C H A P T E R F O U R

'Are you going to grace us with your attention, Mr Hummel?'

Kurt looked up, startled. 'Yes, of course. I'm sorry.' He quickly put his phone in the breast pocket of his Alexander McQueen jacket and tried to pay attention to Mr Gordon's monotonous voice once again. English literature was always tricky to get through, especially when he'd just send Blaine a text. He found himself wanting to check his phone every other minute. He was being way too desperate. He straightened his back, put a stray lock of hair behind his ear and looked at Mr Gordon, determined to pay attention. He was actually starting to understand what they were working on when he felt his breast pocket vibrate. Kurt sighed, looking at the clock. He couldn't risk taking out his phone again. He'd have to fight temptation for another fifteen minutes.

When the bell rang, Kurt dived for his phone first thing.

Stop contacting me.

Kurt's mind froze. He felt very hot for a second, then shivered. His hand shook slightly.

'Kurt, are you coming? Glee club next,' Mercedes' voice said somewhere close to the door of the classroom.

'Just a sec,' Kurt said absent-mindedly. As people were filing past him to get to their next classes, Kurt remained frozen on the spot, staring at his phone. When Mr Gordon put his empty mug on his desk a little more noisily than necessary, Kurt snapped out of it. Quickly, he grabbed his bag and practically ran for the door, clutching his phone close to his chest. He dove into the boy's room and locked the door of the only empty stall behind him. He dialed Blaine's number and waited anxiously for a response.

'Come on, pick up, pick up, pick up,' Kurt mumbled, as the phone rang a couple of times.

'Hi,' a familiair voice said, and Kurt exhaled softly, only to get his relief destroyed when the voice continued, 'this is Blaine Anderson. I'm not available at the moment, but please sing your message after the beep.' Beep.

Kurt slowly lowered his phone. He stared, defeated, at the door of the toilet stall. Why had Blaine decided to break contact with him? They'd talked practically every day over the phone, telling each other about how useless their classes and narrow-minded their fellow students were. Kurt had gotten a little worried over the last couple of weeks, as Blaine had told him the bullying had intensified again, after a calm period that had directly followed the prom incident. He'd tried to cheer Blaine up by singing to him and it'd worked pretty well, but Kurt had started to feel a little helpless. Only yesterday, Blaine had told him that he wished he didn't have to go back to school, how much he hated it there. Kurt had wanted to hug Blaine, to comfort him not through that stupid telephone but face to face. Saying that on the phone had actually made him blush furiously. And now this. He felt hurt, and this made him realise how much more he cared about Blaine than he'd originally thought.

'What's wrong?' Mercedes asked, looking at him curiously.

'What?'

'I asked what's wrong. You've been acting weird all day. You didn't even sign up for the coming diva-off. You can't just let it be Rachel and me again, it's getting boring.'

Kurt shouldered his bag and got up to leave the auditorium. 'Even though I'd love to show to both of you and the rest of glee club that I'm still, and always will be, the king of musical numbers, my mind is somewhere else at the moment.'

'You can tell me,' Mercedes said, walking next to him.

'It's Blaine. I think he's in trouble.'

'You can't do that!'

'I am your father!'

'I want - my phone - back,' Blaine said in the calmest voice he could manage at this point.

'You stop talking right now, young man!' His father towered over him, his finger dangerously close to Blaine's face. Blaine looked up at him, his eyebrows scrunched together, his jaw clenched. For a couple of seconds, they were both silent, apart from their mutual panting. Then, Blaine whipped around and went upstairs. He slammed the door of his room behind him and winced when he threw himself on his bed, a dramatic move that he could've gotten straight out of a black and white drama. He'd forgotten about the bruises on his abdomen and he gingerly rolled on his back.

He wished he could talk to Kurt, but his father had made his point quite clear: being friends with Kurt obviously made him more gay, if that was even possible. By taking away his phone and thereby his ability to communicate with other queers, Blaine would eventually turn straight and grow up to be exactly the man his father wanted. All very reasonable and pedagogically sound, of course, not to mention the boost it gave the father-son relationship. Blaine sighed deeply, sitting up. He had never expected his mother to keep secrets from his father for very long, since he could be very persuasive, as he demonstrated on a daily basis. Yeah, Blaine thought, manipulative, more like.

He couldn't do anything about it. He obviously wasn't getting his phone back, so he couldn't talk to Kurt. He could always talk to Ethan, if he managed to survive the way from classroom to canteen without getting thrown into a dumpster or getting a fist to the stomach like today. And even then, what could he do? It was Kurt he needed. Kurt, with his dry, sarcastic jokes and his angelic singing voice. With his harsh-but-honest fashion advice and his attempts to make his day a little better, no matter what. He needed Kurt, and, after their conversation yesterday, he'd gotten the tiniest sparkle of hope that maybe, Kurt needed him, too.

'My son comes home covered in bruises every day! You can't just let that happen!'

His mother listened, agitated, with her free hand firmly on her hip. She was pacing up and down in front of Blaine, who was sitting on the couch with an icepack to his ribs. It had been two months since the beating and his ribs had fully healed, but it was still a soft spot, and when one of the particularly burly jocks had put his fist there with considerable force, it hadn't been exactly pleasant. The school nurse was so kind as to call his mother, but after she arrived she hadn't been able to talk to the principal, as much as she insisted. As soon as they'd gotten home and she had provided Blaine with said icepack, she had grabbed the phone.

'No, of course it's not his own fault. You think he wants to get beaten up? Because that's what's happening!'

Blaine watched his mother listen to the headmaster's reply. Her eyebrows were going up at an alarming rate and she threw her hand up in frustration as she yelled into the phone: 'You are all a bunch of intolerant, homophobic idiots! Isinusumpa kita!' And with that, she hung up and hurled the phone as far away from herself as possible. She stood there for a while, silent and panting, before she looked at Blaine. 'Pretend you didn't hear that,' she mumbled, as she sat down next to him. Blaine sniggered.

'I can't believe you just said that to my headmaster.'

Despite herself, his mother smiled slightly. 'Me neither. I've probably gotten both of us in trouble now.'

Blaine shrugged. 'They didn't like me anyway.' He removed the icepack from his ribs and put it on the table. He looked at his mother. 'Mom, could you try talking to dad one more time?'

She closed her eyes and sighed. 'Sure, honey.' She put an arm around him and carefully pulled him close. 'Sure.' They sat there in silence for a couple of minutes, Blaine listening to his mother's heart slowing down to it's regular rhythm. 'You know,' she said, 'your father's going away for business next week.'

Blaine sat up straight. 'Where?'

'Germany.'

'And he'll be gone the entire week? When is he leaving?'

His mother nodded, a sad smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. How tragic to see a son so happy over the absence of a father. And yet, how completely understandeable, in this case. She rubbed his shoulders and stood up. 'He'll actually be away for two weeks. He's leaving the day after tomorrow.'

Kurt was getting more and more anxious as the days flew by. Blaine still didn't pick up his phone and he hadn't texted him anymore since that text. The most horrible worst case scenarios were playing through his head and he wasn't able to concentrate on school at all. Mercedes had tried to calm him down on several occassions where he'd been close to a panic attack. And now, he was sitting at home, on the couch, trying to watch television with his dad. Obviously, he didn't care about the sport's programme that was on but his father was trying to cheer him up in his own way and it was the thought that counted.

He practically jumped up when his phone rang. His eyes widened. 'It's Blaine,' he breathed, and he sprinted for the quiet hallway.

'Hello?'

'Kurt!'

'Blaine? Oh my – I thought you were dead or something! Why didn't you call? Why didn't you want me to contact you anymore?' He knew he sounded hysterical but he honestly couldn't care less.

'What? No, no, no – that was my dad. I'm so sorry, Kurt. He took my phone. He's away on business for two weeks and my mother gave it back to me the minute he left the house.'

'Are you okay?'

'I'm fine. You?'

'Yeah.'

Kurt breathed deeply and sat down on the bottom step of the stairs. There was a silence, but it wasn't awkward. They were simply listening to each other breathing, both grateful for the other's safety.

'I missed you,' Kurt blurted out. He put his hand on his mouth. He hadn't meant to say that. It was true, of course, but he hadn't been planning on telling Blaine. At least not right now. The silence that followed this statement made him fear the worst. He heard Blaine clear his throat softly.

'I missed you, too.'