The tarantula couldn't bear it. The first conscious thought that he would ever be able to recall. He did not want this person to get hurt.
Up the tree he climbed, across the branch, to the rope that was haphazardly tied and knotted through barely seeing crying eyes. The stranger dangled from the tree, gasping for air, long hair caught around the noose. Until they were no longer gasping for air. The tarantula worked as quickly as possible, but these fangs were not made to save a life. Gnawing at the rope until it thinned, snapped, and the person fell to the ground.
The spider made his way back down, climbed on the person's chest. Sat. Waited. Crawled off, remained by their face. Sat. Waited. It was a pretty, dainty, delicate human.
He remained by the human's side. Waiting. Something in him just knew that they would wake up, and if they didn't, something in him just knew that he should stay by their side.
When it happened, the spider paced, dancing around in front of the human's now opened eyes. They lurched up, coughing, rubbing their neck. Their gaze landed on the rope, confusion in their expression... and eyebrows only furrowed further at the sight of a spider waving their front legs in the air and running around.
The stranger sighed, and stood, and walked away. And the tarantula followed. For days, the tarantula followed. This spider that had never left the wilderness before followed a human into the city.
He knew he had to keep this person safe. He just knew.
Although the human noticed, for a long while they didn't care. In fact, the tarantula learned, it seemed this human didn't care about anything. They didn't look while crossing a road, though they barely left their bed at all. They didn't eat real meals. They only bathed when their long hair started to get caught on door handles.
The only thing they did consistently, every day, was chant, and snap fingers, and sometimes their eyes would turn green. The spider didn't understand this at all. It was his first time seeing a human so close. Were they all like this?
After some weeks, the person had trapped the poor spider on their desk in a heavy glass jug. No matter how he nudged, or tapped, or tried to jump, he was stuck. There, he trembled as the human left their little desolate, decaying home, where the bedroom was the living room, and a spider and their web wasn't so out of place.
When they returned they were carrying a large box. They struggled, pain on their face. The spider sprang back into action, trying to free himself. But he was ignored, again. The box was opened, loud, rustling, see-through things thrown about and left scattered on the floor until some large glass box was brought out.
He watched as the human started to decorate it, putting logs and twigs in the box, a strange assortment of things, and pressed something into the wall.
They lifted the jar and laid their palm out.
"Come." Was the first word the spider ever heard from the human's mouth. Eyes blinked out of unison, and onto the palm he stepped. He was raised and placed down into the glass box. "One of us might as well live nicely."
That night, the spider was fed live insects, and he slept peacefully in his new cage without a lid.
They spent months like this. The tarantula watching, the human suffering. They seemed to wince every time their long hair brushed against their waist. They stared at knives and razors as if longing, as if in love with the sharp edges. They bled out and woke up, they drank hundreds of strange white circles and thew up and woke up. They woke up screaming in the middle of the night. Always waking, never resting.
The spider couldn't take it any longer. One day he saw them toying with a razor and bit their foot. Yelping from the sudden pain, the razor was dropped, and the spider worked. A web was spun around and around the razor. Until it was entirely coated. No longer accessible.
"What the hell are you doing?" They tried to swat away the pesky creature, but he could not be budged. "Hey-" suddenly their voice started to tremble, "stop it. I need that." The words barely out until they collapsed to the floor in their sobs.
That night, his tank had a lid for the first time, and he was trapped. The next day, the human left, and for the first time did not have a tarantula-shaped shadow.
The spider went wild with panic. Fear. What if they're hurting themselves? What if, what if, what if. What if they never return? The tarantula's only reason for living would be gone!
A voice in his head got louder and louder. Words that he didn't understand. All he could think was his human was gone. He was all alone. He could not survive without him. He was trapped but worried not of himself. The sound grew, the intense building in his little furry chest grew. Temperature rose, anger and stress increased. Suddenly he could push the lid away, suddenly he could -
Trying to crawl down the desk as he always did he fell, and landed. His hands before his eyes saving him from hitting his face on the floor.
Hands?
Face?
The tarantula's eyes darted around the room, up at the tank that didn't look so big anymore, nor so far away from the ground. In his bewilderment, in his scanning, he found the mirror in the corner of the room. His fall had caused the towel that usually covered it to drop.
He jerked back at the sight, but the vision in the mirror followed his movements.
Slowly, he crawled forward. What was on the ground was not a tarantula, but a... naked man? Could this be called a man? With eight icy blue eyes staring back at him, four arms, and two very human legs. He slowly raised to stand, wobbling, swaying, but managing to steady himself. What was between his legs was certainly that of a man.
Then, the door opened. The... spider(?)... spun, lips parting, eyes wide in confusion. But what met him was not an equally confused expression. What met him was a wandering gaze, and an instinctual look of disdain.
The door was shut and the human placed their bags down on their dirty bed. The spider stared, watched, waited. The patterns on his skin exactly that from his tarantula body. The human already knew what had happened.
"I don't have anything that will fit you." But the spider did not know what this meant. They started to rummage through drawers before holding up some very baggy shorts and top. They paused. "Can you do something about your arms?" But the spider did not know what this meant.
The human sighed, reaching for the other's lower two arms, gently tapping them, then showed their own arms - just two - then showed the sleeve holes in the top. Just two. The spider wasn't certain. He looked down at himself, moved his arms in unison, stared at the other, at the top, at the mirror, and slowly managed to retract them into his body. Strange.
"Great." They helped him to get dressed, everything was too short, too tight. "I'll get you clothes tomorrow..." But, this was said with that same look of disdain in their eyes. Tangguo would one day learn that this look was jealousy. "Even though you look good even in this." The spider did not know what this meant.
"Can't you talk?" Said at the dinner table. For the first time, the human made more than just rice. They were sat opposite one another, and the human's fingers were carefully guiding the spider's, teaching him how to hold and use chopsticks, since that was all the cutlery they had. Another thing to buy. The question never received a response. "Guai." The spider blinked. The human pointed to themselves. "Guai."
"Guai." A slender finger rose, and a smooth, low, voice came. The first word he ever said was his human's name.
"Yes! Good!" The tone was glad, but the human's expression didn't quite match.
From there, Guai's attention was pulled. Every day, Guai taught him read and speak both in Chinese and English using poetry books they liked.
The tarantula would later learn the word 'motivated', and would use it to describe these next months. Guai spent every waking moment with him. To the library, to the store, back and forth, with clothes and presents and food to try together. Guai taught him to do everything, to move, to hold things, to understand life. As time went on, they grew closer and closer.
Once upon a window sill,
A sparrow hopped, -
But then stood still.
I asked him why he did the latter
He said to me, "It doesn't matter.”
"My life may be in danger.
Why should you care?
I'm just a stranger."
"Men'd kill a cow
To make mutton pie,
So why should I
Confide in you my woe?"
"Look, no weapon in my hand you see,
Come rest your feet upon my knee,"
Said I,
"And best friends let us be."
"I take no chances," the sparrow said,
"I'd rather be cautious than be dead!"
As away the sparrow fluttered, I could have sworn he muttered,
"I'll fly as fast as I can,-
I have no faith in man!"
The spider had only managed to retract his arms and had not since been able to turn back into a tarantula. Far too tall to sleep on a chair, they even shared Guai's bed at night. When the human had a nightmare, he would pull them closer, pat their head, and they would gently ease back into a comfortable sleep. He did everything he could, tidied, cleaned, offered to comb their hair though that was refused so strongly he never offered again.
Guai hadn't tried to hurt himself since the day before his body changed.
"Who named you Guai?" The spider asked in Chinese, showing the other the dictionary. "It's this character?"
"Correct. I did."
"Why? It's not a good name for you. You aren't a monster or weird, you're pretty and kind."
"Don't call me pretty."
"Why?"
It seemed to pain Guai, but it was then that he told the other of his story. Although in this feminine, woman's body, it wasn't where he belonged, and he wished only to be a man, with a man's body, and man parts, and to live comfortably in his own skin. How his parents had accepted that, but then been murdered. His aunt was forced by the government to look after him. She beat him from the beginning, not willing to call him a boy, blamed him for his parents' death, hated him, starved him, and often confused him on purpose. Isolated him from his coven. Not human, but a witch.
"What? Are you surprised? You've seen me do magic a hundred times."
"I thought that's just what humans do."
'Guai' she'd called him. Weird, a monster, disgusting, revolting. The storytelling was slow. He often had to use the dictionary to understand.
"Why would you want to be called what she called you?"
"So that she can't hurt me anymore."
The next day they returned to English. Today's poem, Invictus.
Line by line, Guai explained the meaning.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
"Master?" The spider blinked, tilting his head.
"Yeah, it's someone who's in control of someone or something. An owner and controller."
A slender fingers raised and pointed at Guai. "Master."
Guai scoffed, "Do not call me Master. You're not my slave, I don't own y-" as he bat away the other's hand, his fingers got caught in the spider's serious grip.
"For your..." he turned to look at the poem, "unconquerable soul, your head is bloody but unbowed. The menace of the years shall find you unafraid... you are the master of your fate, and the captain of your soul."
Guai was stunned. Frozen.
"Master Guai."
Chilled to the bone, Guai could not process those words. No. Never once would he have related to this poem. Never once would he had thought such words would be said about him. He was nothing. He was rotting scum that deserved to die and was weak and hated himself and hated living and hated his body and hated-
The other's free hand reached for Guai's small face, stroking his soft jaw, all eight eyes only on him.
"Master Guai. I will help you."
Guai could hear the blood in his ears. His heart pounding so rapidly in his fragile chest.
"I..." He couldn't cope with this train of thought. He needed to change the subject. He had to, or he'll end up crying, and he was all out of tears. "I just realised you don't have a name."
"No..." his hands slowly released the other and fell to his lap.
"Tangguo." He tested... considered... and nodded. "Tangguo and Master Guai."
"You're a Chinese tarantula, so you should have a Chinese name." The spider just nodded. "What do you want it to be?"
"I want you to pick."
Guai hummed, shifting where they sat on the bed, surrounded by papers and books. "You're sweet, like candy. I think Tangguo suits you well."
It made Guai shudder. "Eugh. Gross. If you say that in public people will think-"
"Master Guai," he interrupted, "can I do something for you?"
"Huh? What?"
"You do everything for me. I want to repay you. Please. Let me cut your hair."
"H-huh?" Guai shrunk into himself, hiding behind the long strands. "But..."
Tangguo reached, twirling some of Guai's hair around his long fingers. "She can't hurt you anymore."
Old newspaper was laid on the floor, Guai was sat facing the mirror with Tangguo stood behind him.
"How do you even know how to cut hair?"
"I think it will be easy." He spun scissors around like an expert.
"What if it comes out all crooked and choppy? You'll make me look insane. Everyone will laugh at me when I go outside."
Tangguo smiled softly, "It doesn't matter." He quoted, "Why should you care? They're just a stranger." It made the witch scoff again.
"Aiyah..."
"Close your eyes."
"Huh?"
"I want it to be a surprise." Also, so that the other couldn't change his mind or panic halfway through.
Guai obeyed with a sigh. "Don't cut too much." Otherwise, how could he hide his face?
"I know." Tangguo started to snip. He cut away so many inches, hair fell to the ground like a scarf. From the other's waist, right up to his jaw. He'd been right, it was easy. Spiders are masters of symmetry, precision, they're geniuses of geometry. A nice curve, even some layers. Guai's hair was transformed, and the witch felt so much lighter. "You may open your eyes now."
It took a few moments before he was willing. But when he did, his breath caught in his throat. He turned, side to side, observing himself, leaning forward, leaning back. It fanned over his face, but he felt nothing trailing down his back, no ghostly fingers scratching his spine. He was free.
"Thank you." For the first time, Guai smiled. Truly smiled. Wide enough to flash teeth at Tangguo. Wide enough for the spider to catch a glimpse of something familiar.
Fingers caught Guai's jaw and forcibly turned his head to the side, looking at the two of them in the mirror as he lowered, bending to bring his face in alignment.
"Do that again. Do - um-" he gently pulled up Guai's cheek. "Xiao."
"It's English today, remember? Smile. This is a smile." And Guai did, smiling for Tangguo to see. There. The other's canine stood out, long, sharp, pointed.
The tarantula mimicked the action, his own fang longer, more menacing, but there. Matching. It was the evidence of fate, of destiny. The proof that they had always been meant to find one another, right from the moment Guai's baby tooth fell from his mouth.
That night, Guai did not have a nightmare. He did not stir. He slept through the entire night. Using Tangguo's chest as a pillow, Tangguo's arms as a blanket, and truly, for the first time in a long time, truly rested.
Tangguo is essentially a master of shibari - the art of binding your partner. Instead of using ropes he uses his own web or his own silk. Many believe shibari to be a transformative and spiritual experience, learning to release their need for control over their own body. Tangguo finds it as erotic as he does beautiful, a way to connect and communicate on a deeper level than words.
Fireworks, borrowed lighters and sparklers against a dark backdrop, yours is a love that burns stark and bright. It's scary though, like things that burn always tend to be, but for you it isn't the thrill of the open flames that gives pause and a slight stomach drop of terror, but rather the time when the flames go out, the sparkler ends and the night is cold and dark once again. Fireworks, borrowed lighters, a striken match, your love burns bright and fast and then maybe it passes, maybe the feeling dies out and you're left in the cold once again. And that's the feeling isn't it? Of being bored and waiting for someone to light you up again? To be fair, you do know you don't need it, but then again we don't often crave the things we need. And you crave and yearn and burn in the wait, restless in the knowledge that at some point someone will pass and rub you the right way, that some day you'll light up the night sky bright yet again. There's comfort in the darkness and solace in the predictable loneliness of the in between, but your heart still squirms inside you, waiting and willing and begging to burn up again. Your love might not be comfort, it's not one for the sick days, but then again, there's a reason why everyone waits for the shining lights in the sky during holidays.
