RSL Ch 120

So we decided to take a flight around the Sahara near the Morocco-Algeria border and then return here. After that, like other tourists, we would move to a campsite to spend a night in the desert and then head back to Casablanca. This was our special event for our wedding anniversary.

“Please place the documents here and wait. Nationality?”

“Germany.”

“Is there one passenger?”

“Yes.”

I handed the airport staff my flight license and flight plan. Since this was a place where many private jets took off, I received flight permission without any particular suspicion. We exited through the entrance of the private airstrip, opposite the area where passenger planes were parked.

Hangar 4. The aircraft was painted with the name G-50. I checked the internal instruments and inspected the wheels and wings. Around that time, Han Jae-yi finished the check-in and came out.

“How’s the fuel? How many hours can we fly?”

“About three hours? I think two hours of flying around will be enough. What time does the campsite leave?”

“5 o’clock. That timing is just right. If we’re late, we can go separately.”

After placing the luggage in the back seat with familiar movements, Han Jae-yi secured the cargo belt tightly. Then he climbed into the cockpit and put on the headset. He looked natural enough to be a co-pilot.

“Why, do you want to hand over the control stick?”

He joked, looking at me as I stared at him blankly. I chuckled but it seemed plausible. He might be more suited to a single-pilot fighter jet than a passenger plane, after all. He had quite a free-spirited side.

“A light aircraft license is worth trying; don’t you think?”

“How much is ‘worth trying’?”

“With your brain, it wouldn’t take three months. Compared to the bar exam, it’s nothing.”

I closed the door and started the engine. I adjusted the radio control several times as the frequency wasn’t quite right. Eventually, the loud noise of the aircraft faded, and I could hear Han Jae-yi’s breathing through the headset.

“Can you hear me well?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s the emergency exit lever?”

“Next to the door.”

“What if it doesn’t open?”

“Should I break it with my head?”

As I listened to his jokes, I slowly moved the lever. The wheels quietly rolled forward.

“What if I become incapacitated?”

“Control tower, mayday, aircraft name, pilot not in control.”

“What’s the aircraft name?”

“Um, here it is. G-50.”

It felt rewarding to have gone over the basic safety procedures.

“You could take the license test tomorrow.”

Han Jae-yi, who didn’t know how to be humble in the face of praise, smirked.

“Should I do your job instead?”

“Haha, that would be nice.”

We chatted as we moved toward the runway. Soon, I turned off the in-flight communication and switched the frequency to request takeoff permission from the control tower. The series of processes felt as familiar as breathing, but the man sitting next to me gave me a different kind of tension.

The weight of life is heavy for everyone. However, Han Jae-yi’s was something I couldn’t dare measure. I recalled the pre-departure checks and confirmed once more that there were no mistakes.

-G50, cleared to take-off.

-G50. Take-off. Thank you.

The small propeller plane raced down the runway it was assigned. Considering the short acceleration distance, I pulled the controls immediately. The aircraft lifted off lightly, like a balloon, and began to gain altitude. We fell silent until the plane stabilized.

When we reached around 4,000 meters, I reopened the in-flight communication channel. Han Jae-yi turned his head to look at me. I met his gaze, and we smiled at each other. The takeoff was successful.

Since we were flying in a controlled airspace, there was little danger, but we decided to avoid the regular routes used by commercial aircraft as much as possible.

About ten minutes passed. I looked down at the ground. The roads were gradually disappearing, and the wasteland stretched on. The trees and buildings that could serve as landmarks were noticeably fewer. It meant we had come quite far.

As time passed, the patterns of the rippling sand became increasingly distinct. Hills appeared and disappeared one after another, and soon a perfect sandy beach appeared before my eyes. It was the sight I had been looking forward to.

“This is the Sahara from here.”

This vast desert starts from a tiny part of Morocco and extends through Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and into Egypt. It is incomparable to the North American deserts, where you can occasionally see rocks or clumps of grass. It cannot be crossed entirely by a man-made vehicle. You can walk on foot for a thousand nights or use the power of an animal. I like to observe such a part of great nature from afar.

“I think I understand why you wanted to see it.”

Han Jae-yi murmured as he looked down through the window. I lowered the altitude slightly.

“Even while flying, I feel strangely isolated. Is it because I can’t see any signs of other life?”

“Yeah. But if you look closely, something must be moving down there too.”

“The fox from Saint-Exupéry, the boa constrictor?”

He teased me as he looked at me. I just laughed without answering, but I reflected for a moment. Perhaps I had shared too many trivial stories with him. Han Jae-yi seemed to see through even the parts of me I wanted to hide.

He was right. Another reason I loved the Sahara was because of Saint-Exupéry. I am a very realistic person, but for the same reason, I longed for fantasies that could never happen. Perhaps the story of The Little Prince and the existence of Han Jae-yi held the same meaning for me. It might have been the ambiguity of being somewhere between reality and fantasy that I found appealing.

“What would happen if we really had to make an emergency landing here?”

“I told you, the ground isn’t solid enough to land.”

“Would we get buried in the sand?”

“Yeah. If we’re lucky, we might stop half-buried, or something on the aircraft could break.”

“Oh.”

At his exclamation, I suddenly turned my head to look at him. Han Jae-yi, noticing my anxious expression, smiled and said it wasn’t like that.

“I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not that crazy. I just asked out of curiosity.”

He seemed aggrieved at how I viewed him as a lunatic. No, that wasn’t it. At some point, I had unconsciously started calculating the current altitude and weight.

In truth, just like Han Jae-yi, I also had a desire for actions that defy common sense. Moreover, his numerous words and actions over a long period must have influenced me significantly. An emergency landing was beyond my capabilities, but I was confident in math.

“I’ve mostly gone along with what you wanted so far.”

He stared at me blankly, wondering what I was trying to say. We were flying near the Algerian border. I continued speaking.

“What about you? If I asked you to do something, would you just do it without suspicion?”

It was a rather absurd statement without any context, but he smiled and made a gesture of honor.

“If it’s something with you, anything.”

His answer, given without hesitation, caused a moment of hesitation in me. I checked the instrument panel once.

“What is it, should I write a will?”

Seeing my serious expression, he lightened the mood with a joke.

“It’s an honor that you trust me that much, but it’s not something you should risk your life over.”

“Yeah.”

“There’s something I’ve always wanted to try, and I think I’d have the courage to do it with you.”

Before reason could make me hesitate again, I decided to just go for it. My right hand, which had been slowly rising, suddenly flicked, and I turned off the aircraft’s engine.

The propeller stopped. The loud noise of the aircraft faded, and the world became quiet. The aircraft began to glide.

“……”

Han Jae-yi quietly watched what I was doing. He didn’t stop me or ask why. He probably knew that a propeller plane doesn’t immediately crash when the engine is turned off. We were gliding down slowly, riding the wind.

I took off my headset. I couldn’t fulfill his wish to have sex in the cockpit, but I thought I could do something even more romantic.

“Do you want to kiss?”

My voice, unfiltered by the radio, quietly dispersed into the air. However, Han Jae-yi seemed to understand, as he took off his headset and turned his body toward me. The moment our lips met, another world opened up. I closed my eyes and felt the freedom of floating in the air and the gravity of the Earth at the same time. I felt the life force of my beloved with all my being.

I started the countdown.

5….

4….

3….

Since the moment I turned off the engine, I had already been timing it in my head. The time it would take for the 850-kilogram aircraft to return to normal altitude. I gave this crazy romance 9 seconds.

2….

1….

I opened my eyes and told him I loved him. In moments like this, Han Jae-yi always holds back his words. Another brief kiss followed. I reached out and started the engine.

“Let’s go up.”

The propeller that had stopped began to spin again, and the loud noise of the aircraft filled the world once more. The aircraft began to gain altitude. The deviation ended in an instant, and we returned to reality. It felt exhilarating, as if we had visited a third world that couldn’t be crossed.

I asked him for his thoughts.

“Um, it was shockingly good.”

Han Jae-yi put his headset back on and tightened his seatbelt.

“Isn’t this your kind of thing?”

The plane flew normally again over Morocco. I adjusted the route to turn more northwest to avoid crossing the border.

“No, that’s not it. I meant I liked that you did something like this.”

His praise was directed at me. In that moment, I wanted to pull him in for another kiss. Everything about Han Jae-yi’s actions and mannerisms made me squirm.

“It’s because I’ve rubbed off on you.”

“Is that why it feels somewhat familiar? It seems like I’ve done this before. Since I can’t remember it in detail, it must have been in a past life.”

He said something silly again. I shook my head, but he was still gripping the controls with a look of excitement on his face.

Could it be? Even in that life I have no memory of, were you and I together? If we happened to cross paths even once in some moment or space, I thought it would have to be that way.

Falling in love isn’t something that happens by will.

Somehow, I feel like I’ve heard that before. I don’t know whose line it is. Maybe I saw it in a dream. Or perhaps it was something I read in a book a long time ago. But I resonate deeply with that sentiment. Even at fifteen, I was helplessly caught up in it.

I looked at the clock; it was almost 4 o’clock. There was still plenty of fuel, but I felt like I had finished everything I needed to do. Is this when one would say there are no regrets?

“Let’s go back.”

I turned the plane’s nose without hesitation.

“Are you not disappointed?”

“Not at all.”

“Okay.”

He smiled warmly and took my hand. The plane changed its course in a wide arc. With the centrifugal force, his message reached my heart. The language of love sometimes feels like just a single kiss or the pressure of a warm hand.

Recently, Han Jae-yi has been reading a page from my childhood diary every night. The order is reversed. With the dates in the diary, we were getting younger by a week or a month. Soon, it would be time for the page from the day we first met. There’s nothing particularly grand in the narrative.

A friend from Korea. A really handsome guy. I was glad he wanted to be friends.

That trivial, completely unremarkable short impression was filled with excitement, a secret known only to me. In truth, I was singing. I was reciting poetry. The language of love sometimes finds expression in just one sentence from a stoic boy’s diary.

I hope we meet again tomorrow.

I remember that it was then that I first accepted someone without resistance. That was the beginning of my love, our first, and the first page of this entire story.

As the plane soared, he now held the controls with me. It’s a journey that will eventually come to an end, but I have no doubt he will stay by my side until the moment we land.

Until then, my flight continues. In the midst of the sky, accompanied by clouds, wind, and warm sunlight.

〈The End〉