His fame and kudos as a novelist grew when he wrote a series of stories, including Hotaru Gusa ("Firefly Weeds"), Hasen ("Shipwreck"), and Bosan ("Visit to a Grave"), about his unrequited love for Natsume Sōseki's eldest daughter (he proposed to her via her parents, as was the prevailing practice at the time, but she surprised everyone by announcing her love for Kume's classmate and close friend Yuzuru Matsuoka instead).

In 1925, Kume wrote an essay, Shishōsetsu to Shinkyō shōsetsu ("The I-Novel and the Mental State Novel"), which became a classic in defining those two literary forms.

Kume was arrested in Kamakura in 1933, along with fellow literati Matsutarō Kawaguchi and Ton Satomi for illegal card gambling.

"Pen corps"), a government organisation consisting of authors who travelled the front during the Second Sino-Japanese War to write favourably of Japan's war efforts in China,[1][2] and later the Nihon bungaku hōkokukai ("Patriotic Association for Japanese Literature"), led by Sohō Tokutomi and himself.

[3] Kume relocated from Tokyo to ancient capital Kamakura, Kanagawa prefecture due to the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923, residing there until his death in 1952 at the age of 60.