The Long Game
If you'd told me six months ago I'd be a regular at "group nap time," I'd have laughed in your face. I'd have laughed in the smug, well-rested face of anyone who thought lying in a row of tiny futons in the middle of the day was a normal social activity.
And yet here I was, an expert. A nap-time strategist. I had the perfect blanket fold — corners tucked so they didn't catch on my fingers — and my chosen prime real estate by the window for optimal breeze. I even developed the uncanny ability to wake up thirty seconds before the bell so I never had to experience the awkward moment of being gently shaken awake by the teacher.
It wasn't dignified, exactly, but dignity is overrated when you're five.
Adapting to kindergarten life in this world was like learning to swim in a shallow pool — you couldn't drown, but you could still get splashed in the face. The water here had quirks. Literally.
Everyone had some little thing going on. The girl who could make her crayons hover mid-air like lazy satellites. The boy whose laughter caused tiny pops of static in the air. Even the shy kid who accidentally made the classroom plants lean toward him whenever he walked by.
Me? I was just… me. Still quirkless. Still Kenjiro Ito. Still pretending that didn't bother me.
it had been four days since my first day of kindergarten, and I was already becoming dangerously comfortable with the whole "being five years old again" thing. I still hated how light my backpack felt, but I had to admit: naps, snack breaks, and zero adult responsibilities? There were worse fates.
That said, living in a world where 80% of people had superpowers—and I was firmly in the other 20%—meant every single day felt like a subtle reminder that I was the plain rice cracker in a bag of assorted flavored chips.
Four days was also long enough to realize something: fitting in here wasn't going to be about hiding the fact I was quirkless—it was going to be about not letting it define me. At least, that was my optimistic morning pep talk. The reality was… less clean.
The first time I noticed how differently kids with flashy quirks were treated was during snack time on Day Two.
We were sitting in a circle, happily munching on our bentos, when Hoshino—the kid who could make tiny sparkles appear from his hands—decided to "light up" the table. Literally. A small shower of glittery sparks danced over his rice balls, making them look like something out of a fairy-tale feast.
The other kids "oooh"ed and "aaah"ed.Then one of them, Kana, looked at me and asked, "What can you do?"
I had rice in my mouth, so I stalled. Chew. Swallow. Sip of water.
"I can eat without spilling anything," I said finally.
There was a brief pause. A polite chuckle from one kid. Then they went back to admiring Hoshino's sparkles.
No one meant harm—it was just kid logic. Cool thing? Attention. No cool thing? Pass. But it stuck with me.
By the end of the first week, I'd realized kindergarten social dynamics were less "survival of the fittest" and more "survival of the most interesting." If you could make people laugh, do something flashy, or share snacks, you got a spot in the inner circle.
Since I couldn't do the flashy part, I went for humor.Being older in my head gave me the unfair advantage of knowing jokes about taxes, existential dread, and caffeine addiction—none of which landed with a five-year-old audience. So I pivoted to slapstick and over-the-top reactions.
It wasn't much, but it was something.
By the two-week mark, I'd developed a routine.
Morning walk to school with Mom.
Class, snacks, crafts.
Avoid spilling glue on myself.
Nap time fake-out.
Playtime outside.
Go home, survive dinner conversation.
The world was still colorful in a way my old life never was. But I was starting to notice the gaps—moments when my classmates' quirks made life just that little bit easier for them.
One kid used his "long fingers" quirk to grab the soccer ball from halfway across the field. Another could hop like a frog and outrun the rest of us. It wasn't malicious—they weren't trying to exclude me—but I was quietly learning how much of this world was built with quirks in mind.
I started hanging out more with Saito, a quiet boy whose quirk was "color change" but only for his fingernails. Not flashy enough for the "cool" kids, but enough to make him feel like he had something. We bonded over drawing dinosaurs in the art corner and making up stories for them. Mine usually involved corporate espionage. His involved volcanoes.
Time Skip — One Month Later
It was strange how quickly the weeks blurred.
By now, the teachers knew me as "the responsible one" in class. I always lined up when told, never ran in the halls, and actually listened to instructions—mostly because it felt wrong to rebel as an adult trapped in a kid's body. The downside was, they sometimes paired me with the more chaotic kids to "set a good example."
That's how I ended up babysitting—uh, "collaborating with"—Tsubasa during art time. His quirk let him puff air from his cheeks like a leaf blower. Fun in theory, but when combined with paint? Disaster.
"You got some on your shirt," I told him, wiping a red splatter off my sleeve.
"It's art!" he declared proudly.
I sighed, but smiled. There was something about kids this age that was so wildly confident. Maybe that's why being quirkless hit harder for older kids—once you were old enough to compare, you started keeping score.
It was during outside play, on a sunny Thursday, when things shifted a little.
We were playing tag, and I was "it." I was closing in on another kid when he suddenly used his quirk—tiny bursts of wind at his feet—to speed ahead. The others laughed. I stopped chasing and caught my breath.
The teacher called us in, but I caught one of the boys muttering as we walked back. "Kenjiro's too slow."
It was harmless playground talk. But it lodged itself in my head.
That night at dinner, my dad asked about school. I told him it was fine. It was easier than saying, "I think people are starting to notice I'm different."
Time Skip — Three Months Later
By winter, I was "part of the furniture" in class. Not the star, not the troublemaker. Just… Kenjiro. The kid who told funny stories, always brought his pencils, and didn't have a quirk.
It wasn't like anyone bullied me. This age was still too early for that kind of thing to get serious. But the small comments piled up—"Oh, you can't reach that?" "Want me to do it with my quirk?" "You're pretty fast for someone without powers."
I learned to laugh them off. My older brain told me it wasn't worth getting upset. But the five-year-old body? It still felt that sting.
Still, I was adapting. I'd joined the block-building group during free play, partly because I liked architecture and partly because blocks didn't care if you had superpowers.
And maybe that was my quiet victory: finding spaces where quirks didn't matter.
By the time spring rolled around, I had stopped thinking about my "old life" every day. My memories were fading, replaced by this new reality.
Kenjiro Ito. Quirkless. Five years old. Just trying to live in a world that seemed determined to measure worth in powers.
The strange thing? I was okay with that