Shortly before he walked into the Braddon McDonald's and lit a gas cylinder on fire, Gyu Seon Park walked into the nearby service station.
He didn't have the $89.95 needed to buy a cylinder, coming up about $2 short, but the attendant said he could pay the difference later.
Park smiled, and said, "okay", court documents say.
He walked across the road, and at about 8.45pm September 13, 2015, he entered McDonald's carrying the bottle wrapped in a black jumper.
CCTV footage shows 42-year-old Park walk directly into the toilets, where he sets down the cylinder and opens the valve.
"There's gas. You guys need to leave," he tells the manager.
He walks back into the toilet and five seconds later, there's an explosion that shatters the front glass door, collapses ceiling panels and sets off the sprinklers.
It was almost a year to the day that Park - with a lit cigarette hanging from his mouth - had doused the Weston restaurant Kusina in petrol and threatened to light it on fire.
He had arranged a meeting there that day, September 10, 2014, knowing it connected to someone he believed owed him money.
On Thursday, in the ACT Supreme Court, Park faced a sentencing hearing for the two offences, of acts endangering human life, to which he had earlier pleaded guilty.
The offence carries a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment.
Park appeared in court supported by family and friends, including his mother. Two Border Force officers took notes; Park, a Korean national who listened to proceedings through an interpreter, faces the possibility of deportation once he is released from custody.
Park's Legal Aid defence solicitor told the court Park had become depressed when his tiling business closed, eventually turning to the drug ice in 2013 because it had made him feel better.
He had admitted he felt unable to control his desire for the drug.
The solicitor said Park, who arrived in Australia more than 10 years ago, felt remorse for what he had done, as could be read in personal references, which also referred to how he was "a new person" since quitting drugs, and had "realised the frightening result of drugs".
Several psychiatrists' reports pointed to how an underlying mental health condition would likely have affected Park's ability to rationally assess decisions, the solicitor said.
One doctor from Concord Hospital, where Park recovered from his burns following the McDonald's explosion, said Park was suffering from drug-induced psychosis, but could also not rule out the existence of an underlying mental health condition.
The difficulty, raised by Justice John Burns in the hearing on Thursday, was to what extent Park's psychosis was caused by an underlying mental condition, or his drug use.
Prosecutor Katrina McKenzie emphasised the offences were distinct.
In one, he had planned the meeting to try get money from a person.
"After he didn't get the result he wanted, he went out to his truck, got out the diesel and started pouring it on the ground," she said.
He had stopped people from leaving the restaurant when they wanted, and members of the public were forced to intervene, she said.
Police reported he was cogent and rational afterwards, she said.
The second offence was more complex, Ms McKenzie conceded.
But Park had told staff to leave the McDonald's, and in doing so revealed "he fully understood the danger he was putting people in".
"It may be sad ... but the reality is he knew what he was doing and the potential harm to other people," she said.
"It was lucky no one was hurt."
The case will return to court in January for sentence.