A/N: Woooo, Klaine! I know I have another story to finish, but I was inspired and bored with my other one :) Reviews are welcomed! Please note that I have no idea what I'm talking about. I have never been in the army nor have I known anyone in the army... they say write about what you know... Ah well :)
Kurt Hummel used to be an avid radio listener. It was, after all, the place to hear the most recent hits of the week. He used to tune in every morning to listen to his favorite talk shows gab about the latest celebrity scandal and Kurt would giggle at the silly things they said. He used to sing along to the classics on the variety stations. But Kurt Hummel had changed a lot in the past three years and one thing that had been left in the dust as Kurt had matured was his energy to listen to the radio. Now he didn't feel like listening to people sing about love, friendship, or whatever it was they wanted to belt out. He didn't care about celebrities or the stupid things happening in their lives. Kurt had been reduced to sitting in morning traffic in complete silence, himself alone with his thoughts, which Kurt had recently learned how to shut up as well.
Kurt blamed his sudden change in behavior on the fact that he wasn't in high school anymore and had matured, but everyone around him knew the truth. They could sense it, that somewhere behind all of the walls he had built around himself, the real Kurt was still there, aching to turn the radio on and blast music through his car.
The change had happened three years ago, two months before Kurt's graduation. Kurt had felt like he had had it all; the full ride to his favorite college, his friends and family, and also his boyfriend, Blaine. They had been together for almost a year and had shown no signs of getting tired of each other. They were both going to go to the same college in New York and even Kurt's stepbrother and his girlfriend, Rachel, were going to school in New York as well. The bullying at McKinley had just about evaporated and Kurt had enjoyed every minute of his senior year. Except, one day in the middle of May, Blaine had rang Kurt's doorbell with bad news. Blaine's father had enlisted Blaine in the army without Blaine knowing and he was to be sent to a base camp somewhere in Europe in a week. Blaine was to stay there for four years.
Kurt was crushed. He could feel the world closing in on him. Suddenly the man he loved was being yanked out of his grasp and taken away for four years and Kurt couldn't do anything about it. He had cried right then and there, in Blaine's arms. They stood in the doorway like that for what seemed like hours. When Kurt had regained enough strength to stand up on him own, he had looked up into Blaine's eyes and had seen that Blaine had also been crying. Before that, Blaine had never shed a tear in front of Kurt.
They had decided to write to each other as often as possible, but that became hard after a while. Kurt was moving into his new dorm in New York and the base camp at which Blaine was stationed had had to stop mail because it was deemed "unsafe". So, after about seven months of being apart, Kurt and Blaine had stopped communication. They decided that it would be too hard for both of them and that maybe, after Blaine came back home, they could get back together. They were both only 19, what could they predict would happen in four years?
Kurt had cried a lot. He cried for silly reasons as well as the obvious one. He had cried over having to leave his favorite pillow at home in Lima, he had cried over the end of the Wizard of Oz, and he had cried over the price of pineapples at the grocery store near his dorm.
After a month had gone by without communication, Kurt decided he needed closure. He needed to forget about his silly high school sweetheart and focus on bigger and better things.
He got his grades back up, he tidied up his dorm room, which had looked like a pig's sty, and he auditioned for any and everything that they advertised on the bulletin board in the lobby of his dorm complex. But, after several failed auditions, Kurt quit. He quit school, he quit trying for parts, he quit talking to his friends, he had even thought about quitting life a few times, but Kurt wasn't that depressed.
Many times Kurt had thought to himself, You're so weak. He's gone for four years, so what? You're just going to wait around for him like a sad puppy? I'm disappointed in you.
Kurt gave up all hope.
Now Kurt works at a newspaper company, in their sales department. It's a good job, for someone who didn't get his college degree. He has a few friends, the ladies whose cubicles surround his, and he and his stepbrother Finn go out for dinner a few times a month. Kurt liked to think that he had forgotten about Blaine and everything that related to him; that Kurt was a new man.
He was sadly mistaken.
Blaine looked at the ratty calendar in his satchel that he hid under his bed.
"Only 370 more days," He whispered to himself.
Blaine had never gotten over Kurt. The lack of communication had almost killed him. He had seriously considered walking onto enemy territory and just lying there, waiting for someone to come and shoot him.
In the army, there was no way of hiding from your own thoughts, of distracting yourself. The men weren't allowed of the base's grounds and didn't have any televisions or even radios. For fun, the men played chess and told raunchy jokes to each other. Blaine had a few friends, after three years they had really grown on him, but Blaine was impossibly homesick. He was too afraid to cry at night for fear of the other guys poking fun at him the next morning.
After Blaine had suggested giving up communication to Kurt, he immediately regretted it. He had even written a letter and was just about to send it when he remembered why he had even brought it up. Every time Blaine finished reading a letter from Kurt, he felt a pang in his chest. It was the pain of loneliness, heartbreak, and hurt. He longed to wrap his arms around Kurt and tell him that it was okay, that he was back and here to stay.
But this was impossible. Blaine was completely in the dark about how his father had enlisted him in the army. He didn't understand how that was possible or even legal. Blaine knew that his father didn't agree with his sexuality, but he didn't know that his father was so serious about "knocking some sense" into him that he would send his son over an entire ocean. Blaine was hurt that his father felt that way; that he would never understand how Blaine felt. But Blaine cared more about Kurt than what his father thought.
He had a small calendar that he kept in his satchel where he would cross of the days as they went by. He had circled the day that marked the end of his tour and was impatiently awaiting its arrival.
Blaine loved America, but considering the fact that it hadn't been his choice to enlist, Blaine didn't want to be in the army. He wanted to be in college, studying alongside his true love.
But that would have to wait just another year.
