Blaine had gone through a brief tour of the school before it started, on the day when freshmen usually got to take a walk around and get themselves acclimated with the new building. It had been a little strange, even though he wasn’t that much older than them, but he’d figured it was either do that or be completely turned around on his first day of actually being in school. That still happened, but it wasn’t because of not knowing his way through the halls. It was more of who was in them.

His Dalton blazer hung in his closet, a memory, and it felt strange to get dressed for school and not put it on. He had a bow tie that was striped in Dalton colors, and that was his choice to wear for the day. Going completely casual and informal wasn’t who he was, and he had a feeling that no matter what he was going to stick out a little at McKinley, so the slight reminder of Dalton was what he was counting on to get him through his first day.

He thought, as he walked to his locker before first period, that maybe he should have texted or called Kurt to let him know he was transferring there. He’d considered it, when he’d found out, but then he thought it might be a nice surprise. After all, he didn’t want Kurt thinking that he was transferring there for him, because that wasn’t true in the least. They’d been together just before Blaine found out about his transfer, sprawled out on his bed and talking for hours, but other than brief, inconsequential texts back and forth he hadn’t spoken to Kurt since. With everything that had been going on, he hadn’t had the time.

Mostly he just kept thinking about the way Kurt’s eyes would light up, the way he’d seen them do so many times when they were together. He really wasn’t sure if he’d ever get over Kurt’s smile, his laugh, the way he would tilt his head and look at him when Blaine had said something offhand or slightly more dorky than usual. The thought of maybe getting to see all those things on a daily basis was enough to make him not be too sad about being at McKinley instead of Dalton. Things could have been worse.

Classes seemed like they were going to be easier than at Dalton, though maybe it had something to do with the fact that he’d been in classes all summer with the thought of preparing himself for more difficult courses. Plus it was just the first day, he kept reminding himself, so who knew what they would be like as the weeks went on. Either way, and he was trying to keep modest about it, he felt like he was going to be just fine. He’d always done well with academics, so he wasn’t worried.

It was lunchtime when it happened. He’d been headed for his locker when he heard Kurt’s voice. It wasn’t like he was hard to pick out from the crowd, the way his voice just seemed to float above the rest. Blaine turned, eyes skimming the hallway, and then he just stopped.

Kurt had always looked so put together, even when he’d just been coming to Dalton to sneak into Blaine’s room and get out of his carefully picked clothes for a while. He’d always had a style and way about him that Blaine had envied, though he knew he wouldn’t have been able to pull it off if he tried. He had his own style, one he was comfortable with, when he wasn’t in his Dalton uniform. Then again, he wasn’t going to be in his Dalton uniform again, so that was all he had to go on.

But there was Kurt, wearing jeans (and not the skintight jeans Blaine had seen on him a few times) and a McKinley football t-shirt, hair decidedly not swooped up in its normal coif. He looked so much like every other person walking through the halls of the school, not his usual, unique, always at least slightly fancy Kurt self that Blaine was used to seeing. What was more was that there was a blonde girl in a cheerleading uniform hanging on his arm, whispering in – no, more like nibbling on – his ear.

Blaine nearly dropped his books, and he was sure his mouth was slightly agape. It was Kurt but it wasn’t. Maybe he had a twin that he’d never mentioned, because that would explain it all. The clothes, the girl who was all but clinging to his arm and nuzzling against him, all of it. He felt like he couldn’t move, he could only stand and stare and try to find something that could prove his twin theory true.

He hadn’t expected Kurt to look at him like that the first time he saw him at McKinley.

It wasn’t the sparkly-eyed, smiling, happy look that Blaine had been expecting at all. Blaine couldn’t say that it was the exact opposite, because Kurt didn’t appear mad or anything like that. He looked terrified, just for a split second, and then he managed to dial it back to something that was closer to concerned. If nothing else he looked beyond startled, but Blaine could see the slight fear lingering there in his eyes.

Kurt hesitated, pulling his arm from the girl and linking their hands together – it looked like he was holding on to her so tightly – before crossing the hallway to Blaine. He looked like he was steeling himself for something unpleasant, and Blaine took a half step back as he drew closer. It wasn’t at all what he’d imagined it was going to be like.

“What are you doing here?” Kurt asked in a low whisper, and Blaine tried his best to remember how words worked. It was difficult to do when it felt like a bucket of ice water had been poured on his head. 

“I… go here, now,” he stammered out, glancing between Kurt and the girl, who seemed to be completely oblivious to any tension between them at all, and then back again. Kurt’s gaze was flitting around, looking everywhere but directly at Blaine.

“I can’t talk to you right now,” he said, and their eyes met briefly as he gave Blaine a pointed look. “Later.”

He turned on his heel and headed down the hall in the opposite direction, cheerleader in tow and practically skipping along beside him. Blaine thought he heard her ask if they could get milkshakes for lunch, but he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

Blaine blinked a few times as he watched them disappear around the corner, and then made his way the few more feet to his locker, fumbling with the combination and messing it up twice before getting it open. It didn’t help that someone was talking really loudly, messing with his concentration. How was he supposed to be able to focus on getting the right numbers when there was someone naming off different races from Lord of the Rings?

“Hey Lollipop Guild!” Someone shoved hard at his arm and he stumbled a step to the side before looking over, wide eyed, at an annoyed looking Latina girl – who was wearing the same cheerleading uniform as the girl who had been with Kurt. Great. “I was talking to you.”

“What?” he asked, carefully putting his books in his locker and grabbing out the lunch he’d packed that morning. “Why…. Lollipop Guild?”

“You’re a munchkin,” she offered with an unapologetic shrug. “You didn’t respond to hobbit or gay dwarf, so I had to keep guessing.” He stared at her, and she plucked his lunch bag out of his hands and looked down into it. “Good Lord, I didn’t think you were actually serious when you grabbed a literal brown bag to head to lunch. What do you think you’re doing?”

“That’s mine,” he said, snatching the bag back and slamming the door to his locker shut. He felt completely off kilter already and she was doing nothing to help. Actually, she was just making everything worse. “Leave me alone, please.”

“No can do, Frodo.” She grabbed the bag from him again and chucked it into a nearby trash can.

“Hey, that was my lunch!” He looked over at her incredulously, but she was just smoothing down the skirt of her uniform as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. This, he thought, was why he hated public schools. Nothing like that would have happened at Dalton. Ever.

“Was it? Oops. Guess you’ll just have to come have lunch with me,” she said, a smirk twisting at the corners of her mouth. Blaine just stared. “Believe me, sad little gay with the big puppy eyes, you’re going to want to have lunch with me.”

“Who… are you?”

“Santana Lopez.” She leaned in, her mouth dangerously close to his ear as she whispered. “I’m your new best friend.”

“I kind of doubt that,” he said, leaning away and rubbing at his ear – her breath had tickled.  “I’ve had some pretty awesome best friends and none of them started our friendship by assaulting me and then throwing away my lunch.”

“Sounds like you’ve had some boring friends, then,” Santana replied, slipping her arm through his and starting down the hall. Blaine wasn’t sure if he had much of a choice by that point, considering the grip she had on him. He wondered if it was just something in the water at this school that made cheerleaders gravitate to gay boys – but at least Santana seemed to realize what she was getting into. Who knew about the blonde one. Who knew about Kurt, apparently.

“Where are we going?” he asked, following her out into the parking lot and managing to wrench his arm away. She looked over at him, rolling her eyes.

“Lunch, like I said,” she replied, speaking slowly, as if he was going to have trouble understanding. She pulled her keys out of her bag and hit a button on the remote, unlocking a nearby car. “I figure you missed second breakfast, being stuck in class, so you must be famished by now…”

“I am not a hobbit,” Blaine said, rubbing his forehead and trying to find some amount of patience to deal with her. He was still reeling from seeing Kurt, and she wasn’t helping.

“Fine, whatever, get in the car.”

“I don’t even know you.”

Santana stopped, turning to face him and resting her hands on her hips. He almost took a step back. There was something different, though he couldn’t really figure out what it was. She still looked annoyed, still looked like she might drag him off if he didn’t move of his own accord quickly, but there was something different. Something that made her decidedly less threatening. Something about her eyes.

“Just get in the car.”

Blaine hesitated, glancing around the parking lot for a moment before following her to the car and sliding into the passenger seat. He barely had a chance to buckle the seat belt before Santana was revving the engine and tearing out of the parking lot and down the street. There was music blasting from the speakers at an almost deafening volume, and she waited until they were at a red light to reach over and turn it down. “Wendy’s okay with you?”

“What?”

“For food, Frodo. There are limited options close to the school. Wendy’s?”

“Oh sure, that’s fine,” Blaine said, looking over at her and watching for a few seconds before speaking again. “My name’s Blaine, by the way.”

“Mhm.” Santana zipped through some side streets to get to the restaurant, pulling into the drive-through line and tapping her fingers impatiently on the steering wheel. “What do you want?”

“A… spicy chicken sandwich?” Blaine squinted out at the menu, then nodded. “And fries.” Santana pulled up to the speaker box and ordered for them both, swatting at his hand when he tried to hand her money to pay for his half. “What?”

“I threw your painfully adorable lunch away,” she said, rolling her eyes and grabbing money out of her purse and holding it out the window as she looked at him. “I’ve got it.”

By the time they got back to the school with their food, Blaine had no idea what to think of her. She was rude, outspoken, offensive, and yet somehow… nice? He really didn’t know. She also wouldn’t let him get out of the car after she parked. “Santana? Why are we eating in your car?”

“Because you and me are going to have a conversation that can’t happen out there,” she said, giving him a look and taking a bite of her sandwich. His brow furrowed and he focused on not dropping his fries in her car as he ate them. “Oh come on, you already look like I kicked your dog or something. Jesus, Blaine.”

“Well, what is it?” he asked. It hadn’t escaped him that she’d actually used his real name for once.

“You and your obvious boy crush on Hummel.”

“O-oh, that’s… not what you think,” he started, but he wasn’t sure what it actually was. Because everything seemed to be turned a little upside down.

“No, it’s not what you think,” Santana corrected, licking ketchup off her finger in a highly inappropriate way. “His girlfriend—”

“He has a girlfriend,” Blaine interrupted flatly, needing to say the words out loud. “Look, I don’t know what you thought this was going to accomplish, but he has a girlfriend and is obviously not the person I thought he was.”

“Oooh, so you knew him already?” Santana asked, sitting up a little more. “I just thought your gaydar went off, despite his butching it up.”

“I knew him already,” he said carefully, not wanting to give any details as to how. “Obviously not as well as I thought, considering…”

“There are two sides to every story.”

Blaine didn’t get a chance to ask her to elaborate – because clearly she knew more than he did, though that wouldn’t take much – because it was almost time for the bell to ring and class to start, and they were still sitting out in the parking lot. He wasn’t about to be late to class on his first day there, or any other day for that matter. Thankfully, Santana had the same idea, and they made their way back to the building, parting ways in the hall.

Focusing in classes was impossible, because all Blaine could think about was what Santana had said. There were two sides to every story, sure, but what the hell was either side of the story for what was going on? By the time the final bell rang, he felt like he’d done nothing but run through impossible scenario after impossible scenario in his head and he didn’t have any better understanding of what could possibly be going on.

He kept thinking about Kurt, how he’d said later. They would talk later. Well, how late was later and what exactly were they going to talk about?

Blaine wanted to box, wanted to let all of his emotions and confusions out through his fists and against the punching bag, but he didn’t have one at home. He’d picked up boxing when he’d been at Dalton, so there had been no reason for him to get a bag to have at his parents’ house. It wasn’t until he was halfway home that he realized there was one in the locker room at the school.

His phone rang after dinner, when he was up in his room. He knew it was Kurt even before he’d glanced at the name on the screen, and he seriously considered not answering. But he did, because it would have been rude not to and he did want to know what the hell was going on. Except the second he picked up the phone he knew he didn’t want to find out like that. “Hello?”

“Blaine, hi. Listen—”

“No,” Blaine interrupted, pinching the bridge of his nose between his finger and thumb and sighing. “Kurt, it’s been… it’s been a really long day, and I can’t do this over the phone. So either this conversation isn’t going to happen right now, or we’re going to meet somewhere.”

“I—can’t go anywhere right now,” Kurt said after a long pause. “This would be so much easier if you were still at Dalton.”

“Oh, I’m sure it would be.” Blaine couldn’t quite keep the bite out of his voice, despite how hard he tried.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Kurt cut in quickly. “I just meant, I could come and see you. Easier. At Dalton.”

“Right,” Blaine said, frowning. It seemed like they were really going to talk about it anyway. “I just have one question.” That was a lie, he had so many questions. “And I want you to answer it honestly.”

“Okay.”

“How long have you been with Brittany?” He’d learned her name from a class they had together, and he had been annoyed to find out that she was actually really sweet and nice. He couldn’t find anything tangible to dislike about her. Why that was the question that came out, despite all the others stuck in his head, he had no idea. It was bothering him , all of it was, but he’d just seen Kurt not even two weeks prior and the turn-around to Brittany in that brief of a time seemed unreal.

“Oh.” Kurt sounded caught off guard, but Blaine didn’t care, considering how thrown he’d been all day. “I… a while.”

“How long is a while, Kurt?”

“Since June. Blaine, it’s not what you–”

Blaine didn’t hear the rest of what Kurt was saying because he hung up and threw his phone over onto his bed. His heart felt like it dropped into his stomach. June. He’d met Kurt in June. The entire time they’d known each other, been together, he’d been with Brittany. He couldn’t even start to wrap his head around what any of it meant.

His boxing stuff found its way into his book bag before he went to bed.