Chapter 3: To Hate Fame ~Kouji's POV~ After school that afternoon I decided to take a amble downtown. Amazingly I had no homework so I had too much time on my hands.

As I walked down a busy street I saw Liz slouching out of this modeling place muttering under her breath. Her arms were crossed and she wore a scrawl. I avoided her by walking quickly back the way I came. I wasn't trying to be mean by shunning her. See if a girl like her is in a bad mood it's best to keep away from her for a while until she cools down first.

~Liz's POV~ I headed toward a beach. Slowly my anger turned into pain. My eyes started to burn but I refused to cry. I shut my eyes tightly as I leaned against a boulder that had been smoothened by the ocean's waves.

Finally I broke down. Tears came out one by one, bit by bit. I hid my eyes in my arms silently crying. The burning stopped as I cried harder. Suddenly a warm arm wrapped around me holding me close.

I quickly wiped the tears away. I looked to see who had placed my head on their shoulder. I glimpsed up and saw Kouji. I turned red form embarrassment. Oh crap, what am I going to tell him? A little voice in my head said 'tell him the truth.' I told that voice to shut up and get lost.

The truth was too humiliating. Beside a guy I barely knew was trying to comfort me. What if I told him the truth and word got out. That would be worse than terrible.

"Is something wrong?" he asked. I shook my head and remained silent. He gave me a you're lying look but he kept quiet.

We stayed together for a while until the truth came to my tongue and spilled out.

"Stupid modeling people always tried to have me be something I wasn't. Now they're trying t take over my life. Telling me 'you shouldn't play sports' and crap. I hate being famous. Heck I never wanted to be famous." He gave me a concerned look that changed into one of confusion.

"Then why did you become a model?"

"For a pathetic reason. In the third grade some girls wanted to get some revenge on me. I kind of accidentally splashed some mud on their brand new shoes. So they entered my into this beauty contest they all were in. They wanted to make me look like a fool in front of everyone.

Well I was ticked and wanted to get some revenge. So I did go through the contest. In fact I got first place. Since then I've been a model.

So I didn't become a model on purpose. It was a total accident. Now I'm famous and I don't want to be." He sat there looking at me as though he expected to hear more. Finally he broke the silence with a single word of "Oh."

Still we sat there, watching the sun set onto the blue ocean.

"So why do you hate being a model and being famous?"

"Let's see. It's a waste of time, you go on TV and have to tell a bunch of lies about how great it is being a famous model, you're expected to be a nice little girl, and you have people going 'you shouldn't play sports' and 'Wear this, you'll look lovely in it' and the camera man going 'Lovely, beautiful, the camera loves her face it won't let me stop clicking."

"That bad?"

"Worse"

~Kouji's POV~ The sun was finally gone reveling thousands of tiny, bright, white stars followed by a crescent moon. I felt her snuggle up closer to me.

"I'll walk you home," I mumbled as it was getting to a point of freezing. We shared my coat and walked into the darkness, away from all our pain, trouble, and anger into a life of freedom and happiness.