The building's large and imposing and so unsettlingly regimented it makes him uneasy to step inside. It's beautiful, he'll give it that much, extravagant art work, and perfectly constructed hallways, it looks like a castle, somewhere where a Princess would get married or a prince would come to die, but it's cold, the boys walk in perfect form, not one toe out of place, and everything has an air of austerity even if it isn't obvious to the naked eye. He feels very out of place just being here, and it isn't the fact that his black jacket looks absolutely nothing like a blue blazer with red piping or that he's wearing sunglasses inside, it's that everyone else is solemn and hostile and walking around with a dark kind of pride. They all seem to be heading in one direction, this sea of sombre boys in blazers, their eyes are downcast and their footsteps are light and barely a word is being spoken between them. There's just a grave hush of click-clacking feet and strained whispers, every noise hits a wall and then another and then another. He makes his way down the staircase, ornate and spiralled and intimidating, every footstep ringing too loud in the cold air. He winces and looks around, stretching his arm out in front of him before he knows what he's doing. A boy with dark hair and even darker eyes turns round to greet him.

‘Excuse me, um, hi. Can I ask you a question I'm new here.'

The boy just stares at him, shock and disgust and something dark and sad and festering in his eyes. He doesn't reply.

‘What's going on?' Kurt manages to get out, his throat contracting under the weight of the boy's gaze and his face flushing as people start to walk around him, he doesn't even remember stopping.

‘The memorial.' The boy speaks slowly as if it should be obvious, curt and composed. Kurt just stares, stares at the dark eyes and the light walls and the endless swarm of boy after boy after boy. It scares him, this mutual state of honour the boys seem to be in. It doesn't suit him.

‘What memorial?' Something sinks low inside of him, a dark pain, a sudden ache, a terrified clawing at the inside of his chest.

‘For Blaine Anderson, the sophomore who... died... last week.' He chokes on the word died. Kurt chokes on his own breath. And then the boy is gone, swallowed up by the rest of them and Kurt couldn't pick him out of the crowd if he wanted to. He decides to follow anyway, let the sea pick him up and take him away, far away, lord knows he needs an escape. It's not like he wants to go back to McKinley. He doesn't know this boy and he doesn't know how he died but he may as well pay his respects.

He hears fragmented parts of the story as he goes, what could have previously been mistaken for collective breathing turns out to be hushed whispers in the shadows, words painted in passing, things that should never be said thrown between boys with too much curiosity.

Gay. Bullies. Depression. Suicide. Gay. Bullies. Depression. Suicide. Gay. Bullies. Depression. Suicide.

At first Kurt isn't even sure if it's real, it sounds an awful lot like the mantra that chases him every day, the monsters in his head and the boys in his ear and those words that terrify and comfort him as they wrap their dirty fingers around his skin everywhere he goes. And then he thinks they might be talking about him, they might be real and they might be here and maybe everybody knows. Maybe it was a setup, maybe all of them are going to turn and rip him to shreds right this second. He's not sure if he's waiting in terror or anticipation at that.

It turns out the words aren't about him at all.

And that just makes it worse. This boy, this Blaine, he doesn't know who he is or if these words are true and it's probably a little redundant considering he's dead and all, but Kurt can't help but feel connected to him. He feels alone, more than ever in this ocean of people so different from him and so similar to each other, but that boy, that boy who was one of them, was also a Kurt, he was broken and he was beaten and it seems that he was beyond repair but Kurt loves him for it, for a second he doesn't feel alone at all, and he's happy in the knowledge that that could be him, he could be Blaine. Blaine could be him.

But then he sees it.

And he doesn't feel happy at all. He feels the atmosphere drop, the temperature plummet and the noise come to a standstill all together, the room is big and packed and he thinks he might be suffocating, because those eyes. They're hazel, sort of yellow and brown and gold, they're like autumn leaves and summer sunsets and Kurt feels his breath catch in his throat because they were real, they were real and he will never get to see them. And he can see the pain, hidden behind the smile, it's hidden well, you'd probably only see it if you knew how to hide it. He wonders if they knew, if they knew the kind of unimaginable agony that this poor little boy was concealing, they probably didn't, not by the ‘but he was so happy's and the ‘he had so much to live for's that he heard as he passed.

But those eyes, he can't get them out of his mind, he looks away as soon as they make contact, not real contact, but contact all the same, but it's like they're engraved in his mind, burned onto his corneas, beautiful eyes and a broken smile and a face that buried it all. He wonders what his smile was like, not the smile in the picture, the one that was manifested behind polished glass and preserved in the flash of a light, but his real smile. He wonders how he laughed, how he cried, Kurt wonders how many nights Blaine spent crying alone in his bed while he was doing the same. He wasn't much younger than Kurt is, sophomore right? They could even be the same age, but that picture looks young, it looks small and frail and Kurt just wants to wrap him up and tell him everything will be okay, he doesn't believe that himself  but it wouldn't stop him from saying it.

He's ripped violently from his daydream by a voice, cold and calm and controlled. A boy, not much older than him, stands in front of the others, his posture is immaculate and his eyes are hard and Kurt just wants to shy away from it all.

‘As we all know-'The boy begins and Kurt looks once more at those eyes, something rips brutal and animal in his chest, something grasps his throat and grates his lungs and singes his eyes. Something hurts. He tries to look away but he can't. Hazel eyes-bright. Dark hair-gelled. Nice smile- fake. Broken boy- cute.  ‘Blaine was, Blaine was.' You can practically hear the boy telling himself to breathe, to count to ten, to start again. ‘Blaine was the lead singer of the warblers, he was kind, and smart and he always had time to spare for others and he was- he was- he was.' The boy cries then and Kurt wonders if they were friends, Blaine and the boy, or whether mass hysteria has led to this outburst, he wonders if those things that he said were true, or if people always say nice things about the dead. He wonders what people would say if he killed himself, if he would have five best friends and ten proud teachers and if everyone would cry and gather together for him.

Another boy hugs the first boy, Kurt doesn't bother to distinguish between any of them, they're all boys, they're all in blazers, they're all sad, or at least they look sad. Kurt's too busy sharing a knowing look with hazel eyes, he's too busy wondering what they're thinking, the bright eyes and the broken boy, he wonders if Blaine would've liked him, if they would've been friends.

A teacher comes to talk now, he's solemn and earnest and he stands, shoulders back, feet apart, lips pursed, he's all these boys in thirty years' time, maybe he was Blaine in thirty years' time.

‘What has happened here is a terrible thing, a terrible thing, Blaine was a wonderful student and as I know a good friend to many of you. Classes are cancelled until the end of the week, and the school councillor is holding sessions after school, although you can always find him in his office if you need to. Let us pray that this may never happen to one of us.' Us. Us. Blaine wasn't one of them, they are an us and he is a him. Other words are said too but Kurt's looking at the lips now, red and a little chapped, curled up into a smile that seems to be more and more sly every time Kurt looks at it, it's bitter and knowing and Kurt finds himself smirking back, ever so slightly. It's like they're in it together, he and Blaine, this boy who he has never met and yet feels he knows so well.

He feels an irrational kind of hatred for the boys around him, for Blaine's ‘friends', because they let this happen, they let those poor hazel eyes destroy themselves. He doesn't know why he doesn't know how he doesn't know what made Blaine do it, maybe it was one big thing, something unspeakable that Kurt will never know about, or maybe it was a thousand little things, things Kurt knows all too much about. Maybe it was the same thing that's about to kill Kurt any day now.

It doesn't really matter.

Those eyes are still beautiful and those eyes will still never be opened again. That mouth will never be opened again. Kurt wonders what his voice was like, he was a singer, a lead singer, it must've been good, it must've been beautiful, under different circumstances Kurt would have seen him soon, at sectionals, he'd get to see the eyes and hear the voice and maybe he wouldn't notice that anything was wrong at all. Maybe Kurt would've become just another person who failed Blaine Anderson.

Or maybe not.

Maybe Kurt would have noticed and would have spoken and maybe they would have saved each other.

But Kurt doesn't think so, he doesn't think anyone can save him now. No one had saved Blaine after all.

But what if he hadn't died, what if he had been on that staircase with his golden eyes instead of that boy with the dark eyes? What would have happened then, where would they all be going? Would Kurt be found out as a spy? Would they all have attacked him? Would Blaine have let it happen?

Maybe Kurt would be in Blaine's place right now, with teachers and students crying over someone who they really didn't try to save at all.

And Kurt wonders what might have happened if he had met Blaine Anderson. And he wonders if it would make him rethink what he's been planning for a while now...