Chapter Text
A-na’s always been smart in school, her parents pushed her to be that way since she was a young girl.
So, when they passed away, she studied hard.
To cope.
To honour them.
To make them proud.
Science had always been her specialty.
Every award, it was presented to her.
Every science fair, she won.
The prize this year; a visit to S.M. Corp for a laboratory tour.
Looks great on a resume, looks even better on a college application.
A-na accepted. Alongside her science fair partner (and best friend), Jeong Ian.
So, the following week, they attended the tour. The two, along with plenty winners from other schools, were shown to several fascinating rooms.
From ongoing experiments, to advanced technology, to scientists dissecting all different types of creatures.
“Holy shit, Ian they literally have everything here.”
Silence.
“Uhhh, Ian?”
A-na looked around the general area of the group they’re supposed to be in only to find Ian had decided on other plans.
Perfect.
She should have expected this.
“Hey, can I go to the bathroom real quick?” A-na quickly asks to one of the guides.
“Of course. Be quick.”
She smiled in gratitude before beelining out of sight.
She honestly didn’t even know where the restrooms were, she just needed to find Ian quickly before they got kicked out.
Going from room to room she tries to find her friend.
Chemical lab.
No Ian.
Tech lab.
Still no Ian.
-
A-na stumbles upon the bio lab.
A large enclosure filled with tons of spiders, webs strung from the glass of a cylinder capsule that stretched from the floor to the roof.
Beside it, a sign reading ‘DNA altering / DO NOT TOUCH’.
A-na paused immediately.
DNA altering…?
“Like spider-man?”
“Hey.” An exaggerated deep voice sounded from behind her.
“AAAAAHHHHHHHH-“
A-na flinched dramatically and turned to the voice, launching backwards. Her back clashed with spider-infested tube, rumbling the glass.
Facing the culprit, her eyes quite literally popping out of her skull; only to find Ian, hooting and hollering.
“Oh my god I think you burst my ear drum”
She couldn’t breathe. Granted, neither could A-na.
Both for very different reasons.
“I think I’m gonna pee.” Ian giggled out.
“I hate you.”
“You’re only saying that ‘cause you got scared.”
“No I didn’t.”
“Why are you lying?”
“I’m not”
“You literally screamed and jumped”
“That wasn’t me”
“You disturbed the spiders.”
A-na fought the urge to punch her.
“We’re going back now.”
-
A-na grabbed her arm and yanked her out of the room before they could be sent out of the building.
Ian made this incredibly difficult as her knees weakened every single time she laughed harder.
“Where were you?”
Instead of answering she just continued giggling.
“Ian, shut up-“
Possibly the most dramatic gasp sounded from behind A-na, effectively cutting her off.
“Oh my god.”
Ian’s laughter instantly stopped.
“What is it?” A-na huffed, not even attempting to mask any frustration she was feeling.
“A-NA DON’T MOVE”
she stopped.
“Ian-“
“DON’T MOVE.”
“Why…?”
“Now, don’t panic,”
A-na was panicking.
“But there is a massive spider on your shoulder as we speak.”
A-na shrieked and slapped at herself as soon as she heard the word ‘spider’.
“GET IT OFF!”
Ian bent forward laughing.
A-na didn’t see what was funny.
At all.
She jumped and wriggled as best as she could to get it off of her, whacking her skin, raking through her hair, wiping her clothes.
“Is it off?”
Her voice was frantic.
Ian’s giggles were not helpful in the slightest.
“IAN!” she grumbled.
a sharp prick at the back of her neck caused A-na to freeze.
Her eyes widened slightly as her posture stiffened uncomfortably.
No.
“Ian.”
Still laughing.
“Ian.” She said, firmer this time.
“Yeah?” She replied, catching her breath.
A-na turned, moving her, now messy, ponytail to the side.
“Did it bite my neck?”
She felt Ian still behind her.
“Holy shit.”
Sure enough, right there in the middle of her neck, was a red dot, seemingly flaring up as the seconds passed.
A-na felt for the bite on instinct, her hand flying to where there was an insistent sting which didn’t particularly hurt, just bothered her. Like an itch under the palm of a hand.
She ran a finger over the small bump.
This is bad.
This is really bad.
Spider. Like the ones in that tube.
Not just spiders. DNA altering spiders.
Oh, this is really, really bad.
A-na turned to Ian almost violently, her eyes wide and expression frozen.
The two were quiet before A-na sobered.
“Let’s go back to the group.” She blurted, still uncharacteristically alert.
“That’s it?”
A-na hummed.
“You don’t wanna get it treated?”
“It’ll be fine, it’s just a bug bite.”
She was sweating.
Was it always this hot in here?
She misses the chill she felt upon entering here.
“Let’s just go back.”
She grabbed Ian’s wrist and pulled her forward along with her.
Ian cringed as A-na’s clammy palm slid along her arm.
“You’re being weird.”
“I’m always weird.”
“I know.”
A-na missed the insult. She was too hyper focused on rejoining the group to even care.
-
Upon rejoining they were bombarded with questions.
“Where have you guys been?”
“Why’d you take so long?”
“Was that you screaming?”
“Hey, why are you so sweaty?”
The last one made A-na painfully self-aware.
Why am I so sweaty?
Why can I hear my own thoughts?
Geez, it’s hot in here.
Are they all staring at me?
Do they know?
A hand on her shoulder brought her back to the present, temporary relief to the loud thoughts.
“Hey, are you sure you’re okay?” Ian asked, a concerned expression gracing her usually smug face.
A-na nodded immediately.
“Fine.” She gulped, wiping a bead of sweat that trickled from her hairline.
Ian looked anything but convinced.
A-na smiled as best as she could, it came out awkwardly like a grimace.
Ian didn’t push and left her alone.
She was thankful for that.
-
The bus ride home from the tour couldn’t have come sooner.
A-na sat beside Ian on the dirtied bus seats, old and probably haven’t been cleaned since the vehicle was bought.
Her leg bounced erratically against the metal of the floor, a fast-paced tap filling the quiet bus of particularly well-behaved students.
Ian was asleep beside her. She had drifted off five minutes in after she decided annoying A-na wasn’t worth it when she looked all antsy.
Thank god.
Although, A-na would kinda like a distraction right now.
Her thoughts battered against her head, a constant headache pounding in the base of her skull.
She had tried to go on her phone to quiet her thoughts but nothing seemed to be helping right now.
Ever since she got bitten she’s been extremely on edge.
Her senses are on high alert, her conscience is annoying loud, and her body temperature is out of control.
And on top of all of that, her hands felt sticky.
Everything she touches feels bound to her palms before she lets go, like an adhesive glue that can activate and deactivate.
Now, she wasn’t trying to be dramatic, but isn’t this exactly how spider-man would feel. Wasn’t it?
Her DNA fusing with the spider’s could possibly be a valid explanation for all this, except maybe this was all placebo.
Science could probably explain the sudden changes she was feeling. It had to.
Maybe she just wanted to think she was becoming Spider-Man.
Yeah.
She’s probably just coming down with a cold. If she was spider-man then she could probably shoot webs from her wrist.
She raised her hand lazily, doing the gesture. She jerked it at the duffel bag in the upper compartment across from her aisle.
No string.
“A-ha” she whispered proudly.
Ian stirred beside her, a groan escaping her throat from the noise.
A-na relaxed. Her shoulders eased, she rested her back fully against the seat and allowed herself to rest a little too.
She obviously wasn’t spider-man, what was she thinking?
-
The next morning arrived as the last did.
A-na groaned and hoisted herself up in bed.
A cool chill swept across her room, making her shiver and cower back into her blankets.
“Yuna-yah!”
A-na’s cousin. Jiwoo.
“I made you breakfast, mom’s not home she had to go into work!” Jiwoo yelled from the kitchen.
“COMING!”
She slipped out of bed, her bare feet touching the cold wood panels. She flinched at the contact, her foot tugging slightly as she jerked it off the ground.
Yesterday, she thought it was only her hands that felt sticky. This morning, her feet felt exactly the same.
With a grimace she shifted out of her bedroom, steps lazy from sleep.
Jiwoo sat at the counter, grilled cheese in one hand, pointing at an identical one placed on a plate beside her.
A-na looked at Jiwoo, fully ready for school, outfit picked out, hair styled, makeup done.
Jiwoo looked at A-na. Her sleep shirt hung off one shoulder and her bed head was surprisingly worse than usual. She stepped out looking down in disgust at her bare feet.
Then the cherry-haired girl covered her mouth as she chuckled quietly.
“What?”
“You look like death.” Jiwoo laughed.
“Wow. Okay. Go to school early today Choi Jiwoo I’m not walking with you.”
“Hey, let’s be civil about this.”
“You lost the chance to be civil the second you decided insulting me before eight o’clock was a good idea.”
Jiwoo laughed. Early mornings without A-na’s aunt there often started like this. It was comfortable, and even though A-na seemed annoyed, the banter had become routine months ago.
A-na sat down in the unoccupied chair beside her cousin.
“How was yesterday?”
Right. Jiwoo had dance practice when A-na came home.
“Uhh, eventful.” A-na settled on that being an accurate description of her day yesterday.
“Interesting, anything cool happen?”
A-na sat a little straighter as the sentence finished.
Well, she got lost in a very large establishment, got bitten by a spider which may or may not have genetically altered her DNA structure, and almost got kicked out after an hour of being there.
Then, when she came home, she broke three handles off of her desk drawers trying to study, gaslit herself into thinking it was unrelated to the spider that bit her, and went to bed because she couldn’t handle breaking anything else.
“Not really.”
Jiwoo hummed and returned to her grilled cheese, seemingly unaware of A-na’s inner turmoil.
Calm yourself.
She bit into her breakfast and sat beside Jiwoo, basking in the silence of the early morning until she had to get ready for school.
-
Getting ready with alleged spider abilities was considerably harder than getting ready without them.
All was fine as she picked out her outfit, a pair of loose navy sweatpants that swallowed her legs, and a white baby-tee that cropped along the waistband of her pants.
Putting on her white socks and shoes had served no problem either.
The real issue was her hair.
The same hair that made her look like roadkill this morning kept sticking to her hands like the two were magnetic. And in the process of simply taming her hair, she thinks she might have lost at least a quarter of it.
By the time she had to leave, she stood in the bathroom mirror, toothbrush hanging from her mouth and toothpaste foam dripping down her chin. She looked almost presentable enough to the point where she hadn’t needed to go the long routes to classes today.
Her dark hair was short enough that it just looked messily styled, her outfit was school hallway worthy, and she was no longer sweating like a teenage boy.
“A-NA LET’S GO” Jiwoo yelled from the front door.
A-na rinsed her mouth, grabbed her phone and backpack and sprinted toward the door before Jiwoo could leave without her.
-
The walk to school was peaceful.
Jiwoo always made A-na leave at that perfect time that wasn’t too early, but wasn’t so late that traffic filled the roads.
By the time eight minutes had passed, A-na and her cousin had arrived at Baekun high school.
A-na spotted Ian as soon as she walked through the doors. Leaned against her locker and scrolling through her phone, bag between her feet.
“Ian!”
She looked up instantly and began walking over with a goofy smile on her face.
“Hey, I’ll see you after school.” Jiwoo said over her shoulder, walking over to Carmen and Juun.
“Yeah”
Ian approached with an annoying look on her face.
“So…”
A-na’s mood soured.
Ian starting a sentence off with the word ‘so’ often meant she’d done something or was about to do something.
“What.”
“Woah hear me out you don’t even know what I’m gonna say.”
“I’m sure I won’t wanna hear it anyway.”
“I overheard someone saying Yuha’s having a party at the end of this week ‘cause her parents are out of town.”
That, was unexpectedly the greatest thing Ian could have mentioned.
Yu Haram. A-na is her desk partner in science class. Sits in her proximity in every other class they share.
She is also A-na’s crush since she transferred this year. And not only is she A-na’s crush, she is also half the schools crush as well.
Yuha was quiet when she arrived at Baekun. Shy, new, socially awkward around new people.
On her first day she had asked A-na where she could find her English classroom.
-
She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned around to a girl with black hair, a pretty face and a paper clutched in her left hand while her other hand pulled back from A-na.
“Do you know where I need to go for English with Mr. Lim?”
Woah. She’s so pretty.
A-na only came back to consciousness after Yuha apologised and told her she’d ask someone else.
“Uh- come!” She hurriedly blurted to stop her from walking away.
“I have that. Walk with me.” She recovered with a kind smile.
Yuha nodded shyly, a smile automatically appearing after A-na had finished speaking.
She muttered a quiet thank you and walked beside A-na all the way there.
A-na doesn’t remember that part. She thinks she blacked out.
-
Back to now, Yuha died her hair blonde, she made a few friends, and became top of her class with little effort.
Suddenly, she stood out. And soon enough everyone noticed her.
A-na didn’t talk to her as much as she used to anymore.
Not because she had thought she wasn’t pretty anymore.
It was the opposite.
Yuha had always been beautiful, but as her confidence grew, A-na’s shrank.
They still talked, of course. They were around each other every day.
But every single conversation the two would have, A-na just made it painfully awkward after she was made aware that Yuha had been staring into her eyes for too long.
Ian noticed.
Of course she did.
She noticed the first day during English when A-na seemed more interested in the girl a seat across from her than the teacher.
Granted, it wasn’t hard to miss.
It annoyed A-na anyway.
-
“So will you be going?”
“To the party? Not if I don’t get an invite.”
“It’s a universal party”
“Ian that’s just not a thing”
“It is in high school”
“I’m not showing up uninvited”
“Everyone else will”
“Well, I’m different”
“I bet Gi-tae will be there”
A-na stopped arguing.
Gi-tae.
Conventionally handsome, angel in front of adults, absolute douche in front of everyone else.
Except Yuha.
A couple days after Yuha dyed her hair, he suddenly noticed Yuha and automatically assumed she’d agree to date him.
He asked her out.
She kindly rejected.
Except Gi-tae doesn’t take no for an answer.
He constantly pulled her from conversations, sat between her and her friends at lunch, chased her down in the hallways just to ask for her Instagram.
It was disgusting.
And yet Yuha was too polite to tell him to back off. She had always just gently turned him down and moved on with her day.
Witnessing it first hand multiple times made A-na furious.
Then she thought about him at a party.
Alcohol.
Yuha.
Cockiness.
Her house, his rules.
The vision appeared so vividly that the answer came as quickly as it formed.
“We’re going.”
Ian watched as A-na’s jaw clenched and eyes hardened with a knowing smile.
Then, she clapped her hands together enthusiastically.
“Great. It’s in two days.”
And she grabbed her bag and skipped off to get to her Homeroom on time.
-
A-na entered her own homeroom with Mrs. Kang two minutes before it began.
She went to her usual desk, three chairs from the back, closest to the window.
Except today, Yuha was waiting there, sitting on the desk in a warm looking jacket and a cute skirt layered over her most frequented pair of sweatpants.
There was something so cozy about the way Yuha dressed that made A-na want to hug her and never let go.
“Hi”
“Hi there” Yuha said, smiling widely.
A-na huffed a laugh
“What is it, Yu Haram?” She asked softly.
“Well, I’m having a little party this weekend at my house while my parents are away. I was hoping you could come.”
A-na thought back to her conversation with Ian. So she can come invited. Perfect.
A-na smiled subconsciously, her eyes fond as she looked at Yuha.
“I’d love to.”
And Yuha smiled.
“Good”
“Who else is coming?”
“Well…”
Yuha looked awkwardly to the side, she wasn’t expecting A-na to ask.
“It’s sort of a universal invite but I kinda just…”
She trailed off.
A-na fought a smile as she replayed what Ian had said to her earlier.
The conversation quieted before Yuha gathered the courage to continue.
“I wanted you to hear it directly from me” she finished shyly.
Suddenly A-na became extremely aware of what Yuha had just told her.
Her ears felt hot.
“Uh-“
“Thank you” she blurted awkwardly, her eyes diverted quickly to anything but Yuha.
She heard a quiet laugh come from the blonde in front of her.
“I’ll see you in science”
”yeah”
And she left.
A-na felt both disappointed and relieved.
-
after a double period of math, A-na was genuinely looking forward to science.
More than usual.
That had nothing to do with her and Yuha’s conversation earlier.
She entered, saying a quick greeting to Mr. Kim and turned to go to her table.
Yuha was there.
So was Gi-tae.
In her seat.
A-na’s blood instantly boiled.
She watched as he casually leaned closer to Yuha.
Her expression was tight.
Uncomfortable.
He didn’t seem to notice, nor did he seem to care. He just continued to invade her space, talking to her much closer than necessary.
A-na moved before she could even think.
Her hand gripped his shirt and pulled.
She was trying to make him straighten up, not lean so closely to Yuha. Instead she accidentally shifted his chair at least a meter away from her.
A-na’s hand bonded with his clothes.
“Let go you freak, what are you doing?”
Oh.
A-na pulled.
Resistance.
“A-na it’s okay” Yuha reassured.
It wasn’t really.
“Let go of me”
Gi-tae was getting visibly annoyed.
“Uhhh”
She pulled again.
Hard.
“There.” She said.
Relief.
However…
“You ripped my shirt, idiot”
She looked down at her hand. A patch of white fabric remained stuck to her finger tips. She then looked around the classroom.
At least 20 pairs of eyes were staring from her, to Gi-tae, to his shirt, to her hand.
The thoughts in A-na’s head got loud again.
They know.
Why did you do that?
They think you’re weird
There’s something wrong with you
A hand grabbing at her arm pulled her out of her minor crisis.
A-na looked down at the contact.
Yuha.
She was dragged all the way out of class.
“I’m sorry”
Yuha looked at her.
“I don’t think it’s entirely your fault A-na” she smiled, still dragging her through the hallway.
Yuha swung the bathroom door open.
It was then when she finally let go of A-na.
Yuha turned. Her eye brows scrunched in concern.
“A-na?”
Yuha’s hand, engulfed in the sleeve of her cozy jumper, raised to her face.
A-na hadn’t even realised she started crying.
Her eyes filled without warning, and the second that Yuha wiped A-na’s face with far too much care, she became overwhelmed.
The tears spilled over. She didn’t sob. She didn’t shake. She didn’t hug Yuha for comfort. She just stayed, tears streaming down her face, not caring if Yuha saw.
Because honestly the whole reason she was crying left her conscience as soon as Yuha’s hand reached for hers.
So now, standing in the bathroom, Yuha reaching up to her face. Staring up at her with genuine care, looking just as sad as A-na had moments ago.
“Are you okay?”
Yuha’s voice came soft and reverberated off the quiet rooms walls.
A-na nodded, suddenly nervous.
Yuha smiled.
Then she looked at the fabric still tethered to A-na’s hand.
“Care to explain?” She asked, looking back up to meet A-na’s eyes again.
“Glue.”
The answer escaped smoothly. Believable.
She saw something in Yuha’s brain click.
“Doing arts and crafts in math today?” She chaffed.
A-na shrugged.
“Something like that.”
Then Yuha laughed. And everything that happened became entirely worth it. Because it wasn’t often that Yuha laughed like she did now. Head back, teeth showing, eyes like crescents, no hand covering her mouth.
A-na laughed too. It was almost impossible not to, like it was built into her system.
It died down gradually, the room becoming quiet again. Yuha spoke.
“Thank you. I’m glad someone can see how uncomfortable I am around him.”
A-na softened.
“It’s not hard to miss I can literally see you sweating from a mile away.” A-na bantered.
Yuha hit her. Kindly. Almost.
“I don’t sweat.”
“You so do”
“A-na!” She scolded.
A-na laughed again.
When did talking to Yuha get so easy?
Yuha chased her out the bathroom.
They got told off by a hall monitor.
They scurried back to class muffling poorly held back giggles.