking if something is wrong, if he’s done something wrong, but Blaine has yet to respond to any of them.

A lifetime of experience means Kurt can’t help but worry, assume the worst. Can’t help but come up with painful scenarios in his head, each one worse than the last.

He’s fairly sure that Blaine wouldn’t break up with him without at least telling him, but even that conviction is beginning to waver the longer it goes with no word from Blaine.

His appetite has deserted him, and as he dumps his morning’s books in his locker he wonders if anyone would call him out if he skipped out on lunch and hid in his car for the hour, where no one would be there to see if a few tears happened to leak out.

The two chatty girls beside him slam their lockers shut and move off in the direction of the cafeteria, leaving him an unobstructed view right down the row of lockers. Revealing Blaine, pulling things out of his own locker at the other end of the row.

They’d decided it was somewhat miraculous, when Blaine had first received his locker allocation and they’d realised that despite the last minute aspect of his transfer, Blaine’s locker was so very close to Kurt’s. Right now, with his stomach churning and a lump threatening to form in his throat, Kurt isn’t sure if it’s a good thing or a bad.

He has to go speak to him though, has to find out what’s going on, even if part of him is screaming that whatever it is, he probably doesn’t want to know. His feet are moving before he’s even made the conscious decision to do it.

“If you’re breaking up with me, you could at least tell me about it.” His voice is shaky, altogether too high even for him, and that’s really not what he would have planned to say if he’d actually stopped to plan something, but it’s out there now and he can’t take it back.

“What?” Blaine spins around to face him, his locker clattering shut behind him.

“I think I deserve to know.” Kurt forges ahead, biting his lip in a desperate attempt to keep his face composed.

“Where did breaking up come from? Why on Earth would I be breaking up with you?” Blaine’s expression implies that Kurt has clearly gone insane.

For a moment, Kurt wonders if he has.

“I don’t know!” he exclaims, reigning in the volume when he remembers the rest of the school walking past. “You’re the one who’s been avoiding me all day, and not answering my texts!”

Blaine colours a little and glances at the floor. “Ah… I sort of forgot to put my phone on charge when we finished talking last night. It died before I even made it to homeroom this morning.” His gaze shifts over Kurt’s shoulder. “I did mean to tell you, but…”

“But you decided to just avoid me instead?” Kurt interrupts, really not seeing how this explanation could be leading anywhere good.

“No! That’s not it at all!” Blaine fiddles with the strap of his satchel and still doesn’t seem to be able to actually look at Kurt.

“So you’re trying to say you haven’t been avoiding me?” Kurt says, voice dripping with scepticism.

“No, well. Okay, so I have been avoiding you, but I promise you it’s absolutely not what you think and I definitely don’t want to break up with you.” Kurt has to run the end of that sentence through his brain a couple of times before he catches it all, as Blaine rushes through it like he’s afraid Kurt is going to cut him off before he can finish.

Kurt takes a step back and frowns at Blaine. “So tell me, then. Why have you been going out of your way to avoid me all morning?”

Blaine finally drags his gaze back from the riveting sight of the wall to Kurt. “I just… you…” His eyes drop, running down to Kurt’s feet and back, and Kurt can see him swallow.

A moment later, his hand is gripped tight in Blaine’s and he’s being tugged down the hall and into a thankfully deserted bathroom.

“Blaine? Wha…?” His query is cut off as Blaine presses him against the side of the stalls and kisses him desperately. It’s almost instinctual by now to kiss back and he lets himself sink into the ever-addicting slide of lips against lips for several minutes before pulling back.

“No… wait…” he mumbles breathily. “Stop just a minute. You still have explaining to do.”

“This… sort of is my explanation,” Blaine mutters, burying his face in Kurt’s shoulder, mouthing gently at his neck.

Kurt thinks about that for a moment but it still doesn’t become any clearer – how is kissing him any sort of an explanation for avoidance? Shaking his head, he pushes Blaine back enough to look him in the face. “Sorry, I’m just not getting it.”

Blaine runs a finger down his chest, stopping to play with a button. “Do you remember the last time you wore this shirt, Kurt?”

Kurt tries to think back. “Not for a couple of months, at least.” He makes sure to rotate all of his clothes to make sure nothing is repeated too often, but only extra special outfits come with a date attached in his mind.

“More than three, actually,” Blaine tells him, fingers still toying with the button but eyes locked once more with Kurt’s. “Although… you didn’t wear it all night.”

And now it’s coming back to him. He’d paired it with different pants, and there had been a jaunty scarf to complete the look, but all of it had ended up on Blaine’s floor, tangled up with Blaine’s own clothes.

He can remember in exquisite detail what Blaine was wearing, can remember removing each item one by one as they peeled each other down to nothing but skin for the first time, but his own outfit had, for once, seemed far from the most important thing to commit to memory. “Oh.”

“Yes, oh,” Blaine responds, leaning into Kurt. “All day, every time I even caught a glimpse of you in that shirt, all I could think about was getting you alone and getting you back out of it. Which… not exactly appropriate for the hallways of McKinley.”

“So you thought avoiding me was a better idea?” Kurt says, understanding finally, even if the sting of being ignored so thoroughly hasn’t quite worn off yet.

Blaine nods. “I didn’t really think about how it would look from your perspective though. I’m sorry.” Wriggling even closer, he wraps his hands around the back of Kurt’s neck and looks up at him through his eyelashes in a way Kurt is pretty sure constitutes cheating. “Forgive me?”

And even though it’s a blatant ploy, Kurt really can’t resist that look. “Take me home after school and I’ll let you make it up to me,” he murmurs, wrapping his arms snugly around Blaine’s back and tugging him into a kiss.

Until then, they’ve got lunch hour, a deserted bathroom, and if Kurt forgives Blaine a little early… well who’s to know?