Shijima

Shijima is warm, playful, and receptive to humor, laughing genuinely when others remain unimpressed. Her kindness gives Azumi confidence after his difficult introduction at school, and she develops an easy rapport with him. She is also perceptive enough to recognize his romantic interest, even when he cannot express it directly.

Beneath this openness, Shijima is deeply self-conscious about her smile. Classmates once mocked her exposed teeth, prompting her to adopt a restrained, carefully practiced expression that allows her to appear cheerful without making herself vulnerable. Her outward composure therefore reflects both resilience and a habit of suppressing discomfort.

Shijima also displays a troubling degree of resignation toward the demands placed upon her. Even after learning that the Pesca Princess is intended as a human sacrifice, she describes herself as fortunate and willingly accepts the role assigned to her by the city.

Shijima can perceive grotesque supernatural entities that are invisible to ordinary people. This perception includes the beings associated with the coastal depths and the presence looming over the city's ritual. The story does not establish whether this sensitivity is innate or connected to her arrival in the city.

She possesses no demonstrated combat abilities. During the festival ritual, she instead carries ceremonial objects, including the Konoshiro's Hook, and wears garments designed to conceal her from the entity beneath the sea.

Shijima is the central figure around whom the one-shot's mystery develops. Her selection as Pesca Princess initially appears to be a prestigious civic appointment accompanied by special privileges, compensation, and confidentiality. Her disappearance from ordinary school life and the evasive behavior of local residents lead Azumi to investigate the festival and its traditions.

The city's long-established families have preserved a system in which selected young women are presented to the sea as “wives,” supposedly safeguarding the community and becoming its spiritual protectors. Shijima's smiling image allows the authorities to disguise this practice as a public celebration.

Azumi interrupts the ceremony and attempts to carry Shijima away, only to discover that she understands the ritual and has chosen to comply with it. Her fate becomes the emotional center of the story's examination of conformity, self-effacement, and the social pressure to keep smiling.

Azumi — Shijima's classmate and closest on-page companion. She is the only student who genuinely laughs at his first comedy routine, while he becomes determined to protect her when he uncovers the truth behind her festival role.

Yoshifusa — A fellow student within Shijima's social circle. Unlike Azumi, Yoshifusa accepts the city's treatment of Shijima as an honored necessity rooted in local tradition.