A/N: Another break from the Daniverse. Puck and Rachel are seven again. Because I love to write them as children.

Thanks to Maddie for helping me come up with this crazy Shot, because she asked for…well, I don't want to ruin the surprise, so just read on.

(Also, Firefly references galore. And Dragon Ball Z. Jus' sayin'.)

And I apologize in advance for any...mistranslations.


"Now, class, I just wanted to tell you that we'll be expecting a new student today. It appears he's running a little late at the moment, but when he arrives, what should you do?" Mrs. Morgan asked the class pleasantly, smiling as she waited for some students to raise their hands.

Rachel thrust her hand in the air and waved it enthusiastically, waiting diligently to be called on.

Mrs. Morgan pointed at the young girl. "Yes, Rachel? What should we do?"

"We should be kind and polite and help him out around the classroom if he needs it, so that he feels welcomed here," she answered brightly, beaming at her teacher.

"Good job, Rachel," Mrs. Morgan smiled.

Puck, her deskmate, rolled his eyes. "Teacher's pet," he whispered.

Rachel elbowed him and told him to hush, finger on her lips. He sent her a glare and stuck his tongue out.

There was a knock on the door and all the students whipped their little heads around to see who it was. It was another teacher leading a little Asian boy into the classroom. He looked a little shy and his hands were clenched fists around his backpack straps.

Smiling wider, Mrs. Morgan gestured for Mike to come stand next to her and said, "Class! This is Michael Chang. He prefers to be called Mike, alright?" She smiled at Mike and waited for him to say something.

He stood there, frozen awkwardly, as he slowly took in all the eyes that were currently on him. After a moment, he started looking around the room wildly before zooming to the empty seat in the back. He sat down while taking off his Dragon Ball Z backpack and hid behind it.

Mrs. Morgan blinked in complete surprise before saying, a little bit uncertainly, "Um, my, my, my, Mike. You're…shy, aren't you?"

The backpack with Goku's face plastered on it didn't say anything.

Puck and Rachel turned to look at each other.

"He's…quiet," Rachel said delicately.

"He's totally weird," Puck said, before turning back to face the backpack. His eyes lit up. "Rachel! He likes Dragon Ball Z! That's so awesome," he whispered in awe, eyes widening in excitement.

Wrinkling her nose, she replied snottily, "That animated show is awful. Who likes to partake in fighting so much, anyway? It's stupid and violent."

Puck paused, trying to think of a good comeback. After racking his brain, he shot back, "You're just a girl! You wouldn't understand." He rolled his eyes.

Glaring at him, she calmly said, "Puck, you say that as an insult, but it's quickly losing its effect as a jibe because it's true; I am a girl." And then she rolled her eyes.

"Yeah! A sissy one! That's dumb and stu—"

Rachel stared at Puck flatly. "Please stop talking. I think you're lowering my IQ."

"Your eye-what?"


"Puck, don't you want to talk to Mike?" Rachel suggested later during recess, as she sat in the shade, drawing flowers on the ground with a pink stick of chalk while Puck dribbled a basketball up and down.

He made a face. "Nah. I'm fine." Puck paused, looking over at Mike who sat in the shade a few yards away, sitting and staring at the other kids.

"You're both fans of that horrid cartoon full of unnecessary violence with males that have ridiculously large and obscene muscles, along with strange haircuts," she pointed out.

"Muscles are awesome," Puck snorted. And then he flexed a scrawny arm and smirked at her. "I'm totally gonna look like Goku when I get older." His eyes glazed over as he mentally started to recite all the different and totally awesome ways to prefect his Kamehameha Wave scream.

She wrinkled her nose. "Ew."

Snapping out of it, Puck rolled his eyes. "Anyway, that Mike kid seems weird and super quiet. He's probably just boring."

"His silence is a little strange."

Puck appeared thoughtful for a moment before saying, "Well, he's Asia so,—"

"The correct term is 'Asian', Puck," Rachel interrupted absent-mindedly.

"Right. Asian, anyway, so he probably doesn't speak any Americ—"

"English."

Puck rolled his eyes. "Would ya just let me talk?"

She huffed, standing up and wiping her hands clean of the chalk. "Well, I think we should be friendly and speak to him. Besides, it would be beneficial for him if he was friends with one of the more intelligent kids in our class."

Puck furrowed his eyebrows. "Are you talking about yourself? Isn't that, like, concited or whatever?"

"Conceited, Puck," she corrected once more. "And it may be a tad bit conceited, but it's true," she replied matter-of-factly. "Half of the kids in our class still eat glue."

"Yeah, thanks for stopping me from doing that that one time," Puck commented off-handedly.

She grinned, "One of us has to be the smart one."

He rolled his eyes. "Whatever," he muttered.

"Well," she said lightly, dusting off her dress, which Puck thought was weird and strange, because there wasn't anything there. He thought maybe it was just, like, imaginary dirt or whatever, but that was just even more weird, because who the heck imagines dirt everywhere?

Oh wait, she's still talking, he realized with a start.

"—so you should come with me, Puck, and—"

"What?" he asked loudly, confused.

She glared at him and put her hands on her hips, tapping a foot impatiently. "You weren't listening to me, were you?"

"No, I wasn't," he answered honestly and seriously.

She gave a loud huff and turned away from him, nose in the air. "Good-bye, Noah Puckerman," she said gravely.

He blinked at her abrupt departure. "Hey, Rachel! Where are you going?" he shouted after her.

She turned around, pulled the lower lid of her right eye down and stuck her tongue out at him. "Nya!"

He stood there, catching his basketball, shocked. Rachel never did such 'acts of complete and utter immaturity'. A small swell of pride came over him as he realized that he was finally rubbing off on her and she was totally acting her age for once. That quickly went away as he realized that she was walking over to the new kid and he scowled and lowered his brows.

(He then remembered that she once told him he looked like a caveman whenever he made that face, which he thought was totally cool and he didn't understand why she thought it wasn't and then she had called him 'barbaric' and he had thought she was calling him a 'Barbie' and then she laughed and laughed her really pretty laugh.)

Right, anyway, so Puck decided that Rachel just couldn't be friends with Mike because she was friends with him first.


"Hello, Mike," Rachel greeted pleasantly as she came up to him. "My name is Rachel Berry, and I'm going to be famous one day, so you should remember my name and be glad that you had the lovely chance of knowing me at this point in your life."

Mike blinked owlishly at her for a moment and just as Rachel began to falter slightly, he broke out into a wide grin. "Hey, there! I'm Mike! Oh, wait," he paused, frowning. "You already knew that…"

"You're silly," she giggled, relieved that Puck was wrong (once again) and that Mike did, indeed, speak fluent English. She sat down next to him. "My friend Puck thought you couldn't speak any English because you're Asian," she admitted.

Mike frowned. "Who thought that?"

"My deskmate. He was the one with the Mohawk."

He blinked and furrowed his eyebrows. "What's that?" He frowned in thought before it dawned on him. "Wait! That mean-looking kid that was almost bald except that stripe of hair down the middle?"

Rachel nodded. "Yes, that's him. The stripe of hair is called a 'Mohawk'."

"Oh, cool," Mike said, shrugging casusally.

"Why were you so shy when you first walked into our class this morning?" she asked curiously, tilting her head at him.

"I don't like people lookin' at me. It makes me nervous," he admitted shyly.

Rachel had a far-away look in her eye. "I love it whenever people look at me. I like being the center of attention," she sighed dreamily, as she imagined her name in lights.

He looked at her and said seriously, "Well, you better like people lookin' at you all the time if you wanna be famous one day."

She beamed at him. "I like you."

He beamed back at her. "Me, too."

They sat there, staring at each other with stupidly happy expressions plastered on their faces and that was when Puck had decided enough was enough and called out, from across the playground area, "Rachel! What are you two idiots talkin' about?"

Rachel blinked before standing up and cupping her mouth, shouting back, "Puck! Come over here! Mike can speak English!" And then she waved excitedly while jumping up and down.

As Puck started stomping over, Mike suddenly smirked devilishly to himself. "Hey, Rachel?"

She looked down at him, still sitting on the ground, and answered, "Yes, Mike?"

"I'm really sorry. I'm just gonna say that now."

Frowning in confusion, she said, "What do you mean? What are you apologizing for?"

"You'll see," he replied, grinning wickedly with a mischievous glint in his eye.

Rachel's frown deepened and she decided that she did not like that look. One little bit. "Um, okay…" she said uncertainly, eyebrows furrowing.

"What are you two idiots goin' on about?" Puck demanded as he came to a stop in front of them, glaring at Rachel.

Immediately forgetting Mike's strange behavior, she turned to look at Puck, smiling once again. "Mike's super nice!"

Puck's eyes narrowed at Mike and said challengingly, "Oh yeah?"

"Yes!" Rachel chirped happily, nodding vigorously. "He's very kind and he doesn't laugh at me when I tell him about how I'll be famous one day," she paused to glare at him and placed her tiny, balled-up fists on her hips, "Unlike you."

He rolled his eyes. "So what? You two are like best friends or something now?"

Rachel bent over and pulled Mike up by his arm. "Yes!" she enthused, nodding once more as she continued holding onto his arm.

Puck's jaw dropped. "Wha—? You can't do that!" he sputtered at her, eyes locking on her hands holding Mike's arms. If possible, they narrowed further.

She frowned, upset. "And why not?" she asked.

He paused, not knowing what to say. "Well…well, it's just—because!" he finally managed to spit out.

"You're being irrational," Rachel murmured softly.

Puck frowned in confusion. "I never had a rash!" he shouted defensively. "Why does that even matter?"

Rachel shook her head and brought a hand up to pinch the bridge of her nose delicately. "That's not what I meant, dum-dum."

"I can never understand you half the time, 'cause you barely speak English!" he shot back.

"It's not my fault you don't understand my vocabulary. Maybe you should just read more, you dummy!"

Puck rolled his eyes and turned to Mike, pointing at him. "Hey, you! Do you understand the crazy words that come out of her mouth?"

Mike shook his head solemnly and shrugged, a pained, confused look marring his features.

Rachel blinked at him. "Mike?" she called softly. "What's wrong?"

"Ni hao," Mike said back, adopting a blank look on his face.

(Hello.)

Rachel's eyes widened. "I'm sorry?"

Puck scrunched up his face in confusion. "Huh?"

"Wei, hou zi de pi gu!" Mike shouted cheerfully at Puck.

(Hey, monkey's butt!)

Puck turned to Rachel. He glared at her, shouting, "You liar! He doesn't speak English! It's some totally Asian language!"

It dawned on her that this was what Mike was apologizing in advance for. She frantically shook his arm and hissed in his ear, "Mike! Mike, this isn't funny! Puck's going to get really mad and—"

But the wicked gleam in his eye was unmistakable and Rachel realized that Mike would continue with this little prank for a while longer. She bit her lip nervously and watched Puck as he grew more frustrated with the Asian boy.

"Can't you speak English, likea normal person?" Puck growled venomously.

Pointing gravely at Puck, Mike whined, "Xiong meng de kung ren!"

(Violent lunatic!)

He turned to Rachel, "What's he sayin'?" Puck demanded furiously.

"I don't know, Puck!" she cried truthfully, letting go of Mike's arm. She looked at her new friend worryingly. "Mike, Mike! I think you should stop this little game of yours! It's honestly not fun—!"

He turned to her and put a sympathetic hand on her arm and asked soothingly, "Ni chou lian, you mei you?"

(Do you have a worried face?)

Frowning in deep confusion, Puck asked, "If he only speaks in that dumb language, then how were you two talking earlier?"

She gave an exasperated sigh. "Mike's just being mean. He was speaking English earlier. Honest," she said.

Puck narrowed an eye at her in suspicion as he took in her slightly desperate and pained expression that read Come on, Puck. You know me and I'm not lying! With a relenting sigh, he rolled his eyes and grumbled, "I believe you. I guess. But," he paused as he regarded Mike, "when's he gonna stop speaking like that?"

"Right now!" Mike chirped.

"Oh, thank goodness!" Rachel breathed, putting a hand up to her chest.

Puck rolled his eyes at her dramatic gesture before tilting his head at Mike. "Why'd you do it anyway?" he asked flatly. "Talk like that, I mean."

"'Cause Rachel told me you thought I only spoke Chinese, so I figured I might as well play along," he said, shrugging.

Puck immediately looking guilty. "Oh," he mumbled quietly, "Sorry."

Mike waved him off nonchalantly. "It's okay! I forgive you for your ignogrence!"

"Ignorance, Mike."

Grinning sheepishly, he said, "Right. Yeah. Sorry." Then he stuck out his hand in front of Puck and asked, "So, friends?"

Puck eyed it wearily and was about to decline his offer until he saw Rachel's hopeful expression. Sighing deeply, he reluctantly returned the handshake and muttered, "Fine. But only 'cause you like Dragon Ball Z, which means you've got good taste."

"Sweet!"

Rachel clapped her hands excitedly. "Yay! We're all friends!" she declared happily as she plastered a wide, cheesy smile on her face.

Puck rolled his eyes and made an exaggerated gagging noise. "Stop being such a girl."