Theirs was a whirlwind New York City Christmas, but while true love is timeless, vacations are not. Sadly, it came time for one of the lovebirds to fly home to California, and the other, Haisong Jiang — love-struck as if Cupid hit him not with an arrow, but with a two-by-four to the head — saw his beloved to the security line at Newark Liberty International Airport.

One thing led to another, and they kissed. And whatever else that kiss sealed, it certainly included his fate: to ladle out meals at some soup kitchen to be determined as a way toward working off 100 hours of community service for his crime that afternoon in January.

“At that moment, I’m very excited with my girlfriend, and I didn’t think too much,” Mr. Jiang, 28, said Tuesday in his first interview since causing the six-hour shutdown at the airport and the five-day manhunt that followed. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble at the airport.”

Mr. Jiang walked past a Terminal C exit on Jan. 3 to see his girlfriend to her departure gate, prompting an evacuation of the terminal on one of its busiest days. About 200 flights were delayed or canceled, and thousands of passengers had to be screened all over again as officials looked for a suspect who was not only oblivious, but also long gone.