Blaine slipped the well-cooked burger into the ceramic plate, congratulating himself for being able to cook again that night without any unrecoverable damages.

“Daddy! Does the fork go to the right or to the left?” Sophie yelled, after she climbed up on a chair and started setting the table just like her granny had taught her.

“…Left!” he answered, hoping his tired mind remembered correctly.

“Here it is!” he exclaimed, serving his daughter half-bowing, making her laugh.

“Thank you so much!”

After about seven hours of hyperactivity, Blaine sat down, enjoying that nice feeling.

“Are you tired, Daddy?” the little girl asked, shifting a strand of her dark hair behind her ear.

“A little bit” he admitted, leaning forward to cut the meat in her little girl's plate.

“No!” she stopped him “Today Auntie San taught me how to do it… you want to see?” she asked hopefully, clumsily grabbing her knife and fork, apparently too big for her little hands, and starting tearing the food in front of her.

“Great!” his father encouraged her, starting then eating his own dinner.

“Did you have a good time today with Santana?” he said, mentally noting to thank her for looking after Sophie, even with such a short notice.

“Yup, we watched Rapunzel! That movie is awesome and the princess looks like Auntie Brit,” she explained enthusiastically.

“And how was school?”

The child deepened for a moment, and then she said, “Daddy, can I ask you a question?”

Like you didn't all the time, sweetheart.

“Of course!”

“My friend Andrew…” Blaine tried to link that name to one of the children his daughter had introduced to him. He had a little difficulty, considering how easily his daughter made new friends, but he finally got to remember: Andrew, 7 years old, unpleasant parents. “He told me every child must have a Mom and a Dad. But I have no Mom, so how was I born?”

Blaine almost dropped his fork; it was not that he didn't expect that question eventually, but Sophie was so young. God, she wasn't even five! Unfortunately, she was so clever she spent most of her time with older kids.

He breathed deeply and slightly moved the chair aside the table; as a single parent, he couldn't leave anyone this ungrateful task.

“Mushroom, come here!” he called her, widening his arms and inviting her to sit on his knees. The little girl smiled for the affectionate nickname, because, even though it had come from the shape of her hair, she liked it nevertheless, so she obeyed.

“So, it's a little complicated to explain…You haven't always been here with me. You were born far away, but your parents there couldn't take good care of you, so I came and brought you here…”he explained, trying to novelize as much as possible such a complicated matter like adoption.

“Oh, and why couldn't they?” Sophie asked; Blaine hoped it was a surprised, not a sorry tone.

“I…I don't know. I didn't meet them…” he babbled. Both of them stayed quiet for some minutes, during which the little girls elaborated the news and thought about what question to ask next and the curly-haired man was frightened.

Was he ruining everything? Should he have told her: “I'll explain you when you grow up”?

“I was born really far?” she asked, genuinely curious. “Once Seb- Sebastian” she said, enormously struggling to pronounce the French name. “He showed me Frank, is it right?”

“It's France.” He corrected her smiling, relieved by the fact the she hadn't run away in tears yet.

“…On that rolling ball… That thing we have in the room we never use!” she explained, clearly referring to the globe in the guest room.

“Let me see that place!”

“Sure…” Blaine said, bringing her upstairs in arm and staying silent until they got to big green and blue ball.

“We are here!” he showed her, pointing the little black square marking the position of New York. “And you were born here…” he went on, rolling it to the left and pointing to south-west Japanese islands.

“But it is so far!” she yelled amused. “And how did we get here, Daddy?”

“By plane. A huge airplane!” he smiled to her.

They were just back in the living room, when Sophie said: “So you did as Timon and Pumba with Simba?”

“Well, exactly.”

He was kind of certain her smile couldn't broaden more.

“Like the fairies with Aurora. Or Rapunzel's stepmother, but you're good. I love you, Daddy.” She finished, before resting her little head on his shoulder exhausted.

“I love you too, my little mushroom” he whispered, kissing her hair. “What if I tell you you can sleep with me for tonight and I promise you extra cuddling?”

“I love you so much, Daddy!” she cheered, hugging him tighter.

An hour later, while hugging Sophie who slept underneath the warm double bed blanket, Blaine smiled. He smiled because, although raising a child all by himself was undoubtedly difficult, he had never considered her a mistake.

He had always wanted children and, most of all, he didn't want them too late. When he was a little boy, he had really suffered for the excessive age difference between himself and his father, so he absolutely didn't want his own children to feel it. Therefore, even after he and Josh had roughly broken up, after cohabiting for two years and being together for four, he didn't wait very much to call the adoption agency.

Obviously, between work and the child, he hadn't time to do anything anymore, but he was pretty sure that, even if he had time to regret it, he wouldn't.

Three hours later, Blaine was woken up by the annoying tune he had set as phone ring just for masochism. He watched the alarm and, as his eyes could focus on the little numbers on the screen, he shivered. It was 4.12. Something definitely important and, most likely, not very pleasant should have happened.

He quickly grabbed his phone, shot out of the room not to bother Sophie's heavy sleep and answered, although he couldn't recognize the number on screen.

“Hello…?” he began hesitantly.

“It's- it's Kurt” babbled the man on the other end of the phone. Blaine gave himself a strong pinch on the right arm, believing to be in a dream, but when, despite the pain, he kept hearing Kurt's heavy breath through the microphone, he paralyzed. Both for the surprise and for fear.

Kurt was his first love, his high school boyfriend, but even when, in college years, real life parted them, he remained his best friend. Until young Hummel met Jared. Jared was a career-driven man who, naturally, didn't hesitate to make him fall into his grip. He seduced him, he made him feel important in a period of Kurt's life when he started believing that true love didn't exist at all and, barely a year since they first met, he convinced Kurt to follow him to Stockholm. Blaine, along with Santana, Rachel and everyone who loved him tried in every possible way to reason with him, to explain that it was not worth abandoning his New York dream for such a green relationship, to beg him to stay. They received just a couple of mordacious sentences, which still burned under Blaine's skin, just like they were injected, and a total and drastic break of every kind of relationship.

Maybe it was Kurt's departure what convinced him to sign those papers and send them to the agency, probably because he felt alone or didn't want to let any men that way into his life and let them upset it and he was afraid that the will to start a family would screw him. Blaine asked himself these questions a million times, not ever finding a proper answer; he just knew that he had never stopped missing Kurt, never, not even for a second. And right now he was there, or rather, he probably was still in Stockholm, but he was on the other end of the phone and Blaine knew him too well that it meant that Kurt desperately needed him.

“Kurt?”

“Oh my God…I- I'm sorry… I shouldn't have called… And I- sorry. Oh, shit, it's four A.M. over there! I'm just hanging up!” he said incoherently with voice clearly broken from crying.

“Hey, keep calm and don't you try to hang up, ok?” he begin, trying to speak in a reassuring way.

“Breathe on and talk to me” he went on, the other one made a choking sound and started sobbing again.

“I- I just… I just need a- a place to stay in New York… I know I have no right to ask you anything, but…”

“You can ask me everything. Come over here as you please” Blaine cut him, no more able to bear all of the pain that his broken voice was conveying him. “Just… could you tell me what happened?”

“I… my flight lands tomorrow at… eleven, New York time…I have to go now. Thank you. Thank you so much…” he finished, avoiding the subject and changing his tone, as if he was trying to compose himself. “Just… Don't tell anyone I'm coming, ok? Please…”

“As you wish” he stated, because in the end it had always been so, he would do anything to help him out.

“Goodnight, Blaine”

“Bon voyage, Kurt”

Blaine nervously passed a hand through his hair, looking up for the hundredth time at the screen reporting the landings. He had brought Sophie to his mother's home, simply telling her that he has to stay longer at work, so, right after the end of lessons, he had driven to the airport, gobbling a cheeseburger on his way.

After a night of meditation, spent staring at the ceiling, lulled by his little child's regular breath, Blaine had realized they had been right not to talk by phone because, whatever had happened, they definitely had too much to say to each other without looking in the eyes.

He was wondering how much he had changed, how could he react once he had introduced Sophie to him, if he would hug him, what was going on, but Kurt's figure, accompanied by a red trolley, was in front of him, taking him away from his thoughts.

“Blaine” he called him, before quickening his pace and throwing his arms around his neck; he returned the close, without thinking, not so astonished when he felt a tear dropping down his cheek.

“Oh, sorry…Just, thank you…” Kurt whispered, stepping away from him.

Blaine stopped and looked at him for a moment: his hair and clothes were a mess, his eyes reddened by too much crying, his trolley too little. He figured out how bad he was feeling and fought the instinct to hug him again, just to protect him.

“Are we going home?” young Hummel asked tiredly.

They didn't talk very much in the car; Blaine wanted all they had to talk about to be told on his couch, with a lot of tea to dilute all of the news.

An hour later, he was opening his front door, feeling a little under pressure, like when you introduce your boyfriend to your parents or you show them your school report.

“Well, this is my home!” he announced, making a large motion with his right arm.

“Looks pretty…” Kurt observed, remaining right on the doorway as a stranger.

“I go to make tea…Just, make yourself ho- what am I saying! Kurt, it's me,” he simply said, hoping the other boy grasped the meaning of those words.

When he got back to the living room with two steaming cups in his hands, he found Kurt all curled up on the couch, in an almost fetal position.

“Thank you…” he whispered when the dark-haired man handed him the tea.

Blaine sat down facing him and stayed quiet for a while, the he asked the only question that made sense to ask.

“Why are you here? What happened?” he didn't even have time to say these words, that the older boy lowered his head laying his forehead on his knees, which he held tilted against his chest.

“I can't…R-really, I can't…I cannot even…” Blaine couldn't figure out his behavior in any way, but he chose to change the subject.

“What about I tell you something about my life? Or you're too tired?” he asked in an all too quiet tone, like he was afraid to hurt him just raising his voice.

“Yeah, sure” he answered, starting sipping his tea. “Are you still working at NYADA?”

“Yes, in terms of work it hasn't changed very much…What is news is that…” he theatrically stopped for a moment. “I have a daughter.”

“What?”

“I have a daughter, she's almost five years old and her name is Sophie,” he explained and, as he noticed Kurt looking around confused, he added: “And she's sleeping at my mother's for tonight.”

“Oh. I mean, wow” he commented, like it was not easy to assimilate the information. “W-wait! So you have a boyfriend too! I- I don't want you to have issues with him because of me” he began, trying to get up. “I can find another plac-“

“I have no boyfriend”

Kurt looked confused, and then he dared: “A…girlfriend?”

“No!” the curly-haired man laughed. “God, we have already talked about this, about fifteen years ago, I am 100% gay!” Kurt smiled too remembering that day.

“I am a single parent, and I swear that it's not impossible as it seems…Well, it's not easy, but…” he said, going back to serious.

“You said she's almost five, right? So she wasn't too young when she got here, was she? Otherwise I would have known…,” he thought out loud.

“No, she was two and a half. But she doesn't remember anything about Japan, she barely could say konnichiwa.”

“She's Japanese? She must be beautiful!” he said excitedly.

“She is. And, not to brag, but she's very clever too. I think you'll like her…” he smiled.

“I'm sure of it. I'm just sorry not to have met her before...” Kurt sighed, lowering his eyes.

“It's never too late, right?” Blaine said, maybe not talking about her daughter anymore.

“Right. Blaine, are you sure it's not a problem for her? You know, having a stranger at home…”

“Don't worry, I'll talk to her tomorrow morning.”

“Blaine, I know you want to know what happened, but I'm so tired and… I don't really feel like talking about this… Can we just go to bed?” he whispered hand Blaine couldn't say no.