Pretty-Handsome Kindergarten [1/5]
Title: Pretty-Handsome Kindergarten
Pairing: Harvey Specter/Mike Ross
Other characters: Jessica Pearson, Rachel Zane, Donna, Louis Litt, Kyle, Gregory, Scotty, Harold
Rating: G
Word count: 2,787
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters.
Warning: none
Summary: Mike is the new kid in the kindergarten that everybody wants to play with.
Author’s note: Originally written for suits_meme. The prompt was ‘The new kid Mike is as cute as a button and everyone just wants to hold him because he's irresistibly adorable.’
“Good morning, children.”
“Good morning, Miss Pearson!!”
Jessica smiled at the adorable faces of the Pearson-Hardman kindergarten. There was no better way to start a beautiful day than to look into those little eyes lit with hope and joy. Even though she knew that the kids could turn into demons in less than a minute, she always savored her lovely mornings.
Pearson-Hardman was the official name of the kindergarten, but all the children called it Pretty-Handsome kindergarten. Jessica taught one class and Mr. Hardman taught the other one. Only the exceptionally bright minds could learn in this prestige facility, and Jessica was happy to announce to her class that they had a newcomer with an eidetic memory.
“Children, as you can see, we have a very special friend today. This is Mike Ross and his bunny, Jenny. What do we say when we have a new friend?”
“Hi, Mike. Welcome home!”
“Hi.” Mike waved his little hand and blushed.
Kyle whistled in appreciation but pretended that it wasn’t him when Jessica looked at him.
“Mike is only four years old so all of you will have to help him, okay?”
“Jenny is tree.” Mike held up three fingers with the hand that wasn’t holding the stuffed bunny.
“Aww!!”
Jessica smiled and let out a sigh of relief as she noticed how most of the children had already warmed up to the new boy.
“Everybody has a sketchbook and a box of crayons?”
“Yes, Miss Pearson!”
“Good. What do we do when we have a new friend?”
Rachel raised her hand and answered, “We give him a gift!”
“We draw him!” Gregory answered, raising his left foot.
A few kids giggled at Gregory’s gesture and Mike realized that he wasn’t uncomfortable anymore.
“Mike, could you sit on that chair with Jenny so your new friends can draw you?” Jessica pointed at the small chair with a cushion and saw Mike nod.
“Okay, everyone. As usual, the one who draws Mike the best will have a chance to sit with him all week.”
There were murmurs and hustles as everybody picked a color to start with.
“While they draw you, Mike, do you think you could learn the names and faces of your new friends?” Jessica was already impressed that Mike hadn’t burst into tears like the other four year old kids they rarely accepted, but she wanted to give him something to do.
Mike noticed that everybody was wearing a name tag so he nodded and answered, “Yes, Miss Pearson.”
Jessica’s smile couldn’t get any wider as she realized that Mike had already learned her name.
“Psst, Harvey.” Louis nudged Harvey with his elbow.
“What?” Harvey asked as he colored Mike’s hair with a yellow crayon.
“Look at him! He’s cuter than you!”
“Pfft, don’t be ridiculous. Nobody’s cuter than me.”
“But he is! Oh, I’ll have to draw well and make him sit next to me. Sorry, Harvey.”
“You don’t draw well, Louis. And, if you don’t like sitting with me, I can find somebody else in two seconds.”
“Don’t be jealous, Harvey. You’ll still be the second cutest boy in school.”
Harvey didn’t bother to react and looked up at the new kid. The kid had big blue eyes so he picked up the clearest blue that he had in his crayon box.
“Is everyone almost done?”
Jessica walked around the classroom, helping the kids with finishing touches on their masterpieces and checking if everybody was almost finished. Once she gathered all the drawings, she walked up to Mike who had been caressing Jenny’s ears and sat next to him.
“You get to choose the one you like the most.”
“I choose?” Mike looked up with joy in his eyes.
“Yes, Mike. I’m sure Jenny can help you out.”
Mike moved the bunny’s head up and down to make her nod.
“Take your time. And, you can take them home if you want to.”
Then Jessica turned to the rest of the kids. “Okay, children, clean up your desk and go wash your hands. Remember, smart people have clean hands!”
With Jessica’s help, Mike took a good look at the drawings. Kyle’s drawing was good, but there were too many hearts for his liking. He was a shy boy and it was a little bit too much for him. Harvey’s drawing was good too, but he felt that it didn’t have enough warmth. Donna’s drawing caught his eyes too, but she paid more attention to the little girl (which was herself, obviously) than to him. In the end, Mike chose Rachel’s drawing.
Once the kids settled back in their seats, Jessica announced the winner and sent Mike to Rachel’s desk.
“Hi, I’m Rachel. I’m five.” The little girl smiled.
“Wow, you’re pretty.” Mike blurted out.
“Thank you.” Rachel blushed.
“Ahem...”
Mike caught the sound and looked behind him. There was a red-haired girl whose name was Donna. “Wow, you’re pretty too.”
“I know. When you’re six, you just know those things.” Donna explained with pride.
Mike was struck with awe. It must be awesome to be six years old.
Days went by as Mike slowly adapted to the new environment. He learned new things every day and played with many different friends. Everybody seemed to be nice to him; it was nice to be the youngest kid.
Kyle and Gregory dueled with their toy swords twice a day to see who was brave enough to be Mike’s shiny knight. Mike made flower necklaces and looked for four-leaf clovers with Rachel. Donna taught him bad words (the most recent one being ‘You suck!’) and sneaky tricks (the most recent one being ‘putting an ice cube in the back of Louis’ T-shirt’). Mike had lunch at what Harvey called the grown-ups’ table with Harvey, Louis, Donna and Rachel. Harold made him clay castles that had a flag with his name on it, and Mike thought that it was really cool.
“Donna, how am I doing today?” Kyle asked and Donna took out her scoreboard from her desk drawer.
Since the second day of Mike’s arrival, she had made a board which kept the scores of who was getting Mike’s attention the most. Kyle was one of the most active competitors.
“Let’s see. Hmm, you got one more sticker for playing on the jungle gym with him.”
“Yes!” Kyle gave a small fist pump.
“But!” Donna paused for a dramatic effect. “You lost that sticker for killing Gregory with your sword.”
“What? Why? I won!” Kyle was confused.
“Yeah, but did you look at Mike’s face? He didn’t like it! I think you were too cruel and now he’s afraid of you.”
Kyle covered his face with his hands and let out a miserable groan. He had to do something else to earn that sticker back.
So the next day, he brought his Lego pirate ship to school and when everybody had gathered around to gape at its awesomeness, he gave the treasure box to Mike. There were gold coins inside, and Kyle had read stories in which the brave knight offered gold to his lady and got a kiss on the cheek. However, Mike didn’t give him a kiss on any part of his face so Kyle knew that his pirates had to steal more gold.
“You want him too?” Donna caught Harvey looking at the new kid.
“Pfft, I want myself. I don’t want anybody else.”
“Well, you only have one sticker on the board, Harvey. Oh, sorry, it’s one and a half. One for pulling back Louis’ T-shirt so he could put that ice cube in, and half for letting Mike sit at our lunch table.”
“He’s a kid, not a prize.”
“You haven’t read those stories where the bravest prince wins the princess? It’s the same thing! You’re six, Harvey. You should know all that.”
Harvey let out a sigh and got up from his seat. He headed towards the drinking fountain; he needed a drink.
Never in his very short life did Mike have this much fun in one week. He felt like he had made some great friends that he would like to keep for many, many years. Life was good at Pretty-Handsome; Kyle gave him a gold coin every day and Louis kindly pushed him on the swings whenever he asked. Rachel taught him how to comb his hair like a movie star and Donna taught him how to look fierce and awesome- it was all in the eyes.
In other words, Mike was having fun with this part of the class except for Harvey. He sat between Harvey and Louis at the round lunch table, but that was the only time that he saw Harvey, and even then, they didn’t talk much. Harvey seemed to have his own friends during playtime and didn’t seem to chat much with the younger kids.
Mike was sitting on the see-saw across Gregory when he spotted Harvey playing baseball with his friends.
“He’s pretty.” Mike blurted out as he saw Harvey throw a curve ball.
“What did you say?” Gregory asked from the other end.
“Noting!” Mike answered quickly. He didn’t think it was polite to say that somebody was pretty when he couldn’t say the same thing about the person in front of him.
Then he started to think about what he knew about the mystery boy. He used his fingers to count.
‘One: His name is Harvey Specter, and he’s six. Two: He sits next to Louis during class. Tree: He likes to play baseball and basketball. Four: He likes eggs, cucumbers, and mashed potatoes. Oh! And chocolate. Five: He naps alone and pushes Louis off the mattress whenever he climbs on it. Six: He likes…’
He needed more fingers so he let go of the handle as he completely forgot that he was on a see-saw.
“Mike!!”
Gregory saw Mike lose the handle but he had already sat down, sending Mike up in the air. Mike tried to grab the handle again but lost his balance and fell to the ground.
Thump.
“Mike!!!” Gregory yelled. “Are you okay??” He rushed to his side.
Mike put on a brave face but when he saw a little bit of blood coming out of his left knee, he couldn’t help it. “Waaa!!”
Gregory felt as if he was going to faint. He didn’t even want to know how many stickers Donna would take off his scoreboard once she finds out about this.
“It wasn’t my fault! Boo hoo hoo!!” Gregory ran away, crying, and Mike was left alone.
“Let me see it.” Harvey came out of nowhere and knelt down on one knee.
Mike looked up, eyes still full of tears. He slowly pulled his hands away from his knee, eyes threatening to drop fresh tears as he saw blood again.
Harvey took a good look at the scraped knee. “It doesn’t look too bad.”
Mike wanted to tell him that it did look very bad, but he was worried that he would disappoint Harvey if he opened his mouth and all that came out was more crying.
“Do you think you can get up?”
Mike nodded and Harvey helped him up.
“I’ll walk you to the nurse’s room. It’s at the end of the hall on the first floor. The nurse will clean the wound and make the pain go away.”
Mike admired how calmly Harvey explained like an awesome six year old.
“It hurts…” He didn’t want to sound like a baby but his knee really hurt.
Harvey let out a small sigh. This is why he didn’t like four year old babies; they whined about the tiniest things in life.
“What do you want me to do?”
Mike’s eyes immediately filled up with new tears at the slight annoyance in Harvey’s voice.
“Okay, okay!” Harvey couldn’t deal with crying babies. He thought on his feet and knelt down on one knee again.
“I’ll give you a piggyback. Hang on to my neck.”
Mike could hear ‘boo!’s and whistles coming from the small crowd that had gathered to see what was going on. He felt a little hot and wanted to go hide in a small hole.
“Mike, I’m counting to three. One, two, two and a half…”
Mike threw himself on Harvey’s back and hid his face in the older boy’s neck. He had never felt so shy in his four years of life.
“Woo-hoo! Way to go, Harvey!” Donna cheered as she waved the scoreboard in the air.
“Shut up.” Harvey tried not to notice how Donna put three stickers on his section of the board and kept walking.
“What is tat?” Mike asked, curious about the big board. He had never seen it before.
“It’s a stupid board.” Harvey didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want the kid to burst into tears once he realized that he was a pretty prize to win at the end of the semester.
“It looks like she’s keeping scores. Who’s winning?”
Harvey was a little impressed at the fact that Mike managed to grasp that much information.
“Are you on the board too?”
The kid apparently didn’t know when to shut up. Harvey thought that it must be Donna’s influence.
“Yes, I am.” Harvey entered the building and let out a sigh of relief as he saw the nurse’s room at the end of the hall.
“Are you winning?”
Harvey thought for a moment. The last time Donna told everybody about the updated scores (while Mike had taken a potty break), Kyle was winning and Louis was a close second.
“I may not be winning now, but I will win in the end.” Harvey answered as he thought about how Jessica had complimented his well-structured sentences. It’s not like he cared about the kid or anything; he simply didn’t like to lose.
Mike nodded even though he still had no idea what the competition was about. He wanted to ask Harvey, but he had already told him that it was a stupid board, and he didn’t want to be the annoying kid who kept asking about something stupid.
As they reached the nurse’s room, Mike curled his hand around Harvey’s ear and whispered, “I hope you win.”
As the nurse took care of Mike’s knee and gave him a lollipop for having been such a brave boy, Harvey sat on the couch, looking at the baby boy.
‘I hope you win.’
Harvey wondered how somebody could sound so sincere when he didn’t even know what it was about.
‘Stupid kids.’
Harvey shook his head, trying to get the kid’s voice out of his head. Mike had whispered those words too close to his ear which was too close to his brain. That was the reason why it was difficult to get them out of his head.
“Tis is for you.”
Harvey looked up at the kid who was walking fine now. The boy was holding out another lollipop.
“I don’t eat lollipops. I don’t like going to the dentist.”
Mike wondered what he should do. The nurse had given him another one to hand it over to Harvey.
“You want to give it to a friend?” Mike thought about Harvey’s many, many friends. They must all be super awesome if Harvey spent that much time with them.
“To Scotty?” Mike suggested. He had seen Harvey and Scotty play badminton together the other day.
Harvey threw a sharp glance towards Mike. “Scotty? How do you even know her? You like her or what?”
“She has her name on her blouse.” Mike explained how he knew her name.
“And, if she’s your friend, I like her.” He gave Harvey a silly grin.
Harvey opened the door of the nurse’s room and led the four year old out to the hall. “You can keep the lollipop if you want.”
“Really?? Tank you!!”
Mike’s smile was so wide and bright that it reminded Harvey of his puppy that had died in a car accident. He had adored that smiley puppy to bits and pieces.
Thump-thump.
‘Stupid heart. I knew I walked too much with the kid on my back. I need rest.’ Harvey pouted as he and Mike walked back to the classroom together.