Carlos stepped onto the bus after a long first day of work. The first days are always the longest, he thought to himself as he sat down in one of the seats near to the front. Tomorrow will be better.

He placed his bag on the seat next to him, pulled out a book, and began to read. The bus drove on and after a few minutes it stopped again to let passengers on and off. Carlos turned his head and looked behind him. There were quite a few people sitting in back and only a couple got off the bus. Carlos turned his head back to the front of the bus and stopped. There was a man getting onto the bus. Apparently, he was the only one getting on.

The first and most striking thing about the man was, in fact, his voice. Carlos had heard him thank the bus driver and excuse himself as almost tripped over one of the other passenger's bags that had fallen to the ground. His voice was amazing and yet Carlos could not explain why nor could he describe it.

The man made his way to a seat nearer to the back of the bus and Carlos went back to reading. Well, somewhat reading. He was also trying to hear the man's voice again. Alas, he did not speak for the entire ride to Carlos's stop so Carlos stood up, a little disappointed, turned back to grab his bag and a quick look at the man, who, Carlos noticed, had been looking at him, but quickly averted his gaze. Smiling to himself, Carlos exited the bus.

God, Cecil, now he's gonna think that you're a creep or a stalker or something, Cecil chastised himself as he watched the man walk away from the bus stop.

"Well, hello there," a sultry voice said, interrupting his thoughts, and Cecil turned his head. A young woman sat down into the seat right in front of Cecil's and turned her head around to look at him.

"Um, hello," Cecil greeted, unsure of who this person was or what she wanted.

"I'm Lauren," she told him sweetly. "And just who are you?"

"Uh," Cecil hesitated, not sure if he should tell her what she wanted to know, but then decided that it would be rude not to. It was just his name, afterall. "I'm Cecil."

"Mm, Cecil," she repeated. "That's a really pretty name."

"Well, thank you," he said, brushing his eyes to the side to look at the other passengers on the bus to see if they thought that Lauren's interaction was strange. Apparently, they did not.

"Such a pretty name, and a pretty voice to match," she continued. Cecil was unsure of what to say, so he just thanked her again. Quickly, his eyes darted to the front of the bus where he could see that his stop was only a couple minutes away.

Unfortunately, Lauren took the opportunity of Cecil's momentary distraction to shimmy past him and into the seat in between him and the window. Cecil had to move his leg quickly so as to not get kicked.

Lauren sat down with a contented sigh. "Well, that's better!" she said. "Now I don't have to crane my neck around just to talk to you." At the end of her sentence, Lauren placed her hand onto Cecil's thigh, which made him jump and Lauren laugh.

"Oh, I'm sorry about that," she said with a chuckle. Cecil's let out a nervous laugh just as the bus came to a halt. Looking at the sign above the bus driver, Cecil made a quick decision.

"This is my stop!" Cecil told her somewhat loudly as he jumped out of his seat, grabbed his bag, and made his way to get off the bus even though he was still a stop away from where he was supposed to get off.

"Oh okay. Bye!" Lauren called after him. Once Cecil was off the bus, he looked back and saw Lauren watching him out the window as he walked away.

Carlos stepped onto the bus after a better second day of work with his team of scientists. As he walked down the aisle, Carlos opted for a seat in the middle of the bus, hoping that the man that he saw yesterday would be on today as well. He took out his book and read a little before the bus came to a stop and the stranger got on.

Carlos smiled to himself as he heard the stranger's "Thank you!" to the bus driver and saw him make his way down the aisle from the corner of his eye. Luckily, he sat in relatively the same location as he had yesterday so, if he spoke, Carlos could hear it.

Sadly, the stranger didn't speak once he sat down and Carlos ended up getting off the bus once again disappointed.

Cecil was nervous the second he sat down. He was so nervous that he barely managed to watch the stranger from yesterday get off the bus as he waited to see if Lauren would once again be gracing his presence. And, unfortunately, she did.

Once she got onto the bus, she looked around the seats and, upon spotting him, she cried out, "Cecil!" and all but ran to him, sitting down in the seat next to him.

"Oh, hi again, Lauren," Cecil said politely. Cecil was pleasantly surprised at the conversation that followed.

"How are you today?" she asked politely and Cecil told her that he was good.

"How about you?"

"I'm great, thank you."

They sat in silence for a minute, until Lauren asked if he was going home for the day.

"Yeah, long day at work," he told her, overjoyed that she wasn't acting strange again today.

"Yeah, I am too," she said with a small sigh. "It's almost the weekend, though. Just one more day."

Cecil laughed and agreed with her. "Yeah, a couple days to relax, and then right back to work again."

Lauren looked at him sideways. "I'm guessing that you really like your work."

Cecil smiled. "Yeah, it's exhausting sometimes, but, in the long run, I don't think that I'd rather be doing anything else."

"Hm," Lauren mused. "And just where do you work?"

Cecil stopped for a second before saying hesitantly, "Um, at the radio station."

"Oh wow! That's cool!" she said before quickly looking at her watch, jumping up, and walking down the aisle, all while calling over her shoulder, "I've to go! See you tomorrow!" And then she had the bus driver pull over quickly and got off of the bus.

Cecil was left at his seat, extremely confused, and slightly nervous about what he had just done.

As soon as Cecil got onto the bus the following evening, he heard his name being called.

"Cecil! Ce-cil!"

Looking towards the sound of his name, he saw that Lauren was already on the bus. Cecil looked around nervously and saw that the stranger was looking back at Lauren as well. Once he had turned his head back towards Cecil, the radio host ducked his head down to avoid the man's gaze and quickened his pace as Lauren's calls got louder and louder.

Once Cecil made it to the back of the bus, he addressed Lauren. "Shh! Be quiet," he told her as he sat in the seat that she so obviously wanted him to. "What are you doing here Lauren? Don't you get on in like two stops?"

Lauren just laughed before she told him, "Well, yeah, usually. But today I got on the stop before the stop next to the radio station."

Cecil swallowed hard. I knew I shouldn't have told her where I worked, he thought.

"Do you wanna come back to mine tonight?" Lauren asked suddenly as she leaned towards Cecil, her voice quiet. "We could have dinner and then some dessert."

Cecil was so stunned by the offer that, when he tried to speak, he only ended up opening and closing his mouth without saying anything relatively coherent. Lauren saw this and held her pointer finger against his lips, ceasing Cecil's stammering.

"Shh. . . ." she said. "You don't have to say anything." Her hand fell from his mouth and latched onto his thigh again, and again Cecil jumped, but this time he fell out of his seat, only managing to stay standing from his vice-like grasp on the back of the seat.

"N-No, no, no, I don-don't want to—to do that, I-I mean, you don't—we barely know—we shouldn't," Cecil stammered as he scrambled into the seat across the aisle from Lauren. She moved herself into Cecil's old seat, however, causing Cecil to shuffle into the seat next to his. Lauren only huffed at this and jumped across the aisle so that she was once again sitting right next to him.

"L-Lauren," Cecil tried to say, but she again shushed him with her finger on his lips. But then something happened that Cecil was not expecting: Lauren leaned towards him, closing her eyes and puckering her lips.

Cecil was frozen. He couldn't process what was happening because it was all so quick, but luckily someone had gotten up and pulled Lauren out of the seat. When Cecil looked up, he saw that it was the beautiful stranger.

"Hey!" Carlos shouted at the woman that Cecil had called Lauren as he pulled her off of him by her arm. "Can't you see that you're making him uncomfortable?"

Lauren ripped her arm from his grip and snarled at him. "Hey buddy, this has nothing to do with you. Why don't you get out of here and leave us alone?"

Carlos paused and looked at Cecil, who was still bracing himself against the window of the bus, apparently unable to move. Turning back to Lauren, Carlos scowled at her.

"No," he told her defiantly and moved in between her and Cecil. Lauren was practically shaking with anger, but, before she could say anything, the bus driver, who had stopped the bus when he heard Carlos shout and made his way to the back of the bus, said to Lauren, "Hey lady, come on. You're getting off the bus. Now."

Lauren looked between the bus driver and Carlos before walking down the aisle trailed by the driver. The other passengers began clapping at the riddance of the disturbance and Carlos blushed a little bit.

"Thank you," a voice said from behind him. Carlos turned around and found Cecil standing up next to him.

"It was nothing," Carlos said absently, looking towards the front of the bus to make sure that Lauren was really gone. Then he turned his gaze back on Cecil and asked worriedly, "Are you alright?"

Cecil's smile faded a little as he nodded his head. "Your voice . . ." Cecil trailed off. "It's beautiful." Carlos laughed out loud; he had been thinking the exact same thing about the stranger's voice all this time.

"Thank you," Carlos said with a blush.

Cecil cleared his throat nervously and asked, "Would, uh, would you like to grab some—some dinner or—or something?"

Chuckling softly, Carlos nodded and said, "Yeah, that'd be nice."

Cecil smiled widely as Carlos turned to grab Cecil's bag from his seat. He handed it to him and said, "I'm Carlos, by the way."

Cecil smiled and said, "Hi Carlos. I'm Cecil," before they both walked down the bus aisle. Carlos grabbed his own bag as they passed his seat and then they both got off the bus together.

Imagine your OTP doesn't know each other yet, but takes the same train home from work/school everyday. They know each other by face alone, and have never actually spoken to each other, until one day, when Muse A is getting harassed by a pervert, and Muse B intervenes, verbally or physically trying to intimidate the person. Whether or not they succeed, Muse A decides to thank B for their efforts by inviting them to dinner.