Just like its name, the literature club was a club that focused on literature. In this club, students read and learned many literary works such as prose, poetry, and even film and drama. They learned about it, discussed it, wrote reviews about it, and even made and published it. The literature club had a mutualistic relationship with the manga club, theatre club, and journalist club. To the manga club and theatre club, the literature club was their professional critic. To the journalist club, the literature club was like their contracted author who would publish their work in their seasonal magazine. As to the literature club, the manga club and theatre club were their sources of material while the journalist club was their publisher.
"No wonder Yoshino was so interested in my club assignment. She's from the journalist club after all," Asagi mumbled, looking at the general introduction of the literature club on the school's website on his laptop. He recalled again the conversation between him and his two friends at the Poirot. Inaba reminded him of the literature club's president, Yamamoto Sora, and after that, Yoshino asked whether it was true that Yamamoto truly forbade him from telling them about his club assignment. At that time, Asagi still did not know what kind of assignment he got from the club, so he could only answer vaguely.
"You can think of it that way," he told them that time.
"Eeehh? No way! Seriously?" Yoshino pressed, could not believe his words.
"Well, I'm not surprised if that's truly the case. Nagayama is really talented in literature. His works have been considered treasures in our school community. Even our teachers praise him," Inaba accepted easily as he took another potato wedge from the plate.
"I suppose so," the secretary finally accepted in reluctance. "As expected of the most sought-after story critic in Teitan High. Even Sora-chan wants to keep your work to herself."
Asagi only smiled awkwardly as a reply. Truthfully, he did not even know if the club president really had forbidden him from talking about his assignment, but it was good that his friends seemed to really think so. Thanks to this, he could temporarily avoid any topic about club activity.
That day, after arrived at home and taking a bath, Asagi locked himself again in his room. He turned on his laptop, searching for any information about his club. He visited Teitan High School's website where he found the general introduction of its club activities. After learning about his club and the other clubs in the school, Asagi searched for his club assignment. If the club was focused on literature, he should have written many reviews and perhaps also stories with his laptop. After searching for a while, Asagi found a folder titled Literature inside a folder titled Documents which he had opened briefly the day before only to learn more about his school. When Asagi opened the folder, he immediately knew he was right. That folder was for his club activity. He saw many reviews, short stories, and even drama scripts, poems, and essays. There was also a file containing a list of web novels and mangas' titles. Seeing how full the folder was, Asagi was impressed. It seemed that the original Asagi was really serious about this literature club. He was learning earnestly.
If only I took all of this seriously yesterday...
Asagi was regretful. Yesterday, he had opened all the folders on his laptop to learn more about himself, but he simply passed the Literature folder because he assumed it did not have important info about him. He only focused on the other folder titled School because he prioritized learning about his school and high school's subjects after his new identity and his new family. Who would have thought that the folder that seemed to have no relation to school was actually a folder for his club activity?
The same goes for the student council, he thought after he opened a peculiar folder titled SC. When he opened it, he saw that it contained many files for the student council's activity.
This Asagi has a unique sense of naming folder, he commented, half amused and half bitter. Most people would probably prefer to change the title Literature into Club if they were still in school. Also, it would be easier to remember a folder titled Student Council as a folder for student council activity compared to a folder titled SC. After all, SC could mean anything and did not necessarily have to be related to the student council.
"Well, the most important thing is I've found these folders," he said to himself as he decided to put his regret behind. Now that he had found his club activity files, he needed to search for his winter vacation assignment. He was sure the original Asagi had finished it because he also had finished all his homework. The original Asagi was diligent and dedicated, so the current Asagi trusted that he had finished his club assignment.
There was no file that had a name that could indicate them as his assignment, so he could only look for it by checking the date of the files. The newer the file, the higher the chance of it being his assignment. After sorting out the files, he managed to separate several files from the others. Those were the files that were made during winter vacation. Asagi opened them one by one, checking their contents. Seeing that all of the selected files consisted of one novel review, one movie review, and one short story, Asagi became more confident that those files were his assignment.
Asagi was a novelist, so reviews and stories were what he liked the most even when the author was still a newbie. That was why when he found his assignment, he became very excited. He wanted to know how good the original Asagi was. He wanted to know what kind of novel and movie the original Asagi had reviewed and what kind of story he had written. Without further ado, he began to read the documents only to feel slightly disappointed soon after he read the titles.
He never heard such titles before even though reviewing was his side job after being a novelist.
But it's okay. I can search it on the internet later, he comforted himself. He was in a different world, so it was only to be expected for the literary works here to be different from the ones in his own world. No matter. He could still roughly estimate the original Asagi's skill as a critic even without the knowledge of the works that he reviewed. Also, the short story should be his original work and idea, meaning Asagi should be able to properly assess the original's skill as a fiction writer.
Asagi chose to read the short story first before anything else. It was a story about a pair of orphan siblings who were separated due to adoption only to be reunited again years later in a traffic accident where the older one lost his life. The cause of the accident was drowsy driving by the younger one. It was such a tragic story filled with tears, guilt, and misery. The author was still young, but Asagi had to admit he really had a talent in story-telling.
Next, Asagi read the review for the novel and the film that he knew nothing about. There were several shortcomings, but for a high school student, the works could be said to be very good. Again, Asagi was impressed. His counterpart in this world was really talented! No wonder Yoshino said that he was the most sought-after critic in the school.
Since this is my assignment, I need to learn more about it, he thought once he was done being impressed. He feared that he had to bring it up in the discussion during the club meeting, so he decided to read the novel and watch the film. However, there was another problem. It was impossible for him to finish both the novel and the film today after he found out what kind of works they were. The novel was quite thick, more than 200 pages, while the film was actually a 2-hour movie. He might be able to finish watching the movie tonight, but he could not say the same for the novel. He needed more time.
"When is the club meeting?" he asked himself, rummaging the files in the club's folder, but there was nothing about the club schedule there. The website also did not mention the schedule. In the end, he was left with only a choice: ask the club president, the only club member he knew. He opened the contact list on his phone, looking for Yamamoto Sora's contact number. He found it under the name Club Yamamoto. Once he had found it, he immediately typed a chat, asking for the club schedule in a vague way to hide the fact that he did not even know their meeting schedule.
Are we going to have a club meeting this week? When? Where?
As he waited for the reply, Asagi watched the movie. It was an action movie about a spy infiltrating a criminal syndicate, quite interesting in his opinion. In the beginning, the spy was more or less just like Amuro, a handsome man with several identities. Only, in this movie his identity was blown after he stole important data, resulting in him being hunted down by the syndicate. And the ending was not exactly good either. The spy who had been on the run was finally caught when he was in a secret meeting with his police comrade. On their run from the syndicate's assassins, he sacrificed himself so that his comrade could escape with the stolen data. The protagonist died, but his comrade and the stolen data were safe. It was a tragic and bittersweet ending.
Asagi was so immersed in the movie to the point he did not notice when his phone received a reply chat. Only when he checked on it again after he finished watching did he see the chat from the club president.
Friday in the clubroom as usual. What's wrong?
Asagi sighed in relief. Good, I still have time! Then he hummed as he thought of an excuse for asking such things. A moment later, he typed his reply.
Just wanted to make sure. I'm a bit busy these days.
Another reply came soon after he sent his reply.
Student council's business?
Yep.
What about your assignment?
All done. You?
Me too. Can't wait to read yours!
Asagi did not know what to say when he received this kind of text, so he decided not to reply anymore after contemplating for a while. The chat stopped there because he did not receive any more replies from Yamamoto even after another few minutes had passed. Asagi was quite relieved. If she had prolonged the chat, he was afraid he would feel awkward and confused. After all, he knew nothing about their club until recently. If the club president prolonged the chat and touched a topic he could not remember, Asagi would not know what to do, so he was glad their chat had ended.
"Now that the club meeting has been settled, I better go early tomorrow. I need to find the clubroom," he muttered, realizing that he did not know where the literature clubroom was. He also decided to study the layout of the school properly tomorrow morning because as a student of Teitan High as well as the president of the student council, he really could not afford to get lost in his own school. That would be too shameful and too strange.
After making the decision, Asagi glanced at the movie again which now had stopped playing, pondering whether or not he needed to correct his review, but in the end, he decided not to. It would be suspicious if his reviewing skill suddenly became much better only after two weeks of winter break. He did not need to attract that kind of attention if he wanted to live peacefully.
"Let's just be a normal high school student," he told himself resolutely. He was not a protagonist in this world; he was just a nobody. There would be no plot armor protecting him, so there was no need to pretend to be a genius like two certain shrunken kids only to end up receiving unwanted attention.
Being a president and a crime journalist's son was already bad enough. He did not need to be even more conspicuous than he already was.
~o0o~
The next day, everything worked as planned.
Asagi arrived at the school early. He learned the map of the school and took a look around to memorize the whole school better. He also took notice of the teachers and the staff's names when he had the chance to. When he felt he had learned enough, he headed to his class. After the roll call during homeroom, he asked the teacher to permit him to leave the class to broadcast an announcement. He met up with the rest of the student council and watched as Asakura made the announcement. True to Yoshino's words, Asakura had a beautiful voice. Her voice sounded gentle and persuasive when she asked every student to donate their allowance to help Ueda's mother. When Asagi wondered aloud why she could produce such a voice, Yoshino cheerfully told him that it was only natural since Asakura was a member of the school's choir. Again, he discovered a new fact about the student council. Asagi quietly memorized it in his head.
After that, everything was just as boring and flat as usual minus several changes in his class. The students donated some of their allowance for Ueda's mom through the class representative. Also, due to the announcement, his classmates all misunderstood the reason why Ueda was called to the teacher's room yesterday. They no longer made wild guesses about him. Instead, they started stealing empathetic glances at him from time to time, thinking he was called because the teacher was worried about his mother.
During the lunch break, Yoshino visited him to ask for his signature on the proposal letter. Asagi was satisfied with her work, so he signed the proposal without hesitation. After that, the two of them visited Serizawa-sensei in the teacher's room after finishing their lunch.
Serizawa-sensei looked surprised when she received the proposal letter. She did not seem to expect the student council to come up with such an idea. She carefully read the letter before asking some questions which both Asagi and Yoshino answered with pleasure. After the brief interview, the advisor agreed to bring forward the proposal letter at the next school board meeting. With this, the student council's duty regarding Kudo was done. They only needed to wait for the school board's decision.
"Although we've handed our suggestion to Sensei, we still have no power to control the rumor, right?" Yoshino asked the president who was walking alongside her after they left the teacher's room. "What should we do now?"
"We wait. That's the only thing we can do," Asagi answered.
"But aren't you afraid the rumor will spread outside while we're waiting?"
"That's a probability we can't avoid," he replied, "but don't worry. It's just a rumor about confession. As long as there is no concrete evidence, something as trivial as that shouldn't be able to make an uproar even if it's been leaked outside. Besides, we've notified our classes not to spread the rumor any further. With this, we should be able to buy some time until the school board makes a decision. Hopefully, they will agree with us." In addition, Shinichi and Ran had the plot armor and as far as he knew, the manga had guaranteed that the school would be safe. Actually, he might as well do nothing about Shinichi and leave everything to the plot, but as someone from another world without any plot armor, Asagi felt insecure. That was why he could not just leave everything to the plot. He had to do something to protect himself.
"If you say so," Yoshino yielded. "Then, does this mean we only need to take care of the donation after school today?"
"Yes. Can I trouble you to remind the others through the chat group?"
"No problem. Oh, let's leave the key to Kaede-chan this time since she'll be in charge of the donation."
"Alright. Thanks."
After a brief walk, the two of them parted ways to their own classroom. As he waited for the lunch break to end, Asagi took out a thick book from his bag. It was time to read his novel assignment.
~o0o~
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