Disclaimer: I own very little.
A/N: Another 20-balls entry. I need to make some more claims for this...
20 Swings of Towel
1. Kaidoh's fear of supernatural stems from his childhood. One day, he was convinced he saw his grandmother – two weeks after her funeral. Frightened half to death, he's since then convinced himself he imagined the whole thing – nevertheless, anything that appears not to have a natural explanation still scares him.
2. Kaidoh would like nothing as much as having a cat of his own, but sadly, his mother is allergic to cats. To compensate for this, he plans to get three of them as soon as he moves out.
3. On his third year Kaidoh is made the team captain. Nobody misses practice without a sufficient reason ever again.
4. Kaidoh already had front teeth when he was born. However, these teeth lacked enamel and soon melted away, leaving him lacking front teeth until he turned seven. This caused a slight speech difficulty he has mostly gotten over by now, although it still occasionally manifests itself in the form of his hisses showing up in his speech.
5. Kaidoh actually thinks snakes are pretty, but knows better than to ever let anybody know.
6. Kaidoh is somewhat glad Hazue doesn't play tennis, as he saw what happened with the Fuji brothers and doesn't want his little brother to attend another school.
7. Thanks to his mother's patient teaching, Kaidoh is an excellent cook.
8. Kaidoh has sometimes thought of telling Momoshiro to try high jumping instead of tennis. He never has actually said it, though – mostly out of fear the other might take his suggestion. What kind of a tennis player would he be without a rival?
9. Mortified though he would be to discover it, one of the things Kaidoh actually has in common with Momo is that they both have occasionally bawled their eyes out while watching Meiken Lucky.
10. Easily embarrassed though he is about certain things, Kaidoh has never before nor since blushed as fiercely as when his mother once pointed out that Inui would make an excellent son-in-law.
11. Although not Christian, Kaidoh's family celebrates Christmas, mostly because it gives his mother the perfect excuse to cook a lot. Kaidoh still writes to Santa "to keep Hazue from discovering the cruel truth".
None of his family members has yet thought it necessary to point out that Hazue himself hasn't written to Santa since he was seven.
12. Kaidoh can cope with remarkably little sleep. However, like practically all teenage boys, he is also capable of sleeping around the clock.
13. Kaidoh got his somewhat non-manly name because his parents were mistakenly told they were expecting a girl due to a wrongly interpreted ultrasound.
14. While Kaidoh indeed plans on going to the pro circuit, he's not about to count on that as his only way of living. He doubts his passion for tennis will fade, but accidents do happen, and thus he also plans on getting the sufficient education to get a "proper" job if something goes wrong.
15. Kaidoh does not actually hate Momoshiro, although he would never admit this.
16. As a child Kaidoh was often lonely and picked on by the other kids. He grew used to the loneliness and grew his somewhat scary exterior as a simple defense mechanism. This doesn't mean that he doesn't need or appreciate friends; he is simply very selective about them.
How two such different people as Inui and Momo have both made their way to his very short list of friends is very hard to understand indeed.
17. Also, as a child, Kaidoh was cute enough to be mistaken for a girl, whenever his glare did not spoil the effect. Nowadays, there is fortunately no possibility for this anymore.
18. Though very few people will ever believe it, Kaidoh has something of a natural talent when it comes to animals. Sensing his feelings towards them, animals instinctively trust him, seeing beyond the scary appearance and irritated hisses.
19. Although he has never really thought about the issue, Kaidoh has noticed that the few people he's ever felt attracted to have all been male, and thus, if asked, he would identify himself as a homosexual.
If anything or anybody could ever force him to give an actual, honest answer, that is.
20. Though his natural talent, great though it is, may not reach the boundaries of the tensai, Kaidoh is convinced that with enough hard work he can achieve anything.
Life is yet to prove him wrong.