RSL Ch 8

I walked into a house that was still unfamiliar to me. The house was already equipped with essential appliances for sleeping, eating, sitting, and relaxing, so the only things I had to order were a couch, TV, table, and coat rack, which hadn’t been delivered yet, so there was only one small sofa chair in the living room.

A burglar could break in and there would be nothing to steal. The house was so empty that I could live with the door wide open.

“It’s been less than a week since I moved. You’re the first guest.”

“I’m not a guest.”

Han Jae-yi laughed in disbelief and opened and closed each door to check the structure. The house was neither too big nor too small, just the right size for two or three people. Luckily, there were two bathrooms and three rooms. The living room was connected to the kitchen, making it quite spacious, and the balcony extended to the master bedroom, maximizing space utilization, as the landlord explained. I couldn’t understand why this was considered high space utilization.

Han Jae-yi left his luggage in one of the relatively small rooms and said he was going out. I wondered where he was going, but I didn’t ask, because I realized that even if my plan to get him out worked, I would still have to live with him for a week, and I might lose my mind if I made too much of it.

I organized my luggage. I took out my dirty clothes, leaving what I needed for tomorrow’s flight. I removed the wing badge from my uniform to collect the laundry.

I remember the day I received the wing for the first time when I passed the pilot exam. More than half of my peers gave up and went home, and the remaining half dropped out during simulation training. I struggled fiercely to obtain this wing.

For those new pilots with excellent grades, the company had a program that supported their residence, and as someone who wanted to leave home as soon as possible, it was an unmissable opportunity. It was a challenging time, fighting fiercely.

If I had stayed with the company, I would have built up enough points to get a good contract renewal. I blew it all to come here and have to wash my own uniforms. I chuckled.

About three or four hours later, I got a call from Han Jae-yi. I asked him where he was, and he said in front of his house.

“Come down for a bit.”

When I went down in front of the house as he said, the trunk and the back seat of the car were filled with luggage. Bedding sets, kitchen utensils, cleaning supplies, and small house gadgets continuously poured out. Checking here and there like someone visiting a house, he seemed to have gone shopping for this. I was amazed, staring at him, and he gestured towards the trunk. He meant for me to bring them upstair.

After sending him upstairs with his luggage in the elevator, I climbed the stairs with the rolled-up carpet and bedding sets. Most of the furniture was from a Swedish modular furniture company. It was familiar and welcoming, as we, in our twenties, had assembled and disassembled these products countless times.

“Let’s consider it as paying for accommodation.”

In response to my request for a receipt, he began arranging the purchased items as if he were the landlord. Of course, I had no complaints about such things. We had experienced this a few times before.

Han Jae-yi has lived in more than three different apartments during his law school years. I moved twice, too, and each time, we moved our stuff together like it was a promise.

In Germany, when moving out, the previous tenant had to repaint the place. Thanks to that, both of us became skilled at painting. Once one person started attaching the sheets, the others automatically rolled the paint.

Emergency keys were always entrusted to each other. Although the distance between us increased with each move due to work-related issues, this practice never changed. He ignored friends living nearby and entrusted the keys to me, who lived more than an hour away by car. Perhaps that was the problem.

“Here’s a password to open the door, so you don’t get locked out.”

“Oh, yeah. I was going to ask you for the key, but I don’t think I need it now.”

The things that held him and me together would be broken, one by one.

Unimpressed, Han Jae-yi crossed the living room and entered the room he occupied. He grabbed his underwear and headed for the bathroom. I could hear the shower running. Again, it was a good thing there were two bathrooms.

After both of us finished showering and had a simple dinner, I went to bed early for tomorrow’s morning flight. However, because of the jet-lag I woke up at 3 a.m. to the sound of Han Jae-yi on the phone in the living room. I felt like I had heard something I shouldn’t have.

“Yeah. Well… according to Max, he came for no apparent reason. Huh… I don’t know. I’ll see if he stays longer. Yeah. Hmm, can’t sleep.”

It was affectionate and endlessly gentle. I could also hear a soft laughter. I envied the small conversations about the events of the day. He must cherish Gisela. I knew his caring personality, but eavesdropping on his conversation with his fiancée was a first.

He probably talks on the phone like this every night. She was a broad-minded person who understood the fiancé’s situation of being separated temporarily due to friends, and I felt jealous of her in every way, as if I had been robbed of something even though it had never been mine. 

I was at a disadvantage in every way.

* * *

I couldn’t get a proper sleep. My condition was at its worst. After arriving at work, I quickly exchanged operational statements and flight plans with the Co-pilot in the crew room. As our destination was a 2-hour flight away, there was nothing noteworthy to mention during the briefing with the other crews. We immediately went to the aircraft to begin the pre-flight checks for takeoff.

“Oh, by the way. Seong-wook is my fellow pilot. Do you know him?”

“Yes, we had our first flight together.”

He said he was a flight school classmate of Co-pilot Jeon Seong-wook and had heard stories about me.

Becoming a captain of a large aircraft in an FSC (Full Service Carrier) at the age of thirty is almost impossible in Korea. Of course, things were different for foreign pilots employed under contracts, but they seemed to have placed me in the same national ranks. Hoping that no rumors spread, I handed him the Jeppesen chart (operational manual).

Since my condition continued to be less than ideal, I wanted a prompt takeoff. The Co-pilot, who noticed my urgency, joined me in quickly going through the checklist while looking at the chart. Meanwhile, a maintenance technician entered the cockpit and handed over the maintenance log. It seemed like we had achieved something with a unified teamwork spirit.

The plane took off without any issues.

On the plane flying over the East Sea, I replayed yesterday’s events. I couldn’t sleep because Han Jae-yi was on the phone with Gisela for over 30 minutes. Needless to say, it wasn’t loud.

I stayed up late and woke up around 6 a.m. to get ready for work. Before I left, I opened the door to wake up Han Jae-yi, who was tossing and turning uncomfortably, and invited him to sleep in my bed. He rubbed his eyes and looked at me, and when he saw that I had already changed into my uniform, he offered to drive me to the airport. I had to go through the absurdity of stopping him from insisting on such a thing, which made my condition worse.

“Back-to-back flights? You look tired.”

“Yeah, that’s a bit of a stretch.”

“Do you want me to do the landing?”

“Would you do that?”

As we had to prepare for landing again in just 30 minutes, it annoyed me, but the quick-witted Co-pilot volunteered to take over the controls. I leaned back and massaged my eyes with both hands. The frequency of Haneda Airport’s control tower started to pick up.

-Tower, Coreana 776 final 7 miles south. 

Another airplane on approach to Haneda was close enough to see. I asked the tower to clear traffic and we entered the callout for landing.

-Coreana 776, reduce speed 290.

The Co-pilot, apparently very familiar with Haneda Airport, promptly followed the tower’s guidance, slowing down and attempting circling. Turning 180 degrees, the aircraft revealed itself in the airspace above Haneida International Airport, flying over the sea.

He slowly descended and lowered the landing gear. At 300 feet, I made the call.

“Gear down.”

As the command was given, the rear wheels, lowered by the first officer, touched the ground smoothly. As the front wheel touched down, spoilers on the wings opened, creating wind and friction noise. It was an impressive soft landing, almost converging to zero angle. Impressive.

Due to my deteriorating condition, I had hastily completed the operational statement earlier, so I checked his name again in the flight log. Encountering a skilled pilot unexpectedly is always interesting.

“Sir. how many flight hours have you logged since obtaining your ATPL?”

“Well… around 2,000 hours, I think. How was the landing?”

He smiled and looked at me.

“Yes, it was very good.”

Only 2,000 hours. Honestly, I was surprised. Pilots’ flight time and skills are generally directly proportional, but there are occasional exceptions. I haven’t met many people like that in my ten years. There are those who seem to have held the control stick since birth. The captain seemed to belong to that category. Flying with such a person is stimulating. Childish as it may be, I felt the urge to show my skills too.

Even after all passengers had disembarked, we didn’t leave the cockpit. We used the time for a restroom break and some stretching. We could see the refueling truck arriving for the aircraft that would soon turn around. Cabin cleaning had begun.

“I heard Seong-wook helped you find a house, and it’s close to my place.”

“Yes, I heard everyone tends to buy houses in similar neighborhoods.”

We passed the time with various small talk. Honestly, I wished I could at least get some sleep during the aircraft inspection, but it wasn’t possible. One ground crew member entered the cockpit.

“There’s a group field trip from a Japanese middle school today, so it’s going to be a little noisy, and we just got a notification that one of the passengers has an epilepsy, so I thought you should know.”

It’s good for the captain to know in advance if there’s a full-term pregnant woman or a seizure-prone patient who might need something urgent. Of course, there were some cabin teams that didn’t take care of it, but I just assumed they were busy or forgot. For them, the busiest time was right before the boarding deadline when they had to make direct contact with the passengers. I thanked him and sent him away.

After reconnecting with the gate and passing through the windowed bridge, passengers began to board the plane one by one. A group of students crowded around the bridge window, taking pictures of the airplane with no intention of boarding.

While picking up the chart just below the cockpit window, our eyes met by chance. I waved my hand slightly. The scream of “Heeeee-” was heard all the way over here. They unintentionally snapped a bunch of pictures. The first officer looked at me and laughed.

The return flight was more or less uneventful. Due to both my condition and the crowded wind at Gimpo Airport, it took over 10 minutes just to get landing clearance. I calculated the time until fuel exhaustion and planned to reposition to Incheon Airport if necessary, but fortunately, we successfully landed before that.

I pulled the parking lever and covered my face with my hands. Now, it felt like my body had reached its limit, and I really wanted to jump out of the window. The Co-pilot shut down the engines in my place.

“Since your home is close, I’ll take you there.”

I was so happy that tears almost came out.

Quickly writing the operational log, we left the cockpit in brisk steps. The Co-pilot’s foreign car had such a comfortable passenger seat that it immediately put me to sleep. After what felt like one minute but was actually 30 minutes, he quietly shook me awake. I wondered where we were, but it seemed like we had arrived in front of our villa. It still felt unfamiliar.

I thanked him and was getting out of the car when Han Jae-yi was looking at us, coming from the parking lot. It seems he had gone out.

“Rest well then.”

The Co-pilot’s car pulled out of the alley. Han Jae-yi saw me and approached, hands in his pockets.

“Same company?”

“Yeah, the person I flew with today.”

“He’s handsome.”

“Really? When did you see him like that?”

“I thought it was you, so I kept looking. But well, what’s the use of a handsome guy’s face. Aren’t there any female pilots in the company?”

“I don’t know, there probably are.”

“Pay more attention, please.”

He playfully put his hand on my shoulder and pushed me towards the entrance of the villa. For a second, my foolish anticipation made me feel like a fool.