The Card That Gained a Name
The ID card was smaller than she had expected.
The Saintess accepted the card the Bureau staff member held out with both hands.
A thin, sturdy piece of plastic. Small enough to fit entirely in her palm, cool against her fingertips.
And yet it felt heavy.
“This is your Settler Candidate ID card.”
The staff member continued in a calm, even voice.
“It does not yet grant full settlement status. Your education schedule and the next-stage examination remain unchanged. Restrictions on unaccompanied outings are also unchanged.”
He turned a page of the documents and added,
“However, your Stage One daily-life adaptation records and commuting education records have been updated normally.”
The Saintess quietly nodded.
There were still many doors that had not opened. She could not walk the streets alone, and examinations and lessons still awaited her. Yet even as the staff member’s explanation continued, her fingertips remained gently curled around the edge of the card.
There was a small photograph.
It had been taken at the Bureau a few days earlier—her face as she sat before the camera in the neat clothes Earth had provided, back held awkwardly straight.
No saintess robes. No crest of the Goddess. No light of the altar.
Beneath it, Earth’s letters were printed.
Riane.
The Saintess carefully traced the space beneath that name with her fingertip.
In the other world, people had called her the Saintess. One who served the Goddess of Love, who healed, who prayed. But inside this small card, for the first time, she was not the Saintess. She was Riane.
“My name is…”
Her voice grew small without her meaning it to.
“It’s here, too.”
The Hero standing beside her waited quietly. In the silence her fingertip brushed the edge of the card once more.
He spoke low.
“Yeah. Your name’s here now, too.”
Only then did the Saintess lift her head.
“It’s such a small card… yet it feels strangely heavy.”
“It would.”
The Hero looked at the photograph on the card and smiled faintly.
“You look a little nervous in the picture.”
Startled, the Saintess looked down at the card again.
“Is it strange?”
“No. It’s cute.”
The words came out so naturally that her face flushed only a beat later.
The staff member was still sorting papers. Inside the stiff consultation room, only her own face on the card seemed suddenly, uncomfortably clear.
“Saying things like that here…”
“Sorry.”
The Hero smiled a small smile that looked not sorry at all.
The Saintess tightened her grip on the card. The consultation room was still rigid and cold, yet his voice was warm enough.
After finishing the final instructions, the staff member gathered several documents and handed them over.
“The next education schedule will proceed as previously announced. When going out, please maintain travel records with your companion, and take care not to lose the ID card.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
The Saintess wrapped both hands around the ID card once more.
She had only received a single card, yet as they left the Bureau her hands kept rising toward her chest. She still had to walk at the Hero’s side, and there were still so many unfamiliar roads. Even so, her own name rested in her hands.
Because of that name written in Earth’s letters, the Saintess held the card close to her heart even under the fluorescent lights of the corridor.
On the way home she took the ID card out to look at it several times.
At first she tried to do so without the Hero noticing. But she still had neither wallet nor card case, so in the end she could only hold it carefully with both hands.
At a crosswalk the Hero saw her and laughed.
“You like it that much?”
Embarrassed, the Saintess drew the card a little closer to her chest.
“Yes.”
Only after answering did she wonder if she had been too honest and lowered her eyes—but this time she did not correct herself.
“I keep wanting to look at it. Because the name written here… feels like mine.”
“It is yours.”
When the light changed, the Hero naturally stepped one pace closer to her side.
It was still not a road she could cross alone. Even so, today the card in her hand came first to mind.
A crosswalk she was crossing under her own name.
And beside her, the person who called that name.
Even after they reached the apartment, the Saintess could not let go of the ID card. While she removed her shoes at the entrance, while she came into the living room and set down her bag, she kept holding the card with careful hands.
The Hero paused in the middle of taking off his outer jacket, looked at her, then walked toward the kitchen.
“Ria.”
“Yes?”
“Sit for a second.”
Unable to ask why, the Saintess carefully took a seat at the dining table.
On the white island counter sat one of the mugs she had seen that morning, and beside it the settlement education textbooks she had not yet finished reading were stacked neatly.
She set the ID card down between them.
In the Bureau consultation room it had been a cold, hard card. Yet once it lay on the table, the warmth of the mug drew near the once-chilly plastic edge.
The ID card resting between mug and textbooks quietly blended in among the things of the house.
The Hero took a small box from the refrigerator.
The Saintess blinked.
“That’s…”
“Cake.”
The box was not very large—just big enough for a single slice. He brought out a plate and set two forks on the table.
Flustered, the Saintess folded her hands together.
“Even something like this?”
“To celebrate your first ID card.”
The Hero spoke as if it were nothing.
“Nothing grand. Just a small celebration.”
Beside the card she had received at the Bureau, a small cake brought out from home now sat.
Her hands paused for a moment between card and cake. Belated warmth finally reached the fingertips that had been holding the card’s edge.
“Is this… something we’re allowed to celebrate?”
When the Saintess asked carefully, the Hero answered while opening the box lid.
“Yeah. Today’s the day your name was born in this world.”
At those words she could say nothing for a while.
A thin layer of white cream covered the small cake, and a single strawberry cut in half rested on top. No candle, no decoration, no congratulatory message.
It really was a small cake.
And yet to the Saintess it was large.
The Hero started to divide the cake, then hesitated.
“Want the strawberry?”
“No. Together…”
She trailed off and smiled a little.
“Could we split it in half?”
“Then let’s do that.”
He carefully halved the strawberry. It was not perfectly even—one side was a little larger. As if it were only natural, he placed the larger piece on the Saintess’s plate.
She looked at it and laughed softly.
“You did that on purpose just now, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re far too shameless about it.”
“Special privilege for the person who got her first ID card.”
The Saintess lifted her fork.
When she took a small bite of cake, the soft cream melted on her tongue.
It was sweet.
The fluorescent lights of the Bureau, the hard chairs, the cold feel of the card still lingered at her fingertips—yet an entirely different taste spread through her mouth.
Holding the fork near the ID card, she thought of the cake again.
“It’s sweet.”
“Good?”
“Yes. Completely different from the card I received today.”
After she spoke, she wondered if the phrasing had been a little awkward and rounded her eyes. But the Hero only laughed.
“Then that’s fine. Even if the card is cold, the celebration can be sweet.”
The Saintess quietly studied the cream left on the tip of her fork, as if turning his words over.
A little cream remained on the fork; the ID card on the table felt less cold than before.
“Being celebrated under my own name… is embarrassing and happy.”
She lowered the hand holding the fork closer to her knee as she spoke.
“In the other world I was always celebrated as the Saintess.”
When a rite ended. When a blessing was finished.
“But that was always for the Saintess.”
Her fingertips carefully approached the small card on the table.
“Today… it feels like the name written as Riane is the one being celebrated.”
The Hero was silent for a moment. The tip of his fork paused on the plate.
Then he set the fork down and spoke.
“There’ll be more of them from now on.”
The Saintess looked at him.
“Days when you’re celebrated by name.”
He chose his words briefly, then added,
“Days you pass an exam. Days your status gets renewed. Days when the things you can do under your own name increase by one more. Whatever it is—one by one.”
The Saintess held her breath for a moment.
The exams, the next records—they were still far away. Everything was still careful. She could not go out alone, the books were difficult, Earth’s systems were unfamiliar. Even the ID card she had received today was not yet proof of full settlement.
Yet the Hero spoke as if it were only natural.
One by one.
She liked those words.
That she did not have to become a person of this world all at once.
That she could learn one thing at a time.
The Saintess gently touched the remaining cream with the tip of her fork.
One by one.
The words melted slowly, like the cream she had just eaten.
“Then…”
She hesitated a little before speaking.
“Will you celebrate like this then, too?”
“Yeah.”
The Hero did not hesitate.
“Next time we’ll get a bigger cake.”
The Saintess smiled.
When she first arrived on Earth, this world had been too large, too fast, too bright. The streets of Myeongdong, the corridors of the Bureau, the unfamiliar machines—all of them had been racing ahead of her.
But now everything had paused for a moment on the small dining table.
The ID card.
The textbooks.
The mug.
The half-eaten cake.
And the Hero.
The Saintess put the cream left on the tip of her fork into her mouth and smiled quietly.
Then she picked up the ID card again.
Now, in this world, she had a name of her own.
And a home to return to under that name.
