Post by Makoto Tachibana on Mar 18, 2016 3:08:50 GMT
MAKOTO TACHIBANA
Personality:
Friendship is Makoto's number one priority. He cares about all of his friends deeply, wanting each of them to be as happy as they can be in life. He enjoys their company and prefers to swim with them rather than by himself. He's not sure where he'd be in life without them. He's a very considerate person, and jokes have been made by outside sources that he's like the "mother" among his group of friends. He's always very concerned for their safety and super worrisome. Sometimes he'd prefer it if he could just keep all of them in a little bubble that he can sheild from the world. This applies extra to Haru, who is always freaking Makoto out by trying to dive into random sources of water where ever they go even if it's absolutely freezing.
Growing up in such a small town, Makoto has yet to see a lot of the world and deal with it's hardships. Given how worrisome and protective of his friends he is now, it's believable that those personality traits could be pushed into overdrive in the future. It's almost like he's been living in a bubble himself without even knowing it. He's naive to a lot of things, having only ever been in real danger when he'd tried to rescue Rei from drowning in the ocean one past summer. Being as weak hearted as he is, it's likely that he'd have trouble handling any drastic events that have yet to come his way.
Makoto generally makes good choices. He's always been a pretty good guy, and it's doubtful that will change any time soon. He hasn't ever been particularly cruel to anyone to his own knowledge and plans to keep it that way. He's good at putting himself in the shoes of others, making him very empathetic. He's not one to judge anyone, even if he doesn't always agree with the choices of others. Makoto will try to help out anyone in any way he can, even if it's not his own problem.
Makoto generally makes good choices. He's always been a pretty good guy, and it's doubtful that will change any time soon. He hasn't ever been particularly cruel to anyone to his own knowledge and plans to keep it that way. He's good at putting himself in the shoes of others, making him very empathetic. He's not one to judge anyone, even if he doesn't always agree with the choices of others. Makoto will try to help out anyone in any way he can, even if it's not his own problem.
History:
In the next high school swim tournament, Makoto placed in the 100m backstroke for regionals. The same tournament, he also faced Haru in the 200m freestyle. When explaining to Haru why he wanted to swim against him, he told him it was because he wanted to kick his ass. Unfortunately, he put all of his speed into the first lap and slowed down too much in the second lap, causing him to loose to Haru. After the loss, he acted as though he was happy and that everything was okay. Unfortunately, on the inside he didn't feel quite so joyful. He was actually upset about it, because loosing made him feel like he couldn't compare and measure up to Rin in Haru's eyes.
The next day of the tournament, Makoto and his team raced against the team that Rin had put together for a relay. They lost, but made it past the preliminaries anyways. The team took the hit a little hard, but it just motivated them all to train even harder to measure up to the Samazika team. A lot was going on inside of Makoto's head at that point. He had been worried about Haru's future and wasn't entirely sure what he wanted to do with his own yet. He started heading in the right direction when he started teaching children to swim as an assistant to Coach Sasabe at the Iwatobi Swim Club. After helping a friend named Kisumi's younger brother how to swim, he found that he got a lot of joy out of helping with that situation. It made him question that it might be what he wants to do with his life. Not long after, Makoto decided that he would go to a Tokyo University to become a swim teacher.
Makoto and his team ended up placing sixth in nationals during his last year of high school. His high school years overall were an experience Makoto will never forget. After graduation, Makoto headed off to the University of Tokyo to work toward his new found dream. College life has only just begun, but he plans on making constant trips back to his hometown, wanting to continue keeping in touch with the friends that mean so much to him. He still has a long way to go before reaching his goals, but he's very determined.
Makoto's childhood wasn't anything too out of the ordinary, and he considers himself lucky to have grown up with so many people who care about him. His oldest and best friend goes by the name of Haruka Nanase. Haru and Makoto did everything together growing up. Makoto believes that he knows him so well, he can practically read his mind. He's proved it on several occasions by accommodating Haru's wants when he hadn't cared to voice them himself. Makoto thinks highly of Haru, and is positive that he always will.
The most traumatic moment of Makoto's childhood hadn't even actually happened to him. It'd happened to an old fisherman he used to play with. He felt close to the old man, and thought of him almost as a grandfather figure. It was obvious the old man thought the same thing, because he was always doing kind things for the boy. Just one example happened when Makoto was at the Squid Day Festival. He'd foolishly spent all of his money and didn't have enough to scoop a goldfish like all the rest of the kids were doing. So, the old fisherman gave the sad boy two goldfish to put a smile on his face. Not long after, a huge typhoon came and swallowed up the fisherman's boat while he was out one day. He wasn't the only one to die that day. Hearing of the fisherman's death and watching all of the people mourn created Makoto's fear of the ocean. He cherished the goldfish the old man had given him, keeping them alive as long as he could manage. When they passed, Makoto made them a grave in which he marked with flowers. To this day, Makoto still changes out the flowers for fresh ones often.
In elementary school, Makoto joined the swim team along with Haruka. There, they met two people who he considers to be life long friends, Nagisa and Rin. His little group of two had expended into four. Makoto started off swimming breaststroke, but when the four boys made a relay team, he switched to doing the backstroke. He fell in love with it, making it his signature stroke. It felt a lot more comfortable to him. Their team won their relay event in elementary school, and Makoto still treasures the memory. It was the first time he'd truly felt how amazing it was to be apart of a team with his friends.
In junior high, Rin went to Australia to train to become a world class swimmer and Nagisa stayed in elementary school, being a year younger. Still wanting to keep up with swimming himself, he convinced Haru to join their middle school's swim team with him. Though, for reasons he didn't know at the time, Haru quit after only the first year. Makoto had assumed Rin hadn't made any trips back home from the lack of visits, but apparently he had, racing Haru for one of them. The result of their race ended up being Haru's reason for quitting. Since Makoto had always been tall, he experienced plenty of others trying to recruit him into other sports during middle school. The only one he considered happened when a boy named Kisumi Shigino tried to recruit him to the basketball team. In the end, it just didn't feel right. Swimming was the only sport that Makoto really found intriguing, standing true to present times.
When high school rolled around, Makoto felt he really started to find his place in the world. Nagisa transferred to their school, and suddenly the group that had shrank to two went up to three. It still didn't feel exactly the same without Rin, but he was happy to have Nagisa back in the group regardless. Soon after, Makoto and the guys learned from Rin's sister, Gou, that he'd come back from Australia. Even after a few encounters with Rin, things hadn't quite gone as he'd been hoping. Rin had come back different, seeming to want nothing to do with anyone but Haru. His attitude appeared much colder in Makoto's eyes, causing him to worry about his former friend.
Eventually, with the help of the drama Rin had created, Makoto was able to make another swim team with Haru and Nagisa. Rin's younger sister joined as well, becoming their manager. It took some time after that, but the team also managed to find a fourth swimmer, Rei Ryugazaki. The four grew very close, and Makoto was happy to be apart of something again. Even Haru's attitude appeared to lighten up a little. After being tricked into it by Gou, he happily got to be apart of a relay in a tournament once again. The four earned a place a regionals where things finally became right with Rin again. Being the great guy Rei was, he gave up his spot in the relay at regionals to let Rin swim with his former teammates. Of course, this stunt got them disqualified, but the friendship between the boys grew stronger.
In the next high school swim tournament, Makoto placed in the 100m backstroke for regionals. The same tournament, he also faced Haru in the 200m freestyle. When explaining to Haru why he wanted to swim against him, he told him it was because he wanted to kick his ass. Unfortunately, he put all of his speed into the first lap and slowed down too much in the second lap, causing him to loose to Haru. After the loss, he acted as though he was happy and that everything was okay. Unfortunately, on the inside he didn't feel quite so joyful. He was actually upset about it, because loosing made him feel like he couldn't compare and measure up to Rin in Haru's eyes.
The next day of the tournament, Makoto and his team raced against the team that Rin had put together for a relay. They lost, but made it past the preliminaries anyways. The team took the hit a little hard, but it just motivated them all to train even harder to measure up to the Samazika team. A lot was going on inside of Makoto's head at that point. He had been worried about Haru's future and wasn't entirely sure what he wanted to do with his own yet. He started heading in the right direction when he started teaching children to swim as an assistant to Coach Sasabe at the Iwatobi Swim Club. After helping a friend named Kisumi's younger brother how to swim, he found that he got a lot of joy out of helping with that situation. It made him question that it might be what he wants to do with his life. Not long after, Makoto decided that he would go to a Tokyo University to become a swim teacher.
Makoto and his team ended up placing sixth in nationals during his last year of high school. His high school years overall were an experience Makoto will never forget. After graduation, Makoto headed off to the University of Tokyo to work toward his new found dream. College life has only just begun, but he plans on making constant trips back to his hometown, wanting to continue keeping in touch with the friends that mean so much to him. He still has a long way to go before reaching his goals, but he's very determined.
