“-Ah, how tiring. It’s been quite a while since I last sat down and said so much like that.”

Finished with her story, Kamuro looked up at me with the same serious expression she had at the start.

“In short, I’m a habitual shoplifter.”

“Even recently?”

“Sakayanagi has been working me hard. I haven’t had the spare time to steal anything.”

Even though it wasn’t something she wanted, she didn’t seem to be unsatisfied about it.

Before Sakayanagi, Kamuro probably hadn’t been relied on before. She had been holding a darkness in her heart.

Still, it was necessary for Sakayanagi to get Kamuro in a position where she wouldn’t be able to continue committing crimes.

Therefore, Sakayanagi cleverly took advantage of her. If Kamuro was to continue shoplifting, sooner or later, she’d be tracked down.

It wouldn’t matter if she was stealing outside of school grounds, but she was doing it from within the confined school campus.

When the store eventually notices what’s been going on with their inventory, it wouldn’t take them long to figure out the truth.

If that were to happen, Class A would definitely suffer a non-trivial amount of damage.

“Back before the training camp, Sakayanagi had said that you and Ichinose were both hiding the same secret.”

In other words, assuming that everything Kamuro just said really is true, Ichinose has a history with shoplifting as well.

“That’s exactly where I was going with this.”

“Regardless, what are you hoping to accomplish by revealing your past to me?”

Depending on the situation, it wouldn’t be impossible to look back into her past and investigate her crimes.

In which case, Kamuro would suffer alone.

“I don’t particularly like Sakayanagi or Ichinose. But, to be honest, the fact that Ichinose has been stealing as well really hit me hard. She’s so incredibly popular that she really ought to be entirely satisfied with what she has, but honestly, the same should go for me.”

Kamuro laughed in self-derision.

“Stop Sakayanagi. You can do that, can’t you?”

“So you’re saying you want me to help Ichinose?”

“Yes. As it is now, Ichinose will definitely be crushed. I’m not talking about her being crushed physically, I mean her heart.”

“I see.”

It’s difficult for me to confirm if what Kamuro has been saying is true, and it’s just as difficult for her to prove it.

Even if the store noticed a difference between their digital stock and their physical inventory, it would still be very hard to determine the cause of it. After all, it could’ve been a store employee making a handling error. While she did begin shoplifting immediately after enrollment, she didn’t repeatedly steal the same item several times. It was a one-time affair.

It would also be impossible to ask the store to show me the surveillance footage.

The only move I could make would be to report Kamuro’s theft to the convenience store and the school authorities. But even then, going about doing that would just be too disadvantageous for me, regardless of whether her story is true or not.

Even if I assume that what she said is true, I don’t want to obediently follow along with what she’s asking of me.

While it’s probably true that she’s dissatisfied with Sakayanagi, there’s little incentive for her to betray Sakayanagi just to ask someone unknown like me for help.

In which case, what’s the point of all of this?

Thinking about it reasonably, this was all probably carried out per Sakayanagi’s instructions.

She probably decided to use Ichinose as the medium for getting into a head-on confrontation with me.

“So, you think I’m lying?”

After a long period of consideration, Kamuro broke the silence.

“To be honest, there’s no absolute guarantee that what you said is true.”

Of course, after listening to her, it was clear that she was almost certainly telling the truth.

Even so, I didn’t admit this because of Kamuro’s close connection with Sakayanagi.

“…I see. In which case, should I just go and prove it to you?”

“Can you?”

“Probably.”

As she said that, she took out her student ID card and handed it to me.

“Well then, wait here and don’t lock the door.”

With that, Kamuro left the room.

No way, is she planning on going and stealing something right now to prove she’s a shoplifter?

I looked at her card absentmindedly for a short while, and after about 10 minutes, Kamuro came back. She took something out from her clothes and showed it to me.

“Hey now…”

It seems like my guess hit the mark.

“While I thought about taking a pack of gum or something, I grabbed a beer. This way was more credible.”

If it was something like gum that anyone could purchase, it would’ve been simple for her deceive me just by purchasing it in advance. But it’s an entirely different story when it comes to alcohol. Even if she was to go and borrow an ID card from another student, it still wouldn’t have been possible for her to purchase this beverage. It’s impossible for students to purchase age-restricted goods. Along with that, it’s unrealistic to think that she utilized the school’s working force or the teachers on campus. There was no mistaking that this was stolen merchandise.

Did she do it in order to gain my trust?

“Get it now?”

At that, Kamuro began to put the beer away, but I reached out my hand.

“Just in case, let me make sure it’s authentic. It could be fake.”