The stench of Ma'am Mich's cigarette wafted to my nose, but for the first time I did not mind. I sniffed, rubbing my nostrils. My lips stayed sealed, and if Ma'am Mich noticed it, she did not press. The tent's canopy fluttered against the humid air blasting across the clearing. The caw of birds flitting from branch to branch accompanied the silence in our pitched shelter, reminding me where we were and what I was doing.

My pen scratched against the rough fibers of my notebook's pages. The notes I gathered from Raizen were nonexistent, earning me a small head shake from Ma'am Mich. After Kian and I parted yesterday, I sent Raizen a quick text saying I could not make it. He did not ask why, and I did not feel the need to explain. If he was anywhere near the Talaba camp, he would have heard of the drama I was involved in. Knowing him, word probably reached him before I even left camp.

Now, I made up for my missing work at today's headlines by penning the dinnertime news. I have until 4 PM today to finalize them. Which meant I needed to get my head in the game and stop thinking of the Talaba camp, Kian, my father, my mother, Raizen, my poems, and a dozen other things clamoring for attention.

I tapped the pen's tip against my lips before jutting another phrase at the corner of the notebook's current page where the details of the story sat. Five dead at a recent rescue operation following the Battle of Parañaque. That was standard, able to blend into the countless similar tales we have spun over the past two years. I moved to the next page. Ten civilians and thirty military casualties in a shoot-out in Longos, Bacoor. Hit closest to home. I was there.

Ma'am Mich puffing her cigarette filtered past my periphery. I turned, distracted as ever, as she smacked her lips slathered with cherry red lip tint and clicked her tongue. She was one of the last ones to give in to the temptation of smoking, but when she started three months ago, she became the best among the best smokers in our unit. Even Manong Larry was beat, and he was the one who used to goad my senior into the vice. Now, I watched her claw through a new packet, scratching the flimsy plastic veil sealing the box to shreds. Her boot crushed the sputtering stump while her hands dug around her handbag for a lighter. A fresh stick stuck out between her lips.

She raised the lighter to the stick, thumbs getting ready to flick the switch to summon the fire. Her eyes flitted towards mine. A layer of rigidity wrapped around her limbs. "Sorry," I said, averting my eyes. The headlines. I should be making those. My pen tapped against the notebook's spine but no new words were written. "Didn't mean to stare."

"It's fine," Ma'am Mich replied. I did not take my eyes away from the messy letters scrawled by my hand when I went out to gather information before lunch. "Am I distracting you?"

I shook my head. "The headlines need polishing, anyway," I replied with a shrug. "Might as well ask for your input."

My senior's eyebrow was cocked when I raised my head to acknowledge the formal start of our conversation. "I understand if you can't turn them in tonight, Maian," she said. "Seriously, you need to rest. Yesterday was tough, I get it."

I came to work despite the weight settling on my shoulders. The tent pitched in the middle of an abandoned public school in the middle of Zapote was more of a home than the dark nest of hatred waiting for me in Longos. Was Ma'am Mich telling me to plunge myself into the chaos I ran away from? No.

"That doesn't change anything. We still have work to do, and I'm not physically unable to work," I answered. "So, I'm here."

Ma'am Mich opened her mouth, but an intern rushed to the tent, pink in the face. Sweat made his hair stick up to the ends. His eyes were bloodshot, as if he had been snorting illegal substances before he was made to run this hard. Or maybe it was lack of sleep. I would not know. What was his name? He was one of the new recruits from last training season. Maybe.

What left his mouth seconds after his arrival, however, was nothing boring. "Remember that exchange of prisoners the bilateral talks agreed to yesterday?" he reported, his breath catching up to him. "It's a trap. They've bombed the place."

My notebook slammed shut, and I whirled towards the intern. "Where did the exchange happen?"

The intern's wide eyes flicked towards me as if he did not realize I was there. "Talaba camp," he replied. The two words drove an inexplicable pike into my heart. If they set fire to it...God. "It was the nearest from Bacoor Bay, and the invaders' navy didn't want to make the long trip to Sangley Airport, not when they already controlled most of the open water. I heard about it from the residents fleeing Talaba."

Ma'am Mich's study shadow fell over me as she rounded the table and faced the intern. Perhaps she knew of the ties I share with the temporary base. Despite what she said, though, I knew I was supposed to go. "Any news on the casualties?" She clasped the intern's shoulders, but not hard enough to startle the poor kid. "Are the prisoners alright?"

A look of confusion passed across the intern's face. His lower lip quivered at the question, eyes looking to nonexistent people to give him the answers. Ma'am Mich sighed, setting him to the side with a smooth flourish before giving him a quick pat on the shoulder. "We'll check it out," she said. "Do you know anyone who might know something?"

The intern pointed with his lips towards the pool of people milling beyond the tent. I tucked the notebook into the back pocket of my second pair of pants, and I made to follow Ma'am Mich when she shook her head at me. "Stay here," she said.

The look I gave her must have reflected the recoil in my gut. "You can't do that to me," I insisted. "If I want to go, I will. I know my way around Talaba."

"As do I," Ma'am Mich answered. "But I would rather you stay here than put yourself into danger. Again."

She tilted her head at me in a knowing nod, using my initial defiance and later facing the unavoidable consequence to that as a playing card. It would not stop me. Not now, not ever. "I can handle myself out there," I said. What would it take for her to believe me? I was a journalist, and even if everything boiled to hell and back, I would still be here, serving my country in the best way I knew—being here. "You have to let me go, Ma'am."

The sound of a phone call disconnecting drowned out Ma'am Mich's incoming answer. The intern lowered the screen from his ear, giving us a solemn look. "I called a source in the city station. They're sent as reinforcements when the invaders opened fire," he reported. "They were uncertain of the total casualties, but they are sure an army doctor was hit by stray shrapnel. He won't last through the night, they think. A shame. There weren't many doctors in the army as it is."

The last three sentences made no sense to me after my ears registered the words army doctor. A face popped into my mind, and if he was the one the intern talked about...

"What did the army doctor look like?" I trudged past Ma'am Mich. It was my turn to shake the intern like a smoothie. "Is he young? Enough to be a college student?"

A grip wrenched me away from the poor intern. Ma'am Mich's stern frown would have put me into place at the first instance. Not this time. I squirmed out of her touch, snatching my bag from the adjacent stool I occupied for the last three hours. "I'll be back," I said, not looking anyone in the eye. To Ma'am Mich, I said, "I'll get you the headlines before six. Don't worry."

Maybe she would tell me she was worried about some other thing, but I did not stick around to find out. My boots brushed against the field's compact soil in wide strides. Manong Larry popped into my periphery for a quick second, but his face morphed into cautious blinks when he saw me. I did not have the best expressions when I was under pressure. It made all the juniors back in high school scared of me.

I headed towards the line of bikes parked under the shade of a mango tree. The cool canopy made the leather seats not hot to touch even after spending the majority of the afternoon under direct sunlight. My leg swung over the first one in the queue. With semi-expert maneuvers, I wheeled away from the elementary school and set my eyes towards the only place I would willingly dive into war for.

With every cycle, my knees bobbed up and down the corner of my vision in rhythmic, circular trajectories. Army doctor. There were probably more than ten who served in the Talaba camp. It was not only him. If it was someone else...

Was that supposed to be a relief? A casualty would still be one of my countrymen. Perhaps it was better—lighter—to think about because just as my father remained faceless among the dead, they were as faceless to me. But if it was him...

My pedaling turned heavier, faster. The bike's chains clinked in even intervals whenever I stopped to let the momentum make the wheels turn quicker. Wind drove the stray strands of hair off my face, flinging them back for the air to enjoy. Whoever owned this bike would have to deal with me "borrowing" it for a bit.

Clouds guided my way, always unreachable, fickle, and detached. All of this must be funny for them—a farce of what other great war they watched a thousand years ago. Let them taste the earth when it rained. It would be rusty, like blood.

The entrance to the camp whizzed past me when I shot straight through. Checkpoints were not necessary, not when the smell of burning charcoal, asphalt, and sand congealed into a thick mass a mile away. No one manned the gates, and certainly no one was there to ask a disgruntled woman on a bike cycling like mad.

My eyes searched for the familiar clearing where the bodies would be found. When that was as barren as an untilled silt pit, I paddled towards the medical wing where he sometimes worked. The cubical rooms enclosed with galvanized roofing showed me empty spaces. Fewer people milled by the medical wing, but all of them were absorbed in running around with kits and crates on their arms. If I followed them...

I discarded the bike, leaning it against an office wall. Then, I started running.

The medical staff, all young people who looked like first-years in med school, trickled into a long array of tents sheltering more than a dozen tables, mobile beds, and stretchers which lost their use to the ground. I wandered into the tent, my mind picking off the familiar mop of wispy black hair, sunken eyes, pale but golden skin, and tall, lanky stature. Glasses. A doctor with glasses.

A glint of silver flashed in my periphery. I whirled. There, by the table filled with medical supplies...

"Kian!" His name was out of my lips before I could think. And before my mind could warn me against the consequences of its actions, my legs bounded across the distance between us. Tears pricked at the corner of my eyes as relief sagged my shoulders. He turned in time for me to barrel straight into him. My arms wrapped around his torso. I expected him to push me away, to demand what in San Pedro's rooster was going on. Instead, arms folded over my shoulders, bringing me closer to the warmth I thought I would never miss.

As much as I hesitated to admit it, even to myself, I was not prepared to lose him too. Not when we just found some semblance of comfort in each other. Maybe I was the only one feeling this way, but for now, it was fine. Everything would turn out to be fine. He was alive. Kian was still with me.

A chuckle made me snap into reality. I detached myself from him to find him smiling from ear to ear despite the mask of exhaustion on his face. "Maian," he said. "Nice of you to drop by."

Heat rushed to my cheeks. Did he think it was too forward? Was I supposed to start looking for a place to dig a grave in? God, what was I thinking? "I'll wait in the back," I said, gesturing in a vague spot despite the medical tent being open in all nameable directions. My gaze landed on the gaggle of doctors, soldiers, and civilians fluttering by in measured steps. "I...um, I heard about the exchange of bombs and the dropping of prisoners, and—"

"I'm glad you're here," Kian interjected. When I met his gaze once more, the huge, square bandage at his hairline leaped out at me, a thin line of red bleeding through the gauze. Streaks of dirt littered his cheeks and neck, the scrubs he alternated with his camo uniform muddied and torn at the hems and sleeves. Scratches clawed the length of his arm, sparkling with translucent fluid as his cells tried their best to seal them.

He fixed his glasses, aiming to rest it comfortably on his nose. It remained crooked. The right lens was cracked beyond repair. Amazing how not one shard poked him in the eye. "I was about to take a break," he said, removing the white latex gloves stained crimson and dropping them to the nearby paint can repurposed as a bin. He gestured for me to accompany him out of the tent. "We'll be able to talk while I grab a quick drink."

I pursed my lips, shame clawing at the base of my throat, but I followed him to the side of a worn-down storage unit. Why they would base a medical response tent near here was beyond me. He reached for a bottle of water from the topmost cardboard box and twisted the cap. After the poisoning craze a few months back, we became conscious of where we get our hydration. There was a general advisory of only drinking water from trusted water plants, and what the Talaba camp had seemed fit.

Kian drained the bottle to less than a quarter, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. With the cracks on his glasses, his right eye resembled a spider's web. None of us spoke even as the invitation hung between us for longer than a minute. "I...well, I was sent here to see how the camp is doing, and um, I just got carried away—"

"The hug was nice," he said, cutting me off. "Been a while since I felt one."

I could not bring myself to meet his gaze. "I'm sorry for jumping in on you like that," I said. "I'm not a crazy bitch, I swear."

He waved his palms towards me. "No harm done, honestly," he said. "It was surprising, that's all."

"I'm a mess, I know." I rubbed my face as if the action would siphon the shame dancing in my gut. "Can we just forget that happened? It's embarrassing."

Kian cleared his throat. "What if I don't want to?"

My head snapped up to find his gaze trained at me. Solely at me. Should his superiors be yelling at him right now? They had just survived a bombing on an otherwise neutral ground. Should they not be worrying about the implications and ripple effects the actions would have? "What?" was the only feeble answer flitting past my lips.

"I like you too, Maian." His smile beamed down on me like the fucking sunlight at twelve. "And I'm sorry if I can't express it as excellently as you did."

My mouth opened then closed, no words betraying my nonexistent thoughts. Whether I should blink, laugh, cry, or run...I did not know. Instead of demanding an answer or being salty about it, Kian planted a quick peck on my temple before striding back to the job he left for a brief time with me. I watched him go, still too stunned to form cohesive sentences.

He was not running.