7 things about Suzuki Nanao
I read tcafs08's post and got inspired. (We inspire each other it's what we do). So here we go.
1. Suzuki Nanao is simply a product of her environment.
It's rare in their society for there to be three siblings at all - the average number of children is two (it's easier to deal with heirs and inheritances this way), and Suzuki Nanao's birth hadn't been something that was exactly planned (this is a well-kept secret). Her two older siblings are much older than her, and much closer to one another in age than to her; this meant that not only was Suzuki Nanao the baby of the family, she grew up with far less expectations than her two elder siblings, who had already grown up with excellent marks and extraordinary accomplishments years ago.
So Nanao is allowed to be exempt from much of the harsh standards that most of her peers face, was treated as a perpetual baby by not just her parents, but her siblings, too - resulting in very much a different kind of girl from her more vicious, kill-or-be-killed peers (Megumi and Jun are deceptively predatory, perfect examples of the kinds of people that their society normally lends itself to; the way they baby their little sister is by no indication their true personality).
2. Nanao has a hard time containing her dislike for Atobe's father.
Nanao's father and Atobe's father raised the two in two very different ways. The Suzuki head is more family-oriented to begin with, had kept the family business from expanding even further to 'keep it all in the family,' allowing branches only to be opened when someone directly related to the family would head the project. (Make no mistake, Nanao's father is also a very shrewd businessman, and he's only as family-oriented as their world can really allow one to be - but it's still more than the typical high-society member is). He had never expected much of Nanao, the youngest baby, for he'd already placed all his expectations and legacies on her two elder siblings by the time she'd been born.
Keigo, on the other hand, is the sole heir to the entire Atobe conglomerate.
They were raised with fundamentally different values, so Nanao doesn't understand how on earth his father can treat Keigo the way he does (Megumi and Jun do, but then, they're the entire reason Nanao is able to be the way she is). She's indignant on Keigo's behalf, more upset than he is whenever his father finds fault with him, and gets almost personally offended whenever his father disappoints Keigo.
3. Suzuki Nanao is a very, very good student.
She may not be brilliant like Oshitari and Keigo or a talented dancer / athlete like Minako, but she's very, very efficient. She tackles everything in life with a structured and detailed plan, breaks down even the smallest of tasks into ten small steps and gets the job done in record time.
The same goes for studying.
She's not a genius, she's just very good at studying. (This is one of the reasons that foreign languages has her stumped, because for all the planning that you do, if you can't grasp the language, you can't really learn anything at all). In fact, all throughout high school, Greek has been the single subject she hadn't been able to overcome.
She also works harder than 99% of the students in her grade, because for much of her adolescence, she spent her time trying to impress her father - which was rather hard, considering her father hardly ever saw her as anything more than his helpless baby fawn.
Suzuki Nanao ranks in the top ten at Hyotei during her middle school years ten times out of twelve; during high school, nine out of twelve (essentially, her Greek grade had placed her below the top ten until Atobe Keigo came to her aid).
4. Nanao is distantly-close to her siblings.
She and her two older siblings have always shared a bit of an odd relationship, stemming from the fact that Megumi is 5 years older than her, and Jun 7 years older. They adore one another as much as siblings can, but they've always had more of a parental-child relationship than one between siblings, and they'd always been in very different phases of their life; for instance, Megumi had been close to graduating college, and Jun already graduated, by the time Nanao'd entered high school.
Nanao's also had sort of a complex (that she hid away very, very well) starting at the beginning of junior high, when she'd started to notice just how differently her father treated her siblings from the way he treated her. It doesn't make her love them any less, but she has a bit of a mixed reaction towards them at times due to this internal conflict.
5. Nanao isn't gorgeous, per say, but she's not ugly, either.
The reason Suzuki Nanao has remained a wallflower for the better part of junior and high school is due to the fact that she's constantly surrounded by very, very attractive people and that she'd never found herself in the phase to put too much stock in her own appearance.
Girls in their society were always very-well put together, flawless makeup and thousand-dollar haircuts and sparkling clothes and brands - her sister is very much the same way.
Nanao had started to get into makeup early in junior high, but found that her skin had a bad reaction to most makeup products, and it was more trouble than it was worth to go out of her way to acquire special makeup for those with sensitive skin.
That, coupled with the fact that she lacks the typical charisma and self-assured confidence that many girls in their world wield like additional charms, had always made her pale in comparison.
(Later, when she dates Atobe, she'll gain her own sort of vivacity that brightens her features whenever she's around him).
6. Nanao inherently sees Shigohara Minako as an older sister figure.
Shigohara Minako and Suzuki Megumi are actually two rather similar people. Megumi had also danced ballet during her schooldays, and was the captain of the volleyball team at Hyotei - Megumi and Jun both had been very attractive and very charismatic, popular with their peers and flawless in both academics and athletics.
Nanao subconsciously sees a lot of Megumi in Minako, even though the way the two girls treat her are very different, and projects a lot of the way she looks up to Megumi onto Minako, as well.
(This is part of the reason she'd been unable to resent Minako at all when she found out that she was dating Oshitari Yuushi back when Nanao had been infatuated with him. For one, Minako was much more in Oshitari's league than Nanao had ever come close to; for another, Minako dating a boy she liked was a parallel to Megumi dating a boy she liked in Nanao's mind, and she'd been unable to be upset with Minako in particular at all).
7. Atobe may seem to dominate their relationship with his grand gestures, but Nanao almost constantly keeps him in mind with the smallest of actions, much more frequently than Atobe does.
Back in high school, Nanao would often carry energy bars in her bag; these she would quietly hand Atobe when she noticed that he'd skipped a meal if he was too busy that day. She'd also carry around band-aids, for Atobe tended to accumulate more cuts than he let on during tennis practice, as well as low-dose painkiller medication for his headaches.
Atobe has a habit of tasting other people's drinks - more a subconscious, idle act than anything else - so Nanao's gotten in the habit of selecting flavors they both like, since he would always make a face at the flavors she typically bought.
Ever since he's started to visit her house more and spend his afternoons in the study at the Suzuki estate, there's been a growing number of German literature on the shelves for him to read.
None of the Suzukis read German literature.
