Mike wouldn't classify himself as lonely, though he appeared to have very few close friends. The guys on the football team liked him well enough, but he wasn't really in either of the two cliques it consisted of. And aside from Tina and occasionally Artie, he never really spent time outside of Glee with any of the members of the club.

Then Blaine came along.

He had met Blaine a few times before his transfer-at Rachel's party, at prom, at another party Brittany threw over the summer. He had seemed cool, but he was Kurt's boyfriend and for the most part, that's how all the Glee kids saw him. He was still 'Blaine Warbler', and even though it was rumored he had an actual last name, he was distant enough from their group that it didn't really make a difference.

So when Blaine first joined McKinley, and therefore its Glee club, Mike assumed he would fit into the world of Finn, Rachel, Kurt and occasionally Puck or Quinn. And at first he did. But one day, Kurt and Rachel were out of town-apparently in New York for college interviews-and Blaine came to sit by Mike.

"Hi!" the shorter boy announced, plopping down next to him. Mike was surprised-their interactions so far had been limited-but smiled nonetheless.

"Hey!" Mike answered back.

"So, how come you never ask for solos?" Blaine asked, clearly not one for small talk. Mike chuckled.

"Clearly no one's told you I can't sing yet," he answered honestly. Blaine looked confused.

"But...it's a glee club."

"And I'm good for the dancing-that's why I love it. I'm good when it comes to singing back up, but if I even asked for a solo I think Rachel would snap my neck in two before I finished talking," Mike replied, Blaine laughing and nodding in agreement.

And that was all it really seemed to take. Blaine would sit with Mike on one side, Kurt on the other, and the two were friends. They'd snicker when Mr. Schuester tried to rap before jumping up and dancing with the rest of the club, fist bump in the hallways, play Halo all night while avoiding piles of homework. They'd roll their eyes at the other when Tina and Kurt came up to them, declaring they wanted a double date-not at Breadstix-but eventually spent a Spanish class planning a romantic and cheesy date that included bowling.

Mike didn't even seem to think about it. A lot of times hanging with Puck and Finn required effort-though whether it was laughing at their truly awful jokes or refraining from hitting them, because sometimes they were just awful people-whereas Blaine was easy, comfortable.

Karofsky and Azimio started giving him shit, saying he must be queer now from spending all that time in the glee club, but Mike ignored them. He didn't care if Blaine was straight, gay, purple or a dinosaur. He was an actual guy friend that he didn't feel too embarrassed to actually talk about things with.

Blaine's parents still didn't understand why he was so adamant about switching from a prestigious private school to a public school whose greatest success was their cheerleading squad.

But they had to have seen the difference it was making. Blaine was happier than he could have ever remembered being. Not only was he facing bullies and dealing with what he had run from in the first place, he had a boyfriend that he loved and loved him back, and possibly even better-a friend. A best friend.

Sure, at Dalton he was a well liked guy. He was witty and smart and charismatic and talented. That brought on admirers and acquaintances. But Blaine couldn't tell them about the time he got so nervous before a performance that he ran and threw up in what he thought was a bathroom but turned out to be a room full of children in day camp. Mike, however, thought the story was downright hilarious and laughed for almost 20 minutes as Blaine described his look of horror as 30 innocent eyes stared at him in shock. When he tried to explain what happened to Thad and Wes, they simply looked disgusted and asked if they were putting too much pressure on him to be the soloist.

It was nice, having a sense of camaraderie with someone. When Finn blew up at Blaine, complaining that he was sick of hearing him sing with his girlfriend, Mike stuck up for him while Rachel blushed from her spot in the front row. Finn apologized afterwards, saying that Mike had a point when he yelled about how Finn's gotten more solo's than anyone in the past two years, but could Blaine please make him stop uttering 'douche' whenever he walked by? Having Mike Chang mad at him was frankly unsettling. Blaine grinned but told Mike it was no longer necessary to worry Finn, and all was well again.

Kurt joked once (or, half joked-Blaine knew him well enough to see the true worry under the surface and was able to find a way to prove his innocence) that Blaine spent so much time with Mike or talking about him that they might as well be dating.

The honest truth was, Blaine loved Mike. In an almost brotherly way. Mike accepted Blaine no matter what he said or did, and the same was true vice versa. Blaine knew that one day, when people asked him about his first best friend, his answer would be about Mike Chang and the "Chanderson" friendship Finn had dubbed for them.