Hey guys!

This is my brand new story about Katniss. It is a little different than usual stories, but I just liked this idea. This story will be about friendship, love and broken heart, but I have a feeling it will be a happy end. :) I hope you will like it as much as my other stories. See you for now!

Disclaimer: Hunger Gakes belong to Susan Collins and so does my main characters.

Chapter 1: Best Friends

When I was five years old, a new family moved into our neighborhood during summer. Most of the families in here were poorer ones, but luckily none of the families were starving. They have always something to eat, but only because both parents were usually working really long hours. This family was different though. They have bought the house on the end of the street and on the corner of the crossroad, they have built a little building, which became a bakery, because it was their family business. So unlike the other families in this neighborhood, they had enough money for their lives.

One day, I was looking into the bakery windows and I was looking at all the beautiful cakes and cupcakes and muffins inside. My stomach grumbled at the sight. The only thing we usually had at home was bread. We didn't have enough money to buy sweets or luxuries. The only day I got something good was usually my birthday, when my parents bring me a cupcake to eat. There are other special days like Christmas, Easter or New Year's day, but those are really rare. And as I stared longingly at the beautiful cupcakes, I didn't notice a boy who came to me. He had blond wavy hair, cheerful blue eyes and huge shining smile. He was same age as me. And I had no idea that he will change my life entirely.

"Would you like one of those cupcakes?" he says and I jump at his voice, because I haven't seen him.

"I would, but they are too expensive for my parents to buy." I say and look down, because I don't want to look into his eyes.

"Wait here." he says and runs inside with a smile. Inside, he climbs onto the counter and talks with the baker, flashing a puppy eyes at him. By the way they act I realize he must be his Daddy. The baker goes to the back of the shop with a smile and comes back with a plain cupcake which is not frosted yet and with a frosting bag in his hands. He hands the bag to the boy and he helps him put the frosting on the cupcake. Than the boy grabs a handful of purple sprinkles which are shaped like butterflies and he throws them at the frosting. The boy gives the baker a huge smile, jumps down from the counter and runs to the door. That's when I realize that the baker is looking at me. It scares me and I don't want him to think I want his goods for free so I start to run away just when the little boy comes out of the door.

"Wait!" he calls and I stop on the other side of the road, sitting down on the edge. He runs to me and gives me a smile.

"It's for you." he says and holds the cupcake in front of me with a very shy smile. It's not as perfect as the cupcakes made by the baker, but it's nice. And the boy frosted it all by himself just for me which makes me feel special.

"I can't take it for free." I shake my head.

"Okay, then we'll do a trade." he smiles at me.

"I don't have money." I say sadly and I really feel sad, because the cupcake smells so good.

"We won't trade for money." he says. "I will give you this cupcake if you tell me your name and if you promise you will be my friend." he smiles.

"Really?" I ask surprised.

"Yeah." he says and blushes a little. "You know we just moved in here and I don't have any friends in here." he says sadly.

"Okay." I find myself smiling widely at the sight of the cupcake. "I accept the trade but under one condition."

"What is it?" he asks.
"We will share the cupcake." I say.

"Okay." he smiles. "You bite first though." he says and extends his hand towards my mouth. I don't hesitate this time and I bite into it. It is soft and sweet and the sugar frosting tastes like heaven.

"Mmm." I hum and smile "It's yummy." the boy smiles at me as he bites into the cupcake too. Then he gives me the rest.

"I'm glad you like it. I frosted it and I helped Daddy when he was baking them!" he says proudly.

"Really? You can bake them too?"

"Well I can't do it on my own yet, but I help Daddy a lot and I will do them all by myself soon." he says and again he has a proud smile on his face. I smile back at him.

"Will you bring me one to taste when you bake them on your own?" I ask with a smile.

"I will, I promise." he says and smiles again.

"I'm Peeta." he says and extends his hand towards me.

"I'm Katniss." I smile and shake his hand with a smile.

"Do you live in here?" he asks.

"Yes, I live in that brown house. Three houses down from yours." I say and point at our house.

"That's great!" he says excitedly "We can go to school together and we can play together if you want."

"Okay." I smile. "There are not many other kids in this neighborhood we could play with." I say. It's true. There is just few kids around my age in here and they prefer to watch TV and play computer or video games. "But the good thing is that I can have the entire playground for myself." I grin.

"Well not anymore." he grins back at me.

"Do you have any brothers or sisters?" I ask him.

"Two brothers, but they are way older than me. Rye is 9 and Dean is 13. What about you?" he asks as I eat the rest of the cupcake.

"I have a little sister. She is just one year old now." I say. Then I notice my mum is on the garden and she's looking around probably looking for me.

"I have to go Peeta." I say. "But I promise we can play together. Come whenever you want." I say and smile at him. He smiles back.

"And..." I consider how I should thank him for the cupcake he gave me. "Thanks for the cupcake." I smile and give him a soft peck on the cheek. His cheeks blush and I run home so my mum would not be worried. When I turn around by our house, he's still sitting on the edge of the road and looking at me. I smile and wave at him and he does the same. And that day was the start of our friendship.

Next time I saw him was on Monday, when I went to school for the first time. My Dad walked me to school because my mum had a shift in the hospital. She's a nurse. So when my Dad walked me to school, he also gave me a gift. He gave me a soft brown teddy bear with a green shirt. He said that I can keep him at school so I would not feel alone before I make some new friends. I suspect he already saw that I'm not very friend-making person. But as we were lining up in front of the school, I suddenly noticed the baker from our street. And the hand he held belonged to no one else than my new friend Peeta. He caught my eye and I grinned at him and waved. He grinned and waved back and even the baker smiled slightly as he saw me.

I sat down in the classroom nervously and waited for someone to sit beside me. I was always nervous about making new friends. Honestly I don't know how Peeta even managed to be friends with me so quickly. And in another moment someone sat next to me and when I looked up I saw that it's Peeta. We smiled at each other widely and then he spoke up.

"Can I sit here?" he asks.

"Yes." I smile.

The first day was not too bad. We started writing the letter A and counting to five in maths and then we had a class where we drew. The teacher told us to draw something we really liked during the last week. The first thing which came to my mind was Peeta's cupcake. And so I tried to draw it. I really tried, but it looked terrible. So I crumpled the paper and threw in on the floor frustrated that I couldn't draw it even the third time.

"Why did you do that it didn't look bad." Peeta says sadly.

"It did!" I say angrily "It was terrible." he just sighs, shakes his head and comes back to his drawing. He's drowning a bouquet of flowers and it looks really nice.

"My Dad gave them to my mum on her birthday." he says while drawing. "They were really beautiful."

"I wish I could draw like you." I say sadly as I watch him.

"I can teach you." he smiles as the bell rings announcing the end of the class. He looks and me with his drawing in his hand.

"You can keep it." he smiles at me.

"Really?" I ask.

"Yes." he says and gives it to me. I smile at him and put it into my bag between my books so it would not get crumpled. When we have a break I feel hungry so I take out my snack. It's an apple. I bite into it and it's a little sour, but I don't mind. Peeta takes out a delicious looking sandwich which is quite big for him and two muffins. I try not to look at his snack too longingly, but he must feel me watching.

"Is that apple your snack?" he asks.

"Yeah." I say "I don't eat too much."

"Oh okay." he says and looks at his snack. "So I guess you would not like helping me with mine." he says casually. I look at him to see if he's serious. And obviously he is. He's trying to hold a serious face but in a moment a grin breaks on his lips.

"Come on, help me, I can't eat all of it. Let's say, that you want to rescue me from being fat." he smiles and puts his huge sandwich towards my mouth. I can smell the cheese and ham in it and my mouth waters hungrily. The sandwich hovers in front of my lips for a few more seconds and then I am overpowered by hunger and I bite into it.

"There you go." Peeta smiles widely and he bites into the sandwich from the other side. We finish his sandwich during the break and then he gives me one of the muffins.

"Peeta you can't give me food like that." I say feeling bad that I gave him nothing for it.

"Why not?" he asks "You don't have enough and I have plenty." he smiles. "Get used to it, because I plan to do it every day." he threatens with a smile and after a few moments I give him a smile too.

Our last class is music, which I'm excited about and Peeta is not. When the class starts, the teacher asks who knows the Valley Song. I shoot my hand up, because that is my most favorite song ever. My Dad taught me a lot of songs, but this one is the best.

"Katniss." the teacher smiles. "Would you sing it for us?" she asks. I just nod with a big smile. But before I go into the front I lean towards Peeta.

"Since you gave me your drawing and you shared your lunch with me, I will sing this song for you okay?" I say and give him a smile. He seems really surprised. I walk to the front and stand on the stool the teacher put there for me. Everyone is looking at me, but I won't be scared by that. My Dad told me not to be afraid to be in front of people and when I'm nervous, he told me to take a deep breath. So I do take a deep breath and I start singing my favorite song.

Down in the valley,the valley so low
Hang your head over, hear the wind blow
Hear the wind blow, dear, hear the wind blow;
Hang your head over, hear the wind blow.

Roses love sunshine, violets love dew,
Angels in Heaven know I love you,
Know I love you, dear, know I love you,
Angels in Heaven know I love you.

If you don't love me, love whom you please,
Throw your arms 'round me, give my heart ease,
Give my heart ease, dear, give my heart ease,
Throw your arms 'round me, give my heart ease.

When I stop singing everything I hear is a dead silence. At first I'm scared that I sang off tune or wrong, but then I see a big proud smile on our teacher's face and I know that I did well. When I look at Peeta I notice that he has a strange expression on his face. He's looking up at me with a slightly open mouth and eyes wide, like I'm something unusual. When our eyes meet, I give him a huge smile and after a moment he smiles back. He has such a beautiful blue eyes… The teacher thanks me and I can sit down again. When I do Peeta looks at me, his blue eyes shining with a happy smile.

"Thanks for that song, you sing really beautifully." he says.

"Thanks." I say and blush a little.

When the class is over, we walk out of the school together. Parents of the first years are waiting there nervously and to our surprise my Dad and his Dad are standing next to each other and they are both smiling widely.

"Hey little flower." My Dad greets me and he scoops me up "How was your first day at school?" he asks.

"Great!" I exclaim happily. "I can write an A, I can count to five and Peeta drew me flowers."

"And Katniss sang Valley Song for me." Peeta smiles also happily.

"And we shared our snacks." I smile at my Dad.

"You what?" he asks. And only then I realized, that maybe I shouldn't told him.

"Well he kept persuading me to bite from his sandwich, until I did so." I say and look down. "And he gave me a muffin." I beep quietly. My Dad looks at me with a little smile.

"Katniss it's not wrong if Peeta really gave it to you." he says and looks down at Peeta.

"Yes I did." he says immediately "She helped me with it so I would not be fat." he says and both our dads laugh.

"Well if Peeta doesn't mind and if his parents don't mind." Dad says and looks at Peeta's Dad questioningly.

"I don't mind at all, it's up on Peeta what he does with his snack." his dad smiles. Later, we spent the afternoon together in the park in our neighborhood, on a playground in there.

And that was our first day together. And since then we were almost inseparable. We walked to school together, we sat together, we did projects together, in the afternoons we went out together and we played on the playground or by the lake. And every day he shared his lunch with me just as he said the very first day. Sometimes he would "trade" it for a song but mostly he just shared his lunches with me every day without me giving him anything in exchange. Even though I protested and rejected it, he always made me ate at least a little bit from his lunch. And eventually I stopped even trying to protest because I knew that it's pointless.

And so we grew up together and shared happy childhood memories. There was so many of them. Me swinging on the swing in the playground as high as I could and him worrying about me. He didn't like swings, he was afraid to swing, but I loved it. I loved it because it felt like flying. I always jumped down when I was swinging, pretending that I can fly and he always yelled at me that I could hurt myself.

On the other hand he liked sandbox most, because he could draw shapes into it or make castles. I used the slide which landed in the sand and then I would help him with his castles. He was always making them so perfect and I always unnerved him, when I disturbed his perfections, while I was trying to help him. We loved (and still love) to play chasing. I'm smaller so I'm quicker, but he's much stronger so when he catches me I have no chance of winning. Usually we end up laughing on the ground because we start tickling each other.

When we were older we started to go to the lake near our neighborhood. I taught him how to fish and he made fun of me that I'm more boy than he is sometimes. We often swam in the lake since it was for free and we didn't have to pay like on a swimming pool. We would hold hands, run all along the wooden pier together and jump down into the water holding each other's hand tightly so we would not get lost in the water.

When we didn't want to swim, we just sat leaning against trees, me reading books and he drawing something. We didn't mind silence, it was calming, and we didn't need to talk. We have this special secret spot, where there are two oak trees facing each other exactly and they were really close to each other. There are also dense bushes around, so other people can't see us. The only sight we have from here is at the lake. We use to sit there me leaning against one tree, he leaning against the other one. Me deep lost in books (which I love by the way), him lost in his drawings.

In the beginning as we sat there with our legs stretched in front of us, there was a lot of space between our feet. But as the years went by and we grew taller, eventually our feet ended up touching, because the trees were close to each other and we were exactly the perfect high that our feet met between the trees. We really like to take down our shoes so we could feel each other's feet. He used to tease me, when I was reading, he would poke my foot with his or he would tickle me. I teased him back by throwing acorns or fighting with him.

He would draw pictures for me often and I would sing songs for him softly (because I didn't like singing in front of other people any more (Except my family.). I took him for camping with my Dad in the mountains. We would teach him how to survive in the wild and I was even able to teach him how to use bow and arrows. It took some time, but he managed to learn it eventually. I can still remember the proud smile he had on his face, when he shot his first squirrel.

So through our childhood, we were spending practically all our free time together. We knew each other probably better than we knew ourselves. Not that we wouldn't have other friends. He is a friendly kind of person so he has plenty. I, on the other hand, am happy with my few friends and I don't like to make more.

But then, when we were nine, something changed our happy unworried childhood. One day when we met on the corner of the street to go to school together, Peeta was really sad and later he told me, that his grandma and aunt died during a car accident yesterday. It was his Mum's mum and sister. Peeta's mum was never very kind person. I never liked her as much as his dad. She was usually very cold and I think she always hated kids, but I never understood how she could not like her own kid. Well it's true. She didn't exactly hate her sons, but Peeta was her least favorite. But she didn't do anything bad to him. Until now.

Since that day, she started to be even worse. Next day Peeta had a bruise on his cheek and when I asked him what happened, he said that he burnt breads in the oven and his mother punched him with a wooden spatula. I could understand it if it happened once, when she was upset because of her loss. But since then it never stopped. She was beating him all the time. As his best friend, I always knew about it. During our free afternoons, I always found out about his bruises or cuts or burns. And he let me. But only after I promised him, that I will not tell anyone. It made me furious, but what other option did I have?

I knew he needed someone whom he can tell about everything and so I became that person. Sometimes our time by the lake becomes something like a psychologist session when he talks out his sadness caused by his mother. Telling me how he would love to make her proud and happy. But she will never like whatever he does. Her favorite is Dean. Rye and Peeta are just not lucky. They could do everything and she will never be pleased.

I have seen him cry many times, but it doesn't make him weak in my eyes. In my eyes it makes him stronger. I know it very well, that tears make you stronger. I myself often cry with him, when he talks about his mother. Because I can't understand how she can treat her son like this. A son who is amazing and loving and kind like no one I have ever met. I would never tell anyone about his crying or about his mother because I promised I would not.

He can always rely on me. When he needs to cry, I let him. I hug him and hold him in my arms. Sometimes I sing him a lullaby to calm him down. Because since his own mother doesn't love him, I want to show him, that there are other people who love him. Every time his mother tells him that he's worthless, he's nothing or a mistake, I always tell him otherwise. I always tell him, that for me, he is priceless and best friend forever. I always tell him, that without him, I may starve to death, because there would be no one who would share his lunch we me. This always makes him laugh.

I try to always be there for him when he needs me. Whenever he needs me, any time of day or night. It often happened, that he called me or texted me late in the evening or at night, saying just 'I need you'. That is something like his SOS calling. We always meet by the lake or on the playground, by the swings, we swing next to each other and he tells me what happened (by the way yes, he overcame his fear of swings, however he still doesn't like to swing too high and he still hates when I jump off the swings).

Sometimes, when his mother beats him badly, he would come and knock on my window softly and I would treat his wounds. I had to do it secretly so my parents would not know. But I always did my best and since I am a daughter of a nurse, I know a lot about healing wounds. There's a very well stocked first aid kid hidden under one of the floor boards in my bedroom. I'm surprised my parents don't know about anything yet. With the amount of time I spent outside of the house on some of his bad nights, when I climbed out of my window and we went to the swings or lake. I guess it's because my bedroom is the only one in the ground floor. My parents' and Prim's bedroom are in the first floor.

Well right now, we are sixteen and my little sister Prim is twelve already. I can't believe how quickly our childhood ran away. We are at high school and our close friendship is still the same. We still go to school together, we still sit next to each other, he still draws pictures for me, I still sing for him and we often play tic-tac-toe or write messages in boring classes. We still spend our free time mostly together (even though there is less amount of free time because he works in the bakery now) and we still visit our lake or swings in the playground. Aaaaannd... He still shares his lunches with me. Even though our finance situation is better now and I do have proper lunches from my home, he still gives me a cupcake or muffin every day.

And that's where our story begins. On our third year of high school, when I finally start to date. Believe it or not, I have never dated before. I have never been very interested in chasing boys, I'm just not that kind of girl. I always believed that the right one should like me just as I am and I won't need to chase him. But during this year, I will find out, what a true love is. Because there comes a new boy into our class this year. He's from California and his name is Gale Hawthorn. He's tall, his muscled body is tanned, his dark black hair falls into his face perfectly and his deep dark brown eyes are really stunning. I don't say that I have a crush on him or something. I'm not like that, because I know he couldn't actually like me, because I'm not very pretty. I'm just saying that he's a nice looking guy. But if he would ask me on a date, I'm not sure that I would resist saying yes.

If you reached the end, thanks for reading! I know the story has not begun much, but this was an introdution chapter so please be patient with me. Feel free to favorite and follow and please leave me a review so I would know if you liked it or not. I really appreciate your opinions even when they are negative. Thanks again and see you in the next chapter!