Cycle 1, Loop 3, Day 1

Not bothering to check his bangs this time (he bet they looked just as bad as they had the last two times), Ryuuji nearly leapt into his clothing before moving to the kitchen, beginning to cook breakfast.

As he finished with the ingredients and waited for the rice to finish cooking, he grabbed his mold stick and moved to the bathroom, placing the wastebasket to one side. Sure enough, that same mold stain was still there, in the exact same shape and mocking his cleanliness.

Angrily, he scrubbed at it until the dread fungus was dead and gone. He washed his hands and finished up just in time for the rice cooker to signal its completion. Carefully, he wrapped his mother's breakfast and ate his own.

Only then, essentials out of the way, did he allow himself to begin to think. He'd already done this twice. It couldn't have been a dream; everything was the same, down to that last patch of mold. Somehow, every time he was knocked out, the day reset. He'd hit his head twice; twice he'd woken up back in his bed.

Was the universe giving him a second chance for some reason? Or was something wrong? He didn't remember ever being so clumsy; falling over was not something that had ever occurred to him frequently, even when he'd shot up six inches in a year.

His wandering eyes fell on the clock. He still had a few minutes before he needed to start walking, but he'd fallen twice before while trying to clean up the main room, where his mother was lying, sleeping. He didn't fancy hitting his head a third time and having to clean mold and cook breakfast all over again.

Or, at least, cleaning the mold again.

He shrugged on his pack and opened the front door quietly, shutting it just as softly behind him. He'd just show up early to school. Maybe it would turn out for the better; he'd be able to avoid the whispering, nervous crowds of other students, this time. And surely Kitamura was there early; he was probably setting up the opening ceremonies now.

He ran over possible answers to his strange plight as he slowly made his way to school, step by step. Each only grew more outrageous and improbable, and after a few minutes of running over scenarios, he gave up on that line of thought with a sigh.

Instead, he began to muse about the mechanics of whatever he was in. Did it trigger only when he was knocked unconscious? Or was sleep included? What about sedation?

And why did he keep falling headfirst into things? Was it the universe's reset button? 'Oh, Ryuuji screwed up, better knock him out and try again,' he thought, but then tossed that thought out. Surely the universe was more imaginative then making some teenager fall over.

A kid brushed past him at a jog as he crossed the street, and he heard a, "Hey, wait up!" from behind in the background as he remained deep in his thoughts.

He was abruptly knocked out of his reverie by said voice from behind knocking into him in their rush to catch up to their friend. Again, he fell to the ground, scraping his palms painfully on the asphalt. Falling over again… was that really all-?

He turned his head and saw the car coming.

"Oh."

"GAH!" He woke, thrashing in panic as he tried to scramble out of bed, only to get caught in the sheets and tumble into the desk—

"SERIOUSLY?!" he screamed as his eyes opened. He checked the clock, and his heart sunk. It was, once again, the same morning. To the second.

Which meant that breakfast was uncooked, that mold was eating at his baseboards, and at some point in the future, two kids were going to be running on the sidewalk to the high school.

"Note to self, pay attention this time," he muttered as he set out to the bathroom.

"Hey, wait up!" he heard from behind once again, and this time, though he was jostled, he did not fall on the crosswalk.

The kids turned and looked at him, as he recognized them as only a year behind his own. He'd passed them in the halls many times last year.

"Takasu!" they gasped, before scrambling over. "We didn't see you—we're so sorry!" they bowed.

Then the selfsame car blew through the crosswalk—taking the two kids with it.

Horrified, Ryuuji watched as their bodies flew into the intersection, seemingly in slow motion. None of the speeding cars on the road had the time to stop, and a sickly series of crunches heralded a spray of blood.

Of their own accord, his legs tilted and sent him into the street. This time, he never saw the car that hit him.

This time, he simply stared at the ceiling in disbelief for a few minutes. "Was that… the reason?"