this one idea i had for a while

the part where şımarık tells him what happened.

A moment passes, or maybe hundreds of years for him, and he tries to pay attention to the show, like she seems to. Overthinking about the mistake of being in this place won't get him anywhere, he concludes, and decides to just wait it out. The clothes just need to dry, and he's out. Out of her place, of her comfort zone, of what little space she has-

"Justice found you at your mom's funeral, right?"

His fingers twitch. A beat passes. "Yeah... Why?"

"How were you when she found you? What were you doing?"

He breathes in deep. An uncomfortable question, one that he doesn't mind answering. If it's her. "She found me then, but she didn't approach me. So I don't know what exactly I was doing. If I had to guess, it was probably when I was crying. She approached me later when I was at home."

"I see."

More silence. The shouting of two women on TV fill the air as they continue to stare at the screen, neither of them brave enough to steal a glance at the other.

"...Why did you ask?" he questions tenderly.

"Curious."

Some censoring on the TV accompanies the tension in the air. He does his best to breathe in deeply and silently, as if breathing with the slightest bit of noise will trigger some sirens. When will the washing machine be over and done?

"You never asked me," she finally says.

"Asked what?"

"How I was found," she says, turning his head to him, chin on the pillow. "You never asked me."

"Should- Should I ask?"

"I don't know, should you?" she questions, pushing herself up to a sitting position, just slightly leaning towards him. Staring daggers into his own eyes, and he realizes quickly - he stepped on a landmine. "Is there a reason why you didn't?"

"N-No, not really..?" he answers, a bit more rushed than it should be. She picks up on his uncertainty.

"Not really?" she frowns.

Truthfully, genuinely, it never even crossed his mind. So he simply shakes his head, afraid to push out a wrong answer.

"She says she found me in court," she says, voice devoid of any emotion. "And after that, she approached me in an alleyway where I was stressed out, throwing up."

He waits for more, but she stays silent, so he finds himself nodding slowly in understanding. All of it feels so rushed - forced - she clearly doesn't want to tell him any of this - but his foot is on a landmine and any attempt at escape will blow up the both of them. So he stays still, like a lamb awaiting the mercy of a butcher.

"I bashed my head against the wall enough to make myself pass out. She stopped me then," she adds at his silence, noticing the grimace that appears on his face. "What? Too unsettling for you?"

He breathes out shakily, secretly clutching at a pillow near him for some sort of grounding. "It's just unfortunate..."

"That's one way to put it," she nods, staring at him with wide, observant eyes. Invading. Scanning for some sort of sign.

More silence follows with the show running in the background, until one of the contestants starts screaming in the shared living room, and Şımarık's hand shoots out to grab the remote, turning off the show. She smacks the remote back on the coffee table, and pushes herself closer to him.

"You're not asking," she points out.

"Asking what?"

"I gave you a crucial piece of information and you're not asking," she says between gritted teeth, frustrated. "I told you I was in court and you're not asking. You're not asking."