"So, if there was ever an apocalypse, what do you think your chances of survival are?" Shujinkou knew it was an out of nowhere question, but it was the first topic that came to mind after desperately searching for one that could distract him from the ambiguity of his current trip.

Monika glanced back at him. Confusion rested on her face before it was suddenly replaced with an interested smile. "What kind of apocalypse?"

"Um…" Shujinkou scratched his right cheek as he pondered possibilities. "People reanimating into zombies after initial death?"

"Um… I think I could make it to the post-apocalypse phase. Zombies are kinda slow and easy to distinguish from the front. What about you?"

"I think I would be one of the victims of ground zero. What about a bio-hazardous apocalypse?"

"Depends on the outbreak."

"Um… Ancient insects that inhabit the body?"

"Las Plagas?"

Shujinkou's eyes slightly widened with surprise. "Yeah."

"We should both be fine if I stay away from needles," Monika assured him with smile.

The young man scratched his right cheek as he considered what he had just learned. He felt a little guilty about being surprised, but he didn't expect Monika to understand his reference. With that knowledge in hand…

"What about the T-Virus?"

"Probably Ground Zero."

"Engineered Mold?"

"Ground Zero."

Shujinkou chuckled at her responses. He figured that Monika would be an action heroine in those scenarios and the different opinions was funny enough for his earlier desperation to vanish completely.

As he continued to follow Monika along a slightly beaten forested path, he began to recall how he ended up joining her in this endeavor.

It happened just the day before after taking a bite out of the sea-salt ice cream Monika had presented to him after returning home. "So… You were here the whole day making sea-salt ice cream with Mom?"

"Not the whole time," she answered. "I just happened to be in the neighborhood after visiting Sayori. You weren't here and one thing led to another."

"Oh. But, if you were just passing by just to say hi, how come you just didn't call me?"

"Because it wouldn't be the same as in person."

"Oh." Shujinkou scratched his right cheek. From his return home to this point in their conversation, Monika appeared to be her usual cordial self. Such an observation narutrally left him very surprise when he compared it to their last conversation. "Monika doesn't seem mad at me either…"

"Why would I be mad at you?" Monika curiously questioned.

"Huh?!" Intense self-loathing and embarrassment circulated through the very core of his being the second he realized his mistake. "Well, yesterday and everything…"

"Oh that? That's not really anything to be upset with you about. You were just trying to help out. Besides, I wouldn't really be in a position to be mad anyway."

"You wouldn't? How come?"

"Well, I already kissed you once and that was to hide a secret. You were going to do it for something a lot more altruistic."

"Oh," Shujinkou awkwardly scratched his right cheek. Though he appreciated such assurance, something still felt… off.

"But anyway, I didn't come here to talk about that. There was actually another reason I came over."

"Really?"

"Mm-hmm. There's something I wanted to ask you," Monika's face slowly approached his own. "I wanted to know if you wanted to join me on a bit of an expedition tomorrow."

"Expedition?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Where to?"

A knowing smile formed on Monika's lips. "It's a secret."

A small chuckle slipped through Shujinkou's lips as he finished reminiscing.

"Monika really likes her secrets," he thought.

Shujinkou continued to follow Monika until she suddenly stopped and stuck her head through one of the bushes.

"We're here," she smiled as she motioned Shujinkou to walk through.

Following her direction, the curious young man walked through and found himself staring down a waterfall.

"Wow!" Shujinkou said with amazement in his voice. He was sure if sparkling eyes were real, he would have them at this very moment.

"Amazing, right?" Monika said.

"Yeah. How'd you find this place?"

"Well, one time my cousin wanted to go camping and she bet me that I couldn't find a good place to camp at. In my search to prove her wrong, I stumbled upon this place and won the bet," Monika slightly averted her gaze as her cheeks faintly grew red. "…Only to eventually realize she made me do the hard work of finding a campsite for her."

"Oh," Shujinkou could sympathize with the feeling of being goaded into working for others without realizing it. "So this place is the surprise?"

"Not just the place."

"Hm?"

Monika dug into the bag she had brought with her pulled out a blanket and laid it across the ground. She then reached back into her bag and placed a variety of food on it.

"A picnic?!" the young man exclaimed.

"Mm-hmm. Surprise," Monika giggled.

"Ah…" Shujinkou awkwardly scratched his right cheek. "I'm confused. I don't want to sound like I don't like the surprise but why a picnic?"

"Well, you've kinda been having a rough semester so far so I kinda figured that you could use a nice moment to even out the turbulent."

"Oh. That's… That's really nice."

"Mm. So dig in."

Unable to find the words to offer an appropriate reply, Shujinkou kneeled down and silently did as he was told. He bit into one of the provided food, his taste buds immediately assaulted with a heavenly pleasure.

"Still so good!" he thought.

"Hey, Shujinkou…" snapping out of his thoughts, the young man shifted his attention to Monika.

"Yeah?" he answerered.

"There's something I've been meaning to ask you for a while now…"

"Ask me what?"

"Have you read the entire Shadow Children Sequence?"

"Yeah. I finished it when I was a kid."

"Y'know… I was kind of surprised to find out you read one of them."

"Really? Is it because I'm not the literature type?"

"No, I didn't think that at all," Monika gently assured him. "It's just that you seemed like you preferred fantasy over a dystopian novel that involves a totalitarian government forbidding more than two children."

"Yeah, I thought the same thing years later when I realized that I read through a dystopian series. Honestly, it my teacher got me into it when he read it to us during story time," Shujinkou chuckled as he remembered what happened afterwards. "Kinda started a race regarding grabbing the next ones whenever they were available."

"Really?"

"Yep," Shujinkou nodded his head. "You know, with all these dystopia movies, I kinda wonder what it would have been like if they ever made the series into movies."

"I think that would be a tough adaptation to make," Monika said. "You couldn't make an entire movie off of Among the Hidden. It works well as a book, but not a movie."

"So, skip the first book?" his voice could not hide his surprise. Skipping the first book in the series did not seem like it would do a possible movie series any good.

"Well, it does contain the event that creates a drastic change for Luke's life. But even with that, I think it would probably be best for a hypothetical first movie to adapt Among the Imposters and have a few flashbacks that flesh out Luke's past while dropping hints throughout the story about what led Luke to that books beginning in the first place. But even that would have to be done with precision or else it could ruin the entire narrative."

"If Among the Imposters is the first movie, what do you think a second movie would be? Among the Betrayed?"

"I could see a full movie for that. Actually I could see movies for the rest of them too."

Hearing her response and thinking about the plots of the various books brought one question to Shujinkou's mind.

"Would Among the Hidden really be hard for an entire movie to cover?" he asked. "It has a lot of stuff in it."

"It's not that it doesn't have enough material for a movie; the issue would be its pacing in the overall narrative," she explained. "The first book does a really good job in introducing Luke and life and how a chance meeting changes everything for him, but in terms of movie, the inciting incident for the overall narrative only happens at the end. If adapted into a movie without any changes, it would only serve as a bloated prologue and teaser for the next story."

"Huh…" Shujinkou could not argue with that. Deep down, he wasn't sure he could argue against that and, even if he could, he would be arguing with a former member of the Debate Team. "I would really love an Among the Barons movie."

"Is Among the Barons your favorite one?"

"Yeah. I think it was the first one that gave you a bit of a glimpse of the world outside the settings Luke's accustomed to and the various factions that exist in them."

"Yeah. It did build the world even more than the previous three had. And the ending did close up the main plot while leaving loose ends for a sequel instead of just a cliffhanger, so it doesn't leave the viewer leaving empty. That said, it was surprising that the next book picked up right after the it."

"That was Trey's Book right? Among the Brave?"

"I thought the perspective switch was only unique for Among the Betrayed, so the next two were really surprising when it did the same thing."

"You know… When I read them as a kid, there was one thing I could not understand."

"What was that?"

"How the other characters always called Luke, 'Lee'."

"But that's the only name they knew him by."

"I mean- Not what they called him, but how the book referred to him in the other character's books."

"Oh. Same reason."

"Yeah, I learned that later…" Shujinkou scratched his right cheek as he averted his gaze.

"What's wrong?" Monika asked, worried.

"It just hit me… I noticed you didn't deny that I wasn't the literature type…" he sighed. "I guess you still think of me like that…"

"That's not…! Wait…" Monika giggled as she noticed a small smile on Shujinkou's face. "That was a good one."

"Still didn't get you completely though…" he weakly chuckled.

"Even though you were joking, you really have learned more about literature after joining."

"I know I have. I mean I finally can remember the difference between a metaphor and a simile. I guess it's because I know that I've learned a little that makes it almost hilarious whenever I'm still called out for not seeming like the literature type. Though admittedly, it was only once so far this semester."

"If you want, we could have an activity that involves sharing something we've wrote. You could prove to anyone doubting you wrong."

"Are you sure?" Shujinkou scratched his right cheek as an uncomfortable feeling came over him. "I kinda got the impression we never did that for… reasons."

"Right…" a similar uncomfortable expression rested on Monika's face. He could tell she knew what event he was referring to. "Maybe I should test the waters a bit on that one first."

"Not to mention, it would draw more attention to your mystery story."

"Hmm…" Monika averted her gaze until a knowing smile crossed her face. "Are you trying to set up a win-win situation for yourself?"

"No…" Shujinkou said as he averted his gaze.

"Okay then, what would like to be a club activity?"

"Huh? You're asking me?"

"Mm-hmm. I'm curious."

"Um… I got nothing."

"You sure? What about what we just did now?"

"What we just did?"

"Talking about movie adaptations of books. That could be an interesting topic to discuss with the others."

"Hm. Yeah."

Sometime later, after finishing his meal, Shujinkou gently patted his full stomach. He then stood up and approached the babbling brook in front of him.

"What's up?" Monika queried as she approached him.

"It's kind of out of nowhere but this area kind of reminds me of Gramps."

"Your grandfather?"

"Yeah. I remember one day he took me exploring through a forest…" Shujinkou soon found himself reminiscing about his forest adventure with his grandfather. Hunting through the forest with toy boys and plunger arrows was so much fu-

"Shujinkou."

The young man scratched his right cheek as he glanced up at Monika. "I was out of it, wasn't I?"

"Yep," she confirmed.

"Sorry, I was just thinking about Gramps."

"You don't ever need to apologize for something like that. Your grandpa was an adventurer right?"

"Yeah. He had a lot of adventu…" he was quickly stricken with silence as an idea formed in his head.

"What's wrong?"

"…Secret."

Monika giggled."You sure sound vindictive."

"Well, I think I'm allowed to have well-guarded secrets too," Shujinkou argued.

"How well-guarded?"

"Um… As guarded as your secret story."

"That guarded…?" A sorrowful smile crossed her face. "Hey, Shujinkou… When Mali found a clubroom for us… Did you think it would be hard to for us to find another one?"

"Huh? Uh… Well, yeah…"

"Yeah, that's what I thought… That's the Heart of the club for you, putting others before himself."

"Monika…?"

"Sorry for asking. I just needed to hear that."

"Oh…" guilt welled up in the young man once again. But he did not let it show. "No need to apologize. Um…"

Suddenly, a loud ringing interrupted his thoughts. The two returned to the blanket and Monika reached down for her phone.

"Hello?" she answered.

Shujinkou tried his best to not overhear the conversation, but such a feat was hard when he noticed Monika unknowingly showcase a variety of facial expressions; whoever she was talking to knew exactly how to make her react.

"Um, Shujinkou, do you think we could cut things short here?" she requested with flushed cheeks.

"Uh, sure…?" It felt weird being asked that.

"Thanks. Something… Well, not urgent, but… let's just say it's personally urgent."

A giant question mark circled around his head as he wondered what Monika was referring too.

"But it's not my place to ask…" Shujinkou conceded.

Thus another day ended with the young man left feeling a potluck of emotions that he would need the rest of his free time to sort out. His only solace would be that he does have the time for that.

"Shujinkou?"

"Huh?" he turned around to find Monika waving at him.

"Ready to go?" she asked.

"Yeah," he nodded as he followed her down the forested path.

Nothing was said as they journeyed down the path, but once they reached the end.

"Her name's Claudette." Monika suddenly said.

"Huh?"

"That was the person I was talking to on the phone earlier."

"Oh," though his curiosity was partially satisfied, he couldn't help but wonder, "Wait, why-?"

"Because you had curiosity written all over your face," Monika answered with a smile. "Plus, I didn't want you to think that I like to always keep secrets."

Shujinkou weakly chuckled at that response, wondering if she could read minds.

"She's kind of an interesting person and I have to do something for her," she continued.

"Oh," Shujinkou nodded his head in acceptance.

"I know I'm being obviously vague but there's a reason for that that I cannot discuss at this moment in time."

"Okay."

"But…" Monika's cheeks suddenly grew red. "She did want me to say hi to you for her."

"Me? She knows about-?"

His question was quickly swept away by a quick kiss on the cheek.

"That's how she says hi," Monika weakly giggled.

Shujinkou felt all his motor function fail him as he processed what just happened. Along with shock and surprise, he also felt nostalgia. "…I see what you mean about her."

After such an interaction, Shujinkou dared not to question more about the subject. All he could do was wave goodbye as they went their separate ways and take solace in the fact that he has time to sort out the potluck of emotions in him.