Chapter Text
"The concept of time is self-evident. An hour consists of a certain number of minutes, a day of hours and a year of days. Time passes by non-stop, and we follow it with the help of clocks and calendars. Time is represented through change, such as the circular motion of the moon around Earth. Thus, the passing of time is indeed closely connected to the concept of space.
According to the general theory of relativity, the universe emerged from the Big Bang some 13 billion years ago. Before that, all matter was packed into an extremely tiny dot that contained the matter that later came to be the sun, the earth and the moon- the heavenly bodies that tell us about the passing of time.
Before the Big Bang, there was no space or time.
According to the general theory of relativity, the development of space may result in the collapse of the universe. All matter would shrink into a tiny dot again, which would end the concept of time as we know it."
-University of Helsinki
Life is easier when you’re a child. Children playing in a playground don’t care, just yet, if the person they’re chasing has a quirk at the tender age of three and four. After all, it was just barely time for their Quirks to begin manifesting.
However, it was an inevitable truth that once their Quirks came in- things would change. The strength and flashiness of one’s Quirk predetermined how their life would turn out.
Perhaps it was the fault of the adults that their children would have to live and survive in such a world, perhaps they should be doing something about it. Or perhaps, the next generation would be able to deal with it and fix it themselves.
“Jun? Jun!”
A blond boy paused in his running, causing the other boy running behind him to crash into him as they landed in a heap on the ground.
Undeterred, the boy answered his mother as he hopped up back to his feet. “Yeah, ma?”
Maki Yasuda smiled at her son. “Your appointment?” She reminded him. Eyes alight, Jun said farewell to his friends and skipped his way toward his mother. It was time for him to see the Quirk Specialist.
Quirk Specialists and Counselors were in charge of determining what a Quirk did and any side effects it could cause to the user- which included helping them grow into their Quirks safely. When a child first manifests their Quirk, it’s imperative that they schedule an appointment as soon as possible.
Jun’s parents, Maki and Kichiro, didn’t have powerful Quirks. Maki could release aromas from her skin, so long as she had smelled them before, while Kichiro could spit paint from his mouth. Jun, however…
“Incredible.” The Quirk Doctor, a Mr. Ashita, whispered in awe.
Inside a translucent bubble, Jun’s parents and Mr. Ashita watched shredded pieces of paper mend back together to its original form before they had torn it apart. The writing on the piece of paper was as pristine as before. The little blond boy, seated on a chair, let go of the breath he had unknowingly held while performing his Quirk. The bubble popped and the paper gently floated to the ground.
Jun Yasuda, Quirk: Time Bubble. Small glands on the insides of his cheeks allowed him to produce bubbles that would then leave his mouth in varied sizes at his discretion. He could then direct those bubbles toward their target until it enveloped the target, whether it be partially or completely. Inside the bubbles, Jun could control the state of the objects inside- reversing, speeding up, or even pausing the state of the object in time.
“I couldn’t have imagined his Quirk would turn out like this.” Maki sighed, running a hand through her son’s hair. Her son had taken after his father, skin a warm ivory while she herself was a pale blue. “I have a sister who’s Quirk involves bubbles, but I don’t know where the time aspect came from.”
Mr. Ashita sat back in his chair with a shrug. “Quirks are passed through genetics, some manage to skip a generation or two. It’s possible that either of you had someone with a time Quirk, somewhere in your family tree.”
“Time Quirks are valuable, though.” Kichiro said softly, rubbing his hands together. He looked up at the Quirk doctor. “Is there any way to keep his Quirk on the downside?”
Mr. Ashita hummed. “I know what you mean, anybody would love to have your son’s Quirk. I can’t lie on the Quirk Registry, but I can make it vague enough to hide the true nature.” He offered quietly, and Jun's parents smiled gratefully.
“Thank you so much.”
Mr. Ashita nodded, looking at Jun with a contemplative look. “I’m going to ask you to keep an eye on him when he uses his Quirk. Quirks usually have drawbacks, or limits, but I wasn’t able to see any during this visit.” He informed them. “Time Quirks can be finicky, not to mention extremely rare. There’s not much information I can pull from to help you.”
Maki nodded seriously, patting her son’s head, “We’ll keep an eye out.”
“Does this mean I can be a hero?” Jun asked, looking up at his parents with wide eyes. He didn’t understand everything the adults were saying, but he kind of understood that his Quirk was a big deal. If his Quirk was a big deal, wouldn’t that mean it would be good enough to help him become a Pro Hero like Aunt Kaoruko?
Maki and Kichiro smiled at their son, the mother picking up the child and hugging him tightly. “It means you can be whatever you want.” She whispered as she squeezed him.
With a smile, Jun squeezed back.
Jun had been one of the first kids in his class to get his Quirk, so most of the kids had bombarded him with Questions about his Quirks and for demonstrations. Once they saw all he was making was bubbles, however, most of the kids lost interest.
The one kid that stayed, a boy named Maito, was the only one Jun disclosed the true nature of his Quirk to.
“Really?” Maito gasped, eyes wide with wonder as they gazed at the small bubble hovering in the air.
Jun grinned. “Wanna see?” At Maito’s enthusiastic nod, Jun grabbed a toothpick from the desk and snapped it in half. He then tossed the broken pieces into the bubble and narrowed his eyes in concentration.
The two boys watched the pieces gravitate toward each other, slowly stitching back together. With a gasp from Jun, the bubble popped and the reverted toothpick dropped to the ground.
Maito picked up the toothpick in awe, turning it over in his hands. “That’s so cool!” He said loudly, causing some of the other kids to look their way. Jun hushed his friend hurriedly.
“I’m not supposed to be showing other people until I’m older.” Jun disclosed with a pout.
Maito nodded quickly, then grinned secretively with a finger on his lips. “It’s our secret, then!” He whispered.
Jun was nearly six when it happened.
“Jun! Jun!”
The blond boy looked up to see one of his classmates from school running toward him and the swing he was on. The other boy stopped beside him as Jun continued to swing happily.
“Ju-Jun!”
Jun looked over at the boy, who was now out of breath, and kicked his legs out again. “Hey, Maito!” He came back from the air, and finally stopped himself by planting his feet on the ground. “What’s up?”
“It’s my sister…” The five year old sniffled, rubbing his sleeve harshly under his nose, “S-She’s really sick! Jun, you have to help her! You have to use your quirk on her, you can m-make her not sick, right?”
Jun looked at the ground beside Maito’s feet. “I’m n-not sure I can actually do that, Maito. My parents usually have me fix broken things around the house.” He said, uncertain, “I haven’t actually used my quirk on a per-person before.”
“Please! My parents are re-really worried! She was doing fine until last night!”
Jun stared for a few seconds longer, then nodded his head in determination. “I’ll help!” He declared, hopping off the swing.
“Thank you!”
Maito informed Jun on their way to his house that his parents weren’t currently home. “They’re picking up her medicine.” He whispered, wringing his hands together and still sniffling. “But I heard my mommy crying, and my dad was yelling at the phone so I got really worried.”
Maito’s sister really was sick, it was obvious the moment Jun entered her room. Her face was entirely too pale for her to be healthy, and her breaths came out in rasps. Jun had met Maito’s sister before, but she was almost unrecognizable with her cheeks sunken in. Her hair was practically gone.
“Please, Jun. I don’t want to lose my sister!” Maito pleaded, kneeling next to his sister and clutching her hand.
Jun shifted nervously, kneeling next to his friend and beginning to blow a bubble from his lips. He had never made a big bubble before, usually sticking to small ones that could easily fit a pencil or leaf inside. He continued fueling the bubble with the liquid that came from the glands inside his mouth, watching the bubble begin to touch the ground and envelope Maito’s sister.
Maito backed up with wide eyes when the bubble almost got him, but Jun managed to reel the bubble back in and focus on only covering Maito’s sister.
Once the bubble had fully surrounded the small girl, Jun and Maito flinched as she suddenly began floating inside the bubble. They shared a glance, but Jun tore his eyes away and closed them in concentration. His nose scrunched up as he focused on that familiar feeling of using his quirk. In the back of his head was a ticking noise, ticking faster until Jun forced it to slow down then stop altogether. With a huff, he forced the imaginary clock hand in his head to go counterclockwise with difficulty.
Jun didn’t know how long he’d been using his quirk, but suddenly his concentration broke and his eyes snapped open just in time to see the bubble pop and the two boys rushed to catch Maito’s sister before she hit the ground.
A little bit of color had returned to her cheeks, an improvement from before, but she was still fast asleep.
“Did it work?” Maito whispered.
Jun almost didn’t hear his friend over his heavy breathing, the ticking noise in his head not ceasing and beginning to form a headache. “I…I don’t know.” He said quietly, catching his breath but feeling dizzy.
“Maito!”
The children startled, looking up to find Maito’s parents in the doorway.
“I-It’s okay!” Maito got to his feet quickly, pointing at Jun. “Jun was helping her!”
Maito’s mom looked upset as she walked over, checking over her daughter with fretful hands. “Help her how? Isn’t Jun’s Quirk bubbles or something? Bubbles won’t help your sister, Maito.” She stressed, picking the small girl up into her arms.
Maito glanced at Jun for only a second and, ignoring Jun’s frantic head shakes, said, “Jun can reverse time! I thought it could help Rie!”
Maito’s parents' heads snapped toward Jun, eyes in disbelief. Maito’s dad looked at him, and shook his head. Turning back to his son, he crouched in front of Maito. “Son, I know you’re worried about your sister, but Jun can’t help.” He said placidly, hugging his son tightly.
“No, I’m telling the truth.” Maito insisted while Jun awkwardly got to his feet. “He mended a toothpick together before after breaking it! I saw it!”
“I’m so sorry, Jun. I’ll call your mother to come pick you up.” Maito’s mom apologized while Maito continued to insist that Jun was only helping.
A week later, Maito’s sister’s condition worsened and she passed away almost a month later. Maito hadn’t quite understood his sister’s sickness, understanding it as a cold that was taking longer than usual to go away. He’d gotten a little nervous when his sister’s hair started falling out, and when they shaved it, but his parents had promised him it was what Rie had wanted,
Rie, unfortunately, couldn’t win her battle against cancer.
“You’re such a liar!” Maito surged forward to try and grab Jun, teachers grabbing the inconsolable boy and attempting to soothe him. “Your Quirk is useless, it’s just fancy bubbles that can’t help anyone!”
Jun flinched, yet continued to stand tall through his tears even as he felt the stares of his other classmates.
“If it had done its job right, my sister wouldn’t have died! You killed her!” Maito screamed, and a sob escaped Jun. “You and your stupid Quirk killed her! You’ll never be a hero!”
“I’m sorry.” Jun whispered.
Maito screamed.
The pale face of Maito’s sister haunted Jun’s dreams for months, until it had been nearly half a year since her death. Maito had slowly turned the class against him, and Jun’s parents eventually decided it was best for Jun to be moved to a new school.
Jun kept his Quirk under wraps this time, letting the other kids tease him for being the school’s Bubble Blower as they called him. Jun thought he deserved to be teased and allowed the bullying to continue.
For a while, Jun didn’t use his Quirk.
He learned that even when he wasn’t using his Quirk, his body continued to produce the liquid substance in his glands. So every night, he would spit as much as he could into the sink whenever his mouth got too full. Then, while other kids worried about their regular school work, Jun studied Quirks.
Illnesses could only be helped with actual healing quirks or medicine, not a quirk that could reverse the time of the person because then that person’s body would eventually just return to the state it had been before Jun used his quirk on them. Speeding up the body would likely worsen the person’s condition without the antibiotics and medicine needed to help the cells fight. Pausing would only delay the help the cells needed once they were stuck in limbo.
He can’t control the future, so he couldn’t make it so that Maito’s sister never got sick again. However, it was an entirely different matter if his quirk was used on a paper cut that would heal on its own. Time Bubble would be able to speed up the natural healing process, or simply reverse the damage caused to the tissue.
When it was time for him to graduate elementary school, Jun didn’t choose to go to a prestigious school nor did he want to go to the one in his district- he hadn’t seen Maito since he switched schools, and he wasn’t eager for a reunion. So, he went with Aldera Junior High in the neighboring district. It was a rather small school, and Jun could tell by the end of the first week that the staff cared highly for the students with strong and flashy Quirks.
It wasn’t a problem for Jun, he rather liked flying under the radar. Every now and then he’d be teased for having a simple bubble Quirk, but it was tolerable. After all, there were worse Quirks and some kids still found his Quirk interesting even without the time aspect.
He could still trap objects, even people, inside his bubbles and they would be gravity free while inside. Some of the kids liked the feeling of weightlessness and after some convincing, Jun had been used for a period of time just for the thrill.
Then, Katsuki Bakugo turned the pyramid on its head with his explosive Quirk in his second year.
The teachers were all over the first year, the boy preening from the attention. If Jun had to name a turning point, it would be Bakugo’s appearance at Aldera.
Jun learned soon after that he couldn’t sit idle.
“He’s going a bit too far this time, don’t you think?”
“Nah, Deku deserves to learn his place.”
“What about the teachers?”
Jun slowed on his way to his next class, walking beside a friend as they encountered a large crowd surrounding what could only be a fight. However, once Jun saw what was happening, a fight was a bit of a stretch. In the middle of it all was Bakugo and with him was a familiar green headed boy.
Izuku Midoriya, the only Quirkless teen in probably the whole district- if not prefecture.
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” The words left Jun’s mouth before he’d even thought it through, and then he was pushing his way to the front of the crowd. Bakugo paused, hand hovering over a cowering Midoriya.
“Eh? What do you want, extra?” Bakugo’s hand exploded threateningly, his glare shooting daggers at Jun. “Mind your business!”
“Yasuda, what are you doing?” Juro Ohta, a fellow second year student, pulled at his sleeve nervously. “That kid is crazy, just leave it be.”
Jun shrugged off the hand and looked at the rest of the students. “You really think this is okay?” He asked the crowd, some shouting back that the Quirkless boy deserved the treatment. Jun scoffed, blood rushing through his ears and a familiar ticking noise in the back of his head. He looked back at Bakugo with a jutted chin. “You’re that first year striving to be a Pro Hero, right?” His eyes narrowed. “You really think you can be a hero? Acting like this?”
Bakugo sneered, dropping Midoriya, and clenching his fists. His hands began to explode in quick, tiny bursts. “Shut up, extra! I’m going to be the greatest hero of all time!” He snapped, raising a still exploding hand. “Deku just needs to get it through his thick skull to leave the hero business to those with Quirks.”
“Hey, isn’t he that second year with the bubble Quirk?” One student realized, peering at Jun.
“What business do you have telling Bakugo what to do with a lame Quirk like that?” demanded another student, a long finger pointing at Jun’s face.
Jun pushed the finger out of his face with a roll of his eyes. Midoriya was still on the ground, eyes darting between Jun and Bakugo nervously. “Listen, I gotta be at my next class in, like, two minutes so let’s all just go about our merry little ways without a fuss.” With that, Jun took a glance at Midoriya and began walking away as the crowd parted.
The only warning Jun got were gasps of the other students before he was thrown to the ground. He rolled onto his back, a bubble spewing from his lips and encasing Bakugo inside. Unused to the feeling of weightlessness, the younger teen flailed angrily about inside the bubble as the crowd laughed at his predicament.
“YOU CRAPPY EXTRA!” Bakugo screamed, hands exploding and causing the bubble to pop and drop him on the floor roughly.
Jun stepped back, narrowly dodging the first punch but failing to avoid an explosion to the hand coming up to shield his face. He bit back a curse as he cradled it to his chest, another bubble forming but this time wrapping around Jun himself. He’d made this particular bubble with a bit more energy, his effort not being wasted as Bakugo failed to break the bubble.
Unknowingly, the burns on his hand began to heal as the ticking in his head grew louder and the crowd gasped as they watched the phenomenon happen before their eyes.
“What’s going on over there? Get to class, now!”
Jun’s bubble popped, the teen dropping to a knee and hurriedly standing as the crowd scattered. Bakugo slinked off as he sent one last glare toward Jun. Midoriya was already gone, leaving only Ohta who was staring at Jun with a dropped jaw.
Jun began dragging the open mouthed Ohta away toward their next class as he began to sweat. He was cursing under his breath by the time they snuck into their next class, having to shove a still shocked Ohta into his seat as he apologized for their tardiness.
“Dude, what the h-” Ohta whispered, Jun cutting him off with a stern glare while catching up with the notes on the chalkboard. “You better explain to me later.” He settled with a huff.
He hadn’t used the time aspect of his Quirk on a person, much less himself, since… the ticking in his head was getting hard to ignore as his leg bounced up and down.
By the time lunch came around, word had spread about Jun’s actual Quirk as the stares soon became impossible to shrug off. Eventually, Jun knew, someone was going to ask. Unfortunately, someone already was.
“Bro, you told everyone it was just bubbles!” Ohta exclaimed once they sat down with their food. “So, what is it really? Healing? Accelerated Healing? C’mon, man, you can tell me!” He gasped and leaned in. “Is it possible that you actually have one of those super rare time Quirks?”
Jun winced in on himself, then cursed himself for reacting as Ohta pumped his fist into the air and congratulated himself for guessing correctly.
“Man, that’s awesome though!” He roughly patted Jun’s back, the blond boy nearly choking on his drink. “I can’t believe you’d keep that part of your Quirk hidden. You would have had the entire school loving you from the start!”
“I could care less if the school loved me or not.” Jun muttered under his breath, shoveling more food into his mouth in frustration as a kid in the corner of his eyes attempted to scoot closer to the conversation without being noticed. He side-eyed the student, who averted his eyes and scooted back to where he’d been sitting before. “This school is freaking Quirkist.”
Ohta was silent for a moment, leaving Jun to peacefully eat his lunch until, “Yeah, but you don’t have anything to worry about now, right?”
Jun snapped his head toward the other boy in disbelief, then stood up with his tray and walked away.
“Yasuda? Yasuda!” Ohta called after him, the other students in the cafeteria following the blond with their eyes as he walked out of the lunchroom after dumping his tray.
The news must’ve reached the teachers at some point because they all suddenly became more accommodating toward him. When he used to be told he had to turn in his unfinished paper the same time as everyone else, he was now being given a slight extension. The teachers that used to gloss over him were now praising him whenever he answered a simple question correctly.
Jun was sick of it.