Prologue
—Turn back. This is your final warning. Turn back.
Gravity crushed against his skull.
As he tore violently through the clouds, he climbed to an altitude of 15,000 meters in exactly two minutes.
—You have entered an unauthorized flight zone. I repeat, cease flight and await further instructions. You have been intercepted. Maintain the emergency frequency. Two fighter jets are currently pursuing you.
But the man never let go of the controls.
The closer he came to a vertical ascent, the more tiny blood vessels burst inside him. His organs and lungs must already have been flattened.
Even though he had repeated this for ten years, every time he defied the sky like this, he felt like some insignificant creature struggling against the current of a river.
But even that sentiment would end today.
Because today would be his final flight.
—I repeat. This is a no-fly zone. Do not trespass. Do not violate the air defense identification zone. I repeat…!
Unclear voices layered over one another through the radio, shouting in desperation.
Behind the oxygen mask attached to his Air Force helmet, the man smiled silently. Instead, he engaged the afterburner to achieve a perfect climb.
—Respond, damn it! Answer me!
Two fighter jets rapidly closed in from behind. Yet the helmet reflecting the endless blue sky did not tremble in the slightest.
Only higher.
Higher still.
The man plunged into the swirling storm clouds. Lightning flashed repeatedly between the enormous cumulonimbus clouds.
He made a dangerously sharp 45-degree turn and checked the altimeter.
“……”
Cold sweat had already begun to trickle down his face.
Yet even at a moment like this, there was only one person filling his mind.
A woman in a pristine white uniform, standing rigidly as she saluted.
The face of the girl he would never be able to meet again haunted him relentlessly.
You, my sharp-tongued yet beautiful twenty-three-year-old girl.
Once his speed exceeded 1,852 kilometers per hour, his entire back was slammed against the seat as though pulled by a magnet.
How far had he pierced through the sky?
His head grew dizzy and languid.
Which way was up, and which way was down?
Was he flying straight, or upside down?
It sometimes happened when he stared too long through the canopy at the dense storm clouds outside.
His mind was slipping into a flight illusion.
By the time he realized that the instrument readings and the direction his body perceived were completely different, the aircraft had already begun to lose balance and shake.
At this rate, it was only a matter of time before he plunged downward.
Yet instead of pulling the control stick back up, the man pressed his hand, its tendons bulging harshly, against the helmet visor.
There was no emotion in his hoarse voice.
“Cheong-ha.”
I should leave my last words to you.
The blue sky was reflected vividly across the visor covering his face.
“……Let’s get married again in our next life.”
There is an unread email.
‘What was I thinking when I clicked on this?’
September 12, 2014.
Temperature: 27°C. Chance of rain: 0%. Wind: southeast. Humidity: 30%.
Today’s mood altitude: extremely…… high.
My name is Im Cheong-ha.
Even as she stared blankly at her phone, she first checked whether the epaulettes on her shoulders were perfectly level. She smoothed the collar of her uniform with her fingertips in the mirror, then slowly polished the silver insignia representing her position as honorary chairwoman until it gleamed.
Her tightly pulled-back hair was secured with an elastic band wrapped exactly three and a half times. If even a single strand was out of place, she would start all over again.
Cheong-ha looked at her face, the corners of her eyes pulled taut, and muttered out of habit.
“Regulation 5, Article 3: Romantic behavior on campus is prohibited.”
She had repeated those words so many times that her mouth felt dry.
How many couples had I broken up?
‘For someone like me.’
Without warning, Cheong-ha opened the email that had suddenly arrived.
The filename was completely garbled and somewhat suspicious, but at that point, she had no particular reason to be suspicious.
The same waking time as always.
The same uniform.
On an ordinary morning, nothing special at all, of the kind a fourth-year cadet at the Air Force Academy had grown sick of seeing.
“What is this?”
As soon as she turned on the screen, an intensely blue sky spread before her eyes.
Beyond the canopy was the open sky, with rows of fluffy sheep-like clouds arranged in perfect patterns. The video began amid heavy static.
A man wearing a fighter pilot’s helmet and an oxygen mask.
Cheong-ha’s eyes twitched.
“……A fighter pilot?”
The aircraft twisted 180 degrees like a roller coaster, climbing before suddenly diving downward.
It was moving at a dangerously low altitude, as though it might skim the surface of the sea.
Without realizing it, Cheong-ha began trembling her legs. In her confusion, she even rubbed the screen frantically with her thumb.
“Why is the date……?”
The time displayed in the bottom-right corner, ticking away by the second, was far too strange.
The date was ten years in the future.
“――!”
Suddenly, the aircraft lost speed and began to tremble violently. That was when the screen started shaking like crazy.
The man briefly made a horizontal turn.
Then, all of a sudden, he released the control stick and ran his hand across his helmet visor as though wiping his face.
It was impossible, but she felt as if their eyes had somehow met.
She couldn’t tear her gaze away.
『Cheong-ha.』
Her breath seemed to stop at the quiet call.
The peculiar sound of radio communication flattened the pitch so much that the voice barely sounded human.
Did he…… just call me?
His voice, wrapped in an opaque layer, seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
The only proof that he was still alive was the rough breathing that occasionally came through.
With a brief laugh, he called her name again.
Cheong-ha.
Again.
Cheong-ha…… Cheong-ha.
『……Let’s get married again in our next life.』
The man was falling upside down.
The once-blue screen began shaking so violently that it made her nauseous.
This wasn’t an ordinary flight recording.
The image of the pilot’s body crashing against the aircraft and his disoriented field of vision spinning wildly—
“……!”
It was the final black-box recording of a pilot in free fall.
With those words, the screen stopped as if by magic.
The static disappeared.
The man’s shaking body froze.
When she touched the phone, she realized that the five-minute video had stopped downloading near the beginning.
‘What the hell is this creepy video?’
Her heart rate skyrocketed.
‘Marriage? In a life where my future was supposed to be nothing but a smooth road?’
Her forehead turned pale.
A video of someone dying.
Wasn’t that essentially a snuff film?
Who on earth would pull such a reckless prank?
And who was this man?
Why was this guy calling me?
Thump.
Thump.
Her savage heartbeat showed no sign of calming down.
The moment she lowered the phone absentmindedly—
……En …―ge.
She froze and raised the phone again with a stiff expression.
I didn’t hear it wrong.
I couldn’t have heard it wrong.
The same low, gentle voice continued stubbornly through the portion of the video that had finally played a little farther, leaving behind its final words.
The deep resonance of his voice made it even more chilling.
『This time, I won’t kill you.』
