Chapter 343 Introduced New Hotties And All I Can Think About Is That The Cheetah-print Abomination Is

#22

18-year-old Daniel sprung out of bed and ran out of his home, still in his pajamas. He ran until he reached the gates of J High, then up the stairs and burst into his classroom like hell was biting at his heels. The room was empty save for one boy that always got to school early.

Jay rose from his seat, concern painting his delicate face and Daniel froze in his tracks, eyes roaming for any injuries he knew logically weren't there. He had to make sure- He had to!

"You're okay!" He breathed a sigh of unbearable relief, the with of the world now gone from his shoulders.

Jay regarded him momentarily before nodding and stepping closer to the panting boy as if to pressure him that he was alright. He didn't expect that the moment he got within reach Daniel would grab his arm and pull him into a desperate hug that he melted into. The boy's hand lingered around his neck and Jay wondered if he could feel the skin beath his touch grow warmer, thankful for once that at least his face was buried in the other's chest so that he wouldn't see him blushing. The blond waited for Danny to finish checking for whatever it was that had him in such a state, noting that with each place he searched and found unblemished his shoulders would sag more, until bit by bit he relaxed entirely.

The baffled but relieved boy cupped Jay's cheek and brought his face up and close to his, taking in the sight of him like a starved man. Finally, he gave one last sigh and angled his head so that he could rest his forehead on his. He simply reveled in the moment for a bit, pretending like he didn't hear the blonde's sharp intake of breath, before pulling back.

"I'm sorry if I scared you...I think I just had a nightmare," Daniel rasped, unwilling to cause him even more worry. Gods, I must've lost my bloody mind or something! Jay just gave him a gentle smile and nodded understandingly before motioning for his desk.

The repetitive rhythm of tic-tac-toe allowed him to contemplate that morning's events. He had acted irrationally, there was no doubt about that, but the situation hadn't left much room for cold logic, not when time had once again dripped in reverse just as he and his crew had lost their lives.

The first time it had happened he had cried out joyfully, thinking that was his second chance. Only, it hadn't turned out as he had planned. He still ended up dead, but this time he hadn't been the only one. Daniel closed his eyes and envisioned the bloody bools in which the broken bodies of his allies, his friends had laid. His stomach churned at the memory of their cold dead eyes straight right through him and the pencil in his hand snapped.

"Ah, sorry!" He distractedly apologized to his friend, who shook his head to indicate that it wasn't a big deal. Danny let his head fall onto the table with a soft thump. "I think I'm a bit more out of sorts than I realized, sorry about your pencil Jay!"

The boy reached, at first hesitantly, and pat his head lightly as if to say it didn't matter. Daniel leaned into the touch, prompting him to begin gently playing with his hair until he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Danny had, in fact, not fallen asleep just yet. He pondered more so than he had the first time how time travel worked and how it was possible that it happened twice [Oh, boy! You have no idea!]. Undoubtedly, he was thankful for this chance to right his wrongdoing. The first time he had awoken two years in the past he had been rash, eager to save people he had no business saving and in the process losing those he shouldn't have lost. The memories haunted him, but that was good! This way he wouldn't forget. This way he would never make the same mistakes twice. This way he would learn to be cautious, even if it had to be drilled into his bones!

Daniel Park made an oath to himself that autumn morning, that he wouldn't repeat his mistakes and that he wouldn't lose anyone this time. To his credit, he stuck to it. He lived a long happy life surrounded by those dear to him and put an end to any unsavory activities that could harm them. He was a hero...too bad heroes never get a happy ending~

18-year-old Daniel sprung from his bed...and froze.

It hadn't worked.

He was back.

Why was he back?!

[Daniel Park is 18 by Korean standards and 16 by U.S. standards but I used the former in this.]

Quotes from my WIP

“I am, despite popular belief, not in any way shape or form cute and fluffy. I pay taxes, I should be feared! “- Mort

#1

Danny didn't expect a lot of weirdness when he started this loop. He was sorely mistaken.

The realization came to him when he realized he had retained the previous loop's features and still looked like a 25-year-old gangster, tattoos and all. Not to mention he was staring down at the tiny version of one Johan Seong.

Taking a deep breath of his cigarette he allowed himself another glance downwards, which he immediately regretted.

"Could you give me your shoes?' Johan looked up at him with his big brown eyes shining with a sort of innocence Daniel had never seen on the boy before.

He exhaled the smoke upwards, as far away from the little one's face as possible, then crouched down and extinguished his cigarette on the pavement while his free hand reached into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a wad of cash that had seemingly traversed back with him and handed it to the wide-eyed boy with the gentlest smile he could manage.

"Take care of yourself" He ruffled little Johan's hair before getting back up and continuing down the sidewalk.

Without hurrying he made his way to a hotpot restaurant, keenly aware of his little shadow. He stopped right in front of it and turned around startling the boy so badly that he instinctively cowered.

"Have you had anything to eat yet?" The man asked, softening his expression so as not to frighten the boy more than he already had.

Johan shook his head and Daniel gestured for him to go in. He marveled at the boy's innocence as his eyes grew larger and he sprinted into the hotpot shop with an expression of childish glee that tugged at the older's heartstrings. This boy had not yet lost the spark in his eyes, though judging by his appearance he had already suffered through the whole cult ordeal.

Daniel chuckled at his enthusiasm and allowed Johan to choose what to order while they sat down next to each other.

"Hey mister, you're really nice!" The boy exclaimed, biting into a piece of meat. "You didn't even kick me when I asked for your shoes and gave me money and everything!"

Danny hummed back while swallowing his own food before wiping a trail of broth off the boy's chin. Johan watched him with keen eyes but didn't lean back or in. It was like the boy was trying to decide whether to be suspicious or revel in this tiny moment of affection that made him feel all fuzzy and warm inside. His mommy used to make him feel like that a long time ago when he was really little but hadn't done so since. Adults only play nice when they want something from you, he reminded himself when the tall dark-haired man retracted his hand and placed the crumbled napkin back on the table before returning to his meal. Something about him made Johan feel safe, something he hadn't felt since they had taken his mommy away, and made him want to cling to him. That's why he had followed him in the first place.

Seeing the boy lost in thought Daniel suppressed a tiny smirk and gently flickered his forehead, only hard enough to wake him from his reverie. He was rewarded with a pout that almost made him coo, but the boy's attention quickly went back to his remaining meal which he once more began to swallow feverishly.

"Slow down." The man chided while handing him a glass of water when Johan accidentally choked.

His actions seemed to have taken a more paternal turn ever since his eyes had landed on the tiny boy, but he didn't really care at the moment. Every bone in his imposing body screamed to take the boy home, wrap him in a blanket and protect him from this cruel world but he suppressed such thoughts. Although his morals had long since been distorted he had yet to completely lose his sense of boundaries. Kidnapping a child wouldn't do, not when he himself seemed to always get into trouble somehow. He didn't even have a place to stay at the moment, so that plan went out the window before it even began.

"Hey, mister", a tiny, high-pitched voice put a stop to his spiraling thought and his tired black eyes clashed with bright brown innocent ones, "what's your name?"

Daniel almost got whiplash with how suddenly his other thoughts paused but didn't show any outward signs of his newfound weakness. The child was making him soft.

"Daniel", he wiped his mouth with a napkin, "and you?"

"I'm Johan!"

His enthusiasm seemed to be infectious because he soon found himself smiling and humming while following along with the small brunette as he chatted about anything and everything. Yep, the child was definitely making him soft. And wasn't that a weirdly welcome surprise?

----------------

In the following days, the two of them kept bumping into each other, and each time they did they ended up back at the same hotpot restaurant.

Daniel had gotten a job at a nearby supermarket that reminded him of his old convenience store, with the added bonus that it paid better and no one dared to look down on him (not that most even could anyway). That way he had the funds to keep taking little Johan to eat at least once a week, although he had yet to find a place for himself. That particular thing wasn't really a problem, since he had long since learned the best sleeping spots in the city during some of his past loops and no one dared to attack him while he slept, out of fear.

In the last loop, Daniel had gotten really jacked up and covered most of his upper body in tattoos symbolizing various things, from his friends to events from other loops and so forth. Unless you really paid attention you probably couldn't tell what they meant, since the man had paid special attention to hiding such details in the very images representing them.

That evening, as he was making his way back from his job Daniel stumbled over a sight that made his blood boil. On the ground was a brunette little lump, covered in blood and bruises, with shards of broken glass and pieces of broken bottles surrounding it. Burying his anger deep in his chest the man stumbled to the child's side, crouching down to take a better look at the damage. No one other than him was around, but it didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened.

With his foot, he nudged away most of the glass before kneeling over the unmoving Johan. He breathed a sigh of relief after finding a pulse, took off his ratty black trench coat, and scooped the bundle up into it. Careful not to hold him too tight and risk making his injuries worse Daniel made his way quickly to one of his nearby hideouts in an old abandoned building. Johan stirred and let out a weak whimper when he bangs climbing the crumbling stairs.

"It's okay, just hang on for a little longer. You'll be okay." He hushed the child suppressing the urge to cuddle him until he felt better no matter how much his chest ached at the notion of having to prolong his pain.

"Just a little longer" He promised the half-conscious boy, finally reaching the floor he had claimed as his own.

Without letting go of Johan he reached underneath an old, rotten dresser and pulled out a backpack that was obviously newer than anything else in this room, though, upon a closer inspection, one could see that it was missing a strap and looked torn in places. Daniel didn't once stop whispering reassurances and praise for how well he was doing as he removed the shard from his skin and bandaged the cuts. While relieved that the boy didn't seem to have any broken bones, he still gritted his teeth while applying cream to the patches of sickening blue and yellow covering his skin and wrapping his wounds.

Once he was finished dressing his wounds he wrapped the boy in one of his jackets and placed him on a relatively clean mattress he had managed to procure from a lovely lady at a yard sale, allowing himself a moment to marvel at how much younger and smaller he looked while sleeping. That night he didn't sleep, instead guarding Johan and making plans on returning the favor tenfold to those who had dared to lay their filthy hands on his kid.

When the first rays of sunlight slipped through the cracked window Johan began to stir. His whole body hurt, but not as much as it had when those guys beat him up. He was on something soft and he cuddled into the warmth before his mind caught up with his awake body. Warmth? He lurched forward in a panic before a pair of big warm hands gently pushed his back.

"Hey, hey, it's okay, you're safe."

He didn't recognize the voice at first but his brain automatically associated it with safety so he relaxed and allowed himself to be pushed back into what he now realized was a jacket almost three times his size in which he had been wrapped in. The pain in his back flared, but he pushed it away in favor of analyzing the room.

It didn't look like anything special. The walls were cracked and the paint had fallen off in some places. He was laying on a mattress that looked like a dog had bitten off one of its corners. Opposite him was an old wooden table with two plastic chairs that didn't belong to the same set on either side of it and next to it was a dresser that looked like it had come straight out of a haunted victorian mansion.

Finally, Johan's eyes landed on the figure at the foot of his bed and a shy smile bloomed on his battered face. Daniel returned it even wider while leaning towards him and placing a calloused palm on his forehead. The action made him fidget, but he soon calmed down when the man took his hand back, seemingly satisfied.

"Where does it hurt?"

The boy's first reaction was to deny that there was anything wrong with him but the look in Danny's eyes made him think otherwise. Timidly he pointed at the parts where he could still feel the pain, watching with bated breath as the man's expression seemed to grow darker and darker.

Finally, he hummed in the way Johan had learned to distinguish as him having gotten what he wanted and let out a deep breath. Although his hand itched for a cigarette, he remained steadfast in his refusal to smoke anywhere near the boy these days. Instead, he forced on a blank expression and began rummaging through the backpack. He pulled out a bottle of water and a store-bought sandwich and handed them to the child after checking the expiration date.

He made sure that the copycat didn't choke while wolfing down the slightly stale sandwich and reflexively wiped the crumbs off his cheeks after he had finished, lamenting at how sunken they were. He resolved to hound the boy to go with him to the hotpot store more often, if only to make sure he ate enough.

"Why?"

"Mhm?"

"Why-Why did you take me to your place? Why did you take care of me and feed me? You haven't asked for anything back? I-I don't have anything to give you! I can't-"

The boy's broken tirade was cut off by a pair of scarred but warm hands circling around his trembling frame and bringing him into someone's chest. The dam broke, and tears began flowing down his pale cheeks like waterfalls. He didn't even know why he was crying, but the building ache in his chest seemed to have finally bubbled to the surface and overwhelmed him. It wasn't fair! Why did this stranger he had met not even a month ago care for him more than his mommy did? Why? Why couldn't he be a normal kid? Why couldn't he go to school, and make friends, and play with toys?

Daniel listened to the little one wrapped in his arms choke on his own sobs and hiccups while mumbling unintelligibly and his heart shattered. The unfairness of it all hit him straight on and at that moment he found that he didn't care if his shirt was wet with tears and snot and bits of saliva, nor did he care that his work would start in half an hour. He could afford to lose his job (even if it would be a rather nasty blow to his income) if it meant that the little boy who was drifting off to sleep on his chest, having already tired himself out crying, wouldn't be alone when he woke up.

No, he thought clutching Johan closer to himself, he wouldn't let him be alone again. He wouldn't abandon him and he would do his darned best so that he would get a normal childhood.

I am sorry but it has been bothering me for a while so i have to ask this...

Where in the actual freak is #7 of time loop au?

That is all.

— Take care and stay safe!

Eat healthy food and stay hydrated❣️

(I am sorry if i came up as being rude i didn't mean it in a rude way Really)

Hi, thank you for the ask <3

#7 from the time loop au is marked as Mature because it contains violence, so not everybody can see it. It's basically one of the early loops when Danny had to kill for the first time and just the angst that comes with it. I didn't want to put it out there without the label because it contains some gory bits and mentions of declining mental health.

Everybody knows me differently. Some know me as a monster, while others hail me as a saint. To many I am a saviour of sorts... others tell their children scary stories of me, as a cruel villain, at night.

  Many know of me, yet few know me. They call out to me, although I have no name, and sing me praises, despite their voices never reaching my ears.

   Beneath rays of moonlight they pray to me and bring me offerings of flesh and metal, but I am unable to aswer their pleas and soothe their pain. Upon finding out this truth they curse me out, only to later return to me either out of fear, regret or even more greed. They lay down their short mortal lives for me, out of desire for things I cannot gift them.

   For I am their god, and I am powerless.

Danny: So that’s my plan. Zack: Are you alright with constructive criticism? I don’t want to sound mean. Danny: No, go ahead, I want to hear it. Zack: It fucking sucks. Danny: That’s not constructive criticism.

#7

Daniel wasn't born invincible, although most people wouldn't be able to tell you that. Even in the first loop, he had first crawled through the filth before reaching the top. But it hadn't been enough. This is why, in every loop after that one, for at least a few dozen of them he had approached people like Gun, Goo, and Diego to teach him. Some were harder to convince than others and some would downright refuse to teach him until he found a way to prove to them he was worthy. He had to do things that he didn't dare to remember some days.

He remembered the first time he was made to kill.

His second loop, Gun had been much crueler than he usually was. He made his two masterpieces fight to the death, just for the sake of it. Daniel orphaned a little girl that day. He couldn't bare to look in the mirror for weeks, but he pushed on. He needed to be stronger! So, the boy-turned-killer gritted his teeth and force-fed himself sleeping pills every night.

The second time he killed it came much easier.

Perhaps because he was still reeling from the first one. It was only a few weeks after Eli's blood had covered his hands that another lay before him with his neck broken. It had been so easy it was gut-churning, like breaking a particularly tough twig. He emptied the contents of his stomach in a bush nearby, but couldn't find it in himself to regret it very much. It was horrifying to realize he regretted getting caught and ending up in juvie more than killing Zoe's stalker.

The third time's the charm, right? It wasn't.

That night he stumbled into a bar and drank himself into obliviousness to forget the feeling of a too-small boy beneath the tips of his fingers. He had killed a kid, not much younger than himself, a year at maximum, but a kid! The feeling of bile rising in his throat hadn't left him for the entire loop. When he woke up he was in a cell, with policemen looking down at him with a mix of disgust and horror. They regarded him as a monster, and Daniel deserved it. It didn't take long to get a confession out of him and back to juvie he went. It didn't matter, the phantom touch lingering whenever he clutched his fist was still there.

When the fourth came he still cried.

By the time of the fifth, he lost his appetite completely.

The sixth came with mandatory visits to the therapist's office.

The seventh brought on a new therapist and sturdier cuffs.

It helped, incredibly. There was no more killing in that loop, and the couple that followed.

The eight was accidental, and it left Daniel screaming and crying, and vomiting hysterically. He wasn't locked up for that one, but he somehow found his way back to the therapist's office. The first one he tried had left him with a bitter taste on his tongue. The second one knew exactly which buttons to push. It was a miracle Daniel didn't end up with a ninth corpse to the ever-growing pile attached to his name.

Finally, after a lot of breakdowns and unhelpful psychologists, Danny ended up meeting a nice lady by the name of Robin Lim, who managed, with an amount of ungodly patience and calm, to get through to him. It wasn't a sudden catharsis that left him feeling the office a thousand tons lighter, but it was like the steady flow of a stream, growing quicker and bigger every day until he could finally breathe without feeling like he was choking on air.

Robin remained Daniel's therapist for over eight loops until he finally came to terms with what he had and most likely would again do. He managed to establish a system of what to do when it happened again and how to manage his inner turmoil so that it didn't spill into something dangerous, either for himself or others.

While the looping had the effect of twisting his morals to the extreme sometimes, Daniel was always careful to keep a grip on his emotions and try to use the techniques Robin had taught him to regulate those that could become a threat. It wasn't perfect (the seemingly, only imperfect thing about him now), but it worked and it made him view the world in another light.

It was both surprising and not that he now understood Jinho, to a certain level. He knew what it felt like to be given a ray of light and not manage to cling to it no matter how hard he struggled. He had been pathetic and weak and selfish in a way that made him both better and so much worse than the scrawny boy. Better because he had learned from it and strived to make himself the best possible version despite his worries, insecurities, paranoia, and tilted moral compass. Worse because, unlike Jinho, he had succeeded and killed people to further his own selfish goals.

At the end of the day, the imperfect-perfect boy remained a human, one who struggled and hurt and cried. As long as he kept a tight leash on the part of him that could make others struggle and hurt and cry (and even worse) he kept going, trying to find a way to end the cycle and keep the people he loved safe.

Even if that meant entire loops-worth of counseling and breakdowns, he would do it. For those he cherished? Anything.

#21

It began as you would expect, Daniel did something stupid. It wasn't meant to be stupid, but as most of the time-loopers endeavors, it ended up that way. Was it the will of the universe or was it just pure danielness? We'll never know.

"What is that?" Hudson shrieked when he entered the room, although he would deny this fact till the end of his days.

"I'm not a good Sia." Was the reply he got back.

Daniel stared owlishly at him from atop the crashed crystal chandelier whose remains were scattered all over the floor. An abomination of a neon-green mustache hung only barely from between his eyebrows and he was sporting a pair of squiggly antennas complete with foam eyes and taped on a sparkly pink headband that had seen better days. The smell of cheese puffs clung to him like a bad perfume, sending the blonde into a coughing fit the moment he opened the door.

"What the hell happened?" He finally managed to ask after regaining his bearings and using the fur coat to cover his nose and mouth (it smelled a bit like smoke and snake intestines but he wasn't complaining).

"He didn't kill anyone," Vasco assured unhelpfully from the side while poking at his own DIY eyes headband. "And these do look rather stylish on us!"

"And that's why the oaf didn't get into the fashion department, not that I think he had any business designing buildings and shit." Zack drawled from his seat, looking rather disgruntled with his own bright orange headband (which looked like it had been taped to his head with scotch).

Hudson gulped and took a step back, ramming straight into a blonde boy whose hair covered his eyes and who had appeared out of nowhere. He gulped again. Sure enough, he was adoring the same abomination of a headband, looking quite complacent with the crime against humanity that was his new accessory.

"Uh-" The Sun of Ansan began ever-so-eloquently. "We-we can talk about this guys-"

Before he had the chance to finish his sentence he was tackled from behind by what he could only describe as the second coming of the antichrist. His high-pitched screams echoed through the empty streets of Seoul and into the cold starless night.

--------------

Somewhere a black-eyed man unexplainably shivered. He paused and took a drag of his cigarette before turning to the large window overlooking the city.

"Something just happened."

if only he knew...what a menace to society his new masterpiece would become...

I'm just imagining Daniel and Vin Jin getting into a fight over whatever hot people fight over these days and subsequently appearing on the news. The headlines would def be like:

"LOCAL ASSHOLE GETS HIS ASS HANDED TO HIM BY FERAL TWINK LIVE ON CHANNEL 8"

I was wondering about a time loop in which Big Deal takes in Yohan and he trains under Samuel and in which Samuel was female. I feel like Samuel would definitely still be as tall if not buff and pass as masculine, so a time loop where she either stays with Big Deal and Yohan or she helps Yohan with God Dog and his mom.

I just thought it'd be interesting for one of Big Deal's fighters to be female and none of them except Alexander knowing and finding out.

(Mommy Sammy is simultaneously the most unhinged and brilliant idea I've ever been asked about! Like, does she still tear her clothes off when she fights or is that just me being weird? Nvm. Since most of my loops are from Daniel's perspective we'll just pretend he died early in this loop and is currently spying on various people waiting for his loop to end.)

Sometimes Danny wondered if the loops had been made by some unstable maniac. [Shhh, don't expose me!]

When he had stared the loop already dying it hadn't come as that much of a surprise. It was more annoying after you got used to it. That meant, however, that he hadn't gotten to check on anything that might've been changed from the original setting of the loops. He was a bit further back, that he could tell from how small his body had seemed at first.

He hadn't expected to drift towards a familiar street in search of entertainment and do a spit-take with his immaterial smoothie.

"What in my green god-given mustache?"

It wasn't Big Deal's new addition, in the form of one chestnut-haired dog-lover, that had garnered that reaction from the spirit, though it did add to the oddness of the situation. Danny's eyes drifted from the boy currently pummeling some no-name extra into the ground, to the person keeping a watchful eye over him from a little ways away while traumatizing fighting several other people.

Hovering over Johan like a mother hen was a distinctly-not-how-he-was-supposed-to-be-shaped Samuel. The mullet was there, in all its sexy glory, as was the terrifying signature grin and the usual two-piece suit, though it seemed to fit rather strangely on his body-oh! on her body. Samuel was a woman!

She was a buff strong woman and had Danny not been so utterly besotted with his beloved he would no doubt be slightly crushing on her at first sight. As it was, however, he just shuddered at the thought of her matching her counterpart and his apparent eagerness to rid himself of his tops at any possible opportunity and wondered if she were the same. He hoped that wasn't the case.

He paused, looking back and forth between the small Johan and Sammy (that was a good name to call her for now!). His mouth opened in the shape of an o. There was care in her gaze and even, if he were so bold to dare say it, affection. But not the kind that led people to have butterflies in their stomachs and sweaty palms, it wasn't the kind that burned, no, it was the soft type that came with taking a young one under your wing, it was the type that made you want to cherish and protect, the kind that didn't burn, but merely warmed and warded off the darkness. Sammy saw the little copycat as her ward.

Really, speaking from his own experiences, these tiny humans were really easy to get attached to. Hell, he himself had gone through the same thing with the boy in question at one point or another.

Samuel was a person that Danny associated with greed. A man willing to do anything to reach his goals. The sight of his female counterpart being so parental and openly caring for someone that couldn't do anything to further her position and status settled a part of Danny that had always wanted to believe that there was some semblance of good in the former Worker's member.

A tentative smile pulled at his lips as he watched the one-sided carnage fight end and Sammy's eyes instantaneously move to scan the young prodigy for any wounds in a motion that was so familiar to the spirit that his eyes glazed over for a moment. How many times had it been him doing this for a younger version of Johan? He couldn't recall, but the memory left a faded bitter-sweet taste in his mouth.

His soul shuddered with the pull of the loop. It was time to start anew. This time, however, with the peace of mind he hadn't had in a while, that came with the realization that if Samuel was worthy of redemption, then perhaps so was he.

"When these loops end, I will have that peace." He whispered the promise breathlessly, as the fragments of his soul drifted into the breeze.

The hourglass was turned, and the sand started falling again.