Yesteryear

Waiting

Wooyoung returned to the institute early the next morning. He used his own dusty key card he rarely needed since Yongguk basically lived here and let himself in. His hair was covered by the beanie his brother had gifted him for Christmas and he had a bag of burnt almonds under his arm as his stress food.

He would be in Munich as early in the morning as possible, in case San had shown up during the night. That way, he wouldn't have to wait too long for Wooyoung to come around.

It was all planned out. Wooyoung was in higher spirits today as he changed his uniform and left his clothes in the cabinet for later. Once more, he wore his remote and his card cradled close to his body as his most important belongings.

The last evening with Seungyoun hadn't been so bad. Their usual bickering had elevated Wooyoung's mood and drawn away his worries to allow him some sleep. Seungyoun had assured him San might have run into a minor issue as well, but since he knew about Wooyoung's work, he would find his way to their infamous institute even if he couldn't come to their rendezvous point in Germany.

Wooyoung had agreed with him and decided to try once more to see if he could leave the message in case San dropped by on any other day between the wars and now. If San wouldn't show up again, Wooyoung would just wait for him in the present time. Their building wasn't hard to find, so as long as San had the card, he could come by whenever he had sorted himself out. The date on the card read January of the upcoming year, but Wooyoung would receive him after that, too.

They would figure it out. After all, they had all the time in the world.

Wooyoung stepped back into Munich on the first day of April to see if San had just been held up for a few hours. He passed the same debris of the buildings, the same people salvaging the rubble. Today, the tank that patrolled the streets passed by him. The soldiers on top of it wore the American flag on their uniforms. They rushed past him without a hitch after he had respectfully stepped away from the mass of metal inching down the street.

The square was empty today, too. Wooyoung went back into position at the same corner as the day before. He would wait until noon. If San remained hidden, he would try to find some information if San ever showed up around here.

Wooyoung idled around and played with his watch as he waited. The minutes ticked by, both torturously slow and too fast for his liking.

Noon was an hour away when one of the rubble women nearby approached him.

"Who are you waiting for, boy?" She asked with the tired voice of someone who had gone through too much in life. Pity filled Wooyoung's eyes as he gazed upon her wrinkled face.

"My lover. He hasn't shown yesterday when we were supposed to meet."

She considered the words for a moment before she gave an understanding nod.

"You can try at the post office to the south. Those who lost their lovers and family leave messages there. If he comes back, he might check."

When Wooyoung smiled at her in gratitude, her lips twitched into a thin smile. It looked as if she had forgotten how to smile and her brain remembered only the theory of it, but Wooyoung counted it anyway.

"Thank you, I will go there," he agreed. The woman took off with a limp to her left leg and returned to digging around the houses with her hunched back.

After sticking around a while longer, Wooyoung left in the direction she had advised him to go. The bleak city moved past him and Wooyoung's sole consolidation regarding its misery was that it would become a striving and beautiful city once again in the future. By now, the generation that had lived through the Second World War had died out entirely, and the traces of agony healed. The land and people's memories remained scarred, but as with anything in life, better days had come around.