you'll be itching for days

It's rude. You're making someone take their time to read something you couldn't bother to write. You're telling them they were so unimportant you couldn't be bothered to actually take the time to say something yourself. And frankly, you're lying about it while you're at it.

He thinks this must be a joke so he goes to the comments, and sure enough it's absolutely full of people who not only seem to think this spoon is worthy of rating in the first place, but who seem to have very strong opinions on what makes it a good or bad spoon. To Ilya a spoon is a spoon is a spoon. It's absolutely baffling to him that people seem to think the handle looks like it's not weighty enough, or that the shape of the bowl is wrong, or that it's too flat or too square. He opens the playlist of cutlery rating videos because surely this can't be the norm, and sure enough every single one has a comment section full of very strong opinions about how good or bad this normal fucking fork or knife is.

And then a memory returns to him, as he looks over at his peacefully sleeping husband, of Shane moving in and having to get rid of all his cutlery to replace it with his.

"Sorry, I know it's stupid, but yours are really bad to hold, baby. It's literally all I can think about every time I eat here."

And Ilya didn't mind at the time. So Shane likes his own cutlery better? That's a small compromise when Ilya doesn't have strong feelings about silverware in the first place. But now things are beginning to click, and he's beginning to draw a line between the opinionated spoon people and the day he had to drive his cutlery to the nearest goodwill.

Ilya (Carefully. So so very carefully): My Shane, I came across some things online and I was thinking... Do you think you might be autistic?

shane hollander appreciation week: day seven free choice: character profile ♥ | insp

bonus:

which combined with ilya loving just making things up and saying them (as seen in the "yes, the rumors are true-" scene) offers the very funny idea that ilya actively tries to offer as much privacy as possible by just throwing out stories about them at random so there IS no central story for people to hound shane about.

assorted backstories a la "ilya just started talking and found out with everyone else where he was going with this":

they got snowed in at all stars one year (b-but wasn't that year in florida?) and decided there was nothing better to do

it started as a bit and neither is willing to give up first

they paired off to combine forces like nato

they paired off to limit how many kids they could have in the future to make sure hockey stayed fair

ilya lost a bet six years ago

shane lost a bet three years ago

ilya got tired of remembering phone numbers for his hookups and shane's is easy

ilya got tired of having to look things up in english and french when talking to other people and decide to marry someone who speaks two languages to save time

shane is gifted enough (wink wink wink) that other people are cowards and only ilya was brave enough to rise to the challenge (this one gets him in trouble on the phone later but it also gets him laid that night at home and also confuses the online speculation about who tops and bottoms, so net positive tbh)

yuna hollander is the best manager in the business and a political marriage was the best way to secure her services longterm