Hongjoong was in a much lighter mood when they finally took off towards the Aurora the next day. After he had told Wooyoung and San about the message Jongho had left them, both of them had grabbed onto each other, squealing happily. Their whole team felt hopeful. They still had some people to save, and maybe one of them even had an idea of how to leave this planet.

Hongjoong was now peacefully swimming - without having another fight with PSH this time.

He had his head in the water, looking down over the kelp forest that soon turned into the red grasses as they swam. They were swimming at a steady pace, and PSH was mumbling under his breath about anything and everything they saw. Sometimes, when he was feeling generous, Hongjoong listened to his rambling, but he didn't react to it with fascinated hums like Wooyoung did.

He didn't understand the man's desperate need to be kind to the androids anyway. Who was he fooling? Did pretending they were human make him feel any better?

But even though Hongjoong was repelled by Wooyoung's closeness to San, he didn't complain about it. He had his ways of coping, and Hongjoong had his own. He didn't want to start a fight right now.

Instead, Hongjoong focused on their upcoming mission. He'd made sure that they had some medical kits with them so they could treat people if they needed to. He was also somehow hoping that the radiation inside of the Aurora was not too harmful. If they always wore their by now equipped suits, maybe they could even start a base there.

Hongjoong really hoped to find something useful.

When the water slowly grew murkier, Hongjoong finally picked his head up, glancing over to Wooyoung, who was giggling with San as they swam side by side. Those dunes were the area they had found the Reaper Leviathan in, and Hongjoong worried for the other man's nerves. For now, he seemed fine, though.

"According to the data San accounted from your encounter with the leviathan, there are probably two of them around here. The time it would have taken the one we heard to swim to the other end of the Aurora is too long for it so be the same creature. So we can safely assume that there is one at the hull and another one at the bow of the ship. As they are territorial, that would mean we should swim the exact way in we came back last time," PSH reminded them again. He led the way, Hongjoong merely rolling his eyes at him.

Still, he understood. He was not quite sure whether he wanted to look down and check for some strange fish or preferred to keep his head over water. He ended up deciding that it was better let the people with scan sensors handle this.

From what he heard from Wooyoung, the shock of meeting one of those leviathans was quite the same anyway. So Hongjoong kept his head above the water, listening to any possible sounds his ears could pick up.

Even while doing so, he was distracted by the big ship in front of them. The Aurora had not sunken any further, so it must have hit the ground somewhere, but it was still burning, the black smoke accompanied by rubble falling constantly.

They made it there without any further problems, no leviathan appearing to yell at them. When they finally crawled up the ramp towards the ship, Wooyoung visibly relaxed with relief. San rubbed his back gently, whispering quiet assurances.

Hongjoong snorted at them, taking it upon himself to search for a way inside. PSH followed him without another comment, but Hongjoong could feel the dissatisfaction radiating off him. Hongjoong ignored him.

He was careful with his steps, not taking off his breathing equipment since the smoke in here could probably also kill them easily. That's why felt all the more wrong to have PSH walking next to him without any kind of protection. He looked far too human for that.

They eventually found a door that had been forced open by some kind of beam that had fallen into it. It looked safe to pass, so Hongjoong started climbing through, carefully checking its stability first before he put and of his weight on it.

He tried his best not to slip and heaved a sigh of relief when he made it across without anything coming to tumble down on him. PSH emerged behind him, stepping into the next room. While the android started putting out the fires that were making it hard to maneuver through the hot room, Hongjoong turned to yell at Wooyoung to hurry up.

When Wooyoung finally joined them, his hair was a bit mussed up, his big eyes shining with glee.

"Sorry. I had to give Sannie here a kiss as thanks for calming me down first.", he grinned brightly before reaching out to help his android over the last pieces of rubble.

Hongjoong grimaced. "Gross."

Wooyoung laughed, skipping much too close to Hongjoong to throw one arm over his shoulders. "What, that he is a man? Come on, Joong, don't be such a prude. We left that stuff in the past."

Hongjoong shoved him off with a growl, trailing behind PSH.

"Not that. You know exactly what I mean. Focus, please." With that, he closed up on the android who was already scanning the walls surrounding them. Their whiteness was all scratched up, bare metal glinting through. There were cables and pipes hanging freely out of the confines, emitting sparks and some questionable fluids. Hongjoong sure hoped none of that would be too inflammable. At least there was no water inside yet.

PSH's face had fallen into a grim frown. He looked troubled, as if trying to filter out hurtful information from his words.

It was another thing humans did, and Hongjoong shivered when he saw it on the man's youthful face.

"What is it? Did you find the survivors? Are there any?" Hongjoong wrenched another door open, stepping over the remains of a tattered android whose body parts laid strewn around all through the room. Their metallic insides were laid bare, some dark liquids pooling beneath them. Hongjoong made sure not to step into anything as he crossed the room, pretending not to see the way Wooyoung was hiding San's eyes from the view.

They had a peculiar relationship. Wooyoung must have been very lonely if he was even playing with his android.

"There are three. One female and two males. However, the female is far in the back of the ship, and I fear we will have trouble reaching her." PSH heaved away a large piece of metal that was blocking their way, stopping inside of the room. Before Hongjoong could follow him, the man was already lifting a hand for him to stop, his eyes fixed on something in a corner.

"Do not proceed. I will make sure to clean this up first before you have to see it."

Hongjoong rolled his eyes again, slapping away the hand and stepping in. He tried to pretend that his stomach didn't churn when he looked at the corpse in the corner. Their brains and blood were splattered all over the walls, staining everything red. It seemed cruel, as if a falling beam had pressed them out against the wall like a ripe fruit. He merely looked away again, continuing on his way as it was now San's turn to protect Wooyoung's eyes from this mess.

They went further up, putting out fires wherever they could and searching for the first survivor. They stumbled upon more corpses, human and android, and they all seemed to have died a painful death when hit by the explosion. The feeling of accidentally stepping on a ribcage that had been speared open behind some rubble would haunt Hongjoong for a long time.

Hongjoong felt queasy when they finally opened the last door that separated them from the first survivor, and he stumbled over some metal bar lying around. PSH was right behind him, catching him with an arm around Hongjoong's waist.

Hongjoong immediately froze up, his body hanging in the man's sturdy grip like a scared bunny for a long moment. Then he quickly scrambled away, brushing PSH's off his arm.

"Next time you touch me I'm going to chop your stupid robot hands off. Keep those fingers to yourself." The threat was hissed lowly, quiet enough for San and Wooyoung to not hear any of it. It worked. The android pulled away with another frown.

He put up his arms in defense, signaling that he would keep them to himself from now on. Hongjoong nodded at him icily, stepping into the corridor.

There was indeed a person there, an injured man who had weakly lifted his pistol at them only to take it right back down when he recognized them. He looked horrible, as if holding on to his life with the last bits of strength left to him.

His shirt was stained with blood and hair he had started to lose. He was sitting in a puddle of whatever liquid it was and the way his empty eyes flickered up to PSH when the robot immediately ran over made Hongjoong wince.

"Scanning. The patient has contacted 35 sieverts of lethal radiation. Multiple inner organs have stopped working. Immediate help will no longer be sufficient. Lapse into coma is imminent. An acute circulatory collapse will occur in about three hours. No outer injuries detected." PSH concentratedly pulled some uncomfortable looking box from behind the man's back. The poor guy managed a weak smile. He lifted a hand to weakly pat Seonghwa's knee that was by now covered in the man's blood from where he was kneeling.

Hongjoong came over too, gritting his jaw at the man's situation. It was apparent that any help would not be enough.

"Sir, can you hear us? We come from outside. Is there anything we can do to ease your... last moments?" Hongjoong tried to speak calmly, reassuring the dying man as good as possible.

The man spoke in a soundless whisper, dried blood caking his lips. When he noticed their confused faces, his hand twitched, pointing further towards the hull.

"There is another survivor in that direction; yes, I can detect him. You want us to go there?" PSH's voice was gentle and caring even though he had probably never seen that man before. The man nodded with a rattling breath, his eyes zoning out again. Hongjoong rose to warn Wooyoung, whose steps were slowly growing closer, of the current situation, leaving PSH with the man.

Wooyoung stayed outside with his android; his faces troubled when he received the news. Hongjoong turned to go back to the man then only to nearly walk into PSH's chest when the android was suddenly right behind him. He moved back from the man with a glare, nodding at the limp man.

"What are you doing? We should stay with him in his last moments. Or is that too human for you to understand?"

"This man just asked me to take his life to ease his pain. As I am not programmed to kill humans, I need your aid there," he said flatly, his eyes boring down into Hongjoong's with rage. Hongjoong sighed, stepping around him.

Again, he kneeled in front of the man, smiling full of pain.

"Do you want me to put you to sleep? Most of my techniques won't work on your body anymore, but I still have some things that can make you drift off more comfortably." He reached out to take the man's hand, beckoning PSH closer over his shoulder. The dying man nodded slowly, making Hongjoong's heart clench with remorse again.

He wished he could have saved the man. But the amount of radiation he had suffered through was clearly too much.

Hongjoong took a syringe from the medical kit, filling it with the pain killers that came with it. With another firm nod, he inserted it to the man's sickly pale arm, carefully pushing down.

"In another minute, you will be in no more pain. Thank you for staying strong through all of this," Hongjoong murmured, handing the syringe back for PSH to disinfect after.

The man blinked once, twice, thankful before closing his eyes finally. Hongjoong watched him fall asleep before rising to his feet again. He cleared his throat while nodding at Wooyoung to join them.

"He pointed us to the hull. I reckon going there first and then checking the damage on the ship is a good idea to know whether we can save the last person somehow. Are you feeling alright still?"

Wooyoung nodded, holding onto San's arm tightly. His face was pale, but it only seemed to be from queasiness so far. He and Hongjoong were treading dangerous waters by staying here for a longer time. Even their suits would not be able to stop all the radiation from damaging their bodies.

"Alright, then let's go."

They took off walking again.