“Kurt! Can I talk to you?”

Kurt turned around at the sound of Blaine’s voice. Pavarotti’s cage was swinging from his hand as he walked out of the senior commons from Warbler practice. The yellow bird chirped happily at Blaine as he walked towards Kurt with his guitar in hand.

“Sure, what’s up?” Kurt replied, a bit confused.

“Can we go into that room over there?” Blaine gestured to a room just off the senior commons.

“Blaine, what’s going on?”

“Just…I’ll show you.”

To say Kurt was confused would be an understatement. His stomach knotted into little balls of anxiety. What was Blaine going to tell him? That Kurt was coming off too strong? He knew Blaine didn’t return the feelings he had for him, that much was clear, but Kurt had been trying to get over him. Blaine was strictly friend-material, even though Kurt wanted more. But it didn't matter. He was used to being let down.

He and Blaine walked into the cozy room, where Blaine sat down on the arm of a couch. He gestured for Kurt to sit in the chair across from him.

“Blaine, what is go—”

“Shh, just wait. I…I want you to listen very closely, okay?”

And he began to strum, and Kurt’s heart stopped.

[play]

This is the first day of my life
I swear I was born right in the doorway
I went out in the rain, suddenly everything changed
They’re spreading blankets on the beach

Blaine started to sing softly and Kurt could barely breathe. His eyes were filled with so much emotion and sadness and warmth, a little bit of everything, and they were so dazzlingly hazel that Kurt just couldn’t look away. For the next part, Blaine began to blush softly.

Yours was the first face that I saw
I swear I was blind before I met you
Now, I don’t know where I am
and I don’t know where I’ve been
But I know where I want to go

He held Kurt’s gaze, letting his thoughts take the form of song. His eyes begged Kurt to understand, to give him another chance.

And so I thought I’d let you know
That these things take forever
I especially am slow
But I realized that I need you
And I wondered if I could come home

At this point Kurt was close to tears. It was overwhelming, but in the best way possible. His stomach was a mess of flutters and his hands were itching to grab Blaine and just hug him until the end of forever, because this song meant something, right?

Blaine skipped the last verse and played out the chorus on his guitar, never breaking contact with Kurt’s eyes. He needed more than anything for Kurt to understand that Blaine had been stupid, because Kurt was here all along. And it took a revelation while listening to a Death Cab for Cutie Pandora station in the shower for him to realize--the song described exactly how he felt about Kurt.

The guitar’s last notes faded into silence and the room was quiet, stiflingly so. Neither boy was sure who was going to speak first, and they looked at each other nervously. Kurt sat in stunned silence. He couldn't have spoken if his life depended on it.

“Kurt,” Blaine finally said. “I—I’m sorry it took me so long to realize this—how I feel about you—because I’ve been so stupid this entire time. And you were here this whole time, and just look at you, you’re perfect.” Blaine looked up at Kurt’s eyes, which were the deepest blue he'd ever seen them. He didn’t know what to do, so he just kept rambling. “And I'd be so lucky if you haven’t just forgotten about me by now. I wouldn’t blame you if you did. I—you move me, Kurt. You’re just so amazing, I don’t know what to do with myself.”

This time he stood up and slowly walked to where Kurt was sitting, pulling the other boy up with him. Kurt just stared at Blaine and let it happen, watched him come closer and closer and he really should push him away, but he didn’t, and Blaine was really freaking close now—

And then Blaine was kissing him.

It was slow and hesitant and everything that a first kiss would be. Both of their lips were horribly dry but Kurt didn’t care, because he was finally happy, for once. It swelled inside him like a balloon, taking up his insides and filling them with pure giddiness. It was terrifying and foreign and exciting but Kurt never wanted it to end.

When Blaine pulled away, his face was flushed and his eyes were overly bright and full of an uncertain hope.

He struggled to find the right words to describe this feeling, this odd but welcome sense of completion. It was like finding something you never even knew you had lost, but now that you’ve found it, you couldn’t imagine living without it.

The air around them was still in anticipation, everything weighing on Kurt's reaction. So he took a deep, shaky breath and spoke.

“I…I feel like I’ve been looking for you…”

Blaine smiled and pulled Kurt into a tight hug. He leaned his head on Kurt's shoulder and tilted his mouth to Kurt's ear. Kurt could hear the smile in Blaine's voice and his heart felt warm and happy and light when Blaine spoke the next word.

“Forever?”