NOVEMBER 5TH, 2120 A.D
—AURORA SPACECRAFT.
[118 DAYS TO MARS.]
"psst. san. san-ah."
san turns lazily towards the direction of sound, eyebrow raised, coffee cup jauntily tilted at a dangerous angle. the anti-grativy holds up most of the cup's weight, so he doesn't need to hold it, really, and the little hole in the cup lid is begging to wreak havoc and spill some of the hot beverage.
(san likes to drink coffee to look like an adult, but really, he's just drinking hot milky-sugar with a hint of coffee. shh, don't tell anyone, though.)
his eyes meet the top half of wooyoung's head: cat-like eyes full of mirth peeking out from behind the laboratory doorway. he's full of excitement; san knows this wooyoung all too well. it's the same wooyoung that made makeshift (harmless) bombs and set them off in abandoned hallways during his first week at KQSA. the wooyoung who swaps his teammates' sugar with salt, and deliberately adds a couple more pinches of pepper to the meals of those who can't handle spice well.
(san shudders at the hellish omelette his comrade had so lovingly made during their training days. of course, he retaliated by making his monthly batch of chocolate-chip cookies for the team and swapping chocolate for raisins in wooyoung's cookies. what can he say, he's cold-blooded.)
san goes to open his mouth to respond. it's comical, the way his friend is acting like a really bad spy in a cheesy crime movie, but he's stopped by wide eyes and frantic arm-waving motions.
"shh! don't talk! stay quiet. come here," wooyoung whispers loudly (ironically, wooyoung himself is probably the last person in the solar system to understand the word 'quiet'), looking around the hallway and behind san to check for any other intruding members.
"everyone will know we're in here, anyway. the thermal tracker in the control room, hello?" he mutters as he gets dragged into the room. "idiot."
wooyoung locks the laboratory doors and dramatically breathes a loud sigh. san's eyebrow only raises higher. "so, what's up?"
his team mate is so choked up with excitement, he has to pause before speaking.
"i made something."
"great. you're an engineer, congrats!" wooyoung smacks him, hard.
"drink your coffee and stop being so grumpy." (does it really count as coffee if you can barely taste the coffee bean?) "no, seriously, you're really gonna love this."
san takes a curious sip of warm milky-sugar and puts it in the cupholder attached to the wall. wooyoung's enthusiasm is contagious, electrifying, and the boxy grin and sparkling-white teeth makes him feel more awake than his caffeine fix ever did.
"close your eyes," he demands, and san obeys. all he can hear is wooyoung's uniform rustling as he turns to grab something. "okay, now... open!"
there is a little metal disk with arms in wooyoung's hands, no bigger than a china plate.
"it's a little robot! he's programmed to fetch this and that and hold stuff! isn't he great?" a matching grin finds its way into san's own face. wooyoung's right: he does love it; the little metal disk is adorable. he taps the top of the robot, and it instantly springs to life, the multicoloured lights on it's side beam brightly and a cacophony of whirring fills their ears. it even wiggles it's little crabby claws experimentally, as if flexing unused muscles.
"oh... my... god," san whispers with baited breath as both boys watch the little robot attentively, waiting to see what it does next.
"i programmed him to respond to the name 'sirius', because, yes, i am a space nerd," wooyoung chatters quickly with happiness. "sirius!"
the little metal disk whirs happily in response. the blue circle of light in it's side swivels to face wooyoung in acknowledgment and it clicks it's hands once again.
"hi," san says, and surprisingly, it responds with a long series of happy whirring. god, it's as talkative as it's maker.
"i'm planning to keep updating him, make him more responsive and stuff," wooyoung explains as he floats over to the paper-scattered countertop to write down some notes on their new friend. sirius follows and hovers above his shoulder. "if you tell him your name, he'll remember it!" he says offhandedly, even though san feels the pride radiating off of him.
"sirius," he calls, making sure each syllable is clear. the glowing blue dot rotates until it meet's san's eyes, "i'm san."
no response.
"no, he's not that clever, yet. you have to say 'sirius, my name is san'."
at the recognition of his name, sirius turns back towards wooyoung. and once wooyoung finishes his sentence, the boys look at each other, wide-eyed.
"ah, fuck," he says. sirius responds joyfully- another bout of chirps and whirs continue, and a little ding! makes it obvious that according to the little robot, wooyoung is now registered as san.
silence and disbelief fill the room.
"so... should i tell him i'm wooyoung? can't you change it?" san asks.
"i didn't tell him my name before that, and i didn't write a code allowing him to rename people in his memory," he answers blankly.
"uh, okay then. sirius?" the robot turns towards him, none the wiser.
"my name is wooyoung," san states, and both boys burst into a fit of laughter, estatic whirring amidst their guffaws.
-☆-
"jongho, what do you mean i can't have cereal for lunch? come on, be reasonable here!"
"hyung, no offence but your diet is terrible and i need every opportunity i can get to make you eat some vegetables."
"but the cereal box is literally right there, i need to be back on schedule in ten minutes!"
"fine, mingi-hyung," jongho sighs, and mingi grins devilishly. "i'll just eat all mint-chocolate ice cream."
mingi frowns.
"dude, you don't even like mint-chocolate flavoured things."
"yes, so i will eat it solely out of pure spite. wait for the lunch i'm cooking, please." mingi crosses the room dejectedly, pouting and silent.
"well, what are you cooking?" yunho asks, going to float beside seonghwa.
currently, those on their lunch break are mingi, yunho, seonghwa and yeosang (jongho's technically there as part of his required job), all five lazying around and starving.
to answer yunho's question as annoyingly as possible, jongho goes to reach for the obnoxious intercom, but a flurry of hands smack his hand away with a chorus of "no!"
the youngest huffs and crosses his arms. "i'm making fried rice with spring rolls."
"ooh, multicultural," yunho responds, waggling his brows. a satisfied smirk sits on jongho's face and he bows theatrically. mingi scoffs. the rest of them sit there, unfazed; this was how most conversations went amongst their team. family, or whatever.
they converse amongst themselves as jongho works his magic in the meantime. stuff like "please remind hongjoong-hyung to get out his office and stretch his legs every once in a while" and "i just know wooyoung is up to something" travels between them, and soon enough, a streaming bowl of fluffy rice with some pretty decent pieces of imitation egg and peppers sit in their warming hands, topped with an astonishingly crispy chicken spring roll. who says a chinese takeaway can't make it to space?
"how does it feel to be the youngest chef in space?"
"nah, scratch that. how does it feel to be the only person in the world to have cooked a spring roll in space?"
yeosang rolls his eyes fondly and and pats jongho on the shoulder in thanks as he finishes his meal. "mingi, don't forget to give me that medical course introduction later," he says as he floats out of the room.
"wipe your mouth!" seonghwa calls after him, to no response.
the rest of them linger in the kitchen for a little white longer, reluctant to begin work again. until mingi gasps and remembers he's behind schedule and still needs to help san file some books away, and rushes out. whilst the remaining three boys chuckle, the bell signalling the end of lunch break resounds throughout the aurora, making them groan.
"back to checking on my seedlings. ciao!" yunho declares, waving. seonghwa and jongho head to the navigation room, awaiting their daily trial of picking the best route for their expedition.
there, they meet yeosang again, who's in deep conversation with hongjoong, and wooyoung.
"waddup gang," jongho says as he throws up a peace sign and slots himself into the middle of the crowd they've formed. all conversations cease and, for an apprentice, seonghwa thinks, jongho is uh, extremely eager. although it's been more than a week since take-off, it's the first time jongho is helping out with the route specifics instead of doing whatever odd job yunho makes him do, so something tells him jongho doesn't get along with plants as well as yunho.
"okay, so yesterday we encountered a light meteor shower- nothing major, but at four a.m. seonghwa and i had to manually steer the spacecraft out of it's path just as a precaution. we weren't gonna get hit, but you know, just in case." seonghwa nods. "so i'm wondering if we should anchor the aurora and wait out the shower, or plan a different route. the pros of anchoring the spacecraft-" the commander turns to use the whiteboard upheld to the wall, ink pen already smudging his hand at the fast pace he draws up a table:
"we can keep flying on the route we've planned to almost perfection, and we'll get to mars without further intrusion hopefully, with this shower as an exception. plus, it's the quickest and safest route we know. cons, however, are that we'd be nine days behind on the mission, and with fourteen years in front of us, those days will build up quickly and before we know it, if we let all these little dilemmas hinder our journey, it could be years after the predicted date before we head back home." the other crew members murmer and nod in agreement. the thought of staying in space for a few more years than necessary sends a collective shiver down all of their spines.
"or, option two: plan a new route. i was viewing different recourses this morning and i think i found a path that would only make us two days behind, maybe even one if we pick up speed. it's less safer, though, so i'd want us to manually steer until we're in the clear. we'd have to do a lot of rerouting after that too when we plan for the jupiter course, but nothing we can't handle." hongjoong finally takes a deep breath after talking so quickly for so long (hongjoong should really look into becoming a rapper once he retires, seonghwa muses). "so, thoughts?"
their leader's commanding presence is so powerful, jongho starts to clap. "sorry, don't know why i did that," he says when hongjoong stares at him weirdly.
"i think we should reroute," seonghwa finds himself saying, and all heads turn to look at him.
now that was weird.
usually, seonghwa chooses to listen to everyone's input and opinions first before contributing to discussion. in fact, he's told them countless times before: don't wait for me to speak first.
it was as if some invisible force had grabbed his thoughts straight from his brain and shoved them through his throat and out of his mouth. seonghwa, calm and collected and thoughtful seonghwa, speaking before thinking? it was so out of character, he couldn't help but look surprised himself. only jongho, who'd yet to understand how the team functioned during these discussions, was oblivious to the stark personality change.
"what?" wooyoung asks, not rudely, but out of pure, unfiltered shock.
seonghwa's shocked too, but before he can protest, more words flood through his mouth- a quick stream that's almost incoherent.
"uh, yeah, it's better to reroute because, as hongjoong said, it'll be harder on all of us if we stay here longer than we should, and we're skilled enough to steer the aurora through rocky areas. it's the reason why we have whole training degrees for it." seonghwa's tone of voice is so cocky and forceful, he's barely even sure what he's saying. at this rate, he could tell himself pouring milk before cereal was a normal and correct thing to do, and he'd believe it. maybe this was some strange voodoo magic possessing him for the time being or something, because he has no explanation for the unlike-ness of himself right now.
the others hum and nod as they listen, and after getting over their initial shock, continue discussing their ideas. seonghwa even goes as far as challenging opposing ideas, prompting them and balancing their options. something only hongjoong would do. seonghwa's not timid, but he's definitely not... whatever this is.
in the end, the debate is finalised by their typical voting system, and the outcome is three-to-one in favour of rerouting and changing their original path. maybe it was due to his newfound superpower, but the turnout had never been so clear and in agreement before.
"hyung, you were so cool! damn, you were so professional and like, scary," jongho jabbers persistently, shaking his arm out of excitement. seonghwa hasn't even registered what he'd said during the session, and stares back with glazed eyes. the younger carries on, unfazed.
"you did well today," a quiet voice tells him from his shoulder- commander hongjoong.
"thanks," he replies blankly, not sure what else to say. whatever immovable force that had held him to such outspoken, leader-like standards had disappeared.
"seriously. you should contribute more often during the discussions- i like hearing what you have to say," their leader continues. he hums in response. it's just them two now in the control bay- jongho nowhere to be seen (a quick glance at the thermal tracker shows he's back in the bio-dome with yunho and mingi).
"not sure yeosang would be too happy with that, though," he mutters, unable to contain the sigh that follows after.
their resident navigator had been the only one out of their team arguing against their chosen option, and after seonghwa had challenged all of his valid points for the nth time, he'd finally given up in persuading the others. in theory, yeosang's opinions should be more valued than the other crew members', but hongjoong had said himself he values each and every one of their beliefs equally. of course, before voyage, they'd made their list of rules: be flexible in changes in the plan, work with each other even if you don't agree with the choice made, et cetera. so wether he likes it or not, yeosang will still have to agree with doing the work in rerouting and steering the ship.
yeosang is indifferent; chooses to not wear his emotions on his face or heart upon his sleeve, but a disagreeing glare is worst than an indifferent glare.
hongjoong nods once in acknowledgement, taking it into account. "he'll be okay."
they linger a little longer in the control bay, checking stats, fuel levels, weather reports.
"guess i'll start writing up the plan for this week's report," hongjoong says with false cheer, giving out a whoop dripping in sarcasm.
something in seonghwa fires up again.
"no, let me help you!" he urges before he can stop himself, startling the other as well.
guess he's still possessed, for now.
-☆-
"his name," wooyoung finds it difficult to suppress his wide grin, "is sirius."
oohs and ahhs fill the spacious living quarters where seven boys are lying down (yes, floating through air still), with one particularly obnoxious boy showing off his new friend.
"he remembers names if you tell him! and holds stuff and fetches tools if you ask," wooyoung explains, exchanging a secret, knowing smile with san.
excitement fizzes through the room and ricochets off of every wall as each person takes turns in telling sirius their names, pairing with the familiar whirring response. yunho's not sure how an inanimate object can sound so happy and full of life.
soon enough; their 'eight o'clock bonding session' transforms into some sort of weird name game involving sirius, who's more than satisfied with playing pretend metal dog.
"sirius, go to jongho!"
"sirius! go to yeosang-hyung!"
"sirius, go to seonghwa-hyung!"
"sirius, go to wooyoung!" their laughter ceases as sirius chirps happily in front of san.
"er, " both san and wooyoung start, unable to contain their giggles. "it's a long story."
—
hm, i wonder what's up with seonghwa...