Okay, so here's where the story really starts.

As I said in the prologue, this story is a childhood!AU fic. Each chapter is going to be the Summer of a different year. This chapter here is the year 2001, while the prologue was 2012. We start with Blaine at age 6 and Kurt at age 7.

Also if you read my other story You Only Find It Once, you are probably quite aware of my infrequent updating habits... if you didn't, I'm apologising in advance if I leave you hanging for a while. However, I do actually have a plan for this one so hopefully (fingers crossed) it won't take me so long to update.

Anyway, welcome and enjoy the ride! :)

2001.

They say that, as children, we only remember a small fraction of our memories. And even when we do remember them, that they're not exactly accurate; that they're a warped and imaginative version of what really happened. I don't believe that though, I never really have; I remember every second of that first time I met him. I remember it as clearly as I remember eating breakfast this morning, even though it happened more than a decade ago, but perhaps that's different. Maybe there's something we have in our minds as children that help up recognise what moments in our lives are big and important enough to be worth remembering. And meeting him was definitely that...

It was the Summer just after I'd turned six and, as usual, we were down at the lake. We'd been coming to the lake for as long as I could remember, every Summer for a month. I loved it. I loved that the house was old and wooden and on stilts. I loved being able to go swimming whenever I wanted – well, as long as someone was with me. My brother Cooper was a different story though. He's a lot older than me, eight years older to be exact. He'd always loved the lake just as much as me, but this year was different. Cooper spent the entire car ride complaining. I never complained; I was speaking to Tommy next door and he has never been to a lake before so I must be very lucky.

We didn't arrive until very late at night; Dad had had to work that day so we didn't leave until the afternoon. The first thing I noticed when we arrived, though, was that the small blue house next door to ours had lights on inside. No one lived there so I had never seen the lights on before.

"Mummy, look! There's lights on in that house!"

"Oh, somebody must have bought it. About time too, that place has been abandoned for years," his Mum replied, seeming just as excited as he was, as she unloaded their bags from the car.

"Can we go over and say hi?" I said, barely able to keep still.

"No, honey. It's too late now, they're probably already in bed. But I promise we can go over and introduce ourselves tomorrow. How about that, hey?"

We didn't.

Well, we tried. But they weren't home so we decided to go to the park instead. Technically it's not really a park – it's a picnic ground – but it has a big area that is sand which is kind of like the sandpit at the park near my house, and they have a seesaw as well. I wasn't allowed to play on it until after we'd eaten lunch, I didn't mind that much because Dad was making his hamburgers which are my favourite food in the whole world. Once we'd finished eating I was finally finally allowed to go and play. There was already another kid playing in the sand, a girl who looked to be about the same age as me. She had a little shovel that she was using to dig a hole in the sand. I hadn't even thought to bring my shovel; I wish I had though.

"Hi. I'm Blaine."

The girl looked up at me quickly, and said a quick, "hello" before going back to her digging.

"Could I maybe dig with you? I forgot my shovel, but I could use my hands?" Mum always tells me off for getting my hands dirty; last Summer I got banned from the muddy area around the side of the house because I'd wanted to make mud pies and then got mud all over my new clothes.

"No. I don't want to play with a boy."

"Oh. Okay." No one had ever spoken to me that way before – so meanly – except maybe for Mum when she found me making the mud pies. I didn't like it. I don't know why she wouldn't want me to play with her because I'm a boy. What difference does it make if I'm a boy or a girl?

I didn't want to annoy her though, I felt like I'd already annoyed her enough already, so I moved over to another section of the sand and sat down. I started to build a castle, but it was really hard without a bucket. I was working on building one of the castle's towers when I felt a light tap on my shoulder.

I felt panicked for a moment, thinking that maybe it was the girl coming to be mean to me again, but the girl was still over there digging her hole. I turned around then, and that's when I saw him.

He was so pretty. Other than my mum, he was probably the prettiest person I'd ever seen. He had blue eyes and really nice hair, not curly like mine. He was wearing a pair of overalls that I was really jealous of; I'd been asking Mum for a pair for ages. He was standing on the edge of the sand, chewing on his thumb nail while holding a yellow shovel in his other hand.

"I saw you digging by yourself without a shovel. I have a shovel, my mum bought it for me for my birthday. Did you want me to help you?" he smiled at me then, holding up his shovel.

"Yeah, thanks. I'm building a castle."

"Ooh, I love castles. Do you have a bucket?"

"No." I frowned.

He chewed on his lower lip for a few moments, before standing up and brushing the sand off his knees.

"Well we can't build a sandcastle without a bucket."

"Oh, okay then. Should we make something else?"

He shook his head quickly, holding his hand out towards me and said, "No. I have a better idea, but we have to wait until my mummy looks away. So when I say go, just follow me, okay?"

"Okay, but where are we going?" I asked, emptying the sand out of one of my shoes.

"I'll show you... go!"

And then he was tugging on my hand and pulling me along behind him as he ran, not back towards the campground where all the families were, but away from them and into the trees. We stopped just in front of a tree. It was a really cool tree, I'd never seen one like it before. I don't know anything about trees so I couldn't tell you what type of tree it was but its leaves and branches were so low that you couldn't even see the trunk!

The boy ducked under the branches and a moment later, I couldn't see him at all. "Come on," I heard his voice say from within the tree.

I stepped forward hesitantly and used my arms to move the branches aside. Stepping through the gap, I looked around and saw that we were standing under a huge dome made from the trees branches.

"Wow! This is so cool!"

"I told you so," the boy said from where he was sitting cross-legged on the ground.

"So what are we gonna do here?" I asked; while it was awesome, there wasn't much stuff I could think of that we could do inside a tree.

"Have you kissed anyone before?"

My eyes widened at that. "What?"

"My mummy kisses my daddy all the time."

"I saw my brother kissing a girl last week. But I've never ever kissed anyone – besides my mum and dad – I'm only six."

"Well, I'm seven, but I have never kissed anyone either."

We sat there in silence staring at each other for ages. I don't know why he was talking about kissing. I've never spoken to anyone about kissing before. Not even Cooper.

"I think you should kiss me," he said quickly with a small nod of his head.

"Kiss you? But I can't – I don't even know your name."

"Kurt. My name is Kurt. What's your name?"

"Blaine."

Smiling at him, Kurt said, "Okay, now you should kiss me."

"Umm, okay..." I didn't know what to do when you kiss someone. Should I stand up? Mum and Dad are always standing when they kiss. But then when I saw Cooper kissing that girl they were laying down on his bed. I don't want to lay down here though, the ground is really dirty. Kurt didn't look like he was going to stand up or lay down. Maybe he wants me to kiss him sitting down...

I leant across then, closing my eyes as I pressed my lips to his quickly. His lips were really soft, much softer than my mum's or my dad's when they kissed me goodnight.

When I sat back down and looked at Kurt, he was smiling. I was smiling too.

"Now we have to get married!"

"Married? Only adults get married though, and we're only little kids!"

"We're not that little. And besides, we kissed, we have to get married now. Don't you ever watch movies? They always kiss when they get married."

"I guess. Okay. How do we get married?" I'd never thought of getting married before. I didn't think I'd have to think about it so soon. I thought I'd be super old by the time I did.

"We just have to say 'I do'."

"Should we stand up? They always stand up when they get married in movies," I pointed out, happy to see that Kurt agreed as we both stood up to face each other. "I do."

"I do -"

"Kurt? Kurt, where did you go? Are you hiding again? Do you remember what I told you last time?"

Kurt grabbed my hand then and walked out from inside the tree. I saw a woman running towards us; she must have been the lady who was yelling.

"Kurt Hummel, don't you do that again!"

"But Mummy, I was just showing Blaine my favourite tree. He'd never ever seen it before!" Kurt said, a small pout on his lips.

"Well next time you have to tell me before you go running off, okay? Come on now, say goodbye to your friend, we have to go now..."

"Bye Blaine." Kurt said quietly, grabbing onto his mum's hand and waving with his other.

"Bye Kurt."

Just as Kurt was walking away, Cooper came around the corner, stopping and putting his hands on his hips as he saw me.

"Blaine, seriously, you can't just disappear like that. Mum and Dad were starting to freak out," he said, holding onto my shoulders and steering me back towards the picnic ground. "Where'd you get off to anyway?"

"I met a boy. I'm in love, Coop!" I said ecstatically, unable to stop grinning.

"Sure you did, bud."

"No really, I did. We got married and he kissed me! Like when I saw you last week, except we were sitti-"

"Well, congratulations, little brother. Can't wait to meet him." And then they were back at the picnic table where they'd eaten lunch; they packed everything up and then they went back to the house. He was so preoccupied thinking about his new found love that he completely forgot about the new people who had moved in next door.

There it is - first actual chapter done and dusted! As you could probably tell, this story is from Blaine's perspective. And as I actually have a plan for this one, I can tell you know that this story will be 16 chapters including the prologue and an epilogue.

And I am absolutely in love with sassy confident seven-year-old Kurt Hummel!

Anyway, please review and let me know what you thought. Stay tuned!

Em xoxo