Corner Store

04 | somewhere to be

He's tortured, a little, watching as she walks away, dark hair reflecting the moonlight like a halo, her silhouette moving slowly through the night.

It's an odd thing to feel for someone he barley knows, this kind of attachment, a magnetism of sorts, and though he never thought he would, he welcomes the feeling-that warmness that seeps into his veins whenever she's around, that lightness he feels and finds he misses now whenever he's alone. It's not without concern that he lets it take control, concern for his overall stability, and for his heart, which, despite not being completely aware of it, he has guarded fiercely against anyone who might have been interested in seeing it up close. It's been like that for as long as he can remember and he can't recall ever having really thought anything of it. Not until now, at least

Can watches as Sanem continues to walk forward, her steps lacking a sense of steady purpose, feet falling perhaps a slight regretfully, moving towards whichever direction as if maybe she hadn't really wanted to go. It's a long shot, perhaps, but in that window of time in between she hasn't gotten too far and she's gone, there's some part of him which urges him to move. Because he's always been hoping to know her somehow and because it would be an awful waste of a perfectly beautiful night.

"Wait! Sanem, hold on" he calls out since, evidently, the right decision is to go after her. His intuition rarely fails him, its saved his life enough times anyways, and when her head turns, that curtain of shiny dark hair whipping a little at her cheeks, a shy and tiny smile seeping into the curves of her features-he knows that this time is no different.

He catches her by surprise, though not enough for it to show too much on her face and she halts in her spot, waiting for him to close the small distance that separates them. He does so with ease, jogging a little to get there faster and tucking away a strand of hair that had come loose from his bun over the course of the day.

"Are you hungry?" he asks once he's back within talking distance and by the looks of it, that wasn't what she was expecting him to say. Her eyebrows crinkle in a way he can't help but find cute and her head tilts with confusion.

He clarifies what he meant to ask, if only to make sure he hasn't offended her "I mean, it seems like you just now made it home and its kind of past dinner time so-" He feels awkward suddenly, like maybe he misread the entire situation, before she surprises him by nodding eagerly "God yes" she says, throwing her hands up "I was already dreading Ayhan's cooking, I love her, so much, but let's just say it's not really her strong suit- there's a reason Osman always does it, I guess" she tells him, though the last bit of it seems mostly to herself.

A thought seems to cross her mind then that makes her blink away. She gnaws on one of the corners of her bottom lip, drawing his gaze there before speaking again "It's Friday, though" she offers, as if reminding him "are you sure you don't have anywhere to be?" It's not unkind, actually sounding as though she's waiting for him to suddenly remember a prior engagement and leave. He wants to chuckle at how utterly unaware she is that this is the somewhere he has to be, it has been ever since that day he wandered in looking for rice.

At first, he'd made excuses for himself which, in hindsight, had been weak, at best. He'd even tried to play it off when Emre had asked him why he needed laundry detergent so late at night. We have like two bottles in the laundry room, he'd remarked upon peering into the shopping bag he'd left in the kitchen. Can had blinked, once, twice, not really processing the question before shrugging I have a lot of....laundry he'd answered, even though it didn't make any sense. Emre hadn't pushed it any further, though something in his brother's eyes had told him that he hadn't bought the lame excuse. He couldn't really blame him for it though, he himself didn't buy those excuses for long either. And although he wouldn't go as far as to consider himself enlightened now, at least he knows some things-he knows that her smile is contagious, that he has way too much laundry detergent, and he knows that the look in her eyes has to mean something and now, he guesses, it's just a matter of finding out what