It takes two weeks for Ryujin to control, at least a little, the sticking to everything like some toddler that just ate cotton candy with its hands. Seriously, it was by far the grossest side effect of whatever happened to her. Well, besides the white substance coming from her hands. That one was just super fucking weird. Then again, how does one measure the weirdness of these things. On one hand, or both, she's leaking what look to be webs off her hands. And on another, she can now, usually unwillingly, stick to walls and ceilings. Not to mention the weird vibes that tingle her at times. Was weird vibes a super power?
The first few days Ryujin pretended to be too sick, sticking (literally) to her room and avoiding all contact with other people. Luckily faking a very infectious flu was easy. So she spent her days inside her room trying to deal with the changes of her body.
Wasn't puberty enough suffering?
She hadn't really told anyone about it. Mostly because she wasn't even sure what to say. Was she an alien? Not as far as she knew. Ryujin was pretty sure her parents were human but it's not like she could ask them because they're both six feet under. And she's pretty sure that being a God isn't even a possibility, judging by the wheezing she would do after a short jog. Magic was also out of the question, although the test she had done for that was copying Harry Potter spells and seeing if something happened. But she was pretty sure magic doesn't include white stuff coming off of you.
How does one come about figuring out what is going on with them? Do all these people who somehow have powers just know? Because Ryujin had no clue what she's doing and if her teens were already a confusing time, they were even more so when she could throw webs around.
Did she just shoot an email to the Tony Stark? 'Dear Mr Stark. Love your suit and tall building. By the way, should I worry about the webs coming from my literal hands? Love, Ryujin'
It had been two weeks of avoiding school already, she had to go back there. She was already behind on every class and had missed a few events for the newspaper. She couldn't sacrifice her grades because of some body fluids.
For some reason Ryujin felt like she related to teenage boys now. Perhaps because she finally understood their struggle with being fucking weirdos who get sticky and have no control over their own body. Is this how involuntary hard ons felt? Like when she would try to do something and accidentally shoot webs around? May whatever God exists help her with web premature ejaculation.
"Hey." someone suddenly greeted her, scaring the shit out of Ryujin. Or the web, seeing as a small one went flying off her hand. Luckily the person seemed to not notice.
Turning around Ryujin was not prepared to see Yeji standing there. It wasn't often that they interacted. Not unless they were forced by their newspaper responsibilities. She would likely be the last person she expected to speak to her.
"Hey?" she let out, sounding unsure. Immediately cringing at how fucking awkward she was already making the interaction. "Hi. Yeah, sorry. Hi, what's up?" she corrected, as awkward as was expected of her. Ryujin clearly was one to live up to the expectations.
Yeji looked amused, although she didn't express so. But a small smile showed up so maybe it was worth being embarrassing. "I noticed you were out sick."
"Oh, right. Yeah... Flu." she nodded, keeping up with the lie. Not like she can come clean about that.
"I'm glad you're feeling better now."
She is? Ryujin didn't think the other would even really notice her absence let alone go out of her way to talk to her. Too bad that the bell went off then, signaling for them to get in their classroom. A short conversation but nonetheless a win in Ryujin's book.
"I'll see you around?" Ryujin said, realizing a little too late how stupid it sounded when they were literally in the school they both attended. Yeji beginning to walk towards her classroom and looking back with a smile.
"I'm sure you will." she responded before disappearing in the crowd of students trying to get to their classroom. Leaving her to stand there with a smile on her face and a heart racing at the interaction that had occurred.
_____
Apparently Yeji had complained about the quality of photos while she was gone. Going as far as questioning when Ryujin would be back so they could deliver quality again. Or maybe Yeonjun was fucking with her and lying about that. It was possible. But he had said that Yuna had said she heard Yeji herself, complaining about it during lunch.
It wasn't exactly like Yeji had been missing her but she had at the very least missed her work and talent for photography and that was something. Ryujin didn't win enough to not take the little wins.
Never had Ryujin thought that she would be having such a great first day back. She truly expected it to be a disaster and yet the few incidents that had happened could never overshadow Yeji and their interaction. Not even when Ryujin accidentally stuck to the ball she had to throw in PE and looked ridiculous trying to unstick it.
Honestly, her mood had been uplift. She was more determined than ever to control whatever was happening to her, figure out why it had happened and make the best of it. But that was probably the positive side of her speaking.
Either way, she sat down on the subway on her way home and started taking notes. Drafting what could be a way to reverse engineer her webs and try to figure out what they were. It mostly consisted of spider drawing while her brain worked out the problem and tried to figure out what tests she could run.
Maybe if she developed some kind of device, she could control the webbing better. More consistently and perhaps even make use of it. Find some way to make what was gross and unpractical into an asset.
Getting home, she thanked the Gods that her father had been a scientist. Not that she had the latest equipment or even too much but she had enough to get started on her research. Of course, her Aunt immediately greeted her and ask why she was in a rush, but she accepted the homework excuse. Luckily she was into science so her aunt never really found odd when she used things that belonged to her father so no further questions had been asked.
"I'm just saying, Seoul is getting dangerous with all those powered people out here." her uncle let out, gesturing towards the window.
Ryujin didn't want to say anything. He wasn't wrong, crime had risen in recent months. But then she was now one of those people, so what could she say? That not all of them are like that? That much was obvious already, her uncle was probably just frustrated about the crime.
"How was school?"
She shrugged, it's not like she could tell them it was a great day because Yeji spoke to her. That would sound ridiculous. "Same old high school."
Her aunt smiled, continuing to eat her food. "I hope you didn't miss too much."
"I'll catch up. It's not like they were teaching something I didn't know already anyways." she let out, shrugging casually. Truth be told, she was usually ahead in class. Especially Science. All thanks to her father. Not that she remembers much about him but because she heard of him being a scientist, she began trying to learn about it all and next thing she knew, it had become her thing.
Ryujin the science nerd. Maybe that could be her hero name.
Chuckling to herself, Ryujin couldn't help but find the idea amusing. She could come to be a lot of things but a hero was too far fetched.
People couldn't just be heroes. It wasn't as simple as declaring yourself to be one. And it certainly didn't come with having weird things coming from your body. What would she even do? Throw webs at bad guys?
