Chapter 1: Gece Vardiyasında Dokunuş
The air in the back office was stale, thick with the lingering scent of antiseptic and the faint, sweet trace of the strawberry fluoride they’d used on the last kid of the day. Berkay rubbed his eyes, the pale blue glow of the monitor painting the room in the cold, lonely light of a drowned aquarium. Files were strewn across the desk, a topography of neglected paperwork. On the walls, old dental x-rays hung like ghostly portraits, the shadows of molars and incisors a silent audience to his procrastination.
A soft click, the groan of the door hinge.
He didn’t have to look up to know it was Semih. The shift in the air, the subtle scent of his sandalwood soap cutting through the clinical smells—Berkay had catalogued it years ago.
“You’re still here.” Semih’s voice was a low rumble, tired at the edges. He leaned against the doorframe, a dark silhouette blotting out the brighter light from the hallway. “The Keskin case can wait until Monday.”
“It can,” Berkay agreed, not moving his eyes from the spreadsheet. “I just wanted to finish sorting the supplier invoices. The clutter was starting to itch.” It was a half-truth. The clutter did itch, but so did the silence of his own apartment, the empty space where this professional purgatory at least had a shape, a form he understood.
Footsteps, then the warm, solid presence materialized beside his chair. Berkay kept his spine straight, his focus artificially welded to the screen. He could feel the heat radiating from Semih’s body, could see the familiar weave of his charcoal-gray trousers in his peripheral vision.
“You always do this,” Semih said, not unkindly. A statement of fact. “Take on the mental load for both of us.”
A calloused hand came to rest between Berkay’s shoulder blades.
It was meant to be a brief, comradely pat. A ‘good job’ or a ‘let’s go home’. But Semih’s hand didn’t lift immediately. The warmth of it seeped through the thin cotton of Berkay’s polo shirt, a brand against his skin. The pressure was firm, almost possessive. Berkay’s breath hitched, a tiny, damning sound lost under the distant hum of the sterilizer.
His entire world narrowed to that point of contact. Every muscle in his back contracted beneath Semih’s palm, a silent, involuntary tremor. Years of careful compartmentalization—the placid surface of a work partnership, the buried fossil of a university crush—cracked open. The touch was a lightning rod, striking straight down into the pit of his stomach, igniting a flush that crept up his neck.
Semih’s fingers moved. Just a slight, almost unconscious shift, the pad of his thumb brushing the taut ridge of Berkay’s trapezius. It wasn’t professional. It wasn’t friendly. It was an exploration.
Berkay froze, his gaze glued to a cell on the monitor that read ‘Unit Cost: 3.47’. The numbers blurred.
“You’re all knotted up,” Semih murmured, his voice closer now, as if he’d leaned down. The words were a soft puff of air near Berkay’s ear. “Carrying the weight of this place by yourself.”
It’s not the place, Berkay thought wildly. It’s you. It’s always been you, and your long-distance girlfriend, and your life that happens parallel to mine, never intersecting.
The hand finally lifted. The absence was a shock, a cold void where the heat had been. Berkay forced himself to inhale, to unclench his jaw. He slowly swiveled his chair, aiming for casual, landing somewhere in the vicinity of shell-shocked.
Semih was standing there, closer than Berkay had anticipated. His dark eyes, usually so focused and serious, held a peculiar, unreadable depth in the low light. The faint shadow of his moustache accentuated the line of his mouth. He looked… considering. The usual easy-going distance that had defined them for the past year was gone, replaced by a charged, watchful silence.
“I’m fine,” Berkay managed, his voice coming out rough. He cleared his throat. “Just a long week.”
“Yeah.” Semih didn’t move back. He studied Berkay’s face—the flush Berkay could feel burning his cheeks, the probably-too-wide look in his eyes. A slow, knowing smile played at the corners of Semih’s mouth. It wasn’t his usual business-partner smile. This was something else, quieter and more dangerous. “You jump like a spooked cat. I barely touched you.”
The accusation, gentle as it was, hung in the tepid air. Berkay had no defense. He just stared, his mind blank, all his carefully constructed walls lying in rubble at his feet.
Semih broke the gaze first, glancing down at the scattered files. He reached past Berkay for a stray pen, his solid forearm brushing Berkay’s shoulder. Another deliberate touch? An accident? Berkay couldn’t tell anymore; the line had vaporized.
“You know,” Semih said, his tone conversational again, though his eyes lingered on the side of Berkay’s face. “Elif and I… we’re taking a break. Indefinitely.”
The words landed not with a splash, but with a deep, subterranean thud. Everything rearranged itself around them. The stale office air, the ghost-teeth on the walls, the years of resigned silence.
“Oh,” was all Berkay could say. A stupid, inadequate syllable.
“Yeah. ‘Oh.’” Semih finally took a half-step back, giving Berkay room to breathe, though the space between them still felt electrically charged. He tossed the pen onto the desk. It clattered against the keyboard. “I’m starving. Haven’t eaten since that sad sandwich at lunch. You want to get out of this tomb? Grab a proper meal?”
He wasn’t asking about food. Not really. The invitation was a doorway, kicked open in the dim, blue light.
Berkay looked from Semih’s expectant face to the cold monitor, to the files that suddenly seemed laughably insignificant. The itch was gone, replaced by a dizzying, terrifying pull. The narrative of his quiet, contained life had just been ripped in half.
He nodded, barely trusting his voice. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”
“Good.” Semih’s smile this time was full, real, and it reached his eyes. He turned towards the door, not waiting for Berkay to stand. “Lock up. I’ll wait by the car.”
He walked out, leaving the door open. Berkay sat for another five seconds in the humming silence, the ghost of Semih’s hand still searing his back. Then he stood, his legs unsteady. He fumbled for his keys, switched off the monitor, plunging the room into a darkness relieved only by the exit sign’s faint red glow.
In the dark, the past was just bones on a wall. The future was an open door, and the muffled sound of a car engine idling in the night.
The future was an open door, and the muffled sound of a car engine idling in the night. The mangal restaurant was all noise and steam, the sizzle of lamb and the clatter of plates a comforting chaos. Over cold Efes beers and shared pide, the professional veneer finally dissolved. “I should be finalizing the supplier contracts tonight,” Semih said, rubbing a hand over his jaw, the words coming out in a weary rush. “But honestly, I’m just tired of getting every single thing right on paper and getting everything else all wrong.”
“Uzaktan ilişki,” diye devam etti Semih, şişesinden bir yudum daha alırken, “her şeyi kağıt üstünde mükemmel tutmaya çalışmaktı sanki. Zamanlama, mesajlar, aramalar.” Bakışları boşluğa dalıp gitti. “Ama odanın ortasına bıraktığın öfkeyi, sessizliği yazamıyorsun. Onlar yerleşiyor.” Şişeyi masaya bıraktı, sesi alçaldı. “Bir sabah uyandım ve tüm bu doğru yazılmış senaryonun içinde, aslında hiçbir şey hissetmediğimi fark ettim.” Gözlerini Berkay’a kaldırdı. “Hiç.”
The beer bottles multiplied on the table like metallic weeds, each one a toast to endings and unsaid beginnings. Semih’s laughter grew looser, his gestures wider, his words softening around the edges until they slurred into a warm, quiet mumble. Berkay watched, nursing his own single drink, as the tectonic plates of their dynamic shifted under the amber glow of restaurant lights.
A few hours later, Berkay guided a stumbling Semih into the passenger seat of his own car, the leather sighing under his weight. The drive was a slow crawl through the sleeping city, the streetlights washing over Semih’s slumped form in rhythmic, golden waves. Berkay’s eyes kept leaving the road, drawn to the sharp line of Semih’s jaw, slack in sleep, and the way his dark shirt strained over the solid swell of his chest with each deep breath. He looked utterly disarmed, and Berkay’s throat tightened with a protectiveness that scared him.
Inside Semih’s apartment, the silence was a thick blanket. Berkay wrestled with Semih’s shoes, then, with clumsy, careful hands, began to unbutton his shirt. The fabric parted, revealing the familiar, muscular torso Berkay had secretly traced with his eyes for years. His fingers trembled.
Just as he was pulling the shirt free, Semih’s eyes fluttered open. They were hazy, unfocused, but they locked on Berkay’s face with startling intensity. “Ne ara…” Semih’s voice was a sleep-roughened rasp, “…bu kadar uzaklaştık biz, Berkay?”
Before Berkay could process the question, Semih’s hand came up, cupping the back of his neck. He pulled him down, and their mouths crashed together.
The kiss tasted of raki and regret and pure, unadulterated want. Semih’s lips were insistent, searching, his stubble scraping Berkay’s skin. For three heartbeats, Berkay melted into it, his body singing with a rightness he’d only ever imagined. Then, panic surged, cold and bright. He wrenched himself back, breaking the contact with a gasp that echoed in the quiet room.
“Hayır, Semih,” he breathed, his voice shaky. “Sen sarhoşsun.”
He finished quickly, mechanically, pulling the covers over Semih’s now-passive body. In the living room, Berkay collapsed onto the couch, the ghost of Semih’s kiss burning on his lips. He stared at the dark ceiling, his mind screaming a chaotic mix of elation and despair, and tried, uselessly, to will himself into a dreamless sleep.