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Jeno’s life is pretty normal, until one day it isn’t.
And unlike every movie, he’s seen on tv and all of the webtoons he scrolled through on his phone, being a superhero is certainly not glamorous—nor does it catapult him to extreme wealth that’s able to feed the rest of his bloodline until the earth finally decides that humanity isn’t worth saving anymore and ceases to exist.
It’s at this very moment Jeno wonders if he had been accidentally placed in the wrong superhero franchise because Batman didn’t need a side job and attend college because of the whole saving the world thing (man, he really wishes that he could be Batman instead). But those hopes simply ended up wild fantasies that could never come true. Go figure.
Once Jeno gets bitten by a radioactive spider during a field trip to the local museum the week of freshman orientation, the superhero life only manages to exasperate all of his problems at an alarming rate and he doesn’t even know how to solve any one of them, nonetheless, pass first-year chemistry.
(Jeno ends up passing, albeit with a grade he wishes would be burned off his official transcript in the case he wanted to attend graduate school. But apparently, saving the world doesn’t get you into graduate school for the research purposes he prefers.)
Jeno’s only kind of saving grace is that he’s able to use the glue on his hands to walk on buildings in the middle of the night, unable to detach himself from the beautiful world around him, the rustic red brick buildings Jeno grew up with recording the stories he and his friends painted and covered up with new tales they had no other space to use.
Now, there is one issue that comes with Jeno entering the superhero life by accident. He better get used to it, because he doesn’t see there being any remedy to the situation he’s stuck with.
Na Jaemin? His old best friend from high school? His current archnemesis that’s actively trying to kill him whenever the opportunity arises?
Yeah, there’s no way in hell for Jeno to repair what has been broken.
Fate had made it so that their friendship couldn’t outlast the first few months Jeno donned his red spandex suit and swung through the fences.
And the saddest thing about it all is that Jeno really loved Jaemin. Loved Jaemin in a way the best of friends loved each other. The type of love that made it from the first failed midterm together all the way to the alter right at the side, overlooking the entire ceremony to make sure nothing went wrong at each other’s wedding.
Jeno isn’t the type of boy that would forget about his friends so easily, each birthday was clearly marked in his phone the moment he considered their importance in his life long-lasting.
Yet, with the sick twist of fate, perhaps because fate had considered good people like Na Jaemin possibly too good to be true—a face for cherubs and doing community service every weekend right at the break of dawn with a smile on his face—to ever be friends with him.
He lies to himself that Na Jaemin doesn’t consider him his greatest enemy, that there had been some miscommunication between the two of them.
But Jaemin trying to murder Jeno after he came back from the library with his ex-boyfriend (Jeno puts an emphasis on ex because he and Renjun were definitely not), pretty much solidified Jaemin’s hatred towards him.
In Seoul, a boy like Lee Jeno, brave and cowardly at the same time, with superpowers that he never asked for, and an arch-nemesis he still cares about, there’s nothing he could wish less for on the four-leaf clovers he picks up on the way from university, for white silence.
The machinery of faith actively works against Jeno, and it’s the reality he comes to accept.
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Jeno starts hating spiders too because they’re the sole and only reason his ex-best friend is actively trying to kill him.
It’s really too bad because Renjun liked spiders and that was probably the second reason Jeno got dumped—although being constantly hounded by the Green Goblin is most definitely a good enough reason to break up with him—but there is another reason why Renjun breaks up with him and while Jeno was there, arriving much later to the conclusion Renjun was arriving to, he still quite didn’t understand what his ex-boyfriend meant that day.
“Okay!” Renjun says. “You don’t get it now, but this has been a losing battle for a long time. What we had—no, what I thought we had, was never there to begin with.”
And Jeno’s still here, eating cheap ramen all alone in his Spider-Man suit, red and blue spandex sticking to his skin, waiting, and still waiting to arrive to the same conclusion Renjun did the day they broke up.
Jeno eats. Almost halts looking up at his ceiling and back down. His old white Converse sit at the side of his desk, dirt building up where his shoelaces meet the heel of his shoe; he’s the type of person to tie his shoes that way—backward—so that he doesn’t accidentally trip on them on the way from his new job. Unpaid and never receiving enough thanks, that’s the characteristic Spider-Man is cursed with.
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“Hey,” Jisung waves at Jeno from across the sidewalk. He looks twice over before running across the street to face Jeno, wide smile on his face and sandy brown hair singing a much more different tune from the ink-black he distinctly remembered Jisung sported since they were childhood friends.
A broken record that refuses to play a different tune because a new song signaled change and with change, you had to wrestle new responsibilities and challenges you would never if you had the choice, want to deal with. Jeno gets it. Becoming Spider-Man certainly wasn’t a walk in the park and if he was given the chance to start that day over, he wouldn’t have gone on the field trip at all and chosen a life full of domesticity and eating Lawson instant ramen when the pocket money he had wasn’t enough for something better.
There is one thing Jisung does add that makes his life a little less mundane, although this is another fact of life Jeno learns as Spider-Man doesn’t necessarily mean it’s great: Jisung knows that Jeno is Spider-Man. It isn’t entirely Jeno’s fault Jisung knows this, but every superhero movie and comic book tells him that Jisung will regret learning that Jeno is Spider-Man.
And he does. Just five days after discovering Jeno’s Spider-Man, he gets kidnapped by the random villain of the day by virtue of being the only bystander in their vicinity, and on the rare occasion, an A-list villain that’s able to connect the dots between him and Jeno as the latter’s unofficial sidekick and technician.
The A-List villain that comes to mind in Jeno’s mind is Jaemin and Jisung has gotten used to balancing his sidekick life, his dancing major life, and his love life.
Jisung lies on his on the ground on his stomach, flipping through his textbook one evening, telling Jeno he had started dating a cute boy from the engineering department. Two majors shouldn’t go together but somehow resulted in the cutest campus relationship in Jeno’s eyes.
Jeno’s spider-sense doesn’t warn him about any impending danger, so he allows himself to indulge in hanging out with Jisung, even if it’s just a couple of seconds. There’s nothing in his quick “How to Become a Superhero” manual that says Jeno’s not allowed to have friends—albeit Na Jaemin is an exception. But he can worry about that on a different day.
“What’s up?” Jeno sends a smile Jisung’s way before raising an eyebrow. “On your way to a date with Chenle?
Right on cue and just like Jeno expects, Jisung’s face turns slightly pink. It always does at the mention of Chenle’s name. Jisung’s the type of boy to wear his heart on his sleeve and love openly without a second thought; on his face, you’ll always be able to read love.
“No…” Jisung stutters before his voice builds back confidence. Bright and a little somber at the same time. That’s the voice Jeno’s come to know. “I…no. I just wanted to tell you that I found you, someone.”
Huh .
There’s a lot of levels of horror to Jeno’s life, and romance is definitely at the top tier. Well maybe second to the top after organic chemistry, but romance remains a tragic tale after the series of failed dates after breaking up with Renjun.
The story starts with Jeno trying to date YangYang from his bioethics class and it ends with the Green Goblin smashing through the window of the restaurant they were eating at.
This is the first time he tries—and certainly not the last time— to move on from both Renjun and Jaemin. The only difference is that Renjun had given Jeno the chance at a second and third date. All of Jeno’s other romantic endeavors result in him being precariously cock-blocked.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Jeno claims. “You do remember what happened all of the other times I tried.”
“I know, but you shouldn’t let Jaemin dictate your happiness. I know that you—”
Jeno lets out a sigh, pads of his fingers lightly tracing the pocket of his jeans. “I really don’t wanna talk about it right now. I still feel awful about what happened between me and Jaemin and I don’t think I can without feeling like vomiting a little.”
“Well, will you accept the date I’m trying to set you up with if I stop talking about dear—”
“Deal.”
Jisung wins.
And Jeno loses for what seems like the hundredth time from the moment he became Spider-Man.
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Kim Doyoung is the name of the wedge between Jeno and Jaemin. Even if Jeno had no interest in Doyoung anymore, it doesn’t mean that Jaemin didn’t, and it certainly still doesn’t mean that he’ll forgive Jeno for what he did.
Even if Jeno is completely felt apologetic the morning after.
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The story goes something like this: Jeno and Jaemin are attached to the hip the moment they become roommates.
Jeno’s suitcase hits the pavement as he shuts the door behind him. He has yet to actually see his room before today, relying on campus brochures and forum threads to get a vague idea about his dorm room’s layout, but there isn’t a lot of information to go around.
Most people preferred living off-campus, wanting the freedom that comes along with the brink of adulthood and not having to rely on their parents anymore, but Jeno is a boy from the outskirts of Daegu. A farmer’s grandson that spent his summers cultivating and picking out the best strawberries for tourists.
It comes as a surprise to him that he’s accepted at all to Yonsei University when he receives a colorfully worded email—Jeno’s not sure if it’s the right word to describe it but it was rather dense and full of jargon he couldn’t understand on the first reading—when he didn’t consider himself anything special compared to the thousands of students who wanted admission.
It’s his grandfather who tells Jeno that he should hold his head up high and see the person the admissions committee saw when they read his application and accept his offer.
At such a response, Jeno thinks. Then he looks at the beat-up boots at his feet, the brown leather ones that still smell new despite the weeks of abuse and he looks back up again. They’re now replaced with brand new white Converse, the ones he’d been saving for a special occasion for weeks now.
Jeno makes the biggest effort in making friends with his roommate; there’s nothing in the brochures that promises him that he’s going to meet his platonic soulmate and meet his future best man at his wedding, but his heart thumps and thumps to the rhythm of hopes and dreams he’ll at the very least get along with his roommate.
And there’s a stop.
The heel of his white sneakers meets the right side of his desk before his eyes ever have the chance of meeting his roommate and future arch nemesis’ gaze.
From the moment Jeno turned five, giant straw hat and tough jean overalls consuming his small figure, he’s been told that love is one step away from hatred and vice-versa. Looking back at it now, his old white Converse easily thrown away for a pair of black ones Jaemin never liked on Jeno, it didn’t seem that way.
Especially not now that the warm eyes and smile Jeno was given is replaced with a snarl and yell that threatens to rip his heart out whenever they meet.
It’s not Jaemin’s fault their friendship ended the way it did either, Jeno whispers to himself at night.
He doesn’t blame Jaemin at all.
He would hate himself too.
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Jeno’s never claimed himself to be the best Spider-Man in existence. He’s far from it and it’s very obvious with the way he carries himself during missions and emergencies that make their way through the mass amount of voice messages that clog his phone.
As sad as it is, there are a million other people in Seoul Jeno believes would do a better job than him at this super-hero thing and they would still be able to have their best friends at their side too.
This is the part of the story where the narrator gives up on Jeno’s relationship with Jaemin and tells everyone that there’s nothing that can remedy the sin he committed. This is the part of the story that unravels and makes the reader question if Jeno’s allowed to have a happy ending and if Jaemin had been right this entire time.
And the mistake Jeno makes is of that nature—to a lesser extent—but there aren’t any instruction manuals about life that ease the sick churning of his stomach as to why Jaemin is actively trying to kill him for the great offense he’s committed—well, a quick two-minute moment of reflection makes Jeno come to terms that Jaemin’s attack is more on the level of pettiness than murderous intent.
Jeno doesn’t think if he accidentally killed Jaemin’s father in a confrontation of life and death like poor old Peter Parker did, he would be alive right now; nor would he be hoping for forgiveness. Some things could never be forgiven after all, and Jeno would let Jaemin kill him in retribution without a second thought.
Shoelaces undone and shirt feeling too tight, that’s how Jeno meets Kim Doyoung his first year of university. Somewhere in between the hallway of his dorm and somewhere in between one of the clubs in the area.
Jeno hasn’t felt anyone’s skin in years, not since he kissed his neighbor Yeeun underneath the playground slide in the fifth grade. He knows Doyoung is warm and he’s always warm from what he remembers, but it must have been the soju that made him think that the grin Doyoung sends his way isn’t familiar at all and he kisses him underneath the purple and blue lights.
He’s done it before, and Jeno knows that there weren’t any issues with kissing people, especially pretty boys like Doyoung. He’s eighteen and in one of the best years of his life, years away from being imposed with the bitterness of adulthood and the melancholy and angst of searching for the perfect first job. Nights like this would always result in Jeno giving away a part of him before day breaks.
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Jeno begins to question his drinking habits that night when he wakes up next to Doyoung the next morning.
He can’t bring himself to entertain the thought of staying in and murmuring underneath the cheap blankets of Doyoung’s apartment, letting the sun kiss his eyelids until they open— he knows he’s already fucked up.
There’s no need for an omnipotent narrator to explain how much he’s fucked up right now.
Jeno also knows he needs to talk to Jaemin about things he doesn’t want to talk about, things he so badly wants to hold off until much later. Maybe longer than forever if it’s possible. Yeah, that sounds good.
You see here, there are a couple of facts about Kim Doyoung Jeno’s drunken stupor had conveniently left out— things, evil things that should have been chanted before Jeno ever slept with him.
Doyoung’s stunning, with a dazzling smile and eyes, ethereal even, to the point where Jeno doubts Doyoung could ever utilize it against anyone, except he does; against Jeno who happily let Doyoung drill into him all night long and ruin his bedsheets.
It takes Jeno a night and the most awful hangover to realize that Doyoung is Jaemin’s crush. The same boy from their introductory chemistry course and the same boy Jaemin shared section with, the boy Jaemin wouldn’t stop talking about whenever they ate the student canteen together before heading back to the dorms.
It’s that Kim Doyoung Jeno ends up taking back to his apartment and fucking.
For the first time in years, Jeno thinks he’s an awful person and he just wants to cry for what he did to the first friend he’s made after moving to Seoul.
“You,” Jaemin breathes, and there are a million different emotions that run inside of Jeno’s head, none of them good. Stronger than fear, disgust almost.
Or this is how Jeno would have preferred the breaking of his friendship would have gone.
Instead, he sees the cracking of the window of Doyoung’s apartment—correction, it’s actually Jeno’s own dorm room.
Jeno had only drunkenly imagined it was Doyoung’s, but it doesn’t save him from witnessing the Green Goblin breaking through the glass of his room and the voice coming from the plastic green mask sounding too much like someone that used to love him.
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There are cardboard boxes at Jeno’s feet the next day and Jaemin’s nowhere to be seen.
Jisung theorizes that Jaemin had always known Jeno was Spider-Man, from before the university had assigned them as roommates—although seeing that he and Jaemin were complete opposites, it was more likely that Jaemin hacked into the dorm assignment system and took the opportunity to gain Jeno’s trust before effectively using the insecticide he had always carried with him.
If anyone asks Jeno what happened to Jaemin, he gives them a quick water-downed summary of the events that happened:
They fought and asked the university to have them switch dorms before it got worse. The classic first-year tale of roommates fighting. Without the super-hero angst and explosions of course. No one needs a visual reminder of Jeno swinging across Seoul in the night in ripped spandex that should no longer be the classic superhero attire.
And Jeno’s stupid for trying to forget himself of Jaemin and the complete mess of boy troubles he’s gotten into ever since he fucked Doyoung.
If Jaemin had already been plotting to rid Seoul of Spider-Man before and because the man underneath the red and blue suit had always managed to thwart his plans, the issue had certainly become personal now.
It’s an unspoken but easily understandable antagonism: you fucked my crush in addition to preventing me from taking over Seoul, you’ll pay the consequences .
Jeno misses the nights he used to stay up with Jaemin, bemoaning the amount of homework they had been assigned the week prior, choosing to get drunk instead of confronting the responsibilities that come with adulthood.
Jeno misses the nights where Jaemin used to take care of him and carry him back to their shared dorm drunk and singing along to Alcohol-Free, waking up all of their dorm hall and getting rebuked by their RA before jumping into Jeno’s bed together, the laugher continuing until the sun pours through and reminds them Sunday is here.
Jaemin smelled like soju. Swimming around Jeno’s bed as if it were his own, claiming all of the cheap Daiso sheets with his arms and legs sprawled out like a star, his skin creeping up against Jeno’s leg and arm. Jaemin always looks soft in the morning. Soft with a rectangle smile that never fails to greet Jeno when they were still friends.
That’s what Jeno misses most about Jaemin. His smile. If he’s lucky, Jaemin will taunt him with a similar gaze when they confront each other. Jisung says Jaemin chases after him because he still cares about Jeno.
At 7:39 pm on a Tuesday night, Jeno doesn’t feel loved like Jisung claims. Jeno’s screaming shit, shit, shit, as he throws out another web, the glossy white strings sticking to the side of a radio tower as Jaemin chases after him, streaks of green smoke trailing after them both.
Jeno has no idea how Jaemin even managed to locate him. No one knew other than Jisung that Jeno decided to exchange his old jeans that used to be pulled over a disgustingly cliché spider print leotard he found at a thrift store on the way back from Myeong-Dong. He opted for red and black spandex—not much of an upgrade—because it was more flexible and less prone to ripping apart. He looked more the part of the unreluctant hero, but it didn’t help him escape from his ex-best friend.
Jeno shifts his way left, trying to throw off Jaemin in a zig-zag pattern, sometimes front and back to the rhythm of the cars and subway, but it doesn’t work. Jaemin’s still hot on his heels and at 7:56 pm, Jeno’s left arm is red like the emblem sewn in the middle of his chest and he’s lost a shoe. Jaemin too. But it doesn’t make him feel better.
The reprieve only lasts a couple of seconds. Jeno sees the green smoke again and he swings for the fences like hell.
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“Do you really not want to go on this date?” Jisung asks, fiddling with a new gadget. A new type of web that’s supposed to be fire-resistant, which Jeno is thankful for considering his last attempts from saving Seoul from the latest b-superhero turned villain.
Their little makeshift superhero base is just the chemistry lab Jeno was given by his PI because of a special project Jeno was conducting back in his first year but the PI had forgotten all about it and left the key with the poor superhero. Jisung’s Ikea lamp barely provides enough ambiance for the two of them, just enough light to keep the place bright enough to discuss current happenings. Jisung looks at Jeno and then back at the soda can in his hand. Orange.
“Well,” Jeno starts, running his fingers through the pockets of his jeans. “I haven’t gotten laid in months and…”
“See. I think you would be happier if you—”
“And I really don’t want to die,” Jeno ends and makes Jisung frown.
“You already have a good chance of dying. Have you forgotten that you’re Spider-Man? It comes with the job. What difference would it make you risking your own life on a date than a regular mission?”
Jeno lets out a sigh, which translates to really upon reaching Jisung’s ears. “You really think me getting laid equates to saving the world?”
Jisung grins.
“I hate you.”
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Call Jeno an idiot, but he ends up agreeing to the blind date Jisung set him upon.
Sometimes he thinks with the wrong head, but Jeno relents and accepts the idea that he shouldn’t worry that much about Jaemin and his vendetta against him.
Like Jisung says, Jaemin should be bored of trying to disrupt his dates and focus on more important matters: such as taking over Seoul or whatever trendy villainous scheme commanded the superhero scene. There’s one week where a bunch of b-list villains attempt to harness wave energy, only to fail when they figure out the energy wouldn’t make it all the way from Busan without losing efficiency.
Jeno looks good. Like, these black jeans and leather jacket—a classic that never fails—makes his figure look great and his butt especially.
Waiting for him at the campus Starbucks is a boy named Lee Donghyuck from Jisung’s dancing elective course. They say curiosity kills the cat and it does—a half-truth.
A quick search on social media tells Jeno that he’s Donghyuck’s rebound. A two-year relationship that broke up a week prior to being set up with Jeno, but Jeno doesn’t find himself minding too much. Jeno hasn’t been on a proper date in months, and he did sometimes worry that he wouldn’t have one as long as Jaemin was alive and rumbling for another smackdown. Also, Donghyuck’s technically his rebound too. Technically. Semantics, really.
It’s 8:46 pm and there’s no danger in sight.
He glimpses up. Donghyuck’s hair was white. White like the lilies he was used to seeing in the campus fountain, pretty. Really pretty and he’s almost sure that in the language of flowers, it would mean that Donghyuck was ready to fall in love again and make Jeno believe in love again. But that’s not how it goes.
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“Have you decided what you want to order yet?” Donghyuck says with a tiny, sweet smile. “I’m kind of stuck on what I want, and I don’t want to make you wait more on an empty stomach.”
This is what happens when you don’t have the touch of a fellow human being for months, especially after being dumped. Jeno’s been waiting for almost a half-hour for Donghyuck to decide on what he wanted to order but considering that they elected for their date to be at In and Out, there really aren’t that many options for Donghyuck to choose from unless he wanted to order from the secret menu.
Unfortunately for both Jeno and Donghyuck, the former’s standards are just low and because he’s thinking with his dick right now, Jeno will conveniently forget about the fact that Donghyuck kept talking about his ex.
And he’ll also conveniently forget that Donghyuck is spouting poetry about his ex, too. Seriously with the way that Donghyuck described Mark Lee as a cute boy with a heart of gold that wants to become a SF writer, Jeno thinks that he’s starting to fall in love with him too.
(He chooses not to tell Donghyuck that though. Not because he’s worried that Donghyuck would leave Jeno for thinking about someone else, but because Donghyuck would leave Jeno for thinking about falling in love with his ex-boyfriend.)
(Again. Jeno doesn’t blame Donghyuck. Mark sounds like an amazing person.)
“That’s fine,” Jeno tells Donghyuck. “I’ll just—”
Jeno doesn’t get the chance to finish as Donghyuck’s ex crashes through the window.
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You see, there’s something about Mark that Donghyuck completely leaves out when he’s gushing and creating love ballads that would make IU second guess her entire career in a flash.
Something that Jeno wished Donghyuck had told Jisung before he arranged for this stupid blind date. And way before Jeno started bleeding and his arm looking more and more like the old spandex suit he used to don.
The little thing Donghyuck forgets to tell Jeno is that Mark is a vampire. Not the diamond-encrusted kind that shines once exposed to sunlight, but rather the genetically altered zombie kind that really hates it when boys like Jeno get too close to his ex-boyfriend.
Oh and there’s another thing that Donghyuck decides to graciously leave out when he first introduced himself to Jeno. The only reason he agreed on the blind date was to make Mark jealous and hope that they would get back together again. And they do. At Jeno’s expense anyways.
If he makes it out of here alive, Jisung will certainly have to deal with a man scorned.
(Halfway through losing consciousness, Jeno sees Donghyuck hugging Mark, who tells him, “I’m sorry for everything”.)
((It’s stupid. It’s incredibly stupid, but Jeno’s happy for the two. And a little bit jealous because Mark’s so easily able to say sorry to someone he loves. He wonders if he had told Jaemin he was sorry, he’d still have Jaemin at his side.))
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“Who hurt you?” A worried voice asks Jeno. It sounds familiar, Jeno thinks, but with having experienced being knocked out by a vampire and being dumped on the same day, it’s hard to tell whether or not he had come back into reality.
And he would answer the worried voice, but his shoulder is far too much pain for Jeno to lift himself up and reassure the person he was okay. Alright—so maybe Jeno isn’t entirely okay, but he hoped that his spider powers could pull him back up into a better state and he’d be able to go back home without coming back with another sad story.
“Answer me please,” the voice pleads. “Please tell me who hurt you?”
Jeno thinks that he can hear the voice crying. The voice’s owner is ugly crying for him. It’s a cry that Jeno has only heard a couple of times before. It’s the type of crying when you’re about to lose something extremely precious to you, something that has such a stronghold on you, you couldn’t imagine your lungs breathing without it.
There are a few beats of silence before Jeno can reply, “I’m okay. You don’t need to worry about me.”
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Slightly disoriented and with little recollection of what happened after Mark had injured him in the process of winning Donghyuck back, Jeno’s eyes pry open, and he’s met with an unfamiliar room.
With the large white expanse in front of him, Jeno’s first assumption is that he’s in a hospital and that Jisung had managed to get him into safety, but another glance tells him that this is someone’s apartment. The bed he’s lying on is far too soft and comfortable to be a hospital bed and the television stand in front of him is far too luxurious as well.
The way the morning sunlight peeps through the windows and pours into the mysterious room is almost enough to tempt Jeno to stand up and look around to figure out where exactly he is. But the pain in his arm that comes back and hits him like a truck reminds Jeno that he should take it easy and not overexert himself too much.
Whoever had brought him here to rest and bandage his wounds cared enough about Jeno not to kill him during his coma-like state. If it was an enemy, this would have been their chance to kill him once and for all without having to worry about attracting Iron Man’s attention (not that Doyoung would have ditched quality time with his family again. Taeyong would have killed both Doyoung and Jeno.)
Jeno does think about all of the possibilities of who could have brought him here, but his mind runs to a blank. The only person who had known that Jeno was going on this blind date was Jisung, oh and Chenle too, but Jisung was still living in the dorms. And Chenle, Jeno assumed, did as well.
Before Jeno could get himself lost in thought figuring out who saved him, he hears muddled footsteps heading towards the door and he quickly jumps back to the bed and closes his eyes shut. His body moves without hesitation and a part of him believes that it must be his spider senses tingling again as a warning. But there’s another part of Jeno that finds it strange that his body commanded itself to find safety. An enemy would have already killed him. So why is there a reason to hide if the person coming through the door isn’t one?
“I guess you haven’t woken up yet,” the person says once he comes closer to Jeno. The person runs their hands gently. through Jeno’s hair. Gently before carefully taking their fingers out and checking Jeno’s wounds again. “I don’t know what I would do if you don’t ever wake up.
“But I guess I’m an idiot right? I should be happy the vampire put you near death and saved me the trouble of having to kill you, but here I am hoping you’d wake up again. Well, this saves me the trouble of having to explain to you why I saved you in the first place, doesn’t it?”
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Six things Jeno worries about now that he knows that Jaemin saved him.
1. How will he be able to sneak out of Jaemin’s apartment?
2. His phone broke and he doesn’t have a way to contact Jisung to save him
3. Jisung probably cried because he thinks Jeno is dead.
4. Fuck. Jeno’s apparent death probably ruined Jisung’s date with Chenle.
5. Now, wait a minute. Did Jaemin just admit that he regretted wanting to murder him a minute ago?
6. Jeno just noticed that Jaemin sounded really cute when he’s sad.
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Now that Jeno has finally realized he likes Jaemin more than a friend, he also realizes that there’s nothing that would come out of it. And there’s no superhero manual to tell Jeno about how to deal with the matters of the heart.
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Jeno doesn’t know how long he’s been pretending that he can’t hear or see Jaemin, but he can definitely feel and remember the way Jaemin’s hands settle on his skin. The way the pads of his fingers gently run across Jeno’s forehead right before he updates Jeno about his life after their friendship ended. To learn that Jaemin had switched his major to animal biology like he always wanted because he loves animals as much as Jeno does—or maybe even more. To learn that Jaemin had completely gotten over Doyoung and forgiven Jeno.
Or at least this is how Jeno wishes the story to have gone.
He definitely wishes that the story had gone like this:
In an ideal world—just like the ones in the comic books he still keeps underneath his bed—Jeno would have successfully tricked Jaemin that he was still in a coma and use the chance to escape and find his way back to Jisung.
And maybe and just maybe Jeno overhears Jaemin says he’s cute right before he pulls off and swings for the fences. Halfway through Seoul, Jeno would realize that maybe he likes Jaemin a little more than just a friend but comes to terms that they could never be together like Jeno would hope they would.
(Superheroes dating villains—and especially villains who are their arch-nemesis? Yeah. Even Disney would stay away from that mess.)
((But alas…Jeno is the type of boy to make silly mistakes. Extremely big mistakes.))
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Let’s rewind.
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“Jeno, did you know I always loved you?”
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Okay. Let’s rewind a bit more.
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The story goes a little more like this:
Jeno comes to the wonderful conclusion that Jaemin left this apartment to see Seoul in flames and decides that this is the perfect opportunity to sneak out and use Jaemin’s phone to ping Jisung for a rescue mission.
(By rescue mission, Jeno means booking him an Uber.)
And it was and still is a terrible idea.
The story starts with Jeno tripping over Jaemin’s phone charger and Jaemin running back into the room to see what the noise was about. As it turned out, Jaemin had only gone out to receive a parcel delivery around the corner. Not do other villainous things like Jeno expected him to. Jaemin could have at the very least kidnapped a mayor or something. But no. Jaemin’s responsible and decided to order more bandages for Jeno’s wounds.
“You’re awake,” Jaemin lets out a sigh of relief as he drops the box of bandages on the floor. “I thought that you were never going to wake up. Did you know how worried I was about you?”
“Well…” Jeno starts, eyes looking for an escape; there’s none. “It’s kind of hard to tell.”
“I don’t get it,” Jaemin innocently states before he bursts out, “I just spent weeks trying to heal you into good health and that’s the answer you’re going to give me?”
“Then why did you try to kill me all of those times before?” Jeno yells out, eyes opening wide and staggering back a bit before indulging in his ex-best friend turned arch-nemesis turned savior (he doubts AO3 will have enough tags for this plot development.) He wasn’t going to let Jaemin off easy. “I don’t really get the thought process of you trying to murder me if you like me.”
“Well…” Jaemin turns, surprised. His cheeks are red, and his eyes are stuck on the floor. “I…it hadn’t occurred to me that the reason I was mad that you fucked Doyoung was that I liked you. This whole time I thought that I still liked Doyoung, and I figured that you fucking him would give me more incentive to kill you since you know—”
“I’m your arch-nemesis?”
“Yeah. Kind of.”
“Was it hard?”
Jaemin blinks at him, confusion spreading on his face. “Hard? I don’t think I’m following.”
“I’m asking if it was hard for you to try to kill me, y’know because I considered us friends before this whole superhero thing blew up in my face.”
Jaemin stands there silent. “I never aimed for your vital organs, did you know that? The first time I tried to kill you, I thought that the pain would go away. And it kind of did for a bit. But I…I couldn’t think about actually going through with it. Especially knowing that I like you.”
“So—wait. Correct me if I’m wrong, were you just trying to cockblock me this whole time instead of I dunno—talk things out and tell me you were jealous?”
Jaemin huffs with an air of indignancy. “Well, you changed your phone number, and I couldn’t ask you to meet up and fix things. I assumed that you didn’t want anything to do with me and maybe that you didn’t regret fucking Doyoung.”
“Where did you get that stupid idea from?”
“Jisung,” Jaemin admits, hands in the air laced with defeat. “The one time I kidnapped him, he told me that Doyoung was the best fuck you ever had.”
“What? No, I didn’t tell him that!” Jeno turns red. “I told him that I regretted fucking Doyoung because it meant that I lost you.”
(“Have you ever considered that Jaemin is jealous?” Jeno now vaguely remembers Jisung asking him one afternoon in the campus library. Jisung is wiggling his eyebrows as if he had just made a giant contribution to the natural sciences. It’s the part of Jisung’s personality that’s slightly proud but easily shies away once there’s the slightest chance of being confronted.
And that confrontation comes with Jeno replying back with, “Of course he is. Of Doyoung.”
Jisung immediately sticks out his tongue and frowns. “I’m not talking about Doyoung. I’m talking about you. I think that he’s mad you fucked Doyoung instead of him.”)
Oh.
Oh .
“That little fucker,” Jeno curses underneath his breath. “I never understood why he was so insistent on me getting back into the dating scene. I kept telling him I wasn’t interested…” This whole time Jisung was trying to make you jealous of me and make me realize that I like you. That’s what Jeno wants to tell Jaemin, but the words don’t come out. His tongue is stuck.
Jeno shouldn’t be hesitating right now. He should be spelling out exactly how he feels.
The main difference between his confession right now and the one he tried giving Jaemin before their friendship is that Jeno knows what Jaemin wants this time around.
What Jaemin wants is love. Not the love that heroes get, the superficial kind that can be fed with compliments and golden keys that don’t open the door to anything and simply pile up on a desk to be forgotten.
Heroes already own people’s hearts just by existing. Jeno’s experienced this phenomenon the second he donned his tight red spandex and matching mask. There are toys filling up all the toy shelves in Seoul, tiny replicas that monumentalize every victory Jeno’s had as Spider-Man.
Jaemin doesn’t have any of that. His role is to be the villain of Jeno’s story, to be the dirty boy who bleeds green and aims to kill because he should only know antagonism in his veins.
He shouldn’t strike to kill out of jealousy.
But Jaemin does. He’s got it worse. Every line of his face is painted with regret, the role he’s taken, villainy has never really suited Jaemin has it?
It’s Jeno’s turn to strike.
“I—do you think I could take you out on a proper date this time around? I don’t think you trying to third-wheel all of mine has worked out well.”
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There’s not a superhero guide to guide Jeno on the ways of becoming a hero and dating his ex-archnemesis, but he figures the first golden rules would go something like this:
1. Be honest and communicate with your boyfriend and always.
2. Don’t go on double dates with Mark and Donghyuck. Mark is sadly allergic to the sun.
3. Listen to Jisung’s advice. He always has your best intentions at heart.