I’ll omit most of the details about my friend for the sake of their privacy, but also because it doesn’t really matter. Their name, appearance, gender, age, and other such features are extraneous to the type of person they are. The first time we met was through pure chance; I visited a high school because I was forced to “check out” some schools to see if I would like them. While being dragged there by a family member, they met a friend of theirs and started talking. I knew this meant I had an hour to burn before we could move on, so I had to find some way to spend this time. Lacking my usual option to play games, I instead turned to the only other person who looked to be around my age and threw out a probing question to see how they were.

There were a lot of questions I asked that day in total, but most of them were pretty unnecessary in hindsight. What’re you doing here? School tour. By choice? No. Did you have plans today? A shrug. Games? I shortened my line of questioning for the sake of brevity in this journal entry, but that was the eventual foot in the door I needed to have a proper conversation. This person was willing to answer questions, but they were short and proper. They hadn’t told me off till that point, so I figured I might as well start throwing things at the wall until they stuck. Now that we had a piece of common ground, there were only a few questions left until we would continue talking outside a school we were both forced into. You have Steam? Yeah. What’s your Steam name?

I’m sure some people can see it as an awkward beginning, but at the time I didn’t really have anything to lose. At worst, I’m forced to stop conversation and I pass out until my escort stops their conversation.

That was… 5, 6 years ago?

Current day, they’re my number 2.
We play games together, we talk about whatever we want, and we know more about each other than you could possibly want to know.

Were you expecting a longer story?

Well, there isn’t one. There isn’t a trilogy to be made here because our dynamic is built on something simple: an indestructible bedrock of trust. There isn’t some drama about us betraying one another because we wouldn’t. You won’t find a dark story about us keeping secrets from one another because there are none.

And honestly? I’m fine with that. Not all stories need to be exciting.

I asked a couple questions and picked up a new friend. That’s cool.