Daisy | Levi Ackerman

Chapter 42 - Confrontation

[Naomi]

As I was just stacking up my worksheets after the class, the cadets began filing out of the classroom. I knew for sure it was empty, even as I had looked down on the afternoon sunset glow alighting on the paper before me. The cold-breezed silence assured me that no one was left.

But then my solitude was shattered by an equally cold voice.

"Corporal Naomi." Hesse's voice called, making me look up at him as he ominously stood there in front of my desk with his ever-present frown.

"Yes, may I help you?" I asked flatly, returning to my paperwork.

"You may." He replied coldly, ushering my sudden pause as he began talking. "You have been confounding me for the past few days. You have been confounding all of us. Though I cannot deny that you teach strategy almost as well as Commandant Keith, your approach when it comes to students is coming too far."

"Hold on," I blinked twice, looking up towards him. "What are you saying, Hesse?"

"I'm saying that I believe you're using this substitution as an outlet for your frustrated anger." He replied in a sharp manner, stabbing me deep in the chest. "What? Has being a soldier or a servant of the goverment bored you or worn you out enough to suddenly choose to become a professor at the Training Corps? You suddenly had this notion that you might express your mourning more satisfyingly enough by dumping it on these impressionable cadets?"

"You better watch what you say, Hesse." I said through gritted teeth, my eyebrows slowly furrowing in contempt of his audacity to speak to me like that.

"I have no fear in what I'm speaking, for I know it's the truth." He grinded back on me. "Look at what you've been doing to Reid. Though that idiot is a bully and a slob, he does not deserve having his commendable academics be at stake for his attitude."

"You think sleeping in classes can merit good marks?" I spat out.

"I think character should be separated from wit." He replied. "It's not just Reid. It's also Cara. She's losing her confidence to speak and our batch mates are slowly losing trust in her due to her inability to command with certainty of herself. She's losing control. And that's because of your relentless questioning of her leadership abilities."

"And speaking of leadership," Hesse added further, lifting his chin up and stepping forward to me, "Don't think for once that I haven't noticed how frequent I'm voted to be leader. No. I'm not some kind of project for you to improve, because I have my own ways on how to work alone. I don't need people to help me and people certainly don't need me to help them. This whole romanticized idea of soldiers having to always work together is garbage. When the time comes, all that matters is what you got for yourself."

I was so flustered and infuriated that I couldn't even speak. I felt bitter bile rising up my throat with every spiteful word he was letting loose.

"Schiller's friends are avoiding him now, and for what? For them to be able to join you and your priveleged clique of spies. I don't know why you've targeted the four of us, but I've been noticing and keeping it in my mind." Hesse continued to say. "What are you, punishing that bastard Schiller for setting up traps that you used to set up for the same trainers?"

"And what are you, a rogue vigilante?" I spat back. "Defending the people you secretly hate, defending the people you don't give a damn about just to cover the fact that you're just a selfish douche?"

His eyes widened, letting me know that I've cut through. In my normal days, I wouldn't fight back- but right then and there my temper was pushed to the very brim of my limitations.