"Oh man you weren't kidding when you said McKinley is easier than Dalton!" Blaine blurted out as soon as he got into Kurt's car in the parking lot after school.
Kurt rolled his eyes. "Yeah. But you might not want to spread that around too much or people might take it that you're saying people here are dumb."
Blaine's eyes squinted. "But I'm not saying anyone's dumb. I'm just saying the teachers here are way nicer."
Kurt turned on the car. "Eh. Well I'd say that depends on the teacher you're talking about. And trust me. There are a lot of idiots at this school. And they're all a little oversensitive at any implication that that's what they are."
Blaine shrugged. "I have a research paper this semester in my English class and she doesn't even expect it to be typed! She was like, 'It's great if you can type it, but if not just make sure the final copy is in neat handwriting.' Are you kidding me? If I handed in something handwritten at Dalton I'd probably have gotten a detention."
Kurt nodded fondly. "Yes, if Dalton gave me one thing, I will say it forced me to improve my typing skills pretty quickly. That first weekend I spent like six hours straight playing some kid's typing game I found online. I was terrified all of my homework was now going to take 7 hours a night."
"This is amazing. I have less homework, so it'll basically always get done and my parents will be off my back, I get to see you every day, and I don't have to commute as far. McKinley's basically the best thing that's ever happened to me!"
Blaine was singing a slightly different tune towards the end of the next week when he got back his first Algebra II test. He was shocked he got a C+ on it. He was just glad McKinley didn't have Dalton's stupid rule about getting a parent signature on anything below a B-.
Blaine had gotten a few C's when he'd first started at Dalton, and he'd been nervous but his parents had been mostly understanding about it. They knew going from middle school to high school was a big transition, especially when he was coming from his little public middle school and walking into an extremely competitive prep school. But they made it clear he'd have to work hard and always be doing his best or there'd be consequences. So he got an upperclassman from the Warblers to help him through Geometry and started meeting up with several of his buddies before big Latin tests for study sessions. It paid off, and by sophomore year he was pulling off more than respectable grades all around.
Kurt sensed something was wrong when he saw Blaine's dour face at his locker after last period.
"You okay?" he asked.
Blaine shrugged. "I guess."
"What happened?"
"I'm just mad at myself." Blaine admitted, showing his grade to Kurt and then filing it away in his bag. "I should have studied more."
"You're always too hard on yourself," Kurt suggested, generous.
Blaine shook his head guiltily. "Not this time. I know I could have done better."
Kurt was a decent student most of the time, but he had never really aspired to be valedictorian or anything. He figured his father would probably give him a bit of a talking to if he came home with an F on his report card or something, but he was pretty hands off about Kurt's day-to-day assignments.
"You think your parents will make a thing of it?" he asked Blaine.
"I wasn't planning on sharing it with them, but after begging them to switch schools it's safe to say there's no way they'd be okay with me skating by with a C on anything at this point." Blaine sighed. "I guess I got kind of cocky."
"It's one grade, Blaine."
"I know, but I know what I'm capable of when I do my best, and I know this wasn't really my best. I had a study hall the day before the quiz and I didn't even crack the book open, honestly. I was just daydreaming about suggestions for Glee mashups most of the time."
Kurt nodded. "At Dalton if you didn't look like you were productive in a study hall someone would say something. Here no one cares if you sleep through it entirely."
Blaine made a face. "Don't let me get away with that, okay? If I get in the habit of skating by it'll eventually mess up my final grades and if I got a bad grade on my report card—well at minimum my parents would definitely be limiting how often we'd be able to go out."
Kurt did his best to put on a stern face. "We can't have that. We'll consider this time a warning but next time you'll have some explaining to do mister."
Blaine held back a grin at Kurt's impression of a taskmaster. "Yes sir," he teased, with a little salute.