Blaine makes his way down to the living room, decked out in his morning jog attire, ready to hit the pavement for his daily five miles except for one thing – his iPod has gone missing. Climbing down the steps, he checks the pockets of his workout pants and his reflective windbreaker for the fifteenth time. He sees a light on when there shouldn't be, and Sam sitting on the sofa, laptop open in his lap, television on with the volume turned low.

“You're up a little early, aren't you?” Blaine asks, scanning the living room for his wayward iPod. “I thought your call time for today wasn't until noon.”

“I haven't been to bed yet,” Sam admits, staring at the computer screen in front of him. “There was a Facts of Life marathon on Nick at Nite, and then I got a great idea.”

“Well, you do usually do your best thinking during The Facts of Life,” Blaine comments idly, searching through the discarded mail on the kitchen table. “Um, Sam…” Blaine picks up the chair cushions and looks under the magazines on the coffee table, “have you seen my iPod?”

“I have it,” Sam answers without a glance up from his computer screen.

“Oh, okay,” Blaine says, mildly confused since his and Sam's tastes in music diverged years ago. “Well, can I have it? I want to get a jog in before school.”

“Yeah, I'm almost done with it. Just give me a minute.”

Blaine peeks over Sam's shoulder. Sam has the iPod plugged in to his laptop, and he's staring at a downloading indicator on the screen. Sam hasn't upgraded his laptop in several years. What takes less than a minute on Blaine's computer takes about ten on Sam's.

“What are you doing?” Blaine asks, looking at the clock in the corner of the screen, anxious that this is eating into his jogging time.

“I came up with a way for you to burn off that bulge that's been bugging you,” Sam says, ejecting the iPod and disconnecting it from the cord.

Blaine gives Sam an expression that's both grateful and dubious.

“And that is…”

“A new motivational exercise program.” Sam hits the selector icon so Blaine can see his newest acquisition on the screen.

Blaine squints at the words and reads them aloud. “Jog of the Living Dead?”

“Yeah,” Sam says, standing to attach the iPod to Blaine's headphones and hooking the ear pieces securely to Blaine's ears. “It's popular music set to a background of zombies growling. Your subconscious thinks you're being chased and that makes you run faster. You listen to it while you jog, and boom, we'll have that Freshman Fifteen off you in no time.”

Sam pats Blaine's stomach but Blaine steps away while looking down at the app on his screen.

“Sam, I'm a senior, and I'm not really a big fan of zombie stuff.”

Blaine doesn't want to admit that it sounds scary as hell, especially considering the brand new and supremely effective noise-canceling headphones he bought, but Sam has been Blaine's best friend since high school. He probably already knows.

“Well, you know, it only got a 3.5 star rating at the Apple store,” Sam says, talking it down to alleviate some of Blaine's fear. “From what I read, the growling is kind of cartoony. It might not even work for you. And if you get bored, you can always turn it off and switch to Katy Perry or something.”

“Yeah,” Blaine says, stowing the iPod in his pocket. “I can do that. I mean, it wouldn't hurt to give it a try. They're not real zombies or anything.”

“There you go,” Sam says, giving Blaine a reassuring punch on the upper arm and walking him to the door. Blaine opens it, but Sam stops him before he heads out into the hallway.

“Uh, just out of curiosity, nothing important, but you don't have a history of heart problems, do you?”

Blaine's eyebrows shoot up.

“No,” he replies.

“Oh, good. None in your family, either?”

Blaine narrows his eyes at his best friend, who's being purposefully evasive with his questioning.

“Uh, no. Why?”

“Nothing,” Sam says with a bright smile and a clap to Blaine's shoulder. “Have a good jog, buddy. Stay safe. Have fun.”

“Yeah,” Blaine says, turning to walk down the hall. “I'll…go have fun…being chased by zombies.”

“Virtual zombies,” Sam calls after him. “Remember, they're not real.”

Blaine raises a hand to wave. He hears the door shut behind him.

Sam isn't exactly wrong about Blaine's “Freshman Fifteen”. When he moved to New York, he was so caught up in the excitement of being out on his own in the greatest city in America - the culture, the diversity, the history…the food…that he packed on a few pounds that he couldn't seem to shake, not even four years later. He knows as an actor and a performer that his body is an integral part of his professional persona – his instrument, so to speak - and he needs to do a better job of keeping it in tune. Besides, he likes his wardrobe. He'd like to wear it a little longer.

But it's not just that his clothes are fitting snugger these days – though he's not exactly complaining about how much better his ass fills out the seat of his pants – but he's found another reason to banish that extra baggage once and for all.

K. Hummel.

Their new neighbor in apartment 24B.

More to the point, their gorgeous new neighbor in apartment 24B, with the flawless skin and the dancer's physique.

Blaine sees his neighbor every morning when he leaves for school at seven, and more than once they've walked down the staircase to the street together. Blaine has never seen such a stunningly handsome man, and Blaine has known more actors, ballet dancers, musicians, and singers than most people meet in a lifetime. This man has impeccable style, a singularly exquisite fashion sense, and the most enticing smile, framed by meticulously tended chestnut hair and spectacular blue eyes.

More than anything, Blaine wants to invite his new neighbor out for coffee, but he doesn't even know the man's name. Blaine has yet to drum up enough courage to strike up a conversation, so he doesn't know what to call him other than what's typed on the label above his mailbox - K. Hummel.

Blaine doesn't want to call him Mr. Hummel. Could his name be Kevin? Ken? Karson? Kain? Kanye?

None of those seem quite right.

Blaine swore to himself that he'll find out one day – after he's lost ten pounds and looks more like the svelte boxer he did at Dalton a few years ago.

Blaine steps out onto the sidewalk, crossing the barrier from warm, inviting apartment building to freezing cold and winter dark city sidewalk, shivering as his body adjusts to the drop in temperature. Sometimes he thinks he's crazy for doing this; more than once he's considered packing it in and going back inside. But he sets his sights on two goals – a successful career on Broadway and a coffee date with his new neighbor – and it gets his feet moving.

It's a quiet New York Tuesday - not much in the way of foot traffic on the sidewalk, and only a few cars, mostly taxis, on the street. There's not a hint of sunlight along the skyline, but the streetlights are already starting to blink out. Blaine thumbs through his iPod selections and sees his usual jogging playlists – a different one for each day of the week as a way to mix things up and keep his body guessing, then a handful categorized by artist, and others by genre. Shuffled in among his Top 40 hits and a few Sondheim musicals is Sam's latest addition, Jog of the Living Dead, with its quasi-gruesome cover art, daring him to press play. Blaine stares at it and sighs. He doesn't want to try it. He really, truly doesn't want to even consider it. Blaine can appreciate a good monster movie, but gory horror flicks aren't his thing. Plus, he's very susceptible to suggestion. He can picture himself having nightmares for weeks after this. Regardless, Blaine can see the logic behind it.

And Sam isn't trying to frighten him. He's trying to help.

Blaine sucks in a deep breath, breathing in all the air he can, and once it's packed in, burning his lungs, he hits play.

He braces himself for something alarming and grotesque, but instead he hears the opening strains of a song he knows well – Lady Gaga's Applause. He listens to the song while he stretches, loosening up his muscles as he prepares to get his body moving.

So far, so good, he thinks. Can't really go wrong with Gaga.

Blaine decides to give this a shot, following his normal Tuesday jogging route so he doesn't have to concentrate too hard on where he's going. It's a route that stays to the sidewalks and alleys without crossing too many streets, traveling mostly in a circle.

Applause plays almost completely through before anything happens, and when it does, Blaine has to snicker. The growling is not that intrusive when it begins. It stays low in the background, barely even noticeable over the sound of the driving music. He probably wouldn't have even heard the difference if he hadn't been waiting for it for the last quarter mile.

And Sam's right. It does sound cartoony.

But cartoony or not, it gets his heart going and makes him run a little faster. The growling doesn't bother him too much, it's the idea that goes with it – the idea that ghoulish, decaying creatures are following him at a distance, intent on eating his brains.

A scene from a recent The Walking Dead episode flashes through his mind just as a street light shuts off up ahead, giving him pause, making him consider turning around and jogging back the way he came.

The song ends and so does the growling. Blaine feels himself become calmer, jogging boldly down the darkened street and turning the corner for the first half-mile of his run. The next song begins, and then Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! A freakishly loud groan rings in his right ear, making him jump and scream “Shit!” before veering to his left, nearly stumbling off the curb and into the gutter. A teenaged boy on rollerblades catches sight of Blaine as he zooms by, laughing so hard he almost wipes out, but he leans back on his brake, grabs a light pole to steady himself, and heads off across the street, cackling the whole way. Blaine makes a face and keeps jogging with a slightly louder chorus of the Undead muffling the lyrics to Shake It Off.

That's fine, he tells himself with his heart pounding through his ribcage. I'm not too thrilled by that song anyway.

Blaine speeds up, and as he does, the sound of growling dies down, almost as if he's leaving the zombies in the distance, which he knows is ridiculous. The sounds are pre-programmed. The speed he runs makes no difference. None of it is real. Still, he'd feel more comfortable if the sun would get off its ass and rise already. Maybe he should go back to the apartment and try this again at daybreak…or noon, when the sun is out and the streets are full of people.

Blaine turns another corner and runs face first into a groggy homeless man, draped in a filthy wool blanket, only his wrinkled, sun-burnt face peeking out from an opening in the heavy fabric.

“Oh!” Blaine exclaims, stopping short along with his poor, overworked heart. He sees the man mouth some words and then reach out a shaking hand. “Oh! Of course,” Blaine says, rooting through his pocket for the loose change he was going to use to buy himself a medium drip on the way back to his apartment. “I'm so sorry about that. Here.” The man puts his hand out further and Blaine drops the coins in. The old man smiles through thin, grey lips, opening his mouth to speak when suddenly, “Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!”

This growl is louder than the ones before, and echoes in both ears. Blaine's body stiffens and he screeches unexpectedly, the sound reminiscent of a hawk screaming as it descends on its prey. The frightened homeless man screams back, folding the coins in his fist and hobbling off, leaving a mortified Blaine to turn and race away in the opposite direction.

Even though the next song is relatively low-key beat-wise, Blaine finds himself sprinting through the dark sidewalks at full speed, a horde growling and groaning behind him, right on his heels. Nope, he can't handle this. He has to get home.

But wait. In his hysteria he forgot that he can just turn it off. The growling drops to a lull and then fades away. Blaine slows to an easy jog. He pulls out his iPod, flicking the icons on the screen, trying to turn off this lunatic app and go back to his normal playlist of the day. He finds Jog of the Living Dead as the growling builds up again and tries to flick the icon…but it's stuck. The whole screen is frozen. He tries to hard boot his iPod, but it's been tricky lately when he attempts to do this, and in the end, it doesn't work at all.

He gets the brilliant idea to remove the battery as he turns automatically down an alley, distracted by trying to solve his iPod problem. The next song starts as the street light here goes out, and Blaine is plunged into epic, unfathomable blackness.

“Fuck!” he spits, fumbling to unhook the headphones from his ears. The left one comes off fine, but the right one gets wrapped around a lock of his hair, and as he tries to work it free, “Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!” But he doesn't only hear zombies growling this time – he hears zombies tearing people apart, the sounds of the dying men and women screaming, calling to him for help, praying to God to save them. A dog barks in the distance and then howls in pain, and for some reason, it all starts to get louder and louder.

That's because he's not running, he rationalizes, and they're coming for him, getting closer and closer while he fucks with his headphones.

Something brushes up between his legs. It's a cat - he knows logically that's all it is – but Blaine takes off. Fuck the headphones, fuck the iPod, fuck the cat. As far as his body knows, he's being chased – chased by zombies – and if he doesn't run faster, he won't get home alive. He breathes heavily, panic in his lungs shortening his breaths, bringing him dangerously close to hyperventilating. He leaps chain-link fences and vaults over garbage bags as he hears an ice-cream truck turn over, the whimsical music demented and broken - a morbid soundtrack to the wet slurps of the driver being devoured. Blaine bolts out onto the main road where he sees a man, his hand raised in greeting, asking for directions, but a startled Blaine chants fuckfuckfuckfuck and blows by him without a second glance.

Blaine doesn't know how he makes it back to his apartment, but he does, digging out his keys and busting through the front door, ripping the headphone out of his hair with an audible tearing noise and a sharp stab of pain above his temple. Blaine mutters obscenities as he takes the staircase to his floor two steps at a time, shivering to the bone even though the growling and moaning of Undead carnage is done.

He turns the corner down the hall to his apartment, his heart thumping harder than ever, certain that zombie or no, it's about to explode.

A door to his left opens, and a lanky, grumbling creature with a featureless green face steps out right into Blaine's path…and Blaine screams. He collides full-on with it and lets fly with a wail that can shatter glass, batting at the hands trying to grab ahold of him and, surprisingly, calm him down.

“Hey, hey,” a voice, equal in pitch to the one Blaine is using but much more soothing, says. “It's alright. Calm down. It's just me. Your neighbor.”

Blaine's unattractive howling stops as he realizes the situation he's in.

He's on the floor, in the hallway of his apartment building, tangled up in the arms and legs and satin robe of his gorgeous neighbor, K. Hummel, who happens to be wearing a mint and avocado facial mask, staring at him with wide blue eyes.

“My…my neighbor?” Blaine mumbles, not believing his luck, wondering where the hell those zombies have wandered off to because now would be a great time to come and gobble him whole.

“Yes,” the man says with a soft laugh. “I realize we haven't had much of an introduction, but my name's Kurt. Kurt Hummel. I live in 24B?”

Kurt says it like as if Blaine doesn't know, as if Blaine doesn't walk by that door every day trying to conjure up the nerve to knock and ask him out on a date.

But seeing as they're wrapped up together on the dirty floor with sweat pouring down Blaine's face and Kurt hasn't run screaming back to his apartment, Blaine might as well seize the opportunity.

“My name's Blaine,” he says, wiping his hand off on his jacket and offering it to Kurt. “Blaine Anderson.” Kurt takes Blaine's hand and shakes it once, his eyes locked on it with a peculiar smile crossing his face. Blaine takes a closer look and sees his right headphone hanging from his wrist, the lock of his hair dangling off it like a totem. “I usually don't run screaming through the hallways like this,” he says, grabbing the headphone and stuffing it in his pocket.

“I know,” Kurt says. “And I usually don't walk around with this on my face, but you're not normally back so early.” Kurt bites his lip and looks away, but Blaine can't help staring, intrigued by that tiny piece of information that Kurt let slip. “So, uh, health nut?” Kurt asks, and Blaine marks the subject change. He starts to correct Kurt, to automatically complain about the bulge peeking over his waistband, but this is the first time he's said more than hello to this man. He's not going to lay his insecurities bare out in the hallway.

“Yeah,” Blaine replies, figuring it's a true enough assumption. “I've embraced the life of a college student for far too long. I need to look after myself better.”

“I admire your dedication, Blaine Anderson,” Kurt says, standing and offering Blaine a hand up. “I mean, it's five in the morning and it has to be thirty below outside.”

“Yeah,” Blaine agrees, wincing at the terrible conversation he's making.

“Well, whatever works, right?” Kurt chuckles nervously. “As long as you don't go overboard and get rid of that cute tummy of yours.”

“Wait…what?” Blaine asks, unconsciously throwing an arm around his waist. “My what?”

“Oh, God,” Kurt says, putting a hand to his face, his lips trembling. “Are you trying to get rid of…? I'm…I'm so sorry for mentioning it. God, you probably think I'm a huge jerk now.”

“No, no,” Blaine says emphatically. “No, I don't think that at all. I…”

“It's not my place,” Kurt continues, unable to stop the apologies and explanations, “it's just…it's kind of a weakness of mine – handsome guys with tummies…”

Kurt slaps a hand to his forehead and hides his face. Blaine stops rambling, his cheeks turning red, though no one would be able to tell past the windburn on his skin.

“It…it is?” he asks, dropping the arm from around his waist.

Kurt sees it, sees Blaine move his arm to hang at his side, and he smiles.

“I hope I didn't offend you,” Kurt says.

“Don't worry. I wasn't offended,” Blaine assures him. “Besides, I'm not sure my tummy is going anywhere anytime soon.”

“Well, good, I guess,” Kurt says with a laugh and another palm slap to the forehead. “I better let you go shower…and get ready for school. I have to shower, too…you know…take this off.” Color shoots into Kurt's cheeks, visible through the green sheen on his skin, and Blaine chuckles. “The face mask! Take it off, I mean.”

“Gotcha,” Blaine says, daring a wink.

Blaine watches Kurt reach for the doorknob behind him - with the one hand not covered in avocado and mint - but miss it, finding every way and reason to stall.

“I'll see you later?” Blaine asks, hoping that the stalling means that tackling Kurt to the floor didn't ruin whatever chance he had at that coffee date.

“Definitely,” Kurt says with a nod, finally finding the doorknob and turning it. “I'll see you later.”

“Yes, later,” Blaine says. “Later is good. Later is…I'll see you later.”

Kurt giggles, backing into his apartment and closing the door behind him.

Blaine watches the closed door, making sure that Kurt wasn't going to open it again, and then he fist pumps the air – not quite channeling Judd Nelson at the end of The Breakfast Club, but close enough to count.

He walks back to his apartment and unlocks the door. He slips inside with a small spin, bumps it shut with his hip, and locks it behind him.

“You're back early,” Sam says through a mouth stuffed full of cereal. He's still sitting on the couch but with a gigantic bowl of Captain Crunch in his lap instead of a computer.

“Yup,” Blaine says, walking over to the couch and dropping down beside his friend. He leans his head back and lets his mind wander down the hallway to apartment 24B – the apartment of Kurt Hummel.

“So, was your morning outing a success?” Sam asks, eager for more details than Blaine is giving him. He looks Blaine over carefully, searching for clues to his dreamy-eyed expression.

“I think…yes,” Blaine answers. “Yes, it was.”

Sam bobs his head up and down, waiting for more and getting a big fat nothing in return.

“Soooo…hurray Jog of the Living Dead?” Sam asks, raising a hand for a high-five.

“Oh no,” Blaine says, snapping out of his bliss. He pulls his iPod out of his pocket and shoves it into Sam's hand. “No hurray. Boo. Get that horrible app off my iPod now.”