Slow, deliberate footsteps echoed through the quiet corridor, breaking the heavy silence surrounding Kamuro.
She jerked her head up.
Her wary gaze locked onto the approaching figure.
Tetsu stepped into the dim light.
One hand rested casually in his pocket; the other held a canned coffee, a faint layer of condensation misting its metallic surface.
“Are you hiding here alone to lick your wounds, Kamuro-san?” he asked.
He stopped right in front of her, casting a long shadow that swallowed her curled-up form.
“Get lost!” Her voice cracked, hoarse and defensive.
“My business is none of your concern!”
“I don’t particularly want to be involved.” Tetsu popped the tab on the coffee.
The sharp hiss echoed in the narrow space.
He took a slow sip.
“I just happened to be passing by and saw a stray cat about to drown.
It seemed a bit of a pity, that’s all.”
He crouched down, bringing himself to her eye level, and pressed the freezing aluminum can directly against her cheek.
Kamuro flinched.
A violent shudder wracked her frame, her instinct screaming to pull away, but the biting cold forced a sudden, sharp clarity into her chaotic mind.
“You…” Her breath hitched.
“You know everything?”
“Has your brain been fried by a fever, Kamuro-san?” Tetsu’s tone held zero warmth.
“It would be a miracle not to know about the video.
Half the school is likely waiting to laugh at your expense right now.”
He offered no comfort.
Just cold, clinical reality.
Kamuro lifted her head.
Bloodshot eyes glared fiercely into his.
“Are you here to watch me be a laughingstock too?”
“A laughingstock?
I’m not nearly that bored.” Tetsu withdrew the freezing can, taking another measured sip.
“I’m simply…
intrigued by the footage.
A few days ago at a cafe, I happened to overhear Yamauchi and his little group talking.
I caught a glimpse of the video.
Found it fascinating.
So, I politely asked him for a copy.”
“What!” Kamuro’s pupils constricted.
Tetsu pulled his smartphone from his pocket.
He waved the sleek device in front of her face, his thumb tapping the screen to open a media file.
The harsh glare of the display illuminated the dark corner.
The familiar aisles of the campus convenience store appeared, framing her unmistakable silhouette.
Then, the theft played out.
Every damning second of it.
“This is the one, right?”
The color drained from Kamuro’s face, leaving her a sickly, ashen pale.
She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to stomach the sight of her own ruin.
“Don’t be in such a rush to drown in despair, Kamuro-san.” Tetsu’s smooth voice cut through her panic.
“Haven’t you realized that this video…
has a few glaring issues?”
Kamuro’s eyes snapped open.
Confusion warred with the lingering dread in her gaze.
“Look closely right here.” Tetsu dragged the progress bar back, dropping the playback speed to a crawl.
“Right at the moment you pick up the item, hesitate, and then slip it into your pocket.
Watch the shelves behind you.”
Kamuro forced herself to stare at the glowing screen.
“The reflection on that metallic chip bag on the second tier.
Do you see it?
At the exact instant you make your move, the reflection distorts.
It’s entirely unnatural.
The overhead lighting hasn’t shifted, so why would the glare suddenly jump?”
Kamuro squinted at the pixelated detail.
At first, it was just a blur.
But as Tetsu looped the two-second clip over and over, she finally caught it—a microscopic, jarring skip in the visual continuity.
A frame jump.
“And then there is this.” Tetsu dragged the slider forward again.
He clicked the volume button up to maximum.
“Listen to the audio track.”
The tinny pop music of the convenience store filtered through the phone’s speakers.
“The background track.
The second before your hand drops into your pocket, and the second after.
Listen to the vocals.
Between those two beats, there is a harsh, abrupt static clip.
It sounds exactly like two entirely separate recordings forcibly stitched together.”
Tetsu observed her carefully.
Kamuro was staring at the phone, utterly dazed.
“But the most critical flaw is right here.” He paused the video again.
The camera angle, which had previously captured her full body in perfect clarity, had suddenly shifted.
The exact moment she brushed her hair back, the framing jerked downward, cutting off everything above her jawline.
“Discontinuous frame jumps.
Traces of audio splicing.
A sudden, convenient shift in the camera axis.” Tetsu tilted his head, a dark amusement dancing in his eyes.
“Tell me, Kamuro-san.
Does this look like raw, factual evidence to you?
Or does it look like a carefully manufactured piece of fiction…
produced for a very specific, malicious purpose?”
“Produced…
fiction…”
Kamuro’s gaze darted frantically between the paused video and Tetsu’s faintly smiling face.
Her thoughts spun into absolute chaos.
She knew the truth.
She knew better than anyone else in this school that she had, in fact, stolen the item.
No matter how many technical anomalies Tetsu pointed out, the core event recorded on that screen was reality.
So why was this man carefully dissecting the footage to manufacture reasonable doubt?
What could he possibly gain from pulling her out of the fire?
“Why…” Her voice trembled.
“Why are you helping me?
We aren’t close.
We barely speak.
Besides, I clearly…”
The sentence died on her tongue. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
The admission—’I clearly stole it’—lodged in her throat like a jagged stone, impossible to swallow and impossible to spit out.
“Helping you?
Are you misunderstanding the situation, Kamuro-san?
I am not helping you.”
Tetsu casually set the coffee can—now stripped of its chill—onto the floorboards.
“I am simply an ordinary high school student in pursuit of justice and truth.
Seeing a classmate framed by maliciously doctored footage makes my righteous indignation quite difficult to contain.
I simply cannot tolerate such despicable tactics tarnishing the pristine honor of Class A.”
Kamuro was not an idiot.
She stared at his theatrical messenger of justice routine, her internal alarms blaring louder than ever.
Her defensive walls, rather than lowering, shot up to maximum height.
This man was plotting something deeply sinister.
Noticing the intense, venomous distrust radiating from her eyes, Tetsu managed to hold his solemn, righteous expression for exactly three seconds.
Then, a sharp scoff broke his composure, dissolving into a low, genuine laugh.
“Alright, fine.
I admit it.
That last line gave even me goosebumps.”
He leaned in slightly.
“The real reason is quite simple.”
His dark, calculating gaze slid unashamedly from her eyes down to the slight opening of her collar.
“It is because you are a beautiful girl, Kamuro-san.
I lack many virtues, but I have a fatal weakness for watching pretty girls suffer unjust wrongs.”
He offered a lazy shrug.
“So, you can write this off as a bout of boring chivalry, or you can assume I am just a lecherous opportunist.
Pick whichever narrative makes it easier for you to sleep at night.”
It was a crude, brazen excuse.
Yet, terrifyingly, it felt infinitely more plausible than his previous monologue about justice.
And far more dangerous.
A sudden, intense heat rushed to Kamuro’s cheeks, painting them a vivid crimson.
It was not purely anger that spiked her pulse, but a strange, suffocating tension she could not quite identify.
“…The Student Council is calling me in for another interrogation this afternoon.”
The words squeezed through her gritted teeth after a long, agonizing silence.
Her voice was barely a whisper, fragile and defeated.
“Rest assured.
When the time comes, I will be attending as well.
After all, I am the crucial first eyewitness who happened to stumble upon the truth.” Tetsu’s tone hardened into something sharp and commanding.
“You do not need to lift a finger.
You do not need to speak a single word in your defense.
Just sit back and watch me dismantle Yamauchi Haruki.”
He stood up, his tall frame blocking out the corridor lights once more, and turned his back to her.
“Remember this, Kamuro-san.”
He did not look back.
His final words hung in the cold air, heavy with absolute authority.
“From this second forward, you did not steal a single thing.
You are completely innocent.
You are nothing more than a pitiful, helpless victim, maliciously framed by a pathetic villain.
Engrave that reality into your very bones.”
[Inorin’s Note:
Hey guys, hope you’re enjoying the novel!
Hate waiting for updates and cliffhangers?