[The next morning]

Sunny is not sure when he returned to the lounge. How Soeun's leash was returned to its present resting position on the newspaper stand. How Soeun was convinced to part with her perch and accept a humble down pillow on the floor. How he was able to figure out that the magenta rose sofa was a sleeper, and how he managed to slide it open when he cannot budge it even an inch in the incipient morning light. 

But then again, it's obvious what happened...isn't it?

"Dude, did you find me outside?" Sunny whispers when he sees Hyuntae's nose protruding through the gap in the double doors. Hyuntae does not look awake enough to be having this conversation, and Sunny is not entirely sure why he's whispering, although he has a vague notion that he does not want to injure his own head.

His head. Ah, yes...his magical, mystical glowing noggin, which now appears completely normal! What's up with that?

"School," Hyuntae blurts out. He is raking his temple in a lazy up and down motion with his fingers. "You need school, young man."

Sunny wants to contend that what he actually needs is an explanation - that nothing has felt quite right since he told Hyuntae about the figure on the water - and does Hyuntae also think it had something to do with those fish cakes, and what internal temperature is a wine cooler supposed to be anyway - 

"Relax, give me a minute!" Hyuntae says, nearly stumbling into the doors as he reverses direction, and Sunny realizes with dismay that his host is only halfway wearing pants. Figures - he entrusts his entire wellbeing to a guy, and that guy is only halfway in his pants.

"Be glad you're getting pants," Hyuntae throws over his shoulder, and Sunny has to admit that yes, this is true.

[A normal morning]

Eventually, both arrive at the dining hall. Sunny, still desperately clutching several sad-looking strands of hair as if daring them to act up in his presence, is surprised to see Hyuntae already installed in front of the wine cooler. In short order, he has acquired both pants and a battered old toolbox, and is now diligently cleaning out the contents of the poor excuse for a mini-fridge. 

"You're right, I've been misusing that wine cooler for so long that I'd forgotten what I'd set it to." Hyuntae says, frowning to himself as he retracts the long thermometer from the unit. Meanwhile, Sunny hovers over the leftovers arrayed on the counter, in a state that vacillates between voraciousness and mortal dread. "Three degrees Celsius."

"So...we won't die."

"Correct." Hyuntae drops the thermometer on the counter with a clatter, and heaves a sigh. "And if you need any more proof...here I am." 

"So what happened to me last night wasn't a food-poisoning-induced hallucination."

A pause. "No...suppose not."

"Hyuntae. My head. Did you see - "

"No Sunny, you didn't hit your head, but you should have told me if you were planning to drain my booze, I would have gladly walked your dog for you instead of you limping around in a blind stupor, now can we please throw the rabokki in some tupperware and go?? I have job boards to scour and you - you - you need to start your summer of redemption right!" Hyuntae blurts out, and as he does so he half-walks, half-runs to the door and forcefully pulls down a quarter zip sweatshirt from the nearby coat rack, nearly taking out the rack and himself in the process. He then pulls the tight garment over his shirt, squirming and fighting the woven fabric all the way down as it catches on his sunglasses and keychain, and all of this happens in about 15 seconds. 

"...But I didn't drink your booze!" 

"Well - then - who did? Your poochie? And you definitely didn't drink any of the water, that was so wasteful, man."

Hyuntae gestures towards the alleged evidence of these heinous crimes, and Sunny has to do a double take. But...it doesn't make any sense! Had he really only taken a few sips of a two-litre bottle of Jeju Samdasoo and drained three cans of FiLite? Did he lose both his memory and his sense of taste in one night?

"You're going to go to summer school and you're going to figure out how to be the best version of yourself and a much better houseguest," Hyuntae asserts firmly, handing Sunny his hat, and Sunny silently hopes this will not be the last gesture of goodwill between them. 

[Waiting for the shuttle bus]

The morning is light and breezy, with delicately whisked clouds sitting atop a blue-yellow-peach sky reminiscent of layered gelatin. A fresh marine smell blooms from the sea, rides high on the boughs of the air, and is carried to the hillock and dispersed in gentle greeting. From their vantage point, they can see a small yellow-and-blue bus winding around a cluster of apartment buildings, inching inexorably up the hill like a spirited caterpillar.

The shuttle bus to school is free for Sunny and Soeun, but not for Hyuntae, so Sunny is keenly aware that accompanying them to the stop is merely a courtesy. They trudge down the asphalt walkway and wordlessly cut through the dew-covered lawn together, matching each other step for step despite Hyuntae's considerably longer legs and the entropy of his gait. 

At last, they arrive at the at the unmarked stop. Sunny wants to thank his host - so much has happened, and who knows when he'll return for his stuff and under what circumstances - except that he's not sure that he wants to provoke said host any more. 

So instead he says meaninglessly, "what's in the fridge?"

"Sorry?"

"What's in your fridge that you can't fit a bag of fish cakes inside?"

Hyuntae looks up strenuously, when almost anyone else would be looking down at the speaker. One could almost believe that he could pick up the distant shuttle bus with his eyes and plonk it in front of them. "...Pass."

"...Uh huh. Hyuntae, you know that doesn't work, right? You can't just pass on questions in real life like you would on an exam. And...I don't know if you noticed, but you haven't exactly answered anything I asked all morning - "

"You're going to start finding out the answers before the end of today," Hyuntae suddenly says in a loud voice, body tense. 

This abrupt proclamation really does surprise Sunny, since Hyuntae rarely cuts him off mid-sentence. Even Soeun, who had been rigorously probing the sore spot behind her right ear and heedless of their conversation, perks up at the sudden change in atmosphere. 

"You're going to, and you can't rush it," Hyuntae repeats quietly, mostly to himself. The dark sunglasses shift marginally out of place, and behind them Sunny can see that his eyes are tightly closed. 

Sunny is not sure how Hyuntae could have possibly known this - known, with such certainty, to rush him at exactly the right moment so that they could make the shuttle - but as he steps off the bus and examines his digital day planner, he is surprised to see that he actually does have an optional summer orientation class at 10am that day. Just a coincidence?

The class is being held in the university's biological sciences library, a drab, shapeless brownish enclave situated in the north campus, and encased within the larger faculty of science cluster. He and Soeun rush to meet it. 

As advertised by hastily-constructed signposts, this is an open question-and-answer session for any students enrolled in summer courses, not merely vet tech - but in practice it appears to only be for individuals who do not value their own time, since Sunny can count on two hands the number of students who have actually assembled in the atrium adjoining the stacks. 

It's fine, he decides. Leaving now would only attract unnecessary attention. Besides, with his luck, the teaching assistants running the program might be connected to his actual courses in some obscure and cruel way! 

So he forces himself to take a seat even though his mind is teeming with distractions, from the prosaic to the paranormal. He quickly decides on a chair at the far left end of the next-to-last row and plonks himself down. Pulls his hoodie up, and pulls the drawstrings tight, on the off chance that his hair decides to initiate another rave on its own. Shoves his hands in his kangaroo pocket. And takes a deep breath. 

"Soeun, sit!" He whispers, motioning to his furry pal to take the unoccupied seat to his right, and Soeun - seriously, was she a princess in a past life? Why does she love elevated seating so much? - immediately obliges. 

He knows, from the cursory sideways glances of the other students filing into their own spots, that this is not a winning look. But his concern today is with surviving, not winning. Right now, he simply needs space - and a little bit of objective distance - to try to piece together a reality that seems to be, if not entirely broken, ever so slightly askew from what it was yesterday. 

[Take note, you might learn a thing or two]

The lecture begins after the standard overture of improbable technical difficulties, and what follows is not much more informative or interesting. What parts of campus are closed in the summer, how registration will work in a week's time, how to order lunch from a kiosk... Sunny wonders privately if the teacher assistants intended to mock them?

He looks around discreetly. People attend summer school for all sorts of reasons, and some are unserious. He is in no position to judge (the day is young and squatting in the student centre is still a distinct possibility), but as his eyes rest upon other disaffected and sleepy faces, he thinks that he can maybe take a page from them. 

So while the teacher assistant is fiddling with the sound controls on their laptop, Sunny discreetly pulls out his cell phone. With everything going on, he has nearly allowed himself to be distracted from the ultimate problem in his life, the eviction! Against hope, he needed to see if his pleas for leniency had at least been read -

"Hey! No phones."

A beat. At first Sunny thinks, surely he's hallucinating again, how could the instructor's voice be coming from behind him? He is too startled to fully look back, so he simply slides the phone back into his pocket and clasps his hands over his stomach, silently uneasy. 

A few moments pass without another remark. The teacher assistant is able to make it another three slides before stalling again due to a pop-up, eliciting the warm buzz of distracted conversation. And then, it comes - a second exhortation -

"Damn, son. You're seriously not going to use it?"

Exasperated, Sunny turns all the way around to face his tormentor in the back row. His eyes alight on him - on them - right away. Probably two of the the strangest students he's ever seen.