CHAPTER EIGHT

"Suzu-cchi!" That loud, obnoxious voice called, seeming to snap the girl from her morning daze.

She sighed. "What?"

"Hey, hey, should I call you Suzu-cchi or Suzume-cchi? Which do you prefer?" He grinned, skipping over to his seat and sitting down, fangirls starting to crowd the place.

"Doesn't matter."

He pouted. "Tch."

"Kise-kuuun~" One of the fangirls called, getting impatient. "Why can't you talk to me as much as you talk to her~?"

"Huh? Isn't she the one mentioned on Modelling Monthly? She got kind of popular because her debut shot was with you, Ryouta-cchi. She appeared in the magazine that you work for – Zunon Boy-ssu." (Modelling Monthly is a magazine dedicated to gossip about models and the like).

Kise scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "Ehe~ Just on a side note, please don't copy my way of speaking. I'm a Copycat myself, so I don't like being copied from."

"Kyaaaaa! When he does that it's soooo hot!"

…what even…

The teacher entered and sighed at the usual sight – the usual bunch of random girls, some not even from this class, crowding around the usual desk. "Girls, quiet down please. It's time for class." He was getting really sick of Kise's popularity with those people, and honestly wished there could be a day when everything was nice and quiet.

All of them pouted sadly and walked away (as slowly as they could), but not before sending the blond a flirtatious smile or wave. Why they even bother everyday is beyond me.

"Suzume-cchi!" He called urgently at break. "C'mere."

She didn't even bother to reply.

"Suzume-cchi! Oh yeah, I changed it to Suzume-cchi instead of Suzu-cchi, hope you don't mind. Hmm, Suzume-cchi, I really think you look better without glasses. I'm so glad Zunon Boy decided to give you contacts. It's probably because your eyes are so pretty, they didn't wan-"

"Would you shut up or get to the point already?" She sighed, looking slightly annoyed.

He did the neck-scratching thing again and made that annoying 'I'm-so-innocent' face. "Ehe~ Well, I was about to say, do you want to go to this bakery after school? I heard it has really nice crepes." He said hopefully, blinking his wide golden eyes (lined with eyeliner...?).

"Don't you have basketball after school?" She really didn't want to stay in his obnoxious company for too long, or she might go insane.

"Eh, well, since I'm so good already, it won't matter." Kise grinned, overconfident in his skills. "I'm better than anyone else either. Even if they practise and practise, they'll never be as good as me~"

This is why his personality is so obnoxious. Suzume gritted her teeth. "That is not a good reason. Besides, if you want to beat your former teammates, you HAVE to practise. And you also have to work on your teamwork. Don't be so arrogant and think you can be the best without working! It's not possible to just rely on your talent!"

After letting out her thoughts, she turned and walked off without another word. Personally, she thought Kise should be taught a lesson. Has he never lost a match all his life?

He poked his tongue out at her disappearing figure. Making her like him was proving to be quite difficult.

She just didn't understand the extent of his talent. Maybe… Yes, that's it, he'll make her watch the upcoming practice match between Seirin and Kaijou, and show her how powerful he was! That way she would... admire him! And she wouldn't be so mean to him ever again!

"Suzume-cchi." It had become such a usual thing to call out to the girl and not get a reply. "Suzume-cchi, this is really important, I swear!"

She turned a little to face him, hands cupping her face and elbows resting on her desk.

He beamed, happy to have finally received her attention. "I have a practice match with Seirin this lunch – basically in a few minutes. Come watch me beat them!"

"Seirin? Huh. Are they strong?"

"Ah, well, I guess. They have Kuroko-cchi, so probably!" He grinned broadly at the thought of his darling 'Kuroko-cchi'.

Who the hell is that…?

"Uh, I don't want to." Why would she?

"B-BUT YOU HAAAVE TOOO!" Kise had crocodile tears sliding down his face and was attracting a lot of weird looks from the classmates who were in there. His fangirls had all gone to claims the seats in the gym and Suzume no longer had guys crowding around her (they were all convinced that it wasn't her anymore).

Being slightly a pushover (more like she wanted him to shut up), she reluctantly agreed.

Sighing, she stood up and headed towards the gym while Kise went to welcome the Seirin guys. Suzume was secretly hoping he would lose this match, so he could taste the bitterness of defeat and lose some of that overactive ego.

She blinked in surprise. The match ended, with Seirin as the winner.

Wait, what? Didn't Kise say he'd never lost a match all his life? Was he lying about his great skills? No, he looked pretty good at it when he was playing. Then that means his opponent was better?

While she was thinking this all through, she didn't realise that everyone had left already, and quickly got up to leave through the back door, which was the closest.

"S-Suzume-cchi…" The same voice called, but this time it was in a rather dejected tone. "I lost."

The girl spared him a glance, and saw that he was… washing his hair under the cold water…?

"What are you doing? If you want to wash your hair, shouldn't you go into the showers?"

Unexpectedly, Kise started laughing. Hard. "Suzume-cchi, you really don't know how to read the atmosphere, do you?"

Suzume looked a little lost. "What…?"

"Alright. I will definitely train hard with the team and I won't lose to Kagami-cchi and Kuroko-cchi next time!" He said, turning off the tap and stretching. She noted that he seems to have lost some of that overconfidence and annoying arrogance.

"Yeah." She nodded, a small smile on her face.

"Kise?" An unfamiliar voice said, interrupting their conversation

Both he and Suzume turned, seeing a green-haired glasses dude holding a matching green frog in one hand.

"Midorima-cchi?"

The other girl subconsciously stepped behind Kise, as she thought this guy was rather weird and a tad bit creepy.

"I lost…" He stated to 'Midorima-cchi'.

"I heard. It's rather disappointing that you, a member of the Generation of Miracles, lost to Kuroko." He replied coldly, pushing up his glasses. "When I go up against them, I will definitely win."

He pouted. "But Kuroko-cchi is awesome! And he's a member of the GoM too~"

Their conversation was then interrupted by a certain black-haired basketball player from Shutoku, who was panting as he dragged the rickshaw over. "SHIN-CHAN! I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU JUST LEFT ME THERE!"

"Takao. Haven't I told you not to call me Shin-chan?"

"Shin…chan…?" Suzume finally spoke up from behind Kise, trying to muffle her laughs. "H-he doesn't really look like a Shin-chan to me... Not a 'Midorima-cchi' either..."

"Eh? Who's this?" Takao said, peeking around at her.

Kise laughed. "This is Kikuchi Suzume-cchi! And this is Midorima-cchi! Midorima Shintaro."

"I'm Kazunari Takao. Don't mind Shin-chan, he's just a tsundere."

"Oh…" Suzume said, still shy as ever with random people (she is, in fact, less shy around people she doesn't like…).

Takao grinned. "Well, Shin-chan, we have to go now."

"See you on the court, Kise." Midorima held his frog-thing tighter and left without another backward glance.

"Bye-bye, Kise, Suzume!" Takao called, waving vigorously as they rode away on the rickshaw. Well, Takao was doing all of the pedalling, but you know what I mean.

After watching them go away, Suzume turned to Kise. "That Cucumber-Head was weird." She said bluntly.

He burst out laughing again. "Y-you mean Midorima-cchi? Ahaahaha, yeah. Now that I think about it, you haven't called me Banana-Head in a long time."

"Ah." She blinked. "I forgot."

Kise kept sniggering.

"Banana-Head." She called. He stopped laughing. "Why was he holding a frog? Is he really baby-ish or something? It's weird. He's weird. Why was there tape around his fingers?"

"Oh, that's Midorima-cchi's lucky item! He believes in this horoscope thing. The tape… was for good luck or something too."

Suzume made a face. "Oh. That's weird."

"Kise-kuun~" Those same voices of the fanclub chorused.

"You looked so cool yesterday! Even though you lost, I still love you!" A girl who was apparently the vice-captain cooed in his ear.

Kise just smiled charmingly.

Suddenly, most of the girls disappeared without warning and a path was cleared for someone. What surprised him most was that the teacher hadn't even arrived yet. What was this miracle?!

"Kise-kun, Suzume-san." A meek and timid voice said. The voice was clearly recognisable as the President of the Kise Ryouta fanclub, Hitomi.

"What?" He replied rudely, getting annoyed all over again.

"I-I'm so sorry for the incident tha-that occurred before. I'm sorry, Suzume-san." She bowed. "I really didn't mean for you to get hurt. I apologise for letting my emotions take over me, and I really hope you can forgive me."

Suzume remained quiet. It was so obvious that she was just acting to gain Kise's attention once more.

Seeing that Suzume was not about to say anything, she frantically turned to the blond. "I'm so sorry, Kise-kun! Please forgive me! I'm sorry! Sooooooo, sooooooo sorry!"

The hazel-haired girl was shocked to see that Kise was actually considering her request. He was deep in thought, and seemed to be about to forgive her!

Even if he did forgive Hitomi, she wouldn't. And she doesn't care if Kise is on her side or not anyway…

Does she?

Please note that in the last chapter, I wrote something about 16 being the legal ace for motorcycle licenses, but then I realised Kise's birthday hadn't passed yet! So just pretend for me that 15 is the legal age, and ignore my stupidness…