Your Girlfriend Calls Me Daddy-Chapter 37 | 6 AM Training Sessions Are A Hate Crime Against My Sleep Schedule

Chapter 37: 37 | 6 AM Training Sessions Are A Hate Crime Against My Sleep Schedule

She handed the card back.

Returned to the front of the room.

Turned to face the class.

"Alright. Lesson for today."

Solana leaned against her desk, capturing the room instantly.

"What Rome just demonstrated is called opportunity recognition."

She pointed a marker at me.

"A three-star hero engaged a villain. Rome didn’t run. He didn’t pull out a phone to stream for clout."

She scanned the room, lingering on the students who definitely would have streamed it.

"He made himself available. Titan noticed. That is how careers are built."

Nolan raised his hand.

Solana nodded. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

"But he didn’t do anything. He just stood there."

"Exactly." Solana smiled. "He didn’t panic. Didn’t interfere. Didn’t create additional problems for the responding hero. In a city full of people who pull out their phones and livestream disasters for clicks, that’s rare. Titan recognized it. Rewarded it."

Cheon’s hand shot up.

Solana sighed.

"Yes, Miss Cheon."

"This sets a dangerous precedent. Students shouldn’t be encouraged to loiter around active villain incidents hoping to get noticed."

"Good thing I didn’t say that then."

Cheon’s mouth opened.

Closed.

She sat back in her chair.

Fuming.

Aurora turned in her seat. Looked back at me.

Green eyes curious.

"What did she say to you? Like, word for word?"

I met her gaze.

She was pretty.

Really pretty.

Dark hair with natural gold highlights. Beauty mark under her left eye. Athletic build visible even through the uniform blazer.

Her nails had that crystalline quality I’d noticed yesterday. Essentia expression. Permanent feature.

She was also Nolan’s girlfriend.

Secret girlfriend.

Which meant I needed to make her mine.

"She asked my name. Asked if I was a student. Told me Vanguard recruits after the festival. Said they’re interested in people who think under pressure."

"That’s it?"

"That’s it."

She looked at me for another second.

Then turned back around.

Nolan leaned over and whispered something to her.

She whispered back.

Mera’s hand appeared on my desk.

Fingers drumming once.

I looked down.

She’d written something on the corner of her notebook.

You’re trouble.

I grabbed her pen.

Wrote underneath.

You like it.

Her tail flicked again.

A guy from the middle row I hadn’t noticed before leaned forward. Messy brown hair. Glasses. Skinny build.

"Did you really not use your Essentia?"

"Can’t use what I don’t have."

"But you’re ranked. You have RP."

"Eighty-nine points. From orientation tests. Physical benchmarks." I shrugged. "Nulls can still score."

Noel scoffed. "You’re ranked fifty-ninth out of sixty students. You’re one spot above failure. And you think Vanguard is going to recruit you?"

I smiled. "Guess we’ll find out."

Her eyes narrowed.

Solana clapped her hands once.

Attention snapped back to the front.

"Alright. Enough gossip. We have actual work to do today." She turned to the whiteboard and tapped the rankings chart. "These numbers update every Friday based on your performance in practicals, simulations, and live assessments. Right now most of you are sitting in the two to three hundred RP range. That’s normal for first years a few weeks in. By midterms you should be breaking five hundred if you’re serious about going pro."

She pointed at Nolan.

"Traore is sitting at six twenty because he scored high in every orientation metric and placed top three in last week’s combat drill. That performance matters. Agencies watch these boards."

She moved her finger down the list.

Stopped at my name.

"D’Angelo is sitting at eighty-nine because he transferred in late and missed orientation entirely. He has no practical scores. No drill rankings. No simulation data. Just physical benchmarks from his intake assessment."

She looked at me.

"Which means you have a lot of ground to cover if you want to move up that board."

"Noted."

"Good." She turned back to the class. "Rankings aren’t everything. But they matter. They determine your practical assignments. Your simulation difficulty. Your visibility to scouts and agencies. If you’re sitting in the bottom ten by midterms, you’re not getting noticed. You’re getting flagged for academic review."

Cheon’s hand went up again.

"Professor Delacroix, when is the first major assessment?"

"Sports Festival. Eight weeks from now. Every first year competes. Your performance determines your second semester practical assignments and your eligibility for agency internships."

The room got quiet.

The festival didn’t matter to me except as a vehicle for relationship progression.

But everyone else was treating it like the apocalypse.

Nolan’s jaw was tight. Aurora’s fingers drummed on her desk. Even Mera had stopped moving her tail.

Solana grinned.

"Scared?"

Nobody answered.

"Good. You should be. Last year’s festival put three students in the hospital and one in the burn ward for a month. It’s not a game. It’s not a exhibition. It’s a live combat assessment watched by every major agency in the country." She walked to her desk. Picked up a stack of papers. Started passing them out row by row. "This is your prep schedule. Combat drills. Endurance training. Essentia control workshops. Simulations. Optional, but they are there for those who want a more structured training."

The paper landed on my desk.

I looked at it.

COASTLINE HERO ACADEMY - SPORTS FESTIVAL PREP SCHEDULE

Monday, Wednesday, Friday: Combat Drills, 0600-0800

Tuesday, Thursday: Endurance Training, 0600-0800

Monday, Wednesday: Essentia Control, 1600-1800

Tuesday, Thursday: Live Simulations, 1600-1800

Friday: Open Sparring, 1600-1900

Six AM.

They want me here at six in the morning.

I looked up.

Solana was watching me.

Still grinning.

"Problem, Mr. D’Angelo?"

"Not a morning person."

"Tough. Neither is crime."

Fair point.

The bell rang.

Everyone started packing up.

Mera leaned over.

Her voice was low enough that only I could hear it.

"Don’t worry, I got a pill."

"That’s good. Get any more?"

"Of course I did, you don’t seem like the type to pull out."

She smiled.

Stood up.

Her tail brushed against my leg as she walked past.

I grabbed my bag and stood.

Cheon was waiting by the door.

Of course she is.

I walked over.

She didn’t move.

"You’re blocking the exit."

"We need to talk."

"No we don’t."

"You’re lying about what happened this morning."

I looked down at her. "Think whatever you want."

"I know you used an ability. I saw the footage. The villain stopped growing the second Titan started falling. That wasn’t coincidence."

"Prove it."