"K-Kurt. W-What are you doing here? I thought you were at the diner."

"I decided to switch shifts. Dani's been begging everybody all week for someone to cover her Saturday night shift so she can do some roller derby thing. She was already there from this afternoon and more than happy to pull a double last minute."

Blaine didn't know what to say. "Uh—come in, I just—wow," he stuttered.

Kurt walked in, put his schoolbag down, and sat on the sofa. "I hope you don't mind my just dropping by like this."

"Of—of course not. You're always welcome, you know that."

"And I'll understand if you're annoyed about me giving away some of our weekend time to the diner. I talked to Rachel. She told me you two talked about what happened with Amy today."

Blaine's face colored. "I uh, well we texted. Is that okay?"

"Of course. I can't say I particularly enjoy getting lectured from Rachel about her opinions on how I handle things but I understand you'll talk." Kurt sighed. "I imagine it helps to have someone to vent to." A part of him almost sounded jealous.

"I wasn't—complaining or anything. Just saying I felt bad about being… in trouble."

Kurt nodded. "I know. But for the record you're free to complain too. And actually I'd encourage Rachel to get that off her chest with you every now and then, maybe it'd get it out of her system before I have to listen to it," he added with a sly grin.

"I don't know what Rachel told you, but I do take responsibility for everything, I wasn't trying to get her to talk you out of anything—"

Kurt raised a hand, quieting Blaine. "I know. And… I thought about it, and it happened that Dani had been group texting everybody for a couple days about the shift switching thing. I never responded before because I'd been trying to keep our weekend time open. But after talking with Rachel, I decided it was important enough that we take care of this tonight."

Blaine paused. "Um, take care?" he asked neutrally.

"Of your punishment. If you recall you blatantly defied me and then lied about it for several days," Kurt said pointedly.

Blaine bit his lip a moment. "Uh, y-es sir, I… understand. Just, um…" Blaine fidgeted, glancing up and over towards the door, rubbing the back of his neck. "Well, I'm not sure what you had in mind, but S-Sam and Mercedes are going to be home any minute, so…"

"Oh, I took care of that."

"What?"

"Sam and Mercedes are meeting up at some restaurant in Soho that Artie recommended. I didn't text you on the way over because I was waiting to hear back from them and wanted to be sure. I had to fib a bit myself. I told Mercedes we had a fight at school and that I wanted to make up, and would she be willing to take Sam out so we could talk."

"…Oh."

"So. We have some privacy."

Blaine didn't know what else to say. Ten minutes ago he was wishing he could get this punishment thing over with and suddenly it was looking imminent. It was quiet for what seemed like a long time.

"You been feeling guilty?" Kurt finally asked gently.

"Since it happened," Blaine admitted sheepishly.

"Really?" Kurt asked, skeptical. "If you were really feeling guilty, why didn't you say something before?"

Blaine shrugged, ashamed. "I kept thinking about it and… I guess, just chickening out. I'm sorry. I let you down."

Kurt sighed. "Rachel said you were really concerned that I was disappointed in you and, I don't know if this makes you feel any better, but I don't know that that's how I'd characterize how I feel about this. I was just sort of…shocked about it at first, and I don't want to minimize that you've disobeyed our rules- but I do get that you're going to make mistakes sometimes. We have this arrangement because you've told me this helps when you make mistakes and helps you to avoid them in the future. You and I both knew it was unlikely you'd take on a whole new exercise regimen perfectly from the get-go. It's why you wanted me to hold you accountable for it."

Blaine looked away. "I guess I just kind of told myself I'd just do it perfectly and not have to worry about being in trouble."

Kurt smiled. "I know, you're really good about trying to meet expectations most of the time. But you shouldn't feel like you have to lie if you don't. Maybe I'm not always so great about making it okay for you to admit you screwed up. I want you to tell the truth just because it's an agreement between us, but I don't want you to be so afraid of getting punished that you're more likely to lie about things."

"It's not—that, usually," Blaine murmured. "I mean, I don't like when I get punished, but you never really… scare me."

"Then what is it?"

"It's just… embarrassing. When I screw up."

"Because of the scolding you'll get over it?"

"Sometimes it's about facing you, I guess. It's one thing to admit a fault to myself but it's harder to say it to someone else. But I expect you to be stern about these things. Honestly, most of the time I'm at least as hard on myself as you are with me."

"You were really mad at me that morning in the loft," Kurt commented. "You could have safe-worded- said I wasn't being reasonable or said we need to take a break on this until I wasn't sick or something- rather than just blowing off the expectation."

"I was mad, but that's not— it wasn't like that. I didn't decide not to go to class then. I left there upset, but I really was going to go."

"I guess one of the reasons I was sort of floored by all this was it sounded like you'd just decided to flaunt the rules because you were angry with me—which is honestly something I'm pretty used to with Rachel, but that's not usually like you."

Blaine shook his head. "I walked all the way to the subway and got almost all the way there. I was mad at first, but then just sort of feeling hurt or something. I was one stop away and—I don't know, I just decided in the moment that I didn't feel like going anymore and… well, I didn't think you'd find out so…" Blaine trailed off, avoiding Kurt's gaze.

"So you thought you could get away with it," Kurt supplied.

"…Yes, sir," Blaine admitted. "And then I felt really guilty about it later, but once I bent the truth once or twice… the more time went by, the harder it felt like it'd be to confess. But I thought about it a lot."

Kurt nodded. "I know I hurt your feelings that morning. Making you sleep on the couch and telling you to crash back at your place that night had to feel a little like rejection? We didn't even get to be intimate the night before," he mused, remembering.

Blaine shifted. "You apologized, Kurt. It was just—stuff happens."

"Yes, but I wonder if maybe a part of the reason you blew off the class was because you wanted attention."

"What?"

"You lost your nerve when it came down to admitting it, but you had to know if I ever caught wind that you skipped class I'd put you over my knee. And you might not enjoy that kind of "attention" much, but maybe if I was really letting you down in that department… maybe you sort of felt like you had to act out. To make me notice."

Blaine blinked. "I… maybe? I don't know," He made a face. "That sounds so… childish, do you really think that's why I did it?"

Kurt shrugged. "At this point it's probably not so important why you did it as how you're going to make sure it doesn't happen again."

Blaine looked at the floor. "I didn't feel like I could call you because you were sick and we'd just been in kind of a fight. But if I'd called Rachel or Sam, even if I didn't give them all the details- they probably would have made me feel better. I don't think I would have made that decision if I hadn't been in kind of a bad place."

Kurt nodded. "It's always going to be harder to follow the rules when you're not feeling your best. I get that. But part of discipline is learning to do what you're supposed to do even if you don't feel like it."

"Yes, sir."

"And while you know I don't like you lying on general principle, young man, I have a bigger concern about it here. You've been carrying this lie for days and you don't seem to possess whatever guilt-immunity Rachel has about these things. Maybe some people can bend the truth and go on like nothing happened. But you know when you've done wrong and it eats at you. It's a distraction. If this has been on your mind for days it probably took your mind from other things you need to focus your energy on, like schoolwork."

Blaine swallowed and hung his head. "Yes sir."

"You need to remember this next time, Blaine. NYADA's no joke and it's your first year away from home. It sounds like this was an impulsive move, and I get being embarrassed to admit you messed up. But needlessly carrying around guilt isn't going to help you when you've already been struggling with a lot of things. It might have been uncomfortable to bring this all up on Saturday or Sunday, but it wouldn't have been haunting you all week when you're supposed to be focusing on your classes."

"Yes sir," Blaine conceded quietly.

"Which is part of the reason I called Dani. I suspected you'd been feeling bad about all this for awhile, or at least feeling stressed about trying to cover your tracks lest I find out. You've wasted enough time beating yourself up about this and no good would come of prolonging that. If this were a smaller infraction, I would worry less about waiting or just tell you no more video games for a couple days or something. But you chose to break some pretty important rules here, whatever your reasons. I'm going to discipline you, probably about how you expect, but I decided Rachel was right that it would be cruel to make you wait for it."

Blaine felt butterflies in his stomach. "I understand, sir," he mumbled, trying to catch hold of his nerves.