The next day, when I was eating breakfast at the cafeteria, Bernard and a few other people were absent. I didn't find him anywhere in the school, so I suspected he must have been somewhere outside. I wanted to ask him to go eat with me and talk with him. Furthermore, I decided to take two rations of food and pack them into two plastic containers. I placed them inside my bag. With them, I decided to go for some fresh air.

When I walked out of the building, I noticed Bernard was seated on a piece of rock in his shirt with a cap on. There was a shovel lying beside him.

- "Hi Bern, what are you doing?"

- "Oh, hi, Monika. I decided to dig a trench around the school ground so any zombies who would cross it would fall in it and get easier to defeat"

- "Wow, did you make any progress?"

- "I dug a few meters, but got so tired in the process I needed to rest. Digging holes in the ground is harder than I thought"

I noticed there was a bit of ground dug near the wall.

- "You should have others to help, you know"

- "I wanted to check how doable it was, before again tasking others with a hard job, you know"

- "You weren't even with us during breakfast, did you eat anything today"?

- "Nah, I was here since the sunset"

- "You are lucky that I brought some food for you"

- "You brought food for me? You didn't have to, you know, do such things for me, I would never order you to…"

- "Come on, I didn't do it as your subordinate. I did it as your friend. Don't be so full of yourself"

I took the lunchbox from my backpack and handed it to him. He took it with some hesitation, looking at me with a confused look on his face.

- "Can I sit here?" I asked him while still standing

- "Oh yeah, sure, I could move some rock…"

- "Nah, don't worry, I brought a blanket with me" I said as I pulled a blanket from my backpack and placed it on the grass.

- "Don't sit on this cold rock, come sit near me on the blanket"

- "Ohh, thanks Monika" he smiled at me, somehow.

I took out my lunchbox from my backpack. There were two sandwiches with jam and peanut butter, some vegetables and a cup of coffee I took for myself. When Bernard opened his lunchbox, there was a sausage sandwich, yogurt and cup of tea.

- "Bon appétit!" I said as I grabbed my sandwich

- "Bon appétit!" he responded.

After a few minutes of eating in silence, Bernard suddenly asked:

- "Say Monika, why are you being so nice to me?"

- "Do you suspect that I have some ulterior motives?"

- "No, no, don't misunderstand me. But it seems to me that you are always harsh to me and opposing my decisions, I began suspecting that you have some grudge against me"

Ohh, that's quite unfortunate, I thought.

- "I know that we had some conflicts in the past… But I don't want to be your enemy, you know!"

- "Some conflicts might be underestimated… I remember during our days in the debate club, you were always against me and clashing about how our club should be lead"

- "It seemed to me, that you allowed too much politics and drama into the club"

- "Yeah, but others liked it! And wanted it!"

- "I just thought that I did not fit there. So I went on my own route"

- "Yeah, and since then you were always avoiding me. Now I understand that…"

- "Because I didn't want to have anything to do with this club anymore and wanted to focus my time on building a new club"

- "Of course. I understand you, Monika"

- "But now, everything has changed. There isn't any debate club or literature club anymore. There is no more school, exams, debates, meetings. Our entire world has been destroyed. We are fighting every day for our survival. We need to work together, Bern. Or else… we will perish" Damn that sounded heavier that I thought. I almost started shaking.

He didn't say anything for a moment, before lowering his head and saying.

- "Yeah, you are right. You know being a leader is not as easy as it seems. I need to make fast and bold decisions to escape doom. I need to convince everyone that we are strongly standing together. And what have my decisions led to so far? On the first day, I decided it was a great idea to go to another building several floors above the ground, and you almost died in the process!"

- "I don't blame you. It was my fault that I went there on my own, without much experience in climbing great heights"

- "I could have done it differently and more safely"

- "Yes, but no one besides you wanted to do it differently! You were the one to tell us what to do! And thanks to the missions, we gained multiple weapons that gave us a winning edge against the zombies!"

- "Then I invited Dasuki here, without consulting with anyone, without ordering him to be observed or anything, placing others in danger, which led to his death"

- "How were you supposed to know what was going to happen? Noone could predict this turn of events. You didn't know anything about him, and Natsuki wouldn't tell you that he abused her anyway, she was too prideful to admit it. You put forth the best decision based on the limited data we had"

- "What about when I accepted Sayori to go on a combat mission with us, despite her not having any combat experience? And she almost died, because of getting shot!"

- "Well duh, not your fault that she's so goofy (I hope that you forgive me, Sayori for this). How was she supposed to gain combat experience without, you know, participating in actual combat? You can't be responsible for every bad decision made by your soldiers"

- "But being a leader means taking responsibility for your people's bad decisions! I should have forbidden her from going! Of course, she wasn't fit for the mission! Ahh, I can't take it…"

- "Please don't blame yourself for this. Everyone makes mistakes. A good leader learns from mistakes and knows how to not repeat them. We believe in you. We wouldn't have survived here without your decisions and planning and we would never have organized ourselves"

- "Do you really believe that, Monika? All what you're saying?"

- "Yes, I do. I really believe in you, Bern"

- "Did you make up that nickname for me?"

- "Uhh well yeah *I blushed for a moment* Look, I want to be your friend, you know?"

- "It means a lot to me, Monika, you know"

I got close to him and hugged him. He hugged me back after a moment. I felt my heart beating in my chest. After a few minutes of silence, we separated, both smiling and laughing.

- "Now, I believe I should go back to digging the trench, so you can go back…"

- "I will help you!"

- "Are you sure?"

- "Yeah, I am not as weak as you believe. Give me a shovel!"

- "Sure. Here you go" He grabbed some shovel lying around and gave it to me.

I started removing dirt from one side of the trench. This was a very laborious task, as there were many rocks, roots and trash that needed to be removed. In the first half an hour, we managed to remove around 10 meters of ground, making a trench deep enough to prevent someone from easily jumping over the wall around the compound. Sun was shining on us from above, and I started feeling sweat in my hair.

- "It is so hot, I am flowing in sweat" he said as he took off his shirt.

It was the first time I saw him without his shirt. He didn't have a six-pack like in movies, but he had a flat stomach and noticeably developed frame. I turned my head, so as not to look too much like some kind of creep.

- "Do you want to stop?" I asked

- "Yeah, I am kinda tired. I think I should improve my fitness, I get tired too fast"

- "Don't underestimate yourself, you worked here since dawn, you definitely have a very high resilience. And you already seemed to have gained some mass while working" I said while looking at his shoulders

- "I started working out some time ago in my room, but my muscles still get hurt when putting in more effort"

- "It is possible that you are training the wrong way. You need to work on specific muscles during your work-out, you know"

- "Uhh, I don't know. Maybe you could teach me?"

- "Sure! If you want, you can come with me anytime you want to a gym, we can work out together!"

- "I will look forward to it!"

That's when the doors of the school opened and a group of other students came to us.

- "I was looking for you, Monika!" said Sayori "Looks like I caught you on a rendez-vous with Bernard!" I blushed

- "I was just helping him dig a trench around the school!"

- "Oh, so this is why there is this pile of dirt laying there?" said Michael, who was nearby

- "Yeah" responded Bernard, "I decided to strengthen the defense of the school grounds to protect us against future attacks. I want to make a row under the wall. When it is finished we will place some kind of entrapment at the bottom like a barbed wire to catch any zombies"

- "Good idea. I will call others and we will finish everything"

Until the evening, everyone participated in digging the trench around the school. After everything was done, the sun was basically setting. We took some nails from the supply room and splattered them all over the bottom of the row, so when zombies fall, they will cut themselves before reaching us. We covered them then with some leaves, so it looked more natural. We looked around each other after finishing.

- "Good job everyone!" said Bernard, "Our school is now definitely much more secure"

- "Looks good" said Xavier, "Can't wait for some invader to get caught in these hehe"

- "We can go back to school now, tasks for today are done"

- "Ayay, captain!"

After people started leaving, Bernard approached me and grabbed my hand:

- "Thanks for your help, and for your words, they matter a lot to me"

- "No problem, you know, we can't deal with all problems ourselves. We always need others, or we will go crazy"

- "Yeah, you are right. I am going to sleep now. Goodbye, Bern!"

- "Goodbye, Monika!"