Kurt Hummel would never admit this to another living soul, but sometimes, when he's at home alone and no one's around to hear, he sings ‘Hopelessly Devoted to You' to Blaine Anderson's yearbook picture. Sure, he feels like a lovesick, thirteen year old girl experiencing her first junior high crush, but he can't help it. Blaine is perfect in every way possible - he's absolutely gorgeous, super smart, incredibly talented, unfailingly kind and sweet to pretty much everyone at school, and extremely popular. He looks so adorable in the occasional sweater vest and his collection of bowties and scarves. His smile makes Kurt's heart lurch in a way he didn't even know was physically possible. Blaine is just - he's wonderful. Wonderful.
And straight.
So very, very straight. And dating the most popular girl in school: pretty Rachel Berry with the voice of an angel and the soft curve of breasts and round, slim hips and legs for miles and she's everything Kurt can't ever be.
Kurt gazes, unable to keep himself from swooning, at Blaine's yearbook picture.
And then he groans and drops his head on his desk.
Because Blaine Anderson is straight and Kurt Hummel is cursed.
"Have you ever kissed anyone?"
Mercedes' voice catches him completely off guard, and he almost smacks himself in the face with his locker door. He follows her line of sight, feeling his heart clench painfully in his chest when he sees Blaine plant a too-long kiss to Rachel's lips at the end of the hall. They're surrounded by the rest of their friends, all of them popular and all of them beautiful. When the lip lock ends and Blaine's eyes can potentially catch Kurt staring, Kurt ducks his head.
"No," he says. "But I want to."
"Yeah," Mercedes sighs. "Me, too."
"Our day will come," Kurt says with confidence.
Even if he never gets the chance to kiss Blaine, he knows he'll eventually get to experience his first kiss at some point or another. And if that doesn't happen until college or something, well, then that's just the way of the world. Being the only gay kid out of the closet at McKinley High certainly has its drawbacks and this is one of them.
"Maybe we should just kiss each other and get it over with," Mercedes suggests, though Kurt can hear the bitterness in her tone.
"Honey, you know I love you," Kurt says with a roll of his eyes, "but no."
"Yeah, I know," she says a bit sheepishly. "Besides, I know exactly who you're waiting to kiss."
"Don't you dare," Kurt warns.
"Maybe you should stop looking at him like he's a particularly delicious piece of meat. That you're in love with."
"Easier said than done."
"You know what I'll never understand?" Mercedes begins. "How Rachel can be as loud and abrasive as she is and still get that fine piece of man. I mean, she's been in Glee with us since freshman year and I know you remember how she was back then."
"Even more of a headache than she is now," Kurt recalls. "I think it has to do with the fact that she stopped wearing tights under her skirts and switched from animal sweaters to fitted tank tops."
"Maybe," Mercedes says. "But it wasn't even until Blaine transferred at the beginning of sophomore year two years ago that she even started trying."
"He made singing sexy," Kurt says with a shrug as he closes his locker. "They became the lead soloists. Of course they got together, that's the way of high school. It's like when the quarterback dates the head cheerleader."
