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She touched his nape, firmly lowering his head under the cool water flow. She didn’t have to say anything now, and he stood rigidly, gripping the edge of the bath, until his thoughts cleared enough to count his mistakes. He knew he wasn’t prepared for today’s training - flashes of yesterday’s fun washed with a guilty, sick feeling: the blond girl’s scent, the tipsy kisses, the taste of a last cigarette at daybreak when he returned.
She kept quiet, but Jack felt that he betrayed her trust.
She poured the minty liquid on his head and he started scrubbing the grease out with both hands. She really wiped the floor with him this time. Twice, when he tried to duck, he was grabbed by the outgrown hair and pressed face down into the sticky floor mat. Long excruciating seconds without air. Still, he got up again and again for more punches. She kept her breathing pace easily despite all his efforts to put up a fight, while he panted, feeling his weary limbs pulling him down.
“You never know when to give up”, she said, “And that hair needs trimming”. She tousled them like a damp dog’s coat for another long second. “Come with me”.
He sat on a stool awkwardly when she tucked the towel behind his collar; the rush was wearing out leaving only the muscle ache behind. He could see her in a frameless muddy wall mirror, noticing just now she was wearing a braid. She quickly parted his hair with a comb, and he wondered has she done this for her comrades during the long campaigns. It was a strange thought, he was so used to regard them as impenetrable heroes that such a simple thing as a haircut didn’t exactly fit the image. She finished cutting the back of his head and now stood facing him, looking down intently at her work while he stared at the curve of her chest in front of him, sudden hot panic throbbing low in his stomach.
“Do you know that,” she said, her light tone breaking the long tense silence, “a second in the field and has to hurry to battle…”, another snip, “...and will arrive already exhausted”.
He clenched his teeth, a forceful blush on his cheeks. He overslept, was late for the training, and now she quotes Art of War to him like he was a toddler. He was expecting cold reproach, he deserved a lecture, not this gentle motherly chiding.
She touched the tip of his ear to get it out of the way and he shuddered at another snap of the scissors near his right temple.
“Keep still! Even a blunt like that could do damage”.
He thought, distantly, of his own rush of arousal at her proximity, mostly covered by the towel, and tried to will it away. This is what happens when you bend the rules and allow yourself to slack off like that. Embarrassing. He almost wanted her to look down and notice and say something to him. He wanted her pale blue eyes on him again.
“I’m sorry”, he said hoarsely, lifting his chin to meet her eyes and shifting in his seat slightly.
“What for?” she raised an eyebrow, seemingly unbothered, but he knew this was a trick. There was always a lesson.
“For wasting your time like that today. I was slow and unprepared. It won’t happen again”.
She leaned forward, her hold on his long bangs unnecessarily tight. She snapped near his eyes five times in a row, blurring his vision.
Then she smiled and moved completely away, allowing him to see himself in the mirror.
“That’s better”, she said, without looking back, “See to it then”.
When she left he allowed himself to slouch and exhale. He felt sweaty and tired, and wanted nothing than to get to his bunk and sleep for hours. Instead, he took a long, cold shower.