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They aren’t prepared when the bombs start falling
Well.
Not really.
Zhengting remembers bits and pieces of that night, stitched together like a collage of memories he wishes he could tuck away into the coffins that they bury their dead in and hide them forever under the cold, hard ground.
Because the real truth is that they are. They are prepared. Just not everyone is.
Wenjun seems to know this the most out of everyone as soon as they get the warning to take cover. Go underground immediately , their officer had said over the radio. Get underground. Now. Zhengting remembers this clearly, because Wenjun, upon listening to Xingjie’s cold words, had, for the first time since they arrived on the battlefield, looked like he wanted to go against his orders.
Zhengting knew this because as soon as the radio had buzzed out, and their squadron immediately began to grab things they would need for a hasty retreat to the catacombs underground, Wenjun turned, and instead of running for the medical tent where he kept most of his supplies, silently but quickly began moving towards the the gate out to the field.
Zhengting runs for him and manages to grab his arm before he can step outside. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Wenjun shakes him off. “Go underground, Zhengting.”
Zhengting only tightens his grip on his sleeve. “And what the fuck are you going to do, Doctor Bi Wenjun, that isn’t coming with us there?”
He can hear Justin calling for them, then, the thumping of his feet as the boy runs for them, presumably to yell at both of them to go underground before it’s too late. But then, Wenjun glares at him over Zhengting’s shoulder, and Justin stops. There’s a suspended moment where the three of them just stare at each other, as if assessing what the others will do next. But then, Justin’s eyes flicker down at Zhengting’s hand around Wenjun’s arm. He seems to recognize something unspoken before turning and running back to where Chengcheng and Xinchun are waiting for him.
Zhengting clears his throat. “Let’s go.”
Wenjun frowns, purses his eyebrows. “No. You can go. I’ll be there in a moment.”
“Bi Wenjun!” he cries. He can feel the rest of their squadron’s eyes on him now, confused and panicked why they haven’t retreated down the catacombs yet. “You are coming down there with me, right now.” He puts both of his hands on Wenjun’s shoulders, forcing the man to stare him in the eyes.
Wenjun has beautiful eyes, all dark and pretty and solemn. Zhengting has looked into them a thousand times now -- when the man does his routine check up of him, when the man glances at him when he’s treating a dying comrade, and most of all, late at night, when Wenjun lies beside him in the barracks and peeks at him when he thinks Zhengting isn’t looking --, but right now, they’re different. Rather than the serene look he has when he’s lying beside him at night, or even the serious, hardened gaze he has when he’s concentrated on the surgery of a man that’ll probably just die in the end anyways, Wenjun’s eyes are large and wide, flushed with panic, and so different from what Zhengting is used to.
“Zhengting,” Wenjun whispers, and Zhengting can hear him crumbling. “Zeren is still out there.”
Zhengting’s heart stops.
“Zeren?” he says faintly. “Isn’t he down there already?” He turns around, desperately hoping that Ding Zeren would be standing right there, slinging an arm around Quanzhe and Xinchun, just waiting for them to go join them. But even before he can look completely behind him, he knows that it’s for nothing. Zeren went on a patrol just an hour before Xingjie warned them of the bombs. Zhengting allowed him to go, and now, when the enemy is about to release the worst airstrike so far in the war…
“Zeren,” he whispers back. “Zeren is on a patrol!”
Wenjun looks at him with anguish. “I have to go get him.”
“No!” Zhengting jerks himself and pulls Wenjun towards him. “You’re going to go down there right now. I’ll go instead.”
“You need to stay here to lead them,” Wenjun argues. “And if Zeren is injured, I can help him whereas you can’t.”
“But the bombs are going to be here any minute!” Zhengting cries. He allows his fingers to dig into Wenjun’s flesh, not caring if they’ll bruise him if it means that Wenjun will stay, will go underground with the others. “You’ll be killed!”
“And so will you if you go out!” Wenjun argues, trying to pull himself away from him. Zhengting only holds him tighter.
“Wenjun,” he says, now softer. He digs his fingers into Wenjun’s arm. Wenjun freezes for the sliver of a moment, pausing his movements to tear Zhengting off him, and just looks at him.
Zhengting sees the boy that lies beside him at night, the one who doesn’t cry even when Zhengting is sobbing into his chest about that person Wenjun had tried in vain to save, the one who touches Zhengting like he’s the most fragile, beautiful thing in the entire world, even when the rest of the world seems to be falling apart before their very eyes. Zhengting sees the boy who doesn’t cry, but still feels more than anyone for each person involved in this godforsaken war, who Zhengting knows struggles to sleep through the night from the memories of all the people he couldn’t save. He’s the most sensitive, kind, loving person Zhengting has ever met, the person who’s kept him alive in more ways than one in this war.
Zhengting can’t imagine losing him.
He can’t. He refuses it.
In the distance, there’s an awful, sucking noise that blooms through the dusty air, before it suddenly erupts into the explosion of a dropped bomb. Zhengting’s heart clenches, and then, he thinks about cynical, funny, stubborn Ding Zeren, who gave his rations to Quanzhe whenever he could, who was stubborn and brave and stupid enough to go running out onto the battlefield with just a few weapons. Who’s out there. With the bombs and the enemy. Dying.
Wenjun hears it too, because in a second, he’s ripped himself away from him and sprinting for the gates again. Zhengting has no choice but to do the same, catching up to the doctor and kicking him hard in the back so that Wenjun slams into the ground.
Wenjun hits the dirt just as Zhengting looms over him, dragging him to his feet and sprinting for the catacombs. The others have disappeared already, safe underground, but he can see Chengcheng’s face peek just above the entrance and the movement of his lips as he screams for them to run, to hurry.
Everything else is dust and screams and explosions.
Wenjun fights against him, but Zhengting holds onto him tight, and when they’re at the doors, Zhengting flings him to Chengcheng like a ragdoll, and Chengcheng, seeming to understand the situation, drags him in, ignoring his yelling and fighting. Zhengting shoves him in, and is about to turn and run back, to yell for Zeren, to maybe find him and bring him back even though he knows it’s over -- the bombs have fallen and the air is nothing but dust and explosions and bright flashes of light --, Chengcheng reaches out and grabs him as well before slamming the entrance shut.
The world explodes.
Zhengting presses the three of them against the damp, dusty walls, feeling the earth shake above him as the bombs rain down upon them. But more than that, he can feel Wenjun’s body tucked somewhere underneath him as he shakes with each impact, and then, later on, can hear the choked sobs as he cries.
Somewhere in there, he loses track of just how long they’re crammed up there. Somewhere in there, Chengcheng crawls away from the two of them and goes to where Justin has his head in his hands, shaking hard. Somewhere in there, Zhengting crawls to his knees and hovers over a still sobbing Bi Wenjun, not knowing what to do because Wenjun has never cried, even when half of their squadron were killed by a landmine.
Then again, this isn’t just anyone. It’s Zeren that he’s been unable to save.
The bombs rain down on them, it seems, for an eternity, and when it’s finally over, Zhengting’s muscles have numbed over with how tightly he’s compacted with the rest of them, and Wenjun isn’t crying anymore.
Zhengting clambers to his feet the best he can.
Once, when he was still in school, his teacher showed him a video of a person playing a sound so high, it shattered a glass placed in front of him. The glass had trembled for a fraction of a center, as if clinging onto life, before splintering apart in a beautifully jarring noise.
He thinks about that now when he looks at Wenjun. He’s still smashed against the ground, his face pressed to the dirt, his arms wrapped around his own head. He’s not crying anymore, but he’s shaking like the glass in that video, trembling hard like he’s about to splinter apart himself.
And while Zhengting wants to do the same -- scream his pain and fury and sorrow that this cursed war has given to all of them, and mourn the loss of the boy who had so much more life and spark in him even after months and months of nothing else but death and suffering -- he can’t.
Carefully, he takes a seat by Wenjun’s head. And he tucks his hands into Wenjun’s hair, smoothing it out so that the dust doesn’t get into it too much. He does this gently, softly, crying just as quietly, because Wenjun deserves much more than a man who can’t be there for him like how he was there for Zhengting.
He hopes that he knows that he loves him.
***
They don’t find enough of Zeren to bury.