"Rachel! Rachel!"

Rachel Berry was woken by Kurt's insistent calls from the other side of her room curtain. She groaned and rubbed her eyes, unwilling to be conscious.

"Rachel!" Kurt sounded excitable. It was probably best to find out what he wanted before he accidentally set himself on fire or something.

"Nmm – what?" Rachel yawned, sitting up against her pillow and frowning in the morning light. "Oh, for god's sake, Kurt, just come in," she added when Kurt started excitedly poking the curtain as he talked.

Kurt leapt inside. It struck Rachel as odd that he was already up and dressed, and she couldn't help thinking that today was special for some reason. She racked her brains, still half-asleep. "Am I late for something?" she panicked.

"No, you're not," Kurt laughed, throwing himself on her bed and hugging her quilt dreamily. "I'm just early. I was too excited to sleep properly."

"You were too excited to sleep because...?" Rachel prompted, frustrated she couldn't remember what was special about today.

"It's today, Rachel. Yesterday it was tomorrow, but today it's today!" Kurt squealed, rocking the bed as he flapped his hands animatedly.

"Oh my gosh!" Rachel's brain clicked into place and she beamed. "When?"

Kurt glanced at his wrist, showing the countdown of numbers imprinted across it. "Three hours, fifty-three minutes and twenty-two seconds... twenty-one... twenty..."

Rachel smiled even wider, amused at the thought that if she didn't interrupt that Kurt would probably just stay there, counting down the seconds until he met his soulmate. She did a quick mental calculation. "So, you'll meet them right before lunch." Gasping, she added, "you could have lunch together! That'd be adorable."

"'Them'? Jeez, Rachel, I think we all know it's gonna be a 'him'," Kurt commented, raising an eyebrow.

Rachel laughed. "Oh, shut up. I'm trying to be inclusive," she argued. "Who knows, maybe you went through all that crap in high school for nothing and you're actually straight?"

They both laughed at this.

"Alright, get out, I'm gonna get up," Rachel said, poking Kurt in the side to get him to move. "If you're so wired, you can make me breakfast."

Kurt sighed and rolled off the bed. "Fine, but only because I'm in such a good mood today." He pulled her to him in a quick hug and left, pulling the curtain to as he went.

Rachel kicked off her covers and reached for the glass of water she kept at her bedside, catching sight of the zeros scarred into her wrist out of the corner of her eye. She paused for a moment, and smiled.

Kurt was driven to distraction by the numbers on his wrist all morning. He accidentally bumped into an attractive guy with dark hair between classes and barely had time to smile an apology, when he recognised the guy from a couple of his classes, before he was swept away by the flow of students in the other direction. One hour, thirty-four minutes and forty-seven seconds to go. His stomach was tying itself in knots, and tying knots within those knots. Kurt felt sick. He hoped that wasn't going to impinge on him meeting his soulmate. Unless he's a hot doctor? Kurt pondered thoughtfully, before dismissing the idea. Don't be stupid.

His Music Theory teacher was apparently sick, so Kurt had to turn and traipse all the way back up the (now slightly emptier) corridor to the room specified on the note he'd just seen on his room's door. He let himself in, seeing his classmates sitting on one side of the classroom and a load of students he didn't recognise on the other.

"Ah!" cried the teacher from the front of the room. "Mr Hummel, I presume?" He was a man of about thirty, wearing a checked shirt and black jeans on his skinny frame, with curly hair and big hipster-style glasses.

"Uh, yes," Kurt replied, mildly bewildered by the enthusiasm in the teacher's voice – as opposed to the condescension, fatigue or anger his teachers usually used when near him.

"Wonderful! Full house," the teacher grinned. "Um, I'll fill you in: your class has come to hang out with mine since your teacher's sick." He had gone from standing in front of the glass to clicking on the computer, talking absently as though he did it without thinking. "And we're all around the same point in the syllabus," he finished, scratching his head and glancing up at everyone and smiling.

Kurt took an empty desk near one of his less close friends. "Hey, Lindsay," he murmured in greeting.

"Hi, Kurt," the short red-haired girl smiled back. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm great," Kurt replied, absent-mindedly rubbing the already red skin on his wrist.

Lindsay caught sight of Kurt's hand and frowned. "You having an allergic reaction to something?" she asked, concerned, and nodded down at the offending spot.

Kurt tried to hide a smile and covered the numbers with his other hand. "No, no, I'm fine," he said airily.

"Wait – is it today?" Lindsay asked excitedly, looking closer at Kurt's wrist.

"Yeah. Yeah, it is," Kurt beamed, lifting up his arm to show his friend the numbers, still counting down.

"Oh my gosh, Kurt!" she whispered excitedly. "That's so awesome! Congrats."

"Thanks," he smiled. "I just wanna know who it's gonna be."

"Well, that's the point of the numbers in the first place," she joked, brushing hair out her eye.

"Kurt! Lindsay!" They both looked up to find everyone staring at them. "Care to explain what's more important than today's very exciting lesson plan?"

"Sorry. I'm sorry," Kurt said automatically, lowering his gaze and turning to face the front.

Lindsay, on the other hand, smiled apologetically at their teacher and said, "it's just that Kurt's numbers are counting down – he's got one hour, nineteen minutes and twelve seconds."

The whole class gasped and stared at Kurt. Kurt turned bright red and slid down in his seat. "Well, that's great news," their teacher smiled, "but it doesn't really have anything to do with Music Theory, does it? Now, guys, I'm not allowed to just end the lesson just so Kurt can go find his soulmate. So, let's get on." He began to continue his teaching, and Kurt sat up, tried to concentrate, distract himself, focus. It'd happen soon enough.

His eye got caught, however, by the guy he recognised as having bumped into in the corridor earlier. He was sitting slightly in front of Kurt, and on Kurt's left. He had a pencil stuck behind his ear and a pen in his hand as he doodled on his notebook. Kurt saw the surname 'Anderson' on the notebook, but couldn't make out the first name.

As though he felt Kurt's eyes on him, the guy turned a little and caught Kurt's eye. He smiled – a warm, genuine smile that Kurt immediately returned – before turning back to listen to their teacher. Now he'd changed position, Kurt could see his first name: 'Blaine'. He sighed wistfully. That was a good name, and he couldn't figure out why he was already mentally designing wedding invites. Maybe it was pre-soulmate-meeting nerves.

Kurt spent the rest of the lesson trying (and failing) to make notes and checking the numbers on his wrist, just in case they stopped or reset or faded away. His mouth was dry and he wished he'd thought to buy a drink on the way into school. Blaine Anderson caught his eye twice more: the first, when he raised his hand to answer a question Kurt didn't even remember being asked; the second, when the pencil behind his ear fell onto the floor and he reached over to pick it up, smoothing out the slightly upset styling of his hair gel. Lindsay reached over about halfway through the lesson to check Kurt's countdown herself, before smiling supportively at him.

Agitated, Kurt's leg had started shaking, his knee jumping up and down as the ball of his foot began to itch impatiently. He tried to take a breath and calm down. Stop it, he scolded himself.

But it was no use, and by the time the numbers had reached one minute, he barely took his eyes off them – ironic really, since he was supposed to be looking for a person rather than his own limb.

"...so I'll see my guys tomorrow, maybe you guys if you're teacher's still away – off you go!"

Kurt glanced up to see everyone leaving, and panicked. He was down to thirteen seconds – he couldn't leave now! No, he thought, I'll just take a little longer packing up and meeting my soulmate in here. Congratulating himself on his amazing plan, he leant back against the chair and looked at the doorway to see Rachel waving at him impatiently, mouthing, "come here! Now!"

Sighing in exasperation, Kurt grabbed his stuff and hurried into the throng of people, keeping Rachel in his eyeline and apologising to someone he'd bumped into without looking at them.

"Rache – " he began, before he was grabbed by the shoulder by someone and pulled over towards the wall and away from the other students.

"Are you Kurt Hummel?" the someone asked, smiling charmingly at Kurt.

Kurt smiled back. "Yes, I am."

The someone standing in front of Kurt was a tall, blond guy wearing a tight-fitting shirt and a beanie. "Brilliant – I've been looking for you forever," he sighed, relieved. "I've been reliably informed that you were in the New Directions last year, in Ohio? And that you guys won the National Show Choir championship?"

Kurt blinked. Well, for a soulmate, hot, English and interested in show choir was not to be sniffed at. "Um, yeah," he replied, secretly congratulating himself (and being proud that it was him this guy had looked for and not Rachel). "Yeah, that's right."

"I represent the 'Adam's Apples'," the guy continued, grinning. "We're NYADA's show choir, if you like. I just wanted to talk to you about joining? It'd look great if we had – well, not a celebrity, per se, but you know – and we need more members, so – "

Beaming, Kurt nodded. "Yeah, that sounds great," he said. "Sorry, what's your name?"

"Oh – Adam." Adam smiled, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. "I'll see you at our next meeting, then." He handed Kurt a flyer advertising the group, and, grinning one last time, turned and walked off down the corridor.

Kurt fingered the card carefully, reading it through twice before he felt Rachel jump up behind him. "Oh, my – was that him?"

Kurt laughed and shook his head in disbelief. "I guess so," he replied, beaming. "He's great, he's cute, he's British – and he's in NYADA's show choir!"

The two of them looked at each other excitedly. "Oh, I'm so happy for you, Kurt!" Rachel cried, wrapping her arms tightly around her friend. "What's his name?"

"Adam," Kurt said, and then paused, thinking.

"You okay?" Rachel asked. "What's wrong?"

"I – " Kurt couldn't put his finger on it: something wasn't right. "There's something... I don't know..."

"What? What do you mean?"

Kurt tried to replay the events of the last few moments in his head. Adam, standing in front of him, smiling, talking – and rubbing the back of his neck. Revealing his wrist. Revealing the countdown of two hundred and sixty-nine days, twelve hours and one second. And showing it again when he'd handed Kurt the flyer: two hundred and sixty-nine days, eleven hours, fifty-nine minutes and fifty-eight seconds.

"He's not him," Kurt whispered in horror, his body freezing in shock.

"What? Of course he's him," Rachel said scathingly. "He was standing right there – wait, what does your countdown say?"

Kurt's heart stopped when he looked down and saw a line of zeros, already turning white as a permanent scar. "But – oh, no, this doesn't make any sense..." He felt like crying, or punching the wall in frustration.

"Well, calm down." Rachel was trying to comfort him, but he didn't notice.

"I don't understand; I didn't meet anyone new in the time it took to leave the room – but Adam's still got nearly a year left of his countdown!"

Rachel frowned, bewildered.

Kurt's stomach fell into his feet. "You can't have someone be your soulmate but not be theirs, can you?" he whimpered. The prospect of being alone, forever – of a painful, unrequited love – tore him apart and made him want to die.

"I don't know," Rachel replied lamely, sounding almost as worried as Kurt.

What had happened in that instant that Kurt's countdown hit zero? Had he accidentally met someone without realising? He doubted it, feeling tears brimming in his eyes and taking a deep breath. He'd seen Rachel, he'd stood up, rushed forward – bumped into someone. And he'd apologised to them! He felt the weight of their body against his as he'd hit them... or they'd hit him. Did they know their countdown was reaching zero and had tried to start a conversation? Kurt felt himself almost cringing at the thought of that, but it meant...

"It's not Adam!" he cried, thinking hard. "I bumped into someone and I said sorry to them!"

"Who?" Rachel insisted.

"I don't know – I was looking at you, thanks for that," Kurt snapped good-naturedly: he couldn't bring himself to be mad with Rachel. He tried and tried to think and couldn't get anywhere – he just hadn't been paying attention at the time, and was paying dearly now.

"Um, excuse me?" came a voice from behind Kurt. He jumped and span around, and he felt his heart leap when he saw Blaine Anderson from his previous class approaching the two of them. He smiled in greeting and paused, waiting for Blaine to carry on talking.

"Am I right in thinking that your countdown reached zero just now?" Blaine clarified, raising his eyebrows in a way that made Kurt want to melt.

Waves of relief crashed over Kurt: he beamed and knew that he and Blaine were thinking exactly the same thing. "You are," he smiled. "Am I right in thinking that I bumped into you on the way out of Music Theory?"

Blaine looked as though he wanted to explode with joy. "You are," he grinned. "Although," he added, "it was maybe more... me, bumping into you."

There weren't words to describe how Kurt felt: fulfilled, excited, and – looking at Blaine in the daylight streaming in through the window – quite possibly turned on.

"Do you... want to go get lunch... with me?" Kurt managed to ask, swallowing his stomach butterflies and absently checking his hair with one hand.

Blaine nodded, grinning. "I would love to," he responded, motioning for Kurt to lead the way and nodding a hello to Rachel.

Rachel watched the two of them go, beaming. She'd met Blaine two months previously, when they'd been paired together for a showcase. Immediately, she'd noticed the numbers on Blaine's wrist, but hadn't said anything to either of them. Shaking her head and laughing, she followed the two of them at a distance to the cafeteria, mentally planning wedding songs.