School ended normally without anything… unordinary happening.
MJ stuck close to Gwen the moment the last lesson ended.
Gwen's eyebrows were creased, a distressed expression on her face as she tried to escape the energetic MJ.
"Can you… just stop sticking to me like glue?" Gwen complained, exasperation in her voice as she attempted to shake off the arm snaking around hers.
"Well, darling, this is our glue song. And you can't escape 'till you cough up the details of your date. Now—" MJ said with a foxy grin on her face, her hold on Gwen growing more comically possessive.
She was all in on the 'new-look new-me' kind of thing. Goth thingy.
Gwen deeply sighed in frustration, rolling her eyes.
'Why do I have to deal with this lunatic?' she thought.
'What am I doing here?'
'I should be walking with my Seol… That's shameless, Gwen. Yeah, shameless.'
"Okay, okay. Jeez, I'll spill. Just stop making a scene," Gwen said, her eyes darting to the curious gazes directed at their theatrics.
MJ paused, looked around, then innocently pouted.
"Well, I don't care about them. I only care about your love story. That's more interesting than some weird gazes," MJ said casually, but still, loosened her hold on Gwen.
She didn't let go though, keeping her arm interlocked with Gwen's.
MJ couldn't take chances with Gwen whose eyes were secretly looking for a path to escape to.
'Thought I'd let you sneak away. Tough luck, girl,' MJ mused, a light humorous smile on her face.
Gwen's lips twitched.
'Guess I'd have to satisfy her curiosity,' she concluded, the memories from Saturday surfacing in her mind.
They were vivid, carefully structured—the entirety of her experience archived.
"So it was like this…" Gwen slowly started as they walked down the hallways.
MJ's ears perked in attention as she stared at Gwen.
A few moments later, Gwen finally finished her recollection.
A dreamy, reminiscent look was lingering in her blue eyes.
The corners of her lips were slightly tugged upwards.
MJ silently processed Gwen's narration. She could almost feel like she had been right there with her at that flower paradise.
And beyond all of that fluff, she could slightly see herself in Gwen.
That look—the look of a fool in love. Blinded. Blinded by the lovelights.
'Or maybe she's just in the process of being blinded. That's what she might delude herself with. Can she not see beyond the undeniable hotness of Seol Hwa? God, what bargain did she have with you to be that gorgeous?' MJ deeply thought.
She had to admit she would have fumbled hard if she were Gwen.
Seol Hwa had that cosmic, lethal effect.
But since MJ was healing, she didn't think much of Seol Hwa… romantically. Maybe considered once in some of her crazy fantasies.
What she felt for Seol Hwa was great respect and eternal gratitude. She was definitely a fan.
"Girl, you are…" MJ began saying but stopped herself.
Gwen put aside her distractive thoughts and glanced at MJ.
"What?" Gwen asked with a toothy grin.
"Nothing," MJ replied.
'I wanted to say you're already in love, but you don't know about that. You'd have to discover it yourself. That's the difficult part. You don't know when it hits you,' she thought with a small yet slightly sad smile.
It was then that Gwen felt her phone vibrate.
"Who could it be?" Gwen murmured before she began rummaging through her bag.
She removed her phone and checked the notifications.
It was a message from her dad, George Stacy.
Without a change in her expression, she returned the phone to the bag.
She turned to MJ and smiled apologetically.
"I'm sorry I have to leave. Dad wants me to run some errands," Gwen said.
"Oh. That's too bad. I guess we'll postpone the gossip to another day," MJ subtly responded.
Gwen shook her head helplessly.
"Now can you let me go," Gwen said, looking down at their interlocked arms.
"But I'm not holding you," MJ playfully replied.
"Really?" Gwen arched her brows, clearly unamused.
MJ chuckled as she disengaged her arm.
"Happy now?" she smirked at Gwen.
"Pissed. Will my left hook make you happy instead?" Gwen retorted, a warm smile stretching her lips.
"I'd bet on me winning, anyway. Come here," MJ said while opening her arms wide for a hug.
"I doubt that," Gwen laughed as she hugged MJ back.
"Stay safe, MJ," Gwen said as she leaned back.
"You too, Gwen," MJ replied.
Gwen began walking away while retrieving her phone again.
She quickly texted Seol Hwa. She had to.
She really wished she was walking with her in that moment.
Gwen: Heyyy. Missed me? Something came up and I won't be your guide today. See you soon.
There was no immediate reply after a minute.
To stop herself from going crazy waiting for Seol Hwa's reply, Gwen decided to return the phone to the bag.
A few seconds later, she removed it again when it vibrated.
She eagerly unlocked it.
Her excitement, like a balloon, immediately deflated.
It was a promotional message from her carrier.
"Fucking T-Mobile, tsk," Gwen muttered in annoyance and finally put the phone on silent.
MJ watched Gwen's little actions from afar, deep amusement in her eyes.
"What a hopeless romantic," she sighed and also started her journey home.
---
Meanwhile, Seol Hwa was gracefully walking by herself, seemingly unbothered by worldly affairs.
The ambient spiritual energy was quietly being absorbed into her body.
Her mind wasn't on the passive cultivation, but on battle simulations.
She was continuously sharpening her combat moves instead of letting them grow rusty.
Her opponent was Heaven's Will.
Of course, she lost in all the simulated battles.
She was currently too weak and aiming too far.
'Maybe having realistic goals is not bad at all,' Seol Hwa thought in amusement.
When had her goals ever been realistic in the first place?
She thrived on pure madness.
Without insanity, she wouldn't have ascended through the ranks in the Heavenly Demonic Divine Cult.
She would have remained a nobody.
Inconsequential.
As Seol Hwa was lost in her thoughts, she suddenly sensed a shift in the quality of fresh air.
And it could only mean one thing: pests.
Those men who were blindly looking for her.
She walked a few blocks ahead and took a corner.
From her qi radar, she picked up seven signatures. Six were those pests and one that was quite different. A civilian.
She recognized two of those pests. The two she had probably heard speaking during the history class.
Good thing, they had chosen a place with little to no chances of being disturbed as they harassed the woman.
How diligent could they be to pick a prime burial location in advance?
'Here we go again,' Seol Hwa thought blandly as she entered the shadowy alley.
Always had to be.
She stood at the entrance and indifferently looked at them.
'They just had to harass weaklings. Typical trash. They're making me look heroic,' she mused.
Seven pairs of eyes immediately looked at Seol Hwa.
There was stifling silence as the men tried to process what was just happening.
An extremely beautiful dark-haired schoolgirl had conveniently presented herself to them without making their hands dirty.
The helpless woman looked at Seol Hwa pitifully, pleading for her to just run away from those scums.
She also had dark hair like Seol Hwa. A wrong target.
"Would ya look at that, boys?" One of them said with a lascivious smile before licking his knife.
"Served on a platter. I like them young."
They laughed as two of them began heading towards her.
Seol Hwa sighed before placing her bag down.
In one step, she vanished and appeared behind the woman.
With an outstretched finger, Seol Hwa expertly poked some acupoints on the woman's neck.
The woman immediately went limp, falling into unconsciousness.
Then, she looked back at the shocked expressions on those men.
"I think you were looking for me," Seol Hwa said.
Realization dawned on those men's faces, but it was already too late.
Later, Seol Hwa walked out of the alley, continuing her journey home.
'I really could use some wine,' she thought in passing.
But on whose household?
Probably not Min-Seo's.
It was then that she took out her phone and looked at the time.
She saw Gwen's message.
But how come she didn't hear it?
She subtly shook her head when she realized she had mistakenly set her phone to DnD.
She smiled at her own silliness.
'Now what does the mortal want? She has the audacity to renege on our promise,' Seol Hwa thought.
---
A few seconds later, Spider-Man acrobatically landed in the alley.
The lenses on his spidey eyes narrowed.
'Damnit, I was late,' he thought, clenching his hands, his muscles coiled like steel suspension cables.
He walked past the six piles of ashy remains and squatted near the unconscious woman.
The Ash Devil—a pretty cool title if he was being honest—had struck again.
This time around in broad daylight.
And he had been this damn close to seeing who they were.
'Thank God, she's still alive,' Peter thought as he carried the woman and sat her against the wall.
He could hear her heart beating normally.
He examined the woman, her physical features and reached a preliminary understanding of what had happened.
The woman was just a normal corporate worker based on her clothes.
The real Ash Devil then came along and finished the men off.
'She might be the one who had knocked this woman out,' Peter pondered.
It was then that the woman's eyes slowly fluttered open.
"Where… where am I?" The woman murmured incoherently.
"Do you remember what happened here, ma'am?" Peter gently asked.
"N-No… I—I don't remember. But… but I remember there were men. Bad men who had captured me," the woman stuttered, her eyes unfocused as she tried to make sense of her reality.
"Do you remember anyone else besides the… bad men?" Peter patiently asked.
"No… there was no one else," the woman replied, certainty in her voice as she ran a hand through her hair.
Peter sighed and stood up.
"Long. Long dark hair. Female," he repeated those words, murmuring to himself as he tried to make sense of the overall situation.
The woman looked at Spider-Man as if he was being crazy, but since he had likely saved her, she didn't comment on anything.
An image slowly formed in Peter's mind based on both circumstantial and situational clues.
Briefly, the image of his classmate and 'fresh' friend, Seol Hwa, cropped up in his mind.
"Her?" Peter muttered again.
"It can't be her." He scratched his head while walking in circles.
He was trying to fight off his insane conjecture.
The scene was not very far from the school.
A high number of the students were dark-haired.
'There's not even solid evidence… So it's not her,' Peter concluded.
But some parts of his spidey sense tingled. Ever so slightly enough for him to sideline it.
Nothing just made sense anymore.
~~<>~~
Yu_ner's corner:
Finally had time to write. Sorry guys it's been a busy and tiring week.
I can't write longer chapters as you might have noticed. Sorry about that. (I'm apologizing a lot like Gwen)
Please enjoy!
For advanced chapters: Patreon.com/Yu_ner