Disclaimer: Detective Conan and all its characters belong to Aoyama Gosho, but this fanfiction and my OCs are mine.

Chapter 9

The Student Council's Stance

Being a transmigrator was not easy.

After more than a week, Asagi was already exhausted by his new life. Not only did he have to familiarize himself with his new family and environment, he also had to adjust quickly to being a teenager and a high school student. Living with an unknown family was already exhausting enough for him who was used to being alone, but he also needed to go to school, do assignments, and study again. Not to mention he was also the student council president which meant his responsibility was basically doubled. He was so busy to the point he felt like he could not breathe anymore. There was almost no time for him to think about himself. If it was not because he was used to stress due to his occupation as a novelist and the fact that he was mentally an adult, he might have been on the brink of becoming a total shut-in or even committing self-harm due to depression by now.

Even today, Asagi was walking half-heartedly to the student council room after school, already tired of his job as the student council president. Only now did he realize how amazing the student council in his high school was. During his days as a high school student, as someone without any club activity, Asagi was always able to go home directly after school, but his fellow students in the student council had to sacrifice more of their time for meetings and school projects. They were just teenagers, but clearly, they were more mature than him when he was still a teenager. Truly admirable. When he recalled this, Asagi felt like he had wasted his youth.

But even so, repeating his youth was not exactly what he wanted because this kind of youth was clearly not his youth. It was someone else's and on top of that, it was in another world. So even though he felt regretful for wasting his youth, Asagi could not exactly feel happy when he got the chance to be "young" again.

"Oh, the president is here!"

When Asagi arrived, he heard Yoshino exclaim cheerfully from inside the room. It turned out he was the last to arrive since the other three were already there.

"Sorry for the wait," he said as he closed the door.

"It's okay, we didn't wait long," Asakura replied nonchalantly. "Since the president is already here, I guess we can start the meeting now?"

The others agreed with her, so without further ado, the president started the meeting soon after he took a seat.

"Let's start with the progress of Ueda's donation," he began before turning his sight to the treasurer. "Asakura?"

The treasurer soon reported the amount of the cash collected from the students' donations. It was quite a big sum. She also told her friends that the school board and the teachers would also help Ueda's mom, but obviously, she was only responsible for the donation from the students. She reported that all the money collected last week should be able to be transferred to Ueda this week. However, their plan to open the donation for the long run seemed to be ineffective because the income had dropped drastically since the start of the second week. The students seemed to no longer have any interest in the donation.

After discussing this topic for a few minutes, Asagi and the other members finally agreed to keep the donation open until the end of the second week. They would transfer the first-week donation to Ueda as soon as possible during the second week and by the start of the third week, they would also transfer the second-week donation as well as close the donation. As the treasurer, Asakura would prepare all the documents needed for the transfer. They all agreed that even though it was unfortunate that they could not open the donation for Ueda's mom in the long run, it would not be a problem to close the donation since the school board and the teachers would also help him.

"We may have decided to close the donation next week, but let's keep watch over Ueda's mom until she's discharged," Inaba suggested once they had done talking about donation. The other three agreed immediately followed by Asagi asking the vice president about Ueda's mom's condition. Inaba told them that he had visited Ueda's mom again last Sunday, this time with Ueda himself. Ueda's mom was not well, but the stage of her cancer was not too severe yet, so there was still a chance for her to recover.

"That's good. Thank you for visiting her, Inaba," Asagi replied. For some reason, he felt guilty he did not accompany him even though it was Sunday. Asagi was too busy cramming math and science in his home after realizing that he almost failed to understand everything the teacher had been explaining in class during his first week being a high schooler again. He was so worried he could not think of anything else that day. If the original Asagi was not bright and was not a student council president, he might not feel too worried, but the problem was exactly the opposite. The original was a student council president and although math and science were not his forte, he was still able to get the passable scores for exams. Asagi was so worried because he had to maintain the original's achievement to avoid any suspicion. Even now he was still worried about those subjects and had been considering asking his parents to hire a tutor for him.

"Is there anything else about Ueda that we need to discuss?" Asagi asked his friends and when he saw all of them shaking their heads, he moved on to the next topic. "Let's talk about the rumor then. I've told you to warn your clubs. How's the progress?"

Yoshino, Asakura, and Inaba answered that they had warned their clubs. All of them had confirmed that it was true the student council had warned the students to hide anything related to Kudo. Inaba even added that he was supported by the basketball coach, Araide. While the girls were quite surprised with Araide's support—because the choir and the journalist club had yet to receive the same support from their coach and advisor—Asagi did not have the same reaction even though his own club also had not received any support from its advisor. To him who had read the manga, Araide's support was still within his expectation. After all, that man knew that someone had tried to kill him and later used his identity to infiltrate Teitan High School. He must have been aware of how important Shinichi's case was even if he did not exactly know the detail.

"Hey, is this going to be effective?" Yoshino asked during the discussion. "I mean, we did warn our clubs and classes, and we also warned every student through the class representatives, but according to my observation, not all of them have been taking our warning seriously. Will this be enough to control the rumor?"

"This is the only solution I can think of since the rule hasn't been established," Asagi answered, recalling the time when the student council finally decided to gather all the student representatives to warn them about the danger of Shinichi's rumor after the agreement of Asakura and Yoshino backed with the support from their advisor. That time, Asagi knew he should not have had too much expectation. He knew he should not have had hoped for all of the students to take the warning seriously. And he never did. He had neither expectation nor hope, not so much. After all, the fact that Ran and Sonoko had never been worried about Shinichi remained and Shinichi himself never did anything about it. It was not easy to get rid of the false impression. And since the rule had not been established yet, Asagi had to accept that he could not force them to keep quiet about Shinichi. "Do any of you have a better idea?" he turned to ask them.

"Unfortunately, no," Inaba said, followed by Asakura and Yoshino shaking their heads. "I guess this is our limit then?"

"It seems so," Asagi replied.

"Then it means we can only depend on word of mouth to warn the entire school regardless whether they will take it seriously or not," Asakura concluded. "Not the best method, but I guess this is all we can do."

"Yeah, well, this method is like a double-edged sword. It may clear any doubt, but at the same time, there's still a possibility it will only create more confusion, but at least we have warned all the classes here, so hopefully, this can minimize the confusion," Inaba agreed. "But just like you said, Asakura, this is all we can do."

"Can't we let the others know through our SNS? I mean, to give the impression that we are really serious?" Yoshino suggested.

"No," Asagi rejected immediately. "Letting them know through our SNS is the same as letting the whole world know that we're purposely hiding Kudo. It will only make our school look suspicious and attract unwanted attention to Kudo."

"That's right. Don't forget we also wrote down this matter in our proposal letter," Asakura added. "Suggestion number 9: the new rules will only be published offline for a short period of time to avoid unwanted attention from the unwanted parties. Remember?"

"Ah, you're right…" Yoshino frowned dejectedly. "Then are we really going to spread the warning from mouth to mouth? Is this our only option?"

"Yes, until our suggestions are established as the new rules." Asagi nodded.

"But what if the school board doesn't agree?"

"Then I'm afraid this is all we can do."

Yoshino frowned again. "That doesn't sound good, President."

"Well, I'm open to any suggestion," the president replied with a bitter tone. He himself knew it would not be good if their proposal could not be established as the new rules. As a reader of Detective Conan who knew perfectly well how dangerous the case that Kudo Shinichi had been working on was, Asagi was aware that the school would be more prone to danger brought by the organization without a new rule to hide Shinichi's existence. Shinichi might be fine. Ran, Sera, and Sonoko might be fine as well since they had the plot armor protection, but the others who were only extras including him might not have the same privilege. If they could not control any rumors and news about Shinichi, they might be threatened. Without plot armor, the threat would be much more dangerous to them. It could cost them their own lives. This was why the new rule was important to them. Without it, the school had no absolute power to control the news and rumors. As a consequence, outsiders would be able to find out easily that Shinichi was still alive and kicking. Even if they were not able to find out anything about him due to the plot armor, others who might not have the plot armor might get dragged into danger only because they casually talked about Shinichi.

Call him paranoid, but as someone from the real world, Asagi knew his paranoia was reasonable and might even be necessary. The Black Organization was dangerous. They did not hesitate to kill anyone to achieve their aim. Asagi did not want to die yet and even if he had to die, he certainly did not want to die in the hands of fictional criminal syndicates like the Black Organization. His pride as a man from the real world as well as a novelist would not allow him to let that happen.

"Why not make our stance clear, then?" Inaba broke the brief silence. "There's a probability the school won't accept our suggestions and it's clear that right now we can only depend on unofficial verbal warning. In this kind of situation, I think we must expect the students will come to us for confirmation and advice in regards to Kudo's issue. We can't have different responses if we don't want to create more confusion and even suspicion."

"Do you mean we will still try to give the impression that we're serious about our warning, just like Yoshino said before, but with a more subtle method?" Asakura inquired.

"Uh, I only thought that having the same response will help us avoid both confusion and suspicion, but I guess it can be interpreted that way? I mean, since it will also make us look pretty resolved in this," Inaba shrugged awkwardly, not really sure he was on the same opinion with the treasurer.

"That… that may be a good idea. To solidify our stance through our response… yeah, I think it's important for us to think about it." Asagi agreed before sweeping his gaze through all his friends. "We haven't discussed our response to the questions about Kudo that will be asked to us. How should we reply in case someone asks us about Kudo's rumor and whereabouts? Any suggestion?"

"If the one asking is someone from our school, I think we should tell them the truth just like how we warned the representatives," Asakura answered. "If they ask whether or not we warn them to keep quiet about Kudo through the class representatives, then we should tell them the truth. We will tell them that we do warn them. We will also tell them the reason behind our warning. The representatives had been warned and they have warned their classes, so we have to be in line with them."

"Basically, we will answer like how we warned our club and the class representatives, right? We can't contradict the representatives if we want to erase the confusion among students," Yoshino said.

"Right. Then we will do that," Asagi concluded when he saw that the other three had the same suggestion. "However, please pay attention that we made this solution on a condition it's the people from our school who ask us," he continued. "What if outsiders ask us about this?"

"If outsiders ask us about this, doesn't that mean the rumor has been leaked out?" Asakura inquired again.

"Yes," Asagi nodded. "If we encounter this kind of problem, what should we do? We need to think about this as well."

"That… we can't possibly answer them like we answer people from our school, right?" Yoshino looked hesitant as she spoke. "I mean if we give the same answer, doesn't that mean we're telling outsiders about Kudo-kun's current circumstance?"

"Right. Our duty is to keep quiet about him, so we definitely can't give outsiders the same answer," Inaba agreed, but he looked quite troubled with his own answer. "But honestly, if I encounter an outsider who asks me whether or not Kudo has confessed to Mouri or whether or not it's true our school prohibits its staff and students from talking about Kudo, I think I'm going to freak out."

Asagi blinked, feeling a bit taken aback before he paid attention more seriously to the vice president. "You mean you're going to shout out loud in surprise? Something like that?"

"Yes, or maybe I'm not going to react that strong, but I think I will freeze before I can give any reply."

"I see. A subconscious reaction," Asakura chimed in. "Even if we know how to answer outsiders, there's still a possibility our body won't agree with what we say." She then sighed. "The problem is, if it's outsiders who ask us that kind of question, we can't tell them the truth because we have to hide it from them. Our body language will definitely tell the truth or at the very least tell that what we say isn't exactly true unless we can control it properly."

"Right. Even a simple reaction like freezing for several seconds can tell how much truth in our words are," Asagi said as he pondered thoughtfully. Only now did he realize that he had not considered the subconscious reaction of the human body. It might be easy to tell a lie, but even a lie could be exposed simply because the body betrayed the mouth. "But let's put aside this matter for now. We will think about it again after we know how to answer the outsiders," he added, suggesting that they would solve all their problems one by one, step by step. The other three agreed almost immediately, seemingly understood what their president wanted to do. Only then did the discussion return to the previous question: how to answer outsiders.

"Although we know that Kudo-kun's been working on a hard case, it seems the public still think that he's either missing or dead," Asakura said as she checked out the news about Shinichi on her smartphone. "Why don't we just tell them exactly that?"

"Mmm… I think there's a problem with that," Yoshino argued. "We know that currently, he's working on a case and not missing because we saw him during the school festival. At that time, there were visitors from outside as well. What if the outsider who asks us is one of them? We can't simply tell them that Kudo-kun's been missing or dead, right? After all, they've seen him too."

"Oh, that's true. Not to mention we have no record of those visitors. We can't possibly track them," the treasurer agreed. "How can we set them apart among so many outsiders?"

"Hmm… since we're unable to tell them apart…" Inaba was thinking. After a while, he had an idea. "How about this. If the one who asks is an outsider, we will answer that Kudo's been missing, unsure whether he's alive or dead, but if that outsider argues that they've seen him during the school festival, we will admit but with an addition that we know nothing about him afterward and therefore, to us, he's still a missing person."

"Not bad," Asagi commented thoughtfully. "If we do that, perhaps we don't need to worry we can't distinguish the visitors among outsiders. And we won't exactly lie when we say that because it's true that we know nothing about Kudo after the school festival." After that, he turned to Yoshino, looking at her with a meaningful gaze. "But things may be different for class B, right, Yoshino?"

"Uhh, yea…" the secretary made an ugly face. "Others may not know anything about Kudo-kun after that festival, but my class knows. Sometimes Ran-chan and Sonoko-chan talk about him just like how they talk about his confession recently."

"Then it will surely be hard for your class to act like you all know nothing." Asakura shook her head hopelessly. "Really, Sumire-san, you need to reprimand those two harshly or else they will never shut up."

"Uuu… that's not my fault. Don't blame me…"

"I'm not blaming you though."

"But Kaede-chan, you just scolded me!"

"I don't think so."

"You did!"

"You two, stop arguing, please," Asagi hurriedly interrupted before the girls started quarreling more fiercely. "While it's true that it won't be easy for class B to act like they know nothing, there's still something in Inaba's suggestion that I'm worried about."

"What is it?" the vice president immediately asked, not giving any room for the girls to continue their own squabble.

"Admitting that Kudo was present in the festival. For some reason, this doesn't sit well with me."

"Oh?" Inaba blinked. "Well, the teachers did warn us not to speak anything about that murder including Kudo." He then made a troubled look. "Then how should we answer if we can't even admit that Kudo was present that time? The person who asks us supposedly knows he was there!"

For a while, the room was filled with silence. Everyone inside including Asagi was busy thinking about how to solve their problem. The more he discussed this particular topic about Shinichi, the more he realized that it was really a miracle the detective, his family, and his closest friends were still alive even when there were quite a few plot holes in regards to his cover-up. If this happened in the real world, they would have been murdered by now due to poor discretion. All of them were fine to this day only because they had the protection of plot armor. How convenient!

"I have an idea," Asakura suddenly spoke up, breaking the silence. "Why not use the other detective?"

"The other de—you mean Hattori?" Inaba was surprised.

"Yes," she nodded. "If the outsiders insist that they've seen Kudo-kun in the festival, most probably they also know that a murder happened that day. Since Hattori-kun was there as well, let's just tell them that the one who solved the murder is him and not Kudo-kun."

"But will that work? At that time, everyone in the gym watched Kudo-kun perform a deduction show. It was so obvious," Yoshino argued again.

"Hmm, right, it was really obvious," this time, it was Asakura who looked dejected as she admitted the downside of her idea. After that, running out of ideas, she and the other two turned to their president, hoping for a solution from their leader. Asagi could only curse inwardly, blaming Shinichi, Ran, and Sonoko for not being discreet all this time. Look how much damage they've caused! And now the student council has to clean up their mess to save the whole school! What a bunch of ignorant fools!

"It can't be helped then." After being silent for a while, Asagi finally spoke up. "Let's give up."

When they heard that, the other three immediately reacted in refusal.

"Whaaat?!"

"Give up? What the heck, Nagayama?!"

"Surely you aren't serious, President?"

Asagi calmly leaned back on his chair. He already expected this kind of reaction, so he was not surprised to see his friends reject him strongly.

"Okay, calm down first," he said. "And don't worry, when I said give up, I didn't mean we will do nothing about it."

"Then what do you mean exactly?" Inaba pressed.

"There's not much we can do about outsiders, so let us first focus on our school," he replied. "If anyone inside our school asks us about our stance on Kudo's issue, we will answer just like how we warn our classes and clubs. If I may add, there's no need to confirm whether or not the rumors are true since we have no proof. Let's just emphasize that we have to keep quiet about anything—again, anything—related to Kudo."

"But we still need to think how to answer outsiders! We can't just put this problem aside. You yourself told us that this is important!"

"I did, but you already know how bad our current situation is. We can't admit that Kudo was present in the festival, but we also can't lie he wasn't there," Asagi explained. "In this kind of situation, if people who've seen him that day ask us about him, the only thing we can do is shut our mouth."

"You mean we won't say anything? Something like the celebrities' 'no comment'?" Yoshino asked.

"Yes."

"That may work if the one who asks us is a total stranger, but what if it's our friend and family? There's no way we can do that to them."

"If your friend and family already know—and you are sure they know—that Kudo was in the festival, tell them to keep this secret, but don't confirm anything. Like Inaba said before, we will just tell them that we know nothing about him after that festival."

"If they don't know but still ask us about him?" Inaba asked.

"That should be easier. We can just tell them that he's still missing, that we aren't sure if he's still alive or not and we know nothing about him."

"What if they tell us that they've seen him during the festival, but we aren't sure?"

"In that case, just say we know nothing of such and no further comment after this."

"But what about me?" Yoshino pointed at herself with a doubtful expression. "I mean, I'm his classmate. I'm supposed to know more about him. Can I even do these things?"

Asagi nodded to her. "You can. Don't worry about what the others will think. Just say you know nothing if you can't make up a reasonable excuse."

"So, when you said we'll give up, you meant we will give up on making excuses to answer them," Asakura concluded.

"Correct," the president confirmed. "At first, I thought we needed to make different responses for different people, but after evaluating the current situation, I don't think that will be possible."

After that, in front of his friends, he summarized the important points in their discussions, such as the fact that there were at least three kinds of people they needed to consider in this topic: people inside the school which included the students, the teachers, and other staff, the outsiders who did not belong to the school, and class 2-B where Shinichi belonged to. After further discussion, they managed to figure out that there were at least two kinds of outsiders: the ones who had seen Shinichi during the school festival and the ones who had not, which became a problem because not only were they unable to tell them apart, they were also unable to either admit or lie about Shinichi's presence in the festival. On top of that, there was the subconscious reaction of their body to consider if they had to make excuses. Not everyone in the school or even in the student council was able to pull off a good act to fool outsiders, so it could be dangerous if they tried it out for real. In the end, the only option that Asagi could think of was giving every outsider the same treatment: no comment with several adjustments. This way, they did not need to worry they would expose the truth through their failed act. They also did not need to worry about not being able to tell the two types of outsiders apart.

Of course, there was still a downside to this idea. When someone told them that they had seen Shinichi in the school festival but they denied it by saying that they knew nothing, that particular person might become suspicious and even wanted to investigate more about Shinichi through other means, but at least, nobody among students confirmed Shinichi's existence and whereabouts which meant at the very least, the damage borne by them and the school in general would be minimum. If Shinichi had to deal with the repercussion of this idea, Asagi would just trust that the protagonist plot armor would protect him, but his friends did not need to know this.

It did not take long for the other three to agree with him when they had no other alternative, so after a long discussion, they had finally made their decision. They would answer just like how they warned their classes and clubs if people from the school asked them, but if it was outsiders, they would say they knew nothing added with several adjustments just like Asagi's suggestion. After that, Yoshino asked whether or not they should inform this decision to the other students, but in the end, they decided not to since their proposal letter had not been established as the new rules. They still lacked authority, so it was best not to force another warning too fast lest the students would antagonize them which might result in them ignoring all their warnings. For now, it was enough that the student council had reminded them how important it was to keep quiet about Shinichi. Once the students had been used to being cautious with everything about Shinichi, perhaps they could give them another reminder.

With that conclusion, the student council ended the meeting and left to take care of their own business. Asakura and Inaba had to attend club activities while Yoshino had an appointment with her friend. Asagi went home directly, no longer had any business at school. He was so tired. He felt even more exhausted after recalling the other problem that he had forgotten momentarily due to the student council meeting.

Math and science. He would have to undergo another cramming session tonight.

~o0o~

Writing OC-SI fanfiction is harder than I initially thought. Some people think Self Insert is perfect for beginners, but I beg to differ. Really. Not just the story plot, I have to also create my OCs characteristics and background and while creating it, I also have to endure the temptation of making it too perfect (because perfection never makes humans interesting). It's simpler when I wrote fanfiction without OC as the protagonist. No wonder there aren't many of this kind of story that can catch many readers. It's just sooo hard!

Thank you so much for the favs, follows, and reviews. I really appreciate it. And please forgive me for taking a long time to write this fic. As I said, it's hard! And I also have to work to make a living since real life has always been my priority. Thank you again for your support! See you next time!