Momoshiro Takeshi

1. He'd initially been left-handed.

When he was first learning to write teacher's had forced the pen into his right hand despite his natural dexterity with the left, so eventually he'd given up hope of writing with the left and learned to cope with the right. When he took up tennis, he'd begun playing with his left in hopes that it would work better – which it did – but almost as soon as he started playing, he had an unfortunate run-in with another boy at school. The result had been a severely broken left wrist, and by the time all three of the bones had healed properly and Momo had been given the okay to play with that arm, he'd been playing with his right arm for long enough that he was comfortable with it.

2. He had been incredibly upset when his family had moved from Kyushu to Tokyo.

It wasn't that he hated Tokyo; on the contrary, he had made some of the best friends of his life during his years there, and it was there that he ended up spending most of his life after his family's initial move. But the sun, the heat beating down on him comfortably during almost the entire year, the scenery (especially Sakurajima) and of course the sea – those were the things he lived for, especially as a child, and it had been heart wrenching to pull himself away from that.

3. He hated being the oldest sibling.

He loved young children, and they loved him, but the responsibility of looking after two ridiculously pretentious and stubborn brats was not something he enjoyed, especially not when it interfere with his actual life. Not just his social life but his tennis and his grades as well had begun slipping once he'd been forced to stay home and look after them, and it was a major bother. His only luck had come disguised as trouble when Keiko had demanded that she was old enough to remain home by herself and that Hikaru wasn't going to burn the house down; her ultimatum (and her promise not to tell their parents, because it worked out in her favor as well) had been what gave him a number of aspects of his life – including tennis – back during high school.

4. He hated being "short".

He wasn't actually short, of course; 170 centimeters – or approximately five foot seven – wasn't nearly as short as he could have been at thirteen. But it was ridiculously annoying to be the third shortest Regular, only out-shorted by Fuji-senpai and Echizen. Sure, it wasn't by much, just a centimeter or two on some occasions, but the others – particularly Kaidoh – never failed to rub it in, and whenever Inui-senpai brought up Echizen's height-increasing training plan there were sniggers broken out at the fact that the smash specialist was one of the shortest on their team.

5. He was a summer person.

The glaring sun beating down on your cotton-covered back, sweat having soaked through it long ago in an attempt to cool you down. The grass, parched and sizzling from the dry heat. Gasping for breaths as the humidity rolled in, wave after wave of it engulfing you and drowning you. Lying inside at noon when the sun was highest, sitting in front of the air conditioner with your friends and not caring if the house smelled like sweat and other unpleasant odors. Jumping into a lake, clothes still on, because you could without freezing your ass off when you got out. Buying popsicles before dinner to cool off and being caught despite throwing away the wrappers because your tongue and lips were stained a bright cherry red or dark purple grape. The evenings, when everything settled and you could sit outside and enjoy the setting sun, the light dashing from the sky and streaking it with an assortment of blurred, beautiful hues.

Momoshiro loved everything about summer, even the parts other people considered negative, and that would never, ever change.

6. He had a bizarre but tentative friendship with Kaidoh Karou.

They weren't all buddy-buddy like people thought friends were supposed to be, but the rivalry that existed between them was far less hostile than most people assumed. It was competitive, yes, but there was also a friendly aspect to it that appeared quite obviously if you paid any attention to their interactions. Though they'd begun as simple rivals their relationship had developed in to more, until they even had their own inside jokes, a hand signal (not a shake, though, because that sounded far too, well… gay, in Momo's opinion), and had incorporated themselves into each other's weekly routine.

7. He spent a ridiculous amount of time on his hair every morning.

Far too long to be considered healthy, and he as never going to reveal just how long it was. Even Inui had never officially figured out the proper time it took him to do his hair, though he had gotten incredibly close a few times, and Momo made sure he never, ever get his hands on that particular information.

8. Eiji-senpai had saved him from himself.

Though he hated admitting it, the truth of the matter was he'd gone through a rather nasty bought of depression that hit its hardest when he was first transitioning into high school. It'd gotten to the point where he'd even avoided his hyperactive upperclassman, but when Eiji-senpai came looking for him one day after he'd ditched out on practice (again, he'd mentally berated himself though he didn't truly care) the other teen didn't have any of the harsh words or scolding tones Momo had expected. Instead, he'd sat down next to him in the empty classroom overlooking the courts and asked him what was wrong before waiting, just waiting there with him. Momo hadn't told at first, but eventually everything poured out – grades, tennis, his siblings' issues, his parents fighting, and his own emotional insecurities. Eiji had countered by pulling him into a true hug and telling him very surely that it would all be okay in the end. Momo hadn't believed him, but then his senpai had begun showing up everywhere with small messages of encouragement and the darkness – some of it even life threatening – began to lift until there wasn't a cloud in Momo's mental sky. All because of one caring person.

9. He was friends with everyone, but only ever told important things to Eiji-senpai and Echizen.

The first because he was older and had approached Momo first; he'd gained the younger boy's trust by sharing his own secrets, and Momo had – in turn – shared his. It wasn't comfortable by any means, but it was reassuring to know that there was someone there he could call at two in the morning when he had been woken by the sound of screaming from downstairs or by his younger sister crying next door when she'd gotten herself knocked up in her second year of junior high. Echizen, he went to because the younger boy had no one to tell about Momo's secrets, and he was "anti-social" enough (though Momo knew this was a fallacy) not to need to tell them. The younger teen took things in stride and handled every situation bizarrely well, no matter what he'd just been told; that, and he never made judgmental comments, just nodded at the right places or stayed entirely silent when Momo lay next to him on the pavement after a particularly difficult practice match and vented about the complications in his life.

10. He'd gone into teaching.

Nobody had really expected him to, mainly because everybody seemed to think he hated school. The truth was, while they could get annoying, he was great with kids and he had a weird passion for math that compelled him to further study it. He was rubbish at a lot of other things that certain math careers required him to use, but he had a friendly personality and a knack for keeping the attention of those around him. So, the fact that he had gone into teaching his favorite subject during school – and at his alma mater, no less – wasn't that much of a surprise once everyone thought about it.