The Art of Love & War

The Extermination Squad

[Four Years Later]

Tatum

It was a day off today. For me especially.

The day was given to me to rest. And maybe grieve for the fallen members of my squad from our last venture outside the walls. Keith didn't give me the day off to overthink myself like this.

So why was I thinking?

I was only going to tire out my now 19 year old self and fry my brain to mush.

A knock reverberated from my closed door.

I sighed. "Name and business."

"Cadet Messiah Yakov. Your tea, Captain Tatum."

I flinched at the title. But I can never let them know it bothered me.

"Come in," I said, setting my pen down on my desk and closing the thick hardcover book I'd been writing in, hiding it underneath a sheath of papers.

"I never asked for tea, twerp," I frowned, my glare boring into the soldier before me for interrupting my thoughts.

"Cadet Hanji Zoe asked me to bring it to you, sir," he replied, setting the tray that contained a teacup filled with hot tea and a tablespoon.

I scowled. Of course. That lunatic.

"Please don't tell me that wench made it," I groaned. I feared that she may have drugged it. That woman was crazy enough to pull stunts like that.

"No sir. I did."

I cocked an eyebrow at him and glanced down at the teacup.

"You do know I preferred coffee to tea, right, cadet?" I asked, frowning, not meaning to be ungrateful. But the cadet looked so terrified I didn't think the thought passed his mind.

"Cadet Hanji said she was trying to break your caffeine habit, sir," he said weakly.

I groaned. I wish she never got into the Scouts. "I never had a caffeine problem to begin with, brat," I snapped at him, annoyed, though it wasn't him fault.

Hell. I wish I never let her spot me in the first place. I shuddered at the thought of that first meeting. Her mouth had started firing off questions at me like she had endless ammunition. Apparently, I was quite infamous.

And now she was annoying me once again, even when she wasn't even there. She never once stopped trying.

And it also bothers me that she's older than me, despite me joining at my age then.

"Fine," I grumbled. "Leave it and get out," I mumbled, waving him off.

"Yes, Captain!"

And with a blink of an eye, he was gone.

If I wasn't so stressed I would've at least laughed a bit.

Glancing down at my report I'd used to cover the hardcover book, I winced at the first page and sighed, running a frustrated hand through my hair.