Mert had never been in love.
Truth be told, he knows that he doesn't have time for such a thing. All of his devotion and feelings are for his adoptive father Celal and his adoptive sister Melek. They are the only people in the world whom he trusts. Everyone else is either a temporary ally, an enemy or simply a pawn in the game he is playing. People are cold. People can hurt him. He knows that so well, he had learned it as a kid and that lesson stuck with him in his teenage years and turned into a certainty now when he became an adult. Adult... well, at least that's what his ID says. He believes he is 23, 24 at most, but his ID shows him to be a couple of years older than that. It's hard to know your age when you grew up on the streets.
Sure, he had slept with girls before, but it had been just to satisfy a biological urge. There was no real intimacy there. He charmed them and then invited them over for sex. The next morning, he sent them on their way, sometimes without even so much as a greeting. But they never seemed to care - they wanted just one thing, the same thing as him.
Everything goes as it should.
And then he meets Eylem.
She's a journalist and snaps some photos of the thief he had recently arrested. Of course, he deletes them and she gets angry, so she insults him. He's amused.
She's cute and sassy and not impressed with him at all. And somehow, she manages to attract commander Yusuf on her side. Great.
So he invites her to tag along during the operation he is planning in order to make amends. "We can pretend to be a couple", he says. She's still not impressed and rebuffs him when he jokes with her and says that they should kiss.
He ends up catching the thieves, and she gets the pictures she wanted. "You owe me a dinner", he jests. He doesn't expect her to actually accept.
However, she does.
He had told her during their first meeting that she should let her hair down, but hadn't expect her to actually listen to him.
But look, there she is, in a red dress and with her long hair unfolded, completely free of any hairpins, and he stands in the middle of the street and cannot stop staring at her, because she is incredibly beautiful.
The owner of the small restaurant they go to eat at is a kind woman named Füsun, and Eylem introduces him as her friend. She then tells him about Sarp, Füsun's son and her best friend, who spent a year in prison after assaulting commander Yusuf at the graduation ceremony. Mert remembers Sarp - they were in the same year at the police academy, but they were never friends. Sarp was the best student, and his actions at graduation caused a huge scandal. He had been expelled because his father had been Celal's right hand - and that's how Mert, who was the second best student, ended up in Yusuf's team. Yusuf is really obsessed with putting father Celal in prison, but as long as Mert will be there, that will never happen. It's really ironic how things turned out, Mert thinks.
Eylem also talks to him about Füsun's kidnapped son, Umut. This brings back the bitter memories of his childhood, but, as always, he doesn't share anything.
He kisses Eylem on both cheeks when they part ways in the street.
He really likes this girl, and for a reason, his walls aren't that high when he's with her.
Füsun is in danger to lose her restaurant as the rent tripled, and Mert tries to reason with the owner of the space, to no avail. Eylem criticises his approach, but she ends up admitting that she, too, wanted to kick the owner's arse. And then, all of a sudden, she blurts: "I hope you're not doing this in order to seduce me, right?"
He laughs and tells her that this is not his style; if he wants a woman, he will tell her directly. He then invites her to drink "the best coffee in Istanbul". She accepts, and he takes her to his place.
It's not like he doesn't want her. She is beautiful, and he is attracted to her, but he is also interested in her as a person, which is something that never happened before with any of the women he brought to his apartment.
The first thing she notices, apart from the fact that the elevator door serves as entrance door, is the mattress, and she mocks him: "Is this your style?"
"I know you're not the type of girl who could be fooled by this," he answers, smiling.
The second thing she notices is the fact that his flat doesn't have a lot of furniture, and she questions him about this. He initially tries to deflect, but she doesn't give up.
So he ends up telling her about how he was forced to sell napkins on the street as a kid, how he ran away and bought a mattress with the other kids, and how they were caught by their captors and beaten because they were unwilling to leave the mattress behind. He even discloses the age thing.
It's the first time he shared something so personal with another human being. Well, Melek knows about these things too, but she knows about them because she also lived them.
He feels the urge to kiss Eylem, and actually leans in, but she backs off, and he doesn't insist.
"You hide your true self from the others," she tells him.
Smart girl. She really is different from all the other women he met. Oh, if she would only know exactly how much he hides, how many scars he has...
He comes to eat at Füsun's house; she invited him as thanks for helping her with the restaurant. Somehow, the owner ended up relenting, and she pays the same rent as before.
They talk some more about her lost son Umut - Füsun is convinced that he is alive and expects to see him again sometime. Mert tells her that he would like to be her son; and it's the truth. As a kid, he strongly believed that his family was looking for him, that they were missing him. He'd like to be Umut. Even with a brother like that crazy guy Sarp.
He falls asleep listening to a musical toy which was Umut's favourite.
He really likes that song, but has no idea why.
Eylem noticed that he liked the toy, so she gifts him a similar one.
"I don't like things in the house, you know that," he says.
"It's fine, if you want to leave, I will come and retrieve it," she says.
He laughs.
The truth is that she has given him something that he doesn't wish to leave behind. He tells her as much, and then he leans in and kisses her, and this time she doesn't back off; she closes her eyes and receives his kiss.
It's a chaste kiss, just a peck on the lips, but she is visibly startled afterwards.
Mert appears calm, but his heart is beating wildly. No woman ever made him feel like that with only a kiss.
"What are you doing?" he asks himself out loud immediately after Eylem leaves.
The question is useless, because deep down inside, he knows what's happening. He's falling in love, and it scares him like hell.