By Monday morning, people had watched me punch the bouncer more times than I had.
The original video lasted seven seconds.
The slowed version lasted twenty-three.
An account with my photograph as its profile image had added a poll asking whether Utopia University should expel me. Another account sold shirts using the outline of the uppercut. A third claimed I had been recruited by Yandong United supporters before the match.
JP sent that one to me at 6:18.
JP: THEY THINK WE HAVE A SPORTS CONTRACT.
XH: STOP READING COMMENTS.
JP: I AM MONITORING PUBLIC SENTIMENT.
XH: YOU REPLIED TO TWELVE PEOPLE.
JP: PUBLIC SENTIMENT WAS WRONG.
At 6:21, Mr. Kim removed his permission to send messages in the cohort group for one hour.
It was the first effective institutional response of the day.
The transport strike closed two eastern bus routes and reduced service on the line nearest Campus 2.
Students arrived in groups after walking from the last operating stops. A temporary tanker stood beside the university lake, pumping water through a hose hidden behind the maintenance fence. The Grand Fountain remained dry for the third morning.
No announcement explained either condition.
The sky had cleared, but the air carried the metallic smell that usually came before rain.
JP waited for me outside the Administration Building in a plain gray hoodie.
"Neutral colors," he said. "I am no longer participating in football diplomacy."
The fading bruise beneath his eye disagreed with the outfit.
My right hand remained inside the splint. The orthopedic appointment was scheduled for Wednesday. The neurological clinic had offered Thursday afternoon.
Grandmother's additional testing was also Thursday.
I had told myself I could attend both.
I had not checked whether they were in opposite parts of the city.
Kitty approached with NC, Anna, and Jihye.
She did not take my hand in public.
She walked close enough that our shoulders touched twice.
Across the lake, Bunny and Cherry arrived with June. TZ walked beside them carrying a folder of printed notes.
NS met them near the covered walkway.
June said something to him.
He lowered his head to hear it.
She smiled.
The smile disappeared when she saw us.
Nobody had formally divided the cohort.
We had only chosen where to stand.
Mr. Kim opened the Administration Building door.
"XH. JP. The committee is ready."
The others moved to follow.
"Only listed witnesses," he said. "Kitty and Jihye. Everyone else goes to class."
NS looked at me for one second.
"Do not be late for Emergency Medicine," he said.
"Are you worried about my attendance?"
"I am worried you will use this meeting as another excuse."
The door closed before I could answer.
His words followed me upstairs anyway.
The emergency conduct committee occupied a room designed for ordinary meetings.
There were no raised seats, no flags, and no microphone.
That made the printed evidence on the table feel more serious.
The Student Affairs chair sat between the Health Track program representative and a university security liaison. Mr. Kim occupied the support chair beside us but did not speak unless asked.
The chair began with the sentence people used when consequences had not yet chosen their final shape.
"This is an interim review, not a criminal proceeding."
She explained that the police investigation, venue complaints, and university process were separate. We could correct factual errors. We could submit additional evidence. We were not allowed to contact injured venue employees or other involved students about their statements.
Then she played the first video.
KM held Kitty's wrist.
Kitty pulled away.
JP pushed his arm back.
KM shoved JP.
Three Engineering Club members moved forward.
The video ended.
The second began eight seconds later.
I crossed the table and tackled KM.
"Did Mr. KM strike you before you made physical contact?" the chair asked.
"No."
"Did he threaten you?"
"Not directly."
"Then why did you cross the table?"
I looked at my splint.
The honest answer had too many parts.
Kitty's wrist.
JP surrounded.
June leaving with NS.
The cocktail.
NS's face appearing where KM's should have been.
"I was angry," I said.
"At Mr. KM?"
"Not only at him."
The chair waited.
"I saw someone else's face."
The program representative looked at the medical document in front of her.
"You reported a visual disturbance?"
"Yes."
"Are you offering that as a defense?"
"No. I am explaining why I have a neurological referral. It does not change who I hit."
Mr. Kim looked at me for the first time.
His expression did not soften.
It became less disappointed.
The security liaison played the bouncer video.
My fist rose.
His body fell.
The clip ended before I looked surprised by the uniform.
"The security employee was attempting to separate participants," he said.
"I know."
"Did he strike you?"
"No."
"Did you understand he was venue security?"
"Not before I hit him."
"You had consumed alcohol."
"Yes."
"How much?"
"One strong cocktail."
"And earlier drinks?"
"None."
The truth sounded like an attempt to make the choice smaller.
I added the part that did not help me.
"I knew I was already angry when I ordered it."
The chair wrote that down.
JP's review took less time.
Every useful angle showed KM touching Kitty after her refusal. Two showed JP pushing the hand away. One showed him striking an Engineering Club member at the service door after that student swung first.
Another showed JP throwing a bar stool.
"It was empty," JP said.
The chair looked at him.
"That does not improve the sentence."
"Understood."
"Why did you throw it?"
"Someone was kicking a first-year student while she was on the floor."
Jihye provided the original file.
The recording showed the first-year student shielding her injured hand. It showed JP use the stool to force two supporters backward without striking either of them.
"Why did the viral copy begin after this?" the security liaison asked.
"Because the account cropped sixteen seconds," Jihye said. "The metadata and original upload time are included in my report."
"You documented all of this during the incident?"
"No. I documented times during the incident. I collected files afterward."
"Why?"
Jihye looked at the evidence table.
"Because people remember the version that receives the most views."
The room remained quiet.
The chair turned to Kitty.
"Did either student ask you to change your account?"
"No."
"Do you believe Mr. JP was protecting you?"
"Yes."
"Do you believe Mr. XH was protecting you?"
Kitty looked at me.
"At first, he may have believed that. After he crossed the table, he was fighting something else."
She did not protect me by lying.
That was becoming the most loyal thing anyone did.
The interim decisions arrived at 9:06.
JP received a formal warning for remaining in the disturbance after an exit route became available and for using furniture during the fight. His event restriction would continue until the police closed the disorder investigation.
The committee recorded the unwanted contact against Kitty and JP's defense of the first-year student as mitigating facts.
My restriction became conduct probation.
I had to complete the neurological evaluation, continue therapy, comply with orthopedic care, and submit medical clearance before returning to physical university activities. I could attend lectures, laboratories, and examinations. I could not represent Utopia University, attend student entertainment events, or enter athletic competitions during the review.
The chair folded her hands over my file.
"This committee is not recommending expulsion today."
Today remained in the sentence longer than the other words.
"Any further serious conduct violation during probation may lead to suspension or expulsion. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"The injured employee may still pursue a complaint. The university may revise these measures if new evidence emerges."
"I understand."
KM and the three Engineering Club members were being reviewed separately. The committee would not disclose their interim decisions.
Jihye asked about June's altered drink.
"That matter is part of a police investigation involving an off-campus venue," the chair said. "We have no jurisdiction over individuals who are not our students."
"You have jurisdiction over student safety," Jihye replied.
"We have offered support services to the affected student."
"Support after something happens is not the same as asking why it happened."
Mr. Kim placed one hand near her report.
Not to silence her.
To remind her that the sentence had been recorded.
The chair thanked us for attending.
The altered drink remained outside the room.
My seven-second video stayed on the table.
We reached Emergency Medicine fourteen minutes late.
The lecturer stopped beside the screen.
"Administrative emergency?"
JP nodded.
"Resolved with documentation."
"Then you understand today's topic. Sit down."
The screen displayed ALTERED MENTAL STATUS: ASSESS BEFORE YOU ASSUME.
No one laughed.
The lecturer began with the primary survey.
Airway.
Breathing.
Circulation.
Disability.
Exposure.
"A confused or drowsy person at a nightclub may be intoxicated," she said. "They may also have hypoglycemia, head trauma, hypoxia, seizure activity, infection, medication effects, or toxic exposure. The location is not a diagnosis. The smell of alcohol is not a diagnosis. Your first task is to identify immediate threats."
June sat beside NS in the second row.
Kitty sat beside me in the fourth.
NC, Anna, Jihye, and JP filled the seats around us.
Bunny, Cherry, and TZ sat ahead with June.
One empty row separated the two groups.
The lecturer assigned a scenario involving a semiconscious patient with normal breathing.
NS identified the need to protect the airway, assess responsiveness, check glucose, obtain vital signs, and consider the recovery position if the patient could not maintain their own posture.
June added collateral history, time of last known normal behavior, reported intake, possible trauma, and preservation of any suspicious container.
"Would a routine toxicology screen exclude all possible substances?" the lecturer asked.
"No," June said. "Detection depends on the substance, dose, timing, specimen, and what the panel includes. Clinical management cannot wait for a perfect test."
The lecturer nodded.
June looked at the screen instead of the people who had learned that lesson beside her bed.
The final hour shifted to fracture healing in Pathology.
The instructor described hematoma formation and inflammation, then the soft callus, hard callus, and remodeling that followed when healing was not disrupted.
JP looked at my splint.
"Even bone has a better conflict-resolution process."
"Bone does not have social media," Anna whispered.
"That explains the success rate."
The instructor turned.
"Would the back row like to explain what delays healing?"
JP stood.
"Poor blood supply, infection, excessive movement, smoking, malnutrition, systemic illness, and refusing medical advice because of pride."
The class looked at me.
"The last one was not on the slide," the instructor said.
"It was in the case study."
For the first time since Friday night, June laughed.
It lasted less than a second.
I still heard it.
I found her beside the dry Grand Fountain after class.
NS waited beneath the covered walkway, far enough away to give us privacy and close enough to remove it whenever he chose.
"Are you with him?" I asked.
June looked toward the empty fountain basin.
"You already know."
"I know you left with him."
"That is not what you asked."
"Then answer what I asked."
She turned toward me.
"Yes. Privately. We were not ready to tell everyone."
The answer was quiet.
Nothing inside me received it quietly.
"Since when?"
"Would the date change anything?"
"It would tell me how long both of you lied."
"You were kissing Kitty while asking me to behave like your girlfriend. Do not make honesty into a rule that only begins after you are hurt."
"Kitty and I are together."
"Then look happy."
The dry fountain reflected no one.
"Did you choose him because I chose her?"
June's expression hardened.
"I chose him because he was there without asking me to perform being yours in public while wondering who you wanted in private."
"He was there because he waited for us to break."
"And you keep breaking things, then calling the moment you arrive proof that you care."
NS left the walkway.
He stopped beside June.
"You heard us?" I asked.
"You stopped trying to speak quietly."
"Convenient."
"Nothing about you is convenient."
June touched his wrist.
The same place she had held his sleeve at the hospital.
"NS."
He looked at her, then back at me.
"You think I waited for your relationship to fail," he said. "I watched you make it fail while everyone kept giving you another chance."
"You only know how to stand beside people after they are vulnerable. It makes you feel necessary."
His jaw tightened.
"You only know how to love people when suffering for them gives you an audience."
The words struck more accurately than KM had.
My left hand closed.
The splint prevented the right.
NS watched both.
He did not move backward.
"Do not," June said.
I released the fist.
"Your butler paying my bond does not make you better than me."
"No. Sending him for JP when you were the reason JP needed him makes me more useful than you were that night."
For one second, the fountain basin became a white ring beneath stadium lights.
NS stood on the other side with his hands raised.
The memory vanished before a bell could sound.
Kitty reached us from the library path.
She looked at my left hand, June's fingers around NS's wrist, and the distance between both couples.
"We are leaving," she said.
"Kitty," June began.
"Not because he is right. Because he is on probation and all four of us are behaving like we want the university to schedule another meeting."
She took my uninjured hand.
This time, she did it where everyone could see.
June watched.
NS did too.
None of us looked like we had won.
JP wrote in his diary during the final study period.
He sat between the two clusters because comedy had not yet chosen a faction, even if he had.
Monday.
A kingdom does not always split because someone builds a wall.
Sometimes eleven friends enter a classroom and choose six chairs on one side, five on the other.
The King says control is mercy. The King Slayer says force is honesty.
Both swear the other one moved first.
When they finally enter the ring, everyone will pretend the war began there.
He stopped writing before naming either man.
TZ saw the open page while placing a practice packet beside him.
"That is not comedy," TZ said.
JP closed the diary.
"Neither are we lately."
TZ remained beside the chair for a moment.
"The old VIP room would not recognize us."
"The old VIP room had HS."
TZ looked toward the windows.
"It also had fewer things nobody wanted to say."
JP did not make that sentence funny.
Across the classroom, NS's phone showed one unheard voicemail beneath HS's name.
He turned the screen facedown when June approached.
There would be time after the police case.
That was what he told himself.
At 4:52, PL received a photograph from an unknown number.
She was alone outside the military medical school's eastern gate.
The image showed a thin man in a maintenance uniform being guided through the rear entrance of Central Precinct. His hair was wet. His shoes were held together near one heel with gray tape.
Below the photograph was one message.
THEY SAY HE WORKED THE PRIVATE TABLE.
PL enlarged the man's face.
She had watched VT's attendant carry the bottle.
She had followed him through the service corridor.
She had described him from less than three meters away.
This was not the same man.
PL typed with both hands.
WHO IS HE?
The reply arrived after a full minute.
DO NOT CALL THIS NUMBER.
Then a second message appeared.
HE HAS NEVER SERVED THE UPPER TABLE.
Before PL could save the contact, the account disappeared.
The photograph remained.
The wrong man had arrived at Central Precinct exactly when someone powerful needed him.