Controlling a quirk is like using muscles that have never been moved before. It is like being a baby again, like there is no such thing as muscle memory because the muscle doesn't work like that.

Having something new suddenly start running through the body is very uncomfortable. Like getting a flu shot, only the shot runs through the entire body instantaneously instead of starting in one area and slowly inching towards the fingers and toes.

It starts in the bones, in the marrow, and it radiates out.

But maybe I'm describing growing pains.

When Mohō asked me how my quirk worked many years ago, I didn't know.

I still don't, but at least I have a better idea of how long I can stand using it. Which is not long, and definitely not well, but things are getting better.

My system is human. I have all the tracts, ducts, and intestines to prove that. But I believe somewhere in my DNA is a mutation that adds a bit of a spider's exoskeleton to my spine. That piece of DNA also lets me string up some lovely web designs.

Spider silk is incredibly delicate to the human touch. It sticks to human skin, and it falls apart with a swipe. (Honestly, it kind of matches my psyche.)

For a spider, its silk is a lifeline.

My system is human, but some of the instincts that I have are more of the spider kind.

Sometimes, I'll see a little male finch and think that it has beautiful feathers. Sometimes I'll immediately try hiding away.

Sometimes, I'll see a fly caught in a spiderweb and think nothing of it.

Controlling an extraneous limb is a strange feeling. Your body constantly tells you that there is a foreign thing invading, abort mission. So I never got around to actively using the four spider legs that adorn my back. A cat's tail is used for balance, and just like that, my extra legs were pretty much there for balancing myself. (Also, balance. My body had to be half-spider somehow. If it wasn't the inside, it was bound to be on the outside.)

One of the things Dad keeps telling me, is to accept that I am fully half-spider at this point. He says he went through a similar experience, that he woke up in a pool of poison drool slowly eating through his sheets. I keep telling him that it's not quite the same.

But I digress, that's not the most important thing as of right now. Mohō and I are starting junior high next week.

Meeting Monoma Neito six years ago was the greatest thing to ever happen to me. Nothing else has trumped that. Except maybe the looks on other kids' faces when Mohō and I tell them that we want to be heroes in the future. Even the teachers have preconceptions based on looks.

Mohō looks like an innocent angel… up until he smirks, sticks up his nose, and starts trash-talking anybody who comes too close. Me, on the other hand, the fourth grade teacher was taking role, got to my name, got startled and asked, "Which villain birthed you?".

It's very exciting, knowing that a school only has reports on my bad behavior and not an actual idea of what I've done. But it's not great having to endure the stares of curious passerby again.

Here's to hoping that I don't have to fling my webbing into more faces.

At this point, I've been sent to the therapist more times than I can count. I go if my parents think I've been acting out for attention, I go if I get too many panic attacks from my spider-qualities, I go if something seems off.

The thing is, my therapist has a quirk that sort of implants a suggestion into your brain. The suggestion used on me has always been to tell the truth.

I've gotten used to lying and trying to force the suggestion out of my head, but it never works. Now in everyday life, I lie and expect the other party to hear the truth instead.

So I look evil and lie about everything. That's not going to make me any friends.

Thankfully my parents and Mohō know me incredibly well, and that means they almost always take what I say and flip it.

I've been told that I have quite a few tells for when I'm lying, but the two that give me away the most often, are that one of my spider legs twitch and the other is that I try too hard to look like I'm telling the truth.

Anyone who can talk to me for an extended period of time would be able to figure those two out very easily.

In addition to balance and showing people that I'm lying, my spiders legs are ridiculously sensitive. I can't say how many times I've accidentally shut the door on a leg, or crushed one with a book. But from the pain that I feel when I do hurt a spider leg, it's like having a shin kicked.

From any angle and section, too. It's quite a weakness of mine, and the legs take forever to heal.

One of the plus sides, though, is that I can walk up walls. But that's only if I use my silk along with at least six of my limbs. And also if I'm trying to walk up a wall and onto a ceiling, I have to be able to produce silk from essentially the entire surface area of my hands.

The spider legs themselves can support half of my body when I'm walking up a wall, but I honestly have no idea how to move them, so when I was testing the theory, Mohō laughed his head off while I stuck my spider legs to the wall by hand.

Let me just say that producing enough spider silk to cover the surface area of my hands takes a long, long time.

And that's just for my hands; I still have a pair of human legs.