Falling Into the Sky, and…

“I won’t be home tonight, nor this weekend.” If Haruki Kanno had a choice, he wouldn’t be home—ever.

A grating beep blared from the other side of the phone. His uncle would demand he be on-call, ready to answer a call at a moment’s notice, but whenever Haruki would phone home, he’d only be honored with an answering machine and an automated response?

But who cares? Today was the day.

Today, he will fly. Leave all of it behind—even for a little while.

A stable but boring, soul sucking job at logistics: a fate with no future but the endless march of monotony and paperwork. An earth where dreams become nothing but fodder for soil, decomposing only for the strongest plants while their roots choke the sprouts weaker than they. Such was the rat race back in Tokyo, in his company full of individuals who only sought to climb the corporate ladder—a ladder that only reached up to the weakest man sitting at the top.

Strangle them all you want. Eat each other. I won’t be here.

The old train’s car rumbled, then finally screeched to a stop. When the doors opened, a fresh, cold breeze rolled in, revitalizing the energies within Haruki’s bones. He pulled his rolling suitcase by the handle and stepped out of the car alone.

Leaving the station’s archway, sprawling fields of freshly planted rice greeted him. The mountains in the distance surrounded the scenery, nestling the old, rustic village of Hanamigaoka in a self-sustaining time capsule. Almost. The prevalence of konbinis and vending machines around every corner made sure to remind Haruki that one day, Japan will become a konbini and vendo nation, with no centimeter spared for tradition.

Haruki made his way through the village’s dirt roads and walked a long way down an empty path westward into the village. He stopped when a large, warehouse-like structure appeared from behind the trees. He took a deep breath.

He was home. Really home.

He made his way around the warehouse and into the side of it, where a long strip of road waited for him to his left, and to his right, a shuttered hangar door. Haruki entered a tiny side door, entering a hallway which led to a small room that wouldn’t fit a family of three.

In the room was a collection of miniature model planes—some hanging from the ceiling by string, and some lined up neatly on the shelves. A few had toppled or fallen out of place, though thankfully unharmed. Must've been the doing of an earthquake.

Feeling a wave of nostalgia kick in, Haruki gingerly took a model and sat on a dusty old bed in the corner.

The model—a facsimile of a Fokker Dr.I triplane, was the first model he built in his first year in aviation college. Back then, the future was bright. He dreamed of one day being a plane pilot who’d go to international events like the Olympics and fly those impressive air shows they do there.

But when hard times came for his extended family—that they did—he had to drop out and take a less expensive course, and one that’d lead to a career where the money was at.

The plan was a success. But at what cost?

Deadlines, long work hours, unpaid overtime, and bosses that humiliate you in front of your coworkers for the slightest mistake. The pay wasn’t even stellar. The twisted systems of society sold him and his family a lie, and he paid for it with sweat and tears.

What leftovers he did have, however, funded his secret hobby—his true passion.

All this—and what waited for him beyond the other door of his room.

Putting the model back in its place, he opened the rickety door opposite the one he came from and emerged into a well-lit hangar within the building.

At the heart of it rested a full-sized, fully functional recreation of a Bristol F.2 biplane from days past. Its wooden wings and cloth-laced body blazed with a uniform coat of red-orange, and stickers of factions from a video game called Ace Fighting littered every other corner of it.

While the fuselage was refurbished from his late grandfather’s junk, everything else was built from the ground up with the best materials money could buy. What money couldn’t buy, Haruki poached from Hanamigaoka’s rich nature.

The Kenichi Modern, named after his great grandfather, was his greatest creation. Though he hadn’t built it alone.

A powerful snort cut his thoughts. Haruki looked to the side, spotting a man in his very late fifties with a newspaper draped over him snapping out of sleep. His jawline squared itself in hard angles, making him out as not-Japanese. The man turned to Haruki, suddenly alert as if he never slept.

“Didn’t think you’d arrive so early.” The old man, who Haruki only knew as Mr. Junk, glanced at his watch. “It’s nine-darn-thirty in the morning.”

“Oh, you know me,” Haruki said, beaming. “I’m excited. Today’s the day. You did finish coupling the V8, right?”

Mr. Junk scoffed. “Of course I did.” His eyes narrowed, turning to the Kenichi Modern and back to Haruki. “Though I did say it has a non-zero chance of failing on you. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“It won’t.” Haruki ran his hand across the KM’s fuselage, feeling the morning air cooling the hardened linen. “I’ve a lot of faith in our build, and especially in you. I know you wouldn’t have done it if it was likely to kill me.”

“Not likely, but not impossible,” Mr. Junk said. “So don’t go test flying in your t-shirt and slacks. Get geared.”

Haruki waved a hand dismissively and laughed. “Yes, Mr. Junk. Of course!” He then straightened and saluted an informal salute. “Prepping for take-off is my favorite part!”

With a spring in his step, Haruki made his way into the locker room where a simple but elegantly made flying suit awaited him. In a flash, his simple attire had come and gone, replaced by the flying suit which fit him to a tee. It felt like tailor made cosplay. Actually, for all intents and purposes, it really was cosplay—full function and protection notwithstanding.

Strapping a parachute on his back, he headed back to the hangar and boarded the plane. He began inspecting the equipment. When he stepped on the foot bars, the mechanisms at the wings moved. Turning the control stick flapped mechanisms aft and fore. The fake “guns” installed on the plane’s underside and backside clicked when he tested the safeties. There were a lot of more modern comforts installed into the cockpit that would only see action in a mono-wing setup—even the co-pilot seat was scooted a little closer than normal.

He had no idea how Mr. Junk managed to engineer all this, but he did.

Mr. Junk approached the side of the plane wielding an expression mixing grimace and pride. He reached out toward Haruki, the detached handle of the plane's magneto in hand.

“Good luck,” he said, voice low and creaky. “May the winds grant you fortune.”

Haruki took the handle but paused to wonder. “May the winds grant you fortune…? Is that something the air force tells you before flights, Mr. Junk?”

“It’s something my wife, the gods rest her soul, said to me before I went off to Iraq.”

Haruki chuckled. “I’m not going to war, though.”

“Think of it as a good luck or a take care,” Mr. Junk said, nodding. “Flying means a lot to me. I’m happy to know someone thinks the same.”

“Likewise.”

Haruki fitted the goggles over his eyes and slotted the handle into the magneto on the pilot panel. With a turn of the handle, the engine roared to life, and the propeller in front of him turned without anyone’s assistance. Mr. Junk really is a miracle worker.

When the hangar door opened, Haruki throttled the plane forward and out the bay. The KM started slow, but in no time at all, began racing down the pavement of the airfield.

The KM launched off the ground, gravity pushing Kenichi down on his seat. A pained groan left him, not expecting just how much installing a V8 would supercharge the plane’s speed. But it was perfect. Spectacular.

Haruki wrangled the plane’s angle and turbulence, steadying it into a calm upward pace. When the stress of keeping afloat left him, finally—he felt it.

The wind blowing across his cheeks. The absence of ground from his feet—the cockpit’s interior being the only contact under his boots.

Hanamigaoka below shrank. With each passing moment, the rice fields and wooden houses started to resemble formless blips rather than recognizable structures.

Haruki—he was leaving this earth. He was coming to meet his true home:

The sky.

The sky had always been his dream—and today was his first step toward it.

No work. No responsibilities. Freedom. Beauty.

Freedom.

In the sky, background was irrelevant. The wind carried history dating all the way back to the earth’s inception. It spoke to Haruki, though his human mind couldn’t possibly comprehend the passage of a million years. Yet, he listened. It spoke of freedom.

Then, his hands quivered. The plane shook.

Was he nervous? Overjoyed? Possibly both, but—

Haruki grabbed the control stick, steadying his hands and the plane. It wouldn’t budge. The control stick was a brick. Unmoving, like a fixture grafted onto the fuselage.

His heart began to palpitate. Haruki tried to move the foot bars, but they wouldn’t listen. It was as if the plane had taken a life of its own.

No, not like this…!

This was his dream. He didn’t want it to become a nightmare. If it did, then what else could he stand for? To exist for?

The instruments spun out of control. The KM twisted to the side, turning in angles he only thought of doing in video games. The controls had become nothing more than suggestions.

Then he began to fall.

But the ground—it was getting further.

He was falling into the sky—into the deep blue.

Darkness gathered at the sides of Haruki’s vision, enveloping it until nothing was left. The G-forces were too strong for someone as inexperienced as him.

His grip loosened. Death knocked, and he opened the door. If he would die, at least he would die doing what he loved.

Then—sparkles.

Darkness gave way to glittering lights, like countless diamonds lined his vision as the sky around him contorted and warped, as if being sucked into one central point in space—an event horizon.

A flash of light blinded Haruki. And finally… he slept.