SG Vol. 1 pt. 9 (Patreon)

Now what? Fuck if I know. Guess I’ll just clean this shit up.

At least there’s a closet right across the hall full of janitorial supplies. This room is in desperate need of being vacuumed and dusted.

The only problem is that I look filthy by the time I’m done. My hands are covered in grey dust, my uniform is a mess, and I’m fucking sweating since I turned the heat up in the room. Probably should have done that after instead of before cleaning, but too fucking late for that.

There’s a knock on the door. Nobody should be getting here for another… ten minutes or so. Don’t tell me I’ve got one of those annoying brats who shows up early. Fuck, I remember when I used to be that annoying brat.

I open the door and am met with – well, she doesn’t look like a cadet. Besides, a girl with the USAF Nurse Corps badge on her chest isn’t going to be a cadet.

She’s got a name tag that says “Clark” on her right breast.

“Umm, hello!” she says. “You’re the new teacher, right?”

“Do I look like any you’ve seen around before?” I ask her back. I’ve got to admit that she’s kind of cute, but that’s mainly because she’s got some shoulder-length, brunette hair. Fuck me, short hair on girls is the best. “Yeah, that’s me,” I say after she looks unsure of how to respond. “Lance Adler. First lieutenant.”

“Ah! It’s – it’s a pleasure to meet you,” she says, holding her clipboard to her chest with one hand while her other hand reaches out to shake mine.

We shake hands. The softness of her hands matches her young, feminine look.

“Umm, I was just thinking that since we’re both new here, maybe we could talk sometime!” she says. “Oh! I’m Clover, by the way.”

Clover Clark. Not something I’d expect a girl as… I don’t know how I’d describe her. I want to say homely since she’s kind of plain looking, but in a good way. She looks like the kind of girl you could trust. Simple. Kind. The kind of girl who I wish wouldn’t have to fight in this war but now has to.

“No thanks,” I answer her.

Her face turns bright red.

I don’t have time to sit around and chat. If I’m not here, I should be with Naomi.

“A-ah. I see. I thought the colonel told me that… but I must have misheard him! Sorry for bothering you,” Clover says as she fidgets with some of the hair hanging down over her hairs.

Of course that bastard is behind this.

A new girl, probably no friends yet, short hair, my type, and I don’t see a ring when I look down at her hand.

Damn bastard. There’s no time to be fucking around like this. “I – I suppose I’ll be going then! Sorry again for bothering you, First Lieutenant Adler,” Clover says.

Damn it.

“I can talk at lunch,” I tell her.

Clover looks back up at me and asks, “Are… are you sure? You just said—”

“I said I can talk at lunch.” I’m never going to hear the end of it if I send her back to Zane looking like this. How the hell did somebody stay this emotional through training? They must be taking things easy on draftees these days.

“Alright!” she says, her face lighting up. “I’ll be at the front desk in the infirmary.”

“Yeah, I’ll come by and get you.”

She smiles, waves, remembers to salute, and then runs off with her clipboard in her arms and still held to her chest.

What the hell?

Damn it, Zane. Why the hell would you send some innocent girl like her to me? Not only am I married, but I’m probably just going to make her cry somehow. Fuck me, it already looked like I almost made her cry.

Draftees these days.

Just as I’m turning back into the room, a girl with long, blonde hair turns down the hall and looks straight at me. She’s wearing a cadet uniform and is holding a notebook in her hands.

She’s the complete opposite of Clover. Clover was short, simple, had brown hair and yellow eyes, and she had more of a pear-shaped figure going on. Yeah, I was fucking looking. I’m not going to keep loyal eyes when my “wife” can’t keep a loyal anything.

This new girl approaching me has long, blonde hair as bright as her blue eyes. I can feel her eyes looking through me from the other end of the hallway. She might be wearing a cadet uniform, but she looks more mature and serious than most officers I know. Not to mention her body. Are those things even going to fit into a flight suit? I would have thought that they’d disqualify her just based off of those.

Please don’t be a fucking wolf so that I don’t feel like a damn pedophile.

She stops in front of me, salutes, and asks, “First Lieutenant Adler?”

“Yeah,” I answer her. Looking at her shoulder… that wolf patch is there. Shit.

Her hair and eyes make me think that those bastards would love her.

“I am surprised that a first lieutenant will be teaching us. Especially one who is a first lieutenant after eleven years of service,” she says.

Is this brat judging me?

“Sorry, that sounded better in my head. You’re just interesting is all,” she explains.

“Yeah? How much do you know about me if you know that?”

“Only what was in the file.”

“What file?”

“The other students and I were all given files telling us about you since we were protesting having our teacher changed. We stopped protesting once we read about you,” she explains with a smile.

Great. A bunch of brats got briefed on me. “Rank and name,” I order her.

“Second Lieutenant Cadet, Charlotte Jaeger!” she says with a textbook salute. “This is my third year.”

A third-year wolf? That puts her between nineteen and twenty. I still don’t plan on doing anything, but thank fuck.

At least now I can look at her without feeling guilty.

There’s only one problem, and going by her expression, she’s reading what I’m thinking.

“Ah… do not worry,” Charlotte says. “I can assure you that I detest my heritage as much as you likely do. I am German purely in name and nothing else, sir.”

“Right. Get inside, take a seat, and wait,” I tell her. “We’ll start soon.”

She salutes me and walks past me into the room. No hesitation. If there was, I’d be ashamed to be a wolf.

Four more cadets come walking down the hall now before I have a chance to get inside.

One of them is some punk looking kid with spiky, red hair that instantly reminds me of Kate, so he’s picked a bad hair color to be born with.

I already don’t like him.

If the color of his hair isn’t enough, there’s the fact that the three girls around him are fawning all over him.

The boy lights up when he sees me and shouts, “Yo! You the new—”

“Drop and give me twenty,” I order him.

The brat and the girls clinging to him all look shocked.

“Is that a joke, sir?” he asks me.

“Forty.”

“Wait – wait, what? Seriously? Like, are you for real right now?”

“Eighty. If you don’t drop then I will make you drop. If you say one more thing that isn’t ‘Yes, First Lieutenant Adler,’ then you can run laps around the airfield for the rest of the day. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, First Lieutenant Adler!” the boy says, dropping onto his hands to start his set of eighty pushups.

“The rest of you can go inside,” I say.

The three girls nervously nod their heads and walk past me. But, I don’t hear them go inside. They’re all standing outside of the door instead.

“Is there a problem?” I ask them.

One of the girls says, “I’ve… I heard the rumors about hearing screams for the rest of your life if you step insi—”

“You can either step inside or never become a VSU pilot. Your choice.”

One of the other girls nods her head, closes her eyes, and steps inside. The other two follow after her “courageous” display.

I look back down at the boy doing pushups. Another wolf. Are brats like him seriously wolves now? Those girls were draftees, so I’m not going to expect them to be worth anything, but a wolf is this misbehaved?

“How – how many more, sir?” the boy asks, struggling to breathe.

“You expect me to count for you? You can count out loud yourself if you want to finish. Guess you’ll have to start over from one just to be safe,” I tell him.

It’s only been a couple of minutes since I’ve started tossing out orders… but I’m starting to understand why that crazy teacher of mine was always smiling.

This is kind of fun.