NS's father watched the final minute of the fight without sound.
The recording filled one wall of his private office. XH's arm remained locked around NS's neck while the referee pulled at the wrist. Two towels entered the cage. Both fighters collapsed beneath the final horn.
The video stopped on the technical-draw announcement.
NS stood across the desk with bruising still visible beneath his collar.
Three men in dark suits occupied the chairs beside him. One represented the family company. One represented NS personally. The third had already prepared a formal complaint for the Yandong police.
"He struck you below the belt," his father said.
"Yes."
"He continued the choke after the referee ordered him to release."
"Yes."
"And you are refusing to sign this?"
NS looked at the document.
It described XH as the sole aggressor. It mentioned the low strike and the guillotine. It did not mention VT's manufactured recordings, the changed tournament rules, the public betting, or four rounds of NS telling XH to surrender.
"I entered a sanctioned fight willingly," NS said. "It ended in a technical draw. I will not help you turn him into a criminal because you dislike the result."
His father's hand settled against the desk.
"This is not about the result. It is about protecting you."
"After the fight is too late to protect me."
"He could have killed you."
"I could have killed him."
One lawyer shifted in his chair.
NS's father looked toward him, then back at his son.
"You fought under rules designed by MALT's son. You allowed your family name to become entertainment for the entire city. Now you want me to ignore an illegal attack because the boy was once your friend."
"The illegal strike belongs in the commission report and the university review. Not in a police statement that removes everything I did before it."
"What exactly is XH to you now?"
NS looked at the frozen image.
XH's face was covered in blood. NS's own eyes were already closing inside the choke. Neither looked like a king.
"A man I chose to fight," NS said. "Not a criminal I get to invent because I failed to beat him."
"The record says draw."
"Then I failed to beat him."
His father leaned back.
"Your pride has become selective."
"No. It finally became expensive enough to notice."
NS pushed the complaint toward the lawyers.
"I will not sign it."
The meeting ended without agreement.
For the first time in years, NS left his father's office without trying to win the argument after the decision had already been made.
My disciplinary preparation began at one in the afternoon.
Mr. Kim appeared through the laptop from an empty faculty office. NC joined from the library with the witness folder. Jihye had organized the original recordings by timestamp and written a short explanation of the deepfake artifacts in language the panel could understand.
Kitty sat beside me with a notebook.
"This is practice," Mr. Kim said. "I am going to ask the questions in the least generous way possible. Do not argue with the wording. Answer the facts."
"Understood."
"Why did you enter the tournament?"
"It was open to our batch."
"That was not the question."
I looked at the camera.
"Because NS entered."
"Why did that matter?"
"We had unresolved problems."
"Try again."
The rain struck my window behind the laptop.
"Pride."
Mr. Kim made a note.
"Did you intentionally strike NS below the belt?"
Kitty stopped writing.
NC looked down at the witness folder.
"Yes," I said.
"The referee did not see it. You could deny intent."
"It was intentional."
"Why?"
"I was losing."
"That explains the situation. It does not explain the decision."
"I thought winning mattered more than the rule."
Mr. Kim wrote again.
"Did you hear the referee order you to release the guillotine?"
The room changed temperature.
"Yes."
"Why did you continue?"
The referee's voice returned through the rain.
Let it go, man. He almost passed out. It's enough.
My own voice followed it.
He won't let me go.
I pressed the injured wrist against my knee.
"I don't know."
"The panel will not accept that."
"Then I don't have an answer they will accept."
"Did you understand that NS was becoming unresponsive?"
"Yes."
"Did you understand that continued pressure could cause serious injury?"
"Yes."
"You are training for a medical pathway. Why should this university trust you near a vulnerable patient when you could not release an unconscious opponent?"
The air stopped entering correctly.
I knew the difference between a patient and an opponent. I knew scene safety, airway, breathing, circulation. I knew how long the brain tolerated interrupted blood flow before injury became irreversible.
Inside the cage, I had known all of it.
Knowledge had not moved my arm.
"XH?" Mr. Kim asked.
I tried to answer.
My chest tightened beneath the bruised ribs. The laptop screen narrowed until Mr. Kim's face occupied a distant square at the end of a dark corridor.
Kitty closed the computer.
"We are stopping."
"Open it."
"No."
"That is what the panel will ask."
"And you will answer tomorrow."
"I can't."
The words entered the room before I could repair them.
Kitty moved the laptop away.
"Then don't answer now."
"If I can't explain it, they will expel me."
"Breathe first."
"Breathing will not change the video."
"Nothing changes while you cannot breathe."
She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled me down beside her. I resisted for one second, then the strength left my shoulders.
My forehead rested beneath her collarbone. Her arms closed around me carefully, avoiding the ribs. One hand moved through the back of my hair while the other held my shoulder.
The position should have embarrassed me.
Instead, it made the room stop moving.
"I knew what I was doing," I said.
"I know."
"That makes it worse."
"Yes."
She did not lie to comfort me.
That was why I believed the next thing she said.
"It does not mean that moment is everything you are."
Thunder moved above the dormitory.
The lights failed. The small battery lamp on the desk came on automatically, turning the room dim and yellow.
I held the edge of Kitty's sleeve.
"I'm scared."
Her hand stopped in my hair, then continued.
"I know."
"I don't know who I am if they take this away."
"Then we find out slowly. Not tomorrow. Not all at once."
"You make it sound easy."
"No," Kitty whispered. "I am telling you that I will stay while it is difficult."
I closed my eyes.
For several minutes, neither of us heard the footsteps stop outside the open door.
June stood in the visitor corridor holding enough food for three days.
Rainwater darkened her sleeves. The umbrella had turned inside out between the female dormitory and the residence building, so she had abandoned it beside the campus lake and carried the insulated bag against her chest.
The residence assistant had directed her upstairs after confirming that XH was allowed visitors.
His door remained open because Kitty was inside.
June had expected notes on the desk. She had expected Kitty to be studying beside him. She had prepared herself for politeness and the cold conversation that would follow.
She had not prepared for XH folded against Kitty's chest.
Kitty held him as if she had learned the exact amount of pressure his damaged body could tolerate. XH's hand remained closed around her sleeve. Neither was kissing. Neither needed to be.
The intimacy was quieter than that.
June heard him say he was scared.
He had never said those words to her.
Not at the arcade. Not after the nightclub. Not after his grandmother died. Not when their relationship became a collection of performances neither knew how to stop.
June stepped backward before either of them opened their eyes.
At the residence desk, she placed the food bag carefully on the counter.
"Could you give this to XH?"
The assistant checked the name card.
"Do you want me to tell him who brought it?"
June looked at the small smile beside the final sentence.
"The note will tell him."
She returned outside.
The roof extended several steps beyond the entrance. June walked past it and stood where the rain could reach her.
She told herself she needed the cold.
She remained there until she could no longer tell whether the water on her face came from the sky.
NS arrived carrying a signed witness statement instead of a police complaint.
He saw June before he saw the residence entrance.
She stood in the rain with both arms wrapped around herself, staring toward the upper floors.
NS opened a black umbrella and stopped beside her.
"There is a roof six steps behind you."
"I know."
"Then why are you standing here?"
"I needed the rain to be louder than my head."
NS held the umbrella over her. Water continued falling from her hair and sleeves.
"You will get sick."
"That would simplify the week."
"No, it would create another patient for Mr. Kim. He has enough."
He placed the umbrella handle in her hand and removed his jacket.
June refused it once.
NS placed it around her shoulders anyway.
"Did you see him?" he asked.
June looked toward the dormitory.
"Yes."
"How is he?"
"Not alone."
NS understood the answer.
He entered long enough to leave his witness statement with the residence assistant. He saw June's food bag behind the desk but did not mention it when he returned.
The black-and-gold Ferrari waited beside the curb. Traffic barely moved beyond the university gates because the transportation stoppage had forced too many private cars onto the same roads.
"I'll drive you back," he said.
"I don't want to go back yet."
NS looked at her wet clothes.
"Then come somewhere dry."
The residence assistant brought the food upstairs after June left.
Kitty opened the door while I remained on the bed. The power had returned, but the battery lamp still cast yellow light across the room.
"Someone left this for you," the assistant said.
Kitty recognized the insulated containers before she found the note.
She carried the bag to the desk and placed the card in my hand.
I'm sorry for everything. You don't have to forgive me today. Please eat while it's warm. :)
I read it twice.
"June came here?"
"She must have."
"Did you see her?"
"No."
The food remained warm when Kitty opened the first container. Ginger and chicken filled the room with a smell that belonged to illness, kitchens, and people who did not know how to apologize without feeding someone.
Kitty poured the broth into a bowl.
"You don't have to do that," I said.
"Apparently everybody needs to explain food to you."
She placed the bowl beside me.
"Are you angry?"
"At the soup?"
"At her."
Kitty looked at the note.
"I can be angry with June and still know she wanted you to eat. Those things can exist together."
I opened our message thread.
The last conversation ended before the tournament. Too many words had been said elsewhere since then.
I typed one sentence.
XH: Thank you. I read the note.
The message delivered.
June did not answer.
Kitty waited until I tasted the broth.
"Good?"
"Too much ginger."
"Then she definitely made it herself."
I took another spoonful.
Neither of us knew June was reading my message inside NS's car.
NS's city apartment had no staff waiting inside.
The building ran on private generators, but even they hesitated when the city's power failed again. The lights dimmed while June changed into a clean sweater left in the guest room.
NS gave her water and placed a towel beside her without asking questions.
She stood near the window, watching rain blur Yandong into moving lights.
"You knew Kitty was there," June said.
"She has been visiting him every day."
"That wasn't my question."
"I knew what you meant."
"And it doesn't bother you?"
NS touched the bruising along his throat.
"Everything bothers me. I am trying to decide which things deserve an action."
June turned from the window.
"You sound different."
"I nearly lost consciousness while my best friend told me I would not let him go. Different is overdue."
"He isn't your best friend anymore."
NS looked at her.
"That sentence has not become true simply because we repeated it."
June crossed the distance between them.
The first kiss reached NS before either of them named it.
Her hands caught his collar. His back touched the wall. She kissed him with the anger she had carried from the dormitory, the arcade, and every year of arriving one moment too late.
NS responded.
For several seconds, he wanted the answer she was offering.
Then he felt her crying.
He held her wrists gently and separated them.
"Don't stop," June whispered.
NS kept his hands away from her.
"Are you choosing me," he asked, "or are you trying to make him lose?"
June's anger disappeared first.
She looked toward the floor.
"I don't know."
NS stepped away.
"Then not tonight."
The space between them became colder than the rain.
He picked up his car keys.
"I'll take you home."
June did not move.
"Do you regret being with me?"
NS stopped at the door.
"No."
"Then what do you regret?"
"JP is in intensive care. XH may lose the university. I nearly let my father turn our fight into a criminal case because I was too proud to admit VT manipulated me. Look at what happened to our batch."
He faced her.
"I regret what all of us have become."
June held the sleeves of the borrowed sweater around her hands.
"What are we supposed to do?"
"Reflect on ourselves before we do anything else stupid."
He drove her to the female dormitory without touching her again.
Before June left the car, NS placed the black umbrella beside her.
"Keep it," he said.
"What about you?"
"I am going home."
"This isn't your home?"
NS looked toward the dark university buildings.
"I don't know yet."
June stepped into the rain.
NS waited until she entered the dormitory before driving away.
At the first red light, he opened VT's contact and wrote one message.
Do not use June, my father, or XH again. If you send me another manufactured file, I will treat it as an attack.
The message showed READ.
VT did not reply.