Chapter Text
Yoo Joonghyuk is nineteen when he finally decides to move into a new apartment.
It’s somewhere on the outskirts of Seoul, a little far from his university, but nothing he can’t manage. The commute fee to and from his campus isn’t too bad.
The neighbors are all nice, old women for the most part, and the landlord is decent. There’s an aggravating highschooler down the hall he sometimes sees—but he hears his chuuni shouts more frequently than he sees him, honestly—and the rent’s not at all bad, split half-way with a housemate (apartment-mate? Pseudo-friend?) he met through Han Sooyoung.
His new housemate is quiet. His eyes are black. His hair is just as dark and looks ridiculously soft to the touch. The first time they met, Yoo Joonghyuk had half a mind to reach out and run his fingers through. After the introductions and unpacking, they rarely ever meet, despite being in such close quarters to each other. It probably has something to do with how his housemate never really leaves his room, but Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t mind. In fact, he prefers it this way.
All in all, Yoo Joonghyuk is satisfied with his new living arrangements.
The rowdy neighborhood would be a dealbreaker to many, to the average person, but Yoo Joonghyuk is many things, and an average person is the one thing he is not. Not really.
In the distance, there’s the sound of glass shattering and a shriek following close after. Yoo Joonghyuk frowns, tugging his mask down his chin, and pushes the window open.
The breeze is nice. He can feel it against the stretchy, skin-tight material of his suit. Narrowing his eyes at the faraway steel railing on the rooftop of the building across the road, Yoo Joonghyuk stretches a hand out and shoots out a web.
He launches himself out the window and swings to the top. He sticks to the walls with his fingers. Another web shoots out past his palm, and he pulls himself towards the source of the broken glass.
Yoo Joonghyuk isn’t the average person, but he’d like to think he isn’t too far off, either. Really. He’s just—
“A-Another step, and I’ll blow the clerk’s brains off, Spiderman!”
Sighing tiredly, Yoo Joonghyuk webs the gun out of the newbie robber’s grasp, and punches him square in the jaw.
That one punch was enough to send him flying backwards apparently, his back hitting the wall as he yowls, two of his teeth clattering to the ground. Almost immediately, the bank clerk sinks to his knees by Yoo Joonghyuk’s feet, crying tears of joy and gratitude. He sings praises. Asks Yoo Joonghyuk how he could ever pay him back for saving his life.
“It’s fine,” Yoo Joonghyuk replies impassively. “Just stay out of trouble.”
Short, succinct, to the point.
He’s already shot out another web to get out of the place before any of the authorities show up—chief Lee, he’s heard, is the worst to deal with. Be it in Seoul or his hometown, Spiderman is a disgusting, irredeemable criminal in the eyes of the police.
Which is—a joke, really. All this carefulness to not get caught. All this slipping away from uniform-clad crowds after doing their job for them.
When he swings out of the nearly robbed bank, making his hasty, decently flashy exit, the bank clerk shouts something about waiting and how he insists on paying him back. But, as they all do, the bank clerk’s voice fades away.
Swinging through the city is one of the few things Yoo Joonghyuk will always enjoy. There are tall buildings that help launch him higher, higher, and higher, giving him that supporting lift and refreshing wind as the city bustles busily below. The authorities begin arriving at the scene, their fast-approaching cars and noisy sirens getting louder by the second. They wind up arresting the robber, first and foremost, then look around, briefly interrogate the clerk, and cuss at how they’ve just managed to miss Spiderman.
“By the skin of his teeth!” one of them hisses. “We keep just missing him! How is that possible?”
“Ha! His luck is bound to run out soon!” another hollers, slapping the other’s back. “We’ll get him next time. That insect won’t know what’s coming!”
As he swings farther away in the direction of his apartment, Yoo Joonghyuk scowls.
First of all, spiders aren’t insects. They’re arachnids. If they want to cuss him out, at least get it right. It’s ridiculous and, quite frankly, makes them look a lot more—stupider than usual.
Second of all, all this vigilantism that he’s been doing is nothing bad, and neither is it anything fantastically righteous. Sure, some of the things he does are illegal, like breaking-and-entering and some things he’d need a decently good lawyer to get him out of, but, hey.
He’s not a villain. He’s saved more people than he’s harmed. Pluck a random stranger off the street, ask them who Spiderman is, and they’ll give it to you straight: Superhero. Saved me a few times. The media and police hate him. But even then, he’s not yet a household name. Not yet a superhero known across the galaxy. Which is—fine. Which is something he’s more than fine with, because the fact is, even with all the superpowers and crimefighting, he’s nothing too special. Honest. He’s just…
Well.
He’s just your average, not-so-friendly neighborhood spiderman.
+
Unfortunately, he’s also still a student.
I.
Halfway into the semester, Yoo Joonghyuk wants to die.
It’s almost one in the morning, and he hasn’t gotten a wink of sleep.
His eyes are painfully red with deep, dark bags under them. On his desk is a freakishly and unnecessarily long assignment he needs to complete in three days—and he’d finished this particular assignment before. Several times, actually. Only, the professor for this specific class is pissy and apparently ‘petty and jealous over how handsome Yoo Joonghyuk is’ compared to him, and so had decided to be an asshole exclusively to Yoo Joonghyuk.
(His peers’ words, not his.)
Redo this, the professor had said. No, you don’t—you don’t understand, Yoo Joonghyuk-ssi. This—all of this…! He had said, again and again and again. Once, he had ripped apart Yoo Joonghyuk’s papers, fuming, rolled them up into a ball, and tossed them into a trash can. Bullshit! Absolute bullshit! Did you pay attention to any of my lectures?!
Really, Yoo Joonghyuk hopes for a supervillain of some kind to come sweeping through his university and kidnap this bastard of a professor someday. Who’ll save him? Spiderman?
Just as Yoo Joonghyuk has his face in his hands, wondering what the meaning of life is, the door clicks open. There’s a small laugh.
“Kim Dokja,” Yoo Joonghyuk turns his head and glares. He doubts his housemate can see it, not when the room is shrouded in complete darkness, save for the lamp on Yoo Joonghyuk’s desk. “Is this funny to you?”
Kim Dokja saunters in.
A small, quick update on his housemate: while his initial impression had been of a quiet, reserved, not-at-all bothersome person, the reality was far from the truth. Fast forward a few months of living together and gradual warming up, and Yoo Joonghyuk had learned very quickly how there’s no greater bastard than Kim Dokja.
“It’s hilarious, actually,” Bastard Extraordinaire chimes. An urge to lunge for his neck surges in, and Yoo Joonghyuk takes one long careful breath. “Thank you for asking. Do you know how many people would kill to be in my position? To witness, first-hand, the Yoo Joonghyuk struggling? Genius-slash-top-bachelor no more—your hateclub would’ve loved this.” He sets something down beside Yoo Joonghyuk’s closed palm. Belatedly, Yoo Joonghyuk realizes how he brought two cups of coffee. “Unclench, Yoo Joonghyuk. I came in peace, I think. Heard some of your tragic groans from outside and figured you might need some coffee.”
“You think.” Yoo Joonghyuk grumbles but accepts the peace offering with otherwise no complaints. When his brain finally catches up to Kim Dokja’s words, his eyebrows wrinkle close. “I have a hateclub?”
“Inevitably, what with those looks of yours.” Kim Dokja shrugs, then drags his feet towards Yoo Joonghyuk’s bed. He plops down; it’s soft. “Handsome, smart, and an asshole. How could you not have a hateclub?”
Yoo Joonghyuk thinks to say something but ultimately doesn’t. It’s true, after all; nothing Kim Dokja has said doesn’t make sense.
His reluctant agreement must’ve shown on his face, or perhaps Kim Dokja had picked it apart from the silence as he always does, because a laugh spills out his mouth.
But he doesn’t touch on the subject any further. Instead, he takes a sip of his coffee and offers, “Shitty professor?”
Yoo Joonghyuk shuts his eyes in a tight grimace. It’s really all Kim Dokja needs to piece things together: The shittiest professor. The revelation makes him wince.
“He tears the result of my hard work in front of me and doesn’t tell me what I need to fix,” Yoo Joonghyuk tells him grimly. “If South Korea didn’t have laws against murder—”
“Alright, too far, too far!” Kim Dokja laughs nervously. “Slow down and take a step back. Don’t—never go that far, Yoo Joonghyuk. Cut the guy some slack. He probably has tons of papers to go over; maybe he’s just… perpetually stressed.”
Yoo Joonghyuk gives him a deadpan look, which is—fair. Kim Dokja may have his moments, but he isn’t a total fool. He’s heard of the rumors circulating their campus.
“Then again, word on the grapevine is that he’s been giving you an especially hard time because he’s jealous of your…” he purses his lips, then glances at Yoo Joonghyuk’s face, and then lower—his biceps—and even low—okay, wow. Not there, Kim Dokja. Not there. His gaze flicks back up to his housemate’s perfectly sculpted side profile. “That.”
“That,” Yoo Joonghyuk echoes tiredly, sighing. “Calling me handsome won’t kill you, Kim Dokja.”
Kim Dokja is lucky Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t catch his eyes wandering. “Really? How would you know?”
“Genius-slash-top-bachelor,” Yoo Joonghyuk repeats his earlier words plainly and yet still somehow manages to sound like an arrogant bastard. “Emphasis on genius. That’s how I ‘know’. What kind of genius claims to know something they don’t?”
“You’re talking as if I’m some kind of experiment. A paper, an analysis—whatever, point is: did you do that? Study me?”
“I carried out an observation,” Yoo Joonghyuk runs a hand through his hair, squinting at the scribble of words across the page before grunting and scratching them out. “Plotted you out against my graphs.”
“Very flattering,” Kim Dokja says. “So you studied me.”
“...Unfortunately,” Yoo Joonghyuk concedes.
A grin. “And the results…?”
“Connecting the coordinates together gives you the phrase, Kim Dokja is a fool. Nothing else.”
Kim Dokja’s face scrunches. “I guess I’ll have to retract my claim, then—you definitely aren’t a genius. No, actually, forget I ever said anything positive about your brains and looks.” His voice tinkles. “Genius-slash-top-bachelor? Did I ever say that? There must be something wrong with your ears, Yoo Joonghyuk. The only thing I remember saying—from, what, a few weeks ago?—was how Yoo Joonghyuk was synonymous with egoistic bastard. And it’s still true to this day.”
Yoo Joonghyuk clicks his tongue. “Dishonest fool.”
“Prideful asshole.”
“Rat bastard.”
“Hey—that—you just stole that from Han Sooyoung. At least try to be origi—”
“Nerd.”
Low blow. Kim Dokja gawks at him, silenced.
“You had to go there. Really?”
“My name was on the line.” Yoo Joonghyuk’s gaze flickers up briefly, amused. “You’re not going to refute it? That you’re a nerd?”
Embarrassed, Kim Dokja turns away. “Your looks are the only things you have going for you. Ah, damn… Do you know how much of a waste it is? If I had your face, I wouldn’t be here, drinking cheap coffee while consoling my ungrateful housemate.”
“You’re trying to change the topic,” Yoo Joonghyuk observes.
Predictably, Kim Dokja very pointedly doesn’t look at him. There’s a one-sided staredown—Yoo Joonghyuk’s gaze bores into the side of his head for a second too long, trying to force him into admitting his dodging, his nonsensical fluster. Yet, a mere two and a half seconds later, Yoo Joonghyuk shakes his head, grumbling, as if to say Fine. I’ll let it go just this once.
“I didn’t ask you to come here and bring me coffee.”
“Should I leave you alone, then?”
“Will you?” Yoo Joonghyuk snaps.
“It depends.”
“It depends,” he sneers, “on your level of bastardry today.”
A startled, amused noise slips from Kim Dokja’s lips. His eyes are wide. Amused. “Sorry, what? Level of—what? Bastardry? Did you just make that up on the spot to spite me—”
“What I meant to say,” Yoo Joonghyuk’s fist clenches around his pen, almost crushing it, “was that, if you would be so kind—”
Kim Dokja cackles loudly, cutting him off. “Who are you and what did you do to Yoo Joonghyuk?”
“Kim Dokja,” Yoo Joonghyuk warns, sharp. With his elbows propped up against his desk, he drops his head and sweeps a hand over his hair. And then, through gritted teeth: “I would. Appreciate it. If you left me. Alone.”
For a while, Kim Dokja seems to consider it. “Mm… It sounds like a nice thing to do. Something kind.”
“Because it is.”
“Unfortunately,” he sighs in faux regret. Oh, woe is he. “I’m afraid I’ve filled up my being-nice-to-Yoo-Joonghyuk quota for the day.”
Yoo Joonghyuk isn’t sure what he expected. “Really.”
Kim Dokja narrows his eyes. “Don’t take that tone with me,” he says. “It’s not like I’m lying. I made you coffee. Unprompted! Because I’m just such a—such a kind friend and housemate, and you never even thanked me.”
It’s a fair point. And so Yoo Joonghyuk should just click his tongue and begrudgingly admit that he’s right, but that goes against Moral Code #1001: Never admit that Kim Dokja is right.
“You’ve done one nice thing,” Yoo Joonghyuk rebukes, exasperated, “and your ‘quota’ has been filled?”
“Plenty,” Kim Dokja answers brightly.
Yoo Joonghyuk throws him a quick look over his shoulder. Kim Dokja rolls his eyes.
“Fine, it’s ridiculous, I admit, but the point is—” he sets his coffee on a bedside table, before dropping his back against soft, chic-grey sheets, “—I did you a favor, so it’s only fair that you return it.”
For a while, Yoo Joonghyuk considers it. And then, his nose scrunches in an unsaid, unpleasant, and not at all dignified agreement. “You’re saying I should let you laze around here. On my bed?”
“I’m relaxing. And, yes.” Kim Dokja rolls to his side, stares at Yoo Joonghyuk. “You’re going to get all wrinkly if you keep frowning like that, you know. Age badly.”
Yoo Joonghyuk chooses to ignore his words, sighs, and pinches the skin between his furrowed brows. “Of all things, why—”
“Your bed’s always been softer than mine,” Kim Dokja cuts him off far too easily. Yoo Joonghyuk can hear the grin in his voice. “An eye for an eye, you know?”
He huffs. “That’s a phrase used for revenge, you fool.”
“Maybe that’s what I’m doing right now—getting revenge,” Kim Dokja says.
“And what have I done to deserve this scathingly evil retribution?”
“Maybe today’s just not your lucky day.” He reaches towards the knob of one of Yoo Joonghyuk’s bedside drawers. “Is the coffee I made for you the only good thing that’s happened to you today? Your professor’s being an asshole, you just had an existential crisis, and some guy is annoying you right now.”
“Some guy,” Yoo Joonghyuk repeats. His voice is steady, but Kim Dokja is now close enough to identify the miniscule amused lilt at the end.
“Your housemate,” Kim Dokja clarifies smoothly—his lips lift. “Roommate? Apartment-mate? Whatever. You know him. I heard that he’s decently tall. Not as tall as you, but we can’t all have your crazy genes.”
“Wow. Really?”
“Really,” Kim Dokja says, and then makes a show of pondering: a short yet thoughtful pause, a hum, squinted eyes. “He has… black hair too, if I’m not mistaken. Black hair, black eyes, and these—these huge eyebags, most of the time.”
Ah. So he’s self aware.
“Word on the street is that he’s a genius, too—at the cost of a spotless face! Poor guy. Of course, I’m not sure you’d be able to relate to that part, but, wow—this guy has a lot of things in common with you. Haven’t you seen him?”
“What I have seen is a fool,” Yoo Joonghyuk scowls deeply, swiveling his chair around and abandoning his assignment momentarily. Across from him, Kim Dokja sips his coffee, curling into himself slightly. “A fool who’s cold, apparently.”
Kim Dokja flashes him a small grin. There’s the slightest tremble in his shoulders. “Doesn’t ring a bell. Do you have a photo of him?”
“There’s a mirror in the bathroom.”
“I’ll break it if you bring it out.”
Yoo Joonghyuk gives him a once-over, and frowns.
“With those limbs.”
This bastard. “I will,” Kim Dokja beams satirically, a vein throbbing on his forehead, “throw it to the floor. Hard.”
“And who will pay for damages?”
“I will,” Kim Dokja snaps. His coffee has been set down on the bedside table. Then, he swivels around, squinting, bending down just slightly to scavenge through Yoo Joonghyuk’s many drawers. “Out of the goodness of my heart. Touching, isn’t it? But that’s enough of that. Hurry up and tell me where you keep your valuables, Yoo Joonghyuk.”
Yoo Joonghyuk narrows his eyes. “Are you trying to rob me, Kim Dokja?”
“This is part of my revenge,” Kim Dokja tells him. “It’s Step 3 of my revenge, actually. You’ve been a little slow on the uptake, but yes, definitely: I’m here to rob you.”
“Of my blankets,” says Yoo Joonghyuk.
“Of a blanket,” Kim Dokja corrects, clicking his tongue lightly. “I want the finest, softest silk. The warmest blanket you have. Got any?”
There’s a displeased look on Yoo Joonghyuk’s face. If there’s anything worse than admitting that Kim Dokja is right, it’s this. “Are you ordering me around right now?”
“I’m exercising my rights as the best housemate you could ever have,” Kim Dokja replies breezily, matter-of-factly. As he shuffles through the bottom drawers, his words are a little muffled. ”Is a nice, warm blanket too much to ask for? I mean—you could bargain, if you’d like, and if you had any social skills. Alas…”
“Kim Dokja.”
Kim Dokja stretches back to his full height, a laugh on the tip of his tongue. He pivots around. “What? You know it’s—”
Kim Dokja makes a startled sound.
Briefly, his vision is obscured as something soft is thrown over him, his shoulders, falling over his head. His fingers curl subconsciously around the edges of the material, holding it close.
“With this, you’ve successfully robbed me,” Yoo Joonghyuk says, adjusting the blanket around Kim Dokja’s shoulders for a moment, before taking one long, good look at him. A tuft of hair is peeking out on the top of his head, so Yoo Joonghyuk smooths it down. “You get cold easily, yet you come into my room, knowing full well that I like to keep my room freezing. There should be a limit to your foolishness.”
The shock on Kim Dokja’s face lasts for only a second before it’s replaced with his earlier grin. “You’re not telling me to leave.”
“It’s bothersome.” Yoo Joonghyuk waves him off, sitting back down at his desk. “Do whatever you want.”
“What I want,” Kim Dokja stumbles back onto Yoo Joonghyuk’s bed and lies there, cheek against the bedsheets, “is for you to fix your sleep schedule.”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s trademark scowl is back in full force. “Ironic,” he says flatly. “Since when were you qualified to say that, Kim Dokja?”
“What’s that supposed to…? Hey!” Kim Dokja jerks, glaring. “I’ve been trying—and you know how hard it’s been for me to cut back on my webnovels!”
“Han Sooyoung told me you still comment on her newest chapters at midnight.”
“...Only occasionally!”
“Often. She told me herself, Kim Dokja. Any more, and I’ll have to intervene. Again.”
“I made you coffee tailored to your depressing tastes, helped you through an existential crisis, and sacrificed my precious time for sleep for you, and this is how you repay me?” Kim Dokja asks, betrayed. “By threatening me?”
Yoo Joonghyuk makes a face at that.
“That—!” Kim Dokja catches that look. He sits up, bristles. “I’m not being dramatic! Stop that train of thought immediately, Yoo Joonghyuk!”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You implied everything with that face you just made!”
You must be imagining things, Yoo Joonghyuk wants to say, but then there’s a sudden ringing in his ears and a splitting headache that cuts through his thoughts. His face twists.
“No, not that face,” Kim Dokja says, forgetting Yoo Joonghyuk’s distinct lack of a funny bone. “Try… a little more subtle. Your expression wasn’t this grave.”
There’s a break-in his ears have picked up on far, far into the distance. Someone is shrieking, high-pitched and blood-curdling and echoing, and the sound doesn’t leave for what feels like far too long. The shrill noise has him almost tumbling to the ground, clutching his ears.
Kim Dokja finally realizes that Yoo Joonghyuk is truly in pain. Worried, he reaches for him. “Hey, are you—”
“Shut up,” Yoo Joonghyuk inhales sharply. “Just—shut up for a moment, Kim Dokja. Your voice is worsening my migraine.”
Kim Dokja flinches. “What? My voice is…”
Yoo Joonghyuk wrenches an eye open just in time to see the hurt that flashes through his expression.
“Oh,” says Kim Dokja, then, as if he’s just reached a realization. He clears his throat, gathering himself, shaky. “Shit, I—I overstepped, didn’t I?”
Fuck, Yoo Joonghyuk thinks. That wasn’t what—
“I didn’t mean—” he tries explaining himself, but there’s another scream, just as loud and just as jarring, and the headache forces him to cut himself off. Hurriedly, he plugs his fingers into his ears and breathes in deeply.
“Listen,” he tries continuing, before concluding in a startling point five seconds: He needs to keep it short. Right now, he can barely even think in peace. His mind scrambles for words, decides on: “I’ll cook omurice in the morning for breakfast, so just—”
An echo splits his head open, interrupting him. Yoo Joonghyuk clutches the hairs near his ears, white-knuckled, palms pressed harsher against them, a desperate attempt to seal the shrieks away.
“Leave,” he manages out eventually, “Just leave, Kim Dokja. It’s not a good night.”
“Morning, you mean,” Kim Dokja murmurs.
“What?”
“It’s not a good morning, you mean,” Kim Dokja says, quiet. “It’s almost two, Yoo Joonghyuk. And I can just—just stay here in silence if my voice is,” his mouth presses into a line, “stressing you out too much.”
And that—that isn’t it. That’s not true. It’s never been true.
Kim Dokja’s fingers are trembling around the cold marble of his mug. He loops a finger tighter around the handle, eyes glued to the ground, and takes in a breath. “Having someone else be there for you, physically or not, is comforting, isn’t it?” He lets out a laugh, forced and dry. “Come on—you know me, Yoo Joonghyuk. I can be as quiet as a mouse when I want to be. I mean, I usually am, so—”
Abruptly, he stops in his tracks. It shows on his face—how glass seems to break, crack, shatter all across. How he pulls back, back, back and stumbles a little on his feet when he tries to stand up.
“What—” a breath; something tender, “What am I saying?”
Yoo Joonghyuk swallows down something that feels a lot like a thorn.
“...Kim Dokja.”
Kim Dokja shakes his head. There’s the thud of his feet against the floor, quick, rushed, in a hurry. And then the mug on Yoo Joonghyuk’s desk is gone.
“You just said you didn’t want to be bothered,” Kim Dokja says, turning away. Yoo Joonghyuk can only see his ears. Kim Dokja carries both their mugs with one hand, and inhales shakily, deeply. “Sorry. I’ll just go and put these in—”
Yoo Joonghyuk grabs Kim Dokja’s wrist, effectively cutting him off.
A surprised noise leaves Kim Dokja’s throat before he glances back around, freezing in place. The ringing in Yoo Joonghyuk’s ears has calmed a little, but his expression is still sour, his jaw clenched and his teeth gritted.
“Kim Dokja,” is what he says first, searching his face. His mouth feels dry, trying to find the right words. “I… like your voice, you fool.”
And he doesn’t know this—how would he?—but Kim Dokja’s heart does this little flip in his ribcage.
“Oh,” Kim Dokja says, lighter. Yoo Joonghyuk can see him relax, vaguely. “That. That’s surprising.”
Yoo Joonghyuk grumbles, looks away. “It’s just—” His hand loosens around Kim Dokja’s wrist, drops down until their palms are against each other. And then some more, until Yoo Joonghyuk’s pinky dangles on Kim Dokja’s without meaning to as neither of them move.
It’s just— he considers to say, for a moment. The drawbacks of being Spiderman—
The rational part of his brain stops him there. Tells him, Will Kim Dokja believe you? Tells him, He’ll think you’re joking. He’ll think you’re pulling his arm. Call you a bastard for it. But then it asks in a smaller, quieter voice, Why do you want to tell him? And Yoo Joonghyuk has to bite down on his bottom lip to keep himself from saying his answer aloud. Has to clench his fists a little tighter, his pinky tightening just the slightest bit around Kim Dokja’s.
If he revealed everything to just one person, how much weight would be lifted off his shoulders?
If he told Kim Dokja about his identity, about the near-constant, migraine-inducing ringing in his ears, and the sleepless nights and the real reason he disappears so often so suddenly, how much easier would everything be?
I’m Spiderman. My five senses are heightened, and everything gets a little too much for me sometimes. I say the wrong things when it gets a little too much.
There’s this bone-deep secret he has told practically no one. An unforgettable weight only he carries, and the exhaustion that comes with.
I’m Spiderman, almost slips out. And it could. It could, and he finds himself wanting it to for a brief moment. Perhaps, then, he could finally say, could finally confess and feel it a little easier to breathe: It’s hard being this way. But how would anyone understand? How could they?
And so: “The professor and his assignment were getting to me. I was just stressed,” is what he ends up saying, lowering his hand. “I’m planning to go out for a quick run to blow off some steam.”
“Oh,” Kim Dokja says.
A relieved smile blooms across his face. Through the small crack of the door he’s put his foot through, a small stream of light has slipped into the room, and—forget everything. Just—forget everything.
Here, Yoo Joonghyuk’s thoughts skid to a halt.
“You had me worried for a second there. Why didn’t you say that in the first place?” Kim Dokja shakes his head, huffing. The curve of his nose. The chime of his voice. His eyes, alight, before they crease just slightly. “I forgot how bad you were with words. Go ahead. It’s about time I go to sleep anyway, so—”
Kim Dokja tilts his head, stepping behind the door. It’s easier to see his lips like this. Easier to see how they’ve quirked into a smaller, more sheepish smile, and god it’s—it’s—
“Goodnight?”
Yoo Joonghyuk remembers to breathe just in time.
He blinks, snapped back to reality. And nevermind how his stomach has flipped. Nevermind how he swallows, he bets, loud enough for the sound to echo through hallways. Nevermind how his neck feels hotter by the second despite the freezing room. For all the words in the dictionary, Yoo Joonghyuk has none, and so answers with a stiff nod.
Kim Dokja is skeptical—for a second, he doesn’t buy it. “Yoo Joonghyuk,” he says. His gaze flicks to Yoo Joonghyuk’s desk. And then, he hesitates, his fingers closing tenderly around the doorframe, before he takes a deep breath and steels himself. “Are you…” he licks his lips, then shakes his head. “You’re going to be okay, aren’t you? I mean, you’re… you’re Yoo Joonghyuk, after all.”
“I am Yoo Joonghyuk,” Yoo Joonghyuk says, a bit stupidly. “I mean—yes. Yes, I’ll be fine.”
“I’m right next door if you need anything. Like, if you’re too lazy to make your own coffee, I’m feeling especially, um, generous tonight, so—”
“Kim Dokja,” Yoo Joonghyuk interjects, grunting. “Thank you,” he says. “For the coffee, and for the company.”
It’s entirely uncharacteristic of him. Kim Dokja looks at him as if he’s just grown a second head. He opens his mouth.
“No, I haven’t been replaced by a robot, alien, or shapeshifting lizard person.”
He closes his mouth.
“Um,” he says, then. “I should probably go now, right? Sorry—no, bye? Goodnight for the second time in a row and—”
“Kim Dokja.”
Kim Dokja shuts up, embarrassed.
Yoo Joonghyuk sighs. “Go.”
Kim Dokja scoffs lightly. “Couldn’t have said it any nicer, could you?”
“Dokja.”
“I’m going, I’m going.” His muscles visibly relax as a laugh falls out. “Goodnight, Yoo Joonghyuk,” he murmurs, “For the third and final time tonight.”
After Kim Dokja leaves, Yoo Joonghyuk still feels a little lightheaded from that sheepish quirk of his lips. Still feels a little dizzy from their exchange, and the sight of Kim Dokja’s ears burning as hot as his neck.
For a minute, he lingers. And then, he shrugs it off, his face contorting, before a shriek tears through his eardrums once more—he winces, jolting as if someone just doused him with cold water.
Right, shit. Crime, righteousness, power and responsibility—all that. He needs to go.
Yoo Joonghyuk rushes out of the apartment. Shuts the door behind him with just enough force to make sure Kim Dokja hears him leaving for his ‘quick run’—he doesn’t want him suspecting anything. Not yet.
Down the hallway to the right, in the corner closest to the janitor’s closet, there is a large window that the tenants rarely ever near. After Yoo Joonghyuk makes sure the coast truly is clear, he unlocks it, pushes it open, and leaps out the building.
The screams never really stop, but that’s just how crime is—it doesn’t sleep.
A few swings in, a few webs out, his migraine comes back, splitting, thundering through his head. Yoo Joonghyuk tumbles against some concrete, some bricks, because of it. Everything is loud, loud, loud, and the exhaustion from the past few nights he spent awake and tireless seems to finally catch up on him at this moment. It’s terrible. He can’t afford to rest even then.
Such is the fate of a superhero.
+
When he comes home after a ruthlessly and needlessly tiring chase around dead and split ends, Yoo Joonghyuk almost drops dead against his desk chair.
He leans back, stares at the ceiling for a few minutes, and curses out tonight’s newly webbed criminal and his professor all in one thought. It takes a while, but he finally wills himself to glance at his desk.
He was expecting to see his papers scattered across the flat wooden surface. He had been preparing for another migraine and mini early-life crisis ever since he took his shoes off at the door. But it looks like he didn’t have to do any of these things.
Instead of the mess he’d left behind hours ago, his papers are in a neat stack on the left. There’s a plastic container in the middle, and a yellow post-it plastered right on top of it. Yoo Joonghyuk snags it. Squints at it.
Bought this while I was waiting for you. Figured some food might make you feel better.
There’s only one possible perpetrator that comes to mind, and his handwriting is exactly as Yoo Joonghyuk had imagined: neat yet clumsy, lines thinner towards the sharp edges. For a long while, Yoo Joonghyuk lingers on these words, this note, and then, his desk.
Three things he gathers from this:
- Kim Dokja was waiting for him to come home. (?!)
- Yoo Joonghyuk feels kind of—warm? Inside. What the fuck? He didn’t know he was capable of that.
- Kim Dokja was waiting for him to come home. (?!?!?!)
For a solid five seconds, Yoo Joonghyuk has a glare-off with the cheap convenience store kimbap and sandwiches on his desk. He hates food made by other people. He hates instant food bought from convenience stores even more. He’d rather die than eat anything like it.
Five seconds later, he finds himself standing in front of the microwave in the kitchen, warming up the disgusting food his accursed housemate bought for him. A few minutes later, when he swallows down the kimbap first, he cringes as the taste falls flat against his tongue. Each time he bites into each of the sandwiches, he feels his tongue cry out for help and mercy.
The food is disgusting. Yoo Joonghyuk is having the worst time of his life. He isn’t even hungry.
He makes sure not to leave a single crumb, and wipes his plate clean anyway.