Popularity is not important


Endless high pitch squealing makes Ume's ears bleeding. Not really made her ears bleed but it makes her ears hurt. She stands a couple yards away from the noise when she slowly approaches it. Today, she changes into a blue hooded sweater. Under her sweater is a white tee-shirt with black jeans and blue sneakers. Her hair is pulled by a red hair band. The high pitch squealing comes from a large group of teenage girls that are crowding around one café's entrance. Loud noises make her ears hurt since she prefers quiet places with little noises.

Sadly for this unlucky grey hair female, this is her favorite place to get her chocolate muffin before returning home. Her challenge for the day is to get past the horde of teenage girls. She mumbles out excuse me to squeeze past the female crowd. Ume succeeds her first mission; her body hurts a little from squeezing past the bodies.


With a silent sigh of relief, she is able to enter the café. Ume mumbles to herself quietly about crazy females. In front of her, she saw a tall back of a blonde male looking at the café's menu. The blonde male mumbles about which one to order, taking his time. Slowly, Ume felt irritated when she is facing an indecisive blonde with a squealing horde of females behind her at the entrance. The female cashier only sighs happily when looking at the blonde male, not caring if he takes forever. She focuses on the chocolate muffins displaying at the glass display.

'Come on…pick one.' Ume thought, annoyance runs in her blood now. The blonde male felt a cold chill down his spine. He looks down to see a silence female looking at the glass displays of various baked goods.

"Sorry, are you ordering?" He asks. Ume heard the female group behind her gasping and whispering.

'Oh my! He is talking to her!' A female from the group whisper to her friends.

'She is so lucky!'Another female adds. 'She is so plain looking…' One comment was heard from the group.

Ume internally sighs, 'I feel embarrassed being born as a girl…this is annoying.' She nods to the blonde male. The male gave her a wide smile, Ume swore she saw sparkles around the male when he smiles at her. Ume only blinks in response. The male seems confused since the female population would be blushing at the sight of Kise Ryota. Kise gave Ume a short laugh then motions her to the cashier.

"You can go ahead of me. I'm just picking which one to get." Kise explains to the quiet female. The gray hair female gave him a short nod to order. The cashier quickly gave Ume her order of a chocolate muffin with ice green tea. She waits for her iced green tea. Not able to take it any longer, Ume taps on the male's right shoulder. Kise looks at Ume again.

"You can order the special or their iced coffee, both of them taste good." Ume suggests. The female crowd gasps with angry whispers.

"This girl! She acts so friendly with Kise-kun!" said one angry fangirl. Kise blinks then laughs, "Maybe I should do that!" He orders the café's iced coffee. Ume picks up her iced green tea and left the café before the crowd of angry females notices her. The only thing she left behind is her wallet that lay out forgotten on the café's counter.


Ume decides to go to the park to eat her muffin and drink her green tea. She felt at ease when she is away from the noisy café. The grey hair woman suddenly thought of the blonde male from the café.

"Probably he is someone important?" She thought out loud. Ume tries to think about who he is but no ideas are coming up.

"Hey!" One voice calls out to her. She turns her body to look behind to see the blonde jogging towards her. Ume watches Kise stand up straight to give her another smile. Her left eyebrow rose when seeing that smile again. It looks plain to her; probably he tries too hard with his smile.

"Can I sit here with you?" Kise motions to the bench that Ume is sitting on.

"It's a free bench." Ume shrugs her shoulders as she answers. She scoots over to the right side of the bench to let Kise took a seat on the bench beside her. They sat in silence until Ume heard Kise speaking up.

"Do you know who I am?" Kise asks. Ume looks at the male at her side then scratch the back of her head.

"No, not really. Sorry." Ume answers truthfully. She watches the male become crestfallen. Suddenly, he switches to happy.

"I'm Kise, Ryota. A model." Kise points at himself. He waits for the female's reaction to him being a model. Ume blankly stares at him. "Really? I don't really keep track of models, superstars, or anything like that." She said.

"Eh…?" Kise only said. Ume took a sip of her drink, ignoring the tearful male beside her.

"Who cares if you are a model? You are a person like me and everyone else." She comments. Kise stops his crying to listen to the female's comment. Ume pulls out her handkerchief from her sweater's right pocket. "I never knew models could be dramatic as you…" She said as she lends it to the tearful male who accepts it.

"So mean! Ichiro-chii!" Kise shouts out as he wipes the tears away from his eyes. Ume tilts her head in confusion, "Ichiro-chii? I never tell you my name." Kise returns her handkerchief to Ume. She puts it away in her jean pocket.

Kise reach into his pocket to pull out a familiar item to Ume. Ume takes her wallet from his hand, "Ah…I left it there. Thank you." She thanks the male. Quickly, she puts her wallet in her sweater pocket and pats it to make sure it remains there.

"Sorry, I only look at your I.D. card." Kise apologizes. "Let's start over." He reaches out his left hand to Ume.
"Kise, Ryota. I'm a student and part time model." He introduces himself. Ume shakes his hand, "My name is Ichiro, Ume. I'm homeschooled."

"Eh? Why?" Kise asks. Ume thought for a moment, Kise took her silence the wrong way.

"Ah sorry, Ichiro-chii! You don't have to tell me if you don't want too." Kise apologizes. Ume waves off the apology. "It's fine. I don't feel like sharing stories right now, Kise-san." She drinks more from her iced green tea. Her grey eyes only look out at the landscape.

"I prefer quiet places…school felt too much for me. This is one of the places I like when there is no one around." Ume said, forgetting Kise for a second. Kise looks at the grey hair teen in silence. He looks at the scene with Ume.

The wind gently blows past the trees. Their leaves sway with the winds current. The park right now is untouched by humans for now as Ume took in the beauty of nature.

"I guess you are right Ichiro-chii." Kise commented. He looks down at his cell phone in his hand, suddenly standing up from the bench.

"Ah! I'm late! I have to go now. Bye Ichiro-chii!" Kise said goodbye to the confused female. He shakes her hand then left. "See you next time Ichiro-chii!" He shouts out with his bag close to his side. She watches the back of Kise when he jogs quickly out of the park.

Ume tilts her head as she disposes her empty cup and crushed white wrapper of her muffin in the trashcan that is beside the bench. She took out her cell phone from her jean's pocket. One message from Ta-kun shines in her screen. She presses the button on her cell to read his message.

"Hey Ume-chan! I want to make sure you eat before you forget again! You are going to be sick if you don't take care of yourself! Make sure you sleep too! Answer back when you are free to talk, I will be waiting for you! – With love, Ta-kun. :D"

She smiles a little from his use of a happy face at the end of his message. Ume presses a button to respond his message.

"Don't complain Ta-kun. At least you are working hard in school and practice. I can't do anything like that…Don't overwork yourself either. I can look after myself. I'm going to sleep, have a good night Ta-kun. –Take care of yourself, Ume-chan (- 3-)."

With a click of send, she closes her cell phone. As she stands up from the bench to walk to home, she thought of her day. Ume rubs the back of her neck when thinking about Kise's strange nature.

"Models are weird…" Ume whispers when her head starts to hurt when thinking about the squealing girls.

"I hope I will never hear girls squealing ever again." Ume grumbles to herself.


A/N: I hope you won't Ume-chan. Fangirls are vicious in their own ways. Thank you all for reading this first chapter! I will update more when I have time away from my summer job. Please be patient and have a great day everyone!

-Fancybunny