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Kurt strutted down the halls of McKinley, feeling more confident and safe than he ever had outside of the choir room. And (as much as Kurt hates to admit it) it was all thanks to Sue Sylvester.
While Kurt’s first audition to the Cheerio’s didn’t go quite to plan - and Kurt curses his sweaty hands because if his baton hadn’t of slipped he would have been head cheerleader a long time ago.
Okay, he’s co-head cheerleader. While Kurt is a close second, Becky Jackson will forever be Coach Sue’s favourite.
Still, it feels good to be on top. He’s sure that the football team still sees him as the Glee club loser, they can’t touch him. Kurt has noticed, oddly enough, that the rest of the school don’t seem to recognize him. As if they don’t know he’s the high voiced gay kid form Glee club. The other day, he swore he heard a girl call him hot.
Mercedes tells him that the girl in Glee were worried he was going to go AWOL and drop out of Glee club, becoming a power thirsty guy version of Santana. When Kurt tells them all that they have nothing to worry about and that he will forever be here for his girls, that’s when the proposition comes up.
He’s sitting with some of the Glee girls after rehearsals. All the guys have already left for football practice and Santana, Britt and Quinn have gone to get ready for Cheerio’s practice and Kurt really should join them because Sue is even more scary than usual when it comes to her team. Mercedes hand on his wrist stops him before he can even stand up.
"Kurt," Mercedes says in that voice that reminds him of the time she had a crush on him. Kurt gets a little nervous. "We wanted to talk to you."
The use of the word ‘we’ makes him even more nervous and he looks around the room at all the expectant faces looking at him.
He hesitates. “…Yes?”
"We want you to spy on our boyfriends." Sometimes Rachel’s inability to keep her mouth shut is a blessing as much as it is a curse. Especially when she can just be straight forward and Kurt can stop sitting on the edge of his seats.
Kurt stands up, hand gripping his bag strap.
"Before you say no —" Mercedes says, and Kurt raises his eyebrows at her.
"Who says I was going to say no?" Kurt asks, smirking. "Sounds like fun."
He hears the girls high fiving each other as he walks out the room.
It was fun for a while, Kurt will admit. The Glee guys stayed behind after practice (with the sole intent of gossiping about their respective girlfriends it seemed) so it wasn’t hard for Kurt to quietly change a few lockers over, completely undetected. Some of the stuff the guys said were just hilarious. He didn’t tell the girls everything, of course - he didn’t want to be the source of even more Glee drama - but he told them enough to keep them satisfied.
It isn’t until another voice is added to the equation that Kurt starts to feel just a little bit guilty for listening into a conversation that he wasn’t supposed to be apart of.
The boys aren’t talking about anything interesting so Kurt is tuning in and out more than usual. He barely registers Puck saying something - he isn’t anybody boyfriend’s so Kurt doesn’t really listen to him. Which is nice because most of what Puckerman say’s is disgusting and sometimes offensive.
But a new voice says, “Huh?” to whatever Puck just said and Kurt’s ear perk. He hadn’t seen anyone come in so the mystery person must have came in during practice.
"I said," Puck says and Kurt is thankful for the recap. "You’re very quiet."
"Yeah," a voice that Kurt immediately recognizes as Finn’s adds. "You’re here all the time and you never say anything."
Kurt is in the middle of taking off his Cheerio’s shirt when he pauses. This guy had been here a lot and Kurt hadn’t known? Weird.
"I just - uh - don’t have very much to say," the guy mumbles and Kurt finds himself smiling softly. The mystery voice is rather endearing in a shy sort of way. He wonders who the guy is, sure that he’s seen him around before. But he can’t seem to put a face to the voice.
"What’s your name?" He hears Sam ask and, wow, if Mr. Popular Sam Evans who knows practically everyone doesn’t know the guy, then Kurt definitely won’t know him. He goes back to changing.
But as the boy quietly stutters out his name, Kurt tunes in again. There is something very familiar about the name “Blaine Anderson”. Kurt tries to think, not quite knowing why it’s so important for him to know. He’s certain he doesn’t have any classes with Blaine and he’s definitely not on the football team. He thinks about it throughout his moisturizing routine and apparently misses a chunk of conversation between the boys on the other side of the room.
"I like to work out during practice," the voice - Blaine - admits shyly.
"Why?" Artie says and Kurt jumps slightly at the sound of locker door being slammed shut. "Are you thinking of joining the team? Because take it from me, if you move fast, you’ve got a spot."
Blaine laughs at that and Kurt, again, smiles. He kind of wants nothing more than to duck around the corner and see what that face looks like, because a gorgeous laugh like that must belong to an equally gorgeous person. He resists the urge by quietly opening his locker and grabbing his sports bag. He stuffs his Cheerio uniform inside and starts to get dressed into his street clothes.
"I kind of just like to watch," Blaine answers. Kurt’s head snaps up. He likes to watch football practice? Apparently the boys feel the same confusion as Kurt because he hears Finn say, "Uh… dude…"
Blaine is quick to reassure. “No, no! Not like that. Well, kind of like that. But it’s not - uh - I - uh - Cheerios!”
The guys all laugh and Kurt rolls his eyes. Of course, another straight guy that he’ll have the pleasure of listening talk about girls every day.
The Glee guys are laughing and teasing and Kurt is tuning out again when - “No, I don’t watch the Cheerios - not - well, I do watch, but just one - just the one Cheerio.” A sigh. “That sounded way less creepier in my head.”
Kurt listens, mostly because he hadn’t gotten any gossip from the guys all day and he had to go back to his girls with something.
Finally - finally - someone asks (and Kurt is honestly past the point of trying to keep up with who says what when all the guys are talking at the same time), “Who?”
Blaine doesn’t say anything for a few moments and Kurt has paused in anticipation. “Uh - you know, Kurt Hummel.”
Silence.
Kurt is frozen, staring wide eyed at the row of lockers in front of him, before something shuffles and the loud sound of a chair scraping across the room fills the air.
"Finn -," someone begins to say but it is immediately drowned out by a loud, indignant shout of "My brother?!"
There’s some commotion after that, the Glee guys trying to calm down Finn and this Blaine guy obviously trying to back pedal.
Kurt grabs is sports bag and uses the uproar to quietly slip out of the locker room, head reeling.
"Sorry, boo. I don’t think I know a ‘Blaine Anderson’."
It’s the next morning and Kurt is constantly looking around, trying to spot anyone who could be Blaine but the truth is, Blaine could be right in front of Kurt and Kurt wouldn’t be able to tell that it was him. He wishes more than anything that he had snuck a peek yesterday before he ran out. It would make his search a lot more easier.
He asks Mercedes at lunchtime and she replies the same as everyone always replies. Kurt is about to give up hope - his eyes sweeping over the cafeteria one last time - when Santana plops herself down next to him.
He rolls his eyes, expecting her to give him another lecture about the importance of the Cheerios eating lunch together, but stops as soon as she speaks.
"I hear you’re looking for Blaine Anderson," she says, smirking.
Kurt side eyes her. “Who told you?”
It’s Santana’s turn to roll her eyes. “Loud mouth Berry, who else? Anyway, I’m here to tell you what you need to know.”
"What’s in it for you?" Kurt can’t help but ask, because with Santana there is always a catch.
To his surprise, Santana just shrugs and shakes her head. “My girl Britt has a soft spot for you, although God knows why. Plus, it would be nice for you to have something up your ass other than your head.”
Before Kurt can come up with a snarky remark, Santana plows on. “Anyway, Blaine is a sophomore. Should be junior but got held back for reasons unknown. He’s never around at lunch and hardly ever shows his face in the hallways because he’s either in the library or taking make-up tests, desperately trying to skip a grade. He works out during football and Cheerio practice and, seeing as how you keep asking about him, I’m going to assume you know why.”
Kurt blushes, ducking his head. “Thank you, Santana.”
"Whatever," she says, and then she’s up and gone, back to the Cheerio’s table.
Kurt watched her leave. Sure, Santana might be the reincarnation of the devil sometimes and should hate Kurt for swooping in and taking the head cheerleader spot right out from under her, but Kurt can’t help but feel like he has a friend somewhere deep down in Santana.
Deep, deep down.
Kurt changes quickly after practice that day and leaves the locker room before the football team even shows up. He does spot someone sitting on the weight bench, but he has his back to Kurt and Kurt doesn’t stick around long enough to notice anything other than the fact that the guy has dark hair.
When he Skypes Mercedes and Rachel that night and they ask why he didn’t stay behind today, he spills everything.
Rachel squeals. “This is great, Kurt! You’re finally going to have a boyfriend!”
Later that night, when Kurt is lying in bed, long since having said his goodbyes to the girls, he allows himself to think about Rachel’s words.
Boyfriend. He could actually have a boyfriend. If only he knew what Blaine looked like. Besides, Kurt knew Blaine would never make the first move. The guy stuttered his own name, and while Kurt found that to be painfully endearing, he knew that that wasn’t the kind of guy to saunter up to someone they haven’t even spoken to and just ask them out.
So it seemed as though it was up to Kurt.
Rachel and Mercedes had convinced him to continue spying on the guys - “Valentine’s Day is coming up! I know Finn is going to get me something spectacular, but I just want to be double sure.” - so Kurt found himself, once again, changing incredibly slowly two locker rows over from the guys.
Surprisingly, they were all talking about Valentine’s Day. Unsurprisingly, they weren’t talking about the gifts they were getting for their girlfriends.
"I want this year to be special," Finn was saying. "It’s our first Valentine’s together so I’m not expecting anything from Rachel. If she wants to do anything like - that - then I’ll be psyched, but I really just want to be with her."
Kurt beams at that, making a note to be extra nice to Finn when they got home. He heard Mike agreeing quietly with Finn - and God, that boy was quieter than Blaine - before Puck decided to put his two cents in.
"Dude, you sound like a girl. If I was going out with someone as smoking as Rachel, I would be all up on that."
Shouts - mainly from Finn - and some laughing and teasing followed that comment before -
"What about you Blaine?" Finn asks loudly, probably to take away the attention away from him. "Got any plans?"
There’s a lull in the conversation as locker doors were slammed shut and shoulder pads chucked in the large baskets at either side of the lockers.
"I know I went kind of crazy when I found out you were crushing on my little brother," - Kurt glares at no one (he is four months older, thank you very much) - "but I overreacted. You can tell me. You planning on asking him out?"
Kurt, very interested in the answer, leans forward on the bench.
"Uh - no." Kurt’s shoulders sag. "I don’t think he knows I exist. Valentine’s Day is just another Tuesday to me."
So, Valentine’s Day comes and goes. Kurt gets and few cards and hands a few out. He opens his locker to the pile of cards he’d put there this morning, deciding to open them before heading to lunch.
Customary ones from Rachel, Mercedes and Finn, of course. A rather surprising one from Sam - “He felt guilty about you not having a duet partner last week in Glee,” Mercedes explains to him later that day - and one that Kurt doesn’t remember putting there.
It’s a baby blue envelope and Kurt tries to remember if he saw it there this morning, but he was so tired that there could have been a singing songbird in his locker and Kurt probably wouldn’t have noticed. It was underneath the rest of the cards so Kurt deduces that it must have been there - unless the person who sent it broke into his locker.
He opens it quickly, heart hammering because he knows who it must be from. And sure enough, the card - a classic “Happy Valentine’s Day” and a heart on the front - reads ”Dear Kurt, hope you have a LOVE-ly day” complete with a winky face and a simple “From, B”.
Kurt has to laugh, because “B” must think he’s so sneaky, not knowing that Kurt’s knows his identity. Although, just because he knows the secret of his secret admirer, it doesn’t make it any less romantic. He quickly puts the cards back in his locker, except Blaine’s, which he slips into his bag before heading off to lunch.
Kurt doesn’t stay behind that day. He has plans to meet up with some of the girl for some movies and gossip before they had to go meet up with their respective boyfriends. One thing he is sure about though, is that he is going to talk to Blaine Anderson tomorrow.
Of course, things never go the way Kurt plans them.
The football team is already in the locker room when Kurt gets there, meaning he has to wait a little longer for everyone but the Glee guys to clear out before he can start changing.
However, this is but a minor glitch in Kurt’s otherwise flawless game plan. That is until the guys start talking about their Valentine’s Day - even Mike joins in.
He tunes out after Puck starts rambling on about some random girl he met and how “college chicks are the best, man, they know what they’re doing.”
Once Kurt’s has changed and moisturized, the conversation has hardly changed. Except now they are talking about their favourite things about their girlfriends. Which would be sweet, if their favourite things weren’t all body parts.
"You guys don’t know what you’re missing out on," Sam pipes up, and Kurt listens intently, sure that whatever he was about to say, Mercedes would want to know about. "Mercedes has curves, she’s just got this amazing body and -"
Before Sam can continue, the other guys start to tease him and Sam laughs, telling them all to shut up.
"Anderson," Puck shouts, and Kurt thinks Blaine must not have been listening or something because there’s no need to talk that loudly to someone who is right next to you. "I’ve always been curious. With straight guys it’s like, you’re either an ass man or a boob guy, but with gay dudes, are you all just ass men?"
Blaine splutters and Kurt has to cover his mouth to keep from laughing.
"Uh, I’m not going to answer that."
Kurt nods. Good call.
"Aw, come on," Puck moans. "Hey, how ‘bout instead, you tell us you’re favourite thing about Kurt? These saps talk about their girlfriends way too much, I think it’s only fair that it’s you’re turn."
Kurt mentally thanks Puck as he leans against his locker, bag on his shoulder, ready to leave but not until he finds out -
"Uh - I don’t know? Probably his arms?"
"His arms?" Puck scoffs and the other guys start to tease as well. "Come on, it’s just us guys. Besides, it’s not like Kurt can hear you."
Kurt feels a pang of guilt.
"Well - I guess, maybe, his legs?" That’s met with a few cat calls and Kurt imagines Blaine blushing. "But really I just like - you know - him? The way he holds himself and the way he talks to his friends - and I just - it’s stupid - I haven’t even talked to him but -"
Puck, apparently bored with this conversation, loudly says, “What Anderson is trying to say is, ‘Hummel’s got a sweet ass’,” and the conversation moves on.
As Kurt slips out the locker room door, he can hear Finn mutter, “Wow, dude, you’ve got it bad.”
Kurt is entirely convinced that Blaine Anderson is the sweetest guy ever. He has his Valentine’s card sitting proudly on his nightstand and Kurt can’t help but replay the words that Blaine had said in the locker room yesterday over and over and over. God, he needs to see this guy.
Luck seems to be on his side today, which hardly ever happens to Kurt so he counts it as a miracle when it does.
He’s speaking with Santana and Quinn by his locker, waiting for Britt to show up so they can all go to lunch together. They’re talking about a Cheerio’s routine and honestly, Kurt is not paying attention. It isn’t until Santana starts making weird faces at him that he tunes back in to the conversation. However, Quinn is still talking about Sue taking away her spot on the pyramid so why is Santana looking at him like that?
Finally, after Santana’s third head tilt and arm spasm, Kurt cuts across Quinn and demands, “What?”
"That’s him," Santana hisses and Kurt’s head snaps in the direction she’s gesturing in.
A boy, a little shorter than him, but Kurt can’t really tell from this distance, is standing at the very last locker in the row, frowning at a piece of paper, one hand on his locker dial.
He adorable, head to toe, dressed in a white sweater vest with a bright yellow bow tie and beige capri jeans.
Before Kurt even knows what he’s doing, he’s walking away from the girls and towards the boy with too much gel in his hair.
"Hi," Kurt says as soon as he’s close enough to know that he’ll be heard. When he’s directly next to the boy, he leans against the row of lockers in an attempt to look suave in a way that he’s seen Puck do when he’s flirting with a girl.
Blaine looks up with the cutest deer-in-headlights expression. “H - Hey.”
Kurt tries to calm his nerves, he knows that Blaine already likes him so there’s no need for him to be this nervous. “Blaine, right?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, because he knows what it will be. “I’m Kurt.”
"I know," Blaine says, and then snaps his mouth shut as if he hadn’t meant to say that. He blushes and ducks his head, looking back down at the piece of paper in his hand.
Kurt looks too, at the messily written combination of numbers. “Ah,” Kurt says, scrunching up his nose as realization dawns on him. “Figgins gave you your locker number, I see.”
Blaine laughs, and his shoulders visibly lose their tension. “Yeah,” he replies. “I can’t for the life of me figure out what it’s suppose to say.”
"Well, let’s see." Kurt steps behind Blaine and puts his hand over Blaine’s on the dial. He hears Blaine’s breath hitch and smirks. "First, that’s a four, not a nine -" he whirls the dials around, brushing Blaine’s fingers underneath is own "- one instead of seven, that’s eight, not three and… a zero. Not even Figgins can mess that one up."
He steps away from Blaine to look at his face. He’s blushing, and Kurt suspects that he’s blushing himself but Kurt’s feeling good, and he hopes Blaine is too.
"Thank you," Blaine says earnestly. "Seriously, I would have probably been standing here all day,"
"No big," Kurt shrugs. He glances behind him and, just as he suspected, the girls are gone. "Look’s like my dinner party abandoned me. Oh well. Would you like to have lunch with me, Blaine?"
For a second, it looks as though Blaine is going to say yes but the boy shakes his head and looks down.
"I can’t," and at least he sounds disappointed.
Kurt frowns, he knows Blaine likes him, so what’s the matter?
"Okay," he says, remembering something about Blaine spending lunch in the library. Blaine was probably just trying to catch up on some studying. "What about after school? I could buy you coffee."
Blaine looks up, and his expression is kind of pained looking. “I don’t think that is a good idea,” he says quietly, and before Kurt can say anything else, Blaine is walking away and throwing a “See you around, Kurt,” over his shoulder.
Over the next week, Kurt goes over all the reasons why Blaine would turn him down and draws up blank. Why would Blaine admit to liking Kurt to a bunch of jocks only to reject him? Unless, Blaine knew he was listening in and was trying to mess with him. But Blaine really didn’t seem like the type to do that. Besides, if the guys knew he was listening in on them, there would be songs about it for a whole week.
Kurt gathers all his courage and tells Sue, “I have to skip Cheerio’s practice today, Coach.”
Surprisingly, she doesn’t ask questions and permits him to skip - just this once - while wearing a smirk that makes Kurt think she wasn’t joking when she told him she had cameras everywhere.
So that day, Kurt wait until football and Cheerio’s practice has begun before going into the locker and waiting.
The door opens and closes a half hour later, and Kurt turns off Angry Birds in favour of following the sound of Blaine to the weight bench.
"Oh." Blaine makes a surprised noise. "You’re not in practice."
Kurt’s heart soars at the tone of disappointment in Blaine’s voice. “No, I’m skipping today.”
"Can I ask why?" Blaine shyly says.
Kurt smirks, shrugs. “Last week this guy turned me down and I kind of lost my mojo.”
Blaine frowns before he seems to get what Kurt is saying. “I didn’t - I never - It’s just -” he trails off, and Kurt steps closer.
"What I don’t get, is that I was so sure that this guy liked me," Kurt was pushing it slightly, he didn’t really want Blaine to find out he had been spying. At least not before the first date.
"I do like you," Blaine blurts out. "I like you a lot, it’s just - ugh - you make me so nervous and God, can you imagine if we went out on a date? I’d probably not say anything because I’d be in awe that Kurt Hummel is on a date with me or I’d ramble the whole time and not let you get a word in, kind of like I’m doing now -"
"Blaine," Kurt interrupts, giggling. "You’re cute. Please let me take you out? If you don’t say anything the whole time, then I’ll just fill the silence. I’m pretty good at that. And if you ramble that whole time, then great, because I want to know everything about you."
Blaine is grinning, and Kurt mentally fist bumps. “Okay,” Blaine says, nodding. “Yeah, I’d really like it if we went out.”
Kurt beams. “Great! Are you free just now?”
"Yeah, let me just -" and before Kurt’s even registered what’s happening, Blaine’s lips are on his. Not that he’s complaining, of course.
He is complaining, however, when five minutes later, his lips still moving softly against Blaine’s, the locker room door swings open and Kurt can hear his brother loudly exclaim, “Dude!” in amidst of cat calls