The first night was bad for Kurt. But it was the second night that was the worst. The first night he was under the impression his mommy was just running some errands and had decided to make him stay with the old cat-faced lady, who ran the place, until she returned.

Then daytime came and went and the old lady – her name was Ms. Rose – informed Kurt that, no, his mother would not be coming back. This was an orphanage. His mother did not want him.

That second night was one of the worst nights of Kurt's life. He lay, curled up in his little bed in a room full of other children around his age, and sobbed. His tiny fist was stuffed into his mouth to try and keep him from making a whole bunch of noise and waking the others up; or worse – in his opinion – summoning Ms. Rose from her monitoring in the halls.

She had told him his mother was not coming back. His mother did not want him. How could his mother not want him anymore? He was her son. Weren't parents supposed to want their children and love them?

Yet for how terrible the night was, it was also one of the best. Because it was the first time he met Blaine.
*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Blaine had been watching from one of the upstairs windows the night Kurt came to the orphanage. By the time the new boy had been put to bed in the big room, Blaine had been asleep.

The next day he had sat by himself – as usual – at the old wooden piano in the playroom, watching the new boy sit at one of the art tables, looking rather confused. Maybe he just doesn't know what's going on. Blaine thought.

After all, he had been here long enough to see tons of children getting dropped off and picked up. Half the time, it took them a few days to come to terms with the fact that either their parents were dead or they had just been dropped off because their parents no longer wanted them or could take care of them.

Blaine had been two when his parents died. He did not know the details, only that no one else in his family had wanted to take him in so he was placed here. Four long years later he was still here.

He would be six the very next day.

Not having anything better to do, Blaine studied the new boy who was now just tracing little lines and circles on a piece of paper. The boy looked to be around his own age. Small in size, light chestnut brown hair, and with pale skin – from what he could see at this distance there were seemingly no freckles or other marks to be seen to mar the porcelain complexion. It was about ten minutes later that Blaine realized he had been staring at the boy nonstop. Embarrassed, and glad he had not been caught staring, he turned his back to the boy and plucked a few keys at the piano.

"Blaine?" Blaine turned his head to see four year old Marietta staring up at him.

"Yeah?"

"Will you play us a song?" She asked shyly. A few of the other young kids, who were sitting nearby, looked up and nodded in agreement.

Blaine was not the best piano player out there, but he was not bad either. The orphanage did not deprive its children of an education, and once a week a music teacher came to give lessons. Blaine had fallen in love with the piano the first time he had heard the teacher play and had begged her for all the study material she could lend him. He was a fast learner and would spend all the free time they had practicing on the old piano. The other children would come over to sit and listen, on occasion even requesting a certain song for him to play.

Blaine loved having an audience so he never said no.

"Alright." He smiled, turning back to the piano. A lot of the kids went over to sit on the floor around the piano to listen. Blaine generally kept to himself. He knew he would be there for a while – after four years he had seen plenty of parents looking for a kid to adopt but for some reason no one ever wanted him – and if he got too close to the others then it would hurt to see them leave; especially when he had to stay behind. He had made that mistake once and never would he do it again. So he kept to himself. He was nice to the others because he did not want them to hate him, but he never really got involved with their games or conversations.

Soft notes filled the air as Blaine began to play. He was slightly nervous because this was a harder piece and he had only just begun to learn it. He bit his lip in concentration as he played, losing himself in the music, the room and those in it dissolving into nothing around him.

Still off in his own little world at the art table, the new boy was torn from his silent thinking by the sounds of the piano. The music was beautiful, the notes played with sensitivity and precision he had only heard from one other person before – his mother.

The second night, Blaine lay awake for a while. The new boy's bed was right next to his and Blaine could see his outline under the blankets – shaking with what was most likely silent sobs.

Knowing they were not supposed to get out of bed at night, but not really caring, Blaine really quietly slipped out of his bed and went to kneel next to the new boy's bed. All of the beds were down low, due to the fact that the orphanage did not want to take any chances with the kids possibly falling out of bed at night and getting hurt.

Reaching out, he gently placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Hey..." he whispered quietly, hoping the boy would hear him.
*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Kurt almost jumped in surprise when he felt a hand on his shoulder. What if it was Ms. Rose and she was going to yell at him for crying?

Then he heard a boy's voice whispering to him and he managed to turn his head and look. It was the boy who had been playing piano earlier that day. In the dark it was hard to make out the boy's face, but Kurt could see the boy had quite a bit of dark curly hair.

Trying to hide his scared look, Kurt sniffed and blinked back anymore tears. He did not want this boy to think he was weak.

"Are you okay?" The other boy asked.

"I'm fine." Kurt replied, wishing he had not sounded so snappy.

"Oh..." the boy replied softly, "sorry. I just wanted to make sure because I thought you were crying."

"I wasn't crying." Kurt replied stiffly, cursing his six year old self for so easily being able to break into tears. Hopefully when he was older he could keep himself from crying all the time. After all, his father had never once cried in all the years Kurt had known him, so he was pretty darn sure it was possible.

"It's okay to cry you know." The curly haired boy informed him.

Kurt lay there silently for a bit, kind of hoping the boy would go back to his own bed because he was pretty sure he was going to start crying again any second.

Apparently that wasn't going to happen.

"I'm Blaine." The boy next to him whispered.

Kurt liked that name. It was pretty.

His mother had always told him that the polite thing to do when someone introduced themselves was to do the same. His mother had taught him a lot about manners, and Kurt always made sure to use them. "I'm Kurt."

There was another silent pause.

"Hey, Blaine?" Kurt asked softly.

"Yeah, Kurt?"

"Will you play the piano again tomorrow?"

Blaine sounded a bit surprised at the question, but nodded nonetheless. "Sure."

Kurt smiled in the darkness, the first smile he had made since getting to the orphanage. "Thanks."

There were footsteps outside the big room and both boys looked towards the doorway.

"I should get back to bed." Blaine whispered.

"Night, Blaine..." Kurt whispered back.

"Night, Kurt." Blaine replied, getting back into his own bed.

Kurt managed not to cry the rest of the night, focusing on how much he was looking forward to hearing Blaine play the piano the next day. It was a lot better than focusing on wondering why he mother suddenly had not wanted him anymore.