My headcanon is that Makoto has the entire school convinced he's a good person and a model student, and that he uses his affiliation on the Disciplinary Committee to do whatever he wants.

This is written with a focus on Makoto and will contain his condescending attitude towards most everyone he encounters, so the narrative might be a little disturbing at some points.

Warnings for coarse language, dark themes, and not nearly as much basketball as there probably should be, though I promise to squeeze some in.

For those who don't know Makoto Hanamiya well, his affiliation with the Disciplinary Committee seems like a terrible mistake. A branch of the student council, the Disciplinary Committee is made up of students who have dedicated their high school careers to upholding school policy, hyper-intellectuals with delusions of grandeur and a desire to destroy any and all shreds of deviant behavior and delinquency.

But Makoto's teammates, who know him only as well as he's let them know him, have realized by now that he's right at home with the committee. It allows him to be the first line of defense against rule breakers, the final authority on uniform neatness and hair checks, and it's up to him to administer proper punishment. There isn't a Kirisaki Daiichi student who doesn't pale at the sight of one of the committee members coming down the hall, and there isn't anything Makoto enjoys more than making people as uncomfortable as possible. So really, it makes sense for him to be part of the committee; not because he gives a shit about school rules, but because he gets to do exactly what he wants to do and is even rewarded for doing it.

Of course, even that would get boring after a while, so Makoto has to change things up now and then to keep it interesting. Blackmail is his favorite game because he always wins; as a committee member, he's the first person to know when someone smuggles makeup or a portable game systems in their school bag, and for the right price, he can be the only person who ever has to know. It's a low-risk game; as far as his teachers are concerned, Makoto is a brilliant model student, and most of his victims are idiots going through their rebellious phases.

When Makoto walks down the hall wearing the Disciplinary Committee armband, crowds part, quiet chatter turns to absolute silence, and he feels like the king of his rightful castle. There are very few things that can bring down his mood in such circumstances; not one of the student council's nosy members or some punk trying to look brave by standing up to him or even those obnoxious meetings he has to attend in order to keep up his image.

He opens the door to the conference room the committee uses after school as their official meeting place, hands in his pocket, wearing a well-practiced smile. "Sorry I'm late," he says, "Practice went a little longer since we have a game coming up."

"Of course," says Nobuo Kurita, the head of the Disciplinary Committee, in a tone of genuine understanding. He's perfectly, painfully average with little more presence than a certain Seiren basketball player, the kind of guy you forget is in the room if he's quiet enough, and yet he has this godlike patience that allows him to put up with the rest of the committee's antics and Makoto's perpetual lateness. He also tends to turn a blind eye to troublemakers, often being far too lenient when he catches someone smoking in the bathroom of "forgetting" to write down who failed uniform inspection, though this has more to do with how close he is to graduating than with actual kindness. Nobuo is a third year on his way out the door and onto bigger and better things, and Makoto is fine with his laziness if it means he gets a shot at the position once it's vacant. If being part of the committee is fun now, he can't imagine how great it would be to be in charge of it.

Makoto takes his seat in the conference room and glances around at the others as Nobuo shuts the door. The Disciplinary Committee only has five members, counting himself and Nobuo. Fuji Kuroda is the walking definition of what a committee member should be; her uniform is always impeccable, her bangs cut straight across and her hair carefully maintained at the same length in a bob cut month after month, eyes framed by rectangular glasses and perpetually narrowed in annoyance at someone's incompetence. She is also the biggest pain in the ass they have, constantly complaining about a lack of vigilance and a decline in the standards of Japanese education.

Yuudai Natsume, who sits next to her, isn't much better. He's a brown noser with a stick up his ass, far less concerned with physical appearance than Fuji but nonetheless overeager to do his job, making out minor incidents to be major offenses.

And then there's Kinaka Daicho.

If there was ever anyone who really, truly did not belong on the committee, it would have to be her. She keeps her hair within a centimeter of the allowed length and scoffs at anyone who doesn't like it, telling them to measure it with a ruler—which Fuji actually does periodically, "just to be sure"—hikes her skirt up so it's a little too short, and makes a sport out of seeing how long it takes until Fuji or Yuudai snap at her for chewing gum during meetings. She goes out of her way to be a nuisance to the other members, and it really makes Makoto wonder just what the hell she thinks she's doing, and if she might be in it for all the same reasons he is and just isn't as good at hiding it.

Kinaka, for all of her difficulty, isn't treated any better or worse than the other committee members. The entire group seems to only just tolerate each other's presences, Nobuo being the only one in the room still smiling after the end of a meeting after Makoto has made a snide remark and Yuudai has called him out on it and Fuji has told them both to shut up and Kinaka has been focusing on filing her nails the whole time so she doesn't really know what's going on.

Makoto wonders, honestly, how anybody at all can doubt he belongs there with Kirisaki Daiichi's finest.

He wonders this sarcastically, of course.

"Now," Nobuo says as he sits down, "I know everyone wants to get right to discussing the budget and the computer club's blatant wasting of funding, but there's something more immediate we need to address. Our colleagues on the student council informed me today that the 50,000 yen produced during the fundraiser at the cultural festival is not where they left it."

There's a resounding silence. Kinaka even stops filing her nails and uncrosses her legs, eyes on the head of the committee with a brow raised in question.

"Not where they left it?" Makoto repeats, asking what everyone is thinking, "Are they implying that they lost it, or that it was stolen?"

"The latter," Nobuo answers.

"This goes far beyond typical delinquency," Yuudai says, "It's much more severe," and despite his subdued tone, his eyes are shining with excitement and his voice is shaking. Makoto is pretty sure he's getting some sort of justice boner over the thought of investigating the theft.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Nobuo says quickly, eager to stomp out any possible scandal while he's still on the committee, and he just manages to regain control of the conversation. "It's important that we review the facts before we jump to any conclusions. The student council has told me that the money was placed on the table in this room last Friday by a teacher shortly after the end of the festival in the early evening. Those involved in the fundraiser, including student council, the culture committee, several clubs, and two teachers, were assembled in the teacher's lounge at the time. The teacher who made the deposit is in a difficult position right now; his reputation is dependent upon the success of our investigation."

The entire room erupts with theories and objections. Something about this strikes Makoto as strange, though. Kirisaki Daiichi doesn't have real trouble; there are no actual delinquents at the school, just a few dumbasses who occasionally try to get attention and wise up as soon as they see Makoto coming. The student council, while full of self-important and self-righteous douchebags, isn't exactly a haven for criminal masterminds. He knows those optimistic losers couldn't find their way out of a paper bag and wouldn't dream of jaywalking, let alone stealing money that isn't theirs. But there was no mention of a break-in, which makes Makoto think that this was an inside job carried out by somebody who would have easy access to the money, and if he assumes the student council is too stupid and the teachers are actually the paragons of justice they claim to be, that only leaves one other group with access to the conference room.

Makoto eyes his fellow committee members; all of them were at the festival and helped with the fundraiser. His eyes pass over Noubo trying to keep the peace, Fuji angrily declaring the slipping morality of Japanese youth in modern society, and Yuudai making a suspect list, ready to begin a witch hunt. And then there's Kinaka, adding her two cents from time to time but mostly smiling nervously at the floor.

Makoto knows guilt when he sees it. His eyes narrow in interest. Kinaka is sadly mistaken if she thinks she can get away with this. Not that Makoto has any interest in telling the others of his suspicions if it doesn't have to come to that. No, she'll be much more useful—and provide much more entertainment—if they can keep this between the two of them. He needs to be absolutely certain before he approaches her, though, which means he needs to learn more about her.

It's the hunt, and it's Makoto's favorite part.

Kinaka notices him staring, and when he offers a smile—all malice, no warmth—her face drains of color and she excuses herself to use the restroom.

Smiling contently to himself, he starts planning the next few days, looking forward to getting to know Kinaka Daicho.