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[basketbro]

Applicant Info

◎ Name: dai
◎ Journal: dai_choo_choo
◎ Contact: disarmingly

Character Info

◎ Character's Name: Kisumi Shigino
◎ Character's Canon: Free! Eternal Summer
◎ Character's Age: 17
◎ Canon Point: post-ova
◎ Background/History:

wiki and high speed summaries

Kisumi Shigino was childhood friends with two of the more central characters of Free! Eternal Summer - Rin Matsuoka and Sousuke Yamazaki. He attended Sano elementary school with the two of them all the way up to the 6th grade and still considers them both very good friends of his, going as far as to search them out their during their school festival just to hang out. They were very active kids, playing soccer and other such sports together, though they seem to have lost touch during middle school when Rin left for Australia - something that Kisumi didn’t understand.

In middle school, Kisumi befriends Haru (they’re in the same class together) and Haru’s friend Makoto as well, asking Makoto (and Haru) to join the basketball team with him. He becomes very close with Haru, due to the fact they sit next to each other in school, and by default he becomes very close with Makoto as well. During middle school the three of them spend a lot of time together, either on the basketball team (for the short amount of time he convinced Makoto to play with him), in relays between teams (where Kisumi teamed up with Sousuke and another school, for most of the players were from Sano Elementary) or cheering at Makoto and Haru’s swim competitions.

For high school, he goes to a different school and seems to lose touch with both Haru and Makoto, finding them later when Makoto becomes his younger brother - Hayato’s - swimming coach. Hayato has been having trouble with being scared of the water, and when Kisumi runs into Makoto at the swim club, they talk about how Kisumi blames himself for it. They were on a family trip together and he took his eye off Hayato for a brief moment - long enough for Hayato to fall off the boat and into the water. He feels incredibly guilty because of this, but is doing everything he can to help, including coming to pick his brother up after swimming lessons every week. Kisumi is also the one to tell Haru and Makoto about Sousuke’s shoulder, after running into him at the hospital near Samezuka.

◎ Personality:

Kisumi Shigino, for all intents and purposes in the realm of the anime known as Free! Eternal Summer, is 'that friend'. He is easy-going, happy-go-lucky, excitably and friendly even in spite of Haru's less-than-excited attitude. For Kisumi, friendship seems to come easy, with a bubbly personality that draws in characters like Rin, Makoto, Haru, and even Sousuke. He is the type of person who can be friends, and is friends, with just about everyone. He is popular with the ladies and guys alike, and is chatty, a great conversationalist, and easy to talk to and be around. It's no surprise, then, that he is friends with all sorts of people - especially the types who don't seem to want to, or are able to, make friends on their own. Kisumi is drawn towards complex people (Haru and Sousuke especially) and goes out of his way to keep friendships with them - even when the other (Haru) doesn't seem nearly as invested in the friendship at all. Kisumi is not easily phased by other's reactions, and is almost too honestly, talkative, and friendly with others - usually because he really even knows them. It is a positive aspects when it comes to making friends, but it has worked in his favor so far.

On the surface, Kisumi doesn't seem like much. Sociable, unfazed, and even bouncy, he flits between friends like some kind of fairy, or a butterfly. Pretty and hard to hold down. But under all of that are a few other layers that most people may or may not notice - like, for example, how incredibly perceptive Kisumi is. He latches onto other emotions very easily, and can read people as soon as he meets them. It helped tremendously when it came to friendships with more stoic and (could be argued) cold people like Haru and Sousuke. Kisumi can sense things about people that most other may not notice, and he isn't afraid to tell them about it as well. He calls Haru out on being miserable when Rin left, despite how others may or may not have noticed, and Kisumi is not worried about what Haru's reaction to it would have been. He acts, and reacts, and pushes with a measured, understood sort of motive behind it - it's not so much that he knows what everyone is thinking, but he is very in-tune and perceptive when it comes to them, what they could want and what they could be needing. He pulls people out of their comfort zone if he knows it'll be good for them, or pushes people in directions he knows they should be going. It could very much be argued that this is one of the reasons he can keep and maintain friendships with people like Sousuke and Haru, because Kisumi is willing to be the one to do the legwork, because he is drawn to the types that are more complicated and more internal, because he's not afraid to be that external, loudly, physical, get-inside-your-boundaries kind of person. He's confident when it comes to people, seems completely oblivious to personal space, or to the awkwardness that could come meeting strangers. Kisumi just seems to work on another level of social interaction without any of the hang-ups, any of the worries.

But it is these friendships - considering Kisumi's status of 'that friend' - that tells us a lot about both Kisumi and the other characters as well. Kisumi was friends with Rin and Sousuke in middle school, despite how he didn't swim. The three of them bonded early, before both Sousuke and Rin's trials through the rest of middle school into high school. A friendship that, despite how Rin went to Australia and stopped contacting even Sousuke, and despite how Sousuke moved off to follow his dreams and Kisumi was unable to follow either, they still keep in contact. He and Rin's relationship, in the OVA, seems as strong and happy as ever. He swam with Sousuke over Makoto and Haru in middle school, and was close enough with him when he saw him during the festival in the OVA to not be bothered when he is manhandled and used as a shield. As far as Haru and Makoto, Kisumi meets them both in middle school, and sits in front of Haru in class. They bond quickly (mostly due to Kisumi's persistence and refusal to leave Haru alone) so much to the point that Kisumi used to feed Haru during lunch. Makoto and Kisumi bonded quickly, due to how generally happy and easy-going the two of them are, and Kisumi took to Makoto quickly. Haru, in high school, seems more put off but Kisumi than anything - but on a familiar sort of level. One that Kisumi whines and complains about when he meets up with them again, but doesn't seem bothered by in the least. He isn't even surprised when Haru hits him with the watergun during the school festival, but is excited when he hears Makoto is close by. He does not swim with any of these boys, knows them from earlier years at school, but is willing to go to their festival to meet up with and spend time with them all. Sometimes even at malls, where he'll force and be wholly unfazed at Sousuke's blunt and unamused personality when forced to be out without Rin.

In that same way, Kisumi is extremely self-sacrificing. He has a lot of friends, but very few (if any) close friends. He is on the basketball team, but still went to Haru and Makoto's swim tournaments, still shows up at another school's festival just to see old friends. He does not force himself into other's lives or cling heavily when they fall out of contact, but he does think of himself as their friends - even years down the line. But Kisumi is not selfish, and is one of those people who will use himself as a reason to push people into situations they wouldn't normally go. He tries to get Haru and Makoto onto his basketball team to help them make more friends, and inadvertently ends up pushing them both onto the swim team. He knows Sousuke is not very sociable, so he tricks him into mall meet-ups with Makoto and Haru. He is almost calculated, in the way he can maneuver situations and people around, but it's always to the benefit of his friends.

But the collection of these traits has a tendency to leave Kisumi somewhat distant - he has plenty of friends, is very social, is always active and moving and living a very extroverted life - but there are very few, if any, people who really get under his skin. The only we have canon evidence of would be his younger brother, Hayato, who Kisumi is incredible protective over and feels wholly responsible for. Hayato is one of the only examples we have of Kisumi's internal battle, and how he places so much on his own shoulders through his own decisions rather than anyone else's. Kisumi doesn't seem to let many people in past those walls he's built up, no matter how well he disguises the walls and makes it seem like he doesn't have them at all. Not even his closest friends from elementary school or middle school seem to know about them - not enough that Makoto even know Kisumi had a younger brother in the first place. If anything, it proves just how much Kisumi does devote himself to people when he wants to, which might also explain how he feels closer to Sousuke and Rin than Makoto and Haru - their friendships had been born when they were younger, more honest, and Kisumi has an attachment to the two of them more so than he does Makoto and Haru, despite how close he does feel to his older friends.

It is that older brother feeling that works its way into most of what Kisumi does. He always wants to help, whether it's to help be that friend who is there for his other friends, or that older brother who spends time out of his own day to watch his younger brother learn to swim. He cares for other people, almost to an extreme.

To put it simply - Kisumi has built himself into layers. The top-most is what most people see, someone who is friendly and gets too close too quick, a little too honest but means extremely well. He's devoted and loyal and the kind of friend that everyone wants to have. The next layer is the more perceptive Kisumi, the one who can see the issues his friends are dealing with and who figures out ways to fix them, to help them. A little manipulative but with good intentions, and maybe even a little schemy, this side of Kisumi is one that people do get glimpses of, might even have a feeling about. And then beneathe all of that is a Kisumi that no one really gets to see. The Kisumi who doesn't open up to people, who has a tendency to blame himself, who isn't really all that pleased with what he does. It's the Kisumi who is always trying to be better and who can never quite get there. It's a dark little place that he's built in far enough that he can kid himself that it doesn't really exist at all, that he can cover up with enough other layers - the need to fix others, the need to cheer everyone up, the need to be everyone's friend - because he can't quite do it for himself.

◎ Powers/Abilities: Kisumi is, almost to a fault, a very average teenage boy. Maybe it’s the fault of being the basketball player stuck in a swimming anime, or maybe it has something to do with the fact he - as a character - tends to move very fluidly through life. Never great, but never bad, at anything he does. He has no special abilities or powers to speak of, unless an uncanny ability to read his friends - or people in general - counts as one. It’s nothing supernatural, nothing inhuman, but rather a simple fact that Kisumi sees body language, can put actions and word choices together, and seems to be able to tap into whatever that unspoken communication that tends to happen between people. It’s nothing to write home about, and it surely hasn’t helped Kisumi do much of anything but nudge his friends along, but that paired with Kisumi’s almost unnatural ability to soldier through life, is the strongest thing he has.
◎ Weapons & Other Special Inventory: nope!

CEREALIA-Specific

◎ Element: Air.
◎ Sense: sight - Kisumi focuses a lot and cares a lot about what he can see. He’s very perceptive and most of his relationships have to deal with cues he picks up on from other people. If he couldn’t see them, he wouldn’t have those relationships.
◎ Seven Character Traits: ( gregarious, empathetic, caring ) | ( detached, internal, self-sacrificing ) + perceptive

Samples

◎ First-Person Sample: ryslig test drive one, ryslig test drive two, meme one and meme two

◎ Third-Person Sample:

He had a free day, one free day, and it just happened to be on the same day of Samezuka's School Festival. How Kisumi knew that, he wasn't even sure, but as the school day came to an end he couldn't escape the thought of how much fun it would be to stop by. Other than seeing Sousuke at the hospital (which could have gone better) and the mall, he hadn't spent a lot of time with his two oldest friends. He'd spoken with Rin on and off over the last year since he'd been back - a message online here, a text there. Just checking in, seeing how things were going. He'd at least been able to hang out with Sousuke in person at the mall, had been able to see his friend and see how he's been doing, and it'd been even better that Makoto and Haru were there as well. It was fun, but it had been brief and cut off and Rin still hadn't been there (much to Sousuke's dismay). Today, though, Hayato was going over to a friend's house after school - which left Kisumi's day open. He thought it was a great idea, honestly - to surprise his two friends and see their school and festival. He'd always been a little curious about the campus, about their great pool (Samezuka had an amazing swim team, that much he definitely remembered), about where the two of them had ended up. So, when classes were over, he hopped on a train and made it over, wandering around the grounds for a little bit to see all the stands and events that were being held.

Finding Sousuke wasn't too difficult (it never really was) considering his height and general ability to stick out from the crowd when you were looking for him - and Sousuke didn't even put up a fight when Kisumi mentioned hanging out. At least, right up until something changed - he saw it in Sousuke's eyes, first, but needed a few more moments to catch on. Those few moments were taken up by Sousuke's hand over his mouth, Sousuke's arm pulling him close as they hid behind the wall. The water gun should have clued him in a little more, but then he heard Makoto - Makoto? - and something about feeling better about aiming and-

Well. The next thing Kisumi knew he was drenched in water and a very guilty looking Makoto was worrying about him, while Sousuke mentioned something about being even (okay, he probably did deserve that for something along the line) and that was that. He found out from Makoto, then, that Iwatobi had come by to do much of the same as Kisumi - come see Rin and Sousuke (and some underclassmen Kisumi didn't recognize) - and that they'd been pulled into a survival water-gun fight. Two teams, two from each school, and free rein of the grounds. Makoto apologized for hitting him before running off after that, and Kisumi was just....well. More confused, than anything. But at least that made sense.

Running into Rin had been on accident, but much more well appreciated, Rin actually seeming excited to see him. It would be his own luck, though, that right as they started talking they'd be interrupted - by Haru (not surprising, and definitely on purpose) and was left standing somewhere in the middle of the Samezuka campus - again, drenched - while Rin laughed and said he'd catch up later. It was then, standing right there, that a realization sort of settled over Kisumi. Like he was just now seeing the way his two worlds had met.

There was a text, sent just ten or so minutes later, about meet us for the bonfire later that made Kisumi smile. He'd come to see his friends, and he'd seen them - laughing and having fun - and really, that was enough for him today. He shot back a quick had to go, but I'll catch up later! ^-^ as he stepped back on the train.

They were all graduating, after all.

◎ Is your character retaining any previous game memories? nope!