Don't You Know Who I Am?
The cicadas were screaming. A raw, electric drone swelled through the shrine grounds — rising, rising — until it broke into a single piercing whine that seemed to vibrate in the bones.
Neither of us said a word. We just stood there, looking at each other.
I have no power to read another person's mind. But in that moment, I knew exactly what she was thinking — and I was fairly certain she knew the same of me.
Why is she here?
Someone who just looks like her?
I wanted to believe it was a coincidence. But the word she had just spoken — junior — was still circling in my ears, and there was only one person in the world who called me that.
I let out an awkward little laugh and opened my mouth.
"You're my senior, right?"
"...That's correct."
"Haha. I never imagined I'd run into you in a place like this."
"The feeling is mutual."
Silence settled over us again. It wasn't as though anything embarrassing had ever happened between us. If anything, it was the opposite — nothing had happened at all. Unless the topic was student council business, the two of us never exchanged so much as a word. Standing here outside of school, I hadn't the faintest idea what to say.
Awkward. Painfully, unbearably awkward.
"...You're working hard in this heat. Is this a part-time job?"
I grasped at the first conversational thread I could find.
"No. This is not a part-time job."
"Not a part-time job?"
"This is my primary occupation. If anything, the livestreaming would be the side job."
Lee Sae-ah delivered the answer without a flicker of expression, then quietly resumed her sweeping.
"Did I surprise you?"
"Sorry?"
"The fact that I make my living as a shrine maiden."
"Well... yeah, a little."
She gave a small nod, as if that were only to be expected.
"I can hardly blame you. My name and the occupation of shrine maiden do not make a natural pair."
She had a point. I never would have pictured a girl with a Korean name working as a shrine maiden in Japan.
"I am helping with my mother's work. She tends the shrine on weekdays, and I take her place on the weekends."
"Ah... right."
Hold on. So on weekdays she went to school, ran the student council, and streamed once she got home — and on weekends, she managed an entire shrine?
"Um. If it wouldn't be too rude, there's something I'd like to ask."
"By all means. Feel free to be rude."
"When do you even rest?"
"I rest when I sleep."
Just how much of a workaholic was she? Not quite on the level of my previous life, but this was... a bit much.
"Are you feeling all right?"
"...I beg your pardon? I am perfectly fine."
"That's a relief. But if your head ever starts spinning, or you get this — how do I put it — this crushing tightness in your chest, go to a hospital immediately. That's your body begging you to save it. Understood?"
"...Yes. I understand."
Lee Sae-ah shot me a look that clearly said, What has gotten into you?
I hoped she'd take it to heart. For what it was worth, this was advice from someone with firsthand experience in dying.
"You must really like working, Senior."
"Excuse me?"
"On weekdays you've got student council on top of streaming, and on weekends you're out here taking care of a shrine."
"...Hah."
A sigh escaped her — a sound I had never heard from her before — and she went on.
"Junior."
"Yes?"
"Nobody in this world works because they enjoy it."
For a moment her words overlapped with the person I used to be, and a faint sense of kinship stirred in my chest. Why did she push herself this hard? Did she need the money? Or was there something else?
I decided not to ask. It would have been rude.
"At any rate — what brings you to the shrine, Junior?"
I scratched the back of my head and offered a wry smile.
"Ah. Well, I've had a lot on my plate lately. I think it's catching up with me."
"A lot on your plate?"
"Yeah."
A panorama of recent headaches flickered across my mind. Let's see — what could I actually talk about? Family was off-limits. Anything involving Beatrice was off-limits too...
"Plotting the novel, for one thing, and especially the student council work has been—"
I was still wearing that wry smile when the rest of the sentence died in my throat. Wait. Put like that, it sounded like I was taking a shot at her.
I glanced at her face.
Lee Sae-ah had pointedly averted her eyes and was sweeping faster than before.
Ah, hell. That isn't what I meant.
"Ah — no, I wasn't, you know, trying to give you a hard time or anything."
"...Yes. I'm sure you weren't."
"No, seriously."
"I am sooo terribly sorry for piling so much work on you. I simply failed to consider my junior's hardships."
The sarcasm was so unlike her usual self that a cold sweat sprang up on the back of my neck. Has she always been like this?
"No — if anything, I'm grateful. You help me out so much on a regular basis that I actually finished faster."
"...You were the one helping me. What am I supposed to do with you thanking me for it?"
She let out a small sigh, then turned her face away and spoke so quietly I almost missed it.
"...Thanks to you, my burden has lightened considerably. So... thank you."
The words came out in a voice I had never heard from her before. A little warmer. A little softer.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
"Senior."
"Yes?"
"You're not talking in circles today. That's new."
"Is that a complaint?"
The familiar frost had already crept back into her voice. She glared at me as she asked.
"Of course not."
I smiled a little and steered us onward.
"Anyway, things have been a bit hectic lately, so I came here to catch my breath. Am I imposing?"
"A shrine is always open to everyone."
"That just now — you actually sounded like a shrine maiden."
"I am a shrine maiden."
Then she pointed at the workbook in my hand.
"Incidentally, why have you brought a problem set to a shrine?"
"Sorry?"
Why had I brought a workbook? Why was she asking something so obvious?
"To solve it, of course."
"Did you not just say you came here to rest?"
"This is how I rest."
Lee Sae-ah stared at me as though she had just laid eyes on some kind of cryptid.
"...Come to think of it, you do always study whenever you have a spare moment."
"I do."
"It doesn't suit your face at all."
"It doesn't?"
"No. Not in the slightest."
I couldn't even argue with that.
"Still, studying is fun, you know. Once I get going, time just... disappears. You don't get that?"
"I find that difficult to comprehend."
A faint crease formed between her brows, and she gave a small shake of her head. Judging by the reaction, Lee Sae-ah was a perfectly ordinary student in at least one respect — she did not like studying.
She set the broom aside, apparently finished with the sweeping, and started toward the shrine building. Midway there she glanced back and gave a light flick of her hand.
"This way. It's cooler in the shade."
I followed her — and found myself looking at what appeared to be a charm stall.
"Senior. Are you having money problems?"
"...Just what do you take me for?"
"A shrine maiden working overtime to make a sale off her own junior?"
"Please leave."
"My bad."
She exhaled a short sigh, wiped a bead of sweat from the pale line of her throat, and spoke again.
"Pick one."
"Sorry?"
"I handed you an excessive amount of work. Consider this a gift, by way of apology."
"You're still hung up on that?"
"...If you keep talking back, I will not give you one."
"I was joking."
I smiled and turned my attention to the display. Money envelopes, snakes, talismans — charms in every color of the rainbow, bright enough to make the eyes happy just looking at them.
"This one prays for the financial fortune of its bearer. And these two form a pair, you see? This one is meant for two people, to..."
One by one, Lee Sae-ah pointed to each charm and explained its effect and meaning in careful detail. It was nothing like the icy presence I knew from the student council room. There was a smile on her face — something almost warmly human.
A sales smile, probably, slipped out without her noticing. But that wasn't what held me.
So this is an expression she can make too.
I stared at her face, a little dazed. I couldn't seem to look away.
"...Junior?"
"Y-yes?"
"Are you listening to me?"
"Of course."
"Then would you care to tell me the effect of this charm?"
"You said it prays for the health of its owner."
"...I could have sworn your mind was elsewhere."
She frowned faintly, then tilted her head with a look of lingering suspicion.
"Well? Is there a charm that has caught your interest?"
That was when I heard it. Footsteps, approaching from the shrine entrance. Slow. Unhurried. Coming closer.
"One moment."
She gave me a small nod, cleared her throat, and called out in a bright, practiced voice.
"Welcome!"
"Whoa — okay, her voice is exactly the same."
"Told you it was Rea. The video, the voice, all of it. Spot on."
Rea. Lee Sae-ah's online identity.
I turned toward the entrance. Two guys were sauntering in, and you could tell what they were at a glance — the kind of trash that wore it on their faces.
"Hey, shrine maiden. You're Rea, right?"
"...I don't know anyone by that name."
"Aw, don't be like that. Come on. It's you."
One of them stepped in close and shoved a smartphone in her face. A recording of Rea's stream spilled out of the speaker. Lee Sae-ah's eyes went wide.
"See? The intonation, the voice — it's identical."
"Holy shit, I've never seen a streamer in person before. She's fucking gorgeous — why doesn't she do cam streams? Think I can get an autograph?"
The smile was draining from Lee Sae-ah's face, bit by bit.
"Don't be like that. Look, we're fans. We're not gonna go around telling people."
She said nothing.
"So how about this — when do you get off? I'd love to grab a bite with a streamer I actually look up to."
"That is none of your concern."
"Aw, don't be like that. Think of it as fan service. Just this once, yeah?"
One of them flashed a grin and reached for Lee Sae-ah's shoulder.
Or rather — he tried to.
That did it. I stepped between them and snatched his wrist before his fingers could land.
A sharp crack of contact.
"Let go."
"I decline."
A brief silence.
He looked me up and down. Then he snorted out a laugh.
"What. You're in the same business?"
The way he said it — same business — told me these weren't ordinary street punks. Something a grade worse, most likely.
"...Hey. You know who I am? If you don't wanna die, walk away while you still can."
"I don't. And I have no desire to find out."
I let go of his wrist with a little flick and went on.
"Let me ask you the same."
I bent my fingers back, slowly. The joints popped, one after another.
The smirk began to fade from his face.
"If you did, you wouldn't be talking to me like that."