Kurt was content. His life was by no means perfect. He couldn't say he was happy one hundred percent of the time, but then again, who could?

He knew he had a lot to be grateful for. His career taking off like it had after Rachel had put up a video of him singing one day three years ago. His continued success. His family's health. Rachel. He supposed he really should be the most grateful for Rachel.

Kurt had always been a great lover of romance novels, and as a consequence had been expecting all the foot popping first kisses, the fireworks, the butterflies every time he looked into her eyes, the anticipation of just living with the person he loved. He'd expected it all from his relationship.

But.

In reality he had to accept that this was all a fantasy. Rachel was his reality, and he did love her, he did. And he was happy with her. She was good for him, and he liked to think that he was good for her too. They pushed each other to be better; they challenged each other and called the other out when they needed to be. Kurt had never seen his parents' relationship, as he'd been too young when his mother passed to remember anything. He'd seen pictures of course, of his mother and father together looking so happy they glowed.

Kurt had also seen pictures of him and Rachel together where they looked so happy they glowed. All of them were pictures of them singing together, dancing together, performing together. The perfect act. And so he thought he had what his parents had had. A perfect relationship with a perfect woman to complete the perfect life. He really did have it all.

So why couldn't he shake the feeling that something was missing?

No, he told himself firmly, just stop thinking about it. Focus on the good.

And so he did. He focused on the good, he focused on his album, and then when the time for him to do the promotion tour, he tried his very best not to be secretly happy that he was going to be spending two weeks away from Rachel. It must be normal though, right? To sometimes feel slightly smothered by your partner? The person you spent every day of your life with? Yes. Perfectly normal. So he threw himself into his work, letting himself get lost in store after store of people telling them how much he meant to them, how much he'd inspired them. It helped, knowing that he was actually doing something that left a positive effect on people's lives. It was comforting.

And then he met Blaine.

As far as he was concerned, it was just another music store, just another signing, just another day. People filtered slowly past, chatting and filling Kurt's life with bright light. He was happy. And then the next person in the line was called, and that was when Kurt met Blaine.

He didn't know what it was about this guy, he really didn't. He'd never really been drawn to a person the way he had been with Blaine. And it turned out Blaine was a huge fan as well as his friend who couldn't make it, and, really, who was Kurt not to take advantage of a situation like that? He'd never been particularly reckless, and taking the email address of this man who he knew nothing about was high on his 'most reckless actions' list. Not that he had one of those.

But that had been nearly two weeks ago, and now he was at a loss as to what he was actually supposed to say in this email. He had to remind himself frequently that, as far as Blaine was concerned, the intention of this email was to get a message to his friend. The thing was though, Kurt didn't want to talk to this faceless 'Tina' character anyway. He wanted to talk to Blaine!

Although, he supposed, at least he actually had a reason to be emailing. It would have been more awkward trying to send an email not knowing what to say, what was too much and what wasn't. Fan messages he could do. He was good at dealing with fans. He'd just slip a little note in at the end to say...thank you? He didn't know, but to say something to Blaine.

Glad to have a plan in mind, he opened his laptop and began composing the message.

It had been three weeks now since Blaine had met Kurt, and if he was honest he was a little disappointed that he'd not yet received an email from the star. When he thought about it, he knew he was being ridiculous, because Kurt probably had an extremely busy life and hundreds of fans to deal with on a daily basis. Realistically he knew this, but he was still slightly upset with the whole situation.

His phone buzzed, indicating a new email had been received, and Blaine couldn't even be bothered to check. It was probably a Facebook notification, or at best an email from his mom or something. It wouldn't be what he wanted it to be.

He sighed and got up, preparing to continue working. He didn't have the most glamorous of jobs, but it made him enough money to live off whilst he dabbled with song writing. He was a server at the diner around the corner from where he and Tina lived, and it had fairly decent pay considering what he was doing, so he couldn't bring himself to complain. Another perk was getting to work alongside Janice.

Janice was old and fat and full of stories of her 'previous life', and she was one of Blaine's favourite people. He loved hearing her ramble on about all the amazing things she'd gotten up to as a girl, and she certainly made his shifts pass a lot faster than they would if she wasn't there.

"Why the long face, curly fry?" she asked him as they crossed paths in the middle of the diner, both balancing several plates of food. 'Curly fry' was the name she'd christened him with on his very first shift, both because of his hair and because curly fries had been his first order, and he'd managed to drop the plate before he'd even left the kitchen.

"Uh, I'll explain later. When's your break today?" he asked.

"You'd better. I've already had my break, but I get off at three so do you wanna skip out the end of your shift and get a coffee?"

Blaine considered it for a moment. He wouldn't skip, but he could easily convince the boss that he was sick. The boss was a man named Jim who spent most of his time in a drunken stupor, so really it wouldn't take much to persuade the guy he wasn't in a fit state to work.

"Yeah sounds good. I'll meet you at the coffee shop down the road in an hour?"

Janice grinned at him and nodded before heading off to deliver her order. Blaine did the same, and then went into the back to find Jim.

As he'd predicted, it took him less than two minutes to convince Jim he was sick, coughing a few times and making himself look dizzy and out of it. Jim had been slumped over his desk and only looked at him through one bleary eye, so had just waved him off with a half-hearted 'get well soon'. Blaine was now sat in Starbucks, medium drip in hand, waiting for Janice to arrive. He sipped slowly at his drink, fishing in his pocket for his phone and thinking that he probably should actually check that email to make sure it wasn't anything important.

He opened up his email folder, and saw an unfamiliar address at the top of the unread message. Frowning slightly, he opened it to see who it could be, then almost choked on his mouthful of coffee.

Dear Blaine,

Thanks so much for coming to the signing last month; I appreciate each and every one of my fans so much. It's you guys who got me where I am today after all!

I've attached a video file saying hello to Tina. I hope that's not weird, it's just after I'd promised to send you something for her I was kind of stuck as to what I should actually send. I hope she likes it!

Regards,

Kurt.

P.S. Feel free to reply to this, it's my private email. Baring that in mind, please don't give this address to anyone else, because I would like for it to stay private.

At the bottom of the message was the promised video, but Blaine decided that he should probably wait to watch it with Tina. She'd kill him if he watched it without her when it was really made for her.

He knew she was home right now, and as bad as he felt for standing up Janice, he needed to go. He ran over to the counter and asked them to tell Janice he was really sorry and he'd make it up to her. The staff all knew who they were as they went there so often at the end of their shifts.

Blaine grabbed his stuff and sprinted out the shop, not stopping until he reached the door of his apartment.