A set of footsteps sounded not far from Kamuro Masumi.
She suddenly raised her head, looking warily toward the source of the sound.
Kaedehara Tōru’s figure appeared before her.
He had one hand in his pocket, the other holding a can of coffee that was still radiating cold air.
“Hiding here alone to lick your wounds, Kamuro-san?”
He stopped in front of Kamuro Masumi, looking down at her.
“Get lost!”
Kamuro Masumi’s voice was hoarse.
“My business is none of yours!”
“I don’t want to manage it either.”
Kaedehara Tōru popped the tab on the coffee and took a sip.
“I just happened to be passing by and saw a cat about to drown.
It seemed a bit of a pity.”
Kaedehara Tōru crouched down beside her and pressed the cold can of coffee against her cheek.
Kamuro Masumi shuddered, instinctively wanting to pull away, but the icy touch brought a moment of clarity to her mind.
“You…
you know everything?”
“Kamuro-san, has your brain truly fried?
It would be hard not to know about the video.
The whole school is probably waiting to laugh at you right now.”
His words were sharp and direct, completely devoid of comfort.
Kamuro Masumi looked up, her bloodshot eyes glaring fiercely at him.
“Are you here to mock me too?”
“Mock you?
I’m not that boring.”
Kaedehara Tōru retrieved the coffee can and took another sip.
“I’m just…
quite interested in that video.
A few days ago, I was at a coffee shop and accidentally overheard Yamauchi-san and his friends talking, and I saw the video.
I found it quite interesting, so I casually…
requested a copy from him.”
“What!” Kamuro Masumi’s pupils contracted sharply.
Kaedehara Tōru pulled out his phone, waved it in front of her, and then opened a video file.
On the screen appeared the image of a convenience store shelf, along with her own profile.
Next was the entire process of her theft.
“This is it, right?”
Kamuro Masumi’s face was ashen. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
She closed her eyes, refusing to look anymore.
“Don’t rush to despair, Kamuro-san.”
Kaedehara Tōru’s voice rang out again.
“Haven’t you noticed that this video…
has some issues?”
Kamuro Masumi suddenly opened her eyes, looking at him in confusion.
“Issues?”
“Look closely here.” Kaedehara Tōru dragged the video progress bar to a specific spot, then slowed down the playback speed.
“At the moment you picked up the lipstick, you prepared to put it back but ultimately slipped it into your pocket…
look at the shelf behind you.”
Kamuro Masumi forced herself to look at the screen.
“See the reflection of that bag of chips on the shelf?
The moment you made the movement, the position of that reflection had an unnatural distortion.
Why would the reflection move if the lighting didn’t change?”
Kamuro Masumi stared intently at that detail.
At first, she couldn’t see anything, but after repeating the playback a few times, she finally caught the almost negligible frame skip.
“And here,” Kaedehara Tōru dragged the video to another point.
“Listen to the sound.”
He turned the phone volume to maximum.
“The background music in the convenience store—listen carefully to the second before and the second after your hand slips into your pocket.
Between the two syllables, there’s a brief, cut-off static noise.
It’s like…
two different recordings were forcibly spliced together.”
Kaedehara Tōru looked at Kamuro Masumi, who had fallen into a daze.
“The most important point is here…”
That spot should have been a perfect angle to clearly see all of Kamuro Masumi, yet the moment she lifted her hair, the screen suddenly only showed the lower half of Kamuro Masumi’s face.
“A video with inconsistent frame skips and traces of audio splicing…
Kamuro-san, don’t you think this looks less like evidence documenting a fact and more like a work meticulously ‘produced’ for a specific purpose?”
“Produced…
work…”
Kamuro Masumi’s gaze flickered between Kaedehara Tōru’s lightly smiling face and his phone screen, her mind a mess.
She knew better than anyone that she had indeed stolen something.
Regardless of its flaws, the core event recorded in that video was real.
But why was this man in front of her pointing out these “flaws” to help her?
What was his goal?
“Why…
why are you helping me?
We’re…
barely acquainted.
She couldn’t finish her sentence.
The phrase, “I clearly really stole it,” felt like a boulder stuck in her throat.
“Helping you?
Kamuro-san, did you misunderstand something?
I’m not helping you.”
Kaedehara Tōru casually placed the coffee can, which was no longer very cold, on the ground beside him.
“I am merely an ordinary student who pursues ‘justice’ and ‘truth.’ Seeing someone framed by maliciously edited video, my sense of justice is a bit…
irrepressible.
I cannot tolerate such despicable methods defiling the honor of our Class A.”
Kamuro Masumi was not an idiot.
Looking at Kaedehara Tōru’s insincere appearance as a “champion of justice,” her wariness not only didn’t decrease but rose to its maximum.
This man definitely had another motive.
Seeming to sense the distrust in Kamuro Masumi’s eyes, Kaedehara Tōru maintained his serious expression for less than three seconds before bursting into laughter.
“Alright, alright, I admit, those words I just said gave me goosebumps too.”
“The reason is simple.”
His gaze unapologetically slid from Kamuro Masumi’s eyes down to her slightly open collar.
“Because Kamuro-san, you are a beauty.
I don’t have many other virtues, but I simply can’t stand seeing pretty girls suffer.”
“So, just consider it a bout of my boring chivalry, or maybe just lust.
Whichever reason you find more acceptable, let’s go with that.”
This reason was far more genuine—and far more vulgar—than the previous claim of “for justice.”
Kamuro Masumi’s cheeks instantly flushed crimson.
It wasn’t anger, but a feeling she couldn’t quite place.
“…The Student Council will question me again this afternoon.”
After a long pause, she squeezed out a few words through clenched teeth, her voice as faint as a mosquito’s buzz.
“Don’t worry.
At that time, as the ‘first eyewitness who happened to be passing by,’ I will go with you.
You don’t have to do anything or say anything.
Just watch me take care of Yamauchi Haruki.”
After saying that, he stood up and turned to leave.
“Remember this, Kamuro-san…”
He didn’t look back, only leaving one last sentence: “From now on, you do not steal anything.
You are innocent.
You are merely a pitiful victim…
maliciously framed by a despicable scoundrel.
Engrave that into your mind.”