„It's not that I wouldn't have considered it.", 01 mumbled, still sunken in his own thoughts, slowly raising the cup towards his mouth. Eye contact was completely out of question.

Somewhere on their minds, the scene was playing like a record stuck on repeat. Over and over they had been there, in theory, of course, and in possibilities.
In What If's and Just Imagine's. It had never played out the same way. Life didn't always follow their rules. It mostly didn't.

Considering every possibility, whether it was in anxiety or careful planning, in thought or maybe in action, re-enacted at 3am in a smoked-out room above the streets of Old Town.

"I just didn't think you'd ever ask.", he completed his sentence quietly, in his head, "So I prepared to ask you instead."

He replayed the drunk night they had spent at The Hollow Saxophone Club, when Jay had been used as bait to lure him into a trap, and when he could have sworn the way his eyes diluted in the harsh strobe night could have given him away in a heartbeat.


The lights in the apartment flickered for a second, and Jay jumped.

Neon lights don't flicker.


He tried containing a shiny white smile, as he read Jays' thoughts from his eyes like letters from the front of the newspaper. Tucked away neatly in the pile of recycling across the hall, that slightly shifted every now and then - when Jay had come back after his morning errands. shuffling from one foot to the other, as he nervously gulped down a cup of tea and slid the fresh paper between the others.

"You didn't want me to know you were looking for me, I know.", 01 was ruminating to himself, but he didn't want it to be over yet. He had taken way too much joy in the cat and mouse game he had gotten tangled up in. And he wasn't going to let go of it without putting up a fight.

"Hmmmm?", Jay hummed quietly, without looking up from the frying pan, carefully sliding an egg from side to side with the motion of his hand on the handle.


Thud. 




A dull sound, yet small and subtle. Could have been anything, from the pile of papers collapsing to a door down the hall.

"Obsession", 01 thought, the cup back on the exact same spot, facing the back of Jay over his shoulder, "the best kind of infatuation."

It was quiet for a while, before the sizzling sound of oil and shuffling died down a little. Minutes before he would catch a hold of himself in the quiet buzzing, seconds before the lights died and all he could make out of his guest was a shape in the dark. 

Just seconds later, the pan would hit the ground in a loud thud.

"Would you consider it, maybe?", 01 said, in a clear voice, this time, "Marrying me?"

⋘ ↻ 01/12 ⋙