Chapter Text
“Park Hu-min.”
A voice cut through the lucid fog in his brain. He startled awake, eyes unfocusing, still blurry at the corners of his nice, his cheek burned, must have been stuck to the desk before he straightened up fast.
It felt like he was still dreaming. Something about flying? No, falling. Falling really fast.
The entire class was staring at him. His math teacher stood at the front of the room and took a deep, tired sigh.
“Care to join us?” He asked, hitting onto the chalkboard with a half used chalk, making the dusts of it fall off. “Or are you planning to spend the third period unconscious once again?”
Hu-min straightened in his seat. “No, sir. I’m awake, I apologize." he roared, bowing down without getting up, his sweaty forehead hitting his desk with a loud fucking thud. His voice sounded like he'd gargled sand. Probably from breathing in smoke last night. Or maybe the concrete dust after that wall collapsed on him. He wasn’t sure anymore.
A quiet laugh came from two rows back.
Hu-min didn’t have to look. That was Go Hyun-tak. His best fucking friend. Also, his number one hater.
The math teacher cleared his throat, clearly debating whether to drag this further and let Hu-min suffer, or let go.
He chose mercy.
“Try to keep your eyes open for the rest of class, Park Hu-min.”
“Yes sir!” Hu-min yelled, forehead still on the desk, the tip of his nose smudged against it.
The teacher sighed, then returned to the class.
He didn’t lift his head right away. Mostly because he couldn’t.
Every part of his body hurt. Not in the fun, ‘sore from basketball’ way. In the ‘something is probably broken right now kind of way. His lungs ached when he breathed in too deep. His neck made a strange, clicking noise whenever he moved it. And he was ninety percent sure his left pinky toe was broken, it kept twitching for no reason.
That villain last night- what was his name? Something fucking stupid like ‘Hongdae Guy’ had thrown him into rooftop in Hongdae. And as if that alone wasn’t enough on its own, the entire shed over the rooftop has collapsed on him, making them both fall into a construction site. Hu-min had managed to web the guy up, call in an anonymous tip, and swing away before the cops showed up, but not before the metal pipes of the construction had given out and buried him under shattered tiles.
He coughed once, into the desk, and something in his chest made a wet popping sound.
No big deal.
The thing they didn’t tell you about being Spider-Man? Seoul was big. Too fucking big. Too many districts, too many alleyways, too many assholes who wanted to stab a teenager in spandex because of some sob story.
Every time he got punched by someone in the jaw, they had a reason. A sick parent. A lost job. A betrayal. A gambling debt. An unfair landlord. A corporate scandal. A bad breakup. He’d heard them all, usually between swings or while ducking fists. Some of them even cried. Others screamed, like it was Hu-min’s fault that they chose to rob a gas station in a funny outfit.
Boo-fucking-hoo. Get therapy. Or a diary. Or a punching bag that isn’t a minor that scored 99 on an IQ test.
But you know what?
The only one he remotely sympathized with was that old guy who robbed a convenience store because his dog needed surgery.
And Hu-min had stood there, torn between duty and humanity, genuinely considering paying the bill himself. Except he was broke. Spider-Man didn’t come with a paycheck. Or insurance. Or even with a decent suit.
He groaned into the desk.
Maybe he was the real villain here. A broke seventeen year old vigilante with no friends (besides Jun-tae and Hyun-tak, and the latter barely counted as a friend for Hu-min, whose brain stopped working any and every time Hyun-tak smiled at him), no lunch money, and no working spine.
Honestly, if a vet refused to save his dog over money, he might’ve blown something up too. That one was valid.
But the rest of them? Get therapy. Don’t fight Spider-Man.
Hu-min groaned quietly and pushed his forehead off the desk, leaving behind a damp. His spine cracked in three separate places. If this was what being seventeen felt like, he wasn’t going to survive his twenties.
He blinked at the board. The math made no sense, but he tried to focus anyway. The numbers didn’t make much sense. But he sat up straight, folded his hands over his textbook like a good student, and nodded every time the teacher said something.
Fake it until you make it.
Pretend the classroom didn’t feel like it was rotating. Pretend he wasn’t still hearing the whistle of wind in his ears from last night. Pretend his limbs were functional. Pretend he was normal.
He was halfway through trying to mentally calculate how many hours of sleep he’d gotten this week (answer: not enough) when the bell rang.
Sweet, holy salvation.
All around him, chairs were pushed back, notebooks snapped shut, and students began leaving the classroom to get on the cafeteria lunch line. Somewhere closer, Hyun-tak stood and stretched with a loud crack from his neck, slapping a palm onto Hu-min’s desk.
“Yah, Baku! You alive?” he asked.
Hu-min didn’t respond at first. Mostly because words required breath, and breath required a functioning ribcage. He just stared blankly at Hyun-tak’s stomach.
Hyun-tak was standing way too close, annoyingly so. His hoodie was ironed (Hu-min knew Hyun-tak’s mother wouldn’t let him wear wrinkled clothes outside), and his hair looked like he’d styled it on purpose. He hadn’t, obviously. He just woke up hot.
Which was unfair.
Hu-min hated him. So much. With his perfect stupid face. And his long, warm and comfortable looking torso. And his… flat stomach that was right there.
Right there.
“I want to die.” Hu-min said.
“Same,” Hyun-tak replied, a little bit too cheerfully, before Hu-min slumped forward and buried his face directly into Hyun-tak’s stomach.
“Oof- what the-?!” Hyun-tak stumbled a little, caught off guard, hand reflexively going to the back of Hu-min’s head.
Hu-min just stayed there. Forehead against his best friend’s abs.
“I’m hungry…” he whined.
“Fatass.”
“I’m starving.”
“You’re also very warm,” Hyun-tak said, placing the back of his hand against Hu-min’s forehead. “Is this a fever? Do I need to carry you to the nurse?”
“No. I just want food.” Hu-min mumbled into his shirt, nuzzling. “And sleep.”
“What did you do last night?”
“I almost died.”
Hyun-tak squinted, scowling, trying to shove his face away, but Hu-min’s grip was stubborn and needy and (unfortunately) firm. Even exhausted, he was stronger than Hyun-tak.
“You almost die every week.”
“I continue to almost die. It’s an ongoing problem.”
“You’re actually so stupid…” Hyun-tak mumbled, giving up as he realized he couldn’t push this man child away. “Seriously though, what did you do last night?”
“Ugh… nothing much, really.”
That was true, technically. If you didn’t count being punched through a rooftop shed by a guy who called himself "Hongdae Guy." Or getting buried under rusty scaffolding and choking on drywall. Or webbing the bastard up by the ankles while his phone buzzed with messages from his dad asking if he was coming home for dinner.
Before Hu-min could lie any better, Jun-tae’s voice came from behind them, squeaky with excitement.
“Yah! Yah! You guys- did you see where Spider-Man was spotted last night?!”
Of course. Of fucking course.
He didn’t lift his head, just groaned directly into Hyun-tak’s hoodie again, muffled and miserable. “Please no.”
He could feel Jun-tae getting closer. Practically bouncing on his feet, excited. His phone was already out, showing the thumbnail of what Hu-min knew was the exact video he’d prayed wouldn’t exist.
Jun-tae came closer, phone in hand, turning it to them, “He was in Hongdae! Right behind the restaurant we ate at that one time- Look, someone recorded a video! He swings through the construction site like bam-” Jun-tae made a gesture, “-then throws this guy into the wall and just disappears! It’s so sick. He’s getting faster, I swear.”
Hu-min kept his face hidden, pressing into Hyun-tak’s stomach.
He could remember that exact moment. Flinging Hongdae Guy across the scaffolding and immediately regretting the force. He’d gone overboard. Way too much momentum. The dude hit the wall, and Hu-min knew it was going to look bad on video. Great. Another blurry clip of Spider-Man “being violent” was probably already on the news.
“Maybe he’s on drugs,” Hyun-tak offered as he pulled his hand out of Hu-min’s hair. It was damp from sweat. Gross. Hu-min deserved to be fucking abandoned.
Hu-min, still slumped, muttered without thinking. “He’s not on drugs.”
Silence.
Fucking silence.
Hu-min regretted opening his mouth immediately, trying to make up an excuse to why he sounded so defensive over Spider-Man when he had shown the minimal amount of interest on him so far-
“You sound oddly defensive, Dumpling.”
Heat rose up to his cheeks, the back of his eyelids burning. Maybe he did have a fever, after all.
“Don’t call me that!”
You look like one, chubby, red cheeks-”
“No, I don’t!” Hu-min huffed and puffed, finally lifting his head, barely, and resting his chin against Hyun-tak’s stomach instead, staring up at him. “And maybe I just believe in justice.”
The words came out too fast.
Too honest.
He winced.
Hu-min really needed to learn to shut the fuck up. Or think before words left his mouth.
Think, huh?
That had never been his strongest suit. Maybe it was the problem with being this tired. his filter disappeared completely. His mouth moved before his brain caught up. He couldn’t afford to get careless.
Especially not when Hyun-tak’s eyes were already looking down on him with that weird, squinting look he got when he was suspicious.
Hu-min could hear his own pulse thudding in his ears.
Justice? Really?
What are you, Batman?
A part of him might have meant it. The part that still burned from every night he didn’t make it in time. From the people he couldn’t help. From the fact that the only reason he was alive was because someone didn’t let him die once.
He believed in justice. In doing the right thing. In trying, even when it didn’t work. Even if he had failed, he had tried. Even when he got hurt, he did it for a reason.
But none of that was cool to say out loud.
Especially not when he was halfway to drooling on his best friend’s hoodie and looking like a dumpling, apparently.
“Right, justice,” Jun-tae said, scrolling. “And thighs. His kicks are crazy.”
Hu-min didn’t even flinch anymore. He was used to Jun-tae saying unhinged things. At this point, he was more surprised when Jun-tae didn’t sexualize a superhero.
“You need help,” Hyun-tak said.
“You’re one to talk,” Jun-tae grinned.
Hyun-tak flushed a little, scowling, and turned his head away. Classic.
Hu-min tried not to look too long at the way Hyun-tak’s ears went pink, because that always did something annoying to his heart rate.
Jun-tae giggled and turned his phone around again. “Look at this. He’s literally upside down while swinging a punch. How do you even train for that? I bet he’s, like, secretly an idol or an athlete or-”
“Let’s go eat,” Hu-min cut in loudly, maybe a little too quickly, pulling away from Hyun-tak.
His pinky toe flared with pain the second he stood up. Fucking fantastic.
“Fatty,” Hyun-tak muttered, entirely unbothered.
“Do you want me to crawl back onto your stomach?”
“Try it, I fucking dare you-”
“Bla bla blaaaah! I want food, not Jun-tae’s yap about Spider-Man,” Hu-min said, cutting him off as loud as he could.
Which wasn’t entirely fair, because Jun-tae was kind of cute about it. In the way only Jun-tae could be. All the obsession and the wild theories like Spider-Man was pokemon instead of, you know… a person.
There was something weirdly comforting about it. Watching Jun-tae fanboy over his alter ego, as if Spider-Man was just some larger-than-life hero and not, say, the class dumbass with a 99IQ score and a uniform that didn’t smell like fried chicken.
It made things feel a little more okay. Like maybe, just maybe, he was doing something right.
Even if no one knew it was him.
Jun-tae’s excitement was just so genuine, so unfiltered, it made Hu-min’s chest tighten in a strange, bittersweet way. The way it always seemed like people liked Spider-Man more than they’d ever like Hu-min himself. And it wasn’t jealousy, like, at all. it was more like standing outside your own life, watching someone else get the credit for your choices.
It was fine. It had to be. That was the whole point. Keep people safe. Let them believe in someone better than you. Someone cleaner. Someone cooler.
Still, he wondered, just for a second, what Jun-tae’s reaction would be if he pulled down the mask right now and said, “Hey. It’s me. The guy you keep talking about is a sweaty seventeen year old with stress acne on his butt.”
He laughed it off, rolled his eyes, and kept walking.
Because Jun-tae was fanboying over a hero, not Hu-min.
“C’mon, Spider-freaks,” Hyun-tak said, tugging Hu-min by the collar so that he would walk faster. “Let’s go before this idiot actually passes out and I have to carry him.”
“Wait, are you calling me Spider-freak or him?” Jun-tae asked, following a step behind them as they walked out the door.
“Guess.” Hyun-tak answered.
Hu-min laughed, well, sort of.
His collar bunched awkwardly around his neck where Hyun-tak had grabbed it, and even after letting go, the warmth of the contact stayed, making him hyper-aware of the air on his skin, of his heartbeat ticking too fast.
Spider-freak.
It wasn’t the first time Hyun-tak had called him names. It was practically a love language at this point. Baku, Fatty, Dumpling, Moron, Sleepyhead- he had a whole ass rotation, and Hu-min always snapped back because that was their thing. That was the script. Tease, insult, deny, repeat.
But something about this one got under his skin in a different way.
Spider-freak.
It was scary.
What if Hyun-tak found out the guy he admired a little was actually his dumbass best friend who got a 99 on an IQ test and once microwaved a boiled egg because he wanted it warmer?
What if Hu-min wasn’t good enough?
His ears rang faintly.
Cracking scaffolding. Sirens. The sound of his body hitting the pavement.
He stared blankly at the back of the kid in front of him waiting in line in front of them. Tried to breathe. Slow. In, out. In, out. Normal. Human.
Jun-tae was still talking about Spider-Man. “I’m telling you, it’s like he’s getting stronger. Did you see that video on YouTube? I watched it frame by frame. Literally, still in air, upside down-”
“Sounds like someone needs to touch grass.” Hyun-tak muttered, grabbing a tray from the stack and bumping it into Hu-min’s arm. “Hey. Tray.”
“Right.” Hu-min blinked and grabbed one, grip stiff. His hands still ached. The scabs on his knuckles had reopened again.
Hyun-tak glanced at him, brief, then back at Jun-tae and mumbled something, which made Jun-tae laugh softly. Hu-min didn’t catch the joke, because he wasn’t listening.
His brain was caught on one thing, looping.
What if Hyun-tak finds out?
About the bruises. The lies. The bleeding palms. The nights Hu-min didn’t come home until sunrise, limping through his bedroom window.
What if he figured it out that Spider-Man, the guy Jun-tae idolized, the one people filmed with shaky phones and hashtags was no more than Park Hu-min.
Just Park Hu-min. Just… Baku.
What a fucking joke. The guy who once misspelt “four” on a short answer math question when he could have just written the number. Baku sometimes forgot to shower. Baku got a 99 on his IQ test. Baku didn’t know what he was doing ninety percent of the time and just guessed, webbed, hoped it worked.
Without the mask, there was nothing left.
Spider-Man was fast, brave, strong, smart.
Hu-min was hungry, usually late, and kind of dumb.
And he knew that Hyun-tak did like Spider-Man.
Maybe not in the Jun-tae way. But he’d said it once. Called him cool. Admitted once after a news clip, that what Spider-Man did took guts.
That was what people would say about their heroes. Their saviors.
Not about your dumbass best friend who showed up at your door past midnight because he was too pathetic to defend himself against his own father.
He was halfway into a full mental collapse when a murmur ran through the cafeteria.
“-Gangnam-"
“Robbery-”
“Dude said they had weapons-”
“Wasn’t there, like, five of them?”
Hu-min’s head jerked up. His spider-sense flared a split second before the noise reached him, a ripple through his bones, an alarm tickling the back of his ears.
A second later, someone’s phone blared a video. Blurry footage of men in BT21 masks storming into a bank lobby. Gunshots in the background. A woman screaming. And in the distance, sirens. Hu-min’s stomach dropped. If they were pulling police from Yeongdeungpo too, it had to be serious. Real serious.
The kind of shit Spider-Man shouldn’t ignore.
He stared, chest tightening, before instinct kicked in and shredded his whole body awake, remembering he is Spider-Man.
Fuck.
He slammed his tray back onto the stack and stepped out of line fast.
“Shit- I- I forgot something.”
“What?” Hyun-tak turned, brows drawn. “Where-?”
But Hu-min was already walking fast, shouldering through a bunch of kids waiting in line, giving quick apologies. His heart pounded in his ears, and he needed out, now.
“Hey, Hu-min!” Jun-tae called behind him, confused. “You okay?!”
“Bathroom!” Hu-min yelled over his shoulder, not slowing. “I think I’m gonna- shit myself!”
Which wasn’t entirely a lie.
He pushed the cafeteria door open and slipped through. The hallway was empty, he wouldn’t draw suspicion. He jogged, then ran.
He’d change into the suit in his smelly gym bag, then head east.
Robbery in Gangnam.
No time to breathe. No time to think.
He was Spider-Man.
He had to be.
Because if he wasn’t- if he stripped all that away, then what was left?
Nothing.
Just Baku.
And just Baku wasn’t enough.
He burst into the basketball clubroom, his locker stuck, as always. Hu-min punched the side once, twice, and finally yanked it open. The scent of his gym bag was horrible, but he didn’t have time to care.
Inside was the suit next to his basketball uniform. Both red, not driving any attention if someone managed to dare to get close to the stench of the bag to look inside.
Red and blue and embarrassingly handmade, the first version stitched with blood and duct tape. He’d upgraded a bit since then, mostly with the help of Hyun-tak’s WiFi and sewing tutorials. It still wasn’t perfect. The mask was a little too tight. The gloves itched. And the chest emblem was slightly crooked because he’d tried ironing it once.
But it hid his identity just well.
He stripped in record time, wriggling into the suit with desperation.
In this suit, he wasn’t Baku, the dumbass.
He was Spider-Man.
With a deep breath, he yanked the mask over his face, shoved his school uniform back into the locker, slammed it shut, and sprinted for the backyard of the school to leave without anyone noticing him.
He shot out with a snap and caught the roof of a nearby building. His body swung through the humid summer air of Seoul. The wind slapped against his mask, clearing his fogged thoughts.
He twisted mid air, flipped once, and landed on a balcony railing. Another web. Another swing.
“Gangnam,” he muttered under his breath. “Why is it always Gangnam?”
He swung over Han River traffic, sirens pumping adrenaline. Somewhere below, someone shouted, “Is that Spider-Man?!”
Yes. It was. And he was five minutes late because he forgot which pocket he shoved his left glove into.
The closer he got, the worse the feeling got, spider sense going off. He landed hard on a rooftop overlooking the bank. The street below was pure chaos, cops taking cover behind cars and folded shields, civilians being pushed back.
“BT21 masks…” Spider-Man crouched low, watching. “What the fuck.”
There were five of them. Two guarding the exit, one inside dragging someone by the collar, and another pacing with a shotgun. The fifth. definitely the leader, was screaming into a phone. Probably negotiating. Probably stalling. Probably an idiot.
Perfect.
He adjusted his mask, rolled his shoulders, dropped down behind a parked van and webbed the undercarriage. One more deep breath.
“Showtime.”
He launched himself up, flipped through the broken upper window of the bank, and landed square on the receptionist’s desk. Every head turned.
There was a moment of silence.
“What the hell-”
“Hey!” Spider-Man scratched his head, trying to make himself look confused.. “If this is a themed birthday party, I’m super offended I wasn’t invited. I love BT21. Where’s Chimmy?”
A gun fired. He ducked.
The bullet hit the ceiling. Screams rose.
“Okay! Rude.” Spider-Man yelped, flipping off the desk and launching a web that pulled the shotgun clean out of one guy’s hands. Another guy lunged at him. Hu-min spun and kicked him square in the chest. “Sorry! Cooky says get wrecked!”
A third tried to grab him from behind, but he ducked, flipped backwards, and webbed the guy’s ankles to the wall. “Wow, man. You're flexible. Do you do pilates?”
Hyun-tak’s mother did, and Hu-min knew Hyun-tak joined sometimes, too. But that was irrelevant now.
Two down. Three to go.
The guy on the phone shouted and pulled a pistol from his waistband.
“Whoa, whoa- dude!” Spider-man said, sliding behind the marble counter. “You ever think, maybe crime isn’t your thing? Like… there’s always trade school.”
The gun fired. Spider-Man rolled. Glass shattered.
With sheer stupidity and no plan, he jumped up and webbed the guy’s face. The gun went off again, high this time, and Spider-Man landed on the guy’s chest with both feet, knocking the wind out of him.
“Ugh, that’s gonna bruise you.” Hu-min muttered, pinning the guy with another web and launching himself to the last two.
They tried to run, but Spider-man caught one while he was trying to run, webbed his foot, and yanked. The guy slammed into a pillar.
The last dropped his weapon and started screaming. “I GIVE UP! I GIVE UP!”
“Finally!” Spider-man said, panting hard, he approached and patted the guy’s shoulder in praise. “Someone with sense.”
But he webbed him to a nearby potted plant for good measure.
And just like that… it was over.
He stood in the middle of the lobby, surrounded by groaning criminals, broken furniture, and shattered glass. His chest rose and fell in ragged gasps. He was soaked in sweat. His ribs ached. His pinky toe was definitely broken. Again.
Spider-Man would finish the job fast. Unlike Park Hu-min who always seemed to procrastinate on the simplest tasks such as brushing his teeth and showering.
A woman peeked out from behind the overturned counter. “Are they… gone?”
“Yup.” Spider-Man gave a thumbs up. “All accounted for. Nobody dead. You’re welc-”
He froze.
Sirens.
Shit.
Hu-min forgot the cops were right outside.
Spider-man turned to the nearest broken window, muttering “Not today.” and shot a web. He was gone by the time the front doors burst open.
He kept going, shooting web after web, until he hit the edge of Gangnam and veered west. For a moment, he considered swinging back towards school, grabbing his uniform from the club room, and wiping the sweat off with paper towels in the bathroom like all that happened was a case of explosive diarrhoea. Then, he would slide into class during what he predicted to be the seventh period like he hadn’t just taken down five armed criminals in BT21 masks and dodged Seoul police.
But also…
He hadn’t eaten since yesterday’s lunch, and the hunger has been making his hands shake since the morning.
Spider-Man might be a hero, but he was also just a kid, after all.
Just a hungry ass kid in a smelly suit with blood on his tongue.
“Naaah,” he muttered to himself, landing hard on the roof of a Love Motel near the Han River and squatting behind the sign. “Fuck school.”
The mask itched, so he pulled it upwards halfway off and sat with it scrunched up around the tip of his nose. Wind cooled the sweat on his skin. He stared at the highway below, eyes unfocused and blurry.
His hands were trembling more now, whether from exertion or adrenaline or low blood sugar, he couldn’t tell.
He should go home. Shower. Eat. Collapse. Maybe cry a little into his pillow, but, like, in a masculine way. Just a single tear or something. Spider-Man style.
But with his chest rising and falling, pinky toe throbbing, all of his bones screaming, and the city below him going on like none of this happened..
Pulling the mask fully back down, Spider-Man webbed high and let himself fall. His brain was starting to fog again, but the coolness of air at this height, the clear sky… That was the best part. Not the praise. Not the videos. Not even the tiny little moments where someone smiled at the idea of him. No.
It was this.
The freefall.
The quiet between buildings. The way his stomach dropped and everything slowed down just for a second. It made him feel free, as if Seoul wasn’t only his to fix, but just a place he passed through, doing what he could.
Eventually, he shot a web and swung, landing on a low rooftop ledge above a convenience store, debating whether to check if he had any change left in the lining of his suit. There were possibly a few band aids that had fused with the fabric. But money?
Spider-Man didn’t get paid.
Spider-Man didn’t even get snacks.
Spider-Man, apparently, only got busted toe for free.
He crouched there for a second longer, trying to see through the window. His stomach growled so loud he startled himself.
“No money, no food, no dignity,” he muttered, scratching under the mask with one gloved finger. “But at least I’ve got-” he paused. “...nope. I got nothing.”
With a sigh, he fired off another web and swung off again, directionless now, just floating to stroll.
He looped around the highrises of Gangnam for no reason other than the breeze and the sun, his body still sore, but less hurting now. He swung past the traffic, past business towers and trendy cafes, past delivery scooters and umbrellas and balconies full of drying laundry. It was nice. Kind of peaceful, even. Seoul was so loud it looped back around to quiet when you moved fast enough.
He was just passing over a playground when a tiny voice shrieked from below.
“SPIDER-MANNNNN!!”
He flinched, almost missing his next web.
“Up there! Look!!”
“Mom, MOM, HE’S RIGHT THERE-”
“SPIDER-MAAANNN!!”
He stopped. Hovered. Debated pretending he hadn’t heard, but when he looked down, there were already six or seven kids gathered at the foot of the monkey bars, pointing upward. Their tiny faces were tilted up, squinting against the sun. Hu-min smiled through the mask, and dropped down gently beside the sandbox.
The screams reached a new pitch of joy.
“Waaahhhh!! It’s really him!”
“He’s shorter than I thought.”
“No, he’s TALL, you idiot.”
“Spider-Man! Do a flip!!”
“SPIDER-MAN OPPA!! TAKE A PHOTO WITH ME!!”
“Say kimchi!” one girl yelled, holding up a phone with a Sailor Moon case. Before he could speak, four of them had already pressed in around his legs, clinging. One started doing a peace sign. Another started dabbing. Someone shouted, “Do the pose!” and crouched low in a wobbly imitation of his landing stance.
He stared for a beat, then slowly dropped to one knee and threw up the web shooter fingers. The kids screamed again.
Click. Click. Click.
Another kid shoved her friend’s face out of the way. “You’re the best! I watched all the videos!”
“Are you a real hero?” one boy asked, tugging his hand. “Like Iron Man?”
Hu-min hesitated.
Then, Spider-man shrugged. “I am.”
“That’s SO COOL!!”
Spider-Man grinned under the mask.
“Can I touch your web thing?” a kid asked, gripping his wrist.
“Uh… maybe not,” he said, gently disengaging. “It’s super radioactive. You might grow an extra arm.”
The kids gasped in collective horror and delight. One of them clutched her own elbow like it was already happening. “Really?!”
“Totally,” Spider-Man said. “Happened to me. That’s why I wear gloves.”
For the next five minutes, he was mobbed by pure, chaotic joy. They asked him everything.
Do you know BTS? Can you breathe upside down? Have you ever kissed someone while hanging? How can you see through the mask? Do you poop in the suit?
He answered as best he could, yes, no, maybe, no comment, a “I will web your mouth shut, kid”. They loved it. One small boy tried climbing him like a tree. Another insisted on measuring her hand against his palm (“You have girl hands,” she said, and he died a little inside). A kid made him promise to come back next time with his ‘spider friends.’ When he asked who that meant, the kid said, “Like… Pororo. Or Hamtaro.”
It was stupid. And loud. And it made him forget, briefly, that he couldn’t remember the last time he drank actual water. For a few minutes, he was just the neighborhood hero again. Not the exhausted kid under the mask. Just Spider-Man. Weird and cool and weirdly cool.
Eventually, he stood and clapped the dust from his gloves. “Alright, guys. Duty calls.”
“NOOOO!”
“Already?”
“You didn’t even show us your flips!”
“I’m low on flips today,” he said, spinning slowly in a circle “Battery’s at, like, three percent.”
The youngest girl stepped forward and held out a plastic bag full of convenience store snacks. A juice box, a pack of jelly sticks, and a prepackaged kimbap squished sideways.
“We were gonna eat this,” she said. “But you should take it. For power.”
He froze, wanting to refuse, he shook his head. “I can’t-”
But then, he caught a glimpse of that kimbap. The exact one he’d been craving since lunchtime yesterday. Spicy tuna. “…Actually,” he said, reaching for it gently, “thanks. I kinda needed this.”
The girl beamed. The others cheered. He grinned behind the mask, and gave them one last bow. “Stay in school.” he said, launching upward with one final web. “And don’t do crime, or I’ll show up and eat your lunch next.”
They screamed as he vanished, voices echoing after him.
He swung off with one hand, the other holding the kimbap. His cheeks hurt from smiling too long, too much. It was stupid. He knew it. But also? It kind of wasn’t. After some swinging, he dipped low near a narrow alley, he landed lightly behind a row of stacked crates that belonged to a nearby restaurant and let himself breathe.
The mask came off halfway again, pushed to his nose. He sat on the discarded milk crate and finally unwrapped the kimbap. Spicy tuna. A little warm from being carried around. Slightly smashed. Perfect.
He took the first bite, chewed with his eyes closed. Groaned softly. Chewed again.
“Ohhhh…” he whispered, practically moaning from pleasure.
Halfway through his long awaited lunch, something brushed his leg. He flinched, then looked down.
A small, skinny cat, black cat. Left ear nicked. Big eyes staring up, a patch of his fur seemed damaged near the joint of one of its back legs. “Don’t,” Hu-min warned it. “Don’t you dare.”
It meowed.
“Bro…”
Another meow. Softer this time. Accompanied by a light nudge of its head against his shin. Hu-min stared at the half eaten roll in his hand. Then at the cat. Then at the roll again.
“No,” he said. “Absolutely not. I fought like… five guys for this. You weren’t there. You don’t know what I’ve seen.”
The cat sat down. Blinked at him slowly. He cursed under his breath, sighing, and broke the leftover roll in his head. He lowered the larger piece to the ground. “Here. Take it.” The cat sniffed once, then began eating with polite little bites. Hu-min watched, smiling. He ate the smaller piece in one bite, and waited until the cat finished its own, licked its paw, then bumped its head against his ankle again before walking off between a stack of boxes.
Hu-min sat there for a second longer, wiping his fingers on the inside of the wrapper. His stomach was still hollow, but it no longer burned.
His stomach was still hollow, but it no longer burned from hunger.
The alley was silent, peaceful. His pulse had just started to slow down when he felt a shiver running down on his nervous system.
Spider-sense. The tingling. Real bad this time.
Not like a weird vibe he would get from people. Not the prickling static of someone looking at him from a distance. No, this was alarming, almost electrocuting. Something was wrong and he didn’t know what.
He sat frozen, shoulders tense. Eyes darted upward toward the slice of afternoon between rooftops.
Was someone following him? Was something about to explode? Was it another villain with a gimmick? His brain scrambled to catch up, but before he could focus-
“Excuse me!” a voice in the distance. “Delivery for apartment 902! Can someone open the door?!”
Hu-min blinked, suddenly coming back to his senses. Then groaned.
“Oh shit…”
The food deliveries.
His dad.
He was supposed to help this afternoon. His real job. Carrying bags of fried chicken up five flights of stairs without tripping.
“Shitshitshitshitshit-” He shoved the wrapper into his pocket, yanked the mask back down, and launched himself out of the alley. His arms ached the whole way home, but he didn’t stop. He cut corners over rooftops and fire escapes, swung low over trash cans. He scared a rat out of a trashcan at some point. He didn’t have time to apologize.
When he finally reached his apartment building, he didn’t go through the front. Couldn’t. His dad might be downstairs yelling at the neighbors again. Instead, he latched onto the crumbling side wall, crawled up the exposed bricks, and quietly tapped open his bedroom window from the outside.
His window had that annoying squeak if you pushed it wrong, so he angled it up slowly, one web gloved finger at a time, and slid inside. No shout from the hallway. No footsteps coming up the stairs. Safe.
Hu-min slipped inside. He dragged the window shut behind him, crawled across the ceiling, softly landed on his feet, and finally reached for his mask, letting out a sigh of relief.
His hair stuck to his forehead from sweat. His lungs burned. Maybe Hyun-tak was right. He did look like a dumpling. He stared at the ceiling for a moment.
Right.
He had to change. Wipe the sticky wetness off his neck. Put on his delivery vest. And then run five boxes of fried chicken across the district before his dad started texting things like “be quicker”.
“Cool,” he muttered. “Cool cool cool. This is fine.”
His shoulder cracked as he started peeling off the suit, arm by arm. As he was halfway out of it, the bottom half still fully on, something clattered behind him.
A loud noise.
Like a bag falling.
Hu-min flinched so hard he almost lost his balance. He spun around, heart in his throat, still one arm inside the suit.
Jun-tae was standing in the middle of his room.
Wide eyed. Frozen. Mouth slowly falling open.
Hu-min stared back. His mouth also slowly fell open.
Jun-tae blinked. “…What the f-”
They both screamed.
“AAAAAAHHH-!”
“WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU-!”
“YOU’RE SPIDERMAN?!!”
“WHY ARE YOU IN MY ROOM?!!”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, WHY- BAKUUU!!!”
“GET OUT!! CLOSE YOUR EYES!! I’M- THIS ISN’T- IT’S A COSPLAY!!!”
Jun-tae pointed at the mask hanging off his face. “BAKU.”
This was it. The end of Hu-min. Spider-Man wasn’t going to die fighting a villain or saving a busload of kids. He was going to die right here, right now, in his room, from shame induced cardiac arrest.
Or maybe, he could fake his death. Spider-Man dies tragically saving a cat from traffic. Boom. Problem solved.
Fuck.
Maybe he should just climb back out the window and relocate to Busan, the beach would be real relaxing right now.