DISCLAIMER: I neither own Glee nor the characters. They are the property of Ryan Murphy and Fox. This is purely for fun. Enjoy! :)

A/N: I wrote this because I was bored this afternoon on tumblr, and my good friend Marcela sent me prompt to fill for a drabble. It's my take on puppy!love!finchel.

School Days

A Finchel drabble by The Minsk

"Hey, Finny." Five-year-old Finn Hudson looked up from his pudding cup into the toothy smile of his best friend Puck, and waved as the smaller boy sat next to him on the playground bench. He had known Puck for as long as he could remember, which wasn't a very long time, but he was grateful to know someone in class already when it was only the first day.

"Hey Puck, what's up?" Puck just scoffed and shook his head as Finn kept on eating his pudding, ignoring the bologna sandwich his mom had packed him. He hated bologna. Yuck.

"School is stupid. I can't believe our moms are making us go." He kicked a rock around until a smile brightened up his face. "You wanna play tag?" He asked and Finn looked around. Most of the other kids were off trying to get to know each other and Finn and Puck were the only two kids who knew one another already.

"There's only two of us." He said with a shrug.

"Yeah, well, maybe we need to make some more friends." He stared to hit his right fist into his left palm. "I'll just whack them around until they want to play tag too! Are you gonna make any new friends?" Finn shrugged while he licked his spoon clean of pudding.

"Yeah, I guess so. It's good to know people who like you and stuff." In fact, he really wanted to be liked by the other kids. He didn't know why, but it was important to him for some reason. "You know what, Noah. . ."

"Hey, what did I tell you, dude? Don't call me Noah at school!" Puck interrupted, looking around to see if anyone had heard Finn. The coast was clear, and Finn continued.

"I'm gonna go find me a new friend. You go find people to play tag with too."

"Okay!" Puck agreed and they went their separate ways to go make some new friends.

Easier said than done.

Everyone seemed to split up already, even though recess was barely half over! They all stood in little groups, whispering to one another and pointing and laughing at other kids. He got very nervous. Besides the fact that he was already twice the size of the other kids, he felt left out, and a bit lonely. Maybe he and Puck should have stuck together after all.

He made his way to the playground, where there was only one girl swinging all alone on the play-set. This was his chance to make a new friend! It didn't even matter that it was a girl, as long as she didn't have cooties.

"Hi." He walked up to the swings and the girl turned her head around quickly, and had to crane her next to look up at the taller boy. She was wearing a pink and purple dress with a huge white kitty across the front, with matching tights. Even the ribbons that wrapped around her pigtails were the softest pink. She looked up at him with big, brown eyes and he suddenly got nervous. She was really pretty, and it was hard enough to talk to girls without pulling their hair, or pushing them, or doing something to make them cry.

"Um, hello." She said softly, and she was looking around to make sure they were alone.

"My name is Finn. Finn Hudson. I'm in Ms. Nelson's class."

"I'm Rachel Berry. I'm in Ms. Robbin's class." Ah, so that's why he didn't see her before! "And one day, I am going to be a famous movie star and you will remember how you once went to school with me."

Finn had never heard so many words come out of a girl so small, but he thought it was neat. She sure seemed smart. "That's cool. I'm gonna be a famous football player so we have something in common." She stared up at him with a huge smile on her face and invited him to sit. "Do you want to swing with me?"

"Well, I would, but I came to ask you to play tag with me. My buddy Puck is trying to find a bunch of kids to play with us."

She looked across the field, where Puck had gotten the other kids together in a huge group, and frowned. "I don't know if I should. Those kids don't really like me."

"Naw, c'mon, I like you!" Her face turned bright red as she stared at him, shocked. "It'll be great!" He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her off the swing, excited that she wanted to play. He walked her over to the other kids and she looked like she was almost skipping.

"Hey, Puck, I brought Rachel over so she can play too!" He walked up to his best friend but he wasn't smiling.

"She can't play." He said as he crossed his hands over his chest. He did that when he was trying to play the tough guy.

"Why not?" He asked with the innocence of a five year old.

"Cause she's a weirdo, and if you play with her then you're a weirdo too!" He looked down at Rachel, and she looked like she was about to cry. He definitely didn't think she was a weirdo, but Puck did, and Puck was his best friend in the world. He wanted to play with Rachel, but he also really wanted this huge group of kids to like him too. What was he going to do?

He let go of the little girl's hand, and joined the group of kids who were about to play tag. "I'm sorry, Rachel." She nodded as she started to walk away and Finn felt awful. Worse than the time he ate all those watermelon seeds because Puck said he couldn't. Worse than the time he spent the night at the hospital because his fever was too high. Worse than the time he ate his aunt's "noodle surprise" and threw up all over the cat.

He joined the rest of the kids and tried to forget about the girl in pink, but she wouldn't go away. He had to do something to make it up to her. She definitely wasn't a weirdo, but maybe she had cooties! But he would have gotten them too from holding her hand. He didn't even really have fun with the other kids; none of them were as nice as Rachel was and they kept pointing out how tall he was, which made him feel bad. He thought about Rachel a lot, and got an idea once the teachers started to call the kids back into school.

He ran around to the side of the schoolyard until he reached a small patch of grass where the weeds grew wild. He pulled out a bunch of 'flowers' and ran back over to the other side before anyone noticed that he was gone. Before Rachel could go back into the school, he pulled her aside and shoved the flowers in her hand, trying not to look into her pretty eyes or else he would forget what he wanted to say.

"I don't care what those other kids said about you, Rachel. I think you're really cool."

"Really?" She said and he shook his head.

"Yup. Instead of playing tag tomorrow, I'm going to meet you by the swings." He didn't care what Puck said about it, he was going to call him Noah in front of everyone tomorrow at recess, plus give him a super noogie for embarrassing Rachel. "Okay?"

"Okay." Finn heard Rachel's teacher calling for her and knew he had to get back to class too. Before she left though, she reached up all the way onto her tippy toes to give Finn a kiss on the cheek. He rubbed it away while he stared after her, but it actually felt, well, nice.

Maybe girls didn't have cooties after all.

Salut mes amis!

Aw, littlekid!finchel is so cute!

I'll be updating my other fics soon!

Merci Mille Fois