Chapter Text
It's the first day of school and this is really what Liam's worked for, for years. All of his time was spent in a small university taking more classes than a normal person could probably handle so that an employer wouldn't think less of him for his poor choice in schooling. "You'll do fine," he tells himself as he checks over his appearance in the mirror. He shuts his hazel eyes and breathes in as deeply as he can. "They're just children. Probably only five years old at that," he breathes out as he opens his eyes and straightens out the curve of his collar. With one last effort to make himself look up to his own standards, he runs his fingers over his hair to make sure the tufts are in their perfect places.
"Just little children," Liam repeats because he really can't be that afraid of little beings that barely pass his knees. He tugs at the hem of his shirt before leaning down to pull at the laces of his leather shoes, they weren't the most expensive and certainly weren't Italian but they were the best he could afford and they were shined till the tops reflected every bit of light. "All you have to do today is say your name is Mr. Payne or Mr. Liam... Which is it? Is it appropriate to let them call me Mr. Liam?" he scrubs a hand over his face and inhales because he's really too nervous for a simple job that really only requires him to teach children to count and to read. But, oh God, how was even supposed to do that?
Liam counts aloud to himself for a small moment before cursing at himself for acting so juvenile. He proceeds then to make himself a cup of coffee because he really should start the short drive to the school. With sugar and milk forgotten, he grabs his black backpack and heads out to his car with the mug in hand. The heat of his coffee is burning his fingers through the green glazed ceramic of his mug but he pointedly ignores that fact as he slides into his car. Liam sips desperately at the liquid as he drives toward the small school. Realistically, he can see the building a few streets away from his flat's balcony, but he takes more turns than necessary to turn the drive into a journey. "You're being pathetic," he mumbles to himself after he parks and rests his head against the steering wheel.
Another ten minutes wasted, he thinks as his body still refuses to escape from the confines of the car. Get out of your damn car and go make sure all of your fliers are still set up with coordinating colors on every desk. With a heavy sigh he leans back in his seat and grabs his backpack. Liam leaves his car without his coffee mug and by the time he realizes he doesn't have it, he deems it too late to go back.
Briskly, he walks to his class room. It's still early and if the dark classrooms are any indication, he might be the only teacher there. Just as he reaches his classroom door, the lights of the class room at the end of the hall turn on with flustered blinking. "Music room?" he wonders aloud, but he shrugs it off because he has other things to do.
"Blue, purple, red..." he voices as he surveys the little desks that are set up in small groups of three around his room. "Orange, yellow, green..." there are small stacks on each of the desks organized in terms of what colors equal others when they're combined. Honestly, Liam doubts that the kids will notice the arrangement other than to trade papers with each other but he doesn't care because he knows he put the effort in and well a gold star from himself is worth just as much as a child learning their colors. Okay, that's a lie. The day that one of his kids can tell him what red and blue make together, well, Liam will probably throw a party.
He flits around the room frantically readjusting the alphabet posters on the walls, scribbling his name out on the board in seven different ways before deciding that probably makes him look like a bit of a sociopath, and he even takes a lint roller to the puzzle piece mat that he worked over time just to purchase.
Liam's in the process of making sure all of his supplies are parallel to each other with a ruler when the first small knock comes to his door. When he looks up he finds a small boy with tear filled green eyes under a mop of brown curls clinging to the pant leg of a young mother. "Ah, this is the Kindergarten classroom?" the woman asks. She's got dark brown hair, much like the little boy's, that flows over her shoulders gently and frames her face.
"Oh, yes! Yes, it is. I'm Mr. Liam," he wanders over to her and extends a nervous hand. Mr. Liam, he thinks that, yeah, he's going to stick with that.
The woman gives him a warm smile as she shakes his hand, "Lovely, I'm Anne and this is my son, Harry." Anne gives the little boy an encouraging pat on his curls, "Can you tell Mr. Liam hello, Harry?"
Harry spares Liam a glance before sniffling and burying his face back into his mum's pant leg.
With a slightly faltering smile, Liam squats down to Harry's level, "Hey, mister. I won't bite, you know, and because you're first I'm going to let you in on a very-special-top-secret secret, okay?"
"Secret?" Harry repeats with a small peak out from the fabric of his mum's trousers. His r's sound more like w's and Liam thinks that maybe he's never heard anything so cute.
"Yeah," Liam affirms as Anne offers him another smile. "The secret is that if you pick the blue desk, you get to pick from the treasure box," he gives a small point to a box on top of his own desk. It's decorated rather haphazardly but he spent more time on it than he did on his dissertation. Not that he would admit that to anyone, of course, because his dissertation took him a month and a half, and the weird sleep patterns he developed planted him in the hospital for three days.
Harry eyes the box a little fuller before glancing around at the desks. He hesitantly releases his mum's pant leg and teeters over to a desk with a stack of blue papers. "Blue," Harry points to the papers before sitting in the desk.
"Very good!" Liam thinks he might cry, and really ugly crocodile tears of joy at that. "When everyone gets here, you can dig in the treasure chest!"
Anne lets out a small laugh, "I thought that would be more difficult. He would hardly let me put him in his car seat this morning." She tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear and places Harry's tiny back pack on the nearest hook, "He's only just turned four earlier this year... I was going to keep him at home another year but this is just kind of what ended up happening..."
"I think he'll probably be ahead of the game for a few days anyway, so it's not to worry," Liam grins at her. "Those papers are actually for you, by the way, so when you pick him up I'll make sure that you get them. They're just information about the curriculum, forms for the school and things of that nature," he tacks on.
She nods along with every word, "Well, I've got to get going. If anything happens just give me a call." Anne quickly goes to place a kiss in Harry's curls before dismissing herself from the room.
Liam keeps post at the door and glances occasionally in little Harry's direction. He's a minutely amused that Harry has this small polo with green and black strips on it on because it's most definitely a first day of school best outfit. He considers asking Harry if green is his favorite color but decides against it with the fear that he might make Harry cry by bothering him.
A pair of twins wander in soon after his thoughts with their blonde hair tied up in pigtails. They're without thier respective parental figures and Liam decides he's never been more grateful that whoever dressed them put them in different color dresses. He learns their names are Kara and Katelyn. He tries not to be disappointed when they sit far away from Harry and shift around stacks of paper so that they both have yellow.
After the twins, three separate parent-child groups trickle in. The first is a young father dropping off a small freckled boy with fiery orange hair and large round glasses by the name of Ed. Ed sits at an empty grouping of desks and doesn't look the slightest bit happy about having to do so. The second is a grand father trying to remove a girl with dark brown braids from his hand. Liam learns this girl's name is Eleanor after her grand father shouts for her to let go because he's got to get to work. Eleanor sits catty-corner to Ed. The third is a tired looking mother with blond hair and a nearly black haired boy with pale skin clinging to her pinky. When the boy looks up, Liam finds that the small boy has the largest clear blue eyes he thinks he's ever seen.
"He's a little nervous," his mum tells Liam as she helps her son adjust the ruffled mess of his blue t-shirt. Liam vaguely notices that there is a red octopus taking over a pirate ship on the front of his shirt. "Tell your teacher your name," she instructs.
The little boy looks up at Liam and lifts his little eyebrows beneath his scattered bangs a little challengingly. "It's Niall, like the river," he proclaims. Niall's words run together but Liam can't help the smile that splits his own face because that's probably the most indignant fact he's heard come from a child.
"Welcome, Niall like the river," Liam says with a small bow towards the child. "Pick your throne," he advises Niall as he motions toward the desks.
Niall peers at him for a little while before his nose scrunches up and he releases his mum's pinky finger. He walks over and sits in the seat across from Harry.
"He means well, really he does," his mum assures Liam. "He just doesn't take well to male authority is all. If he gives you any trouble, please don't hesitate to give me a call," she gives Liam this weary look but he doesn't ask any questions because it isn't his business and she bids him goodbye.
Liam observes the two little boys sitting near each other and tries not to laugh when Niall attempts to take one of Harry's papers as a trade but Harry only grips his stack tighter. Purple, Liam thinks to himself. Niall chose the desk with purple papers. He tries not to think about how the colors are fitting for the two boys.
Six more groups enter Liam's room. His five desk groups of three fill up with five more girls and one boy who daringly seats himself with the twins. The tardy bell rings and Liam meanders around a little because there's still one empty desk at Niall and Harry's group and he doesn't want to start without his last student.
"Johannah, I told you I am not going!" a voice echos down the hallway with the squeak of rubber shoes being forcefully skid across the tile flooring in the hall.
A woman responds to the child but Liam can't hear it. He feels guilty for hoping the child doesn't come into his classroom.
"Johannah!" the voice shouts again and it's closer, boyish even.
A woman appears in Liam's door way then, she looks a little frazzled with her hair struggling to stay in the ponytail holder she's placed it in as she grips the wrist of a small tan boy with chestnut hair and a smattering of freckles who seems determined to over rule Newton's law and pull her in the opposite direction. "Louis William Tomlinson," she mutters exasperatedly as she tugs the small boy around to the front of her.
"Johannah," the small boy wrinkles his nose as the word tumbles from his lips. He's got on a red shirt that has a large version of Spiderman's mask covering the front.
"Behave," she tells him sternly with a motion in Liam's direction.
Louis gives Liam a look that could probably rekill the dead sea and his blue eyes looks about ready to drown him in as cruel a manner as possible. "Whatever, Johannah. You know I'm too old for this baby class," his words trip over each other like they're in a race to escape his mouth.
His mum lets out a ragged sigh and pushes him in the direction of the desks before setting his back pack near the now over flowing hook rack. "Sorry about that," she begins. "He's just a little upset that he isn't moving forward with his friends. Louis just has trouble learning, a little slow, you know? He's a sweet boy just has trouble keeping up," Johannah sighs.
Liam wonders if it's okay to be a little mad that the child's own mum would call him slow. "I'll take care of him, don't worry miss," he tells her. "I'm sure he'll do great."
"Sure," she says before waving and disappearing with out a goodbye for her small son.
"Great," Liam breathes as he turns back to his classroom and rubs his hands together. He thinks the scene before him might be a record for the first day of school. "Louis," he begins.
The newest addition to his class is tearing his stack of red papers to pieces and crumpling them up before hiding them in Harry's curls. Little Harry seems very intent on ignoring the action while Niall looks on with a new smile of awe burning his cheeks a bright red. "What," Louis says as the class turns to glance at the mess.
"What are you doing?" Liam enquires as he rests his hands on his hips.
Louis shrugs his shoulders, "Hiding monsters in Harry's hair."
The green fabric of Harry's shirt lifts as his little shoulders stiffen, "Monsters?"
"Little scary ones," Louis clarifies as Liam walks closer. "They hide in people's curls first like ninjas. Then, they take over your brain and they..."
There are tears dripping down Harry's round cheeks now.
"Louis, that's enough..." Liam starts with full intent of moving Louis to the discipline chair.
However, Louis stops placing wads in Harry's hair after a glance at his face. "Just kidding you," Louis says loudly as he begins picking the papers out and tossing them in Niall's direction. "They're not monsters, silly. Don't cry," he continues on.
He knows this will be his trouble group but he thinks he doesn't mind as he claps for the class' attention and begins talking about the fun things they're going to do in his class. When Harry quietly raises his stack of blue papers in the middle of his speech, Liam laughs and lets him pick from the treasure chest. Harry goes back to his little group and splits his mini bag of M&M's between himself and the two other boys.
Blue, Liam thinks, Harry the docile, red, Louis the rambunctious and purple, Niall the mix.