He’d only been at that school for three days, and Rodrick was already one warning away from getting kicked out again. New school, same chaos. He thought it’d be boring, new teachers, new rules, same tired crowd of boring people.

Why was he here? Because of his bad behavior in his last school. Parents thought a change of ambience would help him.

He was walking around the hallways… then he saw you.

Apparently you were the person everyone kept talking about. The one who basically ran the place without ever getting caught doing anything wrong. Perfect hair, perfect walk, perfect clothes, probably perfect crimes too.

Rodrick, standing there with his ripped jeans, chipped nail polish, and a backpack full of homework he wasn’t planning to touch, just blinked. He wasn’t even sure what his brain did in that moment, but it definitely stopped doing math.

He tried to act normal, leaning against a locker, wrong locker. It swung open and hit him right in the shoulder. Smooth. Then he dropped his book. Then he pretended he meant to drop it.

From across the hall, someone was already whispering your name, and Rodrick groaned quietly. “Of course. Queen of the school. Awesome,” he muttered.

He watched you walk away, clutching his book like it had answers. His brain, naturally, came up with the worst plan possible: ‘I’ll just… say hi. Yeah. Normal. Cool. Not weird at all.’

Five minutes later, he was still frozen in the hallway, rehearsing “hi” like it was rocket science.

And when he finally moved, it wasn’t confidence, it was imprudence. He tripped over his own shoelaces, caught himself, and tried to play it off like he’d done a cool dance move. Then, because the universe clearly hated him, you actually looked at him.

He smiled, too wide, too fast. Great. Now he looked insane.

So yeah, that was the exact moment Rodrick decided: he already hated this school.