On the day of Wooyoung's departure, he was downtrodden. He liked the few friends he had made within such a short time in the brilliant city. If he could, he would have stayed longer, but Yongguk waited for him to continue his travels in Rome.
Early in the morning, Wooyoung had knocked on Mingi's door. He kept the leaves he had plucked for Seungyoun last night securely in his pocket. Just maybe, he had hoped to see Suusaandar again when he had visited the gardens late at night after he had returned from his trip with Mingi. However, not even a slip of orange silk had exposed itself to Wooyoung's eyes.
Mingi knew it was time for Wooyoung to leave. So when he opened the door to find Wooyoung with lowered eyes in front of it, a coo immediately left his lips.
"Oh, don't be sad, friend. I will be here for a while, you can come back anytime! There are so many more things that I can show you in Babylon!" Mingi waved his hands around to cheer Wooyoung back up. His tall figure looked clumsy in his efforts, but Wooyoung appreciated him with a thin smile.
"I hope I can... Someday."
The one thing Wooyoung hated about time travel was how he got accustomed to an epoch and its people and had to leave them knowing the bitter end they would take. Most cultures he visited got wiped out by wars or the force of nature. Seeing Babylon in its golden glory and knowing it would be destroyed entirely all too soon ripped Wooyoung's heart into tiny shreds.
"Until then, I wish you all the good in the world. May your gods bless your life and your trip home."
Pouting, Wooyoung looked up at the friendly giant. As an offer, he opened his arms. When Mingi tilted his head at him, Wooyoung grumbled into the collar of his tunic.
"Want to share a hug?"
"Isn't that... Too intimate for our friendship?" Insecure, Mingi shifted in the spot. He seemed to want to reach out, too, to accept the proposal, but he didn't want to insult Wooyoung.
"In my culture, we do it to share affection between friends, too," Wooyoung said. A light went on behind Mingi's eyes and his usual smile was back.
"Oh, in that case, of course! I will make an exception for you." Mingi had to giggle as if they were about to do something forbidden. Before either of them could wrap each other into their arms, however, a pained whine two rooms over reached their ears. Wooyoung's face fell when he turned his head in the sound's direction. A moment later, another wail coupled with a sharp crack sounded. Wooyoung flinched as if the whip had hit him instead of the slave.
"Maybe not here. I apologise." Mingi reached out to pull Wooyoung inside his room and quietly shut the door. His eyes were lowered submissively. He was just as sorry for the punished slave as he was unable to help.
Wooyoung sighed. Just like the bright and clean alleys compared to the dim ones, Babylon's social structure had its shadow sides, too.
Before Mingi could fumble for an explanation, Wooyoung stepped in to hug him. Their feet brushed when Mingi embraced him back with a surprised squeak. His warm body was narrow in Wooyoung's arms.
For a moment, they rested with Wooyoung's head leaned against Mingi's chest and Mingi's cheek settled on his head. Mingi's heartbeat was hammering under Wooyoung's face anxiously. Most likely this was the first hug aside from his parents Mingi had ever received.
Wooyoung held him tighter to show him just how wonderful hugs could be. The faint squeeze he received back magicked a smile back onto Wooyoung's lips.
When they parted, Wooyoung was less pessimistic. Mingi's guarded expression fell into a grin as soon as he saw how much better Wooyoung's mood was.
"Shall I accompany you to the gates?" Mingi asked loyally. Wooyoung shook his head.
"I will visit Berosus to say goodbye to him, too, before I leave. Thank you a lot for your hospitality, Mingi, and for sharing your work with me."
Bashful, Mingi rubbed the back of his neck. His smile was bright and genuine.
"It's my pleasure. Take care."
"I will." After another shared smile, Wooyoung stepped outside of the historian's cluttered room. As soon as the door had fallen shut behind him, the same gnawing loneliness from the morning returned to fester in Wooyoung's heart. He got attached to people and places easily; loved them with everything he had. Goodbyes always troubled him.
With a sigh, Wooyoung went on his way out of the palace. He didn't look around for Suusaandar, knowing he wouldn't show up. As he left the palace behind, Wooyoung's heart was heavy with missing its vaulted corridors already.
He found the way back to the bazaar with no effort. Once more, he mingled with the people filling the main street. He listened to children laugh and jump around between the legs of adults. A bunch of purchases shifted in a slave's arms as he followed by his lord. The puzzle pieces all matched the peaceful lives the Babylonians led in their city of secrets and astonishment.
Wooyoung needed a while to find back to Berosus. Other stands blocked his path, and some he knew had changed position to confuse him. After weaving through the crowd at a snail's pace, he finally reached the booth he had been searching for. His bright smile only got a puzzled expression from his partly blind friend.
"Hello, Berosus," Wooyoung greeted. "It's me, the one with the name that means to make friends."
Berosus perked up at that. His fingers were gnarly with age as he put them down on the wood in front of him.
"Oh, my friend! I didn't recognise you in the sun. How are you?"
"I'm well. I got my business in the palace done and will return to my home place soon. So I came to say goodbye to you and this gorgeous city."
Wooyoung huddled in the stand's corner so he wouldn't stand in the way of the passerby behind him. Chattering and muttering, groups evaded him. He knew how to recognise the slaves by now. Apart from their eyes, nothing differed them from the rest of the swarm. They were more demure and their steps were hasty and goal-oriented as they did the shopping for their masters to dip and leave right away.
"I'm glad to hear that. That you finished your work, that is. Could you explore the city for a while? You weren't here for long." Berosus heavily leaned against his counter as they talked. His deep brown clothes hung from his frame to let the wind breeze through them and refreshen his weather-hardened skin.
"I also felt there was so much more to discover here, but I need to travel further and research more. I will remember Babylon and everything I saw of it for its grandeur, however." The soft wonder in Wooyoung's voice had Berosus smile. The same pride in their city as Mingi had sported matched his features.
"That's good to hear. I hope you carry the stories of our city far beyond our borders. I expect an influx of people like you who all come from the same area and want to buy my tablets."
Wooyoung had to laugh at that bold statement. He liked this type of humour.
"So many will come that you can barely sell enough tablets, be warned."
Berosus' laughter filled the corner of the Bazaar. Behind his booth and cradling a cloth to his chest once more, Wooyoung spotted the little thieving boy from a few days prior. He looked healthy and well, both hands still attached as he snuck between the tables. Wooyoung smiled.
"That's what I like to hear! Farewell, son, and come back whenever yearning seizes you. I will be here and we can talk again."
Same as with Mingi, intense gratitude filled Wooyoung's heart. His smile wobbled, but Berosus' aged eyes didn't notice.
"Thank you so much for everything you did for me and your kind words. I will return to you first once I come back," Wooyoung promised. As if he were a child, Berosus waved him off with a tired smile.
"I know, I know. Now go before you make both of us cry."
Wooyoung swallowed the lump in his throat paired with a wet giggle. Once more, he bowed deeply in front of the older man. Then he hurried to leave that place before his emotions overwhelmed him. Babylon had been a joy to visit, and he would remember it in his dreams late at night when his heart yearned for its colours and the music of drums and a tambourine.
Wooyoung left the bazaar behind and passed the entrance to the palace facilities for the last time. When he glanced up at the mighty building in the distance, he believed to see Suusaandar leaned with his back to the window again. Orange veils fluttered in the desert breeze.
This time when Wooyoung passed the Sin and Ishtar gates, he belonged to the flux of people leaving. He got in line with their empty carts and exchanged his place in the city with new people who migrated in with gleaming eyes. The path that had felt forever and slow to take last time flashed past him on his exit. Like a blue trail in his sight, the bricks he had grown to appreciate so much disappeared. Moments later, Wooyoung stood in a corner outside the city and out of view from anyone that might know him.
Melancholic, Wooyoung trailed his eyes over the city walls once more. He could see the tower from here where Mingi and he had prayed, and part of the gardens where Suusaandar had looked at him with those bottomless eyes. Despite having been here only for such a short amount of time, Wooyoung connected deep fondness to this place.
After yet another sigh, he turned on his heel.
"Time to get back to the institute," he muttered to himself. He had memorised Mingi's explanations by heart and would type them down for Yongguk to analyse the moment he got back.
Hunched over his remote, Wooyoung hid the rare device away from curious eyes. The date for back home was already set. The timer adjusted itself with the days passing. He just needed to activate a button and then the next door would take him right back into the travel room.
Wooyoung didn't look back again. With his remote tightly clutched in his hand, he activated the single button of it and pushed open the door of the little guard hut outside the city walls. He never got to see the soldiers inside. His eyes fell shut as time pulled him on the highway of science in the other direction this time. Soon, the noise of Akkadian voices and camels stomping in the sand faded out into silence.
No discomfort overcame him as he opened his eyes to step into the other room. The door shut behind him and he exhaled. He was back in the circular tower.
Gentle fingers put down the remote before he went back out through decontamination. Some sand swept away when he rinsed out his sandals to carry them in his hands. Wet, the pitter-patter of his feet brought him back out.
From a closet in the conference room, Wooyoung got a regular set of clothes and changed. He preferred keeping them around so he wouldn't have to stay in possibly dirty clothes before he got back. His tunic and shawl he folded neatly and left them on Seungyoun's shelf. As the cherry on top, he placed the leaves for him neatly above the fabric so his partner would find them once he came to work next time.
Walking through the pristine halls back to Yongguk's bureau felt nowhere as magnificent as the palace of Babylon. It seemed uninteresting to Wooyoung. His love and adoration laid in a past long gone. He always had trouble detaching his mind from his journeys. The longer he stayed in the past, the more he feared he would never return. Seungyoun sometimes jested that Wooyoung would fall in love with some medieval knight one day and simply never report back to them. They laughed over the joke together, but Wooyoung could never be so sure. The memory of Suusaandar was vivid behind his inner eye.
Yongguk hummed when Wooyoung knocked on his door. When he peeked his head in, the other man grinned at him brightly.
"You're back," he welcomed him. When he rose to make coffee for both of them with his private coffee machine in the corner, Wooyoung came in to slouch on the chair opposite of Yongguk's.
"I am. And I shall report to you everything that I have heard and seen."
Yongguk set a platter of cookies down in front of Wooyoung. He had prepared them for him, knowing Wooyoung was low on sugar sometimes when he returned from the far past.
"Take a break first. No need to rush."
Gradually, Wooyoung eased back into the world he belonged in while he talked with Yongguk. And soon, it got easier for him to file Babylon away as yet another dream-like memory.