Artificial Horizon - A César Fernando Basa x Reader story

LI - Landing

The act of setting an aircraft onto the ground or another surface such as ice or water after flight.

* * *

The Philippine Air Force Aerospace Museum, despite its unusual possible open hours, is relatively empty. I guess, only those who are interested with aviation, planes and military will ever want to visit such place. But I am not any of the above; instead, something about it draws me to it. Not just merely the very museum, but the site itself. Like, even if the museum doesn't exist right there, I'll still wish to visit it. Surprisingly, not just once, but as how many times I'll certainly be able. For now, I only have this moment.

Thankfully, the site itself, even if barricaded by the premises of the Villamor Air Base, is open to the public due to it being converted to a museum. As expected, it showcases the history of the Philippine Air Force—all from the very start to the current, though there had been a greater focus towards to whom the base itself was named. And to the unit that he commanded.

The well-known and celebrated fighter pilot of the Second World War, Colonel Jesús Villamor, led vigilant airmen to the skies of the Philippines even at the outbreak of the Japanese invasion. A group of pilots under his command of the Sixth Pursuit Squadron. And though there were too many to be led by him, one of them had been specially mentioned as well.

Lieutenant Cesar M. Basa AC.

I stare at his framed portrait. Looking at it, I find him quite too familiar—a man in his mid or late twenties, in a formal uniform with heightened and sharp features, dreamy eyes, and a ghost of a smile. Definitely a handsome one that upon seeing another picture of him in a group photo, denoted to be his last known photograph, I know at once that he has the looks.

I get an attachment with him at once; that I suddenly doubt one of the illustrations that said that he was caught by enemy fire while dangling helplessly from a parachute. It is weird finding out that there are too many things that I am in search of him, yet there aren't much that can be found. Too little seems to be known about him, but none of it actually do him any justice. That for some reasons, I feel like I know him much more than anyone else.

But that's impossible; not to mention weird.

Giving up myself with how I seem to know him, I sigh heavily and proceed in checking out the rest of the exhibit. Two mural paintings also feature him, using the same portrait that I've been staring from earlier as basis for the work. Aside from that, there hadn't been anything else then. Even when I make it to check the second floor—seeing more vacant space than those featured guns and armaments, history of the Philippine Air Force's uniform all the way from PAAC, and diorama of old airfields—there hadn't been any further mention of the man himself. Perhaps, if I am to visit that air base named after him, I'll find out more... But I immediately take that idea back as he is surely a great mystery aside from the fact that he is worthy of having an air base named in his honor.

The biggest question mark then is why am I attracted to him. Is it because that if I am to squint too well in trying to have a good look of him in an otherwise hard-to-see photographs, I'll be able to see how he resembles someone I know of? That not just because of the last name that can attribute them to be distant relatives, then I want to figure it all?

I guess not, I ponder, telling myself. Dahil maging 'yong lalaki na 'yon ay bigla na lang din nawala na parang bula.

After that last leg of our promotional shooting flights, the man himself seemed to leave without any trace. It had been four months, and no one knows where he is; except for the fact that after those shooting days, when I thought that things are starting to work out for me to figure out more about him, he seemed to suddenly file a rather lengthy leave.