Chapter two! So, no music yet, but hopefully, there will be... soon enough. Enjoy!

"Kurt. Kurt. Kurt!" Kurt felt himself jump absentmindedly, leaving his deep trance. Mercedes was now in his bad books, because Kurt's fantasy of Jesse crashing his wedding with Finn, and marrying the fashionista instead had just gotten to the good parts. Kurt figured he had just a small problem with getting too serious too fast, but frankly, who wouldn't? A wink? That was more than anyone in all of Lima had given him his entire life! Minus Mercedes, but that was just bizarre. Jesse may not have been interested, but he wasn't repulsed, and even looked a little... no, he shouldn't go there. Crushing on straight guys was a slippery slope Kurt found himself on far, far too often. You see, it all began in first grade...

Kurt Hummel was just a little boy, but his mother had taught him plenty of things about fashion. But no matter what his mother told him, she always managed to find an exception to the rule. She once told him that an excess of sequins at an older age was a tacky look, but never failed to put on his favorite silver dress of hers, which happened to be covered in sequins. Prints were cute, but many could be tactless and tasteless, even though pajamas of just the same kind were their favorite on their Hummel movie nights, which usually consisted of just Kurt's mother, Kurt, and the newest stage-to-cinema masterpiece. Kurt had never been told anything about what a paper dress, chapped lips, dry skin, and thinned out hair did for your style, but he watched as his mother went through that all in a hospital bed. And while every little moment he shared with his mother was magical, when he looked down at his little suit at her funeral and thought of her 'black is slimming' advice, he cried bitter and angry tears at his mother's leaving him. While Burt was making sure to let no comfort food go to waste at the pot luck buffet, Kurt snook out of the horribly stiff venue, and went, tears streaming down his face, to just get some perspective. As strange and non-musical Lima always felt to the boy, he did like the way the tall grass scratched against his ankles, and the blue sky was completely clear of clouds on this spring afternoon. Walking through the seemingly empty streets, Kurt tried his best not to make his sobs audible, but found all of the sites where his mother once stood to be devastating. How could they never walk together on this street again? He loved his dad, and his dad loved him, but he could never really understand things his mom always got.

"Hey!" Kyle Turner was the resident school bully, and, as fate would have it, would have seen Kurt for the first time out of school in his entire life. All alone. And crying. "What's the matter, Hummel? Realize you're so stupid you don't got any friends?" Kurt didn't bother to protest, or even point out how grammatically incorrect the bully's statement was, making the other boy remarkably dumber. Instead, he wiped his tears and kept walking, until he felt a sharp shove right on the back of his head, straight into the pavement. Kurt's vision blurred as his tears welled up in his eyes, refusing to spill in front of his assailant. He never understood why these guys wanted to pick on him. He was smaller, sure, but that didn't make any sense; didn't their moms teach them to love everyone, differences included? Kurt didn't want to try and make a run for it instead, so he lay on the ground, trying to ignore the stinging pain of scraping his palms on the pavement. "Did I say you could go anywhere?" Kurt heard footsteps, and prayed that it was his father, but it wasn't; it was a kid his age. So, Kurt closed his eyes, and hoped they would just go in for the kill, and not drag it out any longer then they had to.

"Leave him alone, Turner!" Kurt looked up to see a boy around his age, with thick, black curly hair, crouched right next to him. Kurt didn't understand it, but he felt a warm, fuzzy feeling as he looked at this boy, like he had lit a light somewhere in his chest. The oversized bully scoffed at the pair, but upon realizing the odds of two against one, regardless of size, made him take the losses, and stalk off, not before giving ridiculous glares at the boy. "Are you OK?" His eyes were a deep, chestnut brown, and Kurt could feel his face glowing red, and his heart beating super duper fast.

"Yeah- uh, thank you for- for saving me. That was nice." Kurt wasn't sure if he was saying the right thing. You see, whenever he tried to be nice to boys his own age, they all gave him looks like he had grown to heads, and picked on him even more. But the boy's face glowed in a similar fashion, just with a lot more confidence.

"Don't sweat it. I'm Charlie, by the way. You're..."

"Kurt Hummel." Charlie beamed right back at him after Kurt announced his full name, the two boys now seated right in the middle of the sidewalk. "So, how do you know Kyle?" It was strange how oddly seriously children took bullies. When Kurt grew older, he would realize that they're words, shoves, and actions were nothing but representations of their own faults. Until then, he would fear bullies as if they were the plague. Charlie shared an equally morbid look as he talked about Kyle.

"He's my neighbor, my mommy is friend with his mommy." Kurt then looked down, and realized exactly what day it was. His mother's funeral. Kurt then found himself in a horrible state of panic, as tears started to fill up in his eyes, and he turned to his new friend, and felt horribly embarrassed.

"I have to go. Bye Charlie!" Then, Kurt was up, sprinting up the hill to the funeral service, trying his best to let these rebel tears flow before facing his dad. His dad had been crying a lot lately, and the last thing he wanted was for him to be even more upset. Burt saw Kurt sprinting in his direction, and immediately swooped in, picking the boy up, and resting his arms around him in a tight hug. "Can we go home now, daddy?" Burt nodded solemnly, not being able to find the right words to say to his son. Kurt's eyes couldn't help but welling up with more tears as he watched out the car window, and they drove past that very sidewalk where he met his hero.

"Kurt!"

"Huh?"

"You've got to stop doing that! Look, we were talking about Rachel. Did you notice how out of it she was in today's rehearsal?" Kurt, when he wasn't thinking of the life that felt so foreign to him now, or of the birth of a red hot love affair with the star of Vocal Adrenaline, had realized in the day's rehearsal, she had been insanely distant. While singing, her eyes seemed glazed over, unfocused, and her usually disgustingly desperate displays of eye sex with Finn were limited to just mere glances. She seemed disinterested. She was tripping over her own feet, not clumsily, but like her feet wouldn't move the way she wanted them to. Kurt had even caught her forgetting lyrics that day, which he had never seen her do before. Of course, who wouldn't be distracted, dating the stunningly gorgeous Jesse St. James, with hair like spun gold, and an ass that looked carved out of granite, then wrapped in silk. And when he wore those skinny jeans today, Kurt was just about ready to melt when certain bulges couldn't help but show off how well endowed he was when it came to his-

"Kurt!" Mercedes. Crap.

"Yeah, sorry, Mercedes, flash backs, dream sequences, it's all very- Finnlike." Mercedes scoffed, then swiveled to her best friend, looking just about ready to slap the boy.

"Hold up. Finnlike? As in, like your ridiculous crush on that oaf of a boy? As in, a crush like that, but isn't that?" Kurt's eyes immediately went down to the floor, only her loud 'tisk' of disapproval being any sign she read him like a book. "Look, honey, I'll pretend you don't have some crush on McBroadway so I can save you the embarrassment, but he's fake dating Rachel. I don't think you'll be getting action from him, real or fake." Kurt looked on in shock at how quickly Mercedes had been able to guess the nature of his dilemma. "Look, call me tonight, I've got to go and talk to someone who doesn't look like their eyes are turning into satellite disks. Bye, white boy, love you!" Kurt gave his best friend a quick hug, laughing to himself about how well they knew each other. But something felt weird, you know, about that story, he just had to piece it together...

"Kurt, can you get the door?" Kurt wasn't sure if he wanted to let anyone into the house while his dad was on the couch, bawling his eyes out of his wedding photos. It was just a couple hours after the funeral, but it's felt like today, Kurt was the parent, and Burt was the child, only Burt couldn't be consoled by anybody. Kurt figured, though, now wasn't the best time to not do as his dad asked, so he rushed to the front door, hoping it wasn't one of the neighbor's kids trying to throw an egg at his head again.

"Hey, Kurt!" It was Charlie. Beaming at him just as widely as before, a basket of sorts with elaborate blankets covering something underneath. A part of Kurt began to hurt as he imagined Charlie may have already heard what happened to his mother.

"Hey. Uh, do you want to talk outside, my dad's kind of-" A loud sob erupted from the living room, and it took a lot of willpower for neither boy to burst into laughter. They scrambled onto the front lawn, only basket in hand, smiling brightly at one and other. "I'm sorry I ran off like that, that wasn't very nice."

"It's OK, you looked sad, and I figured you might have needed to go somewhere. I get it." Kurt looked into his deep brown eyes, and couldn't believe how understanding his new friend was being. Those deep, enticing, entrancing, chestnut eyes, just like... Jesse.

Cliffhanger! Sorry, I just had to. School started up again for me, because, as a super lucky Canuck, we start school the second week of September, as oppose to August, like most Americans. Unfortunately, we end in mid-late June, so you guys have it better. Anyways, I hope I'll be able to update often, but I'm an extra curricular freak (band, drama, yearbook, outside of school courses, classical guitar outside of school), so if you don't hear from me for a while, I didn't pull an Irma Pillsbury and get abducted. So, I hope you liked this chapter, and I'm glad you were able to read it; well, I'm guessing you did if you got this far. Until next time!