I finally reach home. Closing the creaking unsteady door behind me, I soullessly head towards the kitchen with the pretzel ingredients.

Dancing with death. Hahah… Hahha… Hahaa….

“Who’s dancing with death?” Jin asks, his fingers still nimbly moving with the long knitting needles, a thin wool thread slides in and out of the loops and the ball of yellow yarn quickly downsizing. He recently found himself a new hobby.

I pour the flour into the big wooden bowl… Oh no I added too much flour.… 

And then add sugar. Shit…. I mistook salt for sugar.

“Tina?” Jin finally puts down his knitting needles and peers into my face to read my expression. I’m sure if he could see souls, it’s on the verge of leaving my body. Jin’s usually lax eyebrows pull together, a worried look plays in his eyes. “Answer me. Who’s dancing with death?”

“Me. I ran into a shaman with that good for nothing two-faced grass idiot. And she said I’m going to dance with death.” I sigh, putting down the mixing bowl with ruined batter. Unless my housemate’s tastebuds are dead, he possibly can’t bear 4 tablespoons of salt shoved into his mouth with every bite.

“Is that bad?” He tilts his head in ponder.

When I explain how shamans, fortune telling and foreshadowing works, his expression turns grim. “I knew I should’ve killed that—” He mutters, but I didn’t catch the last part.

When I ask him to repeat, he quickly changes topics.

“Do you have enough ingredients for the snack since you ruined that batch?”

I look down at the disappointing dough, as salty as I currently am. 

“…Yeah. Just enough for one more attempt..”

I scoop the hopeless dough and throw it away.

“Need help?” Jin enters the kitchen, his tall figure looming over the small counter. “Looks like you’re going to mess this one too and I’d like my dessert to not taste like a salt pile.”

“… Yeah. Just mix that flour and egg together for now. I’ll get the oven started.” I hand over the flour bag and some eggs.

The kitchen remains peaceful as two people busy themselves, the only occasional sound being regular clacking as the wooden spoon in Jin’s hand hits the bowl edges, and the fire crackling beneath the earthen oven.

That was, until… a small barely audible noise came from the front door.

Whine whine whine

“… Ginger?” I raise my head, wiping the sweat that collected on my temples from the heat radiating from the fire. I hastily wipe my charred hands on my already dirty skirt, and walk towards the sound.

“I’ll go. You need to work on my snacks.” Jin interrupts, pushing the bowl of dough over into my arms. His eyes looking towards the door with a frown on his face, he clicks his tongue. “Troublesome.” He mutters as he walks in large strides.

><><><><><><

I shove the pretzels into my mouth as I mindlessly stare out of the window.

“Hot!” I had a huge urge to spit it out, but being the tough woman that I am, I let my tongue burn with the hasfakalsahdl and swallowed it down. The recently finished snack burned my oesophagus as it slid down to enter the stomach.

“……”

Jin has never showed this much disappointment towards his landlord’s behaviour until now.

“The trope might not apply here so don’t worry.” Jin softly blows on the hot pretzels before taking a huge bite. “Besides, she said dancing with death. Didn’t say you’d die.”

Tropes. Story cliches. I’ve been living here long before I knew I was living in a typical story world with medieval isekai setting. Technically, you’d wonder why I’m not thinking “Oh I’m not in a story, this is all real! The people are real!” like other female leads finally come to realise after 100 chapters into the story. They rely on the story that they know and forget to counter the fact that they are situated in a real world and therefore circumstances change with their every action.

However, I’ve always been in this world. So of course everything is real, this is why I’m wary of the tropes and believe this ‘fate’ can be changed. Also why I’m giving my damn best to not get involved into any story line.

This “reincarnator” label tagged on me makes it hard to avoid the cliches when the world keeps throwing shit scenarios at me….

“Tina, isn’t that red head coming here looking a bit familiar?” Jin interrupts my thoughts, and I raise my head to look at the woman descending from an overly extravagant carriage.

“I literally just came back from her castle though? Why is she here?”

Ah shit. Here we go again. I smell trouble heading my way.

yam.laure

Hey again! Lol no I didn't drop this. Thank you for waiting for the updates. I know it took longer than I told it would take :( Sorry. Ngl this chapter didn't really meet my expectations because I just started writing after a long while and I had no idea what to write. But I thought I'd write a chapter to set up for plot later.

Thank you so much to @Pink_Cat123 for her fan art of Tina and Jin! I received this before I went on a hiatus, but didn't get to post it until now. It's really lovely <3

Link: https://www.deviantart.com/sarahpinkcat123/art/Fanart-867033291?ga_submit_new=10:1610579401