The beginning: A need.

"Miss Sylvester, please don't make this difficult for me. I beg of you."

"But how-"

"This is very immoral. Even by my standard... Especially by my standard."

"What's so hard to decide? It'll so be quick even you won't notice."

"That's a bit-"

"Come on, sir~"

"Miss Sylvester, I can't-"

"Won't you be the one to benefit the most in this?"

"You may not know this but that a quite insulting and demeaning."

"But do I lie?"

"Miss Sylvester, what will you gain by doing this?"

"What do you mean? I'm doing this to please us. I'm doing this with your interest in mind."

"Miss Tanya, if you say it like that-"

"Why are you hesitating? It's with you. Just give it to me anyhow you like. We can sort the rest later. I re~ally need it."

"Miss Sylvester- !"

"Hey! Not too loud. Someone might hear and misunderstand us." Tanya said while scratching her ears.

"You're already making me misunderstand, Miss Sylvester." The commandant said with a voice of helplessness.

Currently, Tanya was sitting in his office and facing the commandant while trying to persuade him to give her, either a transfer letter or an expulsion letter. But somehow, Commandant Gerard was facing harassment, both sexual and mental, from the student across him.

"For a man who is ranked as the lieutenant Colonel, you are oddly a good tease." The question that was meant to be sly and filled with a flirty vibe, oddly, came out of her mouth in an awe-filled and surprised tone, causing the commandant to groan in agony, a contrast of the bright pink that spread from his neck, to his ears, to his cheeks.

"Now sir, the expulsion letter." Tanya reminded and Gerard sighed. "You might have been a trouble for us Miss Sylvester, but that doesn't give the right to send you out of the school without a cause or, in this case, an offense."

With a cry of desperation, Tanya closed in on his hands with a plead, "We can forget that. This is my matter. No one would judge you since they already know the kind of person I am. They might even reward you."

"Like I said Miss Sylvester: 'A no is a no'. And besides, it's against my principles. So, I can't do anything about it."

Tanya sighed but was still shocked nonetheless. Hadn't they hated her before now?

"It doesn't matter our past relationship, Cadet Sylvester. I've take you under my wing and I won't let go until I've been strained by you till a certain point." Taking a brief pause before he continued, "I would never leave any of my young soldiers for anything. That's not what a real soldier would do."

Tanya, with a dumbfounded look and a pair of glazed eyes stared dumbly at the Lt. Colonel before she bowed her head and in order to school her emotions.

She had come over to his office during her forty minutes recess to discuss her expulsion or transfer but she had made it clear that she realized that she just wasn't cut out for military school.

"You really say the best rubbish, commandant." Tanya's said a bit brazen.

"You can't provoke me into expelling you, cadet." The commandant cut in unexcited and a bit tired. This kid in front of him was a hand full.

"Not just the best rubbish but the best bullsh*t too." Gerard looked at the young lady who spewed such fowl words with a straight face in an attempt to get a reaction.

He shook his head with a smile on his face at the cadet. She was cute and that, in itself, was a contradiction. Especially, if the object of such statement was Tanya Sylvester.

"Why?" Gerrard found himself blurting out loud. Before he could apologise for the slip up, Tanya beat him to it. "Because," she began, "I don't want to make the wrong choices again."

Her words shocked him. Especially when he heard her mutter under her breath, 'No one must die under my watch.'

"Sylvester, are you in trouble? Did you get involved in any gang movement lately?" Tanya gazed at him stunned before she broke out into fits of laughter.

"Don't worry commandant, I'm alright. Nothing's going to happen. I won't let anything happen." Tanya said with a meaningful smile. "So about the letter...?"

With a heavy sigh, Gerard looked into the eyes of his student across the woodwork office desk with a heavy lidded gaze. It was the stare of a predator accessing his prey. If Tanya had been the old Tanya, she would have been frozen in shock before making a ruckus by shouting at him to take his eyes of her in an attempt to mask her embarrassment.

But she wasn't like that anymore.

Unable to figure her out, Gérard sighed even more heavily and dropped the honorifics as he asked "Why exactly are you doing this, Tanya."

Without saying a word, she gave him a tired smile that spoke measures. A smile that summed up all she could ever say. Another tired sigh escaped his lips as he looked at the young lady in front of him. What could she have gone through that had her change so much to in just bring a couple of months.

Could he have failed in his objectives to raise a good student and in turn actually harmed her. Where did he go wrong.

As these thoughts ran through his head, he didn't realise when a small hand approached his larger ones and by the time the warmth got to him, snapping him out from his reverie, he was stunned looking at the young girl who offered him a bright and knowing smile as though she understood the nature of the thoughts going through his head.

"Don't worry about me Colonel. I'm fine. I just need a new stage, that's all. I might even come back soon if you miss me so much." Tanya teased and sure enough, the middle aged man groaned in disbelief.

"Cadet, your hands... remove them." The man bellowed.

"Aye aye, commandant." Tanya said with a chuckle but complied in obedience without any resistance.