Kikumaru Eiji
1. He was a people pleaser.
It was how he had been raised. Someone wants or needs something, you get it for them. Someone is upset? Make them feel better. He'd watched his siblings do it, and he'd watched other people do it, and as he grew up he learned how to do it. It was one of the reasons he was so successful: he tailored his answers and critiques and hopes and dreams and aspirations to what a person wanted to hear at the time. Even if it wasn't always true.
2. He'd taken up tennis to spite his family.
In reality he'd been a gymnast, because his sisters had been. They'd all been good – it was in the Kikumaru genes. But as he got older it was revealed he had real potential; he could go somewhere, they said. Make something out of himself in the competitive sport where there weren't enough guys. Even his parents began to pressure him into going further and one day, after a particularly brutal practice, he'd snapped: he stormed out of the gym, throwing items along the way, and declared he was never coming back to gymnastics again. It had been spiteful at the time, but his stubborn streak had lasted long enough to get him hooked on tennis, and that was all that mattered.
3. He hated Tezuka for leaving them, because he hated Tezuka for hurting Oishi.
Because, well… Oishi was his best friend, and he hated seeing someone like that – especially Oishi, who was the most kind, caring person he knew – absolutely shattered. He knew Tezuka had to do what he had to do, but a little heads up, even a simple phone call, beforehand could have resolved the entire resulting conflict, and left a lot of the anxiety Oishi experienced during that time somewhere far, far away never to be seen. Instead the captain had been selfish and not bothered, and the pieces that Eiji was left to pick up – the frazzled nerves he was left to calm – left a bitter taste in Eiji's mouth and a rage in his heart that never fully dissipated.
4. He was incredibly aware of other people's feelings.
Hyperaware, really. It was a bother, sometimes, because there were always times in life when he didn't need the misery of Suzuki-chan's recent breakup with her boyfriend wafting over him (he barely knew the girl!) but it was a good thing, too. With the intense sorrow he ended up feeling he also felt the joy of everyone around him, pooling into him and flowing. It was one of the reasons he was so energetic: he fed off of the positive energy far more than the negative, and even when everyone else was wiped he found a small smidge of it in somebody and used it to produce a lot more in everybody else.
5. He had a manipulative side bigger than Fuji's when need be.
If only because his manipulative streak was much less obvious. Fuji toyed with people, pushed them around like pieces on a chess board, but Eiji moved them as he would strings in an elaborate trap: delicately, and very slightly at a time. Yet, he still did, and though it could take a month for something to happen it would, in a way that was so flawlessly executed no one would have realized he'd influenced at all.
6. When he had learned the dumpster was being removed he had actually cried.
He knew it was stupid, but that piece of metal had meant a lot to him. It held a lot of memories from the previous three years, and even though he knew he would still have those with him he wouldn't have that special place any more. After all, that was the place he went when they lost. It was the place he went to when he couldn't deal with living in the same house as so many people. And while he later accepted that it was just an object, the fear his memories linked with it would fade was one that preyed on him for years.
7. He had latched on to "O'chibi" because there were drawbacks to being the baby in his own life.
He latched on to anyone younger, really, because he was the baby in his family and it was irritating to always be treated as such and never be allowed to do the babying. Sure, it was nice to be able to get things, but he always resented the extra protection put upon him, and once he'd been old enough to find someone he made sure to abuse the power. This came with the obvious teasing and glomping he pressured on to the younger boy, but it also came with the type of Brotherly Watching that Eiji had been subjected to his entire life as well. Because if all three of his siblings had gotten to do it he was not going to be left out.
8. He promised himself he wouldn't have a large family.
Not because he didn't like children – on the contrary, he loved them, even though they could be rather sticky at times. But growing up in a rather large family had taught him that siblings don't always get along, aren't always there, and that someone always gets forgotten. He'd made himself a promise as early on as elementary school (one day when he'd been in a rather nasty fight with Satoki, one of his brothers) that he would never cause his children to go through the same thing.
9. He'd broken the promise.
He fell in love with a lovely woman and they'd progressed quite nicely. The first had been a surprised, but not unwelcome, and the second was planned. The third was also planned, though an early delivery, but they loved her all the same. He had planned on stopping then, but before he could bring the topic up Naemi-chan had given him those eyes and asked: "just one more?" So he'd agreed, reluctantly, because he knew being the fourth had its drawbacks just as much as being the first or second or third. As Fate decided, they were in for four and five and after that… well, after that Eiji didn't have the heart to say no, especially when they were already accidentally on the way. The last two – for twins was how they seemed to be rolling – were as lovely as ever, a pair of identical boys, and though they made sure to stop after that Eiji had – for a very brief moment – entertained the idea of having an eighth so that they would be a complete tennis team, reserve included.
10. He never backed down from a challenge.
Gymnastics, tennis, schoolwork Becoming friends with Fuji, helping Oishi through his issues, helping Momo-chan with his family dilemmas. Nationals – five years in a row. Getting in to one of the top universities in Tokyo. Dating. Graduating one of the top universities in Tokyo. Marriage. Skyrocketing to the top of the financial firm he was working at. Child one. Quitting out of spunk and starting from scratch in the field of social work. Child two. Raising the money to bring supplies to Africa. Child three. Finding twelve teens adoptive – not just foster – homes in the twelve months of the year. Child four and child five, a rambunctious pair of twins. High school reunion. Staying in social work but also starting up his own business from home that revolved around marketing campaigns. Child six and child seven, another pair of twins as Fate would have it. Working, saving, paying for college and private high schools and sports of four different sorts – he made sure to do it all. It was just his nature.
