Chapter Text
Tonight, the moon dripped in a crimson red lake.
Tokyo’s city lights stream beneath it, bathed with jewels as radiant as rubies. Corporate buildings silhouette with shadows towered over busy streets, decorating dark spaces with golden fluorescent stars. The roads litter with vehicle traffic, intoxicating the air with blaring horns and polluting fumes.
From the highest vantage point of the Tokyo Skytree, Shin Asakura sweeps the sea of red with a single scan.
“Beautiful.”
Shin’s breathless adoration dangles in the air. It isn’t for anyone but him to hear. His voice carries in the chilled winds as blonde strands rakes over his face. Sweat sticks to his skin, cold and damp. The neckline of his suit tightens, exposing him more than he did without his mask.
The silence of the total lunar eclipse makes Shin forget about the noise. Just a bit. In his view, where the world hangs upside down, everything is red.
As deep as the blood-colored stains from his split arm. Minutes before the scarlet moon glowed, Shin ran into some trouble with a gang of thugs a couple streets back. They were in the middle of a robbery. In the process, after he caught and strung them up in a web, he was ready to make his own escape from the cops.
They were good marksmen. Sharp as a knife, quick as a fleeting thought.
With his powers, however, Shin was faster.
Lucky for him, he barely managed to dodge the bullet in a fraction of a second. Just a graze on his skin. Unluckily for him, those TMPD men were relentless.
Shin’s encounter with the Tokyo’s finest left him dripping the same as the moonlight’s color, putting pressure onto his bleeding bicep. His regenerating cells were already at work, healing his open wounds as he hastily shot his wrist out, and disappeared from their sights.
“Dammit…” Shin sighs, fingers running through his now soiled mask. “This sucks…”
Washing dried blood out of his suit is such a pain.
Who knew being bitten by a genetically modified spider from his old man's lab could mess up his life to this extent?
Shin leans back from where he sat before a rare sight. How the cardinal lights emanate across the skies and the metropolis. The moon shimmers at the ground like a lake, and the buildings string up the skies like the stars.
“...but the view sure is nice.”
Up here, the noises are silent. His mind is silent.
It…unsettled him.
The thought was short-lived. So was the muted city scene the lunar eclipse brought. It paused, interrupted by a buzzing vibration, deep in his manufactured suit pockets. With a faint idea of who it might be, Shin picks up without checking the caller ID.
“Hey—”
“SHIIIIN !!!”
A female’s voice rips through the quiet air, disrupting the tranquil atmosphere instantly. Prepared, Shin already has his phone an arm’s length away from his ear.
“Why are you so loud?”
“Shin, where the hell are you?!”
“Uhh…” Shin peers around him, debating. Sitting upside down on Tokyo’s tallest tower isn’t exactly a normal answer, is it?
He coughs. “Just hanging around?”
“Are you kidding me?” The girl shrieks again. “It’s almost nine!”
“So?”
A groan. “Are you forgetting that our group project meeting tonight? My dorm? Hello?!”
Shit, that’s right …Shin bites back a noise, realization hitting him with a train’s speed.
“Of course I remembered!” A lie.
“So you did forget!”
Her tone is full of mocking, and Shin refuses to be talked down by her of all people this way. He scrambles back up, his feet sticking to the glass. If it isn't for his powers, he would’ve fallen halfway to his death.
“Chill out, Akira! I’ll be there!”
“Yeah, you better!” Akira whines. “You can’t leave me here alone with those two strangers!”
Shin blinks, arranging his webs to swing down. “What strangers?”
“Are you—You know what? Forget it,” Akira exasperates another annoyed groan. “Just get over here. Quick, please!”
By that, she hangs up before giving a chance for Shin to reply.
At the JCC University of Science and Technology, Akira was the only person Shin considered a close friend outside of classes. Sweet, kind, a bit of a pushover—The type that made it easy for others to take advantage of.
In all honesty, when she told him she was in computer science, Shin almost didn't believe her. Not because it was a male dominated field, but because of her apologetic disposition. She didn't strike him as assertive, a characteristic needed to survive such a competitive industry.
But Akira proved him wrong. Proved the entire department wrong. She came out of her class with the highest marks, beating all other famous first year JCC CS students. A talent cultivated by her late aunt, the reason she registered in JCC at all.
Since they met, the two have grown close. Shin didn't have many friends growing up. Up until last year, he was riding the solo act. He thought it suited him best. Apparently, Akira was on the same boat, with her aunt being her only friend.
Losing someone really does burn a hole through you, doesn't it?
A hole that could grow smaller overtime, but impossible to close.
On that note, this should be enough sight-seeing under the bloody moon for tonight. Shin saw what he wanted to see.
As disgusting as the mask is, Shin slips it back over his face. Swinging around the city without it kind of defeats the whole ‘superhero secret identity,’ doesn't it?
Blended into the red night, his webs sling him from building to building. The flexible carbon fibers of his suit stretch with his limbs, swinging in patterns memorized by his muscles. Vast air whips across his face as he veers over streets. Cries of amusement and awe below him reach his ears. Behind the mask, he smiles, waving down to the night owls he zipped pass.
JCC’s towering buildings were just within his reach. So close. And yet, his senses tingle a chill up his neck before he hears it all at once.
A bell.
A scream.
An engine.
Two men.
The trajectory of his webs pursues after the cries of the crime. They lead him to the flashing alarms of the front of a biomedical company building.
A woman falls to the streets, stunned by her car suddenly used as a getaway. Chills run up to Shin’s neck, he looks ahead—A speeding truck barrels down the streets, with not enough time for the driver to hit the brake.
Swooping in with his web, he grabs the woman in his arms. The truck misses them by a hair. Had he been a second late, they both would’ve been flattened pancakes.
After settling the woman on the sidewalk, ensuring she was alright, Shin scurries after the perpetrators.
When he caught the source of the commotion within his sights, his wrists shot out a web. His body flings into the roof of the speeding car, metal grating under his weight. Shin leans over to the driver’s window, and knocks on the glass.
Wide eyes meet his masked ones.
“What the—”
“Hey!” Shin shouts. “Eyes on the road, pal!”
He could almost laugh. If eyeballs bulged out of their sockets like they did in comics, this guy belonged in the Looney Tunes.
A nasty snarl drips out of the driver’s mouth.
“Spider-man.”
The man sitting in the passenger’s seat reacted quickly, firing off three gunshots. Shin dodges back up the roof, just before the glass exploded at his face. Fragment pieces fly into the winds. The car swerves between lanes. From afar, the sirens ring their tune.
“Dammit…Gotta do this quick,” Shin mutters as they ran another red light. “Akira’s gonna be so pissed if I’m late.”
Quickly, he crawls to the back seat, smashing the window to get in. Before the gunman points his weapon again, Shin’s webs catches the muzzle and the trigger, trapping the hand before it could pull it. It distracts the man just for a second, but that second was more than enough time. Shin knocks him out with a punch from his elbow.
“Sweet!” he leans forward. “Does this car have GPS?”
Whatever curses the driver shout under his thick accent, Shin doesn't understand. Is it Russian? Polish? Hard to say. It doesn't take him long to realize they were foreigners, though.
Regardless. There was an oath Shin made as Spider-man. An oath to protect the place his loved ones called home. By extension, the entire city. To them, he was more than just their friendly neighborhood Spider-man.
Shin fights for control over the wheel, but the man is stubborn. Way stubborn. The side of his fist lands hard punches on the man’s face, but the limited space stops him from pulling out all the stops. His attention is split. Alien words reach his ears, but he's far too focused on not crashing.
“Can—we—just—!” Every sharp veering the car takes is a trip closer to Shin hurling. “—Pullover!”
Another web from his shooters shot out from under his arm. They wrap around the driver’s neck and forehead, ensnaring him against the car’s headrest.
Catching him off guard, Shin takes advantage of the timing to force the driver’s seat down. But the man doesn't let go of the steering wheel.
With that, the car takes a sudden left turn. A very sudden left turn.
To stop them from crashing into oncoming traffic, Shin nabs the wheel in his hands. One second, they were upright, speeding up—the next, they found the roof of the car grazing the ground and their visions obscured by shattered glass not even Shin could avoid.
Shin didn’t know how many times they rolled over. The man’s partner had flung out of his seat, far out of commission to fight back.
He groans. “This is why you should always wear your seatbelts…”
Shaking his head, his gaze darts back to the man in the drivers’ seat. With his remaining energy, the foreigner crawls out from the window, his fine black suit ripped up in tatters.
Leaving his partner behind? Now that's just bad manners.
Shin drags himself out of the car after him, his body aching from the impact. Not even he was able to dodge every single shard coming at his face. His skin is deep with cuts. The bullet wound from earlier had reopened from the crash. Quick to jump back on his feet, Shin runs to see the man sprawled on the ground. The damage of the accident did a bigger number on him, but he proved himself obstinate.
As Shin catches up to him, he easily rolls the man on his back with his foot.
“The roads end here,” he declares.
The driver struggles under him. Red splotches paint the ground, unseen by the light of the moon. Even the shadow of Shin hovering over him has a tint of red.
A dull pain shoots up his arm. Shin ignores it, leaving the pressure on his leg until the man under him stop squirming. Heavy breaths rose and fell where his foot held him steady. When he finally looks up to meet Shin's masked gaze, the rage in the foreigner’s eyes burned with a passionate fire.
For once, Shin understands the words escaping under his heavy accent.
“You’re an imperfection, Spider-man!” he spits. “ A blight. A defect!”
“You’re chatty,” Shin presses harder, ignoring the foreigner’s grunts. “Most people just call me a menace.”
The man coughs, blood rolling out the corner of his mouth. Instead of pushing him off, however, his hand holds a strong grip on Shin’s leg, refusing to let go.
Sirens grow closer behind them. Shin has to work quick, if he wants to capture this man and his accomplice in his webs to hand over to the police.
Before he could, the driver utters something under his breath.
“All defects must be erased.”
“What are you…” he gasps. “Wait, don’t—!”
Just then, the driver bit down on his molars. Hard. Shin hears something click, but it's too late to react.
A pill.
White foam froths up his mouth, choking him in gags. The strong grip on his leg is lost, along with his last breath. The masked vigilante could only watch as the crimson light reflecting in his eyes went out, replaced by a pit darker than the muddy sole of his shoe
Useless as he already knew, Shin attempts to find a carotid pulse. Nothing.
“Shit.”
He was dead.
The wailing alarms raise louder. Shit. Then, Shin realizes something.
He runs back to the car, only to return to a vehicle void of any remaining passengers. The accomplice is gone.
Shin kicks the car, smashing another large dent into the metal. It is far beyond repair. He screams into the muddy red skies out of frustration.
“Shit!”
If the accomplice’s disappearance doesn't make it any worse, the adrenaline wearing off did. It all crashes down on Shin at once. Exhaustion. The numbing discomfort. Muscles aching for rest. Though, he’d been in worse states before, he supposed.
There isn’t anything he could do about the driver now. Judging how easily his partner slipped away, the two’s relationship was superficial at best. Whatever it was they stole from the biomedical company took priority over the other’s safety. It irks Shin how he let the other get away, but he's losing time.
The cops were here.
Shin backs away from the scene, swinging himself up a roof of the nearest building before he is caught. Police cars arrive just before then, missing him. Of course, it had to be the same three cops that were chasing him earlier that day.
He shouldn’t stick around for too long. Too risky. As much as he wanted to gather information from the scene from afar, he has an appointment he’d forgotten.
Kicking himself off the corner of the roof, Shin shoots a web out without drawing attention to himself. The pain could only be ignored for so long. He slips past the crowding officers and onlooking citizens, dissolving himself into the crimson sea of light.
[🕷]
The JCC University of Science and Technology—An establishment currently enrolling the best of Japan’s gifted scientific minds in their programs. Many prodigal undergraduates came under the assumption of advancing modern technological devices and techniques under their discipline, and worked to move their society into the future as a whole.
Regardless of the individual.
Who knew one day, that same institution would come to enroll Tokyo Metropolis’s one and only Spider-man?
It had been half a year since Shin started his first year. He’d been Spider-man twice that long. If someone asked him what was easier—bagging criminals in broad daylight or submitting an essay due before midnight, he’d choose getting chased by those cops over picking up a pen.
But life as a JCC forensic psychology major had its moments. Quiet studies. Uneventful debates. The casually insane professors who torture their students as a form of pushing pass their limits. All the college life he missed out on as a former homeschooled kid, raised in a lab ignored by history.
Back in the JCC dorm, Shin crawls in through his window without witness. As he tumbles in, the discomforting throb of pain finally ruptured up his arm, sharp. He held back a wince. Afraid his voice would carry past the walls into insomniac students’ rooms.
What time is it?
Shin doesn't even bring himself up to look at the clock. Just laid there, on his floor, caught in his own daze. At this rate, the blood is bound to smear onto his wooden floors. Cleaning’s a hassle. It’s annoying. It gives him a headache.
He stares blankly at the ceiling until the pain subsided.
In his hand, his phone starts ringing. Again, he picks it up without thought.
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“You still alive, Shin?”
Immediately, he recognizes the high-pitched voice on the other line. Shin's headache just split tenfold.
“Guess.”
“Oh no!” The girl cries rather unperturbed. “You really must be dead! Don’t go into the light, Shin! You’re too young!”
“Lu…” Shin warns, pinching the space between his brows. “Not now…”
“Just kidding!” Lu’s obnoxious giggles ruptured through his brain’s neurons. He swears, he hears them screaming. “The monitors said your vitals were spiking earlier, but they seem okay now.”
"Aren’t you supposed to check in before that happens?”
“But you’re okay now, aren’t you!" Her chirping doesn't make him feel better. "Besides, we’ve been pretty busy ourselves.”
Shin listens as he massages his temples. “Yeah? With what?”
“We got an extra free hand coming in next week!” Lu rambles excitedly. “Gotta set up a new schedule plan before they come in.”
“Wait, seriously?" Shin freezes. "What do you need an intern for now all of a sudden?”
Maybe the realization hits him late. He doesn't even try to push Lu for a concrete answer before she spirals off a new topic.
“Don’t worry about it! Just focus up on healing!”
Dropping it sounds like the better option. “Yeah, thanks…”
“You should stop by and say hi!" she continues. "Heisuke and Piisuke’s got something new for you to try out, too!”
“Maybe next week. I’m beat.”
“You can’t be beat. You’re Spider-man!”
“Shut up," Shin bites back a smile. "Later.”
The call ends there, without hearing Lu's complaints. For a minute there, as she prattled away, he almost forgot he was bleeding out on his dorm floor.
Just why am I doing this again?
He isn’t so sure himself. Shin isn’t sure why he chased after those guys in the first place. He isn’t sure why the spider chose to bite him that day, or why he swung around the city, slinging webs out of his shooters like the city was his playground.
All he knows was that the spider did bite him. Gifting him with abilities surpassing superhuman. The great power, the great responsibility—It falls on him.
The death of his late adoptive father is a reminder of that.
Quickly, Shin strips out of his suit. Before the dark thought overwhelms him, he remembers what he was fighting for.
His mentor’s content face while eating ramen. A woman’s gentle smile. Bubbly laughter wrapping around his heart. The familial annoyance creeping up when he saw reddish pink, and the calm washing over him from the twitter of a yellow parrot’s song.
A dark, apathetic gaze that always, for some reason, lingered over his…
Shin shakes his head. That reminded him. One of his web slingers got damaged during the accident. He needs to get in touch with Heisuke soon about his suit…
Later. That is tomorrow’s problem. A cold shower is calling out to him, because he is not gonna show up to Akira’s dorm looking like he had just come out of a car crash.
[🕷]
“You’re late.”
“I know.”
“You said you’d be here at nine!”
“I know!” Shin dumps his bag near Akira’s couch. “I lost track of time!”
Akira’s dorm was only a ten-minute walk from his, but Shin shaved that time with a shortcut. Climbing walls was always better at beating foot traffic. Even if there wasn’t anyone out this late hour.
“You always say that!” Akira pouts. “Just get in here! Help me clean before those two come! Please!”
The authority in her voice is unusual for her. Soft spoken as she appears sometimes, she and Shin had grown closer over the past few months. Closer meant comfortable. In Spider-man’s life, comfort is dangerous.
But under Akira’s roof, comfort meant cleaning her coffee table.
“Right!” Shin’s body is already moving. He had been over to her dorm a few times before, but Akira always had clean habits. So why is she so hell bent on tidying up her room? Is the Queen visiting?
Oh yeah…
Shin tosses the cleaning wipes into the trash bag Akira was tying up. One look, her dorm is as pristine as a pearl.
“U-Uh…” he stammers. “Who’s coming over again?”
For a group project, that much Shin remembered from their phone call. Exactly who was in their group…completely slipped his mind. He was absent the day they made groups, and begged Akira to let him join hers.
So, he hadn’t met the others yet.
Akira hauls the bag over her shoulder. “You’re joking, right?” She raises a brow. “Didn’t you read the group chat? I added you when you joined us.”
Shin in fact does not check the group chat. “Well…”
Ding dong.
“Crap!” Akira jumps. “They’re early!”
Faster than a bullet, she drags another trash bag on her back. Where it came from, he doesn't know. The girl may be small, but her speedy dexterity and natural strength almost made him believe she was the one bitten by a radioactive arachnid.
“Answer the door, please!” she cries out. “I’m gonna throw this out.”
Shin looks behind him and sees her hanging out from the fire escape. “Wait—!”
“Thanks, Shin!”
Without another word, she scrapes off with the garbage, leaving Shin alone in her dorm room. There are so many protests running across his mind. Like, for instance, leaving a guy alone in a single girl’s dorm room without the owner present?
Yeah. Like that isn’t a cause for trouble.
Sucking in a breath, Shin decides to answer the door. It's rude to keep guests waiting, even without the host. Without looking through the peephole first, he unlocks the door.
As an essential instrument of his abilities, Shin’s spider senses were meant to go off moments before disaster struck. A hint of his perception screaming that something was amiss.
So why didn’t he feel that tingle when he opened the door?
“What took you so long?”
“Uhh…”
Shin blinks at the two brothers standing before him. Since when did Akira talk to them?
“What are you looking at?” The younger one glares through his surgical mask. “Cat got your tongue, old man?”
Shin’s vein threatens to pop. This brat…
Somewhere in his morals where Spider-man abided, it was wrong to hit a child. Mafuyu Seba, the youngest of the Seba brothers, was becoming a very close exception to that rule. A young, gifted teenager in the microbiology department. He came up the same height as Shin, adorning a talent for burrowing under his skin like a scalpel in an autopsy.
And yet, Shin lets him. “Just get in, you punk,” he sighs.
Mafuyu is more than obliged to let himself in, kicking off his sneakers beforehand. Dark eyes scan the dorm space. From the lack of vexing comments over sanitation, it must’ve passed his standards. Settling his backpack down, Mafuyu finds a designated spot for himself on a sofa chair.
Then, he trails in right after.
“Not gonna say hello?”
The grip on the door handle Shin has nearly breaks it. He hadn’t meant to meet that guy’s blank stare. But the weight is magnetic. An affinity drifting all of Shin’s attention to a single gaze.
A gaze darker than Mafuyu’s sunken eyes. So similar, and yet, so different. Messy, black strands dripping wet at the tips from an evening shower. Disheveled. Unruly. An uncharacteristic feature to his otherwise dry personality. The faint scent of his body wash loiters the air behind him as he places his own shoes next to Shin’s.
Natsuki Seba.
What’s there to say about Natsuki Seba?
Nothing , that’s for sure. Mechanical engineering department’s top student. A weapon production researcher with an intellect rivaling a crow, but an attitude of a brick wall. No way would Shin allow someone like him occupy the innermost corners of his mind.
It infuriates him.
The three moles painted on his pale skin are nothing more than a bullseye practice for a sniper. His sharp tongue dripped in venom when an outsider insulted his prototype inventions completely ruined his nonchalant image. An irritating nuisance, towering over him only by a few centimeters. A silent enigma shielding himself with his headphones like some introverted recluse.
A deep, caramelized voice coiling around Shin’s heart like a python.
“You look like crap.”
Natsuki doesn't show it on his face, but Shin knows he's laughing at him gawking.
“Shut up, you freak.”
It takes all of Shin’s concentration not to destroy the door just from how flustered he felt. Carefully, he closes it behind them, ambling after him where Mafuyu waited. Shin sinks down on the couch across from him, with Natsuki beside him as if it was natural between them.
His hand runs through his hair, grabbing a handful of the blonde strands at his neck. “I was wondering why Akira turned into a clean freak all of a sudden.”
Mafuyu opens his laptop. “I refuse to work in an unsanitary environment.”
Shin makes a face the younger Seba brother ignored. His hands, busy tying his hair back in the tiniest bun. It became a habit of his while studying, an impersonation of his mentor’s, but his hair just isn’t long enough to pull it off the way he could.
When he finishes, he notices Natsuki suddenly averting his gaze to his tablet.
“Where's Akira?” he asks.
“Taking out trash,” Shin rummages through his own bag. “She’ll be back.”
Digging through his papers is just another excuse for Shin to hide the red flush blooming across his cheeks. He knows Natsuki was staring, no matter how hard he tries to ignore it. The warmth remains even when he looks away. Their knees barely graze, but they touch. A minimal space Natsuki could easily remove by readjusting away. Especially with his aversion towards physical touch from others.
And yet, he doesn't.
In the past half year where Shin grew accustomed to a normal life, somehow, Natsuki managed to wedge himself in it. Natsuki—The awkward loner Shin stumbled upon at the back of the classroom when he was late to lecture after a Spider-man crisis. An annoying, apathetic voice who told him he was in the wrong room, in the wrong class, on the wrong side of the building after an attempt to make friends.
Natsuki—A mechanical nerd who never shut up about his latest creation whenever Shin sneaked into his workshop. Someone who always caught his eye from across their data analytics class, distracted from the professor’s lecture, only to be awoken by Akira shaking his arm next to him.
Natsuki Seba. A constant presence Shin just can’t get rid of.
“Sorry for keeping you guys waiting!”
Akira stumbles back in from the fire escape, peeling her jacket off. Her sky azure hair, unclasped from her ponytail, tangles above her shoulders as she took in a breath.
“Hey Seba! Mafuyu!”
Mafuyu nods. “Hey.”
Natsuki returns the gesture the same way, his face neutral.
“Did you guys see the blood moon?” she points outside giddily. “It’s gorgeous out! It’s like some badass assassin movie scene out there!”
“You’re late,” Shin snickers at her faltering smile.
“N-No!” Akira pout. “I was taking the garbage out, and I was making this place spotless since I heard Mafuyu can’t handle dirty things—Wait, this is my house—!“
Shin stops her before she spirals into another rant.
“That reminds me,” he glances between her and the brothers, “You guys know each other?”
“We’re in the same class, stupid,” Natsuki replies, like it was the most obvious fact in the world.
Shin resists the urge to hit him. “That’s not what I meant!”
“You needed two people, we needed two people,” Mafuyu intervenes quick, “And we all knew you. It’s not rocket science, old man.”
“Why, you—!”
They exchanged a few more words, declining Akira’s offer for drinks or food to try to placate the situation. Shin accepted her coffee, though. After stopping a burglary gang, hunting down a car chase, and escaping from cops with a vendetta to capture him—Staying awake was a low priority order for Shin’s body.
He needs the caffeine.
Honestly, would they be able to get anything done in this state? How was beating up alleyway purse snatchers easier than coordinating together?
Akira just sighs at them. She falls on her knees to the ground, rolling out blank papers on the coffee table. “Let’s just get started, yeah?”
The guys agree, joints clicked together as they finally began to work on their blueprint.
“Okay,” Mafuyu turns his laptop towards them. “I think we should figure out what program we’ll use—”
[🕷]
Turns out, the group clicked together faster than Shin thought. Even while Shin clashed with the Seba brothers when settling on a project idea. A few insults thrown here and there didn’t interfere with their work ethic. In fact, it only drove their creative ideas into the perfect proposal.
They aren't the top students in their respective departments for nothing.
It was half past midnight. After two hours of brainstorming, their brain muscles are aching for a break. The TV channels in the background serve as their white noise, as they scratch out the last of their thoughts onto whatever media they used.
Mafuyu stretch his arms out, joints popping in suit.
“Ugh,” he sighs. “I freakin’ hate AI….It’s too confusing.”
Honestly, after hearing Natsuki and Akira bounce off technological ideas after Mafuyu and Shin’s combined proposition, he's inclined to agree. They figured out a project where they could combine all their talents: Using the application of machine learning in digital forensic services, analyzing prints to detect and identify criminal activities, and possibly predict future behaviors.
With technology like this, they could even differentiate real prints from forged ones. Akira scribbles all their ideas down, ignoring Mafuyu’s discontent.
“Well, good thing it’s not your job to design the artificial neural network, it’s mine,” she chuckles. “But I need your help with developing and assorting the digital prints Shin’s gonna collect for validation.”
“Whatever.”
Shin writes down his assignments with a checklist. His job was to assess each digital prints criminal background history and predict future activities from the data. Not to mention getting approval for accessing the fingerprints, but Shin does have connections.
Well, Spider-man has connections.
With the end of his pen, he pokes Natsuki for his attention.
“Seba, you can create the apparatus like the machines they use in forensic labs, right?” he asks. “What do you think?”
“It’ll take a couple months until we reach at least an eighty five percent accuracy,” Natsuki hums, “Ninety, if we’re lucky.”
“We have until the end of term.”
“Then we better get started.”
While they shared their insights, the youngest of the group yawns. Akira notices the quiet grumble of his stomach. Though, she doesn't say anything outright.
“Want some cupcakes?” She offers instead. “I bought them earlier.”
Mafuyu grimaces, but doesn't refuse. “I guess.”
He follows her to the kitchen, leaving the two of them alone. The weight of their isolation hits Shin the moment he hears their voices drift away.
Natsuki is already drawing up a draft on his tablet. Every tap the stylus creates as it scratched on the screen draws Shin’s focus further and further away from the blueprint, and closer to the artist himself. The tight muscle around Natsuki’s jaw tightens as he sketches, and Shin tears his gaze away before he got caught.
He was practically hovering over Natsuki’s shoulder, too immersed in the engineer’s silence to notice that he wasn’t the only one sneaking glances.
“So…” Shin clears his throat. “You’ll build the machine after Akira’s design?”
The tip of Natsuki’s stylus taps under his chin as he thinks. “I have some ideas.”
It was all under Natsuki’s expertise, after all. He adds a few more strokes, a jargon Shin didn’t understand. None of it he did. But Shin still followed the stark lines Natsuki’s large hand created, jotting down names unfamiliar to Shin’s dictionary, and shapes he didn’t know could be assembled.
“It’s gonna take some time to find a compatible model suitable for her algorithm,” Natsuki explains, “Planning is one thing. Implementation’s another.”
Listening to Natsuki talk about the mechanisms of the invention in his mind is the only time Shin isn’t the talkative one between the two. It's endearing. Like watching a little kid dissembling a toy car apart to figure out what makes the wheels turn. The hidden, fiery passion that crept up in his usually indifferent voice brought a warmth around Shin he didn’t realize was there.
It just…was.
Feeling the heat growing hotter on his skin, Shin strips his oversized hoodie off. Did Akira have her heater turned up all the way in the winters? His neck is flushed.
He discards his hoodie on the couch arm. Deep in his own thoughts, careless of his own actions. The sleeve of his shirt rides up his shoulders, revealing poorly wrapped white bandages around his bicep.
“Woah,” he flinches under Natsuki’s staring. “What happened to your arm?”
Shin glances down at his own handiwork. Crap…he saw it.
How dumb should he play?
“What?” Attempting to cover himself, Shin pulls his sleeve back down. “Oh, uh…nothing.”
Smooth.
As a troublesome drunk once said, Shin is an excellent secret keeper, but a terrible liar. Natsuki suddenly grabs his hand, pulling it away, as the other reaches over to pull Shin’s shirt sleeve back up.
His dark eyes narrow suspiciously at the amount of dressing Shin used. From the edge of the humerus down to the joint of his elbow, Shin’s secret was guarded under flimsy gauze wrapping and faint, dried blood stains.
“Doesn’t look like nothing.”
But in fact, it was nothing. At least to Shin. Spider-man isn’t exactly a career void of accidents or injury. Stab wounds, gunshot wounds, shrapnel wounds—With his superhuman healing abilities, Shin could afford a few scratches. Besides, the injury on his arm healed completely a couple hours ago, in the middle of their project proposal piling.
Judging by Natsuki’s hardened gaze, a simple “It’s nothing” wasn’t going to slide.
“It’s…” A sweat rolled down Shin’s temple. “It’s just, uh…skateboarding accident.”
His smooth lie is met with silence. Natsuki’s eyes slides over his face, his fingers trailing lightly over the bandage as he gauges Shin’s reaction.
A stifled breath catches the back of his throat as their eyes meet again.
What’s he up to now? Shin refuses to waver. Why’s he looking at me so…intensely?
Before Shin squeezed a word in, Natsuki has already pulled down his sleeve. The moment that trapped the air at Shin’s throat disappeared. Whatever it was he was assessing, he didn’t say. His warm touch, gone.
“Be more careful, dumbass,” Natsuki picks up his stylus again. “Can’t afford to lose any more brain cells, can you?”
The insult comes at Shin with a punch, but he catches the slightest hint of something else under his uncaring tone.
Was he…concerned?
Shin shakes his head, and huffs. “You’re so annoying.”
Yeah right. No way he was.
Hiding his crush on the mechanical engineer department’s top student was no difficult task. Shin already knew how effortless it was to slip behind the mask. It was better for him to hide behind the mask. Comfort meant dangerous. Losing his mask meant risking himself.
His feelings for Natsuki were one thing. Reciprocating was another. Every time he thought Natsuki was pulling, Shin foolishly pushed forward, only to wonder if he was never holding onto the rope on the other end. Again, and again, Shin let himself fall for it every time.
And every time, he falls even deeper.
The two return to their comfortable silence again. Television static. Stylus pen scritches. Natsuki’s even breathing. Akira’s laughter overpowered Mafuyu’s quiet voice, returning to them with snacks after their rendezvous in the kitchen.
All the noises flood in as Shin is dragged deeper in the pit.
Shin leans back, sinking into the couch to hide how embarrassed he felt. What is he thinking? That Natsuki Seba, the king of social ineptness, returned his feelings the same way he did? The same Natsuki Seba oblivious to the obvious attraction of the swooning girls in his department?
The Natsuki Seba who grinded his bones to dust. Rushed the blood in his veins to burst. The root bane of his existence, the—
“Does it hurt?”
“Huh?”
A large hand brushes up Shin’s forearm. Rough calluses pads over his skin. Natsuki’s fingers nudges at the knotted edges over his elbow, a sloppy attempt to keep the entire bandage from falling apart.
Then, his hand moves up. Slowly. As if he's taming a wild animal before it runs away. Shin hasn't the slightest idea of where it was going. Up until it fiddles with the tiny, tied bun of blonde hair over the nape of his neck.
The slightest pinch between Natsuki’s brows somehow released all the pressure Shin has on his chest.
How odd.
Shin licks his lips. Just for a second, he wonders if this is what it felt when a lake subsided after a pebble dropped in the middle of it. A ripple effect. How the fascination of a ripple turns into a calming satisfaction as it stills.
Somehow, Natsuki always found a way to be the pebble.
“…Nah. It’s just a graze,” Shin chuckles lightly. “Promise.”
Smiling back, Natsuki only nods.
He pulls his hand away. That was enough for him.
They don't get to say much more with the other two rejoining them after. Just as Shin reaches over for the snacks they set on the table, a fanfare catches the attention of the four JCC students on the television.
“Spider-man or Spider-menace?”
Shin nearly drops his food from the sudden whiplash. His jaw slacks at the broadcaster taking over the TV screen, a face that has been out to get him since day one.
A man with a bowl cut sits firmly behind his desk, hands clasped and ready to dish.
“Kanaguri from the Daily Bugle here coming to you live with the latest Spider-man update under the Blood Moon!” he chirps excitedly. “Earlier this evening, surveillance footage captured two foreign men breaking into the Al-Kamar Lab. Contents of what was stolen remains confidential, but traffic cams show Spider-man in pursuit of the same two men on the roof of their car.”
Shin’s nails digs at his palms. That car was clearly hijacked!
A video from the earlier incident pops into frame, showcasing the result of Spider-man’s ‘reckless abandon.’ It pans out—From the fumes smoking out of the demolished car to the body covered by a blank sheet. Ambulance and police smother the scene, hidden behind yellow tape and flashing lights.
The red shadows deepen by the moon made the scenery worse than it is. When Shin sees the paramedics lifting the body, a seed of guilt riddles in his stomach.
“What remains of the vehicle is what you see here. A tragedy!” Despite his words, the crooked smile on his face says otherwise. “The culprit was found dead on arrival. His associate’s gone missing, and Spider-man long left the scene! Damage among the wreckage, a trademark of Spider-man’s doing!”
That’s not true. Shin bites down the inside of his cheek. That shitty reporter, he’s always twisting the truth!
“A hero? Hah! Don’t make me laugh!” Kanaguri points at the camera accusingly. “Is the destruction he leaves in his wake for us civilians to pick up what you call vigilantism? Is this what he calls keeping our streets safe? The fact remains that Spider-man is a menace! Who knows who he’ll kill next?”
The last question drew the line. A very fine line Shin swore he never crossed. Anger boils through him, but he controls it. His bleeding palms relieve some of that. It doesn't stop his fists from slamming against the coffee table, though, hard enough for the snacks to jump out of their plates.
“He’s wrong!”
Shin seethes at the television with a muted rage. Just who does that news reporter think he was? Every time that camera obsessed bastard started covering him, he highlighted nothing but Spider-man’s faults. Every. Damn. Time. Kanaguri’s efforts to turn him into public enemy number one became a solitary mission of the Daily Bugle.
A real pain in Shin’s ass.
“You sure are a diehard Spider-man fan, aren’t you Shin?” Akira giggles at his eagerness.
If someone handed Shin a mirror, he’d see just how unhinged and defensive his blue eyes shone. He blinks it away. The blur in his tunnel vision is gone before it appeared.
How could he not get upset? If he wasn’t there to defend Spider-man’s good intentions, who will?
“N-Not at all!” Shin denies it insistently. “I just don’t think that it’s fair to portray him in an antagonistic light without knowing his motives. Maybe he really was trying to keep everyone safe!”
Akira raises a brow. “With a decimated car crash?”
“It could’ve been an accident.”
“A man died.”
“Could be another accident!” Stubbornly, Shin crosses his arms. “We don’t know how he died.”
Frowning, Mafuyu tugs his mask up at the news.
“He’s messy,” he scowls. “I wouldn’t want anything to do with him.”
“Yeah right,” Natsuki scoffs. “Who forced me to drive him to the Spider-man convention last summer to spend on the merch?”
“Hey. You didn’t have to tell them that.” The younger glares at his brother. “Besides, Spider-man isn’t the bad guy here. It’s the criminals. They’re the problem. And if the cops did their jobs properly, Spider-man wouldn’t need to step in!”
Shin smiles at the younger Seba, appreciative of his words. Even if they weren’t meant for him, exactly. But the support is there.
The real diehard Spider-man fan in this room is Mafuyu. It was how he and Shin got along in the first place. When Mafuyu noticed Shin pointed out that red and blue suited hero keychain hanging off of his backpack, he never left him alone.
Akira chews on a granola stick. “What if Spider-man really did kill one of them, then?”
Shin frowns. “He wouldn’t—!”
“I know,” she stares at him. “But I’m saying, what if he did?”
Silence falls over the group, filled by the faint midnight news media coverage. ‘What if’ was a strong fundamental aspect in every scientific thought process. A dangerous one. ‘What if’ led to theories. Theories led to hypotheses. Hypothesis led to answers.
But Shin is Spider-man. Spider-man is Shin. And Shin knows he would never deliberately kill someone. Sure, he may rough them up a bit. Maybe to a point where he has no choice but to break a bone. But killing? Taking their life? Stealing their last breath with intention?
He made a promise to a very important person that he would never cross that line.
But there are few people who knows Shin is Spider-man. Would Akira even believe him? Would Mafuyu?
Would Natsuki believe him?
“I can’t imagine a dude swinging around in a mask and spandex killing anyone.”
All heads turn to one who kept quiet. Natsuki spins the stylus between his fingers in thought.
“Not without reason, anyway,” he glances up at them with a genuine look. “If he wanted to go around and kill a bunch of randoms, he would’ve done so already.”
That suit was made out of carbon fiber! Shin wants to retort.
But Natsuki’s words set in like a tattoo on his skin. A constant reassurance. A subtle reminder that answered Shin’s unspoken question that yes—Yes, Natsuki would believe him.
Shin blinks up at him.
“You really think so?”
The delicate curl of his lips turning up makes Shin’s heart race faster.
“Why?” Natsuki leans in, smirking, “Afraid your celebrity crush is gonna get cancelled for being a serial killer?”
Before his heart could be read on his sleeve, Shin pushes the engineer’s face away from him.
“Asshole.”
He reaches over to grab his coffee cup. Its steam is long forgotten by time, cold liquid nudged at his lips. The cup empties itself with the last drop, and Shin finds no more excuse to keep his attention away from Natsuki. So, he grabs a plastic water bottle from the bottom of his bag.
Unbeknownst to him, Natsuki is flying on a similar plane. His gaze trains itself on his drawing tablet, drilling a hole on the screen as his stylus roams.
The digital pen never lifts up once.
Mafuyu flits a glance between the blonde and his brother. “Gross.”
“Dude,” Akira pops open a soda can on the TV. “What if Spider-man’s some kind of science experiment sponsored by a big brand tech company? You saw what he can do. No way he’s actually human. How could one man develop a high tech suit on his own?”
“Why?” Mafuyu asks. “You think they take interns?”
“As if!” An airy laugh lifts out of her. “An intern for Spider-man? You’d have to be some kind of certified genius. I could never reach that caliber!”
“Why not?” Mafuyu shrugs. “Speaking of…”
“Oh yeah, I almost forgot!” Akira turns back to the two on the couch, seemingly in their own worlds. “Congrats on the new internship job, Seba!”
Ripped out of his thoughts, Natsuki acknowledges her enthusiasm with a soft thanks.
Akira raises her can like a mark for celebration. “When do you start?”
“Next Monday.”
The excitement is subtle, hidden under the gleam in Natsuki’s small smile. With his track record as JCC’s top MechE student, his developmental research on weapon production, and high marks on every major course—It's hard to ignore a candidate like him. An industry has to be crazy not to accept him.
This was news to Shin. He had no idea the older Seba even applied for an internship, let alone be accepted to one. Overall, Shin was just as thrilled for him as his friends were.
So why…
Why do I feel like something’s wrong?
It must be all in his head. Maybe the whole Spider-man gig is starting to take over his whole personality. Is it possible for his spidey senses to go haywire sometimes? He never heard of such a thing.
Then again, before himself, no one’s ever heard of Spider-man either.
Shin sighs, cracking the water bottle open. This train of thought is going nowhere.
“You got an internship?” Shin asks curiously. He tips the bottle up for a sip. “Where?”
"Sakamoto Industries.”
Surprise isn’t the right emotion. That isn’t what choked him.
What does choke him was a mouthful of water, a lowered guard, and at the tip of the barrel, Natsuki’s reply. An uncontrolled, sympathetic response. Clear liquid sprinkle passed his lips, as the water Shin is supposed to drink spattered into a mist right back at Natsuki’s face.
Shit.