hello my old heart

It hurt. 

It really fucking did. And Beomgyu didn't mean his still aching ribs that honestly should have healed by now or the migraines from the lack of sleep every night. No, nothing could even dare top the pain of seeing them - of seeing him - and knowing you know them so intimately yet they have absolutely no idea who you are. 

It sucked so fucking bad to watch Taehyun smile at customers with his fake-ass customer-service smile and to expect that smile to shift into something softer, something more real, only for that smile to stay the same when Beomgyu met his eye. Taehyun doesn't know who he is anymore - why would he treat him any differently?

It sucked so much to accidentally bump into Yeonjun in the street randomly and the other boy gives him a concerned "You ok?" and Beomgyu has to hold back tears and give him just a shaky nod. Yeonjun had no clue who he was - he can't break down on him in the street. 

Don't get him started how much it fucking sucks to have to mourn someone you seemingly had no connection to. The number of times he had to tell that stupid lie that his Aunt helped him after the blip and that was how he knows her to outrun the fingers on both his hands. 

To top it all off, he now had to get his GED while fighting crime - because Seoul needed Spiderman, ok? It needed him, he couldn't - he couldn't just put down the mask and pretend to be normal. It wasn't like he had a reason to pretend to be normal anymore anyways. He didn't have any friends. He didn't have his Aunt. He didn't have Mr. Kim anymore. 

He had no one to be 'normal' with. 

Beomgyu had no one to comfort him, no one to help stitch his wounds, no one to give him advice - 

He was alone. And fuck, he hated being alone. 

Every night his fingers would itch to text Taehyun goodnight, to let him and Yeonjun know at 3 am that he got home safely from patrol. And every night, he just stared at his contacts, empty with only his landlord listed. 

Everything in him was screaming at him to just tell them as he'd promised. To go up to Taehyun at his work and say that speech he'd rehearsed for hours. To beg on his knees to get Taehyun to forgive him for taking so long. Every day, he woke up prepared to do it. He was ready every morning, convincing himself that that morning would be the one and he'd march up to Taehyun and tell him everything. 

How Beomgyu was Spiderman. How Taehyun and Yeonjun were two of the most important people to him. How sorry he was for taking so long. He'd explain how Taehyun and himself fell in love along the way but would reassure Taehyun he'd wait for him to fall in love with him again, or maybe never but that was OK because at least he had Taehyun in his life. 

Every day he was ready. And every day he looked Taehyun in the eye and remembered all the pain he'd caused him. The stress, the worry. How many times Taehyun's life had been in danger because of him. 

So every day he faltered. He looked away from Taehyun's eyes and ordered his regular; a medium caramel macchiato made with extra caramel. 

Taehyun's order. If the other boy ever noticed, he never faltered, only commenting on it once how they shared the same tastes - although Taehyun was good at that. Masking his surprise and his fear, using sarcasm to deflect. 

Sometimes, Yeonjun would come to the cafe as well. Beomgyu would take a seat off to the side, a spot he found he could easily glance at his friends without seeming like a creep. Yeonjun would always smile towards him before heading off to sit at one of the bar stools, grin shifting into that familiar smirk that meant he was there to annoy Taehyun. 

Taehyun, without fail, would roll his eyes at the sight of Yeonjun, but Beomgyu would watch his face would shift into something softer around the edges as he slid Yeonjun a donut, sometimes with a coffee. He'd lean against the bar if there were no other customers to help and listen with his head tilted to the side as Yeonjun ranted and raved about something. 

It made some small part of Beomgyu happy, seeing the two (alive; his Aunt was dead dead dead) most important people to him seemingly thriving. It made him happy to know that even without Beomgyu, Taehyun and Yeonjun had one another.

He'd heard, through his enhanced hearing, that both of them got into Seoul's Art School - the school they'd all planned to go to together, the three of them, the school that ended up being the catalyst for all of this mess - Yeonjun on a dance Scholarship and Taehyun with an all-around fancy-sounding grant that Beomgyu knew he worked his ass off for. 

They'd be leaving in the fall, moving into an apartment together closer to the school. Apparently, the dorms were closed from some damage but Yeonjun had found them some sweet apartment with some random guy. Taehyun wasn't too keen on the random guy part but had relented after Yeonjun had whined for nearly the entire time Beomgyu had listened in. 

Beomgyu couldn't help the bitter feelings that squeezed his lungs whenever he thought about it. He had no right to feel so bitter over this - he honestly shouldn't even be thinking about the 'what if’s and the 'should be’s’. It was Beomgyu's choice after all. 

He'd chosen to give up everything. His family, his friends, his boyfriend - his identity. No one knew who Choi Beomgyu was, and he'd have to learn to live with that. He could - theoretically - build a new life. Make himself into whatever he wanted to be. He knew he never would, but he could. 

Seoul needed Spiderman, and as much as Beomgyu was beginning to resent the suit as he put it on, he knew he needed Spiderman too. Spiderman was his last connection to his old life. People knew who Spiderman was - Spiderman was a hero. He saved lives, protected innocents from people like Nam and the various other villains and bad guys in the world. 

So maybe, in the end, it wasn't a bad thing that Choi Beomgyu no longer exists. As long as Spiderman continued to protect Seoul, it didn't matter that Beomgyu spent his nights tossing and turning after dragging himself back to his apartment. It didn't matter that Beomgyu had scars upon scars on his skin, that his body ached from wounds that had long since healed. It didn't matter that some days, Beomgyu just wanted to curl into a ball and never wake up, haunted by the faces of his past. It didn't matter that Beomgyu was moments away from cracking every day, tears were always a pinprick away. 

It didn't matter, because Spiderman was still swinging through the air at night, protecting the citizens from being mugged and murdered. 

And in the end, did Choi Beomgyu even matter at all?