A/N: This is my first RENT fic. I wrote it for challenge #120 over at the livejournal community speedrent. The prompt was that the characters of RENT are in kindergarten. Any feedback would be much appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own RENT.
Make-Believe
After being in school for only three days, Angel had already decided that the best part of Kindergarten was playing house in the corner of the room set up for the make-believe games. The group that Angel was in consisted of 7 children, as did all of the groups. His group had Tommy Collins, Maureen, Joanne, Roger, Mimi, Mark, and himself, and by the end of the first day, they all had their assigned roles for when they played house.
Collins played the daddy because he was the biggest of them all, and Angel got to play the mommy, but only because he had beaten all the girls to the dress. Roger and Mimi decided that they would be the brother and sister and annoy each other in any way possible, while Joanne had decided to be a visiting cousin and Maureen was the baby who cried constantly. This left Mark to be…
Well, now that he thought about it, Angel didn't exactly know what Mark's role was. Was he the dog? Was he another sibling? Angel looked across the room at the small, pale boy with the big glasses that always slid down his nose. Mark looked so small and lost all the time. Angel felt bad for him. Why was Mark always so sad?
Later in the day, when Angel brought this up to Mimi, she said that she hadn't noticed but that Roger was really annoying and wouldn't stop pulling on her hair. When he mentioned it to Maureen during recess, she said that Mark was just shy and not to worry about him and that Joanne kept ignoring her and she couldn't understand why. Right before it was time to play house, Angel asked Tommy what he thought about Mark.
Tommy had said that he had known Mark for a long time and that Mark was afraid of people. He said that Mark didn't talk very much, but when he did he was actually really smart. Tommy couldn't understand why Mark didn't want to talk to anyone either, so together, Angel and Tommy came up with a plan to get Mark to talk to them more.
When the teacher rang the bell and told them that they could finally play house, Collins and Angel approached Mark. Mark looked up at them silently, his eyes wide at being cornered by the two other boys.
"Hi, Mark," said Angel, gently. "We were wondering if you would like to have a bigger part in make-believe today."
Mark just looked at him with a confused look on his face, as if he didn't understand what Angel was saying. But he did. He just didn't know what to say back or what to do.
"You could be the daddy, if you want," offered Tommy, but Mark just shook his head, tears forming in his eyes.
"Do you want to be the mommy then?" asked Angel. "I let you wear the dress." Mark smiled a little bit, but shook his head again. "Alright then. Me and Tommy will leave you alone, then."
As they started to walk away, Mark started to panic. He didn't want them to leave! "W-w-wait!" he said softly. They swung around so quickly that Angel stumbled and had to grab onto Tommy to balance himself. Their eyes were wide, shocked that he had actually spoke, as they waited to see what he had to say.
"Maybe t-t-tomorrow." He said.
They smiled at him and he smiled back before they made their way over to the make-believe corner with the rest of the group.