♡ Beautiful stranger conveniently leaves their phone on the bus, I must find them
——Standing nervously in the middle of a crowded city bus, Gerard clung to the pole in front of him as if his life depended on it. He hated taking public transportation, but he had no other choice — the subway was way more cramped than this, and he didn’t feel like spending more money just to be in a small area next to a hundred sweaty people. Either way, public transportation sucked, and he hated it. He hated being so close to random people, especially ones that needed to shower. This was awful.
The man standing to his right smelled of old coleslaw, and the woman directly behind him kept popping her gum as obnoxiously as she could. Someone, somewhere, reeked like they hadn’t showered or changed their clothing for years, and the smell was starting to give Gerard a headache. He wanted to vomit. He was sure his suit would never smell normal again, the thought making him cringe. How would he live knowing his nicest suit was going to eternally smell like public asshole?
The only good thing about this whole bus ride was the girl sitting a few rows in front of where he stood. She had been watching out the window the entire ride, looking as content as ever despite being crammed against the wall — Gerard was fascinated by her. He envied her calmness, how collected she was. Not to mention, her hair looked wonderful, and soft. Soft hair was nice. He wished his hair was soft.
As the bus came to a quick stop, Gerard nearly fell into the person in front of him, his grip on the bar only tightening. He felt like he was about to break it in half, but he didn’t care — he just wanted people to stop touching him. He was sure he looked as uncomfortable as he felt, and he hoped someone would get the message, but it didn’t seem like anyone was going to. He sighed.
Watching a few of the passengers file out of the bus, his gaze went back to the girl he had been observing. He watched as she stood, taking note of the cell phone slipping out of her back pocket and onto the seat she had been occupying. A slight wave of anxiety rushed through him as he stared at it for a moment, having no idea what to do.
”...Hey,” he mumbled, unconsciously lunging forward through the people in front of him, snatching the phone up off the seat, “hey, lady! You, uh—” As he looked up, he saw her exiting the doors of the bus. With a swift motion, he pushed himself forward again, knocking people over to get out of the bus. He felt the vehicle jerk forward again, leaving the stop; his heart sped up as he turned to look out the window, seeing everything start moving past. He finally reached the front of the bus, not minding the driver telling him to go back to his seat. Barely thinking, he shoved the doors open as he plowed into them, falling out onto the ground, landing on his front.
With a muffled grunt, Gerard got up off of the ground, brushing his suit off as he looked around at the people in the surrounding area. Which way did she go? Here he was, in the middle of the city, with some random person’s phone… Trying to find them. Running a hand through his hair with a sigh, he spotted her down the street — at least, he thought it was her. He started in the direction she was in, taking notice of the smell coming off of his suit. Shit, now he smelled like that asshole standing beside him, and he was going to talk to this hot person. Fuck.
Unable to catch up to her just by walking, Gerard broke into a slow-ish run, not really being in the physical condition for running — but, still, he had to get this girl’s phone to her. He knew he’d be frantic if he lost his on a bus, sp it was only the decent thing to return hers. As he approached her, he slowed down to a fast walk, breathing rather heavily. He coughed.
“Hey, hey!” He shouted. “You, there, the one with the pigtails! Hey,” he tapped her on the shoulder, “you, uh, you left something on the bus.”
–He tended to go from silent to chatty kathy in no time at all and she still was learning to bear that. “Waffles sound terrific, I haven’t eaten one for god knows how long but I see them all day long.” Gerard talked about his mom in a very nice way, her mother always told her to stay away from boys who say un-called for, mean things about their parents and that was a promise she’d kept. She’d never met someone with such an admiration for all the smallest things, she had been trying to feel that way for as long as she could remember. –She’s unbearably quiet and consumed in thoughts, chuckling at all the right spaces in his stores, hoping she could be interesting enough for him to keep her around, staring at him, wishing she had more to offer. “I thought I was the only one who thought of words that way. Do you know how to make waffles?”
—– “I’m, like, so good at making breakfast food. So good! I used to cook for my friends all the time when I was little. Like, I would have people stay at my house for days just so I could cook for them.” He opened the box that the waffle iron was in, pulling it out. “There’s lots of things I can do that I don’t ever do anything with, know what I mean? Like, I can cook and play instruments and I work with kids really well, and I can sing a little bit, stuff like that. And all I do is draw comics, to put it short, which isn’t a bad thing because I can draw really well, but I can do a lot of other stuff, too. I can do too much.” As he went on about himself, Gerard retrieved a few utensils from the drawers around the kitchen, spreading them all out on the counter before getting the waffle mix from the pantry. “Mike says I need to like, open up a school where I teach people how to do the things I can do. So like, I can do things with all this talent I have, which isn’t a bad idea. But I don’t have enough money to just, like, start up a school, where I’m the only teacher. I should do it someday, though. Don’t you think? It’d be so great.”
--Immediately after he mentioned music her attention sparked. Of course she was listening before but music was something she had been interested in since she was in high school. In college she shaved her head and tried to play drums but it never stuck, she was never big on singing but her ex-boyfriend gave her a bass that she pretends to know how to play. Maybe Gerard could show her how if he knew. He sounded extremely talented, he could actually list off things he can do, what was she good at? Working a minimum wage job? This guy is beyond extraordinary and she still can’t bring herself to have a normal fucking conversation, all shes doing is nodding and smiling and staring. He must think she’s thinking the opposite of what she actually is.
“Start your own school huh? What can’t you do?”
