Hey guys. Here's the beginning... I hope you like it :)

Kurt held his head high as he stepped through the doors of McKinley high. Sophomore year had rolled around quicker than he'd expected, but he welcomed it with open arms as the thought of his dull and uneventful life crossed his mind. His father had to keep up the garage, so there was simply no chance for vacation, not that Kurt minded. He'd finished all of his summer work in record time and spent the rest shopping online and following the latest Vogue had to offer.

Last school year hadn't been the best, though. He'd decided to come out, loud and proud; unfortunately Lima, Ohio was a town of close-minded meat heads with fists. He remembered all the feelings last year of regret, the constant wishing that he had stayed in the closet a little longer. Over the summer, though, he'd come to embrace everything about himself; Kurt was confident that this year was going to be supremely better than the last.

His self encouraging was dashed to pieces as a slushy greeted him. He heard laughter, probably from the football jerks, and stood there, stunned.

After a short moment, he felt someone pulling his arm and ushering him into the restroom. Water was switched on, and there was a faint sigh as his head was pushed under the running water and a washcloth was wiping the frozen corn syrup away. Once he could see, Kurt looked up to thank his savior. "Thanks," he said to the girl, sighing internally at the fact that he was actually in the girls' restroom.

She grinned, her white teeth standing out against her dark skin.

"No problem. I've had my fair share of slushy facials."

Kurt nodded. "Unfortunately, no matter how many times I get slushied, it always feels like being bitch slapped by an iceberg." She laughed and handed him a paper towel. "Ugh… My hair…"

"I'm Mercedes," she said, chuckling. He vaguely remembered having a few classes with her last year, but the two had never really talked.

"Kurt," he replied, smiling. After he exhausted his attempts at fashioning his hair into its former glory, he and his new friend left the restroom. Kurt debated whether it was good or bad that no one looked surprised that he'd just come from the girls' restroom.

"Hey, what's that?" she asked, cocking her head to the side as they passed a bulletin board. Kurt followed her gaze to the list he knew she was staring at.

"Glee club," Kurt said, grinning. "New Directions? That's a new name."

"Are you gonna sign up?" Mercedes was reaching into her backpack and retrieving a pen.

"Most definitely," he said. What better way to showcase his brilliant talent? Besides, there was no redeeming his social status at this point. He may as well indulge in whatever he damn well pleased. Mercedes signed her name and offered the pen to Kurt.

He took it with a smirk and signed his name as well. They took a moment to go over the names already on the list. There were only three: Rachel Berry, Artie Abrams, and Tina Cohen-Chang. Kurt recognized Rachel Berry's name – she was the annoying girl that was in his fifth period last year. She had a unique way of pissing people off with her loud mouth and lack of fashion. He figured the others weren't in his grade.

The bell rang, and Kurt turned to his new friend. "What's your first period?"

"Spanish with Mr. Schuester," she said, glancing at her schedule.

"Ah, Spanish," Kurt said with a smirk. "French is the way to go. I'll see you later," he said with a wave as he took off in the direction of his English class.

He avoided eye contact with anyone in a letterman jacket and made it to English unscathed. Plus, he had even met Mercedes. It was a good morning, and hopefully a good day would follow.

"Kurt!" Mrs. Young said happily. He was one of her favorite students, and she was certainly his favorite teacher. "Welcome back! Go ahead and pick your seat," she said with a wink. He grinned at her. She always assigned seats, but last year she'd let him pick his own.

"Thanks, Mrs. Young. Did you have a good summer?" he asked, smiling as genuinely as humanly possible. He loved this woman.

"It was alright." She winked again. "My husband and I went to Hawaii."

Kurt continued chatting with her about summer break before the final bell rang and the announcements came on over the speakers. Kurt took his seat and looked around the familiar room. He didn't know most of the people; he really didn't have friends at McKinley. Hopefully he would be able to change that this year.

"Great, guys! It's awesome to see all of you!" Mrs. Young said with a particularly ebullient bounce in her step. "I regret to inform you that your summer reading projects will start right now."

There was a moan from the class.

"Come on, guys, try to be a little enthusiastic. I'm going to assign you partners tomorrow, so make sure you read the book tonight, because I know at least five of you –" she gave a few people pointed looks "— most certainly did do the summer reading over the summer, but that's okay because I'm giving you tonight to read."

Kurt smiled to himself. First period would definitely be something to look forward to.

He wished he could say the same for the rest of his classes. Unfortunately, he had decided to take wellness this year – never a good class for someone of such high fashionable priority.

It wasn't until lunch that he bumped into Mercedes again. "Kurt!" she called to him from across the room. He smiled and made his way towards her.

"Hey," he said, setting down his lunch tray.

Before she could respond, a very annoying voice popped up behind them. "Hello, fellow Glee-clubbers!" an overly excited Rachel greeted them. Kurt grimaced in response. "I just wanted to let you know that Mr. Schuester is the new director, and we'll be meeting today after school for rehearsals. I'm the most experienced of our soon-to-be-club, so I've taken it upon myself to act as spokesperson!"

Kurt blinked a few times. "Alright."

"We'll see you later," Mercedes muttered, blinking along with Kurt. Rachel grinned from ear to ear and took off.

Kurt sent a pointed look at Mercedes who just laughed in response.

"She is totally crazy," Mercedes said, speaking Kurt's unspoken thoughts. They had a pleasant conversation over lunch and even decided to meet up the coming weekend. "I'm glad we're gonna get to hang out this year," she said at one point, smiling sweetly at him.

Kurt nodded in agreement. "Definitely. We can also go to a movie or something after the mall. I have a feeling the teachers won't be going easy on homework after the first week, so we may as well enjoy the lack of stress while it still exists."

She smiled. "Sounds awesome!"

~!~

The rest of the day was uneventful, but Kurt couldn't bring himself to be upset by the lack of action. Being at school and getting back into a semi-normal schedule was more than enough for him. When the final bell rang, he strolled down the hall and headed straight for the choir room. He was looking forward to the auditions, and secretly wanted to show Rachel Berry up.

He took a seat next to Mercedes and the other soon-to-be-glee-members.

"Alright, guys!" Mr. Schuester, who doubled as the Spanish teacher, clapped his hands and looked at the five of them. "Let's have some quick auditions."

Rachel volunteered to go first. (Why was Kurt not surprised?) Somehow, she managed to impress Kurt way more than he thought possible; she may not have been pleasant to be around, but she sure as hell had a voice. Tina was up next. She was fairly cute, Kurt thought, trying to see the bright side of her lack of fashion sense. He made a mental note to give her a makeover at some point. She also had a unique quality to her voice that blew him away. Mercedes was next to make her debut, and Kurt was astonished at her range. Rachel had some competition for second.

Artie, who was apparently the student in the wheel chair, took his turn, and it dawned on Kurt that the singing balance of the club would be off. Kurt then took his turn. Everyone was definitely impressed, but they had the same feeling; the balance was off. They needed more guys.

Well, they needed more people in general. Five members did not a glee club make.

But what kid with any chance of being popular would ever even consider joining glee club? Kurt knew this wouldn't be easy.

~!~

When Kurt got to the shop, he immediately changed into his uniform and searched for his dad. He'd been fixing up cars ever since he could remember – but Kurt had done it because it interested him. Never once did his dad push him; he only taught Kurt when he asked. If he was being honest, Kurt wanted to work in the shop to spend time with his dad. They didn't have a lot in common, but he knew his dad loved him.

"Hey, kid. How was school?" Burt asked, tossing him a wrench.

"It was great, actually. I have Mrs. Young first period, so that's always a good way to start the day." He went to work on the engine in front of him.

Burt nodded in agreement. "She's the blonde one from the parent teacher conference, right?" he asked.

It was Kurt's turn to nod. "That's her. Unfortunately, we have a project to do on our summer reading, and she's giving us partners tomorrow." Kurt sighed. He hated partner projects; he knew he could do the work better by himself.

"Well, good luck with that," Burt muttered. Kurt could tell he was worried about the 'quality' of his future partner. Kurt had faith in Mrs. Young, though. He knew she wouldn't put him with someone who would make his life more of a hell than it already was.

~!~

"Okay, guys!" Mrs. Young said, settling the class. Everyone quited down. Kurt felt his phone vibrate and figured it was Mercedes; they had been in the middle of finalizing their weekend plans when the bell rang. "I have the partner list." She started calling out names two at a time. Kurt waited patiently for his name. "Kelsey Kalloway and Joey Foster. Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson. Alex Perkins and Harper Neeley."

Kurt blinked. Did he even know a Blaine Anderson? He might have known the face, but the name was unfamiliar. He glanced around the room, searching for his partner. He finally locked eyes with a curly-headed boy across the class.

"Go find your partners! I'm giving you guys this week to work on the project in class, but next week we're actually going to start my lesson plan! This project is due next month, though, and it's a lot of work." Everyone scurried to their partners. Blaine took his time strolling over to the seat next to Kurt. "Did you actually read?" Kurt asked with a sigh. He looked Blaine over a few times; it was hard to miss the gel in his hair.

"Yeah. Did you?" He asked, his tone polite.

"Yep. That'll be a good start, at least." Mrs. Young was going from group to group to pass out the sheet explaining their assignment.

"Hello, Kurt," she said warmly, then turned to Blaine. "It's nice to meet you, Blaine. I didn't have you last year, so it'll be nice to get to know you."

"I actually didn't go here last year," Blaine said. "I went to Dalton."

"That explains that," she smiled. She set down the paper between their desks and took off to the next group.

Blaine took the paper and started reading. "Dalton?" Kurt asked, curious.

He looked up from his reading. "Yeah. It's a great school," he said with a smile. Kurt figured he was remembering his previous year.

Kurt paused for a moment. "I hear they had an excellent glee club last year," Kurt said after a moment.

Blaine nodded, grinning. "The Warblers were really good. I was actually the youngest member."

Kurt cocked his head to the side and suddenly recognized him. "You were the lead!"

Blaine nodded with a small smile. "Yeah. It was a lot of fun. I'm going to miss them."

"You know, McKinley has a glee club. We've only got five members… and we could really use more guys." Kurt debated asking why he left Dalton, but thought better of it. He didn't expect Blaine to tell him anything like that.

"Really?" Blaine looked thoughtful. "Is there practice today?"

Kurt grinned. He would be the first to reel in a new member. "Yes sir, in the choir room at three thirty."

His expression scrunched up, and Kurt was confused. "I don't know where the choir room is…" he admitted sheepishly.

Kurt laughed. "What class do you have last period?"

"Algebra II," he said after a moment of pondering.

Kurt blinked. "With Mrs. Franklin?"

Blaine nodded. "Yeah. How'd you know?"

"We're in the same class," Kurt said, laughing.

The rest of the period was actually spent working on the project, but the two took time to compare schedules and learned that they had a few more classes together, including study hall. They would be able to work on the project then.

At lunch, Kurt took his seat across the table from Mercedes. She was in a bad mood for some unknown reason, so Kurt just allowed her to vent. He felt bad that he wasn't paying as much attention as he should have been, but he was looking for Blaine. He'd heard the Warblers perform, and he knew Blaine had the potential to be the New Direction's best male lead. (Kurt couldn't consider himself a male lead.) If Blaine was going to be in glee club, he and Mercedes should be friends. Right?

"Kurt. Kurt?" He snapped out of his reverie.

"Sorry. What?" he said, determined to listen this time.

"I asked what time you wanted to go the mall this weekend," she said. "What's got you so distracted?"

"Oh. I'll pick you up around noon and we'll get lunch at the mall and maybe we'll be able to catch a matinee."

"That sounds good." She smiled, but her expression changed quickly. "Now what's got you so distracted?"

"Have you ever heard of the Warblers?" he asked.

"Nope." She cocked her head. "Isn't a Warbler a bird?"

"Er, yes. But Dalton academy's glee club is called the Warblers, and their lead transferred to McKinley this year." Mercedes blinked at him a few times. "I think I convinced him to join glee club."

She was grinning, now. "That's awesome! Don't we have to have twelve members to compete in anything, though?"

Kurt nodded. "But now we're one closer. He's auditioning today after school, and I think everyone will be pleased."

"Great job, Kurt," Mercedes said with a smile. Kurt looked around the cafeteria one more time, but Blaine was nowhere to be seen.

The day dragged on. Kurt knew he wouldn't see Blaine again until last period, and he knew for a fact that he wouldn't be seeing Blaine again until last period.

Kurt sighed and daydreamed during French, barely listening. A thought dawned on him. It was Blaine's first year at McKinley… he didn't know about the slushies or the constant teasing that the more ignorant students had a habit of bringing on, and New Directions certainly wasn't going to have a fan club this year. He bit his lip and exhaled slowly. Glee club really needed more members, but Blaine was definitely capable of being popular. He was good looking and seemed nice. Would he really subject him to the torture? Kurt knew glee club worked differently than at Dalton. The Warblers were practically rock stars; they ruled the school.

Against his better judgment, Kurt decided to at least warn Blaine that the year ahead would be treacherous. He prayed silently to a god he wasn't sure he believed in that Blaine's love of music would encourage him to stay with glee.

Kurt wanted him in glee club.

But why? Why was he so intent on having this boy in glee? He was a Warbler, and his voice was to die for.

Kurt nodded to himself. Yes, Blaine's voice was too valuable not to have in the glee club.

That's the only reason he wanted him there.

Well... *ahem* That's all for chapter one. Reviews?

Special thanks to Xx-Twitch-xX for beta-ing and Aquapolartop for being awesome. They're both actually really awesome, so you should go check them out.