Chapter Text
Corrections
Blue.
Very blue.
Not bright nor warm.
Well, they weren’t just blue. The color was impossible, like polished sapphires caught beneath the sunlight, even in the sterile brightness of the current space. The man’s eyes were focused and tired in a way that gave way to exhaustion, which had become a permanent state of their body rather than a temporary condition.
Harvey noticed them because they weren’t particularly looking at him. Which was unusual, because when Harvey Specter entered a room, people looked—gravitated towards his energy—students especially. Harvard students were ambitious little creatures.
Hungry. Competitive. Desperate to impress.
The moment he walked into Langdell Hall, two hundred aspiring lawyers immediately straightened in their seats. A few smiled, some whispered, and one girl in the front row nearly dropped her pen. Harvey ignored all of them. He set his briefcase on the desk and adjusted the cuffs of his suit.
Tom Ford.
Charcoal.
Tailored perfectly.
A gift to himself after winning a billion-dollar merger six months ago. “Good morning.” Harvey smiled.
Showtime.
“I’m Harvey Specter.”
As if the whole room didn’t know that.
Several students laughed nervously.
“Some of you have read my guest profile.”
A chorus of laughter rippled through the room.
“Most of you Googled me.”
The room then erupted, and Harvey grinned. “There it is.” Confidence returned immediately. Good—because the thing was, fear in itself made students stupid, while confidence made them dangerous, and one thing about Harvey Specter was that he preferred dangerous. Brown eyes swept the room.
The front row was too eager.
The second was terrified.
The third row was trying too hard.
The fourth row was blue eyes again, still not looking at him. The kid was reading, actually reading—casebook open and pen moving quickly across the college-ruled notebook. Ignoring Harvey entirely.
Interesting—very interesting.
Harvey continued with his lecture: contract law, offer, acceptance, consideration, the fundamentals. Most students followed carefully, some took quick notes and failed to keep up, but the blond kid didn’t. He barely looked up—just listened. Occasionally, scribbling something in the margins. Harvey found himself checking every few minutes.
Still reading, still not impressed, still refusing to look at him. Now that was getting irritating. Thirty minutes later, Harvey decided to have some fun; he clicked to the next slide. A case study, complicated enough to challenge their minds but simple enough that somebody should answer. “Let’s see.” His gaze swept across the room.
Immediately, hands shot upward. Too many and too eager. Harvey ignored every single one, leaning onto the desk before pointing. “You.”
The blond finally looked up. Blue eyes and annoyingly sharp and beautiful.
“You have a name?”
The kid blinked, almost like he’d forgotten there were other people in the room.
“Mike.”
“Mike, what?”
“Ross.”
Harvey nodded. “Mr. Ross.”
The room went quiet because everyone knew what came next was a public execution. Harvard’s favorite pastime. Harvey crossed his arms. “Walk me through it.”
Mike glanced at the slide, then back at Harvey. No panic, no scrambling for notes, no fear, nothing.
“If the plaintiff accepted those terms, the agreement is enforceable.”
The answer came simply, directly, correctly, and cleanly. Harvey smiled, dimples popping.
“That’s it?”
A few students snickered. Harvey tilted his head. “You don’t seem very interested.”
Mike just shrugged, collarbones popping even more at the motion. “You asked a simple question.”
The room stopped breathing collectively. Oh, this was going to be fun.
“Simple?”
“Pretty simple.”
The kid seemed to have a death wish, and Harvey could respect that. He moved away from the podium. “Let’s make it harder then.”
For the next ten minutes or so, Harvey systematically attacked every point made by Mike. He pushed, twisted, pressed, introduced new facts, alternative precedents, and conflicting interpretations that usually reduced students to stammering wrecks. Harvey found that Mike was unfortunately not one of those students.
Mike answered every single question, without hesitation and without even looking at the casebook. Harvey began noticing things. The kid wasn’t remembering concepts; he was remembering pages, paragraphs, precise wording, and unequivocal citations. Harvey’s pleasure in the situation faded, and instead, interest took its place.
“What case was that from?”
“Rosenberg versus Atlantic.”
“What page?”
“Three-hundred and forty-two.”
Harvey narrowed his eyes, and the blue eyes narrowed right back at him. The room was about ready to explode before Harvey picked up the textbook on the desk, flipped pages, and found three hundred and forty-two.
Word for word. Undeniably correct.
A murmur of voices grew across the lecture hall. Mike seemed completely unbothered or completely unaware. Both possibilities were concerning, given the fact that he had just managed to one-up Harvey Specter.
Harvey placed the book down with a dull thump onto the wooden desk. “Photographic memory?”
The room essentially pulled all its focus towards Mike.
Mike looked annoyed—embarrassed even.
“Something like that.”
Harvey should have moved on; a normal lecture would’ve. Instead, he kept pushing, because something about Mike Ross pulled alarm bells in his head. Not the intelligence. Harvey had met a lot of intelligent people, not the confidence either, because Harvey practically invented confidence. It was the indifference to his environment, the complete lack of interest in impressing anyone, let alone the fact that Harvey Specter was an anomaly in itself.
Harvey suddenly wanted to know why.
“Let’s try another hypothetical.”
A new problem appeared, much more complicated than the last. The lecture hall noticeably tensed. Harvey’s brown eyes met Mike’s blue eyes. “Answer.’
Mike sighed as if Harvey were inconveniencing him. Then he answered again, perfectly. Perfect in a way that didn’t leave gaps or space to attack a weak spot because there wasn’t any. Harvey listened carefully. Mike’s logic remained airtight, elegant, and creative.
“Actually.”
Harvey blinked because Mike interrupted him. Nobody interrupted Harvey Specter.
Nobody.
Mike continued nonetheless. “You’d lose.”
Harvey laughed. “You seem pretty confident in that notion.”
“The precedent you’re relying on was overturned.”
Complete silence swallowed the lecture hall for a moment. Harvey’s smile didn’t move.
“Was it now?”
“Three years ago,” Mike leaned back slightly, “Harrison versus Bell.” The citation came instantly without even giving it time to process in his brain, or maybe it did, but the others weren’t just quick enough.
Everything about the kid came without effort, without hesitation, like breathing almost. For the first time, all morning wasn’t entirely sure of his footing, and he was very impressed. He grabbed his tablet and pulled up the case.
The room watched with a bathed breath.
Waiting.
Harvey found it. Skimmed. Then read again.
Goddamn it, the kid was right all along.
Harvey slowly looked up as a wave of whispers swept the lecture hall. Mike was already looking back down at his book. Conversation over. Challenge completed. As if publicly correcting Harvey Specter in front og two hundred people wasn’t worth celebrating. Harvey stared, Mike felt it like a brand on his pale skin. Looked up again, and sapphire blue crashed with onyx brown. For a brief moment, very brief. The room dissipated. Harvey saw exhaustion, not student exhaustion, but something deeper. The sort of tiredness people carried for years, then vanished. Mike looked away first.
Harvey found himself irrationally disappointed. The lecture ended fifteen minutes later, and students flooded toward exits, talking loudly amongst themselves, excitedly, mostly about Mike. Harvey remained near the podium, watching and waiting like a lion ready to pounce.
The blond gathered his books and stuffed them into a battered Jansport backpack.
No designer laptop case.
No expensive watch.
No wealthy-family confidence.
Scholarship kid. Definitely.
He headed out towards the exit before Harvey called out. “Ross.”
Mike stopped; several students nearby immediately slowed down, eavesdropping. Mike turned a face of utter neutrality. He was basically the poster boy for neutral.
“Yes?”
Harvey originally intended to say something clever, but with one look from those tired, deep, sapphire eyes,s he heard himself ask: “Where’d you learn to do that?”
Mike frowned. “Do what?”
“Remember everything.”
For the first time all morning, something flickered across Mike’s face: sadness. Gone as quickly as it came, Harvey almost missed it.
“Had a lot of free time growing up.”
Then he left—just like that. Harvey watched the door close behind him, and for reasons he chose not to explain, he didn’t move. Because the kid’s answer should’ve sated him. The problem was that it didn’t.
Harvey Specter has made a living off reading people, and Mike Ross looked like a man standing in a graveyard. Not a 2L at Harvard, not a twenty-year-old kid. But a man standing among ghosts. Harvey looked down at the attendance roster. Found the name he was looking for. Mike Ross: sophomore, full scholarship, top of his class, twenty years old. Harvey stared at the line for a couple of moments, then smiled slowly. Because something told him this wasn’t over. Not even close.
Somewhere across the campus, completely and blissfully unaware of the trouble he’d just created. Mike Ross lit a cigarette with shaking hands and tried very hard not to think about a pair of brown eyes that looked at him like he was a piece of treasure jewelry.
The second time Harvey Specter saw Mike Ross, he was breaking the rules. Naturally. Harvey and Donna were crossing Harvard Yard after a faculty luncheon. Donna was talking, and Harvey was pretending to listen.
“You’re distracted.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m really not.”
Donna smiled, the smile that usually preceded violence. “You’ve spent three days talking about one student.”
Harvey snickered. “I mentioned him twice.”
“Seven times.”
Harvey rolled his eyes. “He’s interesting.”
“He’s twenty.”
“He’s brilliant.”
Donna’s smile widened. “Ah.”
“Don’t even go there.”
“Oh, you know I absolutely will go there.”
The outdoor study courtyard came into view, and clusters of students occupied tables beneath stone arches.
Laptops. Books. Coffee cups. Typical Harvard scenery.
Then Harvey spotted him, immediately, as if his eyes were searching for him. Mike Ross sat alone beneath one of the pillars, a cigarette balanced between his fingers, a textbook spread open on the table, a yellow highlighter tucked behind one ear and directly above his head—NO SMOKING—Donna followed Harvey’s gaze.
“Oh, what a pleasant surprise.”
Harvey didn’t answer. Mike hadn’t noticed the pair. Yet, he was reading, actually reading, not studying. Reading. The cigarette burned slowly between his pale fingers as his eyes moved across pages at impossible speed.
Page. Turn. Page. Turn. Page. Turn. Page. Turn.
Like a machine. Donna frowned.
“That’s him?”
“The menace to my classroom.”
“The one who corrected you? I thought he would be less… pretty.”
Harvey smiled despite himself.”
“The very same.”
Mike reached for his coffee but never looked away from the textbook. Never glance around, never checked his phone. Almost as if he never acknowledged the dozens of students around him, as if the world had ceased to exist.
Donna watched him quietly, then said, “he’s skinny.”
Harvey's jaw clenched because he had noticed, of course, he did. The oversized sweater, the narrow wrists, so small it looked as if it could be snapped easily, and the way the sweatshirt practically swallowed him whole. Donna glanced at him sideways.
“You noticed.”
Harvey ignored her as Mike flipped to another page.
Another. Another.
Then a student approached, nervous-looking, male, probably a first-year. The kid hovered awkwardly beside the table. Mike finally looked up, mid-exhaling the smoke from his cigarette. The student timidly asked something, but Harvey couldn’t hear.
Mike answered immediately, and the student looked stunned, then grateful, then asked another question. Mike answered again. Without consulting a single note, the student left,t and two minutes passed before another arrived.
Then another. Then another.
Donna blinked. “What is happening?”
Harvey watched, a line forming, an actual, physical line. Students waiting to ask Mike Ross questions. Some carried textbooks, others notebooks. One looked moments away from a full-on breakdown. Mike patiently and gracefully answered every single one as he smoked seemingly unbothered.
Cases. Citations. Legal theories. Statutes. Everything from memory.
No hesitation, no arrogance, no effort, just simple answers.
The line kept growing, and at some point Donna laughed.
“My God.”
“What?”
“He’s becoming a tutoring service.”
Harvey couldn’t stop watching, neither could the students, and Mikedidn't seem to notice, or care at all. He simply continued smoking and explaining legal doctrines as if both activities were completely normal.
One student had disagreed, Mike merely gestured towards the textbook, quoted something, and then the student looked horrified because Mike had been right. The student walked away, and another soon stepped forward.
Donna folded her arms as she watched. “Top of his class?”
Harvey nodded.
“By how much?”
A strange smile crossed Harvey’s face because the answer was absurd, truly.
“By an offensive margin.”
Donna laughed. “That’s not a real measurement.”
“It should be.”
Mike wasn’t competing with other students; he was annihilating them. Mike had the highest grades, highest exam scores, highest participation marks, basically the highest everything. The academic reports Harvey had read were ridiculous. Not excellent. Ridiculous.
It was the sort of numbers professors talked about over drinks.
The sort of numbers that happened once every few years.
Donna studied Mike carefully: the cigarette, the coffee, the mountain of books, the dark circles beneath his blue eyes, and the way he seemed completely detached from everything around him.
“He’s lonely,” she quietly said with finality.
“What?” Harvey looked at her, and Donna merely nodded towards Mike.
“Look at him.”
Harvey did. Really looked. The crowd around Mike had disappeared. Students came and left; nobody stayed, nobody sat down, nobody joined him, as nobody belonged beside him. And somehow Mike looked used to it, as if isolation had become comfortable.
Normal. Expected.
The realization sat strangely in Harvey’s chest. Across the courtyard, Mike finally glanced up.
Blue eyes. Straight towards him—straight through him. The world seemed to stop for the pair, even just for a second. Mike froze, the cigarette paused halfway to his mouth. Harvey didn’t look away. Neither did Mik; something passed between the two men.
Recognition. Challenge. Curiosity.
Harvey wasn’t sure, then Mike’s gaze flickered upward to the NO SMOKING sign, then back at Harvey, and the little bastard smirked, actually smirked. Then he took another deliberate drag.
Donna burst out laughing, Harvey stared, and Mike held eye contact the entire time.
Defiant. Unimpressed. Impossible.
Then he looked back down at his textbook, the silent conversation over and the challenge filed away. Harvey found himself smiling, slowly. Donna immediately saw it.
“Oh no.”
“What?”
“You like him.”
“I don’t like him.”
Donna’s grin became positively evil. “You absolutely do.”
For the first time in years, Harvey wasn’t entirely sure she was wrong. The reasonable thing to do was for Harvey to walk away, the professional thing, the adult thing. Instead, he found himself crossing the yard. Donna made absolutely no attempt to stop him. In fact, she looked delighted.
This in itself should have set a set of red flags as a warning.
Students parted instinctively as Harvey approached, like an apex predator at the top of the food chain. Mike remained exactly where he was, reading, smoking, ignoring him. Harvey stopped beside the table. Nothing, not even a single glance. The little shit.
Donna sat on the edge of a nearby bench, openly watching. Mike turned a page, highlighted something, then took another drag. Still nothing.
Finally. Harvey spoke.
“There’s a sign.”
Mike didn’t look up. “I can read, professor.”
Harvey’s mouth twitched into an almost smile. Almost.
“Clearly.”
Another page turned, another note scribbled in elegant, neat cursive in the margin, the cigarette glowed.
“Then why are you smoking?”
Mike finally lifted his gaze. Blue eyes, sharp, and annoyingly pretty. Then a killer smile spread on his pouty lips.
“Because I wanted a cigarette.”
Donna physically looked away to hide a laugh. Harvey felt one corner of his mouth pull forward.
“Compelling argument.”
“Thank you.”
The response was immediate. Dry. Without an ounce of respect. Harvey was beginning to understand why professors either adored Mike Ross or wanted to strangle him.
Possibly both.
Harvey glanced at the open textbook.
Fourth-year material. Not sophomore material, not even close.
“That’s not your class.”
Mike followed his gaze. “Oh,” a shrug followed.
“I’m helping someone.”
Harvey looked at the notes, then at the student standing awkwardly nearby,y clutching a notebook. The kid looked terrified.
“Helping.”
Mike nodded. The student then jumped in.
“He’s basically teaching our study group.”
Mike winced, but the other student continued anyway.
“We would’ve failed the midterm without him.”
Mike looked genuinely embarrassed. Harvey found that fascinating; the kid would practically challenge professors without blinking. But praise? Praise made him uncomfortable.
Interesting. Very interesting.
The student hurried away. Mike immediately went back to his reading, as the conversation had ended. Harvey stayed because now he was curious. No, that wasn’t true. He’d been curious since the first lecture. Now he was invested, which was worse, way much worse.
“How many cigarettes a day?”
Mike froze, only for a second, but Harvey caught it. Then came the wall, the one he’d seen in the classroom. Brick by brick, mortar and steel. Mike’s expression became carefully blank.
“Why?”
“Just asking.”
“You ask all your students about their bad habits?”
“Only the ones stupid enough to smoke directly beneath a no-smoking sign.”
That earned Harvey the faintest hint of a smile, gone instantly, but Harvey saw it. Mike crushed ash into a nearby ashtray.
“Three–sometimes four.”
A lie.
Harvey knew it. Mike knew it. Neither party called it out. The tension settled between them, strange and heavy, filling the air with a headiness. Donna, meanwhile, watched from her bench like she was courtside at Wimbledon.
Mike suddenly looked back at the book, conversation terminated—dismissed. Harvey should’ve left then, but instead his attention landed on the notebook beside Mike’s coffee. It was filled edge-to-edge with handwriting.
Elegant. Neat. Cursive. Page after page after page.
Harvey frowned as the writing changed halfway. Somehow neater, older, different. Not Mike’s. His eyes caught a phrase written in faded blue ink.
Michael, remember to eat.
The words hit unexpectedly. Mike noticed where he was looking, and for the first time since they met, real panic flashed across his face. The notebook soon disappeared beneath another.
The reaction was so immediate, Harvey almost missed it, almost. Mike stared at the books, not Harvey, not Donna sitting at the bench, the book. His jaw tightened. The cigarette burned forgotten in the ashtray. Suddenly, Harvey understood, not everything—just enough—enough to know the handwriting belonged to someone important. Someone gone.
The realization settled heavily in his chest. Donna saw it too. Mike finally spoke, voice quieter than before.
“Was there something else you needed, Professor?”
The title sounded different this time, less sarcastic, more guarded. Harvey studied him, the oversized sweater, exhausted sapphire eyes, the cigarette, the notebook hidden beneath textbooks, and the brilliant student carrying something enormous and invisible. For one absurd moment, Harvey couldn’t help but wonder why someone as beautiful and intelligent looked like he carried the weight of the world by himself.
“No.”
Mike nodded once, conversation over. Harvey lingered for a beat too long.
Two beats.
Three beats.
Then Mike looked up, and blue eyes met dark eyes, then it was there again. The strange pull, the one Harvey couldn’t explain, categorize, or ignore. The air felt tighter, smaller somehow. As though the entire courtyard had narrowed the space between them. Mike looked away first, again. Harvey found himself irrationally annoyed by that, then a gust of wind swept through the courtyard.
Cold and sharp Autumn wind.
Mike shivered. Barely noticeable. But noticeable.
Harvey glanced at the untouched coffee, the cigarette that was probably not his first today, and the hollow shadows beneath his eyes. Definitely not enough sleep, and definitely not enough food, and definitely none of Harvey’s business.
So naturally, he asked. “When was the last time you ate?”
Mike closed his eyes—just for a second. Like he’d expected,d the question eventually. When he opened them again, the sarcasm was back. A shield sliding neatly into place.
“Dinner.”
Harvey raised a brow, crossing his arms. “What’d you have?”
A pause.
“Coffee.”
Donna made a noise that was mixed between a cough and a groan.
Mike looked mildly ashamed, Harvey stared, and blue eyes stared back,k and for the first time since meeting him, Harvey felt something dangerously close to anger. Not at Mike. More so, the fact that nobody seemed to be taking care of him.
The feeling struck like lightning; it startled him. Because Harvey Specter did not worry about students. Especially not this one. Unfortunately, his brain appeared to disagree.
Mike stood abruptly, books gathered, backpack swung over his shoulder—the movement made him sway slightly—just slightly. Enough for Harvey to notice, enough for Harvey to hate that he noticed.
“I’m late.”
It was an obvious excuse that neither of them acknowledged. Mike stepped around the table, around Harvey, then stopped. For a brief moment, they stood far too close. Close enough for Harvey to see the faint gold flecks hidden in the blue eyes. Close enough for Mike to smell expensive cologne under autumn air.
Neither moved nor spoke.
The courtyard noise faded.
One second. Two. Three. Then Mike stepped backward, distance restored. Whatever that moment had been shattered immediately.
“See you in class, Professor.”
Harvey watched him walk away, watched the crowd swallow him whole, watched until he disappeared entirely. Only then did Donna stand. She came to his side and said nothing for several seconds.
“You’re so screwed.”
Harvey exhaled slowly, “Probably.”
And that realization should have bothered him. Instead, for reasons he couldn’t explain, Harvey was already looking forward to Monday.