[Two strangers]

Sunny stares incredulously at the two absolute characters behind him. 

To his left - so definitely not the one teasing him, and definitely not the one digging his heel into the back of his seat - is a well-dressed, well-coiffed, improbably handsome man. Handsome in the sense of: in a sea of tired bodies, his posture is attentive and refined, and every imperceptible modulation marvellously picturesque. He is dressed head to toe in brown tweed and twill; a leather tote rests in the crook of one arm, less a sling than a bolster, and there is a small unformed lump of gold conspicuously embedded in his lapel. 

If he were closer to the front (and if his associate was less of a rogue), Sunny would have assumed he was a visiting scholar or maybe even a diplomat. The mysterious face, somehow simultaneously old and young, beams with an indescribable air of knowing. As he looks directly at Sunny, the edges of his mouth gently crinkle, like the folds of a note passed secretly between them. 

Sunny glances down, and pauses. Despite the man appearing incredibly alert and prepared for the session, he is carrying a completely unrelated book about ancient Greek philosophy, the pages of which appear to be falling apart. Rather than a wiseman...is he simply a weirdo? 

The man gestures that he is not the person Sunny is looking for, and points kindly to his companion. Sunny's attention follows, confused as to why he has become so docile and pliant all of a sudden.

To his right - yes, the obvious source of the teasing, and whose entire boot is now gleefully grinding against the plastic frame of Sunny's seat - is a boldfaced jerk and bog-standard delinquent who is, infuriatingly, even more handsome than his collaborator. Handsome in the sense of: it's obvious. The large luminous eyes, the freeflowing 80s glam rock hair, the complexion that appears to be lit from behind by a golden backlight. A scheming lip, that curves upwards as the stranger senses Sunny's approval - a wicked little checkmark.

And his style! Unlike his associate, this second man is dressed entirely like a savvy fashion influencer, with pieces that could have been lifted directly from Sunny's own wardrobe. Remarkably, even the tiny alterations are just as Sunny would have done - taking in the waistline on an oversized pair of jeans for goofy exaggeration, destroying the seams of a plain white tee to add visual grit - he can't help but approve of these small touches, while secretly resenting any suggestion of commonality with this brazen bully.

 " 'Sup, how's it going?" the bully intones, drawing out each word like a lazy cat stretch. Sunny knows he is probably staring too much, but then again, so is Soeun - the traitor. 

He recoils, whips his head back around, and tries to focus on the lecture that he had just lamented was too boring, reasoning that there is nothing wrong with boring when he really thinks about it. 

[Student ambassadors (of chaos)]

The rest of the class is even more arduous than the minutes that preceded, with Sunny's seat forever threatening to tip over from the incessant prodding, and with Sunny repeatedly trying to direct Soeun's attention away from the provocateurs. For some reason, even though their stern teacher assistants normally love to pick on unprepared students, he notices that they never once put the two troublemakers on the spot. Instead, their eyes would flit over the three of them and away, as if not seeing them at all. 

What's that about! Sunny thinks repeatedly to himself, each missed opportunity grinding his proverbial gears even more. Weird!

And so before the last slide is even finished, Sunny springs to his feet, ignoring the stares of the students around him as he grabs Soeun's leash and urges her out of her sprawling repose. Without looking back, he can hear the two men standing up from their seats and following them outside. 

Barely able to contain his frustration, he stalks by the circulation desk and thrusts the library doors open with unequal force, much more force than necessary, so that Soeun is forced to dash between his legs in fear of the clattering metal panes. As soon as he is outside, he turns, ready to explode - 

"Do you have a moment, Sunny?" The old-young man says, beaming down at him (because of course his pursuers would be tall as well as beautiful!) and he suddenly finds himself mute with shock. 

How did they find out his name? And what's with the obsequious tone, no one has ever thought he was important? Suddenly, any protest in the presence of this stranger seems utterly unreasonable and instantly regrettable. So he bites back the bile that threatens to push its way out, and waits for an explanation. 

"My name is Seo Jungmo, and this is Jacob Lee."

"We're not brothers," The man named Jacob appends, emerging from behind his partner in crime. His voice is loud and self-assured, even bored, and Sunny wonders if even the tormentor finds his own routine funny.

"We're members of the Student Travel Abroad Network," Jungmo says, his smile intensifying.

"Uhh...I don't think we have a network like that?" Sunny replies, feeling more uneasy by the minute. He would know. As a freshman, hadn't he scoured all of the club activities available at BCU for those with a higher proportion of girls? 

"Well, we do, and we're very selective," Jacob retorts. He drapes one arm over the library door behind them, effectively blocking Sunny's escape path. This is very annoying!!

Sunny tries another tack. "You guys know my name, so I feel like you're vet tech...but, I've never seen you around? Are you maybe new?"

"No, we travel," Jacob enunciates.

Sunny's patience is being worn very, very thin by this meaningless good cop, bad cop routine. And he did not have large reserves to begin with. He looks from one foe to the other, assessing his options. Although he has some fighting prowess, and has had more than one opportunity to test it (shh), it is clear that he is too overpowered in this situation.

If only Hyuntae had come to campus with him! The former PhD student looks an awkward mess, but is far stronger than he appears. Maybe, Sunny can lure them to him? If these louts try to follow him off campus and onto the bus, then at least they stand a fighting chance together on home turf.

"I have to get home," he suddenly proclaims.

"You're right," Jungmo says cheerfully, not missing a beat. "Let's go home and discuss the matter in its fullness. You probably have some questions too. Such as, regarding that person on the water. Or perhaps, about your hair?"

Sunny stares at him, registering each words fully, and as he does the blood drains from his face. 

[The puzzle comes together]

"Wait, what's going on here?" Sunny says, although his voice is not much more than a murmur. "What do you guys know...about..."

Suddenly, all of the happenstances and randomness of the past day seem to not be that, at all. Events begin to coalesce - colliding in his head - can it be that all of these isolated occurences fit together somehow? 

His eyes flit to Jacob, who stands idly by, and it is as if he is seeing him for the first time. 

"Y - y -" 

"What?" Jacob challenges. "Say it."

"You're...wearing my clothes!!" Sunny yells in disbelief, all of his frustration and apprehension ejecting all at once. It's true - he didn't imagine it - no coincidence could be that big! "It was you! You broke into Hyuntae's house, took my clothes, and drank all his shitty beer!"

"Yeah, and I also saved you from taking a tumble off a cliff, asshole," Jacob responds directly, pushing Soeun aside with one foot as she lunges at him, barking angrily in protest. "So how about a little gratitude? And - will you get ahold of your stupid dog, please?"

"No time," Jungmo tells him, suddenly apprehending Sunny by the arm. "We're going to need to take them both."

"If you say so," Jacob responds, taking the other arm. "You make the calls around here."

[An abduction in plain daylight...hello??]

Before Sunny can retort that this is his body and that even itinerant laggards at school have rights, the two have taken him by the arms and legs and are practically carrying him out of the faculty of science building. Alarmed, he attempts to flail his way out of their iron grip, but they are both incredibly strong, much more than he had anticipated. He can sense no weak spots to exploit, and at this point his own naive surprise at everything is getting the better of him. 

How unlucky to be small!! "Let me go!!" He cries.

As they sprint past other students in the hall, he is shocked to see the onlookers one and all - teachers, students, administrators visitors - completely unresponsive to the developing hostage situation. Some are peering into their phones and oblivious, others seeming to look right through them!

It can't just be a coincidence. Something strange is definitely going on, some form of awesome mind control! Who are Jungmo and Jacob? Are these literally the aliens that Hyuntae speculates about all day - or perhaps, mysterious agents of the government who capture said aliens, and can avoid being detected through normal means? 

His mind spirals, unable to come down from this science fiction high. What if he's being mistaken for an alien right now? Or what if it's not even a mistake, and he really is as much of an outlier as he'd always presupposed himself to be...? Self-delusion, implanted memories, The Sunny Show - his mind produces one useless cinematic trope after another - none of them fully capturing the bizarreness of the present situation. He can't imagine it - can't believe it - 

Answers, he thinks, and his heart nearly jumps out of his chest. I'm about to get them. Right now. 

They exit the building like this - the two superhumans half-carrying, half-hauling Sunny down the steps, his will to resist weakening by the second - and Soeun is still there, following the trio like a freewheeling dart. Finally, all four emerge onto the stark emptiness of the adjacent track field.

In stark contrast to the mood of the unfolding melodrama, it is another bright and beautiful day, though mysteriously wracked by wind, the trees lifting their branches high in the face of this mysterious and portentious gale. Here, the two assailants stop, and turn their gazes upward.

"Surely he's around?" Jungmo yells at Jacob over the noise of the whirlwind. "Not chasing a squirrel somewhere?"

"If he is I'll kill him myself," Jacob retorts, turning his face towards the sky. "Fassy!!"

[The visitation]

Suddenly, out of the sky, a beam of light flashes. And as Sunny looks up in mortal terror, something happens that he does not know how to explain.

The sun is descending from the sky. It's true - there's no other way to perceive what he is seeing. It grows in his field of view, becoming larger and more oblong, and for several painful moments, it looks as if it is about to strike the earth - then abruptly, the celestial body takes on a playful character, skidding to and fro amongst the clouds, somersaulting, pulling into dizzying loops and spirals - defying all laws of gravity and common sense - its glow becoming increasingly metallic and corporeal with each sway and slither - until the object that was once the sun gently lands at Sunny's feet, hovering only a few inches above the ground. 

And now Sunny can at least somewhat describe it: a very large, very dazzling flying surfboard, whose hazy edges and form seem to be ever-shifting, at some angles resembling an omega boomerang, other times an arc segment or a flat crescent moon.

Sunny realizes that he had stopped struggling entirely, so transfixed by the sight of this bizarre existence that the two men could lower him to the ground without fear of him bolting. He could not. 

"It's beautiful," he whispers, drawn to the object. "And totally gnarly."

"Yeah, don't look directly at it, genius," Jacob tells him, slapping his hand away from the surface of the mysterious flying object. "Didn't your parents ever tell you not to stare at the sun!"

[A surfboard in the sky]

"That's Fast Sunshine", Jungmo explains. Is this guy perpetually in a good mood? He seems to never stops smiling even when he's kidnapping someone in broad daylight! In Sunny's head, the wiseman-to-weirdo meter veers sharply to the right.

"You have Soeun, and Jacob has Fassy. I suppose he's a bit like...a big yellow dog?"

"Seriously, bro?" Jacob replies, unable to hide the offense in his tone, and for a second there is rare discord between the two. Fassy must be well loved by his owner, a particular point of pride. "Everything looks like a dog to you! But, well, maybe - maybe, if a dog was a whale shark."

He turns his attention to Sunny, and says the two words that simultaneously thrill him to the max and threaten to collapse his legs like a cheap folding tent. "Hop on."

Sunny is starting to become inured to these two's shenanigans. He takes a deep stabilizing breath before he asks, "what happens if I do what you say?"

"Then, Alice, we'll tell you everything," Jungmo replies.