Chapter Text
The sirens blare as he shoots his web building from building, his eyes focused solely on the perpetrator on ground. He’s been chasing this fish for several weeks, each time, they manage to get away despite the amount of police surrounding them, he lowers his swing slightly till his feet finally hits the concrete ground, immediately throwing his middle and ring finger into the inside of his palms, hitting the button that shot webs out — which, unfortunately, missed. He groans to himself in disappointment, still sprinting towards the perpetrator, finally giving it another go, shoots another web, luckily this one manages to land on their left arm, the web wrapping to his side, leaving the weapon he had to fall and roll away into a nearby drain — in a fit of desperation, the perpetrator runs into a nearby alley, losing the cop cars but not losing the masked spider running closely behind, just then, he chortles mockingly, mumbling something along the lines of the masked spider not being able to catch him. Under the mask, he rolls his eyes and lets out a sigh of exhaustion before shooting another web, this time, wrapping his one available arm around his waist, making it strong enough to make the perpetrator’s body tumble flat to the floor face first.
“All you do is run, man.” He mutters out, muffled as he catches his breath under the mask, slowly walking towards the now lying body — one that is desperately trying to shuffle his way out of the webs. As the spider is already halfway to the laid body, the police cars that were once lost finally pulled to the sides of the alley, throwing open their doors as they stepped out with their guns held high, yelling out for him to freeze.
“I really can’t catch a break.” Before raising his arms high above his head and shooting out his web to launch him into the sky, the cops that had stepped out followed him with their heads before quickly turning their focus back onto the perpetrator.
On the rooftop of one run-down wrecked apartment, he pulls up his mask to his nose, letting his mouth be exposed to the fresh air that he’s restricted to due to the skin tight microfibre. Han Taesan, the self acclaimed ‘spider-man’ of New York City, he had been chasing that one singular person for weeks now in between his other chases, and finally he had managed to catch him. He sat down on the raised edge of the rooftop, soaking in the sunset falling onto his body, the days that he spent worrying and burdening himself about if the one he was chasing was out and about while he was off-duty had finally been lifted.
*CLICK*
Taesan’s head snapped around to the sound of the click that was paired with a soft flash, even in his time to relax, he had to worry about citizens catching him off-guard. His head dazed around and he heard the click again, following the soft flash in his peripheral vision, he locked eyes on an open window of the apartment just next to the one he was sitting on. Shit, there it was, a camera peaking out of the opened window, the holder standing in front of the curtains that were swaying from the wind, bandages all around from his hands to his arms on both sides, the face blocked by the camera, but the hair unmistakably recognizable, the poofy ruffled up dark hair, his bangs almost falling into his eyes, the sides edged slightly making it point out sharply. The cameraman lowered his camera, revealing his eyes, slight double eyelids that rested above the almond-shaped eyes that held soft aegyosal, both of them now making eye contact from a distance, from one apartment, to another. The cameraman shut the window frantically, and retreated back, letting the curtains sway behind him. Taesan’s eyes lingered on the now shut window, wondering and swearing to himself that something was recognisable about him, those eyes with that hair, until it finally hit him — Myung Jaehyun.
The problem with what Taesan does for a living is that he’s still in high school, unfortunately, meaning that any slight exposure of his identity to the city could mean big problems for him in his education, which is what just happened. Myung Jaehyun was a student of the same grade as Taesan, they have only two classes together — science and literature — where they were toe to toe in both being the ones with the highest marks throughout their entire grade, with every 100% Jaehyun had gotten, Taesan found a way to get 101% — this ruckus had been going on ever since they had classes together. Sometimes, the two would be fighting so hard for any slight extra marks to be added just to beat the other, every single announcement of it revealing the top student of their grade, they would both rush to it, praying to whatever could hear them, for the other to be first. One time, Taesan had worked relentlessly to study for the tests, only to miss one mark because of his pen running out of ink in his essay for Literature, leaving the first place to go to Jaehyun -- this infuriated Taesan so deeply to the point he grabbed his red spray can and sprayed completely over Jaehyun's name. Jaehyun fought hard to bring punishment to Taesan, but it was unfortunately let go due to lack of evidence, but Jaehyun was certain it was him, ever since then, they've been talking over each other every time the teacher would ask a question to the class, the question was for everyone, yet no one dared answer as they didn't want to get in any debate between the two. Their competitiveness got so troublesome that the teachers would exclude the two completely from answering, and now he had just been spotted by the one person that he hated the most.
A school day comes and the bell shrills in Taesan’s ear, avoiding eye contact as usual with his hands gripped to his backpack that rested on his left shoulder. The right side of Taesan was quickly occupied as his best friend hung his arm around Taesan’s shoulder, dragging him as they walked. Kim Woonhak, Taesan’s one and only friend — because their families are close, they too had been tight ever since kindergarten, however, as a kid, Taesan went through hell to try and avoid him, he believed that he’d be better alone, but for some reason, they kept meeting at either the same schools or playgrounds, there was even this one time Taesan had vacationed all the way to Italy, and before he knew it, he was eating pasta with him, after multiple encounters, it became clear to Taesan he wasn’t going to escape him, not now but hopefully later, but in the meantime, it didn’t do Taesan any harm in accepting Woonhak to be his friend, so slowly, he opened up.
Woonhak figured out long ago that Taesan was spiderman, it was mainly due to the fact he had shown up unannounced at his house one night and Taesan’s mother just let him in and waltz into his room, that very night, Taesan snuck out to follow a case the police had closed, so when Woonhak figured out that the ‘body’ underneath his blanket was indeed pillows, he waited quietly in the corner with the lights off instead of snitching. An hour passes by and Taesan’s window opens, Woonhak jumps up from his seat, expecting Taesan to be in a party-like fit, ready to scold him for not inviting him, until he saw red cloth tightened around his hands. Taesan crawled into his window, tumbling onto the ground back first from exhaustion, Woonhak finally looking at the full suit Taesan had on, his mouth cracked open in shock while Taesan just rested there motionless and completely oblivious. A few silent seconds pass and Taesan finally rolls to his side to push himself up, until he saw a flabbergasted Woonhak staring down at him. Without thinking, Taesan shot a web to Woonhak’s mouth, knowing well he could scream at any time, looking back, that wasn’t the right idea and could’ve made things worse as he was still identified as an unknown wannabe superfigure to the city. Woonhak’s eyes widened in shock, muffling sounds from his webbed mouth, Taesan swiftly pushed his whole body up, almost tripping in a panic to rush over to Woonhak, Taesan’s hands immediately raised up to cover what was already covered, pushing Woonhak back towards the wall, creating a slight thud and echo to the other side.
“Shut up” Taesan was repeating himself desperately and hastily in a lowered tone only the two could hear as his mother was still right outside, Woonhak’s eyes flickering from the window to Taesan, eventually, he calmed down after the two hundred shut ups. Taesan pulled his hand away, ripping off the web along with it, which pulled off some of Woonhak’s growing moustache which made him softly whimper in slight grief, also leaving a fresh red mark around his mouth.
Back to present day, the two shuffled to the classes — just like fate decided, even in school they had to be inseparable, giving them the same classes for every period — navigating their way through the crowded hallways, finally settling down once they reached their desks next to each other.
“Hey, I saw you catch the guy you’ve been wanting to catch yesterday, good job.” Ever since Woonhak discovered Taesan’s other identity, he follows the nightly news closely, either to let him know what he needs to set his targets on, or to just see if Taesan had achieved anything that day.
“Oh. That.” Taesan pauses for a while, not really knowing what to continue with but also unsure if he’s ready for a full conversation at 8:30 in the morning, until he remembers.
“Myung Jaehyun, what’s your knowledge about him?” Despite the two being very close, they were complete opposites in social lives, Woonhak was outgoing and friendly, he’s practically in several friend groups, and not to even exaggerate, in friend groups from a school he doesn’t even go to as well. From every junior or freshcomers in the school to seniors leaving one more month to graduate, he knows every piece of information that came out of each and every one of them.
“Jaehyun? Ah, seriously, let that rivalry go.” Woonhak pauses to retrieve information from the back of his mind, rolling his eyes mockingly.
"Woonhak, just tell me. Asides from his constant pestering about how he deserves first, I know nothing about him." Taesan had spoken seriously and firm this time, which left Woonhak in a conflict, he's seen Taesan talk about Jaehyun, but it was always in annoyance, but now it really seems he wants something out of this. Woonhak pressed his lips into a thin line, hesitant to entertain such rivalry, but also noticing the desperation in Taesan's eyes.. luckily, he gave in and spoke up about what he knew.
“His reputation seems pretty clear, except he got in trouble for exposing one of the jocks for the cheating scandal, speaking of which, that cheating scandal was so bad, apparently Josh—“
“Expose? Expose how.” Taesan cut Woonhak off, clearly he wasn’t interested in whatever hot gossip Woonhak had… at the moment. Woonhak tilted his head to the side with a look of confusion, there was intent to Taesan’s question but he couldn’t figure out what and why — had Taesan done something wrong to put him at risk of being exposed?
“He stayed back at school one day to capture photos of the gardening done by the club, when his camera apparently wandered off to the 3rd floor classroom and spotted Josh and Liana kissing and then took pictures to show his actual girlfriend at the time. Also who even kisses in school… or takes pictures of people kissing in school..”
“How’d the photos get out?” Taesan's head gears were turning, if the photos of a relatively popular jock got out and was exposed for adultery, imagine what Jaehyun would do with photos of the still unidentified New York’s hero swinging from building to building with a recognisable feature of one’s face.
“He just printed a bunch of them and taped it across the school, which it wasn’t hard to know it’s him since he’s the only one with a professional camera in this school. Why?”
“When’s science?” Just then the bell shrilled once more and the teacher entered the classroom, leaving the conversation to be continued only after. But now Taesan was going through multiple scenarios in his own mind, photos of his lips being plastered all around New York, his classmates seeing it and slowly realising that it’s him. He has to figure out what Jaehyun would do with those photos and hopefully stop him by any means.