Ryan Matthews had just started Eighth Grade, and he was already tired.

His alarm went off for the first time in three months at the bright hour of seven a.m., and he hated it. He hated it even more when Topanga threw open his door to shut off said alarm because Ryan had let it ring for too long. Even though it had just gone off.

"Get up, Ryan! New year, new beginnings!" Topanga said brightly as she walked out of the room. Ryan groaned into his pillow, wishing the day were already over.

After getting dressed, Ryan grabbed a breakfast bar and walked into Riley's room where everyone else seemed to be gathering. He took a bite into it as he asked, "You're not gonna be our teacher again this year, are you?"

Cory shook his head theatrically. "No! Did you hate me as your teacher so much that both of you have to make sure of that?"

Ryan looked at him flatly then looked over at Riley, "Riles, if he's our teacher again this year we run away."

Riley nodded solidly and Topgana scoffed. "Ryan, go change your pants, you look homeless."

"Hey!" Ryan defended. "These jeans were ripped authentically." He was wearing new jeans that got ripped up while skating the week prior, a grey t-shirt with a red jacket, and black vans that were only partially tearing at the back of his right heel.

Topanga went to say something else but Ryan shoved the rest of the breakfast bar in his mouth and just left.

New beginnings, huh? Yeah, right.

--

Ryan had spent the summer in the honeymoon phase of his new relationship with Aidan. Elena was teasing them, their friends were faking disgust at their happiness, and they had gotten to spend almost every day together.

All of that came to an end when summer did. He couldn't spend his mornings sleeping and his days with his boyfriend, occasionally sleeping over whenever he had the chance. Or whenever his parents would "let" him.

That's another thing that changed over the summer. Parental oversight. Not that Ryan wasn't grateful for their sudden interest in his life, but he was honestly getting tired of it.

Ryan had gone with Aidan on the subway all the way to Einstein in an attempt to hold on to the last dregs of summer left. This left him late enough for school that when he was skating into history class, an adult was running out of it.

Wait, wait, wait.

Ryan stumbled into class to see his father standing in the front of the classroom, exasperated. "You're late to your father's class, Ryan."

Oh, fuck no.

"Riley, we're running away!" Ryan exclaimed before turning and running out of the room. He climbed the steps and sat down, waiting for Riley and Maya with his skateboard in his lap. A minute or two later, the girls came out with three green slips in their hands. Ryan raised a brow, "Where are your shoes?"

Panicked, the two girls opened the door again and Cory threw their shoes at them. Once they got them on, they walked up to Ryan.

"What're those?" Ryan asked, nodding his head towards the slips as he got up to follow them when they passed. Riley held one up toward him and he grabbed it, turning it so he could read it. "Transfer slips, dad let us leave if you can believe it."

"Who was that guy who I passed coming to class?" Ryan asked. Maya laughed. "That was the new teacher that we scared away."

"Oh, come on!"

--

Arriving at the classroom, only around the corner from Matthews, the trio stopped in front of the door.

"Okay, this is it," Ryan stated, tapping his nails on his board. "No dad, no focus on us. This'll be great."

Ryan opened the door and walked in, completely missing the pair's frown. Nobody would focus on them? Unlikely.

Ryan smiled at the teacher and handed her his transfer slip. "Hi, sorry we're late, we had a bit of a homeroom mix up."

The teacher took the slip from his hands and tossed it into the trash. Ryan frowned at this. "Okay, rude."

"Take a seat in the back, and give me that," she put her hands on the board and, for a few seconds, attempted to tug it away from him. Ryan frowned harder and yanked it away from her. "Absolutely not, thank you so much."

"Fine. Sit there," she pointed at the desk in her immediate view. Ryan rolled his eyes and sat down, leaning the skateboard on the side of the chair. The girls drew much more attention coming in after him.

"Greetings, new classmates!" Riley exclaimed after she and Maya dropped their transfer slips on the teacher's desk. Ryan sighed and dropped his head onto his desk. His mistake for thinking those two would try to be normal. "Riley Matthews, ready to be your friend."

" 'Sup, I'm Maya. You don't look me in the eyes," Maya greeted the class after her.

"You two are late," the teacher stated. "You two don't talk."

"Yeah don't tell them that." Ryan warned, "They don't like to hear it."

"You don't talk either, skater boy," she dismissed. Ryan rolled his eyes and held his hands up in mock defense. "I tried to warn you."

"You two sit there and there," she pointed to two seats in the back that were separated from each other.

"No, no," Maya resisted, "we sit together."

"In the middle of everything," Riley added.

"Move!" The teacher shouted at them. Maya squealed. Ryan narrowed his eyes.

"Hey, teach, try not to spook these students. Unlike you, we've actually got influence in this school system." He warned again, much angrier this time.

"Zip it, new kid, and let me teach," She responded. Ryan shrugged.

She wanted to see him as a bad kid? Fine. He'll be the bad kid. He kicked his feet up on the desk and laid his arms behind his head. He then quirked his eyebrow at the woman in front of him in a silent challenge.

The teacher looked at another student next to him and nodded her head in some sort of que. Ryan scoffed. Alright, just leave the discipline to another student, real professional.

"Hey, kid, what's your name?" The kid in the desk next to him asked. Ryan turned to see another white brunette kid dressed similarly to him. Ryan raised an eyebrow. "Ryan. You?"

"I'm Eli. I'm gonna have to ask you to put your feet down. I know it's tempting to disrespect the teacher and act all cool, but it's not. It's just rude."

Ryan nodded and put them down, turning to face him head on. "You're the self aware type, right? There's one in every class, thinks they're smarter than the rest and above all the drama?"

Eli looked taken aback at being read so closely. "Uh," he looked to the teacher for help but she was focused on Riley and Maya, "yeah, sure. I'd say so."

Ryan nodded and leaned closer to him. "Then you'll understand that she'll get my respect when she earns it. Fuck. Off." At that, he kicked his feet back onto the desk and crossed his arms. The teacher met his eyes and glared at him, pointing to the door.

"Get. Out!" She screamed. Ryan laughed and picked up his skateboard on the way, giving the class the middle finger on his way out. After he shut the door he was surprised to find Riley and Maya sulking in the hallway.

"How am I the last one to get kicked out, this is so not good for my brand," Ryan joked. Maya rolled her eyes with a small smile. Her arm was around Riley's shoulders in a comforting gesture. Riley was slumped against the lockers in shock. Ryan sighed and sat down on his skateboard, gliding over to where his sister was sitting.

"Ok. What's wrong?"

"They didn't care about us!" Riley burst, throwing her arms into her lap. Maya retracted her arm to give Riley more space to freak out. "Nobody would look at us, we weren't supposed to talk, a few of those kids looked like us, and the teacher didn't like us!"

"Yeah, and the girl who looked like Riley called the teacher mom, so you knew there was nepotism there," Maya added. Ryan covered his smile with his hand. She was so close to the point, and still didn't see it.

"You find "you" in there?" She asked.

Ryan nodded. "Yeah. Didn't like him."

Riley laughed. "Oh that's hilarious, you didn't like you?"

"I don't like you either, it's not hard."

"Hey!"

"I think it's time we get back to class," Maya said, breaking up the fight. The twins rolled their eyes at the same time but each let Maya help them up. Ryan skated back on his board at a leisurely pace so as to not outrun the girls.

Riley and Maya tried to sneak back into Cory's class quietly, but Ryan skated in the same way he did that morning. " 'Sup, dad?"

"Back already?" Cory asked with a raised brow at the three of them. Ryan sighed and kicked his skateboard behind Cory's desk, taking his desk next to Farkle. "Yeah."

"As bad as this is," Riley started.

"Everywhere else is worse," Maya finished. Both girls were completely exasperated at the state of the school. Cory looked to Ryan.

"What they said," Ryan said dismissively. "Hey, how many teachers have kids currently going to this school and in their classes?"

Cory frowned as he gave it a thought, "Uh, probably a lot of them. Why?"

Ryan shook his head. "Never mind, that explains everything. Thank you so much, move on," he waved his hands dismissively at his very confused father. Anyway, he moved on.

"Welcome back, you're just in time for today's lesson."

"Did we miss anything?" Riley asked. He smiled at her and waved his hands. "Nah, we're just putting everything back into place."

--

"Face it! We are never going to escape him!" Riley complained as she led the three of them into the bakery. Ryan laughed.

"Well maybe if somebody hadn't scared off our other teacher," he accused. Maya rolled her eyes. "If he can't take a little hazing, I don't want him."

"Maya, I'm gonna kill you," Ryan said with zero intention of following through. She waved her hand at him dismissively. "Sure, later."

"How are we gonna be kings of anything if we might run into-"

"Hey, mom!" Ryan greeted, drawing both girls' attention to the woman standing behind them.

"Hey, Ryan. What's this I hear about you getting kicked out of another teacher's classroom?" She asked, stopping only to smile at the girls. Ryan rolled his eyes. "Why can't you ask me how my day is going like a normal parent?"

"Ok," Topanga smiled at him, "How's your day going, Ryan?"

"Not well."

"Is it because you got thrown out of a classroom you were only in for five minutes!"

"This house is a nightmare and I am begging for someone to wake me up," Ryan groaned, walking back out of the bakery.

--

"So that was my day, how's about you?" Ryan asked while stuffing Elena's cookies into his mouth.

"Much less dramatic, I'd say," Aidan laughed. They were back at his apartment, eating cookies Elena made before she left for work, taking a break from the day to catch up.

It was nice to have a boyfriend to come home to, sometimes. Even if he did go to an entirely different school, Ryan could only see him after school and sometimes on weekends because Aidan was an extra curricular kid who had no time.

Having a boyfriend to come home to was nice-ish, he guessed.  

this should not have taken this long lmao i'm sorry. I'm gonna start dating these so u and I both have a date to guilt me w lmao

1/7/22