New Homes Sweet Home

"Here we are, your new home sweet home."

Misaki and I followed Babs, the half-elf guild receptionist, into the tiny room. We had been window shopping for a house, or at the very least, some kind of small temporary apartment. A place we could both share until we found our footing financially speaking.

"This is the kitchen. This is the bathroom. This is the bedroom. And this is the backyard."

Babs, the blonde haired Elvin beauty, smiled the entire time as she gladly took us on a mini tour. Misaki wore a horrified expression with every new area revealed, struggling to understand how people were meant to live in these conditions.

The kitchen had only one sink. The drainage system was just a hole in the wall with a rusty dark pipe leading outside. The bathroom was a tiny space with a single wooden bucket. The toilet was another hole in the ground that, thankfully, connected to a proper sewage system when flushed.

The bedrooms? There was just the single one. One bedroom. One mattress. A fairly large cockroach crawled up the wall as soon as we entered, and Misaki immediately jumped back in terror, clinging to me. Babs almost seemed to glare at us in that moment.

"It's bad enough you get to share a room with him, and maybe a bed, but now you're just showing off to spite me."

"Ahh..." I didn't know how to respond to that.

Misaki just stared back at her.

"Hmph." Babs scoffed, then stormed past us toward the front door, opening it and slamming it behind her.

I guess that meant the tour was over.

"Ahh, good night?!" I shouted after her, hoping my voice carried. She had really done us a favor here, getting us a decent space with the money we had made from the duck quest. Technically we had only earned a combined sum of 285 silver, about a quarter of the asking price for rent. But when no one was looking, the blonde receptionist leaned in and whispered in my ear: "Don't worry about it. Just try to pay on time next month, alright? For now, it's on the house." After that, she pulled back, pretended everything was normal, and went back to work.

"Hey, what's that your girlfriend brought over?"

Misaki pointed to the basket sitting on the living room table. It was one of the very few furnishings in the entire house, alongside two chairs, a stool in the kitchen, and the bed in the bedroom. Also, did she just call Babs my girlfriend? Was she jealous?

I walked over and opened the basket. Inside were two bowls of something. I reached in to uncover one of them and was immediately hit with a pleasant smell. Duck soup. Just as she had promised.

I remembered the moment during the quest when my sunglasses notified me with a pop-up message.

Congratulations on your hunting, adventurer. Duck soup for you tonight. Courtesy of guild employee Babs.

I had thought it was just a fun quirk of the system. I had no idea she was actually going to make us dinner. We had been planning to grab takeaways from the adventurer's guild, but now, looking at the delicious smelling food on the table in front of us, I understood why she said there was no need.

I was hungry.

I pulled back a chair, sat down, took a bowl of soup out of the basket, and had a spoonful of steaming duck ready to go into my mouth when Misaki walked over.

"Aren't you going to wash your hands first?"

I frowned. Not because I thought she was bossing me around, or that she was wrong. No. I was annoyed at myself for letting her catch me off guard and giving her a tangible excuse to think I was still that immature Daichi she was once married to. The Daichi who constantly needed his wife to remind him to wash his hands before eating.

Without a word, I got up and headed toward the kitchen. Misaki, in turn, scratched her head as she moved toward the bedroom. She was most likely going to shower before coming out to eat. She had always done that in our previous life after a long day of working.

As soon as I reached the kitchen sink, I turned on the taphead connected to the large barrel of water and began washing my hands underneath the rush. I let my mind wander.

Misaki was going to be undressing in the room next over. God, how I missed the sight of that back when we were still a couple. Her body was perfect. Her smile was perfect. And... Wait. Why the hell was I thinking about that right now?

I slammed my forehead repeatedly against the barrel in front of me. Stop thinking about her. Stop thinking about her. Stop thinking about her. You already know the truth about her, I told myself. Yes, she might be pretty on the surface. Beautiful, even. But on the inside, she is a heartless, despicable, rotten piece of...

"Daichi?"

I spun around when I heard her calling my name, forgetting to turn off the taphead. When I noticed the water was wasting, I hurriedly switched it off before turning to face her.

Misaki stood in the doorway, a towel wrapped around her chest. Looked like she was just about to head into the shower.

"What was that noise just now?" she asked, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Ahh, it was nothing," I replied, instinctively shifting my gaze away from her half dressed state. It was better that way. We were no longer together. I did not have the right to look.

Misaki crossed the room, her bare feet nearly silent against the wooden floorboards. When she stood in front of me, she gently grabbed my chin and turned my face so I was looking back at her.

She was scrutinizing my forehead.

"Dummy," she hissed. "How many times will I tell you to stop hurting yourself when you're angry?"

She lifted a hand and pressed her palm to the top part of my face. A soft glow appeared as she began to heal me. It was impressive how quickly she had adapted to her powers. I had for sure thought she might still be grappling with the existence of magic in this world, seeing how all of this, the questing, the fantasy creatures and people, was new territory for her.

While she fixed me up, I was not sure where to look, so I mostly kept my gaze on her. We were so close. Her strawberry scent still clung to her as usual, and I briefly wondered how long it would last, now that she no longer had access to her usual cosmetics.

"All done."

When she finished, she lowered her hand and stared at me softly.

"Any residual pain, headache, or migraine?" she asked. "Feeling anything at all?"

"No, I'm fine," I replied. "Thanks."

Misaki looked like she had something on her mind, but I walked past her a second later on my way to the living room. The duck soup was getting cold. Or maybe I was just avoiding anything that remotely had to do with our past.

It was probably a little easier on her, given how she was the one who broke our vows and cheated. She probably wanted to apologize, or clear the air, or whatever. I was not interested.

A simple apology was not going to erase the months of heartache. It was not going to clear the bitterness in my chest. So she could keep whatever she wanted to say to herself.

I left the kitchen with her standing alone in the dark.

***

Several minutes later, we were both sitting in the dimly lit living room, eating our soup in silence. The awkward quiet was broken only by sounds of chewing, slurping, and the occasional clearing of throats. We had both bathed, taking turns obviously. Misaki, with her now wet, glistening hair, still wore an annoyed expression. There was no soap in the bathroom, so she could not wash her hair as thoroughly as she wanted. She was pissed about that. Very pissed.

"First thing tomorrow, we're heading out to get basic necessities," Misaki said, briefly looking up from her food to stare at me. "I am not taking another bath without soap."

She was no longer wearing her mage's robes. She had on the light inner garment she had been wearing before arriving in this new world. I was dressed similarly. I had taken off my sunglasses and coat jacket, and was sporting a simple black shirt and trousers.

"So, you wanna go shopping?" I asked, a mouthful of duck.

"Hm." She nodded.

"In a fantasy world."

She nodded again.

"On only our second day here."

She dropped her spoon and crossed her arms, glaring at me.

"Hey now." I also dropped my spoon and lifted my hands in surrender. "You're right. We do need basic stuff around the house."

Misaki seemed to relax at that, and I lowered my hands to continue eating. She also focused her attention back on her food.

"But as it stands right now, we're broke," I said, touching my soup with my spoon. "We spent every last silver we made today on scoring this place, remember? We can't even afford breakfast tomorrow."

Misaki was quiet for a few seconds.

"So what do we do?" she asked. "Go back to the fields and resume world war ducks? Do I have to remind you how we barely escaped and you almost died, Daichi? Absolutely not."

I frowned.

"Look. I remember what happened. I was there," I said to my ex wife, forcing my tone to remain respectful. "But this is how things operate in this world. If we want to make more money and buy the things we need, then we have no choice but to go back out there and hunt monsters."

"What about manual labor?"

Misaki suddenly hit me with a question that nearly made me choke on my duck. Crap. It was a good question, and she had a point.

Manual labor did exist in the kind of fantasy world we were living in. Blacksmithing, farming, even receptionist jobs like Babs's for example. We could easily go out and apply for any of those tomorrow, and if we got hired, there would be no need to put our lives in constant danger. But no danger meant no adventure. No adventure meant no fighting monsters, no leveling up, no unlocking new abilities, no getting stronger. So what was the point of being in a fantasy world to begin with?

"I say we go out tomorrow and find easy, safe jobs we can handle," Misaki said, being the voice of reason as usual.

Sighing, I let my forehead fall onto the table with a thud.

"Daichi! Oh my god, how many times have I told you to stop doing that?"

I could not argue if I tried.

If I said I wanted to go hunt monsters and level up, she would call me a child. If I said living in a fantasy world like this meant having fun and going on adventures, she would call me immature and say I needed to grow up, because life is not a game. This was my second chance to start over. My second chance to have fun for once, where all the problems and limitations from my previous life no longer held precedence over me in this new world. But unfortunately, that was not the case. Unfortunately, I ended up stuck with the one person I never wanted to see again, and because of her, having fun was no longer in the cards for me. At least, not anytime soon.

We were stuck together for the time being, and whatever I did, I also needed to take her safety into consideration. I could not take her near any dungeons, ruins, caves, or monster infested labyrinths. I could not put her in danger just because I wanted to live out a fantasy of being a hero.

This sucked. She was ruining everything. But she did save my life earlier today during our first quest. So I owed her that much.

I lifted my head from the table, taking a deep breath to calm my nerves and disappointment. "Alright, fine," I said. "Let's do it your way then."

***

When it was time to sleep, I let Misaki take the only bed in the house.

"Are you sure, Daichi? It's a little big. I think we can both fit."

Misaki stood by the doorway as she asked, resting her shoulder against the wooden frame.

"Nope, don't worry about it."

I was lying face up on the hard living room floor, using my coat jacket as a makeshift blanket.

"But you might catch a cold on the ground like that," Misaki said. "Just come inside with me. I'm sure there'll be plenty of room on the..."

I raised my hand to catch her attention.

"Could you please help blow out the candles on the table for me? Thanks."

I nestled into my coat jacket as I prepared to doze off. I was not going to share a bed with her, no matter how much she pleaded or how uncomfortable the ground got.

Sensing my stern resolve not to accept her offer, my ex wife eventually gave up trying to convince me. She walked forward, blew out the candles on the dinner table, then headed back to the room. On her way, she briefly stopped to glance over her shoulder. "Good night, Daichi," she said. But I was already pretending to be asleep. Even faking a snore and everything.

As soon as she left, I opened my eyes. The living room was now completely bathed in darkness. I adjusted myself so I was staring up at the ceiling. My first night in this fantasy world. I still could not believe I was here.

I turned my head toward the bedroom. Even though the door was left open, from my vantage point, I could not really see inside. I hoped the bed was comfortable enough for Misaki to fall asleep. Shortly before we called it a night, she had made me scan every nook and cranny for any cockroach or cricket that might be hiding. Luckily there was nothing, and she finally agreed to sleep in the place. The only thing was, she wanted me to join her. Given that we would just be sharing the bed, I was never planning to be that close to her again. Emotionally or physically.

At least, not if I could help it.