Volume 2

  Chapter 11: “Heat in the Hangars”.

  Scene 1: Morning Homeroom

  —-: Ren Kisaragi

  Ren wasn’t sweating.

  Definitely not sweating.

  The faint sting on the back of his neck? Just condensation from walking too fast. The way his knee bounced under the desk? Natural kinetic efficiency. And the way Ms. Shiraishi was scrolling through the regional rankings on the projection wall with her usual bored elegance?

  Well. That was a slow death in progress.

  “As of this morning,” she said dryly, “Hinode Academy is ranked eleventh in the Greater Aether Circuit. Which, if you're wondering, is technically better than last year.”

  There was polite applause from a few desks. Someone dropped a pencil. It sounded like a death knell.

  Ren stared at the screen.

  Hinode Academy — 11th

  Silver Dart: 2nd in points, 4th in finish time

  Pilots: Rin Hayasaka, Ren Kisaragi

  Engineer: Hana Aoyama

  Team Status: Provisional

  The word “Provisional” sat on the screen like a crack in a prop blade.

  Shiraishi turned, her glasses catching a faint glint of morning sun.

  “Also—per League rules and the Headmistress’ discretion—Ren Kisaragi is now formally accepted into the Hinode racing pool.”

  Someone coughed. A chair squeaked.

  “Pending further academic survival,” she added.

  A few girls clapped. Hana gave a single, soft clap—then looked down quickly, cheeks dusted pink.

  Taiga, two rows back, launched into a full-blown fist pump.

  “Let’s gooo, Steamheart!” he yelled.

  Saki leaned over and whispered loudly, “I’m printing that nickname and you can’t stop me.”

  Ren was too busy watching Rin.

  She didn’t clap. She didn’t move. She just stared straight ahead, the corner of her jaw twitching once before going still.

  Right. So that’s how it’s gonna be.

  Shiraishi waved a stack of flight charts.

  “Today we’re reviewing lift timing curves and heat envelope tolerances. Sit up, take notes, and if anyone combusts, kindly do it outside the west window. The janitor’s still mad about last week.”

  Ren sat back in his chair and let out a slow breath.

  He wasn’t sweating.

  He was flying. Barely.

  Scene 2: Hangar Conflict

  —-: Ren Kisaragi

  The hangar always smelled like burnt metal and ambition. Copper dust drifted through the sunbeams like golden ash, while the rhythmic clang of tools echoed off riveted walls and reinforced arches.

  Ren crouched beside the Silver Dart’s lower lift conduit, wrenching at a misaligned pressure collar. His jumpsuit was half unzipped, undershirt clinging to his back with sweat. The crystal core above hummed faintly — stable now, but twitchy.

  Just need to recalibrate the intake path and tighten the fuel timing. Don’t think about Rin. Don’t think about—

  "—You know you’re only still here because of her, right?"

  The words hit like a dropped wrench on his spine.

  Ren turned.

  Aika, Crimson Gale’s mechanic, stood near the service rack, arms crossed, eyes narrowed with the kind of casual cruelty girls in top-tier teams wore like perfume.

  Beside her stood Kai, Crimson’s secondary pilot — tall, wire-thin, and full of sharp smirks. He twirled a wrench in one hand like it was a baton.

  “If you were a girl,” Aika said flatly, “you wouldn’t have made it past the qualifiers. You’re a novelty. A mascot.”

  “He did beat your time,” Taiga piped up from the far side of the hangar, emerging from under a fuel sled with grease on his face and a torque wrench in hand.

  “Points don’t mean skill,” Kai said. “They mean luck. And Rin pulling his dead weight.”

  Ren stood slowly, wiping his hands on a rag, then folding it too carefully.

  “Didn’t realize flying fast and not crashing counted as dead weight.”

  “Didn’t realize charity counted as talent,” Aika shot back.

  The hangar had gone quiet. Other teams had paused their work — a few heads turned, a few tools stilled.

  “It’s fine,” Ren said tightly. “They’re just mad they’re not the school’s pet project anymore.”

  Aika’s nostrils flared.

  “You think you’ve earned this? You think you belong here, in our league, just because your grandpa built the wreck you’re flying? You don’t even have a team. You’ve got duct tape and pity.”

  Ren opened his mouth—

  —but someone else beat him to it.

  “Back off.”

  Hana.

  She stood at the edge of the maintenance ramp, goggles perched on her head, hands clenched around her toolbox.

  “He’s here because he rebuilt a ship from nothing and made it fly. And if anyone else here could do that, they’d have already tried.”

  The air snapped like a taut sail.

  Kai scoffed. Aika sneered.

  “So you’re the fan club now, too?”

  “No,” Hana said, voice tight but even. “I’m the engineer who actually reads the schematics before insulting someone’s lift array.”

  That got a few quiet snickers from nearby crews.

  Aika looked ready to lunge—but Rin’s voice cut through the tension like a dagger through silk.

  “Enough.”

  Everyone turned.

  Rin stood in the upper hangar’s catwalk, arms folded, expression unreadable.

  She didn’t look at Ren. Or Hana.

  She looked straight at Aika.

  “We race. Not whine. Get your ship ready.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Then she turned and walked away without another word.

  Ren swallowed.

  Thanks for the save, he thought.

  But it wasn’t aimed at Rin anymore.

  Scene 3: Workshop Silence

  —-: Ren Kisaragi

  The clink of a dropped bolt echoed longer than it should have.

  Ren leaned over the open frame of the Dart’s forward stabilizer, shoulders tense, one hand still resting on the cooling skin of the hull. His knuckles were scraped. His head pounded. His brain still replayed the hangar argument on loop, like a busted recording crystal stuck on shame.

  Duct tape and pity.

  You’re a novelty.

  The old hangar didn’t argue. It just breathed quietly — a low hum of aging pipes and slow-dripping condensation from the overhead vents. Faint shafts of light cut through the haze, illuminating floating dust and half-forgotten tools left out too long.

  He should’ve been working.

  Instead, he was just… sitting in the silence. Letting it fill him.

  Maybe they’re right. Maybe I don’t belong here.

  He tightened a bolt too hard. The wrench slipped — scraped his palm — and clattered down into the bilge gutter. A low hiss of pain escaped his throat.

  Ren sat back and let out a long, ragged sigh.

  Then—without warning—there was a dull thud on the starboard wing.

  A rusted, ancient wrench lay there. Still warm, somehow. Well-oiled. Balanced.

  No footsteps. No announcement. Just the wrench.

  Ren looked up.

  Nothing.

  But high above, near the gantry that overlooked the hangar’s oldest rafters, a shadow passed.

  And then was gone.

  He picked up the wrench. It was marked.

  The initials G.G. were etched into the base.

  “Seriously?” Ren muttered. “That’s it? Just… drop a wrench and disappear like a steam ninja?”

  No answer.

  But the message was clear.

  Fix it. Or don’t. But don’t whine about it.

  Ren exhaled. Rolled his wrist. Then got back to work.

  This time slower. Focused. Every turn of the bolt meant something.

  Every click was a little louder than the voice in his head.

  Scene 4: Rin vs. Hana (Round 2)

  —-: Hana Aoyama

  Hana didn’t normally stay this late in the bathhouse. But the grease wouldn't come off her wrists, and the grime had gotten behind her ears somehow, and — fine — she needed space to think. Space without Ren. Or Rin. Or rumors echoing through the hangar like bad tuning forks.

  She stepped into the changing room, still toweling off her damp hair, the faint scent of mineral steam clinging to her skin. The air was heavy with warmth and silence — rare, precious.

  Until the door slid open behind her.

  “Aoyama.”

  Hana froze mid-step.

  Rin.

  She didn’t look like she’d come to relax. Her school jacket was still half-buttoned, boots unlaced. She looked tired, but there was fire in her eyes — banked, but waiting.

  Hana didn’t move.

  “I don’t have a problem with you,” Rin said.

  That was how she started.

  “Okay,” Hana said cautiously, “but your tone sounds like you do.”

  Rin stepped forward, stopping a little too close — like she didn’t know how to stand halfway. Her shadow stretched across the floor tiles like a challenge.

  “You don’t get to take my ship, my team, and then pretend nothing’s changed.”

  Hana blinked.

  “I didn’t take anything. You walked away from the Dart. You left that hangar.”

  “I left because it was broken.”

  “And I stayed to fix it.”

  The silence boiled between them like the water behind the wall.

  Rin crossed her arms, jaw tight.

  “Everyone thinks you’re the new heart of the team. That you and he built it from scrap and dreams.”

  “We did,” Hana said. Her voice cracked — then steadied. “But that doesn’t mean I’m trying to replace you.”

  A long pause.

  The steam hissed through the pipes like a breath Rin didn’t want to take.

  Then, quietly—

  “You’re still scared of flying, aren’t you?”

  That hit harder than it should have.

  Rin didn’t flinch.

  “No. I’m scared of falling. Again.”

  Hana looked down. Her fingers were curled around the towel without realizing.

  “Then maybe we’re more alike than you think.”

  Rin stepped back half a pace. Not surrender. Not quite.

  “Just don’t forget whose wings you’re rebuilding.”

  And then she left, steam curling in her wake, the door sliding shut behind her like punctuation.

  Hana stood there, alone, in the warmth and the silence and the tremble of everything that had almost been said.

  Scene 5: Taiga’s “Date Plan”

  —-: Ren Kisaragi

  Ren knew it was a trap the moment Taiga smiled.

  Not the usual goofy, grease-smudged, "I installed this backward but it's still functional" grin.

  No — this one was dangerous. Too many teeth. Too much planning.

  “Ren, buddy,” Taiga said, arm around his shoulder like a salesman about to sell him a slightly haunted toaster, “you’ve been working too hard.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You’ve been emotionally stunted for at least a week.”

  “Debatable.”

  “And we’re going on a double date. Tonight. You, me, snacks, moonlight. Hana. Mei.”

  Ren blinked. “Wait—Mei agreed to this?”

  “...Consent is a flexible thing when you ask in a group message and don’t wait for replies.”

  Ren sighed. “This is going to explode in our faces, isn’t it?”

  “Exactly,” Taiga grinned. “But we’ll look great when it does.”

  They ended up at a skewer stall under strings of lanterns, with the town’s crystal tower glittering faintly in the haze above. Vendors hollered. Steam hissed from food carts. The whole place smelled like sugar-burnt soy glaze and adventure.

  Hana showed up ten minutes late, goggles still around her neck, clearly regretting her life choices.

  “You said this was a mechanical supplier meetup.”

  “It is,” Taiga said. “We’re supplying our stomachs with fried protein structures. Chemistry!”

  Mei appeared silently beside them like fog. She pointed at a lantern. “That one’s cracked. It’ll start a fire by midnight.”

  “...Cool,” said Ren.

  “I’m going to pretend this is going well,” said Hana, staring at her skewer like it owed her money.

  Ren took a bite of his and immediately burned his tongue.

  Romantic.

  They sat awkwardly on a bench, two by two, not quite in pairs. The silences were longer than the conversations. Taiga tried twice to start a pun war and was crushed mercilessly by Mei’s deadpan delivery.

  “I asked her if she believed in love at first flight,” he whispered to Ren. “She said 'No, but I believe in gravity.'”

  “That’s kind of brilliant.”

  “She scares me.”

  “She should.”

  As the night dragged on, the awkwardness reached its apex when Taiga tried to play a song on his pocket harmonica. It came out as a wet wheeze, like a tea kettle having a breakdown.

  Mei stood.

  “Good effort,” she said flatly. “I’m going to go not listen to that somewhere else.”

  “I regret nothing,” Taiga whispered.

  Hana gave up pretending. She laughed — a real one. Short, warm, involuntary.

  Ren stared at her for a second too long.

  She caught him. Flushed.

  “Don’t. Say. Anything.”

  He smiled.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Scene 6: Flashback – Rin Alone

  —-: Rin Hayasaka

  The hum of vacuum lanterns was too soft to distract her.

  The hangar lights were off, save for one flickering strip above the old winch rail. The place felt colder at night — not from temperature, but memory.

  Rin stood near the gantry railing, her arms folded tight, her posture all calculation — but her eyes weren’t watching any gauges or blueprints.

  They were watching ghosts.

  Below her, Crimson Gale gleamed in the dim, half-lit dark — still flawless, still fast, still theirs.

  But not hers anymore.

  The team worked without her now. Efficient. Ruthless. Synchronized.

  She remembered when she had been part of that rhythm. When Kai had still needed her input. When Aika smiled with her instead of at her.

  When her voice had meant something.

  Then the crash happened.

  Then everything meant something else.

  She hadn’t crashed out of fear — she'd blacked out from G-force backlash. Faulty stabilizer resonance during the drop-dive. One second of unconsciousness, and the ground was a scream away.

  They hadn’t given her a second chance.

  Just… moved on. Like racing didn’t have room for mistakes. Like people who stumbled once didn’t get to soar again.

  The only person who hadn’t treated her like a porcelain medal was…

  Ren.

  Dumb, clueless, reckless Ren.

  What kind of idiot looks that proud after finishing fourth?

  What kind of idiot flies a barely tested airship and calls it fun?

  What kind of idiot makes her wonder what it felt like… to trust the sky again?

  She hated that she thought it.

  She hated how part of her wanted to watch him fly again — not to judge him, but to remember what it felt like to be weightless.

  Rin’s fingers brushed the gantry rail.

  She didn’t cry.

  Hayasakas didn’t cry.

  But her grip was white-knuckled, and the hum of the lights didn’t cover the sound of a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

  Scene 7: Mei’s Warning

  —-: Ren Kisaragi

  Ren hadn’t meant to fall asleep on the stairs.

  He sat there anyway — half-slung against the railing just outside the hangar, jacket draped over his shoulders, the faint tick-tick-tick of cooling metal from the Dart behind him. Above, the sky stretched wide and endless, a velvet blue ocean pierced by a few faint stars struggling through the city's haze.

  He didn’t want to go back to the dorms yet. Not after today. Not after the weirdest not-date in history, the awkward hangar tension, and the way Rin had… looked at him.

  He exhaled slowly.

  I’m not sure if I’m getting better… or just better at pretending I belong here.

  A faint shuffle behind him broke the quiet.

  He sat up, halfway expecting Grandpa or Taiga.

  Instead—

  “You need to replace the compression plate under the mainline bearing.”

  Mei stood just beside the hangar’s outer pipe column, half-shadowed, arms folded behind her back.

  Ren blinked. “Wait—what?”

  She stepped forward, holding out a slip of crinkled paper. The edges were slightly charred, the writing precise and tight — diagrams, measurements, an annotated sketch of the Dart’s lower bearing system.

  “If you push the Dart into a second dive without changing it, the stabilizer will fracture. Maybe not immediately. But it will.”

  He stared down at the paper, then back up at her.

  “How do you even know that?”

  She didn’t smile. Not really.

  “I used to fly.”

  That again.

  But now she added softly, almost too quietly—

  “Before I didn’t.”

  A pause stretched between them.

  Ren didn’t ask. Something told him not to.

  Instead, he nodded. “Thanks.”

  Mei tilted her head.

  “Don’t thank me yet. You haven’t survived next week.”

  He laughed — just a breath of one. Then caught her gaze again.

  “Why now? Why help me?”

  She shrugged, but her voice was steady.

  “You’re the only one who doesn’t treat the ship like it owes you something.”

  She turned to leave, pausing only once.

  “Use thicker plating. And check your crystal coolant line. It’s… humming off-key.”

  And just like that, she was gone. Quiet as shadow. Like she’d never been there.

  Ren looked down at the note again.

  Something tightened in his chest.

  Maybe… just maybe… he wasn’t flying alone after all.