Kurt smiled at his parents and his brother. Carol had tears streaming down her face, Burt was fighting against the water in his eyes, his face and eyes red, and Finn just stood there, hands in his pockets, shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other. Carol hugged Kurt for the millionth time and told him to take care of himself. Kurt sighed.
"I will. Oh come on, guys, it's just a year."
Carol sobbed and Burt pulled his son into a tight hug. Finally Kurt got away. He waved at his little family before going into security. And finally he was on his way to one of the biggest adventures of his life...so far.

At Ciampino Airport, Rome:

Blaine took his bags out of the cab and dragged them inside the airport. He was about to check in, when his phone rang. It was a text from his mother, wishing him a good trip and telling him that she would miss him. Blaine smiled a little, then went to the check-in and started his adventure.

Three Months Later...

Blaine was sitting in the backseat of his hostparent's car, chatting excitedly with one of his Hostdads, while the other one drove. Next to him sat the 5 year-old Joshua, the kid Blaine was taking care of, and he wasn't interested in their conversation at all, because he was too focused on his Nintendo.
"And you think they're gonna let you go to that concert?", asked Adam, the one Blaine had been talking to for the past 15 minutes.
"I'm not planning on asking them.", Blaine answered with a grin, "But what are they gonna do? I will just miss one session during the whole weekend, so yeah, whatever."
Adam frowned.
"I just want you to be careful, Blaine, alright? I don't want you to get into trouble for this."
Blaine shook his head.
"I won't, Adam, I promise." He smiled.
The last three months had been amazing. Adam and Ben had been the best Hostparents you could imagine and for the first time in his life, Blaine had been accepted just for who he is. He had never felt more loved. This was his personal heaven.

"Bloody HELL!", Kurt cursed, dragging his bags of the train, just in time before the doors closed. It was raining on Long Island, well, actually raining was probably the understatement of the year. It was POURING buckets of water and Kurt had no free hand to hold his umbrella. So he ran, as good as that was possible with his heavy bags in his hands, to the parking lot, where the university bus should be waiting. But luck wasn't on Kurt's side today, he hadn't checked his watch before coming down here. Only when he found the parking lot empty, he looked at it and realized he was an hour to late for the last bus. Cursing he walked back, knowing that there was a public bus going to the school as well. He checked the schedule and sighed heavily, putting his bags down and starting to search for his umbrella. But of course he had forgotten it on the train.

Ducked under his umbrella Blaine walked over the empty campus to the dorms. After finding the right building, he swiped the card the boys, who had checked him in (and out, he might add), through the card scanner next to the door. From there it was easy to find his room. There was a small common room with two couches and sliding doors seperating 3 even smaller rooms from the main one. Every room had one bunk bed in them, a closet and a desk. Another door lead from the common to the bathroom, which he would have to share with the five other boys.
Blaine sighed. This was definitely not anything like his big room in the even bigger apartment on the Upper East Side, which he would luckily go back to after this weekend. He couldn't imagine living here for four years of school.
It was a dorm room of a relatively cheap university on Long Island and it would do for the weekend. He put down his bags, refreshed himself and then went back to the main building to get dinner.

Finally!, Kurt thought, when he reached the main building, drenched and exhausted, longing for a hot shower. Inside, behind a small wood table, sat two boys, grinning at the sight of dripping Kurt. He clenched his jaw and walked over to them.
"Hey, is it raining?", one of them asked, biting back a laugh.
When Kurt didn't say anything, he just grinned and asked for his name.
"Kurt Hummel."
The other boy looked through the papers infront of him and said: "Ah, here you are. 2B."
The first boy reached for the box next to him, which had only one envelope left in it, took it out and handed it to Kurt, who was fuming with anger and embarassment. He grabbed the envelope and turned on his heel, to go back out into the rain and find his dorm.
"Hey, if you go to the dorms now, you're gonna miss dinner!", one of the boys shouted after him, laughing, but Kurt simply ignored him. He wasn't hungry! He was cold and wet and needed a shower.

Blaine sat at one of the dinner tables with some other people, mostly girls, and they were talking about their experiences, while trying to eat the not-so-great-definitely-cafeteria-food sandwiches. Blaine smiled, it was just so typical for Au Pairs to talk about their kids, even when they had a weekend away from them.
"So how old is your boy, Blaine?", asked Lisa, one of the MANY germans, but Blaine liked here, because, unlike the others, she rather talked to non-germans.
"Five.", he answered, after swallowing a piece of his really dry turkey sandwich.
"Isn't it hard, with a kid that age in New York?", she asked, leaning her head a little to the side, smiling and fluttering her eyelashes, obviously flirting.
Blaine smiled, at the question and the flirting.
"Nah, it's actually quite cool. We do a lot of touristy stuff, like the statue of liberty, Bronx Zoo and we spend a lot of time in Central Park. But he also has school till 3pm, so it's relaly not that bad."
"So your Hostparents are, like, rich?"
Blaine laughed.
"I wouldn't call my Hostdads rich, but they have pretty good jobs, yeah."
Lisa frowned for a moment, then realization hit her: "Oh, so you're living with a gay couple?"
Blaine nodded, not sure what to expect.
"Cool.", she said and beamed.
Blaine grinned, relieved. Then he looked at his watch.
"We should go, class starts in 5 minutes."

Kurt stepped out of the shower, a towel wrapped around his waist, and walked over to the sink to check his watch.
"Oh shoot!", he yelled, realizing he had only ten minutes left till class started. Holding his towel, he ran back into his room, almost falling over the other guy's bags, and changing as fast as possible. He put his rainboots on, grabbed the waterproof jacket he had packed just in case, and his notebook.
Then he was out the door, the rain and wind blowing in his face and making it difficult for him to stay dry and hurry, so he gave up, left his hood down and ran.

Blaine sat down next to Lisa at the end of one of the two big wooden tables, that stood in their classroom. Lisa chatted with some of the other girls, so Blaine sank really low in his chair until his head could rest against the back rest. He closed his eyes, waiting. It had been a long day with Joshua, he had been difficult and now Blaine was just plain exhausted. He was just about to fall asleep, when he heard someone stumble into the room, panting, and the girls giggled. Slowly he opened his eyes.