Great was the amazement of the girls when they finally got to meet the professor at Yoshiyuki's. I'm so sorry for your stomach upset," said the professor bowing deeply to Shuka. "I shouldn't have filled your head with my stupidity."

"No, no, sensei! Don't call yourself that. I-I'm the one who decided to be stupid."

"But I influenced you." She stood pushing one hand against her head with an embarrassed smile, and it somehow only made her cuter. "I guess I can't help it. I'm so dumb I infect other people with it."

"And she's actually proud of it?" mumbled Yoshiyuki.

But the rest saw no stupidity at all. "Ah… Ah… Nitta Anju desu!" She bowed as formally as she could. "Second-year at Nankaisei Academy. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu!" When she saw the rest of the girls were still trying to register the professor's presence, she spoke up for them, as well. "Hori Rikako, Riho Kanako, first-year, Kubo Ai, first-year also."

"Why, thank you," said Albright bowing less formally. "Please feel at home with me. We're not at school; you don't have to 'sensei' me all the time." When the girls kept their awed distance, she looked more troubled. "Oh dear, I don't think I convinced them at all."

"N-No!" followed up Anju. "It's just… It's just…" She can hardly contain herself any longer. "Uuuuhhhhh…" Finally giving in, she happily grabbed the professor by the arm. "Kyaaaah! So cute!" she fawned. "I can't believe such a wonderful genius would also be hotter than the surface of the sun!"

She promptly got a karate chop on the head. From Rikako. "Anju-chan! Don't call your betters 'cute.' Humph. Such unseemly behavior…" Catching herself, "Eh?! Ah, oh, professor!" she stammered with a deep bow. "I-I'm pleased to meet you! Hori Rikako, second-year at Nankaisei Academy!"

She got an indulgent pat on the head. "What a nice girl. You don't have to introduce yourself a second time."

Feeling the warm caress on her hair, Rikako softened, as well. She took her other arm as the others gazed blankly. "So soft! I just love your skin! You are everything a girl could only dream of!"

#14. Yohan Ascends

"Could you move those boxes, please?" asked Mrs. Albright.

The girls quickly complied and carefully handled them as though they held fragile science stuff; they were mostly just papers. The professor then asked them to move a projector there. While they were at it, she produced a customized joystick and turned the computer on before plugging it in as well as the projector afterwards. She then opened a program as they watched on intently. The room was dim enough for the projection to show crisp detail—a background of blue sky and a dashboard as foreground.

She offered the joystick. "Welp. Who wants to try?"

Shuka and the rest couldn't believe their eyes. "You… You made this, Sensei?"

"Isn't that a flying game, zura? No, I mean… a training software?"

"A flight simulator," clarified Mrs. Albright. "I have made it behave exactly as a glider in actual flight. Once you push that X button, you're on your own."

Anju, ever the daring one, was first to try it out. Coming into the simulation, she first had a feel of the onscreen environment, even of the controller itself, as though she had never held a joystick in her life. It looks a bit scary, but who could until one tries? She pressed X.

In a moment the plane went wild, began to spin around, and shortly got a red screen. "Uehhhh. Looks like I'm dead."

The rest didn't fare much better. Shuka, the one interested in the first place, was doing a better job but was fighting to keep control. She got the red screen, as well.

When it was Yoshiyuki's turn, he too had a hard time, but eventually got the plane stable—on the first try. He never had the red screen.

"Great," said the professor. She pushed a reset button. Now I will teach you the basics."

"No fair," grumbled Anju. "You didn't tell us anything. I could have taken that thing to other side of the Pacific."

Albright laughed. "Of course you could. But that was a special exercise. I intentionally ramped up the difficulty so I could filter out the flier with best sense of balance."

"So I'm really going to be the one, huh?" mused Yoshiyuki. This time, he got a bit nervous. Next up was dealing with a real glider and real sky.

The professor began. "First off…" She pressed more buttons. A model of a glider appeared.

"A glider has three basic movements. You may think of it as three different rotations on three distinct axes, X (with matching red line cutting across the model), Y, and Z. the X rotation (now with matching animation) is called 'rolling….' Y is called 'pitching….' And Z is referred to as 'yawing.'

"See these buttons I am pressing? Each activates one of the three. You can also do this with the joystick… Did you see that?

"All the motions of an aircraft in flight are a variant or combination of any of these three basic ones."

Swell, thought Yoshiyuki. Nanaka never told him this much detail.

"With the actual glider," she continued, "The joystick represents the yoke, the rod that you hold with your hand."

"And fires missiles?" cut in Shuka, remembering some dogfight movie scenes where the yoke has a launch button.

"And there are two rudder pedals for your feet. On the game controller these will be the Left and Right buttons."

The rest of the girls only kept listening intently, with an occasional soft gasp of wonder.

"The X and Y movements will be controlled by the analog stick, or yoke, and Z by the two buttons. This time it will be no exercise. Here, try it again."

This time around, with more certain controls it felt more like a regular video game.

Later she told them about the parts of the glider itself, the ailerons, the elevator, the rudder… Everything the professor taught them amounted to what seemed to be a general basic course in aviation. All of which left them completely floored.

"When are we actually flying?" asked Anju.

"If all goes well with Minase-kun's practice piloting, and my special package arrives sooner, maybe as soon as this weekend."

In the meantime, more good news for the club have arrived. The heiress of Piazza Hotels, who Shuka had talked to back at the cruise, seemed to have joined the school board and successfully pressured the Student President to allow all students to once again freely conduct extracurricular activities. What's more, the president agreed to register five more clubs. One of which was Aquasports.

Shuka proudly waved about the copy of the club's registry papers at her members as they gathered at the gate after school. "Let's throw a welcome party for Yoshiyuki!" They cheered loudly in reply. They kept up this call-and-response routine as they walked away towards Grandma's house.

A lone hawk called high above the coastal road.

Grandma met them at the front porch. "Ah, they are at the back," she smiled. "They are at the glider. Come, take a look!"

They hurried there, and indeed, the glider was on the ground, fully assembled, and Yoshiyuki was in the cockpit, canopy open, with Mrs. Albright sitting in the rear seat, instructing him on the controls and instruments. They were delighted to see the different wing flaps respond in turn. In the distance sat a huge box under heavy tarp.

"Sugoi," said Shuka. "He's been at the simulator everyday, and now he's good enough to take on the real thing."

They hurried over to them and were warmly greeted by the professor. "You want to have a feel of the cockpit?" They were only too glad to oblige. They took turns inside, and Anju even went back a second and a third time, but the one who got the most enjoyment out of it was Shuka, literally sitting on her dream. "I'll make sure all you guys will have a role with the flight," announced Mrs. Albright, "even just as ground crew. Pretty dandy, huh?"

In the meantime, Yoshiyuki has left and was now lying on the bench at the front porch. He was staring at the underside of the porch roof, even past it, as though there was only sky there, as though there was someone there. Soon enough, there was someone, staring down at him. He blinked. Oh, it's just Grandma.

"You feeling well, Yoshiyuki?" she asked.

He only shrugged. He certainly wasn't sick. And he doesn't feel bad, either—if the elation in him counts as negating the pain in him, though perhaps the pain outweighs the elation… just a bit.

"Were you expecting to see another face?"

Eh?

She sat down beside him and looked out to sea. "I guess everyone's got to learn their lesson sometime."

He got up and settled next to her, looking at her curiously. She continued. "Disappointment is one thing people must face at least once in their life. No exceptions. Well, I think you should be happy now that you got your fair share already. No need for another round… unless you didn't do it right the first time."

He was struck. Did she just read his mind? No, rather, he had been with Mrs. Albright day in and day out the whole week at the simulator, and now at the glider. He, a teenager giving off signs of admiration working with the loveliest woman he had seen, and who also happened to be taken already. There's no way Grandma wouldn't notice. "Well," he said tentatively, "how do I do it right the first time, then?"

"I can't really answer that. All we could do is hope. Hope that we made sure, no matter how often we were hit, that that time will be the last time."

"…"

"It wouldn't hurt to remember, though. You got plenty of friends to pick you up. Please think about it."

"Yoshiyuki!"

They turned to see Shuka at the steps of the porch. "Why have you disappeared? Everybody's gone home already."

He stood up. "Why didn't you go with them?"

"Well, I was worried about you. I thought you must have fainted or something."

"Me?" he straightened up as if to show he was in his best form ever. "Want a lift home?"

"No, no. Let's just walk."

"Ne, Yoshiyuki-kun," asked Shuka as they continued along the coast road, "don't you feel like hanging out with the club anymore? I mean, we just went on a cruise and all."

"Well… The Student President… she might still…"

"But we're approved now! There's nothing she can do. Even Aiai is still with us, come on! Let's bring back the old times when we did things, all of us."

"You don't have to worry about me, really," he insisted. "There's only one of me. You still got five. And they're all girls just like you."

Shuka wasn't quite convinced, suspiciously eyeing him sideways. "Then I take it that you're not at all worried about us?"

"Hm? Why should I? I know you guys were never stopped by Kubo-senpai, even more now that you're an official club."

"I was thinking you'd be even just a little bit happier for us."

For a moment, he had nothing witty to say. What else can he do? That's how he actually saw it. Isn't it enough for him to just be relieved? Did he have to fangirl over their victory? "Don't get me wrong. I'm not worried about you, yes; it's because I don't really need to anymore."

"Or maybe it's because you don't really need us anymore."

He looked at her in disbelief. What is she even talking about?

"How was Professor Albright?" she asked softly. "I hope you were having a good time with her."

Oh, that? He laughed. "Like, seriously?" He grinned. "Do you feel somehow," he said looking her over, "inadequate?"

He got a powerful slap on the chest for that. "Idiot! That's a girl thing! What I meant is you don't hang out with your friends anymore because you got a gorgeous professor to drool over! Moh. You force me to be blunt, you."

"I…" he coughed. "I was… I was busy…" He recovered. "The professor kept me busy, that's all!"

"Will you be busy this coming week, too?"

"…"

"You are a member of Aquasports. You can't deny that anymore. You don't dance with us onstage but your support is every bit as needed. And you are our buddy. The Student president can't deny that. You can't deny that. So act like one already."

He turned his eyes to his feet, where they made weird imprints on the sand that covered parts of the road. He was somewhat glad they were there before some cleanup crew came in. So is all this a consequence of having certain feelings? And the inner ruckus over Albright wasn't the only one. "I guess I can say I was a bit hurt being the only one left out after the test."

Shuka was frustrated. "Tch! Do I have to physically drill it into your head? There's absolutely no reason for you to feel that."

He held back. He wanted to retort, as he would have with Granny, "Don't tell me I have no reason to feel that! That's why it's called feelings—there's no reason behind it." And yet they'll still try to reason you out of it? But then he felt a soft hand with a strong grip on his arm.

Wait, isn't this the very first skin-to-skin contact between them? Well aside from the blows if those even counted, but the irony was not lost on him, that such powerful blows could come from such a dainty white hand. He then realized he has misread her. She wasn't telling him a simple "Don't feel that!" but something more like "Don't feel that… feel this."

He found himself staring intensely at her, and she didn't flinch, only gazed back at him in earnest and a playful grin. Her grins were a match to Anju's smirks. And the feel of that skin somehow affected his other senses, too. She looked younger, even smaller… more… innocent… more…

Cute.

"Let's run!" she invited. "Maybe you'll have less of those blues." And off they went. No questions asked. And he had none. He just let himself be led along by the warm feel of her hand.

"Say, Yoshiyuki, was it really difficult? The simulation, I mean."

"I enjoyed it a bit, so I'm not sure if 'difficult' is the word for it. It only felt a bit slow. Like I was flying a game jet through molasses. But, if that's what real-life flying's like, then…"

"But it still isn't easy, right?"

"Well, one thing scared me a little. One small move can make a big difference. Everything can affect everything else. You really got to pay attention."

"Then, maybe it's really no different from driving…

"Or maybe, life itself."

Snatches of conversation popped in and out of his head as he lay in bed staring at Shuka's number on his phone. He never deleted it. Somewhere he hoped she was just lying. Somehow he hoped he could still reach her through this. And say through it what he thought was stupid to say in person.

"Crushes are stupid," she had said once, in front of him, "Wouldn't it be better if everybody went along as really good friends?"

That is, if his feelings for her were still there. Well, if anything, he did feel something while they were running and afterwards… Does that mean he was over Mrs. Albright now? That fast? Do infatuations work that way? Or was he being torn between two…?

"…"

"…"

No, he realized. If he was attracted to the both of them… then Shuka has the edge. He can still make a move on her.

That brought him to the next issue. Shall he restrict himself to waiting on her with that number?

The real deal is with him everyday, as a friend anyway, still, it's not like he actually needed a dedicated line just for the two of them. It's not like a single smile his way is not enough. It is… right? As long as he's with her.

He did not delete. He could just keep it as a little piece of her on his phone.

That Saturday a batch of windmill parts arrived at Otou-san by ferry and delivered by a crew of truckers to Yoshiyuki's. But they were then told by the professor to bring it directly to the site, which was on top of the low mountain overlooking the sea, after which she phoned the club to tag along.

At the site, she instructed the men to cover the parts until some of her contacts arrived the next day to assemble the whole thing, while the youngsters savored the constant stream of fresh air.

On the way back, she and the club went into the airfield, where part of the delivery convoy had branched off earlier and left a huge package. The club was astonished when she uncovered it.

"An oven?" said Ai.

"More like a power generator," remarked Rikako.

Anju took a peek into the contraption. "Well, it does have an engine."

"Precisely," said the professor. "It is called a winch. We will use it to launch the glider."

A collective "Ooh" came up. Satisfied with their reaction, Professor Albright continued her pitch. "The engine has enough power to tow the glider into flight, just like pulling at a kite. At launch in fairly good conditions the distance between the winch and the glider would be about fifteen hundred meters.

"But the ultralight I rode in took some time before it took to the air," Yoshiyuki pointed out. "At that rate wouldn't I crash into that thing?"

"It depends on the individual pilot. There was plenty of space out there so a pilot could afford that—if he wanted to. Here, you must have a routine to avoid trouble."

Within the hour, Mrs. Albright has coached and organized the girls into an ad hoc ground crew, with Anju manning the winch, Ai and Kanako doing the pre-flight checklist and clearing the runway, Shuka at the binoculars, and Rikako on the radio.

"Air in tires?"

"OK."

"Any blockage in the tubes?"

"None."

Phew, thought Kanako, even an engineless aircraft still needs a fair bit of attention to details. With air safety on the line, though, meticulous is meticulous.

Afterwards, the professor got into the cockpit at the back seat to oversee Yoshiyuki at the front. They carried out further checks on the instruments. "If you run into trouble," she told him, "switch the controls over to me, alright?" Each seat has about the same dashboard.

He did not answer. He had been practicing launch, too, at the simulator, and he will be the one to fly Shuka eventually. He must do this.

After a while, the professor noticed he was repeating some of the checks somewhat obsessively. "Are you feeling unsure about the launch? You can turn over the controls to me now."

"There isn't much time, Ma'am. Let me do this." He still has a fair bit of crush on her and it won't do for him to back out in front of her.

For a moment a look of worry crossed her face, but he had been a pretty serious trainee. "Alright. But you must strictly follow two orders from me. One, holding the yoke, and two, cutting the tow rope. No exceptions."

He gave a tentative thumbs-up. This looks simple enough, actually. He did understand the nuances of handling the accelerator on Grandma's scooter, so maybe this was similar; he certainly got that impression from the simulator.

Next was the check on the ailerons, elevator, and rudder. Seems they were responding as expected. "No problems," he heard her say, having been assured by Ai's thumbs-up outside.

Several more checks ensued. After the ground crew has checked and cleared the runway, the professor gave the signal to Kanako, standing by the wing just outside the canopy. She in turn signaled to Rikako, who radioed Anju to ignite the engine.

Suddenly, something inside Yoshiyuki began to scream. Wait, are we really gonna fly now?! This isn't a simulator anymore and… it feels as cramped as a coffin—wait!

But it came too late. Kanako already lifted the right wing to help level the craft for launch. Ai would be at the tail for further support. They would run with the plane for some time. Soon enough, all four felt the plane ease forward.

Here goes….

They were off.

From the corner of his eye Yoshiyuki saw Kanako trying hard to keep up, but as the plane began to bounce some, he saw her drop out of view. She probably fell onto the grass.

Whoa, I'm actually piloting this.

Awesome.

"Now, Minase!"

He pulled the yoke, and shortly, almost suddenly, a G-force arrested him. Keep focus! he remembered the professor say during the launch simulations. Now it was, "Don't mind… G's!" she said with some difficulty. "It'll be over…"

He felt a huge jump forward to a quick slowdown, as with brakes, but right after a strange sensation of floating reigned over the aircraft, kind of like sitting in a small canoe on a mildly rolling sea.

They're flying.

"Ahahah," said Mrs. Albright behind him. "I forgot. The cutting of the rope is automatic. Couldn't exactly shout the order to you back there, now? Could you please look down and check for a red parachute?"

"Why don't you do it, Ma'am? I'm the one flying."

"Eheheh. I'm scared of looking down. Looking out is a bit more tolerable."

Dropping his head, he nonetheless complied. Whoa. The distance from the ground stunned him for a bit. But he felt much safer in the enclosed glider than back at Nanaka's flimsier hang glider. He spotted the bright crimson object far below and well on the way down. "A-OK."

Mrs. Albright heaved a sigh of relief. "Well, then, I guess you could just cruise for a while. Just make sure to find your way back to the airfield. If you're having trouble switch over immediately to me."

He took the chance to get a good look at his island from the air. He decided to pass over places he did not get to see back at that first flight with Nanaka. He flew over the island for a bit rather than the sea, and was struck at how forested it was. The houses looked like toys left in the bushes.

Going higher, he look down again and now saw the island as a giant green heap. Seeing more or less the entirety of Otou-san gave him a certain sense of completion, a feeling that the whole island had been wrapped up as a gift and now unwrapped and given to him. Is this what those astronauts felt when they photographed Earth back then? It did not appear to be a collection of places that had boundaries for your side and theirs. It was a single place where all peoples were gathered in the same orb, under the same sun. Just like this island.

Shuka watched with enthusiasm as Rikako kept up a radio conversation. "How's the wind?" her voice crackled in the cockpit.

"Pretty good. Hope this keeps up all day."

"Aren't you scared, even a bit?"

"Just hoping no shark jumps out of the water to get us up here," he joked. "Never know for sure."

They made three more test flights. Yoshiyuki became even surer he could manage by himself when the sky concert rolls around.

"Nanan-chan's so good with squid," said Anju over the campsite grill. "Wow, what kind of marinade was that?"

Nanaka laughed. "That's a trade secret, of course."

The night was calm, little wind but cool. They needed no fancy tent to camp out at the beach, even more so by the sheltered cove near the dive shop. There were just the stars, and just hanging out in general, a welcome respite before they got down to the messy work with the sky concert.

"Hey, Nanan-chan," asked Shuka, "is the ghost ship story true? I keeping older folks harping about that every now and then."

"Oh, you mean the old story? It's probably just a shipwreck."

"But I have never known anyone around here who have found anything like that. I guess maybe you did."

She only shrugged. "None so far. Maybe they thought it was a ghost because they haven't actually seen it."

"But it's got to be there if they can even talk about it, right?" said Anju.

"Besides," Rikako commented, "it's got to have some kind of historical value, so I guess you can't pass it off as 'just' a shipwreck."

"Maybe," cut in Kanako, "there's treasure, zura!"

"Really?" said Ai. "Things like that actually exist?"

Nanaka laughed again. "Don't tell me you're going treasure hunting first thing tomorrow."

"We could do that, you know," suggested Yoshiyuki. "Let's make treasure-hunting a watersport. There's diving in it, too, right?"

Shuka stood up and produced a selfie stick. "But you know, who needs treasure when you got moments, ne?" On cue, everybody gathered round for photo ops, rather, video ops. They all murmured some complaint about how they weren't quite ready, but duly hushed when Shuka began to speak.

"Konnichiwa—eheh—Konnbanwa, I mean. We are the Aquasports Club.

"Have you heard of us yet? We have just been newly approved at school so maybe you don't quite recognize us. But we recognize you, 'cause you are the people who we want to make smile. E-to… Fufufu. It's nothing… nothing much.

"We just wanted to introduce ourselves, I guess. Well, we're the Aquasports Club, and I'm Uchida Shuka. This one here's Nitta Anju, loves mikan. And those two, them, we got them fresh from Tokyo! Hori Rikako and Minase Yoshiyuki… oh yes, he's our resident alpha boy. Heheh.

"Then we got the tandem of Riho Kanako and Kubo Ai. Thses two are inseparable… wait, they live in the same dorm, don't they?

"Anyway, and this Mori Nanaka, our club advisor, along with our gorgeous Dr. Albright, who helped us pass the tests!

"What more can I say? I could go on and on and on about all the wonderful things they are, but if I must sum it up, I'd say we love each other terribly and we'll be there for one another." Giggle. "So cheesy… Oh!" She fist-punched the air as if to dispel the cheesiness.

"A-And yeah, we got a very special show coming.

"Please don't miss it!"

Next Time! #15. A Stage in the Clouds!