Eguchi Tappei

Eguchi Tappei (江口 辰平 Eguchi Tappei) is a friend of Miiko's from her school. His parents run a small family store, called Lazy Moon, where Miiko, her friends, and even family often visit to buy things such as accessories or household decorations. He used to live with his mother alone since Tappei’s parents were divorced, but starting on Miiko-desu! chapter 18, his parents have gotten back together, thanks to Miiko’s help.

Appearance
Tappei usually wears casual clothes to school, like t-shirts with trousers/jeans, sometimes also with jackets. There are a couple of occasions where he wears his baseball uniform, usually after a practice or a match.

Personality
Tappei is popular among girls, shown from the number of chocolates that he gets every year on Valentine’s Day. He plays a lot of sports but he focuses on baseball by joining a baseball club at school and he’s often shown playing soccer or basketball with his friends. Although he seems rude and even mean at times (especially to Miiko) and he has a non-friendly look on his face, he is proved to be kind at heart and gets along with his friend very well. Also, even though he’s less cheerful than most of his friends, he’s still very friendly to everyone, even to those he doesn’t know very well.

Satou Kenta
Tappei always seems to be together with his best friend, Satou Kenta. They're always together in recess, in the park when they’re not at school, or whenever they’re going home together. But Kenta also likes to be with his girlfriend, Ogawa Yuuko (Yukko), which leads Tappei to be together with Miiko, usually for the sake of developing their relationship in the story. Tappei and Kenta have been friends since first year, which made Kenta pretty much his most trusted friend. Kenta always shows his concerns for Tappei and he also listens to Tappei well, as does Tappei to him.

Yamada Miko
Tappei seems to have a crush on Miiko and often gets embarrassed whenever his friends tease him, especially Kenta. Tappei gives more attention to Miiko than to anyone and Miiko often reciprocates the feeling, leading to their friends noticing Tappei’s crush on Miiko (and vice versa). Despite that, Miiko still seems to ignore the thought of Tappei potentially liking her or even them liking each other and assures herself that he is just being a nice friend to her, as she is to him. On top of that, they have a fun relationship with each other, where Tappei teases her by calling her names like "short", "baby pig/piglet", or "idiot" purposely to make Miiko irritated. Miiko almost always ends up hitting Tappei as a result, which leads them to ‘fight’ all the time. Sometimes Tappei even makes fun of Miiko too harsh that she'll cry. However, Tappei always realises his fault immediately when he takes things too far and ends up apologising sincerely in the end. Tappei has more than once came to Miiko’s residence or asking Miiko to talk without their friends around when they’re at school just to say sorry to her. He also often gives Miiko small gifts to show his feelings.

The story never shies away from making Tappei and Miiko’s love for each other obvious, especially by showing the future more than once, where Miiko (and once together with Tappei himself) sees their future selves ending up together. But by the time the story gets back to the present time, Miiko still treats Tappei the same way as before (also Tappei to Miiko, even after going into the future together), creating a more light-hearted childhood friendship than a romance story.

Even though they’re shown to be in very friendly terms with each other, Tappei still calls Miiko by her family name, Yamada, instead of her first name. Despite that, Miiko calls him Tappei and not Eguchi.

Yoshida Ikuya
Tappei shows a friendly rivalry towards Yoshida, who has shown to have the same feeling for Miiko. Tappei always looks jealous of Yoshida because Yoshida shows his affection to Miiko more in a gentle way, by complimenting her or help her without a second thought, without being embarrassed by it. However, Miiko always somehow ends up with her friends or Tappei more than Yoshida, and Tappei teases Yoshida about it by giving him a winning face and showing his tongue at him.

Tanimura Miho
There are a lot of girls who admire and even confessed to Tappei, but one who stands out the most is Tanimura Miho. Like Yoshida to Miiko, Miho doesn't shy away from showing her crush for Tappei. There are times where Miho even convinces Miiko to switch place with her, usually because Miiko and Tappei often end up together (coincidentally or not) on various occasions. Miho has shown her affection to Tappei a lot of times but she has always been rejected, though only subtly and politely, by Tappei. Miho once gave Tappei a handkerchief for Valentine's Day, which Tappei brought with him the next day (only because he took the first thing he saw on the table in the morning). Tappei only sees Miho as a friend and he doesn't think of her as annoying, but he does look uncomfortable when Miho comes up to him if Miiko is around.