Equipped with gloves and facemasks, the remaining crew spread out on the ship. They spent an entire day just opening the wall panels and dipping behind every nook and cranny to clean. The ship maintained itself well, draining dust and other dirt out of the air before it could collect the ground. Hongjoong didn't find a single odd stain, much less an alien organism that exhibited itself in even a speck.

However, San had only been in places where the rest of them had been, too. Wherever he had picked up the virus, all of them were exposed to the risk of getting infected. And with their medical researcher gone, they would struggle to find the appropriate explanations and medication in time.

Hongjoong had teamed up with Mingi, and their troubled frowns accompanied them in yet another spotless chamber.

In the morning, he had urged the crew to be extra vigilant of a rash on their necks or breathing difficulties. Everybody had checked themselves, but nobody felt any different, apart from the knots they all had in their stomachs. Nobody had proclaimed the need for a meal yet despite the past three hours of sanitation, and the corridors were eerily silent without Wooyoung's giggles.

Hongjoong feared for his crew, feared one of them collapsing any moment and the ship going quieter and quieter. Ugly liability had been gnawing on him ever since he had discovered San, and every pair of adverted eyes only enhanced his raw nerves.

While Mingi opened the control panel in the room so he could wash inside, Hongjoong wiped down the counters and sprayed a generous amount of bacteria-killing substance as he went. But it only amounted to antibodies known to humanity. If this was a novel virus, then their sterilisation would be in vain.

Mingi hadn't communicated much, just as devastated by the unforeseen death within their rows as the rest. Most of the time, his face had remained impassive, his mind detached and far gone from the bitter reality. Hongjoong couldn't blame him. He sidestepped the med bay as far as the corridor allowed him every time he passed the room. The dread coming from inside permeated the walls and circulated around the ship like a wavering storm cloud.

When Mingi finally did talk, his deep voice cracked from long misuse.

"I talked to Wooyoung earlier. He had to override San's door to get in. It was still locked," the man muttered. It was important information that he would have shared at their next meeting, undoubtedly. Hearing it already had Hongjoong tilt his head curiously.

"He locked it from the outside? Then where was he all day long while we couldn't access him?"

San had, without a doubt, died on his own. But if he had been locked away in his lodge, that sounded far more credible than if he had laid somewhere in plain sight with none of them noticing. Of course, any ship had rooms that weren't in use. San could have concealed his disease there. Hongjoong mistrusted it, however. Somebody probably would have caught on, and San had gone out of his way to latch his door shut.

"He couldn't have been outside the ship already, or else we wouldn't have found him there anymore. But where was he that we didn't find him and he got out into space? Without opening the airlock, too?" Disturbed, Mingi wiped the compartment clean and manually reinstalled the door. They had a cleaning robot somewhere, but since the crew was adamant about finding any fungi or remains that could prompt them on a trace of science, they had left it in its cabinet.

"Did we check if the file corrupted?" Hongjoong activated the door as they left and strolled down the squeaky clean white corridor. Outside the window, a far sun reflected on the stars and threw bright rays of light inside.

"Yunho did, yes. We've been thinking about how it could happen that a dead body moved through the ship walls all night long. But the file is fine. Nobody had been at the airlock for an eternity, not until you burst in there." Mingi shivered at the memory. Surely, they had attended until the point of Wooyoung's breakdown in the launch room.

The only other exit was through the storage ramp, deep down in the ship's guts. However, it could only be activated from the bridge and the ship would have lost its balance and oxygen if that had happened.

Seonghwa and Hongjoong had been at the bridge at the time. In addition, Hongjoong doubted that San would have floated near the upper part of the Elysium if he had been ejected down at the engines.

"Then how did he get out?" Hongjoong asked, mostly to himself. The mystery of where San had been and how his dead body could end up in space irritated him. Even if the answer was less significant than finding what had killed him, Hongjoong disliked the open questions around the man's death. They were in a confined aircraft. It shouldn't be hard to piece things together here.

They were just about to enter the kitchen and wrap up there when Mingi stopped unexpectedly in the middle of the hall. Concerned, Hongjoong's eyes flickered over him and his neck, searching for an unusual rash.

When Mingi strode forward, his steps were determined. After a moment of bewilderment, Hongjoong dashed after him. They passed the kitchens and rounded the corner behind it. Hongjoong didn't need to read the label to know they were entering the waste room. Confused, Hongjoong came to stand behind Mingi.

Inside the already cleaned room, Jongho kept several containers for garbage. A little oven burnt every ignitable substance every few weeks, and material that automatically dissolved after time got thrown into the big chute that he emptied whenever it was full.

Hongjoong looked around cluelessly, not seeing anything wrong with the room. However, as Mingi carefully activated the chute mechanism to open it, he peeked over the other man's shoulder curiously. The metal container was currently empty and the meter of when it had to be discharged again at zero.

"Don't you think a San would fit inside here?" Mingi muttered, as if afraid to be right. Baffled, Hongjoong withstood the absurd compulsion to tell him off.

Hongjoong double-took the container, scanning its width and depth. Yes, it would presumably be no issue to fit a grown man in. And since San was slenderly built, the container would even fit some more material.

At his careful nod, the shadows around Mingi's eyes darkened further. None of them dared to breathe too loudly in the deafening silence.

"You wouldn't believe that he... Got in here himself to be expelled hoping we wouldn't catch the virus, right?" Hongjoong's nervous whisper made sense once more in Wooyoung's assumption that San had recoiled from them to protect them. By creating the deception of being in his room while he died here peacefully, waiting for Jongho to throw him out by accident.

"Maybe. But either way, we need to question Jongho. He might have seen something and chosen to ignore it."

The wariness in Mingi's features had Hongjoong's need to defend his brother bubble up in his chest. In no way, would Jongho spot the body of a friend in there and throw him out without telling anyone. The traces would come back to him far too quickly, even if they hadn't found San. There was only one non-logged way off this ship.

This time, Hongjoong took the lead as he guided them out of the room. His hunger for answers nibbled at him from the inside and he wanted to evade Mingi and Jongho from getting into a dispute because of misfortunate word choice. Hongjoong would talk.

He called Jongho via his watch and waited until the man picked up. Every second felt like an eternity and had Hongjoong's anxiety spike.

When the man finally replied, Hongjoong exhaled slowly. Mingi watched him like a hawk.

"Hey, Jongho. Where are you right now?"

"On the bridge with Yunho. Is anything the matter?"

"Stay there, we'll come to you."

Hongjoong ended the call and beckoned Mingi to follow him. When the tall man did, his dark face didn't match his usually fragile and soft-spoken personality. Hongjoong did his best not to jump to any conclusions and kept his face a careful mask of neutralness as they entered the bridge.

Jongho and Yunho stood in a corner, chatting as the two men stepped in. Curious about what the sudden visit was about, Jongho glanced between them. Under his mask, Hongjoong gave a weak smile that he hoped reached his eyes.

"We have a theory we wanted to review with you. Not an accusation and neither supported by evidence. As bad as it may sound, please bear with us." As diplomatic as possible in this already stressful situation in which he now had to accuse his team members, Hongjoong tried to lighten the scene.

It didn't work. Both Jongho and Yunho pulled their eyebrows together. With a wince, Hongjoong thwarted the impulse to defend Jongho against Mingi again. He knew the man was innocent. He just needed Mingi to understand that, too.

When Jongho's silence prompted him to continue talking, Hongjoong fumbled for an explanation that didn't sound like an accusation. It was harder than expected given that nobody else manned the chutes.

"We speculated about the circumstances of San leaving the ship hours after we died. Also, given that both exits outside stayed shut during the time he entered space. Uh- We noticed he would fit into the chute however and that you emptied it that day?"

Jongho's face paled. Before Hongjoong even got to open his mouth and illustrate, Yunho already stepped in between them. His disappointed eyes reprimanded Hongjoong in a way that had him look at his toes instantly.

"Hey, are you trying to say he found the body and tried to get rid of it? That's nonsense! He would have alerted us instantly."

With a whine, Hongjoong raised his hands. Mingi stood behind him stiffly, like a stone guard, not getting mixed up in the crackling tension between the two teams.

"No, no, not that! We had the idea that San might have seen it coming, as Wooyoung said, and tried to protect us from catching the same disease. He could have crawled in there hoping he would be thrown out and take the virus with him. I doubt you would inspect the waste each time you empty it. Especially for dead bodies."

And it made sense. All pipes responsible for cleaning out the individual trashcans in each room emptied in the one big collective chute. San could have been buried under fabric and printed materials and not visible to the eye at all.

At the careful de-escalation, Yunho peeked over his shoulder at Jongho. The man's youthful features were stricken with a mix of dismay and horror.

"We just... Wanted to ask if you saw something. Of course, we doubt it, you would have told us. But it would explain how he got out," Hongjoong murmured soothingly. Having attacked his brother so brutally stung, especially since the wounds of San's death were still fresh. No matter how innocent Jongho was, having a hand in the disrespectful ejection of San's corpse visibly disturbed him.

"I... I think I should have noticed something. I had emptied the chutes only the day prior, so I was surprised why they indicated a heavy weight already after so little time. But I figured it might have been another mishap in Mingi's lab, so I- of course, I didn't dig through it." Jongho buried his face in his hands, mortified. When Yunho and Hongjoong reached out to rub his back at the same time, Mingi also loosened his strained shoulders.

"So that explains how he got out. Oh, dear." Mingi also rubbed his eyes, drained. The idea that they had thrown out their friend's dead body like a piece of garbage made the shame all the worse. Evil like poison, it gnawed at their conscience.

"Maybe he succeeded, though," Yunho tried to be optimistic quietly. "Yeosang said that the cells died, and considering the amount of cleaning we did? Maybe it was really just him and we are safe now. And San had to suffer that horrible fate and still protected all of us."

The thankful smile Hongjoong directed at him over Jongho's head had Yunho grin back.

"Then let's assemble again and do another briefing. We can't keep the body on board if we don't want to risk either alien or very human sicknesses spring over. Wooyoung won't like this."

With a last pat on Jongho's tense shoulder, Hongjoong strode away to gather everyone in the kitchen. He was relieved of their ultimate theory. It sounded stable.

And so very much like San that Hongjoong's heart ached for him once more.

If only he had replied faster. He might have been able to help. He wouldn't know how, since San knew best out of anyone on board how to deal with a deadly virus, but Hongjoong could at least have stood by his side as he reached his end, and hold his hand through it.

Glum, Hongjoong and Mingi fetched the other members to tell them of their conclusion.

At least they were safe now. Although Hongjoong would warn them to keep close tabs on how they felt and ask the medical AI system immediately if they recognised something out of order.