Nothing is more natural than when he is in the air.

Walking feels foreign on his feet as Joonmyun glides in the sky, and his hands rest a top of the steering wheel like it was his birthright. The air controller pitches through his head-set, and he follows the instructions he was given to climb up at a 180 degree turn. Effortlessly, his aircraft trails his steering; in one smooth swerve and Joonmyun can merely watch as the beauty of the sky unravel in puffs of greyish white clouds.

He prompts his aviator goggles onto his forehead and wipes his eyes. He can’t help but feel that his flying helmet is glued to his head as the sweat drips from his skin. Below, he’s wearing his khaki uniform – with his Pilot Wing’s Insignia stitched at the right of his chest. And his rank chevrons are sewed into the arm of his uniform. On top of his uniform, Joonmyun has on a life vest – equipped with the necessary stole and kapoks for his safety throughout the mission.

As he pushes the navigator forward for more , his upper canvas boots are solid against the floor of his fighter jet, and he grips onto the wheel tightly as he feels the excitement build in the pit of his stomach. A feeling he is all too familiar with, from the hours he would spend in the flight simulator during training.

Before readying himself to climb, Joonmyun eyes the fuel gage, and flicks the switch to reduce air pressure in his aircraft. He checks that he’s maintaining speed before reporting back to the air controller on the other side of the microphone wedged into his right ear.

“Affirmative. Turning 180, and continuing to climb.”

He can hear the faint whirring of the aircraft he’s in, as both of his engines violently spin in a deadly circle motion. The sound is otherwise unbearable, but Joonmyun luckily has his helmet on – and it is somewhat muffled.

He leans in to push his gear shift forward to increase his speed and angles the wheel downward to gain a higher motion.

All the training in the world couldn’t have made him feel how he felt just then.

Flying to Joonmyun is like freedom. It’s like finally getting justice for a wrongdoing after years and years of fighting. And Joonmyun wants to savor every living moment. He concludes that he was born to fly, ever since he had this infatuation for wings and planes since he was young. He likes to think that before anything he ever accomplished – the first thing he did was, fly.

But what the academy teach you is completely different.

They make you aware, that when you fly, there is no safety net below.

They tell you that it’s flight or fall.

Fly or die.

During his enrolment in flight school in America, he reached the country’s conscription age, and Joonmyun signed up to do his national duty at the age of 16. He was always on post – but his inexperience as a young pilot (who just entered the course) permitted him three years to train. By the age of 18, he graduated out of the school and was ready to fulfil his dream to fly. However his dream was forced to remain a dream when he began training. During army drills, the idea of violence and murder was pierced into his head. Although Joonmyun was a in the army – he was pacifist at heart, and would strive to major lengths to avoid conflict. But the military conflict between South Korea and it’s northern neighbors only heightens, and Joonmyun is forced into the situation where he and his American ally’s must kill or be killed.

But Joonmyun shoves the thought aside.

He’s only flying over to spy over enemy grounds, he thinks.

So, he puts his efforts in flying to his destination – rather than what he may entail.

-

General Jung slammed the phone down onto the receiver and huffed furiously. He yelled at his secretary to call the Captain of the South - Korean Air Defense base in America, because of some news he’s gotten from a North Korean officiate.

The Captain returns Jung’s call immediately, and listens wearily as Jung tells him the details of the doomed spy-planes that had already aborted to the mission to spy on North Korea of its possible nuclear threat.

North Korean fighter jets were already on their journey to fend off South Korean and American spying missions. Even if it meant taking the jets down using force. The enemy was told to stop at nothing, and as General Jung continued of the North’s plans - it only sunk the dreaded feeling of realization further.  

The Captain had sent out 3 jets that day to accompany on the mission. That’s three chances that the enemy would surely not miss.

Jung screeches, “If they take down our pilots – it’ll be an act of war!”  

The Captain calls Jung to come to the air defense base and ends the call. He relays the message to the air controllers, and demands to end the mission as a state of emergency.

They were under threat.

At several posts, the controllers hastily make the coordinates for each of the three jet’s safe return. One grabs the headset and flings it over his head; he holds the microphone in his hand and tries to come into contact with one of the fighter aircrafts.

“This is delta-base. Emergency. Abort mission,”

“I repeat,”

“Abort mission.”

-

Joonmyun can see something in his rear view mirror. He squints, and he sees the faded silhouette of two other jets rearing behind him. A smirk travels his lips, and he turns, loosely able to curve them off his path.

But they soon catch up.

He can hear interference from his radio, and the voice of his friend, vaguely comes within earshot.

“Think you can get rid of me that early eh?” a cocky voice rings, and Joonmyun merely grins as he recognizes it.

Jongdae.

“Yeah, that was a pretty attempt mate,” another voice says, a voice much lower, timber and solemn.

Wufan.

“I thought this was a sole mission?” Joonmyun asks. But he doesn’t mind the company.

“You think they’d let you go alone on a spying mission?” the cocky one scoffs, but Joonmyun can hear the sincerity in his friend’s voice. He knows that his friends are there so he doesn’t get hurt.

“Wanna get there quicker?” Wufan asks his tone is notably more eager.

During his training days, Joonmyun had met Jongdae and Wufan at the school. At the time it was required that he called them by their pilot-names, Chen and Kris. Kris was two years older than Joonmyun, and Chen was one year younger. When they first met, it was like they were a band of brothers destined to meet; and would stay up some nights talking about the stars they would want to fly beside, or the races they would have if they ever flew together.

It’s weirdly only by coincidence that Joonmyun was flying with them, because usually the Captain would send two more experienced pilots – if any. But Joonmyun was way too glad to care.

No matter how much he loved flying, Joonmyun would admit that it gets lonely sometimes. He would even start talking to the birds whenever he flew long journeys for practice – and he would always come back getting weird looks from the controllers and other pilots.

That was the day he realized that air controllers could hear everything he was saying because he forgot to switch the controller to craft communications off.

It’s not necessary to do so, but it reduces the excess interference controllers would hear during a pilot’s flight.  

At that moment, Joonmyun, Chen and Kris all have theirs off. Except they can each hear if their controller commands them.

If their controllers heard them then, they would all surely lose their jobs.

But even though Joonmyun knows that this is against the rules, Kris’ words alone, strike something in Joonmyun’s gut. It’s something between exhilaration and testosterone, just the idea of a race in the sky makes him jump in his seat.

Joonmyun checks his fuel gage, and in the heat of the moment he thinks he flicked the switch to add more power by refueling his engines.

But what he doesn’t know is that he’s switched off the auto radio, disabling the signal between him and his controller.

Chen and Kris take Joonmyun’s silence as a signal to get ready.

Chen looks in his rear mirror, and then to the side of the main window. He can see a stream way of ocean and he knows they must be close. After pulling out his map and flight manual he makes sure to ready his craft to race. Kris tightens the harness, and increases the fuel to his engines.

“Co-ordinates, 1.0, North-bound – set ahead.” Chen states to the other members, there’s a tone of playfulness as he chuckles into the mic.

“Ready,” Chen starts,

Joonmyun pulls his goggles down; Chen pushes his gear shift, and Kris looks dead ahead.

“Set,” Joonmyun continues, his hands steady but his heart shaky,

“Go.” Kris says flat, and short with every little bit of determination dripping from his tongue.

-

The air controllers meekly attempt another round call.

“Jet-991, this is delta-base,”

“Jet-992, do you copy?”

“Jet-990, call for affirmance.”

Collectively they say, “You must abort the mission.” “I repeat,” “Abort the mission.”

But on the other line, all they can hear is a faint crackling sound.

General Jung looks over the nervous controller’s shoulder, and agitatedly whips the head set from him. He quickly places it against his ear and growls when he can’t hear anything but a faint, broken noise.

After throwing the set onto the desk, he turned to the Captain.

“What do we do now?!” he booms, “The communications are bust! They’ll be slaughtered!”

“Calm down Jung.” The Captain replies with authority, before walking towards the main screen where he could see the three aircrafts advancing towards enemy target.

“Why are they getting faster?” he asks, frowning, as he watches the dotted crafts approaching at a speed that wasn’t agreed on.

Jung stands beside the Captain; surprise and confusion written on his face, as he monitored their speed from the screen.

“You’re right! Do you think they are under attack?” Jung asks, astounded and fearful.

“We would have seen the enemy jets on the screen, besides; the target would have approached head on rather than perform a sneak attack from behind.” The Captain replies, he turns around and checks the chartered map hanging on the wall. There are three pinpoints stabbed into each point. He points to it as Jung faces him.

“They will be over land soon,” The Captain points to the greenery patch.

“If they get out of this alive, that is where they are likely to crash.”

“Crash?! We can’t let them crash!” Jung cries, grabbing fistfuls of his hair in terror.

“Well what do you propose?” The Captain remarks sternly. “If the enemy does attack, the best chances for the pilots are to crash land there. The greenery and trees can cause havoc on the planes – unless they parachute out. It’s a rough landing, but it may be their only chance of survival. To the enemy it has to look like they are dead. There has to be an explosion, a mass destruction of the forest – or else, the enemy will go searching, and the pilots will be taken hostage.” He finishes, and Jung stands with his mouth hung open.

“We can’t even let our own forces go to rescue-” Jung begins, awestruck,

“-that’s right. Or else it will be taken as an act of war.” The Captain interrupts.

“Well then that means, that...” General Jung stalls, his eyes flickering from side to side, as he reels the thought in his mind. It should be unbelievable, unacceptable. How can their leaders not be there when the pilots need them the most?

“They’re on their own.” The Captains finishes of for Jung, as he stares at the screen with a look of sorrow and helplessness.

The dots are inching closer to the target. It won’t be long until it’s time. 

 

casually just procrastinating here
should update chap two by tomorrow...probably...maybe...never...lol what am i doing with my life