It started in a coffee shop

This is where Kurt had found himself working since he'd moved to New York and started attending his classes whilst living the cosmopolitan life style he'd so often dreamed of in high school. He still found it daunting sometimes, living in the big city where so many dreams were made compared to Lima where the only things made were homophobic jokes and cat calls in halls. But he was over all of that and was more than prepared to let go of high school and all of the bad memories it contained. He was secretly thrilled that he and Rachel were roomies even if she was a terrible cook. It was actually Rachel that had landed him the job at the coffee shop so he couldn't really complain when she burned a meal or two. Well, he could but he needed the job and all the free coffee that came with it so he kept his comments to himself and vowed to make all of his own meals until Rachel learned what temperature it was acceptable to cook at.

Kurt had taken to the New York lifestyle like a duck to water. He found himself perfectly content to walk about all day because he knew that there were a thousand different stories in the city and even though he recognised that he would never see or hear all of the stories he still found it beautiful. He liked his course and found his lecturers bearable. And yes okay, a lot of the guys on his course were really hot and definitely gay; he'd still not really been in a relationship yet. But he was working on that one even if it was taking him forever

Which is why when Rachel came rushing up to him on an unusually quite Thursday mid-morning, flapping her arms and tugging at his in a way that threatened the safety of the non-fat mocha he was in the process of making for his up-coming break. He just shot her an irate look and asked her curtly:

"What is it Berry? You're unusually chipper considering I've refused to bake a batch of cookies for you and your way below average date tonight"

Rachel was nonplussed as she had long since gotten used to Kurt's comments on her dates, She accepted it as it was but she made sure to give as good as she got. She always had something to say about anyone Kurt even looked at twice. It wasn't that she didn't want him to be happy, it was that she had seen him go through hell in high school and she still wanted to protect him.

She replied to him excitedly in the girlish way that she should have grown out of in middle school but still held on to stubbornly:

 "Did you see that totally cute guy put up that totally interesting looking notice on the pinboard? It doesn't interest me obviously, but I know how you get some weird kick out of reading the notices so I thought I'd let you know. And I mean, super cute."

Kurt just smiled at his best friend and on occasion agony aunt as he kept making his coffee. He thought fondly of the pinboard in the back corner of the coffee shop. It had been his idea in the first place, to have somewhere that members of the community could post photographs and notices, and they'd even had a poem or two in the couple of months that it'd been there for. Kurt was proud of his idea and the generally good reception it was getting. It was his responsibility to monitor the messages that were on it which meant that he had first dibs on any really juicy additions

He hung up his apron and made his way to the back corner to look over and if necessary remove any items on the board that could be considered uncouth. It took him less than a minute to find the notice he guessed Rachel must have been taking about. It was a simple buy eye-catching photograph of a quaint wishing well that looked oddly familiar to Kurt. He unpinned it and flipped it over to see if it had a clue in it which could explain why it was so familiar to him. On the back in an elegant but messy script were scrawled the words :

"Ten points to whoever can find this. I wish you well. Please leave answers on this notice board, thanks."

It was signed with a smiley face and a name which stayed in Kurt's head for the rest of the day: Blaine.