The ghost of a smile left on Kurt’s face from a good dance class, one where he’d managed to pick up the new choreography with so much more ease than nine months ago, grew into a grin as he saw the note stuck in his tiny dorm mailbox. A package was waiting for him.

Sure his dad sent him care packages a few times over his freshman year of college, but far, far more frequent were the ones from Blaine.

The slip was passed over to the mailroom attendant and a package presented in return. A look at the return address and grin morphed into goofy, cheesy smile as Kurt hurried up the closet he and a roommate called their dorm room.

The package tradition had started way back in September. Every few weeks, Blaine would ship off some object and a letter. It was never anything big. Some days it was just an oversized envelope. Today though, Kurt was clasping an actual box in his hands.

The box got shimmied under his arm as Kurt fumbled for his keys. Why was it always so much harder to get this damn door open when there was a reason to actually care about getting inside?

Finally Kurt stowed his bag of textbooks on the back of his chair, the box sliding down onto his desk. He didn’t crack open the box yet though, as tempting as that might seem. Sending the letters and packages was Blaine’s tradition. Prolonging the experience, Kurt’s.

Kurt moved over to his dresser, opening the top drawer. And there beside a neatly folded pile of boxer briefs was the wooden box Kurt had been looking for. The memory box and this new care package were hoisted up onto Kurt’s lofted bed before the young man followed, practically shaking with anticipation.

The new box was set aside in favor of the wooden one because that was the tradition. Since the arrival of the second passage, Kurt would reread every old letter before he let himself devour the new one. Now, with just over a week until finals started, that would be time consuming, but today, Kurt didn't care. He now had an appointment with rereading Blaine’s words and pulling out all the items that went with them. The ones small enough to fit in the box at least, nestled among months of letters, kept in chronological order.

Kurt smoothed the very first letter out in front of him, glad his roommate had a late class. As nice as Thomas was, this would be rather awkward to do with the guy in the room. Blaine would probably make some joke about it being like emotional masturbation, just to get a blush on Kurt’s cheeks. If only he were here. With a soft sigh, Kurt lifted the items that went with the first letter, a copy of a high school schedule and a photograph. Then he was finally ready to start reading the messy scrawl of cursive.

Kurt,

Well, I’ve survived week one of my senior year. Without you. I know this is probably really, really silly, but I like the idea of putting down my thoughts and stories from the year on paper. I know you’ve heard every single one of these on Skype, but there’s just something romantic about sending a long form letter in these days of texts and emails. See, I can even write all formal in this. Right?

Walking into McKinley the first day of school was so weird. It didn’t feel right to be there without walking over to see you dousing your hair in large volumes of hairspray at your locker. It’s not just you the school feels empty and weird without. Turning a corner expecting to see you before I remember is what makes my heart ache with missing you, though. But Rachel, Finn, Mercedes, Puck, Santana, and Brittney all gave this place flash and color. It’s worse than the first few days seeing Dalton without Wes. Other than you, I miss Mike the most. I mean, he was always a quiet presence, not one of the flashy ones. We got on together though, you know? From West Side Story on, we just clicked. New York’s a big city, but I hope you get the chance to check in on him. For me? See how NYU’s treating him.

Enough whining though. I bet you’d like an explanation of the items in this envelope. Well, I’ve decided to make sure you don’t miss Lima /too/ much. Because I know how much you loved living in Ohio. Right. Well, really, I’ve decided to give you a peek at my year. You know, the last one I plan to have without you in it. Ever. So expect more pages of writing and random objects. You know I love random objects.

Exhibit A, you come to my time table for year. This way you can commiserate better when I complain about the work load of being crazy enough to take every AP class offered at this place. Will you have me committed if I tell you that so far I like AP Calc? Well, it’s only been the first week.

And much more exciting than that, you have a picture, Exhibit B. But not just any picture, mind you. Oh no. This lovely photograph is a picture of the signup sheet for New Directions. With names you won’t recognize! I think the freshmen have yet to hear how uncool we are. Regardless, we have had four auditions so far. And all of them can sing! So far we’ve yet to find a female voice as good as Rachel. Or Santana. Or Mercedes. But we’ve also yet to find a dancer as bad as Finn. The choir room feels different, but at least we’ve still got a place to sing. So far this year we’ve got Artie, Sam, Joe, Rory, and I back so no problem with the male side vocally. But there’s just Tina and Sugar returning from the girls. Tina’s got a really pretty voice, but Sugar. Um, she’s not horrible anymore? With four newbies, we’re up to eleven. We’d only have to con one band member into it to compete!

I suppose I’ve rambled enough. More than enough by the way my hand is cramping up. Expect more from me soon. Right now I’ve got plans to go off and study for AP Chem with Tina. We’ll keep each other sane through this whole too many AP classes/missing boyfriends in New York stuff if it’s the last thing we do!

Love,

Blaine

P.S. Look at the third name on the list, Elliot. He’s looks like he’s about 12. He’s got a great tenor voice, because I don’t think it’s changed yet. All I want to do is wrap him in bubble wrap and protect him from all the idiots at this school, like I wish someone had been able to do for us way back when.

Kurt finished the familiar text, picking up the schedule to grin at the markings all over it. Blaine had made notes about which teachers he had and what familiar faces were in his classes. The picture got another glance as well. Finally, finally the Glee club had actually not had to bribe or coerce new members into auditioning. Well, not most of the new members for the year.

The artifacts and letter were refolded neatly and tucked back inside the box as Kurt glanced through, choosing another letter carefully.