Blaine recovered use of his face and his mind first.

"Hi Kurt," he said, still softly but giving Kurt one of those shy smiles. Kurt didn't say anything back. He was in shock seeing Blaine again, he just stood, staring at the shorter man. The small smile Blaine had been able to conjure quickly disappeared under Kurt's gaze and he started to fidget. One of his hands came up, trying to trying to organize the curls on the top of his head even though it was beyond help. The movement seemed to snap Kurt out of his daze though...

"What, in the world, happened to your head?" he said before he could stop himself. He instantly wanted to clap his hands over his mouth in horror but it was too late, the damage was done.

All Blaine did was smile at him though. A real smile this time. "Yeah it's a bit different, huh?"

"That might be the understatement of the year, Blaine."

Blaine. The name sounded foreign. Even in his own mind, let alone being spoken out loud.

"That bad?" Blaine was still smirking at him, and it sounded like he was trying to hold back a laugh.

"I haven't decided whether the hair is bad or not yet." Kurt said again without thinking, making the situation even more awkward when Blaine realized that Kurt thought it was a bad thing that he had run into Blaine. Kurt could see the real smile lapse into the fake one that was now plastered on Blaine's face. Had Blaine been glad to see him?

"I just got tired of it being the same for all those years, you know?" Kurt winced at Blaine's words. Blaine got tired of a lot of things. But Kurt supposed that was an eye for an eye, Blaine's way of fighting back against his earlier slip up. It still didn't make it hurt any less...

No! Kurt's brain fought back against him. No. Kurt was not allowed to think of Blaine. Not now, not ever, in no circumstances. Even if Blaine was standing before him. However it didn't help that Blaine actually was standing in front of him, arms crossed, scowling, waiting for Kurt to say something back.

"Oh yeah I get it. And you must have gotten really sick of having to deal with gelling it down everyday, right?" Kurt couldn't help but smile as was Blaine winced this time.

"Only on days when it really wouldn't cooperate. When nothing I could do could seem to make it lie down right. It seemed, well, it seemed almost as if it was never happy with anything that I did for it."

"Well maybe if you didn't try to force it so hard into making it work your way. Maybe if you had payed a little more attention to your hair you would have been able to see a way to fix the problem instead of being so stubborn."

"Ohhh Kurt, you and I both know my hair is not one to be talking about being stubborn." Blaine snapped, looking at him pointedly.

Kurt wanted to stamp his foot in anger again. All he wanted when he walked into the shop was his coffee and to get Blaine out of his head. Now he wasarguing with Blaine, who he had not even talked to in seven years. An argument that to an outsider, would have sounded like they were actually mad about Blaine's frizzy and disgusting hair.

"The fact of the matter remains Blaine, you should have worked with it. Compromised. See what it needed and what you needed out of it. Some of this conditioner, some of this gel. But instead your only way out was to completely forget about the old and go off any try someone new!"

"Kurt you never even gave me a chance to explain!"

"You cheated on me Blaine. What was there to explain?"

Kurt didn't know when they had stopped using Blaine's hair as a metaphor for himself. All he knew was that he was now outside of the little coffee shop with tears in his eyes. He could hear Blaine behind him, he had kicked something over from the sound of it. Or punched something Kurt reevaluated as he heard a loud curse come from behind him. He smiled a little, thinking that Blaine had hurt his hand punching something because Kurt had made him so angry. It took a lot for Blaine to lose his temper as he remembered from high school. But tears were still threatening, tears that Kurt had vowed to himself he would never cry again over Blaine. He was breaking that vow right now as the tears spilled over. He had to get out of here...

He turned on his heel and started in the opposite direction, away from the shop, away from his apartment, away from the only man that he had ever really loved. Kurt just needed to walk away from it all. He knew he was crying as he was walking down the street, but he just couldn't seem to find the strength within himself to stop. At least he was able to keep it from turning into wracking sobs, silent tears simply slipping off of his cheeks onto his shirt. It was better than drawing a scene to himself. Kurt didn't think he could handle some stranger stopping and asking if he was alright.

Kurt knew he wouldn't be able to handle work with the mood he was now in. His job was almost too stressful to handle on any normal day and if forced himself to go in he wouldn't get any work done and it would just be a day wasted anyway. He took his cell phone out of the front pocket of his pants and quickly sent a message to his assistant. He knew that Cathy would be worried about him, Kurt didn't take calling into work lightly and just about everyone that worked around Kurt knew that. Plus Cathy was his best friend, if anyone would have been able to hear the hurt in his voice right now it would have been her. Kurt knew he couldn't even handle that right now. The second that she would ask if he was okay he knew the dam would break on the tears he was holding back with all his might.

Today Kurt knew the only thing that would make him feel any better was his standby. To go out and shop. Shop until he couldn't carry any more bags and it felt like he was walking home on a bed of nails and it felt like his arms were going to fall off. Kurt knew that anything he bought today he would probably never even wear, they would just serve as a reminder of what had just happened, and the pain he was feeling now. But he didn't care, he just needed to shop. Plus he still didn't have any coffee in his system...

Stopping and moving to the edge of the sidewalk Kurt waited for a taxi to go whizzing by him. A few went sailing by him and he huffed impatiently. Finally one stopped and he flung the door open and gratefully sat down. He stammered out the address of his favorite district to shop in, one that conveniently had a splendid coffee shop that would be entirely absent of Blaine, and that was just what he needed.