
by JesterLegacy
The first rule of being a shrine maiden is don't kiss the demon. I'm Suzune Hayakawa. Sixteen, sharp-tongued, professionally responsible for every spirit dumb enough to haunt my city. I had the rule down. As the title of the story suggests, I screwed up. Bad. What follows is a string of events I will come to regret. I lie to my grandmother. I lie to my best friend Kaito, whom I love and who, I think, loves me back. I write things in a notebook I am not proud of, and things keep getting worse. The voice you are about to read stays mine the whole way through, and that is the worst part — I sound like myself while I do it. I am telling you this up front because I want you to know what you're walking into. I am also telling you this because I came back. Stay with me. This is, at its core, a love story. One that's full of despicable acts, but also full of heart. Okay, that sounds embarrassing and weird coming from me, and I want to immediately take it back, but I'm not going to, because it's true. Pour yourself something. Settle in. Let me start at the beginning.What to Expect (since the tones of the story arcs so far are quite different):- Slight Horror and more Psychological up to chapter 15- Slice of Life and more Romance from chapter 16 onwards
Current
6/16/2026
Peak #30
16d
#2
6/8/2026
Peak #34
7d
#1
6/2/2026
Peak #38
5d
Overall Rising Stars shadow rank
deep field · ~#1745 of 12,544 · 1695 below #50
By genre
beats 95% of similar stories
beats 51% of similar stories
beats 76% of similar stories
Firing on all cylinders
Traffic and conversion are both strong for a story this size. Readers are finding it and sticking — if Rising Stars is the goal, this is the moment to push.
At this conversion, the Romance Rising Stars bar (≈1 new followers/day) costs about 109 views/day — the story currently gets ~90.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 20–49 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views over the recent window.