The last two days have been pure madness, only now I can sit down calmly and describe everything. It started innocently and calmly with the four of us sitting in first class on a Thai Airways Airbus A330 plane, the flight number will probably always be in my dreams at night, I repeated it so often: THA661.
Is there anything else that might surprise me?
What happened certainly surprised and terrified us all at the same time. We were getting ready to go to sleep, Fourth ordered me to drink some water before falling asleep and it was at that moment that he was covering me with a warm, soft blanket that I bought in Japan, when an injured man came out of the cockpit, or rather almost crawled out. He didn't say a word, his eyes suddenly became strangely blank, and he fell to the floor.
On our plane, the first class seats are separated from the rest to give us a little better comfort during the flight, so only a small number of passengers saw this, but it was enough to make someone scream. Two flight attendants stopped next to me in the aisle and one of them said that the plane was currently flying on autopilot without a real human pilot.
Can you imagine hearing something more absurd and terrifying?
Everyone would probably be shocked and in disbelief if they heard something like that after an hour of flight at an altitude of about 10,000 meters above the ocean surface. Me and Fourth were downright terrified, but I quickly felt a rush of adrenaline. I honestly don't know what compelled me to volunteer to fly an aircraft. And such a big one at that, after all, it was a large-sized passenger Airbus.
The women didn't trust us, but I insisted.
As we entered the cockpit, I wanted to turn my head away and close my eyes so I wouldn't see what I was seeing.
There were still two men in the captain's and co-pilot's seats, dressed in appropriate attire, but it was certain beyond any doubt that they were dead, their hands were limp, one had his eyes closed, the other's open, but without any spark of life. The one I thought was the captain had a gunshot wound to the temple (suicide? That was my first thought: extended suicide), the co-pilot had two wounds to the chest.
I ordered the guys to remove the bodies and Fourth and I took the pilot's seats and then I declared a Mayday.
I didn't really know whether I should report a Mayday in such a situation, as the plane was still flying and undamaged. It just suddenly ran out of real pilots.
The lady from the air traffic control tower was professional and helped us with everything. At one point I noticed clear signs of panic in Fourth. And I remembered what Gun said. Fourth was very strong, but had occasional breakdowns. Having to pilot a large passenger jet with 300 people on board was certainly very stressful, and Fourth still hadn't fully recovered from the story with that damned Slovenian ski jumper. I saw that his hands were shaking, I saw that a muscle was twitching in his face, I saw how nervous he was, and I could only make one right decision: to ask him to give up his seat to Chen.
“Please, Fourth…”
He agreed, but I could tell he wasn't happy with it. Unfortunately, I couldn't worry about that at the moment, I had something more important on my mind. Something as important as piloting a damn Airbus.
The next hours passed very peacefully until we reached the vicinity of Thailand. Then the stairs started. Joong had far more knowledge about planes than any of us, and yet he obediently followed my instructions. It was strange, unrealistic, as if we were suddenly pulled into some action movie. I was scared, only then did I start to be really scared. The plane was shaken by turbulence, raindrops hit the windows, and the engines screamed as we added power.
And then somehow we landed.
How?
Good question!
I don't know! I have no idea! This moment completely disappeared from my memory, as if my psyche had erased it by itself. The moment when our plane stopped on the runway, didn't crash, none of the tires exploaded and we were still breathing, was the most beautiful moment of my life. I was still sitting in the captain's chair when Pond brought Fourth in, now conscious.
Fourth and I immediately fell into each other's arms.
“I'm proud of you! You landed a real plane! Gem, you landed the plane!” He whispered in my ear full of excitement and happiness, which I understood perfectly. I pulled him closer and hugged him as tight as I could. I ran my hand through his soft hair and cried with relief that it was over.
We landed. We are safe.
Joong grabbed the microphone, connected to the passenger cabin and said goodbye to the passengers, who, in my opinion, did not know until that moment that their lives were hanging on the thread and depended on the skills and luck of two inexperienced aviation enthusiasts.
“Come on, guys, it's time to get off.” Pond patted our shoulders. “Good job.”
Me and Joong turned off the engines, checked out of the tower at the Bangkok airport and began to disembark the plane. The leg didn't hurt. I was happy. Fourth put his arms around my waist and helped me out.
There was real madness waiting for us outside.
Up there, we were completely cut off from the outside world and we didn't know that our actions were literally being followed by the whole world in live broadcasts. However, these over 6 hours are a lot of time, enough for dozens of film crews from all over the area, and maybe even from all over the world, to appear at the airport.
As soon as we left, a man immediately approached us and we immediately recognized him as someone like a detective.
Before we were allowed to rest, we had to have a short chat with the investigators and the police. We told them everything we knew. We were forbidden to talk to journalists about this topic. We were taken to a nicely decorated office. Joong and Pond sat down on the chairs at the desk, Fourth paced restlessly around the room, trying to calm down, I preferred standing a bit, these few hours of forced sitting in the captain's chair were taking a toll on me. I actually felt a little sleepy. And of course hungry.
“We are conducting an investigation, and in addition, because of the killed pilots, the police are conducting their own criminal investigation. It will be better if you refrain from telling others what happened for now. The murderer or the person who planned this could still be at large, we don't want him to know how much we know”.
“So no interviews?” Joong seemed disappointed by this. I understood him a little. I guess he hoped that this story would help him go back to flying lessons and one day he would get his pilot's license. I know that apart from acting and modeling, this was his biggest dream.
Suddenly the door opened and someone walked in. I didn't know who it was until he spoke. But where did he come from?
“For now, yes. You will stay in a hotel for a few days and get an escort, we don't know who and what the real target of the attacker was, and if so, each of you may be in danger”. To our great surprise, First Kanaphan, Fourth's brother, joined the conversation. My surprise was so great that First was dressed as a real policeman and looked truly amazing.
“P'First!” Fourth exclaimed and threw his arms around his brother's neck.
“Hello, rascal! I just found out about your next mischief: apparently you wanted to pilot a passenger's plane, but you failed because you fainted?”
It was obvious that First was saying this jokingly.
“It wasn't me who wanted to pilot the plane, it was GemGem!” Fourth moved out of his brother's arms and pointed at me. Amused, I grabbed his finger and pulled it towards me. It was such an unexpected move that Fourth bumped into me, pushing me into the shelf behind us. Fortunately, I managed to keep my balance, but several books still fell to the floor. I smiled a little awkwardly and Fourth immediately started apologizing.
“P'First, what are you doing here?! Shouldn't you be getting ready for the new season? Are you not planning to test on the track in Bahrain?” I decided to deftly change the subject.
“Yes, but I'm leaving in two days. Boss, can I kidnap our heroes? I would like to talk to them”.
P'First turned to a man in his forties with distinctly non-Asian facial features who sat across the desk.
“Yes, you can take them to the hotel. You will explain to them what to do. You can leave”.
We took this as a good sign and the five of us, jokingly pushing each other, walked out of this strange room that I assumed must have belonged to some executive or other important person at this airport. P'First put us in a black Mercedes, Joong and Pond got into an identical one and we went to the hotel.
Our friends and loved ones were already waiting for us in front of our rooms. There was a whole crowd of people there: my friend Prim was there, my brothers Phuwin and Dunk were there, and even my mother. I also noticed someone else, although he was hiding his face under a black baseball cap and a black mask over his mouth and nose. Gun, Fourth's twin brother. It was strange to see them both together in one place. At this point, all of P'Mile's elaborate towers of lies were falling apart. Gun was real and at that moment he was a bit on the sidelines. He gave me a thumbs up when he caught my eye. I smiled at him. I opened the door of the apartment we had reserved for us and let everyone inside.
“Come in, we won't talk outside”.
They sat back and waited for us to start talking. I was tired, I needed sleep, and I guess Joong, Pond, and Fourth did too, because all three of them were yawning mightily, but we weren't allowed to rest. We had something to celebrate. It's as if we were born again.
Before I could speak, we heard a knock on the door. I wanted to go open the door, but Fourth sat me down on the bed and didn't let me get up.
“Sit down, GemGem, I'll go see who it is, you're the hero here today, you can rest”.
I rolled my eyes.
What kind of hero am I? I almost crashed our plane. And all the tension was only now starting to melt away from me. I felt like I was getting alternately hot and cold.
Fourth brought the next guests into the room: Dr. Khaotung, our friend Louis Thanawin (the pilot and actor) and our boss, P'Off Jumpol. To our delight, each of them was loaded with bags of snacks and drinks, which we quickly placed wherever we could.
The hotel staff had probably already been informed about our arrival, because on the desk under the TV there was already a bottle of champagne in a bucket with ice cubes, plenty of glasses and two bottles of red wine waiting for us. Joong did the host honors. We toasted to the successful landing of the large (for us) Airbus A330.
For the rest of the morning, Dr. Khaotung never left P'First. I pulled Fourth aside and pointed to his brother, who was sitting on the floor with his back against the side of the bed. Dr. Khaotung was dozing off with his head in his lap. I guessed he had rough night at hospital too.
“You, look at First and our doctor. What do you think is between them?”
“I don't know, I'd like to find out, but not today. Today I only dream about one thing”.
“About what?”
Fourth looked at me pointedly.
Yeah. I could have guessed...
We sat next to each other on the large bed, our arms and legs touching each other. He was very close, a little too close. He cupped my face in his hands, looked into my eyes, glanced briefly at my lips, biting the lower lip of his mouth, and looked into my eyes again. I slapped him on the shoulder playfully.
“Are you crazy? Look how many people are here! You don't want them to witness something like that, do you?”
“Witness what?” Fourth was either stupid, or pretended to be, just to tease me.
“You know...” I started to speak and didn't finish, feeling my cheeks burn. I turned my head to the side to avoid his gaze. I had various visions in my head, none of them quite qualifying as polite and innocent.
“Silly!” He laughed, leaving me stunned.
“What?”
“You didn't think that... GEM!” His eyes became big of surprise, his cheeks turned red . I quickly realized my mistake. “I just wanted a kiss goodnight! Wait, what were you thinking?! You dirty-minded boy! You never stop to surprise me!”.
I got out of bed a little too abruptly, throwing off the sheets. I mumbled something incoherently about needing to use the bathroom and fled to hide in the bathroom where I could calm my too-fast and noisy breathing and my frantically beating heart.
Too many emotions for just one day, definitely too much.
Even now, when I write about it, I feel butterflies in my stomach just remembering it. Fourth made me discover new, previously unknown feelings and desires. I was a little afraid of it, but at the same time it excited me.
When I finally returned to the room, most of our guests had already fallen asleep. Pond, Joong and Phuwin squeezed together on the black leather sofa they had set up, with Pond lying in the middle and Joong and Phuwin on either side of him. Phuwin fell asleep with his head on Pond's chest, and I thought to myself that I might never get used to it. Usually there are two people in relationship, not three. Dunk, mom, Prim, Louis and P'Off were long gone. First played with the hair of Khaotung, who was sleeping with his head on his lap. Fourth and Gun both fell asleep on the bed. Everything looked so unexpected and funny and cute that I couldn't resist the pleasure of recording it with my phone.
Then I squeezed onto the bed between Gun and Fourth. Up close, the differences between them were even more visible. Fourth had a lot of scars, Gun covered his scars with tattoos. Gun had a silver skull earring in his ear, Fourth did not. Fourth's nose was a bit neater, prettier than Gun's. Gun also had sharper facial features. They were different, even though they were twins.
Having them all around me felt really safe and calm. As if I had returned home after a long wandering aimlessly. They were my home. It was full day outside, and we could finally rest and sleep. I realized that it had been a long, sleepless night for everyone, we needed rest.
❤️😂😭💚🧡🧡😜🥺☺️💖👀✨💞🤩🤫😆🥲💙🤯🤗🥰🔥💝😉☀️🫂🇵🇱🇹🇭😅🥂🤦🏻♀️😨🤨🌧️🌧️🤨💛😨🤦🏻♀️🥂😅🇹🇭🇵🇱🫂☀️😉💝🔥🥰🤗🤯💙🥲😆🤫🤩💞✨👀💖☺️🥺😜🧡💚😭😂❤️🥳🥰😍🌧️🤨💛😨🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🥂😅🇹🇭🇹🇭🇵🇱🫂☀️😉💝🔥🤗🤯💙🥲😆🤫🤩💞✨👀💖☺️🥺😜🧡💚😭😂❤️🥳😍😍
Now tell me if you like this chapter!!!
I just want to know!
And thank you for reading this!
Thank you! I love you so much!
Have a great day my Magicals ❤️ You are the best!!!
~Annie