"So, who's the lucky guy, kiddo?"
Startled, Kurt almost tripped down the last step. It was the morning after his birthday, and he had hoped he could make it down to breakfast with everyone forgetting about the whole soulmate ordeal.
From the excited looks from Burt and Carole's faces from the kitchen table, he assumed otherwise.
"Um...I dunno…" Kurt stalled, walking to the refrigerator and avoiding eye contact. After pulling the door open, he glued his eyes to the items inside, attempting the look of distraction. Then he stuffed his right hand into his pajama pants pocket quickly before anyone saw.
"Oh, honey, were you not given a name?" Carole asked, her face crumpling with sadness.
Kurt whipped his head up to her. "No, no!" he said, wishing he had a planned this out better. Now his step-mom was close to tears. "I definitely have a name-"
"Well, who is it?" Burt asked, smiling again and putting down his coffee mug.
"Uh…" Kurt slowly pulled out the orange juice, taking great care to set it on the granite countertop. "Um...well…." Oh, god, he thought. What if they saw Blaine's name on the news oe something? Or heard it from Finn? Oh, god…
"'Sup, bro!" greeted Finn when he entered the kitchen. "What's my future brother-in-law's name, huh?"
Kurt felt his cheeks heat up. There was no way that he was telling now. Yet all eyes were staring at him, patiently waiting for an answer.
"He...uh...you don't know him," Kurt lied on the spot.
Burt chuckled. "That doesn't mean we don't wanna know his name!"
"C'mon, tell us!" Finn pestered, going up to Kurt and reaching for his wrist, the one where he would most definitely find Blaine's name.
Kurt jerked back, hitting his hip on the counter. "Ow! Um, n-no, I'll tell you guys later." He stuffed both hands in his pockets now and hurried towards the stairs.
"Kurt!" Carole and Burt called after him.
"I'm going to be late for school!" he shouted back, sprinting to his room and slamming the door behind him.
Oh, boy. This was going to be a fun day.
Blaine was busy jamming his geometry textbook into his locker when he overheard the ever-so-loud voice of Rachel Berry echo down the hall, "Show me his name! Show me his name!"
He froze, the blood draining from his face. Turning, he saw Kurt surrounded by a group of his friends at his own locker. Also, he noticed the other boy was wearing red, fingerless gloves-perfectly hiding where his soulmate's name would be.
"Not now, Rachel," Kurt said to his friend, his eyebrows drawn with worry.
"White boy, you promised-"
"Mercedes, I know, I just...I don't want the entire hallway to hear-"
"So show us!"
"Yeah, pretty please!" added the third girl, which Blaine could only remember she was dating the other Asian.
Kurt hesitated, glancing back and forth between his eager friends. He opened his mouth, and for a moment Blaine feared he might actually spill, but the bell rang overhead, snapping everyone out.
Mercedes rolled her eyes, sighing as if annoyed. "Fine, we need to get to lunch. You better tell us soon, Kurt!"
The girls joined the bustling crowd of students as they swarmed to their destinations. Blaine hoped to do the same, blend in so Kurt wouldn't catch his eye from across the hall.
But he did.
And the single look he gave Blaine, with fire in his eyes, was enough to almost scare him out of his skin.
Blaine attempted to look away and keep his head down, merging among his peers, but a hand caught his arm and a hiss in his ear said, "We need to talk."
He jerked back, meeting piercing eyes belonging to the boy whose name bore on the back of his hand. Kurt's face showed a mix of emotions: anger, fear, but mostly desperation. The students were still weaving around them, completely caught up in their own bubble to be aware of them standing there in the middle. Blaine glanced at them before asking, "Here?"
Kurt rolled his eyes in a way Blaine was used to in front of him and again, grabbed his arm, pulling him along. "We need...a room, an empty classroom…" Kurt was now peeking his head in the door windows, finding every one of them occupied.
"Um...Hummel, I don't know what-" Blaine tried to protest, but the hallway was almost filtered out, and out of panic Kurt yanked open the nearest closet and shoved them both inside.
It was a tiny space, just fitting the two boys as they stood face-to-face, crowded by shelves of cleaning supplies and toilet paper. Crammed in a corner was a mop and above was a single lightbulb in which Kurt clicked on with a pull of a chain.
"Very cliché, Hummel. Shoving us both in a janitor's closet," Blaine smirked, using flirtation for defense, as per usual. "If you wanted to make out with me you could've just asked-"
"Shut up," Kurt whispered through gritted teeth, glaring at him while crossing his arms in a fashion that indicated how anxious he really was. He eyed Blaine's right hand. "What did you do to your hand, huh?"
"What?" He casually tried to hide it behind his back. "I...hurt it-"
"Don't lie to me, do not lie to me," Kurt hissed, now looking very scary through his fear. Blaine sort of wished he could back up in case he would get lashed at, which seemed like a high possibility at the moment. "Your birthday was last April."
A beat. Oh, shit.
"S-so?" Blaine tried to shrug off casually, coming to realize how very close he and Kurt were. Like, 'faces-inches-apart' close. Not to mention this was the longest conversation the two had exchanged ever. Long enough for Blaine to take in how Kurt's cheekbones kind of stood out under this yellow lighting, or how his chestnut hair was styled into an impossibly perfect sweep, and even those goddamn blue eyes which weren't even blue they were turquoise and green and hazel all at once…
"Anderson!"
Blaine blinked. "What?" he snapped.
"I said," Kurt whispered again, glancing at the door worriedly. "If your seventeenth birthday was last month-and yes, thank you Facebook for that information-then why the hell won't you show your Mark, huh?"
Blaine stiffened his jaw, mirroring Kurt's scowl. "That's none of your information, Hummel."
"Show me," Kurt demanded, snatching Blaine's wrist in a flash, pulling it up to him. Even after a struggle to jerk back, it seemed Kurt's urgency outmatched Blaine's strength.
A flame of dread flared up in Blaine's chest. "You seriously don't want to know."
His warning made Kurt meet his eyes, and there was that feeling again where Blaine was trying to pinpoint what the hell they were made of. Now that hazel looked brown and gold and the turquoise could be sapphire at places and wow he was in deep really fast and needed to get out.
Kurt hesitated, his shoulders relaxing a bit. He dropped his gaze, staring at Blaine's collarbone rather than his face. "It's me, isn't it?" he asked softly.
By not answering seemed to answer Kurt's question. Helplessly, Blaine watched as Kurt began to unwrap his gauze, unraveling layer by layer in a heavy silence until the skin on the back of his hand was completely exposed. The glow of the lightbulb was a spotlight for those little black letters, clear as ever.
Kurt Elizabeth Hummel was Marked as Blaine's soulmate.
He could hear Kurt's breath hitch, and just like that he was blurting out, "Look, Hummel, I'm sorry. I didn't-"
Kurt had let go of his hand now, undoing one of his leather gloves and slipping it off to show Blaine his own pale hand-the skin color making the name there stand out even more.
Blaine Devon Anderson.
Now it was his turn to hitch his breath.
He could see Kurt clench his jaw, staring at the undeniable reality that they were indeed paired up, chosen by all forces of time and space to end up as soulmates. Blaine dared to look at Kurt's face, searching for a hint of rage or distress like how he pictured this moment would go.
Instead, the other's boy face was blank. His shoulders were completely slack, his breathing has slowed.
"Well," Kurt eventually said, his voice flat. He slowly pulled the glove back on, giving Blaine the hint he should rewrap his bandages. "What are we going to do?"
Blaine cocked an eyebrow. "'We?' We do what?"
"We going to do about…" Kurt gestured between them. "This. Unless you want the entire school to know that the town's local bad boy is destined to be with the Glee Club's male soprano?"
"Uh-" He honestly didn't know if that was a rhetorical question.
Clearing his throat, Blaine crossed his arms and asked, "You wanna keep it undercover, yeah?"
Kurt nodded stiffly. "If that's fine with you."
Blaine huffed out a humorless chuckle. "Trust me, I'm okay with my dad not knowing I'm gay." It would get real ugly really fast, he didn't add.
Kurt's mouth parted, as if reading his mind. "Wait, is he-"
"Plus," Blaine continued, really not wanting to get sad and depressing, "your friends hate me anyway, right?"
"'Loathe' is more like it."
"Understandable. So yes, Hummel, I completely, one hundred percent agree with you that not telling a soul would be best."
Kurt blinked, raising his eyebrows in pleasant surprise. "Very well, Anderson. Not going to tell anyone?"
"Nope."
"Good."
A pause, and then Blaine stuck out his left hand. "Let's shake on it."
Kurt huffed, but the corners of his lips betrayed his amusement. "Fine." He brought a hand up and shook Blaine's once before they both let go simultaneously. Then, both almost reached for the doorknob as well, but gave each other a pointed look and silently concurred Kurt should open the closet door.
He scoured the area, affirming the coast was clear and allowed Blaine to exit as well. Blaine busied himself by straightening out his leather jacket while Kurt kept looking left and right, on constant edge that someone might come around the corner and catch them.
"Well, um," Blaine broke the silence, clearing his throat and turning his chin up. "See you around, Hummel."
Kurt rubbed his right hand absently, still having his eyes scanning the hallway. "Yeah...maybe," he breathed, which Blaine translated as, Let's hope not.
A/N: There you have it, Chapter 3! Again, thanks to all who favorited and reviewed, it means so much to me! :) Next chapter shall hopefully be longer *fingers crossed* but in the meantime thanks for reading and tell me what you think so far!
