Yesteryear

Act II: Rome

Wooyoung was startled upon his first step into the Roman Empire. The thundering sound of hooves penetrated his skull and the euphoric screams of a crowd of people following right after momentarily numbed Wooyoung's senses. It took him a moment to catch up with his location and clear his befuddled mind.

Wooyoung had walked into the middle of the Circus Maximus. The oblong shape of the track was six times the length of a football field and thousands of people filled the ranks to cheer at the spectacle in their midst. The sandy trail wrapping around the inner isle had become the lane for a chariot race and four dangerously swaying carts pulled by four horses each whizzed across the rounds. They tried to outdo each other, every so often bumping into the brittle opponents to throw them off the track and kill them if successful. Every wagon had one driver who steered the untamed horses on their dangerous route.

Wooyoung's every muscle was tense as he leaned against the door he had come out of - a toilet room, he presumed - and watched two quarrelling carts for a few minutes. Each time their wooden wheels spiked with metal blades to cut into the nearby carts and horses' legs crashed, the small carts nearly toppled over. The deadly game tightened Wooyoung's stomach until he felt he had to vomit.

As his eyes swept over the arena to map out the entirety of the crazed fans, he found the fifth cart. It laid shattered against the wall of the course and blood splattered over the sand in a reminder of the person buried under the destroyed leftovers. Two horses had collapsed without movement and a third still weakly twitched around its bleeding flank. The fourth had broken out of its reins and taken off somewhere.

Saddened by the display, Wooyoung glanced through the crowd. They were frantic with delight, cheering and screaming for the racers to play even more foul. The anticipation tensed their bodies as they just waited for the inevitable to happen. And once it did, they would break out in cheers once more. The twisted pleasure they gained out of the murderous games shone sinisterly in their eyes.

Wooyoung didn't stick around to watch death happen. He located the entrance to the steps leading down from the crowd's ranks in the lowest row. Unseen, he marched through the clamouring crowd and disappeared down the stairs.

A narrow stone staircase with uneven steps led him down to the exit. He passed two guards with their cuirasses made of bronze and blood-red capes and feather decorations they donned on their helmets. They stiffly stared ahead, not minding Wooyoung sneaking out between them with his toga carried over his arm orderly.

Since most Romans currently cheered for their favourite madman and his horse wagon, the surrounding streets of the Circus Maximus were void. Tall buildings engulfed Rome and formed the narrow streets it still had in the future days. Wooyoung evaded the dim alleys that smelled of human excretions and instead wandered the brighter streets. He carried himself with the mighty nobility as a rich Roman lord would. The few working people he passed down the road gawked at him with awe and a dark pondering hidden behind their eyes.

Wooyoung ignored them to march along tall facades. Expensive villas squished against run-down inns out here. Slaves in only skimpy cloths wrapping around their crotches laboured outside in the bright sun and scrubbed the entrances of their lords' houses with dirty water. Their skin glistened in the sun and unruly black locks framed their handsome features.

Since Wooyoung had brought neither slaves nor a guest present for Yunho's lord, he wondered how Yongguk had imagined him to look like a lord. Possibly, he had already led a trail and announced Wooyoung's visit with a letter. Still, Wooyoung speculated if he should buy a goat for a present when he passed the outskirts of a market. The voices of slave sellers praising their ware with inhumane descriptions blended with the bloating of goats and the indignant squawks of chicken.