DEAR NEW READERS!!! STAY AWAY FROM THE COMMENTS!!!

There are SOOO many spoilers. I have tried to delete them, to tell people to stop— but unfortunately there are too many for me to keep up with. I have blocked countless accounts and it just doesn't work. I don't have to time to constantly comb through.

And rereaders, I am so glad you love this story enough to read it more than once, but... Shut the fuck up? Why're you ruining it for everyone else 😭 literally stop??? People reading this for the first time want to interact just like you did the first time you read it, and you're ruining it by commenting spoilers or commented "RR" on things they don't even realize are spoilers until later.

I foreshadowed a lot of things in this book. Commenting "RR" is STILL A SPOILER. I do block people, and if you happen to catch my eye while I'm scrolling through my notifications? You are going to be one of those people. How horrible is it that I have to tell first time readers to not read the literal comments of this story?

I know you're excited. I'm glad you like it! But you can like it without spoiling. Even if you're not saying anything specific, the places you're commenting are specific. You know who you are, you know what you're doing, please don't do it anymore.

New readers, I'm so sorry to you as well. Please avoid the comments if you don't want spoilers. I will try to clean them up, but I'm just one person and I have a life to live.

{Edited 4/10/21}

I warn you that at a point in this story, it seems like the OC is going to end up with Hitoshi. Go into this book knowing that is not the case and that my indecisive ass changed it midway through ((: This was my first BNHA story so it has a lot of plot holes! I hope you enjoy!

Third person pov

She sat in the back of the class just as she did everyday. Nobody really knew much about her, and they didn't bother to ask. They'd sort of forgotten she was there: years and years of silence causing her presence to somewhat fade. Lillian didn't really mind. In fact, she quite enjoyed the lack of attention. Her self-esteem was lower than her ability to successfully socialize, and she preferred video games over people, and music over conversation. That's just how she was, and she guessed there was nothing particularly wrong with that, right? She didn't know, and she sure wasn't about to try and figure it out.

Gazing out the window, Lillian's mind wandered. It often did on days like these. She thought of quirks. Hers, to be more exact. When one's quirk revealed itself, the wielder was required to inform someone. A parent, the teacher, the state or the province. Someone of higher authority who could get it recorded somewhere official. Lilian was ashamed to admit that when she discovered hers, she hadn't told a soul. It hadn't been a completely conscious choice, and it wasn't something she'd done to purposely hide the intricacies of her given power. 

It felt far too late to bring it up now. Would she be in trouble if she tried to tell someone after waiting for so long? She just couldn't believe that her, a girl hailing from two completely quirkless bloodlines, had been gifted with a power. One that could actually be of potential use if she learned to use it correctly. It simply wasn't something she couldn't wrap her head around. Quiet, semi-pathetic Lillian? With a quirk that actually seemed to have some sort of... of use?

The quirk was one that didn't have an official name. She'd searched for it, or even for something similar. The similarities she'd managed to dig up between her quirk and other's were few and far between, and too minimal to really note. No matter where she scoured, there simply wasn't one out there kin enough to it for her to base the title off of. So she'd come up with her own name, just so she could have something to call it. She'd titled it "Freeze Frame." 

Not the best name, she would admit, but it was something to call it in her head. A title. It made her feel a little better about it. Even with this name, she still didn't really know much about the quirk. Maybe the title wasn't as suitable as she thought. She'd probably never know, honestly. From what she could tell, she could completely freeze time in a specific area. Whatever was within her line of sight could be completely frozen with a blink of her eye. Birds would stop mid-air, and people would stop walking mid-step. It was amazing. Even trees blowing in the wind would go stock still, almost as though they were statues.

That wasn't the best part of her quirk. At least, not in her private opinion. The best part was that she could still move. She could enter the area she'd frozen and move around with relative ease, and it wouldn't come unfrozen until she wished it to or until keeping it paralyzed became too much for her to handle. The quirk had far more potential than Lillian would dare admit to. It was terrifying to think about the possibilities. The pressure that fell onto her when she considered them made her throat tight.

She hadn't used it all that much. Just a few tests she'd ran to try and figure out more about it, just out of curiosity. The amount of time she could freeze something wasn't dictated by a specific amount. There was no timer. It seemed to hold for however long she could handle it. The side effects varied in their severity based on what she'd frozen. Size and weight were key players, and the few times she'd actually frozen people had told her rather quickly that they were a lot harder to keep still compared to inanimate objects.

Another drawback, she noticed, was that the larger an area that she froze, the slower she seemed to get. She got exhausted, like she desperately needed a nap, and her stomach would begin to twist with excruciating cramps that made her think she was about to descend into the pits of hell itself. Larger areas had to be unfrozen sooner, lest her eyes burn out of her sockets. The itchiness that came over them was unmatched, and the irritation never failed to leave her looking like she'd just smoked a handful of blunts in one sitting.

Lillian had found rather quickly that she also couldn't freeze more than one scene at a time. She couldn't freeze something in front of her, and then turn around and also freeze what was behind her. It simply didn't work. She'd tried using mirrors a few times, but to no avail. The image on the mirror would freeze. The same thing worked with her camera. The camera itself would freeze with the image on it, but not the scene that had been displayed to her.

She remembered when she first got her quirk. She refused to let herself use it at all. Growing up with quirkless parents and relatives, she was honestly terrified of herself. You can imagine how terrified she was when everything in her kindergarten classroom froze. Nobody moved, or spoke, and it had scared her to no end. Lillian knew she'd been the one to do it. She just didn't know how, or why. She'd felt it inside her, like a switch flipping on. She just wished she'd known how to flip it back off at the time.

She'd fled the classroom. Presumably, as she got farther away, the scene unfroze. Scenes usually stayed frozen even if she was no longer looking at it. So long as she didn't attempt to freeze anything else, that is. It's a miracle nobody passed by the open door and saw everyone inside sitting stock still like they were. She wasn't sure what she would have done had she been found out. Maybe things would've been simpler that way. She wouldn't be stuck in the dilemma she was in now in that case.

Lillian could remember that day better than she could remember her parent's birthdays if she was being honest with herself. So now, ten years later at the age of fifteen, she was faced with a choice. She could choose to utilize her quirk to help others. Or, she could stay the shy, quirkless girl she'd always been all her life. Running and hiding was quite tempting in her opinion, but watching heroes fight and get hurt for the sake of others was absolutely awe inspiring. To see them leap into action and use their gifts for the benefit of the public never failed to draw out amazement in her. 

Of course, Lillian knew she couldn't be a hero. Not a good one, anyway. Oh no, no, no. She was far too weak for that, she told herself firmly. But maybe there was something she could do... just something. She wanted to help. There had to be something even she was capable of. With a quirk like hers, there was bound to be a task she could complete that would help other people. Though she'd probably never be able to save people like Present Mic did, something was better than nothing...

The freckled girl stared at the UA application on her desk. Her room was dim, the sun already beginning to set over the horizon. The application was filled out almost completely, only one box left blank. The box made Lillian's hand shake as she thought of completing it. It was just one line. One question. One question she'd been in denial about for years upon years now. It would certainly change her life to dare fill it out.

"What is the name of your quirk?"

It was nothing special, right? Not that big a deal in the least. Writing in down should have been no problem. The quirk wasn't even that impressive. Lillian wasn't impressive. It's not like she'd actually pass or anything of that sort. It wasn't even a thing, really. She just wanted to go and check it out, just so she could tell herself she'd tried! There would be loads of other people there. Maybe some of them wouldn't have any experience with their quirks... maybe some wouldn't have quirks at all! That was a possibility. If she got scared, she could pretend to be quirkless and back out. It would be fine. 

Lillian squinted, rolling her shoulders and trying her best to hype herself up. Beating around the bush would get her nowhere, fast. She had to do this. For herself, if no one else. There was no harm that could possibly come from it. If other people were going to do it, there wasn't a good reason she couldn't try. Even those with minor quirks were applying. She'd heard her classmates talking about it. The whole school was abuzz! It would be weirder if she didn't apply, right? Absolutely. Without a doubt! 

Taking a deep breath, Lillian shakily brought her pen to the page. In neat letters, she wrote two out words:

Freeze Frame