As worn as the phrasing seems, they'd really all just clicked. And their friendship wasn't perfect but it was woven tight and pulled taut, and perhaps there was some minor fraying but it was sturdy and seamless. This is the story of their friendship, from the beginning to the end. This is how it happened, and it's all the work of the Hummel residence.

It was an impromptu neighborhood get-together; a sudden block party, on the fourth of July 1999. This is all it took.

If you want to get all Butterfly Effect about it, it was the drought that did it. Enter a dusty kind of scorching to that particular summer and you're sure to find six-year-old Kurt Hummel pouncing around the front lawn through the sprinklers, which, if we're being honest, the city had asked everyone not to do, but it was hot and a holiday and they were going to cookout, goddammit, and if his kid was hot and wanted to cool off, Burt Hummel was 'gonna slather him in sun block and turn on the Crazy Daisy, goddammit. And Elizabeth Hummel, whose animated hand gestures and upward stretch of rose lips over straight teeth could beckon even the haughtiest of noses down to earth. Burt, with his new grill and enthusiasm for America, probably didn't send anyone running for the hills, either.

Even the most reclusive and bitter of neighbors couldn't help but turn their heads from the air conditioning vent to peer out their window at the postcard perfection outside their window; Dad grilling, Mom chatting with a stray dog walker, freckly kid flapping around the yard in mixed-Marvel swim trunks. Even the most Dickinson of neighbors couldn't deny Elizabeth Hummel's invitation to join her family for an impromptu cookout; not when she cocked her head and offered a sparkly grin, a comfortable thumb thrust behind her to gesture at her boys.

And so they came, all of the families on the block, mothers grasping the hands of their squirming children and calling for their husbands to bring some ketchup and extra sparklers. It turned into a rather pleasant discovery, actually. Six of the women had sons, all entering the first grade. (And thus six women could commiserate on having just lost the last of the baby weight). Six of the women patted their six year old sons on the head and patted them forward twinkling, "Go play with the other boys, honey."

After each was given a hot-dog-with-everything, Kurt Hummel stuck his hand out to each of them in proper introduction.

"Want to see my tree house?" he asked hopefully, his sky blue eyes bright and clear. The other boys nodded at each other in shrugging agreement, and were led to the back of the house to a long ladder that stretched up all the way up high to the roof. A newly built tree house was perched, level with brick red shingles. Kurt flung himself up the ladder, and beckoned the others to do the same.

"This is so awesome." Finny Hudson breathed, his loping limbs stretching through the open entryway. Kurt thanked him with a silly grin, grunting as he pulled up the next boy, Blaine Anderson, who flicked his curls from his sweaty forehead with a long, close-lipped smile, moving to sit Indian style next to Kurt.

"Yeah this place is da bomb, Hummel," Artie Abrams sing-songed, flinging a leg over the last rung. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a finger as he absent-mindedly nodded in appreciation.

"It's mega rad you got this," Noah Puckerman agreed, crouched precariously on the edge of the entry, his fingers gripping the inside of the frame. He launched himself inside with a yelp as the final head bobbed into view: a bewildered Davie Karofsky, who swung himself in one leg at a time. Davie mumbled his approval around a bite of hot dog, causing the boys to dissolve into laughter as he offered Kurt double thumbs up.

From that day on, the six boys were inseparable. They couldn't all hang out at the same time, but rarely was one boy found alone. Finny and Noah were often tossing a football or playing with Nerf guns in Finny's lawn, and Kurt joined them occasionally, if he wasn't watching cartoons with Davie or trading Pok�mon cards with Artie. Sometimes Noah and Davie raced bikes down to the park, and Blaine and Artie played on the same recreational soccer team. Artie and Davie both had dads who liked fishing, and spent a few Saturdays down at the lake together. Kurt and Blaine were notorious for spending all day at the park or watching movies, and joined Finny on rainy days for Mario Kart tournaments. But Sunday nights, no matter rain or full moon, were sacred.

Sundays found the boys unrolling their respective sleeping bags on the floor of the Hummel tree house, exchanging comics and baseball cards, showing off new scars and demolishing packs of Kool-Aid Jammers, Barbeque Lays, and fun sized Snickers.

It was the first summer of many, the first Sundays of hundreds, the first arm-punches of a thousand.

It was the summer that started it all.