eyes wide open

Jae still wonders, sometimes, why it was him the spider chose to bite.

Of all the people in New York. Jae misses LA in those moments, the lazy west coast sun and all its people’s bottled dreams. He’s convinced this wouldn’t have happened had he stuck to his side of the Pacific. Sure, the Big Apple may be the place to be for up and coming superheroes, what with the Avengers settling into Stark Tower and the X-men always less than half-an-hour away from trouble, but Jae has never considered himself anything close to super. And he’s certainly no hero either.

Still, he thinks, the first time he accidentally sticks himself to his bedroom ceiling when a truck with a broken exhaust pipe roars past his open window and startles him ten feet up in the air, shit happens sometimes. Just like that. As his room wobbles and the world turns 180 degrees on its own axis, Jae decides that all you can really do about it is move on. Move with.

He hits his head on the way down from the ceiling, feet getting tangled in his bedsheets, and that’s when Jae decides, too: that’s probably easier said than done.

￣

It begins, as most things tend to do where Jae is concerned, with a mistake.

“Fuck,” Jae says the moment he realizes the room he just stepped into wasn’t the bathroom he had been looking for after all. It hadn't been locked; Jae had been wiping his glasses and all the more blind for it. “Fuck,” he says again, with more feeling this time around. There’s a moment of heart-stopping confusion when he sees the shelves upon shelves filled with caged spiders, the crack in the glass case. Then comes the startling panic and the numbing haze of abject terror when he feels something prick the back of his neck. Stinging.

Before Jae can so much as open his mouth to curse some more, or scream, or flail, a red alarm starts flashing. His ears ring when the sirens kick in, and Jae finds himself being pulled out of the door by the scruff of his shirt collar, scuffed up Converse squeaking noisily against the pristine linoleum floor.

“That room’s off limits, kid,” the security guard tells him gruffly in the aftermath, patting him down and frowning at the visitor’s card hanging limply from Jae’s breast pocket. Jae Park, it reads, Midtown High. “Go back to your group.”

“Sure,” Jae agrees readily, shuffling on his feet. He feels the slightest bit light-headed. Adrenaline, he thinks. The room starts to spin. “Just, uh, where’s my group exactly?”

After the guard dropped him off on the other side of the building - and really, how Jae managed to get that lost is beyond him - he does his best to slip beside Matthew as inconspicuously as possible.

It doesn’t work as neatly as he had hoped. Professor Jones sends him a disappointed look over the rim of his glasses when he catches Jae sneaking back in, sighs in defeat at the half-sheepish, half-apologetic shrug Jae gives him in return, and then continues on with his lecture. Something about the great impact Oscorp’s scientific research has had on their generation. Or whatever.

“Genetic modification,” Professor Jones drawls. Jae can still hear his hi-hat heartbeat drumming in his ears. “Just think of the possibilities.”

“Dude,” Matthew starts as the wolfpack of students drag their feet down to the Oscorp Building cafeteria for the complimentary lunch that comes with the guided visit. “Where the hell were you? You missed the research labs. There was a scorpion with two tails, I took a pic. Here, look.”

Jae blinks unseeingly down at the ugly thing showing on Matthew’s phone, tugging at the collar of his shirt. Sweat is pooling on his collarbones, sticking to his skin, and his cheeks are flushed. He feels nauseous. “Say, isn’t it hot in here?” Jae mumbles, squinting against the too-bright light. “I thought cutting-edge tech buildings were supposed to have decent AC.” He frowns. The two-tailed scorpion seems to nod in solemn agreement.

“Uh,” Matthew says, watching warily as Jae begins to sway on his feet. There’s an itch on the back of his neck, and Jae can feel a slight bump on his skin when he drags a fingernail over the spot. “You sure you’re alright, man? You look a little - oh, shit.”

Jae stumbles. The last thing he sees before he passes out is Matthew’s frantic face looming close, a hand reaching out to catch him before Jae can hit the floor, and not quite making it in time.

What follows after is honestly too embarrassing to retell. Matthew has a couple of videos Jae has yet to delete saved somewhere in a nondescript file on his phone dubbed SPIDER-MAN: The Rise & Fall. (“It’s your superhero origin story, of course I’m not deleting them,” Matthew says when Jae finds out. “It’s blackmail, that’s what it is,” Jae protest, then makes a painful retreat when Matthew kicks him on the crotch to keep him from getting his hands on his phone.)

It feels a lot like going through puberty all over again. It’s the same kind of gut-worry, the awkward feeling of your body running a few miles ahead of you, the itching uncertainty of not knowing what, exactly, the fuck is going on.

“You got bit by a radioactive spider, how should I know?” Matthew says when Jae calls him two days after the Oscorp visit, words falling to the floor in a heap as he says I’m not feeling well and I think I’m a mutant now, dude, what the fuck..

Fastforward the ten-minute subway ride to Matthew’s apartment and Jae’s sprawled on the couch, feet kicking against the armrest in a restless rhythm. Windows: opens. Panic: full-blown.

“I mean,” Jae waves his glasses around, hands shaking. They’re useless now; his sight has sharpened almost to the point of perfection. His other senses, too. Which is kind of a pain, actually, because he understands now what Matthew’s mother means when she yells at him that his room smells like a pigsty.

If he strains his ears enough, Jae can hear the hot dog vendor down the street - the one who always lets Jae take a few extra handfuls of chips if he helps him roll the cart at night - arguing with a disgruntled businessman. The old lady from B-12 is gossiping on the phone. Footsteps tap tap tapping down the street. Cars rushing. Hurried rustling. New York breathing, alive and kicking. “It isn’t normal, right?” He asks. “I shouldn’t just, wake up one day and be able to crawl up a fucking wall like my hands were made of scotch tape.”

It’s definitely not normal. Jae wonders if it’s fate, how he can now see the specks of dust diamonding in around the lightbulb overhead, hear the remnants of rain water dripping down the drainpipe. Pit, pat. Jae feels his pulse kick back in time. The world is sharp-edged and neon-bright.

Matthew shrugs. He throws a dirty sport sock Jae’s way, huffing in disappointment when - quick as lightning - Jae snatches it from the air before it can hit his face, like it’s a reflex.

“It’s New York,” Matthew says, like that’s explanation enough. “Anything can happen here.”

Somewhere down the block, Empire State of Mind is crackling through the radio. Jae lets his head fall against the couch with a huff and smothers down a bout of slightly hysterical laughter at the irony of it all. He misses LA.

￣

The problem, Jae figures, is that he really doesn’t have a suitable backstory to go with the whole superpower shebang.

He’s watched the movies, he’s read the comics. They covered mutants in Biology class last year. Every superhero running around the world (read: New York) has an iron-willed drive behind donning the suit. Sure, their motivations may vary, but there’s usually a bad mix of pain, loss and death involved somewhere at the starting line. Some grand, life-altering heartbeat of heavy-weight realization. The fated this is it or what you will. The calm in the eye of the storm.

Jae doesn’t have that. He’s a run-of-the-mill seventeen year old kid. One of the many. His life has been pretty ordinary up until now. Is pretty ordinary even now. Just the same old lather/rinse/repeat series of calendar days.

You see, his parents are chill, his sister still manages to be annoying even having moved halfway across the country for university, his grades are struggling. Pluck him out of the other thousands of half-boys, half-men living in New York and he wouldn’t be any different. Maybe except for the bad bleach job, but Jae thinks even that isn’t enough to set him apart.

The point being: Jae doesn’t have a cave in Afghanistan. He doesn’t have the weight of a war riding on his shoulders or an ancient mission to complete. The storm is raging all around him and there’s been no big moment in his life, no plot twist in his story. As of right now, Jae’s biggest villain is the looming uncertainty of a shapeless future after high school graduation and the cafeteria’s Friday special of mystery meat. Problems, he thinks, you can’t exactly fist fight your way out of.

He has college to start making up for lost time, he supposes. There’s still time. Life was out there somewhere. But here and now, all Jae has is senior year, a pair of sucky best friends, a hopeless crush, and a few decisions to make.

Spider-Man is, consequentially, born out of those four.

￣

Because Matthew is shit at keeping his mouth shut, Sammy knocks on the door not a half hour later. Matthew’s not even the slightest bit apologetic about it and well, it’s not like Jae wasn’t going to fill Sammy in anyways, so he opens the door and lets him in.

The story behind them goes likes this: Jae’s family moved to New York back when Jae was seven and ugly and bitter. The move wasn’t exactly unexpected, considering his father had been flying to the city more and more as the year dragged on because of work, but Jae still remembers the feeling of displacement well enough.

The first weeks were rough. Jae had been used to looking up and seeing postcard blue skies and palm trees. Now, when he turned his gaze heavensward, all that greeted him were buildings scratching at a muted grey slab of clouds, looming high enough for Jae to feel himself shrinking at the sight.

It took less than a month of Jae staying cooped up inside his room festering in resentment and the sour bite of early rebellion for his mother to strong-arm him into introducing himself to the two awkward kids in the Neighborhood Korean Meet-Group. And that's where Jae found them. Inside the Community Center’s puke-beige walls, in between dusty posters reading things like Visit Seoul, City of Design and Learn Korean in less than 6 months!

There was Matthew, a mouthful of braces and a few shy smiles. And Sammy, talking through a lisp that Jae to this day still makes fun of. Jae, too. 4 feet of thick Cali accent and a pair of band-aid splattered knees.

And then, one day, there was Jae And Sammy And Matthew, friendship forced more than forged but all that more stronger for it and getting stronger still the more common ground they found. The more days they spent skipping cracks in the pavements and looking for ways to sneak out of Hangul lessons.

Childhood came and went and here they are now, glued in each other’s photo albums, stuck in each other’s habits. And, unfortunately, also neck deep in each other’s businesses.

“Man,” Sammy says, flopping down on the couch and right over Jae’s legs, eyes eager as he looks down at Jae, who slumps lower against the armrest and whines. “Is it bad that I think this is actually really cool?”

Being a year younger means Sammy wasn’t on the field trip to Oscorp, but Matthew seems to have filled him in. Not nearly good enough, though, because, “I could die, you ass.” Jae kicks him on the leg. “What part of radioactive spider did you miss.”

“People get exposed to dangerous things like that all the time,” he says matter of factly. “It’s how legends are born. That’s like, superhero 101. Just look at Bruce Banner.”

“Oh god.” Jae’s stomach rolls, the thought sinking leaden down his spine. “Don’t tell me I’m gonna turn into a big rage monster. I have colleges to apply to and anger issues that big do not look good in applications.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Matthew scoffs just as Sammy croons, “That’d be sick!” The older shoots him a flat look and Sammy at least has to decency to turn sheepish. Then, the catalyst: Sammy twists around to look at Jae and asks, “So, what are you going to do about it?” He waves a hand around, gestures to the whole of him.

Jae frowns, chin on his chest. “I’m not doing shit.”

“You have powers now, dude.” Sammy points a finger his way, accusing. “You have to do something. If you don’t, it’d be like. Insulting the universe, or whatever.”

“That’s not how it works, what the hell,” Jae scoffs but Matthew is nodding along to Sammy’s words. When Jae shoots him a bewildered, betrayed look, he just shrugs, says, “I mean, there’s a lot of good you could do if you got your powers under control. A lot of people you could help.”

Jae blinks. That’s the thing, isn’t it? Here Jae is, seventeen and chasing after life, and he just got handed the opportunity to become something bigger than himself, to be something bigger than himself. It’s - it’s pretty daunting, admittedly, but Jae can hear New York outside the window, and it sounds a lot like a call.

“I’ll need a name,” he says, slipping down the couch. Relenting. “And a costume.”

Sammy whoops, hands up in the air in celebration. “This is gonna be awesome,” he says and he sounds like he’s making a promise. When Matthew grins, something like anticipation in his eyes, there’s a promise there, too.

Jae sighs. And that’s, pretty much, how it starts.

Getting the hang of his new-found powers proves to be harder than it sounded when Jae first agreed to play cops-and-robbers with New York’s criminals. Sure, he may be a part of the badminton team at school, but hitting a shuttlecock with a racket doesn’t hold a candle to the struggle that is trying to scale up a wall while Matthew throws tennis balls his way. (Sammy records the whole thing. That’s where the videos (and the shame) come in.) He has surprising pinpoint accuracy too. It sucks.

It’s hard, and it’s tiring, and most often than not Jae ends up jelly-limbed and aching by the time they call it a day. Not bruised though. Jae learns he actually heals pretty quickly now, which Matthew just uses an excuse to pelt him with even more tennis balls.

It pays off the first time he catches a man pickpocketing the old lady from B-12. He’s a block away from Matthew’s apartment, late, out of breath, and running. Giddy, too because Joshua Hong just asked for his help (Yeah. The hopeless crush. We’ll get there in a second.) when his neck tingles. The hairs on his arm raise to attention and Jae turns - sees a man slipping a hand down the old lady’s purse while she’s distractedly unlocking the front door to the apartment building.

At that point, his supersuit consists of: a) a pair of blue skinny jeans with holes on the knees that Sammy let him borrow; b) a red sweater that’s a bit frayed at the edges; and c) a black sky mask. Jae keeps C stuffed inside his backpack (“You have to be ready for anything, anytime,” Sammy insists, slipping the mask in between Jae’s Econ and English Lit textbooks. Jae, still feeling the phantom pain of a few dozen tennis balls, is far too tired to argue).

He puts it on then, smells stuffy wool and the stench of bad, bad decision, and stops the man before he can get away with a well-place punch (Thanks, spider reflexes) and a handful of good luck.

As it turns out, his good luck ends right there, grinding hard against the asphalt. The suit is a big mistake. The lady confuses him for the actual criminal when Jae goes to return her wallet and wacks him over the head with her purse. Jae tries to explain, but she’s already screaming herself blue by then, so Jae decides to cut his losses and makes a swift escape up the drainpipe running along the side of the building.

Matthew coughs out a laugh when Jae comes stumbling in through his window, rubbing at the sore spot on his head. Sammy is humming Itsy Bitsy Spider under his breath, Calc homework sprawled all over his lap and the dusty, carpeted floor of Matthew’s bedroom.

“You’re late,” Matthew says in greeting. Jae throws the black sky mask his way in answer and demands for him to: “Do something about this, jackass.”

Matthew hums, a focused frown slipping on his face as he takes the sky mask and stretches the fabric around like he could mold it into something else, just like that.

The gossip is already running through the apartment block, leaking down the streets. Some thug tried to mug Ms. Davis. It happened here, just now. Jae hears them whispering. The neighbourhood’s becoming dangerous. The beginning of a story, snowballing down the hill.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he says, and rips a page out of his Science notebook to start doodling. Something vaguely human-shaped begins to take form on the page. A stick-figure promise of red and blue.

“You better,” Jae shoots back tiredly. Scared me half to death, says B-12, three floors up. Jae twists on the couch. It seems he’s fast on his way to becoming a wanted man. And yet. Sounds to me like he was just trying to help, answers the landlord. There’s no hiding the smile on his face.

Monday, Matthew hands him a pair of blue jogging leggings. Stitched to the top is a latex thing in eye-catching red. “Your arms go here,” Matthew says, pointing at two holes he’s cut on the side. Jae’s in the middle of stopping a would-be mugging when the sleeves come loose and he trips on his own feet.

That same night, he gets a text from Sammy that goes, dude, i think you broke him. Attached it’s a picture of Matthew sitting cross-legged on his bedroom floor, swathes of cloth swimming around him and a needle stuck between his teeth.

Wednesday, Matthew somehow makes him fit into a full body suit so tight Jae can feel his lungs shrinking. It ends up black at the edges after Jae enters a burning building to help a retiree get out of the mess. Matthew takes one look at it, sighs heavily, and dumps it on the trash.

Friday, Jae is presented with a spandex red/blue suit that actually fits. “Very Captain America,” Jae says, slipping the red mask on and blinking through the black lenses.

“You wish,” Matthew retorts, staring critically up and down Jae’s body, who shifts on his feet, self-aware. “I think this is it.”

And Jae doesn’t say it, but he thinks so too.

￣

Matthew’s got a theory, says he’s been working on it since they were nine. He explains it to Jae in detail one day in tenth grade, after Jimin Park coerces Jae into joining the school’s newspaper crew and Jae just kind of - goes along with it.

“See, that’s exactly the point I’m trying to make,” Matthew says, steering him with a hand on his elbow. Jae can barely see the hallway they’re walking down over the stack of file boxes Jimin said needed to be moved to the newly appointed Newsroom and promptly dumped on his arms without a second thought. “You just let things happen to you. It’s like you can’t decide for yourself.”

Matthew argues his case like so: Exhibit A, he says, is this morning. Jimin Park approached Jae at lunch like a bloodhound on a trail and said, “I read your journalism assignment, it was pretty good. I’m looking for people to start up the school paper again. You in?” And Jae faltered. Caught between Yes and No, what came out of his mouth was a vague half-answer Jimin took as the former. She smiled, something bloody and satisfied, and said, “Great. We’re meeting tomorrow after lunch period. You know the unused classroom by the science building? Okay, well. See you there.” And then she was gone.

“It isn’t like that,” Jae defends, “I like the journalism club.”

“Sure you do,” Matthew shrugs. “But you figured that out after you signed up. You get it yet? You’re doing things backwards, man. I don’t think it’s healthy.”

“Whatever,” Jae scoffs. Privately, he can’t help but think there's some truth to that. Maybe. Because, well. Exhibit B:

Tenth grade comes howling. Freshman year is buried six-feet-under and High School has turned lackluster. Jae's hit with a bad case of Sophomore Slump and spends his summer break ignoring his homework in favor of aimlessly playing video games until the sun is chasing the horizon and messing around with his phone on pages that won’t load.

School starts back up again and life still feels a lot like that. Car-crash stuck. Time circles around and around like an infinite loading icon and the Wi-Fi just won’t stop lagging. Jae’s waiting for something to come around the corner but the block he’s walking on just keeps on stretching.

It’s never too early to start thinking about college, his mom says, those days. Figuring out what you want to do. Jae, fifteen and lost, stares at the university brochures she spreads over his bed like a fan of possibilities and hides his face in his pillow. Dead set on ignoring it all.

It’s rather awful, he thinks, trying to figure where to go when you don’t even know where it is that you're standing.

Matthew gets the hang of it first, the whole Figuring It Out thing.

He joins the football team at the start of term and grows not only upwards but sideways too. He starts filling up, fitting in, and Jae worries that his best friend - nerdy, awkward Matthew, who’s the biggest, closeted Avengers fanboy out there. Matthew, who has a heart of gold and is brave enough to share it too - is becoming a jock.

He goes to parties; gets drunk enough on cheap beer to puke his guts out in Jae’s toilet and all over Jae’s shoes. Jae stares at Matthew’s wan, sweat-slick face and thinks, if this is what going after what you want looks like, then he’s better off hanging back in the in between.

And so it goes. Matthew gets a girlfriend over Christmas break. Jae dyes his hair a bottle blonde, just because, and regrets it enough to wear beanies well into late March. Sammy unearths his father’s old guitar from a box in his garage and starts lugging it around like a flag. Jae gets a part-time job at the cinema down the block.

Then April comes around. Jae’s hair turns pasty. He gets fired from his job, Sammy’s voice cracks on his solo performance during Midtown’s music showcase. For his part, Matthew breaks up with his girlfriend, promptly joins the Dance Club, and sticks to it like hip-hop is his newest rebound.

That last one rattles up quite a storm. When Jae asks him why - because Matthew had been steadily climbing up their school’s social ladder and this new turn of events has pulled the rug clean under his feet, has sent the whole damn ladder clattering down - Matthew just shrugs. Smiles.

He says,“I like dancing. It’s fun. Why wouldn't I do it?” Like it’s easy.

And Jae realizes then, it’s never been a matter of why with Matthew. It’s always been more of a why not.

So, Jae starts taking the subway home alone. There’s a lonely 15 minute ride where before he’d spend the commute dicking around with Matthew, kicking elbows and knocking knees. Now though, Matthew has important things to do. Things like after-school football practice and three-hour dance rehearsals. Now, Jae watches the lights of the subway blink off, blink on, and wonders where he’s going after all.

Sammy, too, seems to take it all in stride. He’s always been the smart one out of the three of them and it shows. It’s unfair, Jae thinks, that he’s a year younger and more put together than Jae will ever be.

Because Sammy is dedicated when he wants to be and stubborn when he doesn't. Soon, his grades catch the attention of Amber Liu, senior president of the Science Club, who snatches him up takes him under her wing. Shows him the ropes. Later still, Jae loses him to the Choir Association too, when Kevin Woo manages to lure him in with music sheets and guitar picks. Hook, line and sinker.

Exhibit B goes like this: In tenth grade, Jae watches his friends set the first building blocks of life down on the ground, still uncertain but steady-handed all the same. In tenth grade, there’s a strange knot of fear tightening in his throat. Jae pictures an endless street, swallows down any regret, and thinks to himself: there’s still time.

Then Jae meets Joshua Hong. And the clock starts ticking down.

￣

“Have you heard,” Mark Lee starts, leaning over the table so Jimin won’t catch them slacking off. “About the new vigilante.”

The newsroom - also affectionately named Hellhole to all those unfortunate souls who were dumb enough to say ‘yes’ to Jimin when she first started looking for students to run the school paper with her - is as crowded as it can get on a Wednesday afternoon at 5 o’clock. Which is to say: not at all.

Jae is only here because he procrastinated on the piece about the allegedly extremely unsanitary conditions of the school cafeteria Jimin saddled him with in favor of trying to talk Sammy out of building something he calls ‘web-shooters’. (“It’ll be awesome, man, I promise. It evens goes with the spider theme you have going on!”).

Jimin is on the other end of the classroom, going over this week’s photos with Johnny. He’s the only one out of their five-man team who actually owns a camera and was therefore appointed as Midtown Post’s official photographer not a minute after stepping a foot inside the club. He’s a cool dude, even if he can’t seem to get his camera lense to focus right. The blurry, badly lit photos are part of their paper’s aesthetic by now.

Mark, a sophomore Jimin snatched up for their crew from the jaws of the basketball team when he transferred here from Canada last year, seems oddly eager as he rests his cheek on his hand and doodles spindly shapes on the corner of a page. He’s supposed to be editing the sports section. Then again, Jae’s supposed to be two pages into his article when in fact all he has going for it is a title that reads: MIDTOWN MENU - MYSTERY MEAT OR MISTERY DEATH?

“Come again,” Jae asks, deleting the headline with a sigh.

“There’s been some rumours,” Mark starts. “About a new hero showing up near Queens. They’re calling him the Spider-Man I think. He must be new cuz his suit’s awful and not many people recognize him, but he’s been helping out lately.”

“Yeah?” Jae swallows. “That’s cool.”

“Super.” Mark nods. “I saw him return some little kid’s bike yesterday and I think it’s great that he’s, you know, sticking to the neighbourhood.”

“Why?” Jae pushes his glasses up his nose. “I mean, wouldn’t it be better if he put his powers to better use? Fight the big fight. And stuff.”

Mark frowns, pen tapping against the paper and leaking red. If Jae squints, he can see a figure-stick man swinging down from the corner of the page. “I mean, sure. But that’s what the Avengers are for. Who’s gonna watch out for the little guy? Iron Man?” Mark snorts. “He may be earth’s savior, but to that kid, this dude’s the real hero.” His pen slams downs against the table.

Jae’s eyes stray down to his computer screen, where a long line of AAAAAAAAs blinks up at him from the otherwise empty Word document. Jae hadn't even realized he had been pressing down on the key. It’s mildly disconcerting. He hits backspace.

“Anyways,” Mark says. “The Daily Bugle wrote an article about him, I think, but I haven’t read it yet.”

“Don’t bother,” says a voice from behind them and Jae barely has the time to blink before Joshua Hong is sitting down next to him, a harried frown on his face that seems at odds with the way he says softly, “They’re trying to discredit him. Bad journalism, if you ask me.” Then, he smiles slightly, privately, and says, “What would they know. Spider-Man saved my life.”

￣

Jae should explain. Unlike most things in his life, his moon-sized crush on Joshua Hong does not happen by mistake. It’s something of a rarity, considering. Then again so is Joshua, so Jae figures it’s also just about right.

Jae first meets him Sophomore year, when Joshua gets fed up with the way the current president of the student council keeps leeching off the Arts & Music Department’s funds to purchase new varsity jackets for the B-ball team instead and promptly decides to take matters into his own hands.

“Why do they need padded jackets if they’re sweating all the time anyways?” Joshua says, neon green flyers flapping in his hands, and Jae’s is struck dumb by the fierce set of his mouth, the determined line of his shoulders. “I mean, the Art Club can barely afford to buy canvases anymore and the choir’s been practicing with an out-of-tune piano for the last year and a half.”

“Right,” Jae says, trying not to stare and failing rather spectacularly.

“Right,” Joshua echoes, and blinks down at Jae, who awkwardly puts down the sandwich he had been about to eat. Joshua forces a smile on his face, like he’s just realising it’s not proper to show this much fervor in front of a stranger. He squares his shoulders, tugs at the hem of his shirt. Carefully tucking the fire in between layers of politeness, he asks, “So, can I count on your vote?”

“Sure,” Jae answers, trying not to choke on such a simple word. Joshua smiles at him then, and the curve of his lips is more pleased this time around. Relieved, less polite. All the more real.

“Great, thank you,” he says, handing over one of his flyers. Jae stares down at the bolded JUSTICE FOR THE ARTS written at the top, underlined twice. Then Joshua’s off, head held high and back straight as if the hallway were a trench and Midtown his battlefield.

(That’s how it starts. Sophomore year, Jae sees Joshua Hong everywhere he looks. He doesn’t win the elections, but by the time Junior year rolls around Joshua’s been appointed vice-president of the student council. By then, Joshua’s also head of the Choir Association, having taken over the position once Kevin graduated, and leads Midtown’s previously nonexistent a cappella group to two crushing, consecutive victories.

He's part of the debate team, spearheads the foreign exchange student program when he takes a Chinese stick-limbed dancer named Jun-something under his wing. Somehow, Jimin gets him to join their crew in the Midtown Post and Joshua starts dropping by the Hellhole, tucking himself into a cramped desk by the window so Jae can pretend he’s not staring at the way the sun highlights his silhouette.

Sophomore year, Joshua’s everywhere Jae looks. He’s on every corner Jae turns. He’s inside Jae’s head.

And the thing is this: Jae doesn’t stop himself from falling. Joshua Hong, Jae chooses for himself.)

“You’re so gone for him,” Sammy chortles, smile shark-like as he watches Jae’s ears turn red when Joshua walks past their table. The cafeteria is packed to the brim and spilling conversation. Joshua cracks a smile at some joke Jun-something directs his way and Jae hears his laughter echo despite all the noise

“Yeah,” Jae says. There’s no denying it, no stumbling in the dark. Because it’s so easy, Jae thinks, to fall for Joshua Hong. His heart lurches in his chest when Joshua smiles at him over a stack of newspaper clippings and Jae feels himself pitching forward. Eyes wide open.

￣

It happens like this:

Sammy hands him a pair of metal bracelets (“They’re web-shooters!”), shows him where to press, and promptly sends Jae off to patrol the streets. It’s late, it’s dark, and Jae is riding the kind of high you can only find in between a New York City skyline.

He’s swinging his way back home, doing his best not to crash into any more buildings lest his ribs really start to crack. His body aches, but it’s the good kind of pain, the type that’s the result of a night full of practicing sticking to walls and being brave enough to let go.

Jae feels it then, mid-way down a fall. The itching under his skin, the pinprick point at the back of his neck, urging him to look down, down, down, where he sees-

Joshua. Locking up what looks to be a convenience store. He’s still wearing his uniform shirt, a jacket slung over his shoulder, but it’s the gun pointed at the back of his head that catches Jae’s attention and holds it hostage.

“Just give up the money,” the man holding the gun is saying, breath hurried and frantic. His eyes keep flitting left and right, left and right. Joshua’s hands are shaking, lips pursed. There’s fear in the air, bitter like cigarette smoke. “Give me the cash and no one gets hurt.” Then he pushes Joshua forward against the door and Jae’s world bleeds red.

It’s quiet in the aftermath. Jae blinks, comes back to himself slowly, and sees the would-be-mugger knocked out cold on the ground. There’s a bruise on the man’s temple, blood on his nose, and it looks broken. Jae twists around the see Joshua leaning heavily against the store’s bricked wall, eyes wide as he looks at Jae, who stares back. A bit dumb. Kind of in love.

“Thank you,” Joshua says and it’s clear he’s making an effort to sound calm. His eyes keep flicking towards the ground, where the man lies still, then to the right, where the man’s gun is webbed firmly to the wall. Then, finally, to Jae himself, who offers him a meek, “You’re welcome.” And bolts.

“You mean to tell me,” Sammy drawls from where he’s perched on Jae’s bed, twirling a tiny screwdriver expertly between his fingers. “That you actually saved your crush's life just to run away like a coward afterwards?”

“It sounds bad when you put it like that,” Jae says, trying (and failing) to get out of the suit as he jumps around his room on one leg.

“No, buddy, it is bad,” Sammy retorts, screwing the last pieces of the web-shooters together and pushing them towards Jae. ”There, all fixed. Now go fix your non-existent love life before senior prom comes around. I’m not going as your date this time around.”

Look out, Queens! There’s a new vigilante prowling down the streets. Several eye witness accounts claim to have seen this so called ‘Spider-Man’ roaming around New York City. Dressed in red and blue, the wall-crawler doesn’t seem to be affiliated with any known superhero group, or hold himself accountable to any sort of governmental overview. There is little information to be found about this new self-appointed ‘hero’ but we can be certain of one thing: Spider-Man is a threat, and he has to be handled accordingly.

This past Wednesday, Spider-Man was caught on CCTV footage stopping a bank robbery on Fifth Street. The would-be thieves were apprehended, but at what cost? “There’s been some damage done to the building,” Joanne Miller, head of the Queen’s Damage Control Department, informed our on-site correspondent. “Just a few broken windows, which isn’t bad, considering the amount that would have been stolen hadn’t the robbers been stopped.”

Can we trust this vigilante? New York already has an answer. “These things should be left to the cops,” said 67-year-old David Whitemore, a longtime Queens resident. “We can’t trust some masked man to handle crime. The last time we let superheroes run around, aliens came crawling out of the sky.”

Many others have expressed similar concerns. To this, mayor Donald Perry answers, “We’re doing our very best to find him, that I can assure you.” He places his trust on the NYPD, and urges the public to come forth with any sort of information they may have about New York’s newest arachnid vigilante.

For more information about the Spider-Crook, check pages 5 & 6. Exclusive photographic evidence of the masked web-slinger on page 10!

J. Jonah Jameson, The Daily Bugle. July 12th.

Matthew clips the article to his fridge door. Jae first notices it when he’s searching for a late night snack (He eats like a pig now. Sammy calls it his body’s way of compensating for lost energy. Jae’s mother, mildly concerned, calls it puberty). Matthew’s also stuck a blue post it note over the headline. In his chicken scratch scrawl, it reads yoooo dude. Then, in slightly smaller letters dont be discouraged, all publicity is good publicity spiderling ;).

Crumpling the note into a ball, Jae tosses it into the trash can without looking, puts on the suit, and makes sure The Bugle eats its own words.

September slugs into the city like a bad case of the coughs. Shivering and cracking. Jae’s long past longing for LA but he can’t deny he misses seeing the morning sun. The constant rain is a pain to deal with; Jae has lost count of how many times he’s slipped off a ledge and fallen on his ass because of it when he’s out patrolling. The only upside to the worsening weather it's the sudden drop in crime; New York city cold is apparently bad enough to turn even criminals sluggish.

For his birthday, Jae’s parents get him a car. It’s an old Honda, rusty and red, smelling of cigarettes and exhaust, and honestly also pretty damn useless, considering how awful New York traffic can get. It sits a block away from Jae’s apartment, right in front of a night club with a sign hanging overhead that reads NO LOITERING in red letters, and Jae makes a habit of sitting on the driver’s seat, hands on 10 and 2, the heating turned on low, listening to some top-40 beat leaking through the club’s door, wishing he could press down hard on the pedal and get out. Drive away.

Jae likes to think it’s fate, the night Joshua finds him like that. Life’s been pretty sucky with him lately, what with the whole radioactive spider thing, and there’s some balancing to be done to the scales. The night, there’s a tap on his window, a hazy figure waving through the dark, and Jae rolls down the glass halfway down to see kind brown eyes and even kinder smile dripping rain.

“Hi,” Joshua says, shifting on his feet and clink go the scales. Perfect balance. He coughs, laughs awkwardly. “Awful weather, huh?”

“Hell of a storm,” Jae answers, and opens the passenger door.

Joshua climbs in with a murmured thanks. The rain’s turned his brown hair darker, soaked right through his jacket and stained his shirt. Jae reaches over to the backseat and hands him an old Thrasher hoodie he keeps stuffed there, hands tightening on the steering wheel as he watches Joshua slip it on.

“I didn’t think it’d be this bad,” Joshua says, raking a hand through his hair and grimacing when the raindrops slip down his fingers like quicksand. “I was on my way home from work when it started pouring.” He cracks a smile. “Hope you don’t mind me crashing here for a while?”

How could I, Jae wants to says. He swallows it down, answers in kind. “‘Course not.”

Joshua peers through the windshield, makes a startled sound at the back of his throat. “God, the sky looks like it’s breaking apart.”

Jae leans back on his seat. He looks at Joshua, at the rain making hairline fractures all across the glass, the water still dripping down his nose. “We’re safe here,” he says and takes his foot off the gas.

“I wanna do a piece on Spider-Man for the next issue,” Mark announces mid-way through October. “I mean,” he amends hastily when Jimin raises a perfectly plucked eyebrow his way. “Can I please do a piece on Spider-Man for the next issue, sir.” He cringes, flinching back. “Um, I mean. Ma’am. I mean.”

Jimin looks amused but no less intimidating because of it. “No,” she answers, chair creaking when she turns back to her computer, red nails clicking faster than Jae can comprehend against the keyboard. “You still haven’t handed me that article on the chess competition I asked you to write and I am not letting our paper succumb to the Spidermania this god awful city has fallen into.”

Mark deflates, shoulders dropping, and he murmurs something that sounds suspiciously like chess isn’t even a sport under his breath. Jae shares a look with Johnny over Mark’s defeated slump and watches as their photographer pretends to busy himself with his camera when Jimin shoots him a flat look that all but screams her distaste with the whole situation.

“I think it’s a good idea actually,” Joshua pitches in from his perch near the photocopier. He’s sipping on a mug of coffee he steals from the teacher's lounge (perks of being part of the student council, Jae guess. Also just about everyone’s favorite person ever) and Jae is viscerally reminded of a few nights ago, when Joshua slipped into Jae’s car and took a swig of Jae’s water bottle, whereupon Jae’s lingering eighth-grader promptly went indirect kiss indirect kiss indirect kiss.

“It is not,” Jimin says cuttingly. “We are not going to suck up to some - Mark, don’t listen for a sec - to some spandex-ed twink thinking he’s above the law. I won't stand for it.”

Jae chokes on air. Over Joshua’s twinkling laughter, he sees Johnny mouthing the words ‘spandex-ed twink’ over to himself, ears bright red. Mark, who clearly heard it all, looks caught between being scandalized and deeply offended.

“Who said anything about sucking up?” Joshua sets his mug down, shooting Jae an amused look, who does his best to return it even as he wishes he had let that burglar shoot him on the head like he had clearly wanted to do when Jae caught him stealing from a 7-11 last night.

“Spider-Man is the hottest topic right now and you know it,” he says. “It would up our readership quite a bit if we wrote something about him.”

Jimin doesn't look entirely convinced, but considering their readership amounts to: 1) the teachers 2) a handful of freshmen who think reading the school paper is obligatory and 3) the cafeteria staff, the line of argument seems to be wearing her down.

“Fine,” she relents after a moment’s consideration. “But,” she cuts in over Mark’s excited whoop. “Jae’s writing the article. I need you on the grading scale controversy,” she says to Joshua. “And Mark has a deadline to meet.”

“Fine,” Mark says. Then he turns towards Jae, eyes eager a he says, “it’s gonna be lit!”

Jae begs to differ. The room seems smaller all of a sudden, and it’s getting harder and harder to breath. The door clicking shut rings too loud as Johnny beats a hasty retreat and when Joshua smiles at him over the rim of his I <3 NY mug, Jae feels the ground caving in.

Apart from the whole article debacle which still has Jae up in knots, October sees an all-time rise in New York petty crime. Jae loses himself in stopping robbery after robbery, trying (and failing) to keep up with schoolwork and the dawning realization that there’s a clock ticking out there somewhere, counting every second down like thunderclap till Jimin’s deadline comes knocking.

Objectively speaking, he knows it isn’t that big of a deal. Jae is good at bullshitting his way out of essays and the odd article Jimin drops on him now and then. But there’s an empty Word document sitting on his laptop at home and the white of the page looks like an abyss, making Jae feel like he’s standing right at the edge of the cliff, feet pointing down.

“You look awful,” Sammy says when Jae slinks his way inside the science lab. He’s got a screwdriver in hand, hair pushed back from his face. The science competition is coming up and it’s gonna be chock-full of university scouts; Jae hasn't got a clue what Sammy’s planning on doing for it but there’s comfort in familiarity, so Jae slumps down in the seat next to Sammy’s and leans his head on his shoulder, half-heartedly flicking at the nails sitting on Sammy’s work desk.

“I haven’t slept since like, Tuesday,” Jae says by way of explanation.

“It’s Friday,” Sammy points out rather unhelpfully, concern pulling down at the lines of his face. “You should take a break.”

Jae snorts. “New York doesn't sleep,” he says. “And neither does crime, so.” He waves a hand around, hoping it’s enough to illustrate the weight he feels pushing on his shoulders. Sammy hums, clearly not buying it.

And, well. Jae wishes it were just the crime thing honestly, he can deal with the crime thing, but he’d be also lying if he said that was the extent of it.

Yesterday, he got called into the counsellor’s office to talk about his future in concrete terms like ‘first choice college’ and ‘financial aid’ and ‘sustainable career choice.’ Jae had felt apprehension pulling at his throat as he sat on the uncomfortable plastic chair, surrounded by a bunch of tacky pastel posters cheerily urging him to Follow Your Dreams! and Take Life By The Wheel! Everything about it making his stomach roll as he listened to the woman talk about all the decision he needed to make and make now.

It’s not the same type of fear he feels when he's out fighting crime and stopping car chases. That fear - the Spider-Man kind of fear - it’s bearable, it’s useful. It makes Jae’s heart fizzle into overdrive and his body move. There’s no thinking when it comes to being Spider-Man, just raw instinct pitching him forward and enough trust to believe he’ll land on his own two feet when he inevitably hits the ground.

This fear though - the kind where there’s no suit but bare skin instead, the Jae kind of fear - it’s paralysing. It turns everything sluggish, life in slow motion, so that every decision seems to loom bigger and carry more weight. Gravity-bound. Every fork in the road stretches further and further apart and Jae is still car-crash stuck. Standing rooted in the middle.

“Hey,” Sammy starts, voice soft around the corners of his vowels. “You’ll figure it out.”

“Yeah,” Jae mumbles, turning his face on the crook of Sammy’s shoulders and pretending to believe it.

“You’re late.”

“Sorry.” Jae ducks his head down apologetically and opens the Honda’s front doors with a click of his key. “Got a bit held up.”

Joshua waves his apology away, climbing into the passenger seat with an easiness born from routine and hands Jae a paper cup full of steaming coffee.

“Have you been waiting long?”

“A few minutes,” Joshua answers, kicking his shoes off and rolling the seat back so he can stretch his legs more comfortably. “I clocked out late, had to restock.”

Jae hums, digging into his bag for the turkey sandwiches he picked up on his way here. They’re a bit squashed from being lugged around in Jae’s backpack as he swung his way over New York’s busy streets and the small disagreement he had with a few asshole who didn’t take a girl’s No at face value. Joshua takes his sandwich with a grateful smile and digs in with gusto all the same.

Jae watches him from the corner of his eye, wonders how he got this lucky. It’s been a while since the first time Joshua found him killing time sitting like a loser inside his car and Jae’s stopped asking why Joshua always comes back around.

They’ve made a habit out it; Joshua will tap twice on Jae’s window or Jae will find him leaning against the hood, two coffees in hand, and they’ll spend a few hours talking weather, talking school and talking shit as they listen to the night club’s music bleed rhythm. Sometimes they’ll make stories about the drunk party-goers that stumble out of the door and the people speed-walking down the street. Other days they’ll sit in silence, not uncomfortable but welcomed, the relief of being rid of small talk after a long day of cutting through the tape, each to their own but together all the same.

“Jealous ex or protective older brother?” Joshua prompts, nodding his head at a pair facing off by the club’s threshold. The girl is swaying in her seven-inch high heels, lips pursed as she jabs a finger on a tall guy’s chest, who frowns down at her, huffing angrily.

“Cheating asshole?” Jae offers, which is a little unfair, considering he can hear her calling the dude exactly that. Joshua laughs, raising his paper cup in a mockery of a toast when the girl slaps him right across the face.

They’re quiet for a while, the stuffed silence pinpointed here and there when the club’s door opens up and the music coming from inside sharpens into sudden focus. Joshua is drawing shapes on the window, spiderwebs on the fogged up glass.

“How’s the article coming along?” he asks, voice sweeter than the four sugar packets Jae dumped in his coffee.

“Very painfully,” Jae answers matter of factly, hiding a groan when Joshua laughs, the sound bouncing against the car and settling in the space between them. “For real! I have no clue what to write and Jimin wants at least a thousand words by next Monday. I’m screwed, man. She’s gonna swish-kebab me at this rate.”

“Not much use when you’re as skinny as you are.” Joshua’s smile turns teasing at the corners, his eyes raking pointedly over Jae’s lean frame, and Jae feels his heart start its slow, torturous crawl up his throat at the sight. Routine, he thinks, when it comes to Joshua. He hums, taking a sip of his lukewarm coffee. “I have a way to help, if you want.”

“You a Spider-Man fan now?” Jae teases, pretending he’s got nothing riding on Joshua’s answer.

“Not exactly,” Joshua laughs, shaking his head. “I mean, I’m pretty sure Spider-Man is my fan. It’s weird, don’t laugh, but I could swear he’s been following me around.” He chuckles slightly, rubbing at the back of his neck rather self-consciously. “Maybe I could get you an interview.” He cracks a smile.

Jae’s brain screeches to a halt, goes aw, shit, and he (barely) manages to clamp his lips shut before the thought slips out unbidden. See, it’s not like Joshua’s wrong. So maybe Jae has been following him around, keeping the suit close and the mask stuffed inside the glove compartment of the Honda so he can make sure Joshua gets home safe after their nightly talks.

It’s just. New York can get dangerous, especially at night, and the nightmares where Jae reaches Joshua a second too late cling to him like a second skin long after he’s waked up, the trigger-happy sound of a bullet biting flesh ringing too loudly against his bedroom walls when Jae wake up gasping, hand pushing over his heart to keep it from beating out of his chest.

So: Jae laughs, awkward and stilted and wrong. He says, “That be one hell of an article, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Joshua’s eyes flicker over Jae’s face, forehead pinched in worry, and Jae must look a bit pale because not a moment later he’s reaching over the stick shift, squeezing Jae’s tight and asking, “You okay?”

“Just a bit cold,” Jae answers, swallowing hard, and wonders when, exactly, getting the boy became the hardest part of being a superhero.

￣

Let the record show: Jae really didn’t think becoming a superhero would be all smooth-sailing.

He’s been lucky, he thinks, up until now. Sticking to the neighbourhood works. Jae leaves the big fights up to the Avengers or the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, laying low and helping out when he can, keeping civilians out of trouble. He’s not really up for any larger-than-life battles when his web-shooters still malfunction from time to time, when he still isn’t sure why he keeps on putting the suit and crashing headfirst into danger, small as it may be.

He’s been lucky, he thinks as he blinks once, twice, thrice, and the gun pointed straight at his head sharpens into focus. But all good luck eventually runs out. The burglar shoots just as Jae breathes in through shrivelling lungs and it’s only his spider reflexes that have him ducking down. The bullet whizzes past his head. Close. Too close. Jae smells gun powder as the bile starts to rise on his throat. The crook makes a run for it. Jae can’t get his legs to move.

The world warps. Stops spinning.

Isn’t this how every story ends? All that goes up must fall. And Jae is lucky, he thinks, that gravity waited this long to drag him down.

J. Jonah Jameson @TheDailyBugle
The Webslinger missing in action since last Monday! Has the Spider-Man finally been squashed or is he just a coward? Click here for more.

Mark Lee@m_lee99
we’re all rooting for you spidey! wherever you are i hope youre ok….youre the real hero man

Jamie@QueenJimin
Never thought I’d say this but it’s weird not having Spider-Man around. NY misses its wall-crawler

“It doesn’t look good.”

“Doesn’t feel that good either,” Jae croaks back, hugging the toilet bowl and trying not to retch. The bathroom tiles feel freezing where he kneels against the tub. He coughs, shiver-wracked. Somehow, his body still manages to feel colder.

“What’s happening to him?” Matthew asks, voice thin as he wrings his hands around. He’s still in his dance clothes, grey tank darkened with sweat. Jae doesn’t know when he got here; he doesn’t remember much besides waking up, feeling as if his insides were twisting like webs, and going straight to vomiting.

He thinks he tried to call Sammy then, and he must have managed to because there’s a careful hand pushing his hair away from his sweat-sticky forehead and Jae can hear him saying, “I don’t know. It almost looks like poisoning.” Then, quieter still, “The radioactive kind, you know. It’s like his body is rejecting the spider bite all of a sudden.”

Jae laughs, or he means to. All that come out is a lung-wracking cough. The bile rises again. “Funny,” he says, voice getting weaker by the syllable. “I told my mom I caught a bug.” Then he passes out, a bitter laugh still half-way up his throat.

Jae is forced to go back to school come Wednesday morning. His mother, convinced Jae’s just playing sick in an effort to get out of class, rips his blanket away from him, sticks a piece of toast between his teeth, and sends him on his way well before the sun has even thought to wake up. Jae can’t exactly tell her his body is currently under radioactive stress, so he goes.

“You look like shit,” is Matthew’s greeting when he catches up to Jae after second period Math. His grip is white-knuckled on the thermos he’s holding, and there’s concern written all over his face when he hands it over to Jae. “Yogurt and kale smoothie,” he says, like the health-nut that he is. “I put some chia seeds in to help with the protein.”

“Thanks,” Jae mutters back, pretending to sip on it. He’s likely throw it up if he forces himself to drink it, but Matthew is taking care of him the only way he knows how, so Jae makes the added effort to say, “Tasty.”

“Good, good,” Matthew nods, looking nervous. He too, seems a bit wan. Exams are fast approaching, and Matthew is struggling to keep his GPA where it is. He’s got a scholarship counting on it. Full ride to Columbia, heading to study something with physical therapy. Jae couldn’t be prouder.

He was there when the scouts came knocking, face streaked in Midtown’s colors when Matthew scored the winning point, and he smeared it all over Matthew’s uniform when he hugged him tight and then tighter still when Sammy joined in started crying.

Still. Call him selfish, but Jae thinks the bags under Matthew's eyes have more to with the fact that Jae isn't getting any better. Perks of lifelong friendship, he thinks, not knowing where you end and the other starts. Every sickness becomes contagious.

“I’ll be fine,” Jae says, but his voice wavers under a cough. Matthew’s face pinches in concern. “Sammy’s working on it. I’ll be fine.” The words are automatic, forced out between his teeth. They also taste a lot like a lie.

“I brought you food,” Joshua says, and Jae looks through the Honda’s window to see him holding a cup of store-bought noodle ramen on one hand, a thermos filled with hot water on the other. “Didn’t say it was good food,” he adds, smiling thinly when Jae snorts at him.

“Just get in,” he says, rolling his eyes and God, even that is starting to hurt.

Joshua complies, slipping into the passenger seat and locking the door after him. He hands Jae the noodle cup, fingers twitching nervously at his side as he watches Jae’s glasses fog up over the steam.

Jae had to dig hours around his room to find his specs again Tuesday night, when his sight started worsening. His sense are going haywire, unsettled. It’s like he’s playing a constant game of Russian Roulette. Sometimes his hearing will swell until Jae’s able to dissect between people’s heartbeats and hear ants crawling underfoot. Then he’ll go almost deaf, or blind, or his sense of touch will sharpen to the point where Jae can feel every stitch of his shirt rubbing against his skin.

It’s beyond awful. The world is bright-sharp and watered down at the same time. Jae feels like he's drowning, except it’s the water itself that’s keeping him alive.

“I’m worried about you,” Joshua says, watching Jae intently as he takes sip after careful sip of his ramen, trying to get his stomach to stop rolling. His hands can’t seem to stop shaking. The noodles taste like plastic.

“Don’t be,” Jae says, trying for a smile. “It’s just the flu. It’ll pass soon enough.”

“If you say so.”

“I do,” Jae coughs. He thinks he can hear Joshua’s heart beating against his chest even across the six, seven, eight inches that are keeping them apart. “Jimin pushed back the deadline for my Spider-Man article, so this isn’t without its perks.”

(She had, in fact, taken one look at him, wrinkled her nose, and send him home before Jae could even take a step inside the Hellhole.

“I don’t want you spreading your nasty virus to the whole crew,” she’d said, hand over her mouth like even the air Jae breathed out had been toxic. “Just go home and get some rest. And forget about Monday, you can hand in the article next week. It’s not like there’s anything to write about now anyways,” she’d added, shoulders pulled taut. “Apparently the spider’s crawled back down the pipe, so.”)

“Speaking about Spider-Man-” Joshua starts, but then Jae’s doubling over, hands going tight around the wheel. Sound becomes dull. Jae misses what Joshua says next, hears only his blood rushing, his eardrums keeping time.

“-Jae. Hey, Jae!” Joshua’s face swims into picture perfect focus. Jae is too busy counting his eyelashes to pay much attention to the words slipping frantic out of his mouth.

“I’m okay I’m okay,” he wheezes out when the coughing finally stop. “Can you pass me a tissue? There’s a packet in the glove compartment.”

Joshua purses his lips, but turns away to comply. His hand hovers over the opened compartment for a moment, five-second hesitation - then he’s passing Jae a wad of tissue and patting him on the back as Jae coughs up what feels like half his lungs into the cotton.

“You’re a mess,” Joshua says, voice going oddly gentle at end. Fond. Jae closes his eyes and pretends he’s not imaging the hand Joshua’s cards through his hair.

Everything comes to an end Friday afternoon. Jae is sequestered inside his room, hiding from his mother, who’s insisting he go see a doctor. Jae knows that wouldn't go over well; he got bitten by a radioactive experiment escapee and didn’t tell his mom shit about it, so he barricades himself behind his closed door and tries to force the world to stop spinning.

Sammy calls midway through the day, drops his phone in excitement once, then says, “I figured it out.”

“Figured what out?” Jae croaks back.

“Your fucked up biology that’s what,” Sammy snarks but he’s laughing so brightly Jae can’t even start to get offended. “I had to ask Amber to hack into Oscorp’s research files-”

“You did what-”

“-but I got it, dude. Your body’s at a crossroads right now. The spider bite changed something in your DNA structure, but because you weren't exposed to any sort of catalyst, the process stopped midway through.”

“Right,” Jae mumbles. Through the line, Sammy is still rambling on about cell differentiation and other chemical jargon that goes right over Jae’s head, but he gets the gist of it.

It goes something like this: “So, what you’re saying is that I have to make a choice?”

“Yeah, that's pretty much it,” Sammy hums. “Basically, there’s two ways this can go. One, we let your body keep on rejecting the changes. Think of it as a sort of abstinence period. You’ll feel like shit for a few more days but your body will settle down eventually and you’ll go back to being a normal eighteen-year-old. Same old Jae Park.

“And two?”

“Two, well.” Sammy pauses. Then, “We help your body finish the transformation. Kick your cells back into motion. We’d need some sort of catalyst - Frankenstein’s lightning strike, that kinda thing. Only far less cool.”

“And then I’ll be Spider-Man again.”

“And then you’ll be Spider-Man again,” Sammy confirms. “Think about it, yeah? I have to go now, tomorrow’s my English exam and Sparknotes is waiting for me. Tell me when you’ve decided and we’ll go from there.” The calls click off.

Later, when Jae is lying sprawled on his bed, he gets a text from Matthew. The notification sound rings loud in the silence of his bedroom, and when Jae opens the text, his screen’s backlight is dull and muted down.

hey man, sammy filled me in, it goes. just know that whatever you decided we both will b there for u. jae or spiderman, everything goes

Everything goes, Jae echos inside his head. Then why does he still feel so stuck?

“We need to stop meeting like this,” Joshua says, chuckling as he leans his elbows on the Honda’s rolled down window.

“You know what they say, bad habits are hard to break,” Jae shoots back, smiling tiredly. Joshua hums, grin brightening, but he doesn't make a move to come inside.

“Are you heading somewhere?” Jae asks, noting the black slacks and blue button down clinging to Joshua’s frame, a far cry from his work clothes. He looks good, unfairly so (always does) and Jae wishes he had more peace of mind to appreciate it like he should.

“College interview,” Joshua answers, stepping back a few inches so he can spread his arms out, all cards on the table. “Gotta make a good first impression.”

“Oh,” Jae breathes out. He had forgotten, caught up in spider-webbed dreams and the looming fork in the road, that there are other decisions he still needs to make. There’s a few colleges brochures stuck to his windshield deck, a half written application essay sitting on his laptop. Decisions, decisions. It all circles back around.

“Good luck,” Jae wishes him. “You’ll do great.” And he knows he will. Joshua’s aiming for Law. NYU, because he’ll miss his family too much otherwise. Miss these streets and all its wandering people. “You included,” he’d said, weeks ago, one odd night when the sky stopped cracking apart and let them breath.

“Thanks,” Joshua ducks his head down. “Same goes for you. I mean, with whatever you choose. I know you’ll take the world by storm.”

Jae laughs, and it sounds bitter even to his own ears. “I can’t even decide what I wanna study,” he says, defeated, a hand raking through his hair and pulling at the darkening roots.

Joshua cocks his head to the side. “I think you do know,” he says. “Admitting it is another thing, of course. You just have to brave enough to do it.”

“But I’m not brave.” Not without the suit, he wants to say. Not when I’m just me.

Joshua smiles, secret-bright. “Maybe you should take a page out of Spider-Man’s book and take the leap. Or, you know. Your own book, considering you’re him and all.”

The world tilts. Full on 180 degrees. “I’m-”

“-Spider-Man. And don’t even try to deny.” Joshua rolls his eyes good-naturedly, smiling still. “Keeping your mask in your car’s glove compartment is as stupid as it gets, you dork.”

He laughs, patting the side of the car and rattling his way through Jae’s heart. “You’re brave, can’t deny that either. So stop hesitating, Jae Park. Time is running out and New York isn’t the only one getting tired of waiting for you.” He leans inside, half his body hanging from the window, and kisses Jae on the lips. Simply, easily. Jae blinks. Kind of dumbstruck. Still in love.

“I’m gonna go now,” Joshua says, pointing to the road ahead. The endless street. “See you there, Spider-Man.”

It ends like this:

“Go on,” Jae says, watching through his fingers as Sammy raises the wires. They’re crackling with static. From the other side of the science room, Matthew stresses urgently, “C’mon c’mon. I think Mr. Do is coming back.”

Jae clenches his fists, nails digging red crescents like cat-scratches into his palm. He’s been given a second chance, he thinks. The first time, it was the spider. (Or maybe it was fate. Or maybe just dumb luck, good or bad he doesn’t know. Maybe it was coincidence, a simple matter of being in the wrong place at the right time.) But it doesn’t matter, not anymore.

Because this time, Jae is choosing. And he’s choosing Spider-Man. But he’s also choosing himself.

“Here goes nothing,” Sammy says and Jae closes his eyes. Here goes everything. Foot on the gas pedal, heart kicking back into overdrive, the wires come crackling down. Stinging.

J. Jonah Jameson @TheDailyBugle
SPIDER-CROOK STRIKES AGAIN. It seems NY’s Spider-Man has crawled back up the water spout. Click here to read our interview w/ Tony Stark and his thoughts on the matter!

Mark Lee@m_lee99
SPIDEY IS BACK TO STAY HATERS GONNA HATE BUT WE BELIEVERS STICK WITH #SpiderMan

Jamie@QueenJimin
Did I speak too soon? Istg if I see another #SpiderMan fan club poster I’m quitting Midtown High @m_lee99

￣

Senior year comes to an end soon after that. Jae stands at a crossroads, and it feels a lot like falling. But this time, when he looks down at the ground, he can see New York looking small enough to fit inside his pocket. The road still stretches on endlessly, but that’s okay. That's life, isn’t it? One foot after the other.

Matthew manages to earn his scholarship and cries midway through the party they throw in his honor. It’s a big mess, because Matthew is an ugly crier despite his insistence otherwise, and they end up in the bathroom again. Him, Sammy and Jae. Piled together against the tub.

They’re both going different places now, Jae knows, but he feels the way Matthew clings to him on the wet tile floor, hears the way Sammy’s drunken singing rings off key and knows too, they won’t let that stop them. Ten years and counting.

Sammy still has a year to get through ahead of him. There’s been a bunch of scouts from big name universities like CalTech and MIT snooping around after he won the Junior Regional Science Competition with a modified version of the web-shooters, designed to help in construction work. Amber couldn't be prouder of her mentee, and brags to everyone who’ll bother to listen. But then Sammy goes, “Fuck CalTech, honestly. After high school ends I’m gonna go busk my way through Europe and find my sound.” And Jae can't help but laugh at Amber’s scandalized face.

For his part, Jae gets accepted into California State University. PoliSci - Spider-Man will grow old one day and Jae figures he can still help the little guy this way, take care of the neighborhood in other ways - and Jae thinks about it. Pushing down on the pedal and driving away. Going back.

Then he sees Mark excitedly talking to a couple of his friends about how Spider-Man whizzed past him the other day on the street and stopped to give him a high five (“I haven't washed my hand since,” Mark says, much to his friends’ disgust) and Jae realizes there’s no Spider-Man without New York, just like there’s no Spider-Man without Jae Park.

He resolves to drop by Mark’s house one day, give him an autograph maybe, and smiles to himself as he folds his acceptance letter to Columbia University and tucks it inside his pocket.

Things are changing and sure, it’s still scary as hell. The anxiety of a Future with a capital F ebbs and flows but Jae guesses that’s just how it is. You just have to move on. Move with.

So he lets go. Trusting himself enough to believe he’ll land on his two feet when the world comes crashing down. One foot in front of the other. That’s just how it goes.

￣

“So,” Jae begins, plopping himself down on the seat next to Joshua’s, who barely spares the time to smile up at him. “About prom.”

“If this is your way of asking me to be your date then I’m stopping you right there,” Joshua says, clicking his computer off so he can turn in his chair and raise an eyebrow Jae’s way. He looks very unimpressed. “Because I expect something better.”

“Oh wow, look what’s that?” Jae deadpans and Joshua swivels on his chair, peering through the window Jae is pointing at in clear suspicion. Mark is shouting something incoherently as he runs across the Hellhole and presses his face against the window glass. Johnny drops his camera. It hits the ground with a bang.

“Ah, for fuck’s sake,” Jimin spits out, hands on her hips as she stares at the big mess of webbing stretched across Midtown’s faculty building and the gym. In big capital letters, it reads: PROM? CHECK YES OR NO except the S kind of fell loose, so it looks more like a YE than anything else.

Joshua laughs, right hand coming up to his mouth to hide the sound. Mark’s still screaming but (thanks, spider senses) Jae still manages to catch Joshua’s whispered out, “Yeh.”

Jae laughs too, finding Joshua’s hand under the table and squeezing tight. He can hear Joshua’s heartbeat next to his, alive and kicking. Joshua smiles, and he looks happy, content. Like the best decision Jae’s ever made.

New York has since seen the rise and fall of many superheros. We all know their stories, their efforts and victories as well as their defeats. Theirs are the greatest tales of adventure and bravery you could ever hope to tell, but none of them seem to have taken over our school’s interest as much as NY’s resident webslinger has.

”He’s just different, you know?” says Spider-Man Fan Club president Mark Lee in answer to the question why him?. “He’s helping out when he can, doing his best. That’s really all everyone can do.”

“He’s my favorite hero for sure,” comments C-3’s Vernon Chwe. “I feel like I can relate to him. If someone like him can stop to help a kid find his mom, then so can I. Nothing larger than life, just being there when someone needs you to be.”

“He’s an inspiration,” adds Student Council President Joshua Hong. “So handsome and cool and hot.” (“I did not say that,” Joshua seethes. He hits Jae on the chest and Jae laughs, kissing the frown off his face. Doesn’t delete it.)

”In all seriousness,” the president goes on. “Spider-Man is more human than super, and if you were to ask me, that’s what makes him the most super out of all.”

Whatever the reason, it seems like Spider-Man has a lesson to teach: Do your best, help when you can. Your life if yours to lead. No matter how much or how little of it you may have, just remember: with great power comes great responsibility.

Jae Park, Midtown Post.