At 8:49 a.m., Utopia University opened its gate.
Nobody rushed through it.
The students nearest the front stopped beneath the stone archway, where security guards usually checked visitor cards and delivery passes. Beyond them, University Avenue looked almost ordinary. The traffic lights continued changing for intersections with no traffic. A city bus stood abandoned beside its stop with the folding doors open. Newspapers rolled along the empty road whenever the wind rose.
Normal things had remained in their places.
The people had not.
Mr. Kim stood beside the gate with a clipboard he was no longer pretending to use.
"If you are leaving, write your name, your student number, and the person traveling beside you," he said. "Not the whole group. One person. If we lose contact, that is the person who must know where you were last seen."
"Is this university guidance?" NC asked.
"No. It is mine."
She wrote Anna's name beside her own. Anna chose Jihye. Jihye chose NC, creating a triangle that made Mr. Kim rub his forehead.
"That is not how pairs work."
"It is how our group works," Jihye replied.
Bunny wrote Cherry. Cherry inspected the handwriting.
"You spelled my legal name wrong."
"I have known you for two years. Why are you hiding extra letters from me?"
For several seconds, they sounded like students again.
Then a military helicopter crossed above Campus 2, and everybody looked up together.
The laughter disappeared before its echo did.
I signed my name.
Mr. Kim placed the tip of his pen against the empty space beside it.
"Who is traveling with you?"
NS reached across me and wrote his own name.
"He is," NS said.
Kitty, standing close enough to hear, lowered her eyes. June adjusted the strap of her mother's emergency bag and looked toward the road.
There were too many meanings inside one small line on a clipboard.
Mr. Kim studied NS's handwriting.
"His injuries are still your responsibility if he acts like an idiot."
"That makes the assignment impossible."
"You accepted it quickly."
NS handed the pen back.
"Old habit."
It was the closest either of us had come to calling the other one a brother since the fight.
Neither of us tried again.
The first group left at 8:54.
Campus 2 stood three kilometers from City Square. Under normal traffic, the trip took ten minutes by car. That morning, the transportation strike had done what martial law could not. There were no buses, no taxis, and no trains willing to carry people toward the government district.
So Yandong walked.
We followed University Avenue in rows of three and four. Some students carried white flowers. Others carried handwritten signs against their chests. Mr. Kim walked at the rear, although he had said nothing about joining us.
"How far are you coming?" I asked.
"Until I am satisfied you understand how roads work."
"I have crossed roads before."
"Your disciplinary record suggests you struggle with lines."
"You waited all morning to say that, didn't you?"
"It was worth the wait."
At the first intersection, more people emerged from the apartment blocks.
A bakery owner pulled down his metal shutter, locked it, and joined us without removing his flour-covered apron. Two nurses came from a side street carrying their hospital shoes in plastic bags. A father pushed an elderly man in a wheelchair. Behind them, a woman held the hands of two boys who had taped paper flags to wooden rulers.
Nobody had organized these small arrivals.
Each corner simply made the crowd larger.
At 8:58, an elderly woman leaned from a second-floor balcony and called down to us.
"Children, take water."
She lowered a shopping basket on a rope. Bottles knocked together inside it.
Anna and Bunny distributed them until the basket was empty.
"Go home before dark," the woman said.
"We will," Bunny promised.
The woman gripped the balcony railing.
"Do not promise things the government can prevent you from keeping. Just try."
The words followed us to the next block.
At exactly nine, my phone vibrated.
For one hopeful second, I thought the Acting Rector had released my decision.
The screen showed only a connection error.
The disciplinary portal had disappeared.
I refreshed it twice.
NS took the phone from my hand and locked the screen.
"Not now."
"It was supposed to be decided now."
"The country is arguing over who has the power to make decisions. Your file can wait ten minutes."
"That is easy for you to say."
He stopped walking.
The students behind us separated and passed on both sides.
"My father has called six times," NS said quietly. "There is a vehicle waiting near the south bridge. It can take five of us out before the checkpoints fully close. I have not answered him. Do not tell me what is easy for me to say."
"Why didn't you answer?"
His eyes moved toward June.
She stood farther ahead beside Cherry, helping an older woman fasten a cloth banner between two walking sticks. Kitty waited near NC and pretended not to watch either of us.
"Because five seats are not enough," NS said.
He returned my phone and continued walking.
I followed.
TZ watched the march through a cracked phone screen in JP's hospital room.
The live video froze every few seconds. Each time it resumed, more people filled University Avenue.
JP lay propped against two pillows. Purple bruising spread beneath one eye, and his ribs were strapped beneath the hospital gown. The doctors had moved him out of intensive observation shortly before dawn, but standing without help remained forbidden.
"Zoom in," JP said.
"I am watching somebody else's livestream. I cannot control their camera."
"Tell them to zoom in."
"I don't know them."
"Then become friends. This is an emergency."
TZ looked at him.
"You were nearly unconscious yesterday."
"And today I am a citizen with poor video quality."
The camera turned. For a moment, JP saw the Utopia students moving beneath the bare trees.
He recognized XH by the way he protected one side of his body while insisting on carrying a backpack. He recognized NS half a step beside him. He saw Kitty's white flower and June's old shoulder bag.
His expression softened.
"They are together."
"They are walking in the same direction," TZ said.
"For us, that counts."
JP tried to move his legs over the side of the bed.
TZ pushed them back.
"No."
"I didn't say anything."
"Your legs did."
"My legs have freedom of assembly."
"Your legs are under medical arrest."
JP sank against the pillows and stared at the screen.
"If something happens, call me."
"What will you do from here?"
"Complain loudly. It has carried this group through worse situations."
The video buffered again.
This time, it did not return.
At 9:07, we reached the old cinema junction.
The road from the Engineering Campus entered from the east. Several hundred students approached beneath blue faculty banners. Shinso walked near the front with HTN and SRM. KM appeared farther back with three men from his club.
Our groups noticed one another at the same time.
Weeks earlier, the meeting would have produced insults before greetings. Months earlier, it might have ended with somebody pushing somebody else into a fountain.
That morning, Shinso raised one hand.
NS answered with the same gesture.
KM saw the healing cuts on my face. I saw the fading bruise beneath his jaw.
Neither of us smiled.
"Temporary ceasefire?" he asked.
"You planning to start something?"
"Not with you."
He pointed toward the military helicopter circling the government district.
"I found somebody more annoying."
JP would have ruined the moment with a joke. His absence left a space nobody knew how to fill.
Thoon came through the crowd carrying a cardboard sign that read LET CONGRESS MEET. Her eyes searched behind us.
"Where is JP?"
"Hospital," I said.
Her grip tightened around the sign.
"Is he awake?"
"Awake enough to annoy TZ."
Relief appeared on her face before she hid it.
"Good. He deserves to be annoyed back."
She joined the line beside SRM.
Our majors moved forward together.
The square came into view at 9:16.
City Square had always belonged to ordinary days. We had crossed it during national holidays, waited near its fountain, bought drinks from vendors along its southern edge, and complained about the heat while the Congress Building watched over us from the north.
People called it Congress Square whenever politics entered the conversation.
That morning, politics had swallowed everything else.
Thousands of citizens filled the open ground. Office workers stood beside market vendors. University students shared water with monks, mechanics, teachers, grandparents, and children sitting on their parents' shoulders. White flowers rose above the crowd. Copies of the Constitution moved from hand to hand until pages softened with sweat.
The chants were not angry yet.
"Let Congress meet."
The words crossed the square in a low rhythm.
"Release our President."
No windows broke. No stones flew. People left a clear path for ambulances along the eastern side. Volunteers tied white cloth around their arms and guided families away from the densest parts of the crowd.
NC opened her printed map.
"We stay near the southern edge," she said. "If anything changes, we return by the same road."
"The subway is closer," Anna said.
"The entrance is already closed."
"Why?"
NC looked toward the metal shutters covering the stairs.
"That is a good question."
Across the square, national police officers formed a blue-uniformed line in front of the crowd. Their shields remained lowered. Behind them, military soldiers guarded the steps of Congress with rifles across their chests.
Two uniforms.
Two lines.
For the moment, both faced us.
June moved closer to NS without appearing to notice she had done it. Kitty's fingers found the strap of my backpack and held it for three steps before letting go.
Our private divisions had survived the morning.
They had simply become smaller than the rifles.
At 9:23, a national police commander climbed onto the base of the fountain.
He held a portable loudspeaker in one hand and removed his cap with the other.
"Citizens of Yandong, the National Police recognize your right to peaceful assembly. Keep the medical lane open. Do not press against the Congress perimeter. Parents with young children should remain near the southern exits."
A man near the front shouted, "Where is the President?"
The commander lowered the speaker.
He had no answer.
Another voice called, "Why are soldiers inside Congress?"
Still no answer.
The chant returned, louder this time.
"Let Congress meet. Let Congress meet."
The police commander turned toward the military line.
A military officer stepped forward and spoke to him without a microphone. We could not hear the words, but we saw the commander's shoulders harden.
The officer pointed at the crowd.
The commander shook his head.
For several seconds, the two men argued between the citizens and the soldiers.
Then the police commander faced us again.
"Remain peaceful," he said. "The police will remain with you."
Something changed in the square.
It was not victory. It was too early for that.
It was permission to hope.
An old woman walked from the front row carrying a white flower. The crowd opened a narrow path for her. She stopped before the youngest soldier guarding the steps.
He could not have been older than us.
"My grandson is your age," she told him.
The soldier kept both hands on his rifle.
"Please return behind the line."
"Take the flower first."
His eyes moved toward his commanding officer.
"Grandmother, please."
"If you call me Grandmother, you can take one flower from me."
The soldier hesitated.
Then one hand left his rifle.
He accepted it.
The square erupted in applause.
The young soldier stared at the flower as if it were more dangerous than the weapon against his chest.
His commanding officer crossed the distance, tore it from his hand, and crushed it beneath his boot.
The applause stopped.
The old woman did not move.
Neither did the soldier.
At 9:31, NC's map application began changing.
The western route turned red first.
Then the northern avenue.
"Traffic?" Bunny asked.
"There is no traffic," NC said.
Cherry raised her phone toward the buildings bordering the square. The signal had fallen to one bar.
Messages arrived without photographs. Calls connected without voices. Livestreams displayed frozen crowds from several minutes earlier.
Above us, the helicopter completed another circle.
NS looked away from the Congress steps and toward the roads behind us.
"XH."
I followed his eyes.
At the far end of University Avenue, two dark military transport trucks entered the intersection and stopped sideways across the road.
Their rear doors opened.
Soldiers began climbing out.
The crowd near us continued chanting because most people had not seen them yet.
"Let Congress meet."
Metal shutters descended over the second subway entrance.
"Release our President."
A police whistle sounded from the western edge.
Then another answered from the north.
I looked at the Congress Building in front of us, the soldiers coming down the avenue behind us, and the red lines spreading across NC's map.
At 9:32, I understood what VT had understood before sunrise.
We had thought we were walking toward the government.
Someone had been waiting for enough of us to arrive.