It had been one year exactly.

Or, twelve months.

365 days.

8,760 hours, 525,600 minutes, 31,536,000 seconds since they had broken up. Any way you spun it, that fact rang true.

And Kurt hated it.

He thought that a year would have been long enough to get over him. To get past the pain of their break up, which he realized too late could have been avoided all together.

His stubbornness was one of his favorite qualities in himself. He knew how to fight for what he believed in, how to stand up for himself, and how to get what he wanted.

But that quality he loved most about himself cost him the one thing he loved more than the world.

Well, the one person, to be more specific.

Blaine.

It was a stupid reason. A stupid argument. At the time it was major, but looking back now, it wasn’t worth the result.

Sometimes he wishes he had just kept his damn mouth shut.

Actually, he wished that all of the time.

And what killed him is that he knew he was in the wrong. He knew that he was being unreasonable and stupid and just completely unfair to Blaine, who was doing everything in his power to make it work.

But Kurt was too goddamn proud to realize that he needed to appreciate what he had.

He had no idea that it wouldn’t be long until it would all be gone.

He doesn’t blame Blaine for leaving him. When it first happened, and for a long while after, he did. But on this particular day, exactly one year later, he didn’t have it in him to resent him.

After all, this day wasn’t just the anniversary of their breakup; it was also the anniversary of the day that they’d met.

Kurt’s vision blurred with unshed tears as that fact sank in.

Blaine appeared in his life in the blink of an eye, and three short years later, he had disappeared from it just as quickly.

It would have been so much easier if Blaine had been angry with him at the end. If he had left in a huff of frustration, then maybe Kurt could convince himself that they shared the blame in their breakup.

But that hadn’t been the case. No matter how much Kurt wished it had been.

Through their entire argument, he and Blaine had been yelling at each other. Their voices reached the maximum volume as the words that changed everything were screamed out. Their voices grew softer gradually as the fight was quickly coming to a close. Blaine was crying steadily, the quiver in his voice more apparent as their voices quieted to a soft speaking voice.

Kurt’s voice, though quiet, was still strong and firm; his stubbornness was at its finest. Blaine’s voice grew weaker as the volume did, and the light was draining from his eyes along with it. Kurt’s gaze had softened slightly, but his eyes were still burning with intensity and an emotion that even Kurt himself couldn’t place anymore.

They had stopped the back and forth as they looked at each other. Kurt had been the last to say something, and he was waiting for Blaine’s retort. They were quiet for a few moments as they both waited for Blaine’s response. Remembering now, Kurt could see the anguish that had been in Blaine’s eyes, something that he hadn’t cared to notice at the time.

Slowly, Blaine reached out and took Kurt’s hand in his, squeezing it tightly. Blaine looked up with his glassy expression and hoarsely whispered, “Goodbye.” Kurt watched as the last bit of light faded from his eyes, Blaine releasing his hand. He turned slowly and exited through the door of their apartment, shutting it gently behind him.

And that was how it had ended.

It was a simple argument that Kurt had taken too far. And he realized too late that he would never be able to bring it back down. The boiling point had been reached, and there was no chance of being able to turn back.

So now Kurt sat on the floor of his bedroom in his apartment. It was different than the one that they’d shared, but somehow he could feel Blaine’s presence around him. Even though the place had no connection to Blaine whatsoever, he was still lingering there.

Kurt could still hear his laugh as they sat together watching an awful horror movie, still hear him talking excitedly on the phone with his older sister, and if he closed his eyes and concentrated, Kurt could still hear him singing along with the radio as he made them dinner. All of the memories of what used to be flooded over him.

But that’s all they were. Memories. He wished more than anything that they were the reality they used to be, but they would never be more than what they were. And that would always haunt him.

He held his breath and shut his eyes tightly, trying to ward off the crushing grief that was threatening to consume him. He wasn’t going to break down, not yet. He still had one thing left to do.

Kurt moved off the floor to his closet, retrieving a box from far in the back. He hadn’t looked in this box since the last time he had cried over losing Blaine. It had been several months since that night, but he still remembered every single thing that was resting inside of the simple white box.

He took the box with him back to where he had been seated on the floor and braced himself to open it. The moment he took off the lid, he was engulfed in the scent that was purely Blaine. There was nothing that compared to it, nothing that was anything like it. The only name Kurt had been able to identify it as was “home”.

He peered into the box and pulled out all its contents one by one, examining each item with care and letting himself get lost in the memory that came with it. There was a post-it reading “Good luck today! And don’t worry, you’ll be fine. Courage.” that Kurt had found inside the cover of his textbook during his first class at Dalton Academy.

There was a torn-out piece of notebook paper with “Blaine+Kurt” written inside a red heart that covered the entire page, that Kurt had doodled around Valentine’s Day.

There was the receipt from the Lima Bean from the day that they had first said “I love you” to each other.

There was Blaine’s yearbook photo that Kurt had used for his “COURAGE” collage, as well as the lettering itself. Blaine had seen it in Kurt’s locker when he transferred to McKinley, and had jokingly signed it for him with a message that made his eyes water both then and now: “I’m so glad that I’m here with you.”

There was a small photo album inside as well. A picture of the two of them with the Hudson-Hummel family at their high school graduation, one with the two of them and Blaine’s sister at their graduation as well. New Directions with Mr. Schue at graduation, and another of them at Nationals, holding their 1st place trophy. Blaine and Kurt moving into their apartment, Rachel and Finn posing with them as Burt moved boxes and Carole took the photo.

They had been through so much together. And now all that was left to show for it was inside this box.

He emptied the box of its contents, placing them carefully around him. The only thing left in the box was a hot pink iPod. Blaine had brought it with him everywhere, but had never listened to it once, instead using another iPod that he had owned. Kurt had always wondered why he had two, and was curious as to why he only used one and not the other.

Kurt’s curiosity got the best of him. He stood up from the floor to retrieve his iPod speakers, placed the iPod in its slot and pressed the shuffle function. Immediately, “Hey, Soul Sister” started to play. Kurt, remembering that he, Blaine and the Warblers had performed the song, quickly skipped to the next song, only to discover that “Silly Love Songs” was playing, another song that they had performed.

He continued to flip through the music, hearing song after song that the Warblers had performed. Kurt was starting to think that the iPod was solely made up of Warbler songs, when “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” started to play. Kurt froze, remembering when he had helped Blaine rehearse the song for the King’s Island Christmas Spectacular.

Once he began to breathe again, he quickly flipped to the next song, and he let out a gasp as he heard “It’s Not Unusual” play through the speakers. He flipped to the next song in hopes of some reassurance that this was not what he thought it was, but his thoughts were confirmed when he heard the opening notes for “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina”.

He let out a choked sob as he realized exactly what was on this iPod. It wasn’t an iPod full of Warbler performances, or even songs that Blaine had performed over the years.

This iPod contained all the songs that either of them had sang since they’d met.

Kurt went to the song list menu on the iPod, and scrolled through the library, hoping to find just one song that would prove his theory false.

He didn’t find one.

And that’s when Kurt couldn’t take it anymore. He shrunk back towards his closet and pulled his knees to his chest, sobbing into them brokenly. He let all his pain and anger and regret flow through his tears as he let go of his composure. He was shaking as he cried, trying to pull himself together, but the pain and regret for what he had done had increased tenfold.

Blaine had put together something so beautiful and magnificent, something that was purely them. He had worked on it for years. And Kurt had treated him horribly.

Kurt stayed curled in on himself until his tears began to subside. He didn’t have many more tears in him left to cry. When the tears had all but stopped, he crawled slowly back over to pick the iPod off the floor, which he had dropped in his panic. He felt the rutted back of the iPod, and flipped it over to see a simple engraving: “The Soundtrack of Our Lives”.

The tears started again, although less vigorously than they had the first time. Kurt carefully placed all of the memories back into the white box, closing the lid and putting it back in the corner of his closet. The only thing he did not put back in the box was the iPod containing everything that they used to be.

He retrieved his speakers once again, setting them on his bedside table, and clicked the iPod back into place. He hit shuffle once more, and closed his eyes as “Teenage Dream” drifted softly through the speakers. He let himself be consumed by the music, by each song that had been a part of the happiest time of his life. He relived the moments, the memories, and the feelings. As the songs continued to play, he grew tired, the emotions he had experienced that night finally taking their toll.

“So why don’t we go, somewhere only we know…” were the final words he heard as he drifted off to sleep.