Fic: Beauty (1/10)
Title: Beauty (1/10)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Blaine Anderson was blessed with the perks of being beautiful in a world where people are literally separated into classes based on being "beautiful" or "ugly". Kurt Hummel was not. This is their journey together in throwing off the world's labels, of finding true beauty among a constellation of charades. This is their love story.
Word Count: this chapter, 2,018
A/N: Chapter 1! There will be 10 chapters and an epilogue. :)
Chapter 1
The first time Blaine met Kurt was on a Tuesday.
He had been forging his way through the streets, lively chatter from work bound adults and free children allowing him to stay enveloped in his thoughts. There was the ringing of a bell in the distance, someone attempting to quiet their child, a worker in an upscale coffee shop throwing a fit, tiny cars zooming through, wind rushing at him, all the normal smells and sounds and sights of a typical day. Typical, if it could even be called typical. Everything about it had been so distinctly abnormal that calling it typical was an insult of catastrophic proportions.
Of course, it had seemed like a typical day to him at the time.
“If he relays back with financial concerns, I’ll show him the pay for this job, and if he’s still not convinced, I’ll do some more research…” He thought. He could imagine his dad’s response to his impending query. “Preposterous, Blaine, I don’t want to risk this position. We’ve got solid income, how could we want more?”
“If he relays back with a comment about how he enjoys the job, I’ll have to make sure not to lose my head,” he thought again. A solid thump interrupted his thoughts; another comely had bumped into him. She was wearing a pale blue cardigan, obviously a type of expensive cashmere, with sleeves that stopped at her elbows. Underneath the slipover was a knee length pale green dress, tiny white hearts adorning the modest neckline and hem. White polka dotted open toed platform shoes with a matching color of pale green bows attached to the side were her choice of footwear. Her face was hard but lovely, with indulgent blond curls falling just beyond her collarbone. Her green eyes stared coldly back at Blaine, a total detachment from her soft attire.
“Watch where you’re going,” she said in a nasally sort of voice. Blaine wondered if she did that on purpose or not.
After a moment of almost glaring him down (but he thought he could see a slight unstiffening in the gaze after a few moments), she strolled away, her heels clicking on the cement sidewalk. The girl looked familiar; Blaine might’ve seen her at a party he had been forced to attend or just around town.
He didn’t have much time to think about that encounter though, because he had to get back to the task at hand. Figuring out how to broach the topic of switching jobs with his dad. He knew his dad meant the best in working in the id-ing rooms in the hospital, but they made Blaine sick. The entire concept made him want to hurl. And he really couldn’t bear to have his father participate in such a ludicrous and cruel environment or institution. He really didn’t know how his dad could even stand it; he’d go insane within a week. But then again, him and his dad were no two similar people. The differences between them, especially for two people who shared blood, were astounding.
A few feet from him, a curious boy was attempting to push his way through the crowd. People were walking right past him like he was a specter; they felt the collision from his body and looked down peculiarly, as if he had materialized beneath them. Blaine didn’t understand how the boy could be so invisible, because from what he could see of him, he was gorgeous. His lean profile was bent as he marched through the crowd, a gray knitted cardigan with a tied sash gracing his shoulders. He turned around, and Blaine could see a t-shirt with a printed pair of eyes underneath the cardigan. He was wearing a pair of blue and white trousers, mainly a cobalt shade of blue with printed white details, such as small polka dots and larger diamonds. His shoes were stylish black combat boots.
But Blaine had noticed all that later, because the only thing his mind could latch onto in that moment was the boy’s eyes. Wide and a little sardonic, a startling shade of blue caught Blaine’s gaze.
“Do you remember a ‘Kurt’?”
Blaine’s father shot a quizzical look down at his five year old.
“Is he one of your friends at school, Blaine?”
“No. I… uh… do you remember when you brought me to the id room when I was little?”
He nodded.
“This is weird, but… I remember seeing a ‘Kurt’ on your screen when you were sorting people.”
“I don’t remember, sorry.” He didn’t look sorry at all.
“He had blue eyes… light skin…”
“Your point, Blaine?”
“What was he sorted into?”
Blaine’s father sat thinking for a few moments, trying to recall a Kurt.
“I remember now. Kurt Hummel.” His father paused for a few moments in which Blaine’s heart beat entirely too fast. “He became an unsightly.”
“Unsightly,” Blaine repeated.
“Yes,” his father confirmed. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be off to finish some paperwork.”
Blaine’s mother peeked in as his father walked off, a look of worry on her face.
“It’s nice that you remember this ‘Kurt’, Blaine dear. Don’t worry, I’m sure he’s off to a fine start in life, even despite his being an unsightly.”
Blaine just nodded numbly.
They held gazes for a moment’s length, and then the boy shook his head and resumed his struggle of getting through the crowd.
Blaine knew it was wrong. Kurt Hummel was an “unsightly”; their worlds couldn’t mesh. It would be a disaster. Everything in him told his feet to keep moving towards the hospital. Even if they couldn’t do that, he should be following that blonde comely girl or going out with friends or spending his voluminous amounts of money, or anything, really, but following this ‘Kurt Hummel’. He was definitely going to regret this.
He turned in the general direction of Kurt and ran.
He was pushing his way through the crowd, hopping frantically and quite comically to try to see above people’s heads, forcing his body weight through the mass of people. They were really were just a mass, a seamless, hulking simplification of a thing. These people were not who human beings were; human beings didn’t classify each other like this. They didn’t let people like Kurt Hummel pass among them without giving him a second look, or if they did, only to mock or injure him.
That was undeniably wrong.
That thought kept him rushing through the crowds with a crazed vigor, not watching as he winded through an endless maze of souls to find this other potential kindred soul.
Soon, he found the crowd thinning, and Kurt was still walking, although with his back impossibly straight. Blaine could see through the façade: beneath his brave front, he was scared. Only pride was keeping him from acting on it. They were nearing a vacant park, and Kurt started to look nervously from side to side, sensing how alone they really were right now. He inhaled deeply and turned around.
“If you’re here to beat me up,” he yelled defiantly at Blaine, his eyes undermining his affronting tone, “you might as well do it now. Perfect location, nobody’s around… go ahead. That way I can get back to my cursed life and you can get back to your blessed one. Do it.”
Blaine stepped forward. “I don’t want to hurt you, Ku- I don’t want to hurt you.” Kurt hadn’t seemed to have noticed Blaine prematurely knowing his name. “I just thought you looked familiar, and I wanted to see if you were indeed familiar to me.”
Kurt stared dolefully at him, just a hint of condemnatory nature stirring behind his pupils.
“I’m different. I look different. There’s no way you could have recognized me.”
“Which I now realize. You’re not familiar to me, by the way.”
Kurt continued to stare judgingly at him.
“That’s your hint to introduce yourself,” Blaine added a few moments later. Kurt let out a spiteful laugh and closed the distance between them.
“Kurt Hummel,” he said, conspicuously eyeing Blaine up and down.
Blaine shook off the feeling of self-consciousness and held out a hand.
“Blaine Anderson. Nice to meet you.”
“Comely?” Kurt asked nonchalantly, shaking it. “You certainly dress like one.”
He shifted uncomfortably but answered with a confident voice. “I am. You are?”
“Unsightly,” Kurt answered. He was obviously waiting for some type of reaction from Blaine; Blaine kept his face schooled.
Kurt laughed again, high and, despite its vicious intent, strangely tender.
“Could I ask you something?” he asked quickly, his voice suddenly soft. His gaze seared into Blaine.
“Why did you follow me here? It’s not because you recognized me, because you would’ve seen my face and realized I wasn’t who you thought I was and left by now. There’s another reason you’re here.”
He swallowed nervously and Kurt noticed, moving closer, fostering a closer sense of intimacy between them. “After I realized that you weren’t who I thought you are, I stayed because… you seemed different.”
“Different?” Kurt looked interestedly on at Blaine. “Different with which connotation?”
“A good different.” He nodded vigorously to justify. “I’m a comely, yes, but I’m also unbelievably tired of everyone being exactly the same. Living the life of a beautiful person is not as glamorous as it seems. Truth be told, I was feeling so fed up with the same routine every day. But then I saw you, and you’re different. And I needed something different in my life.”
Kurt didn’t respond for a few short moments. Blaine didn’t think he looked uncomfortable, just merely… taken off guard. “Slow down, Romeo,” he finally responded, scoffing, but his voice was almost endearing. He pointed a finger at his chest. “Unsightly.” He turned that finger towards Blaine. “Comely. We don’t go together.”
“Ah, but what is life without a few risks? Life cannot move along without a few.”
“So you’re a romantic and a poet? I’m building a pretty lofty standard of you in my mind right now, you better watch out. You’ll never be able to match it.”
Blaine laughed. He pulled out his phone and held it towards Kurt. “Swap numbers?”
Kurt spent a good few seconds gaping at the phone.
“Uh sure, but when I pull out my phone you’re probably going to have a laughing fit.”
Blaine smiled encouragingly at him. Kurt still looked nervous but pulled it out of his pocket anyways.
Blaine had to suppress a laugh, seeing as Kurt was watching him vigilantly to catch any outbreak of a smile. His phone was an ancient vestige of long outdated technology; Blaine wasn’t even sure how he had gotten something as old as that. Surely, by now, it was considered a precious artifact?
“Wipe that smirk off your face Anderson and just put in your number,” Kurt warned him playfully.
He mock saluted. “Will do, Hummel.” Carefully tending to the device, he punched in his number. The thing looked like it could fall apart any time; he didn’t want to be the one to break it. Across from him Kurt was entering his number, seeming to have no trouble navigating the technology.
There was a moment of awkward silence as they swapped each other’s phones back but stood rooted to their spots. Blaine didn’t want to leave, and it didn’t seem like Kurt wanted to either. Something palpable floated in the air, but the moment passed quickly. Soon they were off on their merry ways. Blaine glanced behind him to watch Kurt walk away.
“It’s a good Tuesday,” he thought absentmindedly, and when he began back towards the crowd he found himself walking towards his house instead, completely forgetting his intentions of going to the hospital.
~~
When he walked into his house and shrugged off his light jacket, a bright smile illuminating his face, his mother was sitting at the kitchen table, doing a crossword on a digital tablet. She looked up for a second, the corners of her mouths curling just marginally upwards at her son’s smile. She didn’t see that genuine smile enough.