School Blues - Kelvin's Shame by Boi

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Writer’s Note: Hey yall! Long time lurker here, first try on writing a story. Any and all forms of feedback will be appreciated! First time writing in a long while. Plan on making a series on these. Thanks and enjoy!


Competition was upon us. Months of training had led up to this last week of intensive training during the school holidays. I had somehow been selected to join my school’s national cadet corp drill competition. However, I have failed to remember one essential thing. Bearings check.

During the last training before the day of the competition, we had a full dry run of the competition day itself. The problem arose right at the start of the day. Being a uniformed group, we are expected to maintain a clean and neat appearance at all times. I myself kept the popular Korean two-block style, which consists of a faded undercut and a much longer, layered and thick top overlapping the sides, often lightly styled and in the face. This was usually not a problem, as my beret would perfectly hide my longer hair, leaving a clean cut high and tight look after a fresh haircut.

However, being the holidays, it was overgrown, even by my standards. The previously shorn sides were now about an inch long and top resembled more of a mushroom, with my fringe easily covering my eyes and the sides covering most of my ears. I was already struggling to put my beret without anything sticking out too much, much less without it.

Well, unlike normal inspections conducted during weekly club trainings, it turns out for competition, they also required each cadet to remove their beret during the check. The moment that was announced, the rest of the team started giggling, with me being the resident long hair of the team. The rest of them maintained relatively short hair, with the "longest" being my captain with an undercut quiff.

Well, I tried questioning whether they would even go to such an extent for a relatively minor component of the overall scores with the student officers, who were one batch older than us and training us, but to no avail. Even captain was told to cut his hair shorter, since with the beret, taking it off might cause it to fall over his face, like mine often did. When it came to my turn, instead of outright asking me to get it cut, one officer told me to see him after training, followed with the rest of my squad making snipping and buzzing sounds. At that point I didn’t think much of it, probably just a more severe warning or separate punishment.

Training ensued and it was easily the most we've been drilled. Unlike most trainings that were in our school exercise attire, we trained in our full uniform. By the end of the 5h session, we were exhausted. With my beret on for that long, my hair had essentially becomes a wet mop, with whatever product I used beforehand becoming useless gunk. We were given our final briefing and told to rest up and stay safe before the big day, before getting finally dismissed. As I was packing up to go with my teammates, a tap on the shoulder brought me back to reality. It was my officer, Jason.

"Well, Kelvin, did you actually forget something?". Now, Jason was always known as a joker amongst the officers. He was always known to pull pranks on the others and often messed around within the club. However, he was easily one of the most skilled, if not the most skilled out of all the officers.

And somehow or another, he was always in charge of conducting uniform inspections, and held us to the highest standards possible, often resulting in multiple punishments. Jason himself had an undercut, with his sides never more than a no. 2 and his hair constantly slicked back.

"Look, I know you like your hair, I find it pretty good too. But....it's a competition. And you've had the whole holidays to get it sorted out. But you didn’t. So I'm making sure of it right now."

I was worried. Actually worried. He's been known to have bursts of manic energy, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he pulled out a set of clippers there and then. I tried pushing my hair out to make it seem less messy, but the moment I tried, it just fell right back, impairing my vision.

Sensing my panic, Jason smiled, pushing back my fringe for me and stared me dead in my eyes.

"Hoo boy, this gonna be a fun haircut. Follow me"

I tried to come out with a weak excuse, only to be pat on my head and have my hair messed up, essentially shutting me up. Defeated, I just followed behind him, expecting to be led to our locker rooms, but instead led to the nearby mall.

Now in my country, we have express haircut shops which costs $12, pay for a ticket, wait for your turn, get a simple haircut, and that's it. A very transactional relationship. One key thing is a lack of a hair wash or any comforts whatsoever. It was often the budget choice for students.

He pulled me to one of the upper floors of the mall and sat me down.

"Guess how long my hair is"

"What?" I was, needless to say, completely caught off guard.

I was even more surprised when he pulled down his hair, since no one ever saw him with hair down. His ear were completely covered, and his fringe was down to his lips, way over an regulation in the club and the school.

"Surprised, aren’t ya. See, that's this wonderful thing called clay, and I can tell you, it sticks. And works perfectly for longer hair. Go ahead, try some", pulling a tub out of his backpack.

By that point, my hair had mostly dried off, but still left a strong musky smell and stickiness to it. I took a minimal amount and spread it between my hands before he interrupted.

"More"

I took another small scoop. This was already more product than I normally use.

"More"

Another scoop.

"More"

After which he essentially took a giant lump of clay himself, rivalling my last last few scoops.

"More"

"But sir..."

"More"

Finally satisfied with the giant clump of clay i had in my hand, he told me to put aside half and rub the remainder together, doing the same thing himself. I was left with both palms essentially covered with a thick layer of hair product.

"Now spread it through your hair"

And I did. It hurt, knots had formed, there was too much. And then he added the clay in his hands. And then he forced me to repeat it again. I could barely feel hair by the second time I did it, and he hadn't even added his second half. It was basically plastic by that point.

Then, he began arranging my hair, tugging at it all the way through. It hurt beyond measure. He flattened the sides, the arranged the top in a centre part, plastering my fringe on my forehead and tucking the excess at my ears.

He used his phone to show me the end product and well, it had to admit, it looked perfect. Almost too perfect. Along with the sweat, my scalp was starting to itch beyond measure and my hair felt like it was encased in plastic. And his sadistic smirk just confirmed it

"See? This is what you could have. But...competition is a competition. Cant have you embarrassing our school by being the only long haired kid right? Come on, time for your haircut!"

"But how, there's no salons here? I can't go for a haircut like this?"

Pulling back his hair and arranging it into its everyday perfect form, he replied, "sure you can, I'm sure you'll figure something out"

Before I could even protest, he began to start dragging me down to the express salon.

Next thing I knew, he already sat me down and got both himself and I a ticket. Now, at this point it was too late. I couldn’t leave without causing a fuss.

It was a slow day if anything. We were the only ones in the shop. There was only one hairdresser, a middle aged man with a receding hairline and a generally annoyed expression. Seeing us 2 kids did nothing to improve his mood.

Jason went first, simply tightening this sides to a skin fade, leaving his top pristine and untouched. Just before he finished, another man entered, just your stereotypical businessman.

With Jason done, it was my turn. I was essentially frozen, dreading what was about to happen. He nudged/dragged me to the seat, and sat me down.

While the barber was caping me up, he asked, "Boy, how do you want your hair cut?

Jason chirped in immediately "Oh, he has a drill competition coming up. Doesn’t need to be army regulation short, just standard school boy cut. Fringe middle of forehead, get rid of the undercut, back and sides short, I think a number 1. Thin the top more, it’s too thick. Correct, Kelvin?"

I could only murmur a yes before Jason hopped out and observed the scene from outside the store. This wasn’t going to end well.

The haircut started as per normal, with the barber combing my hair. In this shop they used disposable plastic combs that we could keep afterwards...except a tooth broke even before he could get one full stroke in.

He was, needless to say, pissed. "Boy, why did you use so much wax, cant even comb through it. What's wrong with you, realise I cant even comb through it, how much did you even use? You realise this is harming your hair right...." He continued ranting while I just completely zoned out, embarrassed beyond measure. "...why couldn’t you be like the boy before you, you even waxed the sides? Now the clippers will also be jammed..." All I could do is mutter a sorry while red faced with embarrassment. I could already begin to feel the tears forming in my eyes.

To make the situation worse, all he was armed with to deal with this plastic thick uncombable hair? A spray bottle. Just a spray bottle.

He proceeded to spray as much as he could while trying to comb out the top, much less the sides. The only problem was the clay mixed with water turned into a wet goopey mess, only making the situation worse. He pulled out his personal steel tooth comb and continued trying, basically tugging at my hair nonstop. I was wincing from the severe pain, but at the same time too guilty to say anything. Eventually, he seemed to make some leeway, but the top had turned into one solid mess by then. Thankfully, my essentially solid block of a fringe was now covering my face, covering up the few tears from embarrassment and pain.

I could barely see anything, which somehow made everything feel so much worse. I could hear the clippers chugging through my sides, stopping every few seconds for him to unclog it. To make things worse, I have never gotten my sides and back cut as short as a number 1 before, and my longer top had clumped together with my former shorn sides to form a huge mess. I could feel it going higher than before, and shorter than before, but I couldn’t see it. The only thing I could see was the floor filling up with long thick chunks of my hair. What was normally a 5min process was dragged to a full 15min of pure agony.

He seems finally satisfied with my sides, and noticed the mass of hair on top. It had dried up. Again, he tried wetting it, only making it even worse. Each time he pulled up my hair to cut off the ends, it hurt beyond measure. The pile was adding up. He was moving from the back to the front. Slowly, and painstakingly. Finally, he got to my fringe. I assume out of rage, he just cut it horizontally in one swoop. And that chunk slid down the cape as one solid.

By then, my eyes had dried up. My hair looked like a porcupine. Sticking up, with certain bunches at different lengths. Looking in the mirror, I saw Jason holding up this phone, recording the entire thing and with the biggest grin on this face. I had given up at this point, hoping it was finally over until the barber took out what I dreaded the most and refused near my hair almost every time, thinning scissors

It just didn’t work. The barber just straight out said "If you want it thinned, we have to have it buzzed" I had nothing left in me by that point, just wanting this to be over. I mumbled some gibberish, which he took as a sign to continue. With that, he attached a number 2, then began, with a renewed ferocity, buzzing what's left of my hair off.

Afterwards, I vaguely remember nodding as he used a smaller mirror to show me what remained of my hair, before he cleaned me up and uncaped me, leaving me to shamble off in despair, only realise afterwards Jason was nowhere to be found. Dejected, I just made my way home, only to break down again in front my mirror.

On the day of the competition, we won. But, I could barely feel any joy about it. Sure my team applauded me for committing all the way, but all I could offer was a hollow thanks.

Jason was there spectating, but didn’t say much other than congratulations. On the way home that day, I was looking through my bag when I saw a small wrapper gift, with the initials J on it. Against my better judgement, I unwrapped it, only to find a tub of the clay that ruined my hair.

If only this was the end...

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