Blaine looked towards the door with an anxious expression on his face, fiddling with his bowtie.

It was the very first day of grade one, and all of the students in Mrs. Mercer's class were waiting to see what second grader would be chosen to be their buddy reader this year. Blaine was nervous. He'd witnessed the way the second graders act when they're in the hallways or at the playground. Most of them are a lot bigger than him, and from what he'd seen, they liked to play rough. Quite frankly, they terrified him.

And so while the rest of the class chattered excitedly about whom they wanted to read with, Blaine sat there petrified.

He was brought out of his trance by Mrs. Mercer, who directed all of the kids to look towards the front of the room.

"Okay class!" she began cheerfully, "As you all know, you will be getting your buddy readers today. They will be your partners for the rest of the year, and will hopefully teach you how fun reading can be..." Whatever she said next Blaine didn't quite catch, because there at the door stood the entire second grade.

He just stared at them, wondering what brawny kid he would surely be paired up with. In the back of his mind, he vaguely registered that Mrs. Mercer had started pairing up the children.

Soon enough, the pile of second graders was reduced down to a handful. Blaine stared at the tall boys. I'm going to be stuck with one of these all year...

"Blaine Anderson?" He looked up, and saw his teacher staring down at him expectantly.

"Uhh...Yes?"

"Come to the front of the class please."

Blaine slowly got up from his seat, and made his way to front of the room. He stood there awkwardly until Mrs. Mercer finally found his name on her list and said "Blaine-your buddy reader will be Kurt Hummel."

Kurt Hummel. He racked his brain trying to find a face to match the name, but his thoughts were interrupted when a boy who must have been Kurt walked up to him, face angled towards the ground.

Blaine's first thoughts upon looking at the boy were that he was actually average-sized, and didn't appear too scary at all. But then he lifted his face to look at Blaine and-

 Oh.

Blaine couldn't help but stare at the boy. He must have been the prettiest person Blaine had ever seen.

As they made their way over to the bookshelf, Blaine was still staring.

"Blaine? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You look like an angel." The answer had left Blaine's mouth before he could even think it over, and it left a bright red blush on Kurt's face.

"Oh...Um, thanks, I guess..." Kurt trailed off, before finding a good way to change the topic. "So what book do you want to read?"

Blaine looked the bookshelf over, and picked out a book that had a colourful cover with a cat on it.

The two made their way over to the nearest table, and began reading.

Blaine was very proud of his reading skills. He was probably one of the best readers in the class. But that didn't mean he didn't get stuck on words sometimes...

"Russell had a lot of c-cuh-" They were almost finished the book when Blaine came across something he just couldn't pronounce. Embarrassed, he pointed out the word to Kurt.

"Oh! You say it like this: courage." The older boy said with a smile.

"Courage." Blaine said it a few times, testing out the feel of this new word on his tongue. He liked it.

Blaine spent the rest of the class reading and giggling with his new friend, and listening to him point out all of the fashion mistakes in Mrs. Mercer's outfit.

All too soon, the bell rang signalling that it was time for recess. Kurt packed up his things and walked out the door, waving Blaine goodbye as he left.

Maybe buddy reading won't be so bad after all.