"You really do know what I'm going to ask." The store manager's words were cut off by Mouri Ran, so he could only say, "No. Besides, it's not like I'm in the shop every second of the day. Even when I am, I can't possibly keep staring at the employees."
"Um..." Another clerk had been tidying the shelves nearby the whole time, arranging the already neat goods over and over until they practically shone.
Hearing this, he finally could not hold back and said quietly, "I do know one thing—whenever Xiao Xuan is on shift, the shop becomes especially tidy."
As he spoke, he pointed at this dim warehouse. "These cardboard boxes full of goods are usually delivered to the shop before closing.
"It's embarrassing to say, but the other clerks and I usually just pile these boxes up in the warehouse however we like and leave them alone, letting whoever's on shift the next day sort them out. But every time Xiao Xuan is on shift, she always tidies the delivered boxes before leaving."
Then the veteran employee looked toward the store manager. "We all really admire Xiao Xuan's diligence, so when you said she was a thief before, none of us actually believed it much. We always felt there might be some misunderstanding."
The store manager snorted. "Maybe she just felt guilty after stealing, so she wanted to save her conscience by working hard.
"The bentos, too. The stolen ones were all near their expiration date—Nanakawa probably convinced herself in her heart that those bentos would soon be thrown away because they couldn't be sold, so she only picked that kind of food to steal."
"In the world of thieves, I suppose that does count as having quite a conscience, but in any case, stealing is stealing." The