The Goal Is to Save Kamuro Masumi

A footstep sounded not far from Kamuro Masumi.

She abruptly raised her head, looking vigilantly toward the source of the sound.

The figure of Kazehara Tetsu appeared before her.

He had one hand shoved into his pocket, holding a can of coffee that was still giving off cold mist in the other.

"Hiding here all by yourself to lick your wounds, Kamuro?"

He stopped in front of Kamuro Masumi, looking down at her from above.

"Get lost!"

Kamuro Masumi's voice was hoarse. "My business is none of your concern!"

"I don't care to get involved either."

Kazehara Tetsu cracked open the pull-tab of the coffee and took a sip. "I was just passing by and saw a cat that was about to drown, thought it was a bit of a waste, that's all."

Kazehara Tetsu squatted down beside her, pressing that cold can of coffee against her cheek.

Kamuro Masumi shuddered all over, instinctively wanting to pull away, but that icy sensation caused her mind to regain a moment of clarity.

"You... already know?"

"Did that brain of yours get fried, Kamuro? It's practically impossible not to know about the video. By now, the whole school is probably waiting to watch you make a fool of yourself."

His words were harsh and direct, without the slightest intention of comforting her.

Kamuro Masumi raised her head, a pair of bloodshot eyes glaring fiercely at him. "Are you here to watch me make a fool of myself too?"

"Make a fool of myself? I'm not that bored."

Kazehara Tetsu withdrew the coffee can and took another sip himself. "I'm just... rather interested in that video. A few days ago at a coffee shop, I accidentally overheard a conversation between Yamauchi and his friends, and I saw that video too. It felt quite interesting, so I casually... asked him for a copy."

"What!" Kamuro Masumi's pupils violently contracted.

Kazehara Tetsu pulled out his own smartphone, waved it in front of her, and then tapped open a video file.

On the screen appeared the scene of a convenience store shelf, along with her own profile.

Next came that entire process of her theft.

"This is it, right?"

Kamuro Masumi's expression was ashen. She closed her eyes, unwilling to look any longer.

"Don't be in such a rush to despair, Kamuro."

Kazehara Tetsu's voice sounded once more. "Haven't you noticed that this video... has a bit of an issue?"

Kamuro Masumi abruptly opened her eyes, looking at him uncomprehendingly.

"An issue?"

"Look closely right here." Kazehara Tetsu dragged the video's progress bar to a specific spot and then slowed down the playback speed.

"At this very moment when you picked up the lip balm, 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 that reflection of the bag of potato chips on the shelf? The instant you made your move, the position of that reflection had an unnatural distortion. With the lighting unchanged, why would the reflection move?"

Kamuro Masumi stared fixedly at that detail. At first she couldn't see anything, but after replaying it several times, she finally caught that almost negligible frame skip in the footage.

"And right here," Kazehara Tetsu dragged the video to another node once again. "Listen to the audio."

He turned the phone's volume up to the maximum.

"The background music in the convenience store—the second before and the second after your hand slipped into the pocket, listen closely. Between the two syllables, there's a brief, cut-off piece of noise. Just like... two different audio recordings being forcibly spliced together."

Kazehara Tetsu looked at Kamuro Masumi, who had already lapsed into a daze.

"The most important point is right here..."

That spot should have originally been an optimal viewing angle capable of clearly seeing Kamuro Masumi's full profile; yet, the moment she brushed aside her hair, the screen suddenly only allowed one to see the lower half of Kamuro Masumi's face.

"A video with inconsistent frame skips in the visuals and traces of splicing in the background audio... Kamuro, rather than an evidentiary record of facts, don't you think this looks much more like a work... carefully 'produced' for a specific purpose?"

"Produced... a work..."

Kamuro Masumi's gaze shifted back and forth between Kazehara Tetsu's face, which wore a faint smile, and his phone screen, her mind a complete mess.

She knew better than anyone that she really had stolen things.

That video, no matter how many flaws it had, recorded a core event that was real.

Yet why was this man before her telling her about these "flaws" to help her?

What was his objective?

"Why... why are you helping me? We're... not familiar at all. Furthermore, I clearly..."

She couldn't finish her sentence.

The words I clearly really stole something blocked her throat like a giant boulder.

"Helping you? Kamuro, are you misunderstanding something? I'm certainly not helping you."

Kazehara Tetsu casually placed that can of coffee, which was no longer very cold, onto the ground beside them. "I'm simply an ordinary student in pursuit of 'justice' and 'truth'. Seeing someone framed by a maliciously edited video, my sense of justice gets a bit... uncontrollable. I cannot tolerate such despicable methods defiling the honor of our Class A."

Kamuro Masumi wasn't a fool. As she looked at Kazehara Tetsu's devoid-of-sincerity "messenger of justice" facade, her vigilance not only failed to drop, but instead surged to the maximum.

This man was definitely harboring ulterior motives.

Seemingly sensing the distrust in Kamuro Masumi's eyes, Kazehara Tetsu maintained his serious expression for less than three seconds before letting out a sudden chuckle.

"All right, all right. I admit, that last bit had even me getting goosebumps."

"The reason is simple."

His gaze unhesitatingly slid from Kamuro Masumi's eyes down to her slightly parted neckline. "It's because you're a beauty, Kamuro. I don't have any other virtues to speak of, except that I simply can't stand seeing pretty girls wronged."

"So, just consider it my bored chivalry acting up, or purely lust. Whichever reason you find easier to accept, just take it as that one."

This reason was far more genuine—and far more vulgar—than that previous declaration of "for justice."

Kamuro Masumi's cheeks instantly flushed crimson. That wasn't anger, but rather a feeling she herself couldn't quite figure out.

"...This afternoon, the Student Council is going to question me again."

After a long while, she squeezed a few words out from between her teeth, her voice as low as a mosquito's hum.

"Rest assured. By then, as the 'first eyewitness who happened to pass by,' I'll be going along too. You don't have to do anything, and you don't have to say anything. Watch me take care of Yamauchi Haruki."

Once he finished speaking, he stood up and turned to leave.

"Remember, Kamuro..."

Without looking back, he simply left behind one final sentence. "From now on, you didn't steal anything. You are innocent. You are simply a... pitiful victim maliciously framed by a despicable scoundrel. Carve that into your brain."