People would be surprised if they knew how they were friends. Though, she supposes, maybe that's the entire point.

It started with her working at the Asian Camp during the summer of her Freshman year. She knows it sounds strange, considering the fact that she is decidedly not Asian, but really, they'll overlook that if you can cook and speak only when spoken to. It was her Uncle that made her get the job, some quick words to her Father about her needed real life experience in the working world and he placed a call to the Wangs who ran it, (Mr. Wang was his patient and had been for years).

Before long, she found herself in the kitchen, thinking of all the jokes she could be making right now because of the hat she was wearing and wishing that she could add some hot sauce to the rice she was serving because it was ridiculously bland.

It was a closely kept secret; it still is a closely kept secret. They laugh about it now, how they literally ran into each other, her with the hat toppling off her head, and she's pretty sure her wearing the hat makes her racist somehow, and him just staring at her, trying to figure out if she was real, because wasn't it an Asian camp? And since when does Santana Lopez work?

He gapes at her for what feels like longer than it really is before she picks up her hat and hits him with it, gaining his attention, "What do you think you're staring at?" Just because she's learned how to tone down her sass around her superiors (like they exist) doesn't mean she'll do the same for people her own age.

"I—what?" Mike is at a loss for words, which she finds kind of funny given the fact that he never seems to talk at all, "You're—I—You're not Asian!" He looks like he wishes she would hit him again, she almost does.

"Duh," she rolls her eyes, then remembers what her mother said about them getting stuck that way and rolls them again for good measure, "You don't actually have to be Asian to work here."

"Oh," he nods dumbly. That always seems to happen to him when someone, particularly a girl, talks to him as if he's stupid. He's pretty sure it can be traced back to his mother, and he can only imagine what Sigmund Freud would say about it, and what his mother would say if she knew he read "Dream Psychology" in his room after she had gone to sleep for the night. "Right. Well," almost as if he remembers the manners he had been taught many years previous, "Hi! How are you?"

Santana gives Mike a once over, appraising him as one would a horse, he imagines. She sticks out her hand and gives him a very firm handshake, which isn't really that surprising he thinks, "I'm Santana Lopez."

He nods. This day couldn't get any weirder if it tried. He notices that she didn't answer his question and figures that it was some kind of sign, he doesn't worry though, it's not like he needs to make friends with her, "I know. You're a Cheerio, I'm on the football team."

She has the grace to look a little flustered at the fact that doesn't recognize him, but that could be because he's not wearing a jersey, "Right." She coughs, unwilling to apologize, he supposes. "Are you hungry?"

He blinks at her before responding, "Yeah, how did you know?"

She chuckles briefly, and he thinks he likes the sound, before motioning with her hat towards the door they had collided by, "I figured because you were heading to the kitchen."

"Right," he laughs, at least she doesn't seem mad.

"So let's get you that food," she walks through the door, leaving him staring after her before he snaps out of it as she yells back, "If you don't hurry up, I'm going to put so much hot sauce on the rice you won't be able to see straight!"

The summer passes quickly with her there, they eat lunch together on the days when she doesn't have Cheerio practice. He tells her what it's like growing up with his mother while she tells him about Sue and her unending reign of terror. It took a while for her to open up about that, she was convinced that Sue had bugged every inch of town to keep tabs on everyone. He knows that she thinks he can't see her eyes searching the room every now and then, just to check.

He's pretty sure he loves her a little bit, even if she can't return his feelings. But he knows that it's not him. Or maybe it is. But he remembers the first day of school after that summer and he just wants to go up to her and talk to her and tell her how Mrs. Wang found her bottle of hot sauce and started freaking out about proper customs and what if they kids had put it on their rice? He sees her with Brittany, her best friend, and they're walking behind Quinn, a girl he always thought was pretty if not for the look of stone she affixed to her attractive face, their pinkies linked and swinging, probably because of Brittany, and Santana glances at Brittany and smiles, just a little bit, before her own face tightens into a scowl. He frowns because he knows how beautiful Santana is when she just relaxes and just is.

Matt punches him in the shoulder signaling class time and he shakes his head and follows Matt to Spanish.

Somewhere along the line, Santana introduces Brittany to Mike and they bond over dancing. Santana mutters something about her legs being tired and chooses to watch the two of them dance together. She gets a strange look on her face as she watches them and waves a dismissing hand when Brittany asks about it.

She mutters to herself after coming to some sort of conclusion about something that escapes both Mike and Brittany and she looks almost scared when Brittany asks again if she's all right and she responds by saying she needs to call Puck about something.

Brittany wilts and Mike is there to grab her hand and lead her in an energetic swing dance that has them breathing heavy and minds free of thoughts. "I like you, Mike," escapes Brittany's lips and before Mike realizes it, her lips are on his and they're on the ground laughing because, for being really graceful, sometimes she can be really clumsy.

Then the four of them, Matt is there too, are in Glee club and Santana isn't with Puck anymore and she is hanging around all of them a lot more. Sometimes Mike feels like Santana is a pigeon that has been conditioned to do a dance because it thinks that will get it food. He hopes that she realizes soon that she doesn't need to do that dance to get what she wants. He's pretty sure she'd be a lot happier if she knew that.

Maybe he'll become a psychologist like Jung. That would pay enough money to get his mother off his back. Not to mention he believes you can only help someone if you have experience with life first. He's pretty sure that loving two girls who love each other is experience that counts towards something.

It only gets harder after Matt leaves town with a pat on the back and his weathered copy of "Human Being Human: Culture and the Soul" as well as a printed copy of "I Think I Might be a Lesbian, Now What Do I Do?" He punches Matt hard for that one but hugs his friend tightly nonetheless; he's going to miss him.

He reads both a couple times before going online and finding the original PDF of the gag gift and prints it off in Spanish, maybe Santana would be more receptive to it if it was in her native language. He thinks about printing it off in Chinese too as a joke, but decides that his mother would have a field day if she found out what he was doing.

He leaves it in her room one day a month or so later when he's visiting, he slides it under sheet music of Landslide by Fleetwood Mac, he kind of laughs at that. He wants to leave her a note and to tell her it's all right, but he knows she needs to figure it out herself, that's how Santana Lopez works.

Mike starts to wonder when exactly he started helping the girl he loves admit that she loves girls. He just kind of laughs to himself about it and tightens hold of Tina's hand. He doesn't love her yet but he knows that he can, his heart has a lot of room for love.

Something big happens when Brittany comes crying to him after school one day. He barely manages to hear her words through her tears. He understands the big picture when he hears mention of loving two people and if it was wrong. He tightens his arms around the quaking blonde and tells her that it's not wrong to love two people. Sometimes things just happen that way. And it's not her fault. She's quiet for a while, sniffling, before she leans up and kisses him. Softly, and not for very long either before pulling back and whispering a thank you. He smiles at her and lets her snuggle into him until she's ready to leave.

Santana shows up a day later, a trait he's found applies to the girl well, always a day late and a dollar short. She looks like she's barely staying upright when he opens his door, and she collapses against him and he hopes that his mother doesn't notice the mascara stains on his shirts.

He carries her to his room and sets her on his bed before laying next to her, allowing the broken girl to curl up into him. He tells her stories of Freud's stranger cases to get Brittany off her mind and doesn't ask questions even though he knows that she's wondering why he isn't. He sees her to the door later and whispers that he'll always be here for her, she hears and smiles at him. He always did love when she smiled.

It's kind of interesting how Tina trusts him when it comes to the girls. He's pretty sure it's because he's already talked to Tina about them and how he kind of loves them even though he's with her and he's never been with them, not really anyway. And he really is starting to fall for Tina and he loves the feeling that comes with knowing she is falling for him too. It helps of course that Tina mentions to him that she had thought of Brittany and Santana in more than just a friendly manner. Mike had laughed when she said that, he isn't threatened by her admitting to a lesbian fantasy, obviously he is in no position to judge. But he did promise Tina he would put in a good word for her if it ever comes to that.

She had hit him gently after that, calling him a perv for even thinking about it. But then followed that with, "I'm glad you're here for them. I know I'd need someone like you if I were going through that," she smiles at him, and really, people should smile more, he just kisses her words away.

He thought for sure that things were going to get better for the two girls, especially after talking to Brad about the two girls and finding out what Santana sang to Brittany. It takes a while to gain his trust, he has a soft spot for the Latina, and Mike knows the feeling. But Brad also has a soft spot for the type of soup his mother makes, go figure.

He calls Matt later when he's home from Glee and listens to the guy talk more than he thinks he's ever heard him say. It's good to hear his voice and he voices the same. Then he listens to Matt ask if he's still in love with the lesbians. Mike knows he's not saying it in a derogatory way, he just finds it hilarious that Mike would fall for the two girls who want pretty much nothing to do with him, at least that way.

Mike endures a couple more minutes of Matt calling him a lesbian because he was obviously in love with them. He rolls his eyes before interrupting Matt to say that Brittany wasn't a lesbian, only Santana was, and that he was pretty sure guys could be lesbians too, or something. He vaguely remembers reading something about that. Matt just laughs and Mike has to hold the phone from his ear until the laughter dies down. Then Matt asks about Tina and Mike can barely contain his smile.

He tries to leave Santana little clues that it's okay to be who she was born to be. He leaves her an Equality sticker in her locker but she just looks at and asks why someone would put an equals sign on a sticker. She looks apologetically at him at that and he replies that just because he's Asian doesn't mean he likes math. And okay, he does, but that is so not the point.

He brings her Skittles another day because he claims she looked a little down, and besides, "Who doesn't want to taste the fruity rainbow?" That one might have had her looking at him strangely, but he's not worried, he knows he's more of a lesbian than a gay man, Kurt and his questions be damned.

It's after Nationals when she finally accepts what feels like his one hundredth invite to play Rainbow Road on Mario Kart. It's not his most subtle attempt, but really, he's tired of pretending to be dumb when she looks at Brittany like someone punched her in the gut repeatedly. Not to mention he'll be glad when his mother (and Kurt) stops looking at him like he's planning on coming out any day now. You buy one rainbow flag and a rainbow cat sticker and bring the latter to school and suddenly people think you're trying to hide something. And then he kind of feels like an ass because that's what he's been doing to Santana.

They're sitting in relative silence, only the sound from the game and not so occasional out burst of swearing from Santana as she falls off the rainbow again. He laughs and wonders if that's the gay equivalent of falling off the wagon. He kind of hopes he'll fall off soon so he can finally be over both of the girls for good. And how does she know so many swear words? And he reckons that Santana knows more swear words than people do Spanish at McKinley. And some of those words sound suspiciously like Chinese, and he just shakes his head because of course she would know Chinese swear words.

"I'm gay, you know," the words are spoken quietly to the room that only holds the two of them.

He looks up from the TV, frowning when his character falls off of Rainbow Road for the third time, "I know."

She looks at him, surprised at his response, "But I still love you," she pauses the game and silently crawls over to where he's sitting. She maneuvers herself so she is sitting in his lap, arms wrapped around his neck as she gazes into his eyes. She looks at him for a moment before resting her head underneath his chin and breathing in deeply. She melts into him as she feels his arms wrap securely around her.

"I know," he utters into the air, "I love you too."

"I'm sorry," she says after a while, "That I couldn't love you—" she doesn't finish her sentence but he knows what she means. She's sorry she couldn't love him more than her, or in the same way.

"I know," his arms tighten around her as he starts to rock her slightly, game forgotten, blinking on pause, "I know."

It's later, when she wins at Rainbow Road, and he's pretty sure she was just faking it before, that he goes up to his room and finds the flag he had stored in the bottom drawer of his desk, underneath a pencil box and cassette tapes for a long broken player. He drapes it around her shoulders and claims that because she won, the flag is hers and she is required to wear it as a cape whenever she plays with him.

She punches him then before hugging him tightly and kissing him gently on the lips, a sort of thank you and goodbye at the same time. He's pretty sure it's a goodbye to her old life of hiding, and frankly, he couldn't be happier for her.