#24

Random person in J-High: Hey, Daniel? Can I get some dating advice? Danny: Just because I’m with Jay doesn’t mean I know how I did it.

This is kinda how I imagine female Danny. Thoughts?

#14

A squeaky hammer hit the desk hard enough to dent the wood.

"Alright folks, the first meeting of the 'Ulrta Mega-Simp Club' has officially begun!" Daniel announced before pointing to his vice president, Zack. "What's on today's list of discussions?"

The boy cleared his voice and adjusted his fake mustache before reading loudly from his clipboard.

"To begin with, we must welcome our new members and let them introduce themselves and the reason they have decided to join our glorious army-cough! club."

"Did he just verbally cough?" Someone whispered incredulously, causing Danny to slam his hammer repeatedly onto the desk for silence.

"Then we must inspect the status of their inner simp through a trial...TO THE DEATH! Afterward, we have a 30-minute break for tea and snacks and proceed onto the usual afternoon program of simping."

The president adjusted his own neon green fake mustache with a thoughtful look, before motioning for them to go ahead as planned. He sat up and cleared his voice gravely.

"My name is Daniellicus Maximus Eugeneseternalbaneicus Park. I am the devoted and eternal simp of the beautiful, brilliant, generous, superb, glamorous-"

Zack coughed and was rewarded a nasty glare in response before Danny continued.

"JAY HONG, soon to be Jay Park, loop-willing!"

He unraveled a poster bigger than himself with Jay's face while confetti rained down on him from the vents. It made it entirely worth it to have stuffed Vin Jin's goons into the vents the previous night with the confetti cannons. His performance was rewarded with deafening applause before Zack took the stage.

He looked around, leaned into the microphone, and just said, " I love Mira."

His 'secret' was received with deadpan stares that all seemed to say 'we know'. The boy left the stage silently, the tips of his ears burning brightly, but with a proud expression, as if daring anyone to protest.

The whole Burn Knuckles came onto the stage to express their adoration for their cinnamon roll leader, then the Beauty Dept. girls, who had to be escorted off the stage for expressing their love for Eli in a manner that was too frightening for the male population to bare. After that whole fiasco came a few other no-name simps who sang their praises for the object of their affection (someone had literally read a poem about how much they loved the cafeteria, which...fair, it was free food and free drama, what more could you ask for).

The first stage of their meeting ended somewhat peacefully.

Then came the trials.

DUN! DUN! DUN!

Everyone jumped and turned towards Zack, who sheepishly lowered the beatbox he had pulled out from god knows where. They were all lined up and Danny pulled out a tube of toothpaste, while the boxer fished his phone out of his pocket and began filing the interrogation/interviews with the flair of a professional cameraman.

"What would you do for your bias?" was the question addressed to all members and each of them gave an answer that was more worrying than the other, up to the point where homicide and world enslavement was mentioned.

Satisfied with their new simps the two concluded the interviews and awarded each of them with a badge made out of the lid of a noodle cup with the words 'I'm a proud member of the UMSC' written on in sharpie.

Afterward, the newly established UMSC had a wonderful, peaceful tea party in which they bonded over their shared love of their bias and other various things. Unknowingly, Daniel had created the ultimate weapon against the 4 Major Crews, whose own members would slowly be baptized into the simp way and join the UMSC, turning it into an unstoppable force of over 3 thousand fanatic followers and devoted simps.

Gun: I think we should kiss. Danny: And I think you should die but we don’t always get what we want.

#9

Danny: Would you like something to drink? *He opens the fridge* We have water, milk, juice, spiders, Dr. Pepper- Eugene: Spiders? Danny: Spiders it is then. Eugene: No, that wasn't- * But he was already pouring him a brimming glass of spiders…*

#16

Daniel was tiny. TINY!

It wasn't even because the loop had started very early, no, he was in the timeframe around when he would've been in middle school, judging by the date on a discarded newspaper he had found, with the only difference being that he was a toddler. Worst even, his mother was nowhere in sight. He was a lost baby!

His respect for Yenna grew leps and bound once he managed to finally lift his bum off the sidewalk after at least 20 tries. How did babies even manage to live like this? Nevermind, they're babies they don't need to provide for themselves or do literally anything for themselves.

"Uhgggggh" The sound he unwillingly let slip was embarrassing, but encompassed the situation exactly.

'Stupid broken loop!' he thought, struggling to walk-crawl closer to what he assumed was a more populated street, judging by the voices coming from there. 'Maybe I shouldn't have started a cult in the last loop. Or is this a result of that one ritual we were making when the loop reset?' he theorized, unaware of his surroundings due to his limited attention span.

Suddenly he was no longer touching the ground and instead flying. Oh, nevermind, someone (a giant) had lifted him in his hand. The sensation made him slightly nauseous, but he didn't bother trying to struggle when he recognized who the giant was. At least that confirmed his theory of being around when he should've been fourteen or so.

Jerry cooed over the tiny being cupped in his large palms, uncaring of the seemingly cultish robes it was dressed in. If anything, he just thought it made him look even cuter, like a little wannabe wizard. Carefully, like Jake had taught him, he held the baby closer and made his way to Big Deal's street, where he knew his friend would be.

"Did you steal that?" was the first thing a paling Jake had asked him when he showed him the baby?

Jerry was quick to clarify that he had just found him alone on the ground while the girls cooed over him and spoiled him with affection. 'I could get used to this' Danny thought, leaning into the gentle embrace of Yeonhui while Sinu sulked in a corner.

The pretty girl was just patting his head when she suddenly retracted her hand as if burned and let out a large gasp. In the blink of an eye Sinu jumped up and rushed to see what the problem was. In order to be able to better shower the boy in affection she had removed his little hood and revealed a large bruise on the back of his neck.

'I forgot about that' the time-looper grimaced, recalling how his friends had found him as he was performing his last ritual and panicked, thinking he was possessed. The fact he had painted symbols and runes all over his body in blood probably hadn't helped their image of him, and Zack, Jace, Vasco, Johan, Eli, and Vin Jin had all tried to fight him to hopefully knock the possession out of him or something like that. Of course, he had looped back before they could do that, but the remainder of their fight still marred his skin.

The girls began whispering furiously around him, their faces painted with a mix of worry and righteous anger, but he couldn't make out what they were saying. His eyelids began feeling heavier and no matter how much he tried he couldn't stifle the yawn that bubbled in his throat.

"Awwwwwwww" was the last thing he heard before exhaustion overtook him and he fell into the most peaceful sleep he had experienced in ages.

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

"Uwah"

He woke up to see Sinu smiling down at him. Well, that was certainly something! Baby Daniel skewered his eyebrows, trying to recall what had happened before the events of the previous day came crashing in. Right, he was with Big Deal, and they probably thought he was some sort of abused cult orphan.

"Good morning little sunshine!" Yeonhui entered the room with a bright smile carrying a small bowl of what looked like mush.

Unconsciously his baby instincts took over and he copied her smile with a big one of his own, which granted him another round of cooing from both of them. It was official, his baby powers could bewitch anyone.

"Uwah" He pointed to the bowl of mush, ignoring how gross it looked. He was hungry enough to eat a hippo and beggars can't be choosers.

Seemingly remembering the purpose of her visit Yeonhui rushed to pick his food up, while Sinu adjusted his position on the old couch, placing his palm on the bay's back to keep him upright. The girl crouched in front of him and brought a small spoon of mush in front of Danny, who opened his mouth and swallowed it, alongside his pride. The process repeated a couple of times until he could no longer bare the lovey-dovey looks Sinu was giving the girl and felt ready to throw up. When had become a plot device in their romance? He sulked while the man wiped the corners of his mouth with a small handkerchief as his wife-Cough! soon-to-be-lover cleaned the dishes.

After breakfast, the two paraded him around the street with the pride of new parents showing around their child to their neighbors and family. He was cooed over, his cheeks were pinched, and he confirmed that the entirety of Big Deal was just a bunch of softies, with a few exceptions, Old Face and Samuel. He was sure to throw them one of his fiercest glares, but the latter seemed to only take this as a challenge, thus making it his life's mission to win the glaring contest against the two-year-old toddler that hung onto Sinu like a koala.

'Whoever put Samuel on babysitting duty needs to get their paycheck retracted!' Danny mentally screamed the day when, instead of waking up to his usual caretaker for the day, as the schedule they had pointed and glued to the wall dictated, he opened his eyes to see his second-least-favorite person in the crew. He checked the schedule and sure enough, today was Jake's turn. Following his gaze, Samuel let out a dry chuckle.

"Jake's too busy to take care of you today, beasty." He announced with a smug smirk, that quickly turned into a grimace. "So he asked me to do it instead."

Neither expected to enjoy the ordeal as much as they did. By the end of the day the scornful 'beasty' had turned into somewhat of an endearment, and Samuel learned why none of his daily caretakers would ever let the boy out of their arms. There was just something weirdly amusing about having the brat nod his little head in agreement when he scolded people for being stupid and sometimes even cheering him on when a more 'hands-on approach' with other rival crews or troublemakers was needed. Despite how tiny he was, the little beasty was never frightened of him, even when he had one of his maniacal episodes and left behind a bloody pile of bodies with his signature deranged smile. Yes, the tattooed man conceived, the brat was somewhat tolerable. And if his name suddenly appeared on their weekly babysitting schedule, no one commented on it.

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

It was late in the evening, but Danny didn't seem to be able to fall asleep. They had read him stories, and played with him to tire the boy out, and even had Yeonhui sing him to sleep. It didn't work.

"Something's wrong, he always falls asleep after she sings to him!" Sinu told his boys, combing a hand through his hair worriedly.

Before the two had a chance to reply a blonde barged into the room A man with black hair and sunglasses followed him in, looking just as cocky and exuding the same aura of danger that made the three males step in front of Yeonhui and the baby protectively.

Gun's eyes landed on the woman holding the baby, and he gave a derisive snort pointing at her. The trio bristled at his gesture, slipping into defensive positions. Goo's smirk grew impossibly wide.

"I suggest you take the baby out of here. Wouldn't want it to see something...traumatic."

"Him." Jake spat in reply with such vitriol that a lesser man would've cowered, motioning the woman to leave.

Danny panicked as Yeonhui made for the door, knowing that even with their forces combined they couldn't win against the maniac duo. He began struggling and wailing in her arms, reaching for them, trying to get her grasp to widen enough so that he could escape. The kind girl shushed him, trying to cover his view of the men with one hand while whispering reassurances that they would be alright.

'They won't!' Daniel tried to scream back 'You don't know these two! They're going to break them and take them away! They're going to hurt them...they're going to hurt my family...' His hopelessness and desperation began shifting into a bone-crushing rage, and the boy flung himself one last time, startling her enough so that she accidentally let go of the boy.

Daniel flew through the air, landing on a mope of blond hair before he began pulling at Goo's hair and hitting him in the head with his tiny fists while spitting insults in baby language. If they could understand what he was saying he would surely lose dessert privileges for the rest of his life and get a long lecture on top of that. As it was, however, everyone flew into a panic as the blonde fell onto the ground from the full force of a feral baby slamming into him, before struggling to rip the little imp off him. His little hits were surprisingly strong, Goo would later recall, strong enough that after a few minutes of struggling onto the floor, Danny came out victorious, with the blonde unconscious on the floor.

Sinu quickly scooped up in his arms, half dead from worry and bursting with pride at his little display, before he remembered the other male was still in the room. He tightened his hold onto the baby while turning to glower at the ravenette, whose hidden gaze was burning holes into his young ward. Gun may have done nothing but watch the whole "fight", but there was nothing to indicate that he wouldn't harm the child in retaliation.

"Now that was unexpected!" His smirk only served to send the four further on edge. "You have potential, kid!"

Danny snarled audibly at him, bearing his little canines at the grinning maniac. Gun made to take a step towards him, taking off his sunglasses and revealing the black sclera and white irises below but stopped dead in his tracks when the toddler's snarl depend and his eyes switched to match his own. It was a warning, but one that only made the child more interesting in his eyes. How could an infant such as him even master UI so young? He seemed completely in control of the technique too, which made the whole situation even odder.

'You're interesting, brat." He told Danny, ignoring the growls it incited from his guardians as he picked up his partner's fallen body with a final promise. "I'll be back."

The tension in the room didn't ease at least a full half-an-hour after the man had left, at which point they all just flew into a frenzy of checking their baby for injuries of any kind. Satisfied with finding none but a few tiny bruises that were thoroughly kissed away and covered in spider-man bandages, the men shifted to praising the preening boy (even Samuel gave him a proud smile before he quickly wiped it off so that no one else could see it) and planning for how to proceed when the two inevitably returned.

Danny listened to them from Yeonhui's lap, savoring the prize of his victory, a melon flavor Power Cap (ice cream?).

Yes, he liked his new little family, he concluded as the sun rose and bathed the street in the light of a new day.

#9

Danny, standing with his back turned: I’ve been expecting you, Eugene. Eugene: How did you do that without turning around? Danny: … To be perfectly honest, the first couple of people I did that to were not you.

#10

Once was already too much. Twice was beyond cruelty. Thrice...thrice was not meant for the human mind to comprehend.

So when you have to do it a thousand times and then some you become rather desensitized to certain things that could make others writhe.

That's how Daniel found himself looking up at the paling faces of his friends, vaguely aware that his body wasn't supposed to be able to bend that way. There were tears, of course, pleading for him to say awake, to hold on until the ambulance arrived. The worst part though was the reassurances, because both parties knew by that point that they were just wishful thinking.

Like, no Zack, I just got hit by a truck going over 200 km/h, I'm not going to be okay! The bloodied boy tried to voice these words but they only came out as strangled moans, which elicited more sobs and, to his everlasting indignance, shushing.

"Nnnghn hngh!" (Don't shush me!)

"It's going to be okay."

"Mnghnh mnmnth nghgh ghngfngh mnghnghhtt! mnggggg hnghnght mthght." (Vasco, I adore you but I'm literally twisted like play-doh and I think I can feel my bones trying to escape my body and form their own army for world domination!!)

"Shh, just hang on."

Danny shot him a dirty look, though he had to guess which one of his friends the bald white egg shushing him was. Probably Jin, he had always been a little bitch like that. If he squinted the alien-like thing looking down on him was pretty similar to the dumbass.

"Mhnh mgthhhhh-." (Bitch if you shush me one more-)

"Shhh" Zack placed his finger on his lips, before quickly retracting his hand and massaging the bite marks on his pointer with what was supposed to be aggravation. The tears and snot running down his face ruined the image.

Finally, through the constant ringing in his ears, Daniel could distinguish the sound of sirens. People shuffled around him and someone tried to get his attention, but their voice turned to mush in his ears. He threw one last look at his friends and reached towards Jay through the paramedics.

"Mnh nhghn Macarena mngh." (Bae, you need to play Macarena at my funeral!)

And with that, the world went black. Then white, then black again. Then he came upon himself, literally.

"They did a pretty good job with my body, you can't even tell that half of these are missing" He poked at one of his limbs, his translucent finger going right through it. There was no bone, just a metal rod kipping the arm in place.

Danny shuddered and retracted his hand as if he had been burned. No matter how many times he ended up as a ghost it never got less weird touching things. He shrugged and floated upwards, passing through the lid of the casket and angling his body so that he no longer felt like he was lying down. Gravity didn't apply to ghosts, so getting his body to sit straight was really tricky until you got the hang of it.

The venue was pretty packed, with people balling their eyes out. They were all dressed in black and looking at a picture of him smiling that had been propped on a stand near his casket. In the front row was his mother, at whose appearance he cringed.

It never got easier seeing her so utter;y devastated, but that was always the way it went when he died, his bigger body would vanish without a trace, and his smaller one would remain, lifeless. His eyes scanned over the other people at the venue trying to get the image of her dull eyes and sunken cheeks out of his mind.

Next to his mother was his beloved jay. Oh, how he wanted to wrap his arms around the boy and wipe those tears that never stopped rolling down his exquisite face! Instead, he caressed his darling's cheek lovingly, making the boy shudder at the feeling of sudden coldness. He didn't dare linger, unable to bare the heartbreaking sight of his lover's grief.

If Daniel had been drinking he would have done a spit-take right then and there. (Was it disrespectful to spit at your own funeral?)

Nestled between a sobbing Crystal and a mostly-unbothered Kouji was Diego Kang himself, having a whispered conversation with an ashen-faced Gun. The latter must've taken the death of his masterpiece and the subsequent disappearance of Daniel's bigger self as quite the blow. 'He did waste a lot of time training me and seemed very eager to get taller me to be his...something, whatever that was...' the boy mused, making his way across from them and to the audio system. He didn't have time to ponder such things. He was a ghost on a mission.

Possessing humans was rather simple if tiring, but messing around with electronics had always been a favorite of his whenever he ended up as a wandering specter. The speakers, placed strategically in the four corners of the room, simultaneously crackled to life, startling the people in attendance, before:

Dale a tu cuerpo alegría Macarena Que tu cuerpo es pa' darle alegría y cosa buena Dale a tu cuerpo alegría, Macarena Hey Macarena, ay

Dale a tu cuerpo alegría Macarena Que tu cuerpo es pa' darle alegría y cosa buena Dale a tu cuerpo alegría, Macarena Hey Macarena, ay

Dale a tu cuerpo alegría Macarena Que tu cuerpo es pa' darle alegría y cosa buena Dale a tu cuerpo alegría, Macarena Hey Macarena, ay

Dale a tu cuerpo alegría Macarena Que tu cuerpo es pa' darle alegría y cosa buena Dale a tu cuerpo alegría, Macarena Hey Macarena, ay

Dale a tu cuerpo alegría Macarena Que tu cuerpo es pa' darle alegría y cosa buena Dale a tu cuerpo alegría, Macarena Hey Macarena, ay!

Danny: *Kicks the door down looking panicked* Zack: What did you do? Danny: Nobody died. Zack: WHAT KIND OF ANSWER IS THAT?!

#20

"Jesus..."

"Actually, It's Daniel."

Zack craned his neck to look at the tiny figure sitting atop the - frankly massive - pile of bodies. He had stumbled upon the sight on accident and frozen in shock, mouth agape. If he looked more closely all the bodies seemed to belong to well-built muscly men who, judging by the various bats and DIY weapons strewn on the ground, had been armed. This was no accident, but a coordinated attack that had been thwarted by...by a toddler?

"Uhh..." Zack said, ever so eloquently.

The midget turned around a did a backflip (and almost gave the boxer a heart attack in the process), landing in front of him with a large toothy smile. Now that they were standing next to each other he seemed even smaller, no way older than 5, Zack noted after he stopped gaping. He wore what looked like an old yellow t-shirt with a smiling cat, splatters of blood clear on the thin fabric, and a pair of brown cargo shorts. In the middle of December, at night.

Zack resisted the urge to voice some choice words about the kid's parents as another freezing wind cut through his own thick winter coat. He kneeled to be on eye level with the smiling little menace and extended his hand, deliberately slowly not to spook him.

"I'm Zack."

"Oooh, nice to meet you!" Daniel shook his hand eagerly.

'Yep, his hands are freezing', Zack thought bitterly, looking around for his guardian or someone that could resemble a responsible adult. He found none. The alleyway they were in was pretty out of the way, not a place where a child should be, although... judging by the piled gangsters behind him he could handle himself. A bead of sweat rolled down the boxer's cheek, 'Not even I could beat so many at the same time' and wasn't that saying something? Even after being trained by that monk, Gongseob Ji, there were still people who were stronger than him without even trying.

"Achoo!"

That broke him out of his thoughts, and he wasted no more time in unzipping his coat and scooping the child in his arms, before rezipping the coat with the midget's head poking out. Uncaring of what he must've looked like [*cough* pregnant *cough*] Zack got back up and began walking out of the alleyway.

"We're going to get you something warm to eat and then we can try to figure this whole thing out, mkay?"

The midget nodded his head furiously and gave him another blinding smile before settling on his chest like a happy cat. Neither spoke until they finally found an open convenience store. By the time they got what they wanted to eat and sat down in the little eating area of the shop it had begun snowing heavily. Zack put the kid on one of the stools, with his coat still wrapped around him before opening the two cups of instant noodles and pulling out the little bags of condiments. He kept an eye on Daniel as he moved to pour warm water from the dispenser. To his credit, the little one waited patiently, swinging his legs in the air, his eyes glued on the taller male as he prepared their meal.

"So, where are your folks, midget?" Zack asked as they waited for the noodles, trying to keep his tone light.

In spite of his efforts, the boy curled in on himself, his eyes dimming. 'Sore spot, then' he thought, making a mental note to avoid bringing it up again. He couldn't imagine anyone willingly abandoning this ray of sunlight of a child, so he assumed they must've been dead. 'Yes, that's the only explanation' Zack nodded to himself, before addressing Daniel again.

"Do you have anywhere to go?"

The kid nodded eagerly, but the boxer still had his reservations.

"Let me rephrase that, do you have anywhere to spend the night that you know you can reach and where you won't freeze to death?"

"Uhh."

"Right, so that's a no. Great!" Zack rubbed his forehead tiredly.

He pulled the top packaging off the cups of noodles and broke apart a pair of chopsticks mixing them into the steaming meal before handing it to the midget and doing the same for his own cup.

"Ah, thank you!" Daniel chirped before digging in like a starved child.

'He probably was' he thought bitterly, swallowing a mouthful of noodles. For a few minutes, all you could hear was the sound of them eating, but soon enough the boy pushed away his empty cup. Once more, Zack didn't hesitate or even find it weird how his arms moved on their own to place a small packet of chocolate biscuits in front of the kid's nose.

"Eat up, midget." he encouraged, cringing at how sappy he sounded. "Those aren't going to eat themselves."

'Damn it, why am I acting like this?!' The older boy bemoaned mentally, thankful that none of the people who knew him were here to witness how fucking soft this little menace was making him. After finishing his noodles Zack got up to throw the two cups away when he felt a tug on his sweater. Looking down he found an impossibly large pair of doe-like black eyes gazing uncertainly up at him.

'Ah, my heart!' he mentally clutched his heart which had been pierced by an arrow marked "CUTENESS".

"I'm just going to throw these away!" He quickly reassured the little one, gesturing towards the two empty cups in his hand.

"Are you going to come back?" Daniel asked in a small voice which nearly made the boxer kneel over.

"Of course! Of course! I'll be right back!" Zack assured before nearly sprinting to the trashcan and back, to the bewilderment of the cashier.

"See, right back!"

Daniel hummed happily in agreement with a big smile that made him ponder the benefits of having a pair of sunglasses always on hand. he would probably need a pair if he didn't want to go blind from this unbearably bright ray of sunshine. 'How has no one kidnapped him yet?' Zack wondered, sparking a flame of protectiveness in his chest.

You know how you hear people say that they see something, usually a small child or an animal, and go 'yeah, that's mine now'? That was exactly what happened at that exact moment in Zack The Wimp Lee.

Did it raise questions the next day when he showed up to fight with a toddler on his shoulders? Maybe. Did he care? Absolutely not. He kicked names and took ass looking like an absolute badass and a brilliant model for his new little brother. The highlight of his day was when some random extra tried to hit Daniel as a way of getting back at Zack and got promptly locked through a brick wall by a giggly 5-year-old waving around a purple dinosaur plush in one hand and a blueberry popsicle in the other. The looks on everyone's faces had been enough to make his week.