REVERSE ISEKAI'D IN AN OFFICE ROMANCE? chapter ten! (Patreon)

synopsis: who'd wanna trade a fantasy world for a studio apartment and a shitty job? well, you when you've got a ridiculously hot coworker you're sure is your new prince charming! it's just, uh, you didn't think you'd get caught up in a love triangle when your new neighbor starts noticing your new behavior!

pairing: dorky!coworker x isekai'd!reader x grumpy!neighbor

content: fluff and angst, reverse isekai, slow burn, (POTENTIAL SPOILER FOR THE UNNAMED EXTRA SO MAKE SURE YOU ARE CAUGHT UP HERE FIRST) reader is the og priestess from tue in that reader's body, tension, domestic fluff, crushing hard, teasing, cleaning wounds, conflicting feelings are starting to sprout

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Spending your night with a tiny green-eyed menace hadn’t been anywhere in your plans. 

Like anything you planned ever actually worked out right anyway. 

Your neighbor hadn’t made any lewd comments or flat-out flirted with you when you showed up, just grunting out an apology before rushing down the hall. It was hard to hold onto your annoyance when he left before you could even say two words to him. 

It made you feel…weird. To say the least. 

It wasn’t that you hadn’t believed him on the phone. But it had been disarming to realize he was anxious, his dark eyes clouded with concern you hadn’t seen before. 

His kid didn’t seem that bothered though. 

You hated how used to it he seemed. Resigned to the chaos.

The paw of a stuffed-dog clutched in one hand as he walked through to your kitchenette, blinking sleepy eyes after the door shut behind him.  

This time, at least, your fridge was full of food. 

He picked out a few snacks, scarfing them down by the time you disappeared into the bathroom to change into a t-shirt and sweatpants, tossing your old clothes in the laundry basket before picking up his trash. 

“Thanks,” he muttered under his breath, as close as he could get to grateful.  “You wanna watch some tv?” You offered, and he just nodded slowly. 

“My dad’s not that bad,” he muttered after a few awkward seconds, stifling a yawn as he curled up on the edge of your bed, pulling your blanket up to cover his small frame while you changed the tv to something kid-friendly. 

“I never said he was,” you exhaled, and he let out a little kid huff that spelled out how little he believed you. 

“He tries,” he defended him. 

“I know,” you softly replied back. 

He was still a child. And most of the time, children tried to see the best in their parents too. 

How long had you tried to believe the best in the temple that took you in? 

He didn’t say much after that. Just readjusting and clutching his toy dog tighter while he focused on the cartoons playing on the screen. You texted your coworker a couple times. Apologizing mostly. Telling him that you liked meeting his family and wishing you could’ve stayed longer. 

Little dots popped up before a small voice interrupted your focus. 

“Can you tell me that princess story?” He requested, so quiet it was hardly audible. 

“Oh,” you breathed, surprised that he remembered your shoddy attempt before as you shrugged. “If you want.” 

“Yeah,” he muttered.

Too tired to be sarcastic. 

So you tried to be sincere. 

Retelling your own tale, changing a few of the details here and there as he listened and only occasionally yawned. Painting him a picture of what felt like some faraway fantasy to even you now, turning murders into mysterious missing people cases, describing a rigidly responsible Duke seeking to discover them, of a persistently pesky foreign prince trying to propose to the princess while her heart was only beginning to be swayed for her gruff and noble knight.  

He fell asleep before you finished. 

But it felt sort of nice to be able to say some of it out loud, even if all of it wasn’t entirely true. 

Some invisible weight briefly lifted off your chest as you turned the volume down on the tv and glanced out the window at the moon looming overhead. 

Headlights cut through the dim street. A familiar shape of a dark car, your breath catching as you almost convinced yourself that it was him. 

You froze.

Squinting through the thick glass at the street and parking lot below, second guessing yourself before a small sniffle behind you had your head twisting back. Your neighbor was still curled up, resuming his snoring as the tv continued its low drone. By the time your attention turned outside again, the car was gone. 

And you were deflating immediately, telling yourself that it was a stupid assumption.

A pathetic wish to see him again. 

Dreaming up an idiotic idea of him parking below and taking the stairs two at a time up to your door, coming back for that goodnight kiss you’d been craving.

You wanted to know what he’d taste like. If his lips would be soft or chapped. How long it would take him to stick his tongue halfway down your throat. Whether he’d cup your cheek or maybe wrap a warm arm around your waist to pull your chest to his. 

You drifted off with thoughts of him, half-propped up against your pillows, awkwardly positioned so you wouldn’t accidentally kick the kid. 

A quiet knock on the door brought you back, wiping drool from the corner of your mouth and stumbling to your feet, padding over to answer it with a yawn. 

“M’coming,” you called out, hand nearly missing the lock before you flipped it off, your throat parched and dry as you stifled a cough. Twisting the lock and-

Got jumpscared? 

You almost shut the door back in his face, not recognizing him for a moment before he shoved his foot in with a low groan of pain. “The fuck?” 

It took you a second for your tired eyes to adjust and actually register that it was him past the dark circles beneath his blood-shot eyes. His nose was swollen and crusted red as he pushed his way inside, a knot lodging its way in your throat and bobbing there as you tried to swallow your surprised gasp before it could wake his son. 

“What happened to-” 

He shushed you, putting a finger on your lip that you had to swat away – just for him to nearly stumble into your arms as he tried to nudge the door shut behind him with his foot.

You grabbed his hand to get it off your face, but even that felt sticky, recoiling as you realized his knuckles were bruised and battered too. 

“Did you get mugged?” You asked, even if the idea of someone choosing to stop him on the street and demand money from him was absurd. 

“No,” he retorted, scoffing incredulously back in that hushed whisper, his stare shifting to his sleeping son before he let out a deep exhale, shoulders slumping. 

“Come on,” you gritted your teeth, glancing at his son before grabbing his wrist and pulling him towards your tiny bathroom. “I have a first aid kit under the sink.” 

You missed your magic. 

Mourned the invisible loss, the emptiness that still plagued you some days, acutely aware of the absence even now. Some mornings you woke up still searching for it, panic washing over you before you remembered where you were. 

Who you were. 

Your bathroom was barely big enough for both of you. 

He sat on the closed toilet lid, his unfocused gaze drifting over the undecorated bathroom as you dug out the small convenience store kit you picked up when you had to replace your own bandages. You eyed him as you pulled out what you needed from it, the way he spread his muscled thighs like he was making space for you between them. 

His black compression shirt was too dark for any stains to show up on it.

“Did you leave any blood on my door?” You asked, using your exasperation to disguise the concern underneath. 

“No clue,” he answered honestly, blinking slowly as his dark green eyes settled onto you, hazy and hardened. He traced the outline of your oversized shirt down to the thick sweat pants – and somehow made you feel more exposed than your much tighter outfit from earlier. 

It was intimate. 

Damn near sensual how he stared at you as you ripped open an antibacterial wipe with a sigh and placed yourself between his legs, trying not to constantly bump into them. 

You cleaned him up methodically. 

For a few minutes, it felt like you were reliving one of the lives you left behind. As if you were dipping a cloth into a bucket and scrubbing dirt off the face of a fellow child the temple had taken in. Taking care of someone without expectation. Doing your part as you washed the blood from his nose and fists as tenderly as you could. 

You didn’t want to hurt him. 

Even if you were certain this had been his fault. 

He coughed and had to lean over to spit blood into your sink, the pink stuff slowly slipping down the drain as you cringed at the sight. You tilted his chin up to the low light, frowning at the cut crossing over his lips near an already-existing scar. 

“You do not take very good care of yourself,” you observed, not sure if you meant to say it out loud until it was already in the air. 

“Hey,” he grumbled, but he didn’t sound all that offended by it. “S’not just me I have to take care of.” 

You wanted to tell him that he couldn’t help his son if he couldn’t help himself. 

But there was more to it than that. And the words, no matter what order you tried to restructure them in, didn’t really fit right. Couldn’t capture it in a way that didn’t make you feel like you were just telling him something he probably already knew. 

“He loves you,” you said instead, biting your bottom lip as you wiped one last streak of blood off from below his nose. 

He blew air back out, the corner of his mouth twitching down instead of opening to answer. 

Did that mean he didn’t believe you? 

Or was he thinking about the woman he made him with? 

The mother you’d never met? The one neither of them ever spoke about? 

Did his son love her? 

It was hard to picture her. Imagine what she might’ve looked like when he favored his dad so much. You were curious though. Wondered whether or not it had been a one-night stand sort of thing or a serious relationship. 

“I’m sorry,” he grumbled under his breath as you tried to dismiss the image of the mysterious mother from your mind. It sort of felt like he could sense you were thinking about her, changing the subject to distract both of you from her ghost. 

“For getting your blood all over my sink?” You sarcastically muttered, tossing another no-longer sterile wipe into the plastic bag in the trash can. It was easier to be dismissive than to admit that his apology made your stomach twist in unfamiliar knots. “Or shoving your son off on me again?”

“That’s not, I mean, that too, but-” It was bizarre seeing him stammer, his usual demeanor fractured under your flickering bathroom light. “I’m sorry for not getting to know you. Before.” 

Oh. 

“It’s, uh, probably for the best,” you breathed back, awkwardness creeping in as you avoided meeting his stare. “Not like I’d remember anyway.”

You wondered what the girl in this body before you had thought of him. If she thought anything of all of him. Had she even noticed the father and son next door? 

“Still,” he hesitated. 

At least he sucked at coming up with things to say too. 

“I don’t know,” he continued, shrugging his shoulders. “Do you think you’re different?” 

It wasn’t like him to be philosophical. If you could call that philosophical. But it was deeper than most of the surface-level stuff your conversations rarely strayed from. 

“I mean, yeah,” you swallowed, nervousness creeping in. There was no way he knew. Not a chance he’d ever guess the truth. 

There were days you had a hard time stomaching it. 

You assumed the girl was in your body, back in your world – or maybe she had passed away peacefully, given you the chance to slip into her place. Either way, you hoped she was happy. 

Untethered from all of your own burdens. Unbothered by the cruelties life so often had to offer. 

You wanted to believe that the universe had been doing both of you a favor. That the gods you used to blindly worship were fixing some screw-up instead of creating one. 

“I sound fuckin’ stupid, don’t I?” He grunted, but you shook your head. His own hung down, his now-bandaged fingers raking through his dark hair to push it back from his beat-up face. “Am I making you uncomfortable?” 

“It’s just weird for me,” you excused, “It feels like someone else. Like it’s not really me.” 

That wasn’t straying too far from the truth, wasn’t it? 

“I get it,” he nodded. 

You almost asked if there was some awful moment in his life he could mark as before and after. 

But you knew better. 

Knew not to mistake this conversation as something more vulnerable – even if it felt like he had peeled off the shiny veneer of your shield.

“Was this part of your work?” You asked, clearing your throat as you cleaned up the rest of your counter. 

He wouldn’t meet your stare. 

“S’not like I can quit right now,” he grumbled, giving you an answer without really answering anything at all. 

What kind of job here involved getting your face bashed in? 

Was he a part of some shady ring of crooks and criminals? Was he a bodyguard for hire? 

You didn’t know enough about the current job market to make a good guess. 

But you couldn’t dismiss the feeling that it couldn’t be good if he wouldn’t tell you more. If he couldn’t ease your concerns by telling you that it wasn’t going to happen again. 

He could sense your judgement, his nose scrunching up as he scoffed for what felt like the fifth time, “Not all of us can have nice office jobs.” 

Or cushy checks to live off of. 

The settlement you received from the accident had afforded you more than enough to be comfortable. All you ended up having to do was sign some thick papers promising you weren’t ever going to sue for more in return – as if you would even know how to do that. 

Quite frankly, you had more than you knew what to do with. For now, you saw no problem to just keep living like this. Stay at your job and continue riding with your coworker. Living in this little apartment you were growing rather fond of. 

It wasn’t a bad life.

Sure, some of the other girls at work could be bitchy, and yeah, there was still plenty you had yet to discover or learn about this sparkling new frontier you found yourself stuck in, but that was nothing compared to the death and despair you’d left behind. 

A single dad couldn’t really compare to a duke or a crown prince, yet you were (begrudgingly) even beginning to enjoy his company just the tiniest bit too. 

“It is what it is,” he said, softer this time, like he accepted it and you should too. 

“You’re not stuck,” you murmured, not sure which one of you needed the reminder. “You can choose a different path.” 

He probably thought you were privileged. 

That you had no clue what you were talking about. 

But you’d been in impossible situations before. Experienced enough to know that the only time it was too late was when you were dead – and even then, you still managed to come back. 

You expected him to laugh at you. Say it was stupid. 

Instead, he stared at your lips like he was wondering whether or not you’d swat at him again if he went in for a taste. 

“Can I kiss you?” He asked first this time, his jaw tense as he leaned down, close enough for his nose to to nearly touch yours. 

“You’re not going to tell me what happened, are you?” You asked, knowing the answer already. 

“No,” he answered, shaking his head stubbornly. 

“Then you can’t kiss me,” you insisted. 

Part of you thought he’d change his mind. Reveal what his last-minute job was. 

But he just gave you a disappointed smile, little lines by his eyes crinkling as he brushed past you, too much of his body touching yours as he slipped back into your bedroom. 

You shouldn’t be disappointed. 

Not one bit. 

Not when it was his fault you didn’t get to kiss the man you wanted to tonight. 

But faint dissatisfaction was swirling around in your stomach as you stared at his broad back, chewing on the inside of your cheek as you followed him out after a handful of seconds. 

He scooped his son up carefully, adjusting his head to make sure he didn’t wake up. He paused to look back at you, your eyes studying his expression, seeking something you couldn’t explain in the broken blood vessels and darkening bruises.  

“Sorry for fucking up your night,” he grunted.

“Yeah,” you nodded, not sure what else to say. “Um, he’s not going to be like, freaked out by your face, is he?” 

“Nah,” he grimaced, and you could tell it bothered him even if he didn’t want it to. “Kid’s seen me worse than this.” 

You flinched. 

Couldn’t stop yourself from reacting even as he turned his back to you and slipped back out your door. Throwing you one last glance over his shoulder, just a subtle nod and a soft, “Good night. Get some sleep.” 

A more sensible woman might have dismissed him as a mess not worth fixing. You wanted to. The temptation crawling under your skin to just block his number and save yourself the trouble of caring for someone who was always going to choose the wrong path. 

Your last life should’ve taught you that trying to repair someone else was never going to work. You’d only get burned. Buried. 

But you wanted to be the savior. 

It was hard to stop seeing yourself as one, even if you lacked everything that you used to make you special. 

He didn’t even want you to save him. 

You were just the idiotic girl next door he could con into babysitting his kid – one who just happened to be pretty enough to bury his tongue inside of if he got the chance. 

So why was it getting so goddamn difficult to drop the thought of him every time he said goodbye? 

You crawled back into your bed – and only then did you notice the crumpled bills left on your nightstand, ones you hadn’t even noticed him slipping out. He must’ve done it on his way out, or before he picked up his kid. 

Still, you pushed them underneath the slat under his door when you woke up. 

It didn’t feel right to keep. 

You spent the rest of your Sunday waffling between the bed and the kitchenette, scrolling on your phone trying to distract yourself from the confusing mix of emotions tangling together in your chest as you weighed the night before. 

It would be easier if you could figure out precisely how your coworker saw you. If you were standing on the same ledge or if you were on entirely different levels entirely. 

You didn’t want to jump just to realize he wasn’t there with you. 

Didn’t want to hit the ground on your own. 

At least you knew what your neighbor expected. 

He wanted a place in your bed. Your body instead of your heart. Your time and your attention – even if those were supposed to be for his son instead of him. 

You weren’t sure which man you were lingering on more the next morning. 

Midway through getting dressed, your skin still a little damp from your shower as you clasped your bra, grateful for the comfort of these garments compared to your old ones when your phone buzzed from where it was charging on your nightstand.

Your coworker was calling. 

“Hello?” You answered, almost out-of-breath as you leaned against your bed, still glancing around the room searching for your discarded heels. 

“Hey, I’m sorry, something came up with my brother and I don’t think I’ll be able to pick you up. Do you think you can take the bus-”

“Oh, um, yeah, I can figure it out,” you impulsively replied, even if you had no clue where the bus stop even was. 

“I don’t want to make you late, it’s just-” He sounded apologetic. Embarrassed, almost. 

“Don’t worry about it,” you insisted, not wanting to become a burden on him. “I’ll be fine.” 

Except, when you tried to search for the bus stops by you, the stupid internet wouldn’t work, your cell service blinking unhelpfully as you stared at a blank page, frustration building as you glanced out your apartment window uselessly trying to recall passing by one or even how buses worked when you never bothered looking it up. 

The minutes ticked away, and before you could be too late, you were rushing out into the hall to knock on the next door, chewing on your cherry-flavored glossed lips as you waited for a reply. 

“Do you know where the bus stop is?” You asked the second the door cracked open, fixing the strap of your purse over your shoulder as he leaned against the wooden frame. 

“The hell you need to take the bus for?” He grumbled, looking somehow worse than he had the other night, the bruises a lot darker and his hair all mused from sleep as he drank milk from the half-gallon container. 

“To go to work?” You exhaled, exasperation creeping in as you checked the time on your phone. “My coworker can’t take me and-” 

“Let me get my keys,” he grunted, and you gawked at him.

“What?” You blinked, but it didn’t click for you until he was barking at his child to get his shoes on. 

“I owe you, remember?” 

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