His kindness

After patting her hair for a few minutes, Ran looked around, and Futaba saw his gaze on her bag. She sighs deeply. "Don't tell me you didn't do your homework again?"

"Uh, I actually had rehearsal for a program, so I didn't have time," Ran said sheepishly.

Futaba sighed. "Well, as long as you have a legit excuse." She takes her books from her bag and places them on the table.

Being an idol and a student isn't easy. Many belong to the entertainment industry and simply have no time for school, so they receive private tutoring. However, surprisingly Ran-chan, his team members, and the guys in nanairofeather continue with school.

The latter group aside. Ran-chan's group is incredibly popular. It is actually unusual that they continue going to school.

For the next few minutes, Futaba watched as Ran-chan copied her homework as she played with the small gifts that he had gotten her. Different keychains and mini soft toys.

Now that she thinks about their relationship, it truly is unusual. How many times have people mistaken them as a couple? Every time the topic of love came up, everybody would say, 'your lucky to have such a talented boyfriend.'

No matter how often she denied it, people didn't believe her.

She was born with unusual pink-colored hair and ruby-colored eyes. She had traits that neither of her parents had, but her deceased grandparents did.

This unusual appearance of hers attracted different types of attention. The majority, however, thought she was beautiful, and this led to her mother when she was still alive and her father becoming very overprotective of her.

Father was already overprotective of her being the heir to his business. A girl with unusual pink hair and red eyes, she was the talk of the town. Many people would stop by her home to take pictures of her.

She could never go anywhere without people snapping photos. Because she showed up in the newspaper as a child, she was considered a public figure, so taking her photo apparently wasn't an invasion of privacy.

It led to unwanted attention. She ended up kidnapped several times. After the last one was close to selling her off, that did it. She truly started to resent her looks and started to wear baggy clothes and ugly glasses.

'I only became a model to help Succhan with her dreams. That is how it started. But, I realized that becoming a model helped me with the insecurities I had built up over the years. I always liked fashion, so perhaps becoming a model had been my dream before all the incidents happened.'

Even when she started to wear baggy clothing and downgraded her appearance, Ran-chan never said anything. He never asked her why she had changed. He never said anything about her decision to start modeling and gradually getting rid of the glasses and baggy clothes too.

He just silently cheered her on and remained by her side. She was truly terrified about going to Paris alone. But, on her first day there, she bumped into her childhood friend in the hotel she was staying at.

She thought it was just a coincidence that they met there. But after the first month, Kou-kun told her that it was deliberate.

'He followed you here because he was worried about you.'

Ran is a person with a short temper, and yet he truly has a big heart. Futaba thought she already knew everything about Iwa Ran. But when she learned that he actually chased her to Paris just because he was worried. She started to think that perhaps there were sides of him that she still didn't know about.

He isn't just a basketball and music-loving idiot. There is more to him than meets the eye.

'Had he not been my childhood friend, perhaps we could have fallen in love.' Futaba had no doubt that he would be a good lover to her. He knew her better than anybody else did and understood her emotions very well.

But they know each other too much. It would be strange for them to go out now. It's not like she didn't think about it before, at least when she was younger, in middle school especially. Everybody around them kept saying they would be good together.

At one point, she started to see him as more than a friend. She admits that he is good-looking and kind. He probably has all the traits she would want in a boyfriend. But it's just too weird now. He is more like a sibling. No, it's weird to call him that.

Moreover, she can't deny being attracted to him, so she can't call him her brother.

Futaba shakes her head. She needs to stop thinking about this. This is a dangerous topic.

"Damn, why is there so much?" Ran grumbled.

"I think the teacher went through a heartbreak recently and decided to dedicate her life to work from now on."

"Did she have to drag us into it?" Ran sighed. "I am surprised you even had time to complete everything. Where did you find the time? I know you are busier than me with modeling, school, and the underworld."

Hearing the last part, her sweat dropped. Of course, he noticed it. The real reason why she has been so busy is because of the underworld, not her modeling career.

Truthfully, she wanted nothing to do with the underworld. She may be a yankee, but everybody knows who her father is. They know he is a yakuza gang leader. They know how powerful and how brutal he can be.

Her father has many enemies, and as much as she tries to disassociate from him. Futaba knew she couldn't escape his shadow and influence. Perhaps his enemies knew about their strained relationship since, rather than try to kidnap her to use her against him. They try to bargin with her instead.

"Aki-san is getting anxious." Futaba admitted.

"No matter how anxious he is, he doesn't have to drag you into everything. You are still a high schooler. He would do good to remember that." Ran snapped, visibly annoyed.