A/N: Yes. yes. I know. I haven't updated BTL. Idk, the muse just isn't there. I'm a terrible person.

Anyway. This is like prologue, and chapters with actual - you know - events, to follow.

I finished reading Paper Towns recently, and I had mixed feelings. I skipped over whole chapters because - yuck. Base humour and dirty language is just - ew. But the moral of the whole thing was fantastic! So I decided to write about it. This is dedicated to my surprisingly large amount of friends (I seriously have five now. Insane.)

There are three types of friendship.

The first is the kind that is born through years and years of association, that is unplanned and unbidden. It creeps up on the unaware victims, and one day they'll realize that the person they've worked with, or lived next door to, or gone to school with is someone they would be very sad to live without. There is no act of befriending, nor any conscious effort on the part of either. This is the kind of friendship between siblings, and of school friends. Because you wouldn't see this person in a crowd and think, 'By George, what a fantastic person'. You love them dearly and see the special light of their soul, but the projection of that light is not anything of very much interest to you. What you see in them is an ordinary, beautifully unbalanced person, with very simple emotions, and you associate with them as a part of need, because they are just a part of your existence. Mutual dependence.

The second kind is, perhaps, a bit more exciting. It's the kind that grabs you in an instant, sometimes after a moment of epiphany, yet often in the first meeting. You are dazzled by this person. It seems that such a person is too amazing to actually exist, that they should be the protagonist in an adventure novel rather than an existent human being. You are fascinated, and you think how fortunate it is that, out of all the billions of people in the world, you have the chance to know them. They are a thing you think about in the night, as you ponder how such an extraordinary person could suffice to speak to you. You are somewhat cowed in their presence, eager to be accepted. You smile every time they speak to you. You are enchanted by everything they do, by the way their eyes glow when the sun slides in behind them, and their expression when they make a joke, the way the walk, and every endearing little speech pattern. It is by no means a sexual attraction, but a different kind of chemical attraction, one that is inexorable. Their soul calls to you and you cannot help but dive deeper, the projection of their light nothing short of a fix for you. You hold tightly to them, thinking that no doubt the bright flame will fade, as it often does with this kind of friendship. You see them not quite as a person, but as an idea. Infatuation.

The third kind is the strongest and most wonderful of all. It is the combination of both.

This friendship can be achieved by starting with either of the first two types. It is when you are in love with their true soul, in love with their ordinary weakness. You love the way that they cover up their flaws with defensive snarls or with awkward laughter or clever jokes. It is when you can peel back the layers of that perfect, incredible person, and see beneath to find a small, naked child, akin to the fears in your own chest. It is the day that you realize that this person, who you have known so long, is the most wonderfully complex person you've ever met, and that though you may know them for the rest of your life, you'll never quite get them down to a formula. It means you feel their normalcy and idiosyncrasies all at once. You feel foolish, for how silly it is to think that someone is more than a person, and conversely, how stupid it is to think that there is a single person on this planet that isn't a great big bucket of fascinating puzzles and contradictions and paradoxes. This friendship is when you realize the idea, though important, is not really the person. It is a reflection in a glass darkly. It is when you both begin to reach through each other's mirrors into each other, and this is why this friendship is the best of all.

It is the only time, it is the only way, the stop being alone. Because it is only when someone not only is fascinated enough to look below, but also aware that you are nothing more than a weak, insecure person hoping to be wholly loved. Inseparable.

And the day you realize you've reached type three is something you'll remember for the rest of your life.