It's Tuesday morning, and as I wake up, a single word enters my head—emptiness.

That's exactly how I feel. There's something missing. But what?

Is there a book that came out recently I haven't bought? Is there a cafe I want to go back to? Did I forget to do my homework? I reach over for my bag, but it's all done.

What? What is it I'm missing? Why am I feeling this way?

I lie in bed to think this over, but not for more than a few minutes. I do this enough to know I won't come up with the answer staring at the ceiling.

Before my alarm clock can ring, I get up, change and grab a quick breakfast, then head out for school.

-0-

"Another of those days, huh?"

"Yeah..."

Saya didn't need to ask. As soon as she saw me, she knew I wasn't in the best of moods.

"No idea as usual?"

"No idea as usual..."

"Hmm..."

She contemplates my personal turmoil while munching on her lunch. A big wad of rice goes from her lunchbox into her mouth, and she makes numerous thoughtful sounds as she chews. On any other day, I'd eat with her zeal, but not today. When I'm feeling gloomy, I need the entire hour to finish my lunch.

She swallows. "This has been goin' on for how many months? Or has it been years by this point?"

"It's been years."

"If it's been that long, it can't be nothin'"

Where I worked to get rid of mine, Saya still speaks with a slight accent. It wasn't on my to-do list, but the residents here always gave me funny looks or asked where I was from when I opened my mouth. I used to be upfront with coming from Itomori, but then came the usual assault of questions: "You lived there when the comet struck?!" "What was that like?" "How lucky was it you were having an evacuation drill?" "Is it true that the mayor knew about the comet falling and was planning on doing nothing about it?!" It was dizzying, so until I matched my pronunciation to the locals', I told them I was from whatever backwater town came to mind first.

"Years, years..." Saya bounces the ends of her chopsticks off her lips, then tugs on the bottom one, all while still thinking. "Ah!" she exclaims with a snap of her fingers. An idea must've finally come to her. "You're in the wrong field!"

"Huh?" My brain must be on the spritz, because I think she's talking about the campus we're eating on. It's spacious and grassy, but who in the world would mistake this for a field? Mitsuha, you idiot, she's talking about your major! "What about it?"

"Do I really need to spell it out? You're shootin' for a degree in fashion, right? Maybe it's that ain't what you're cut out for."

That's not an idea I haven't come up with myself. I didn't choose fashion as my major out of passion or anything. Since Gran had me weaving this and stitching that, it felt like my upbringing gave me a leg up for the fashion industry, so I would have an easier time finding a decent-paying job. Back in Itomori, I could never think of anything but getting to Tokyo, but once arriving, I didn't have the first plan on where to go or what to do. I was finally free of my shrine maiden duties and no longer the mayor's daughter, so in a way I was a blank slate with that fresh start.

But what do I write? I asked myself that question in one form or another countless times, and it's my personal theory that that's why I feel so empty some days. I had a clear-cut identity molded for me back in Itomori, but I have yet to cut one for myself here in Tokyo.

"You spent your whole life learnin' the ins and outs of runnin' a shrine, and I know you hated it more than blowin' money, but maybe a part of you longs for that?" Saya's talking crazy now. "Like, what if you're meant to be involved with a shrine? Not an active role like braidin' cords and puttin' on dances, but...hm...I got it! What if you study the myths and legends behind individual shrines! You know, study the folklore—!

"No!"

"Eep!"

The shout came out on its own after hearing folklore. Before, I didn't have the energy to argue with Saya, but now I'm gripping my lunchbox in anger. My father used to be a folklorist before he met Mom, from what Gran told me. Him arriving to study the legends surrounding the shrine was how they met.

Mom... Gran told me something about her once. It wasn't long after her death, but I remember what she said so vividly, like I had recorded that one line from our conversation.

She said that Mom was more Miyamizu than anyone.

I didn't understand what that meant as a girl, and to this day I still haven't grasped what she meant. What made Mom more "Miyamizu" than anyone else in our family? How can one person be more "Miyamizu" than their parents or siblings? We all come from the same gene pool, don't we?

I doubt I'll ever have the answers to any of those questions, plus more in the future I'm sure I'll have, but I know one thing is certain...

Mom had an identity.

"I'm sorry..." My anger has subsided, so I issue Saya the apology she's due.

"...R-Right...So, anything related to shrines and gods is off the table. We'll file that one into the 'never bring up' folder." She gnaws on her food to forget having ever suggested her idea, with her eyes wide and staring off into the middle distance. She looks like a child who just got reprimanded, which makes me feel worse for snapping at her. I apologize again.

"It's not related to college," I say, shaking my head. "I started feeling this way just after Itomori was destroyed."

She makes another of her thoughtful sounds while sucking on her chopsticks. At least she's back to normal. "Homesickness?"

I shake my head again. "I think this has to do with my identity."

"Your wha?" Her response is one of complete befuddlement, but I can't call it unwarranted. When I first hit on the idea, I second-guessed myself straight away.

I explain myself to her.

After arriving in Tokyo, we spent probably a good month getting to know the sights and sounds, exploring every avenue, and noting down every last little mildly interesting thing. We used learning the street layout, locations of the train stations, and important stores as an excuse to hang out in Tokyo after spending so many years daydreaming about it, in between unpacking and moving in to our respective new homes. Those days were some of my most fun in a long time—no, ever—but once our fervor cooled and we settled into our college routines (Tesshi jumped straight into the workforce), it slowly occurred to me that we were just wasting our evenings away. I don't regret them, but when I would wake up the following morning feeling like a part of me had been hollowed out, I couldn't help but wonder if there was something about our nights that wasn't wrong in some way. We weren't doing anything illegal or immoral, and it was a while before I could explain what might be bothering me.

After the light bulb went off on my identity idea, I went on a mission: figure out who I, Mitsuha Miyamizu, am and what makes me me. And in order to accomplish that mission, I doubled down on my Tokyo nights out.

Tokyo was built from the ground up as a place for shopping and killing afternoons, but if you look at those stores and venues with the right lens, instead they're hobby shops. Singing karaoke became trying my hand at professional singing, and the notebooks I bought strictly for classes became my journals for poetry and diary entries. Anything I could possibly do or anywhere I could possibly go I did. I went for jogs along the river. Joined a gym. Photographed the city streets and parks. Took up illustration. Rode trains around countless times. Ate every dessert on every menu at every restaurant and cafe I cared to try. Rented a violin to learn how to play. Printed sheet music to compose my own songs. Worked a number of part-time jobs. Talked about the weather with the employees giving out freebies on the streets. Started my own potted vegetable garden on our balcony. Checked out novels from the library, bought manga from bookstores. People-watched at the station, at intersections, at backstreet bazaars. Wrote reviews on the food I ate, the shops I shopped at, the books I read, the music I listened to. And the kick of it is that all of that stuff worked, for a little while.

It was like I was feeding a second stomach of mine, one whose appetite was curbed through new activities and temporary hobbies rather than meals and snacks (but sometimes through meals and snacks). But no matter how much I filled it up, it always emptied out, unsatisfied with what I had put in it. And then I would wake up again, wondering why I was in tears, wondering why I felt so empty.

It's a cycle I can't break free from.

"Your identity...Your identity, your identity..." She repeats the words while patting her lips with her chopsticks. She mutters some things while tilting her head this way and that, apparently trying to understand what I just told her. Can't blame her for her confusion. I hardly understand this feeling myself and wouldn't be surprised if I'm wrong. "Are you sure it doesn't have to do with college?"

"I'm sure."

"But, like, what you do for a career is a big part of your identity, isn't it? Just look at the very first line on any famous person's Wikipedia page. It says that whoever was a whatever their career was. Wouldn't you hate it if your Wikipedia page said you worked at a dry cleaners?"

"Is that really where you think I'll end up?" I give her a sharp glare, but it's also a worrying sign if my best friend is telling me point-blank that my future career prospects are working minimum wage jobs. Isn't that what college was invented for? So that people don't get stuck with the crappy jobs? I get good grades. Why would she think that...?

"Um! It's just an example!" She backpedals nervously, but the damage is done. "Bu—But think about it! This started after you saved Itomori, so that could've been a wake-up call for your callin' in life, and wakin' up feeling like crap is, like, the gods' way of tellin' you that you need to keep savin' people rather than sittin' in an office cubicle."

We're bringing the gods into this now? Saya's starting to talk like that boyfriend of hers...

She does have a point, much as I hate to admit it, that our careers are a huge part of our identity. We spend a third of our waking life—I think the statistic is—working our day or night jobs, and that's not a fraction you can say is just a fraction of our lives. If I choose a job or career I'm unhappy in, that's a third of my life I'm spending unhappy, and then won't being unhappy for that long become part of my identity?

"But I don't know what I want to do..." I had been bringing a bite of sausage up to my mouth but then lower it, and now I'm staring at it, rotating it slightly in my chopsticks.

"Not the best time to be havin' that thought," Saya mutters, then she pops a morsel of rice into her mouth and looks away as though what she said was just the sound of her chewing.

There's nothing I really aspire to. If money wasn't a factor, I'd be more than content to spend my days hanging out with Saya and Tesshi here in Tokyo. And then if we somehow became bored, we could hop on a train and ride it to another city. Kyoto or Osaka. There's so much to see and do in this country. Who thought money was a good idea?

"Auooooo!" I cry out and slump on the bench.

"...Uh, Mitsuha...?"

Waking up feeling empty, identity problems, college majors, money. The one thing Itomori had going for it was that I never had to figure out so much on my own.

Why's life gotta be so complicated now?