Blaine Anderson grew up in a house that had halls that echoed if you happened to run down them in tap shoes, which he did, quite frequently, when he was small and bright-eyed and fragile. And he was still small and bright-eyed, sure, just not nearly as fragile as he had once been, which was understandable, of course. As he grew up, his tap shoes retired to the back of his closet, but his disposition did not. He came out to his parents over dinner once night before he had even began to sport stubble. The kids at school, they had always known somehow, that he was different, that something just wasn't right. They learned self-esteem and curse words as hormones began to show, and Blaine learned to keep bandages hidden away under his bed like most boys his age would keep magazines. It wasn't the bruises that hurt the most. It never is. The days went on, one by tedious one, and he never showed how it hurt him. He always walked with his chin up, with a little skip in his step, always hummed under his breath. He sought refuge in his iPod, in the songs and the lyrics, in his guitar, in performing especially, and anything and everything that had to do with music. He loved performing because for once, people were staring at him for a good reason, for his music- not because they deemed something wrong with him. So performing was his favorite thing, his light at the end of a tunnel that seemed to stretch on for miles and miles. That was, until a particularly bad day when he had sneaked into the choir room after school, letting his fingers fly over the keys again and again and again. It was his attempt to get away, to lose himself in something beautiful in a world that he had to pretend wasn't so ugly from both the inside and the outside. And it worked, it usually worked, all the time. It was worth it.

The guy that follows him in there, who is about double his height and four times his size, talks with such aggression that Blaine can barely make out his words, and his hands fly from the gorgeous grand piano to unsuccessfully shield his face for what he knew had to be coming, while his voice, always trying to defend himself, rang out still somehow strong underneath the fear he had been feeling, and who could've known?

When he wakes up the next day in a hospital bed, the doctor tells him that he won't be able to play the piano for a while, as if the bright red cast on his arm is any indication.
This information does not, for the first time, bother Blaine. Not even a tiny little bit, although if you'd told him this yesterday he'd be absolutely devastated.
If there is anything he learns from that day in the choir room, it's that he doesn't need to make promises to anyone but himself. And all of his old promises of just get through this day and everything will be okay don't seem to cut it anymore. Maybe they never have.

His only visitors are his parents, and even then they're only there for an hour or so at a time. He often wakes up alone, and it's all that he's used to. He doesn't know anything else. He doesn't think he ever will.

Now he promises, as he wakes up in the strange hospital room all alone the next day, that he will never sing again.

----

The blood stains have long since been cleaned off of the grand piano where they had once stood out so brightly against the off-white of the keys. Blaine often wonders if anyone could possibly be aware of all the things that that piano has seen.�

When he walks, his shoulders are up but his head is down, and he doesn't stop to talk to anyone. Left foot right foot, breathe in breathe out, repeat, repeat, repeat over and over again without thinking or feeling or remembering. He can feel their eyes on him, and he swears they burn into his skin with their staring, oh, always with the constant staring, and their whispering in what sounds like a foreign language that makes his ears buzz. He doesn't listen to his iPod in the halls anymore. The uppity hall monitor rejoices.

The barista at the Lima Bean tells him that his usual Tuesday slot is still very open if he wants it. He shakes his head, takes his coffee to the back of the shop, fiddles with the faded red bowtie around his collar. It gives him something to do with his hands.

The very first time he skips school, he justifies it with the excuse that he needs to get out, not only from this school but from his head, but by the next time and the next time and the time after that, he has long since decided that he doesn't need justification, from himself or anyone else. Months have passed, and the only thing he's sure of is that he just needs to keep his promise, and everything will be okay.

He lingers around the choir room sometimes after school, but never close enough so that he can reach out and touch the doorframe. He stands across the hall, pretending to fiddle with his backpack, eyeing the grand piano with lackluster eyes that used to shine so brightly. He thinks it would be beautiful if he still knew what beautiful was, but he doesn't, not anymore, and probably will never again. He wonders if he would still remember how to play, if he would still have the heart for it, if he would even remember the notes or words at all. It would give him something to do with his hands.

But every day a locker door slams somewhere down the hall and he turns and heads for the door. It wouldn't have been worth it. Nothing ever is, nothing ever has been, and nothing ever will be, he's sure. It's the one thing he's learned from all of this; nothing really matters.�

His days are numbered. They pass in the blink of an eye, a flick of a wrist, a sharp intake of breath. He's wasting away, withering inch by inch, and although he would never admit it, deep down inside he can feel it tearing him apart. He rarely goes to school anymore. Mostly, he goes to the park and watches the people, watches their busy lives unfolding before his eyes, wondering where they're running off to, why they're so happy, what their lives are like.

People throw words at him. The ones that begin in F are the hardest, but the H ones aren't too great either. Either way, they both sting. They always have. They always will. Eventually, he stops trying to fix himself up. When his band-aids fall off, he doesn't replace them. He lets himself bleed, the deep rich color soaking through his clothes. He has to admit that it's sort of a beautiful color, or it would be if he knew what beautiful was anymore.

He wonders what he looks like on the inside, underneath all the skin, underneath everything. But he figures that he'll never know, because anyone who had the mind to check would just let the light in during the process. Some things are better left unknown, but he makes a mental note to take an anatomy course in college- that is, assuming he makes it to nineteen.

He's strong, he has to be, because he covers his blood-stained self with blood-stained clothes and carries on. He's in school maybe once a week now, but it's not on purpose, he swears. Sometimes he just forgets. Forgets to go to school, to get dressed, to eat, to sleep, and sometimes to breathe. His iPod falls underneath his bed, and stays there.

His days are numbered. And maybe they always have been, and maybe they always will be. Such is true for everyone. He could be gone at any minute, any second, with no warning, if he wanted to be. But he doesn't want to be. Right?

The guy behind the counter at the coffee shop he used to perform at tells him that people have been asking about him- but no, that can't be true.�Besides, this caged bird doesn't sing anymore, and his guitar looks so pretty gathering dust in the back of his closet, right next to his old tap shoes.

He's better than this, right? At least that's what they tell him, at least that's what he's led to believe. But time passes on, and on, and on. The wood on the park bench is falling apart, scraped off. The paint on the swingset is fading, day by day. People are growing up all around him and he's stuck stuck stuck, and he wants out.

He's learning so many things, now. That nothing is worth it, and nobody cares, and sometimes things are just easier this way. He forgets what it's like to smile, to think that something is beautiful, to produce beautiful music under his steady hands. He just forgets.

His days are numbered, and they're ticking away like a stack of papers blowing away into the wind, a balloon bouquet being released into the sky.
"Where do balloons go?" They fly so high up in the sky and then they pop, they burn, they die. Some get stuck in trees and never really make it to the top. Blaine wishes he breathed helium instead of oxygen, wishes he could fly up into the sky and burn up in the atmosphere. But wishful thinking is never practical, after all.

The days go on, and on, and on. It's almost summertime now, and he figures he should get one last day of school in just in case anyone decides to care.

After the bell, everyone is in high spirits. Enough so that he somehow goes an entire day without a provocative term thrown at him, or a class missed washing Red Dye #6 out of his hair. The slushies sting his wounds every time without fail, but he's learned to ignore it more often than not. Because it's not the bruises that hurt the most. It never has been.

One last time, he decides, he will go into that choir room, or at least look at it from across the hallway. Just one last time, and then he's done, he's done, he's gone. As he approaches, triple-checking over his shoulder every other minute and feeling so hopelessly hopeless for having to do so- he pauses.

Someone is in the choir room, playing the piano with fluid movements as if he could play the notes whilst in a coma. But it's his voice that stands out; one of the most beautiful things he has ever had the pleasure of hearing. �He grows so enticed that he stops looking over his shoulder, stops turning around every second in search of some asshole who was never there. He also doesn't realize that he just called something beautiful.

He stands in the doorway, his fingers curving against the doorframe. This is the closest he's been to that room since �his "accident," and it almost feels wrong for him to step into the one place that he had once found to be so safe, and had turned out to be anything but.

When the boy at the piano stops playing, he turns slightly and just about jumps out of his gorgeous porcelain skin, sheet music flying into the air. Blaine steps into the room without realizing what he's doing, reaches down to help the boy pick it up, his voice just not coming, not now.�
"I... I didn't know anyone was there," the boy says, looking flustered. "A warning would be much appreciated next time."
"Sorry," Blaine says automatically, his voice low and hoarse from underuse. "You just... have a beautiful voice." He smiles for the first time in weeks, just a little tiny curve in his lips. His hand brushes against the pianist's as he hands him his sheet music, and he smiles again.
"It's okay," the other boy breathes, looking up to meet Blaine's eyes. And now he really knows what beautiful is; that impossible blue-grey-yellow color that he just wants to melt into and never return.�
There's silence between the two, until finally the pianist speaks, as he sets his sheet music in a neat pile on top of the piano that took Blaine's hope away.�
"I'm Kurt."
-------�

That night, he goes into his room, makes a beeline for the closet.�
That night, he digs out his old, worn-out tap shoes, and his dusty guitar.
It is never too late for one last dance down the hallway.