Chapter Text
Ending up at the same university as Ushijima Wakatoshi might have been a little easier to take, Oikawa thinks, if only, by some freakish chance, Ushijima had been so scarred by his defeat by Karasuno in his final high school competition that he’d decided to abandon volleyball altogether and taken up farming studies or something instead.
Oh, so you’re both from Miyagi Prefecture, right? Matsuoka, the captain, had asked them after the new first-years had finished introducing themselves, blithely oblivious to the massive can of worms he was in the midst of opening. Did you know each other?
Yes. Oikawa and I have known each other since junior high. Ushijima hadn’t even had the common decency to pause awkwardly before he answered, nor had his tone given any hint of the nature of the six years they’d been aware of each other’s existence – the six years Ushijima had spent steamrolling all of Oikawa’s dreams flatter than a pancake.
No, Oikawa had wanted to shriek back at him. No, he had not known Ushijima during school, except in the way a field of rice knows a horde of locusts, or an unsuspecting cow knows a river full of hungry piranhas. But he hadn’t done that, of course – he’d had no choice, obviously, but to laugh lightly and say something asinine about how they might have crossed paths once or twice, before Matsuoka had assigned them all to go practice in different groups, and Oikawa had spent the rest of the week ignoring Ushijima just as hard as he could. If anyone had thought that was odd, they hadn’t said anything about it. Not to Oikawa’s face, anyway.
But Oikawa’s policy of ‘hardcore feigned ignorance of Ushijima’s presence and in fact his entire existence’ is something he knows can’t go on forever, especially not now that the coaches have designated today’s drills as sudden-death games of two-against-two. It’s the first real opportunity the first-years have had to show everyone what they’re made of, and of course, since Oikawa’s life is apparently nothing but a joke to whatever higher powers might be out there, he’s been paired up with his archenemy, his nemesis, his final boss, Ushiwaka-chan.
It’s totally fine, though – Oikawa can, temporarily at least, put aside a grudge that was six years in the making for the sake of trying to impress his coaches and senpai. Or at least he could, if Ushijima weren’t so obviously and blatantly staring at his ass.
Oikawa had only noticed it because he’d bent over slightly, the better to observe Fujiwara’s kind of stiff footwork, and then looked over his shoulder to inform Ushijima, one professional to another, of the weakness he thought they could exploit during their match, only to find Ushijima’s eyes glued firmly to the seat of his pants, eyebrows furrowed, a look of deep and intense concentration on his face.
What – what –
It’s only by putting all of his not inconsiderable willpower to work that Oikawa manages not to sputter out loud and stay where he is in his mildly hunched-over position, fingers clenched on his knees, mind racing. His eyes go back to the court, though this time they’re unseeing of Fujiwara’s or anyone else’s footwork.
Oikawa knows when he’s being perved on. It’s one of his special skills, like picking the ripest-but-not-too-ripe avocado at the store and knowing when Iwa-chan is just trying to look at the fanservice-y pages of Shounen Jump in peace. It happens often enough, and he’d be telling a silly lie to say he doesn’t enjoy it. But the people who usually do it are… well, people. Not Ushijima.
He glances at Ushijima. Wiggles his butt a little, under the guise of keeping his hamstrings warm. Ushijima’s eyebrows draw even closer together, his frown growing deeper, as if, somehow, Oikawa’s rear end might contain the secrets of the universe. He’s obviously not paying even the slightest amount of attention to what’s happening on the court at all.
Oikawa runs through a short – very short – list of things he could say or do, before he finally snaps, “See something you like, Ushiwaka-chan?”
They’re the first words he’s spoken to Ushijima since they arrived here – the first, in fact, since Ushijima had bailed him up in the foyer of the gym after Aoba Jousai’s loss to Karasuno and told him all about how, perhaps, he should have considered throwing away everything about volleyball that made it worth playing to come set for Ushijima at Shiratorizawa instead.
Ushijima looks up, cocking his head as if he doesn’t understand the question. But then, a moment later, comprehension dawns, and he shakes his head.
“No,” Ushijima says. “You have some gum stuck to the seat of your pants. Perhaps you sat in it. On a bus or some other place.”
Oikawa blinks, his hand going to his butt before he can think. Obviously, since Ushijima has most likely never told a lie in his life, and certainly not about something so easily verifiable, he finds a hard, sticky wad of gum stuck to the material of his gym shorts and withdraws his fingers quickly before he can think too hard about where it’d been before it had attached itself to his ass.
“Right. Thanks,” he remembers to say before he scoots his way over to the moist towelette dispenser affixed to the wall of the gym and begins trying, as discreetly as possible, to get rid of the gum.
Oikawa knows it should come as a relief that it’d turned out that Ushijima had been staring at his ass for entirely selfless and legitimate purposes – but there’s something about the situation he just doesn’t like. It’s not until after the match (which they won) and practice is over and he’s staring across the change room at where Ushijima is standing, steam from the showers swirling around him, biceps bunching as he towel-dries his hair, that Oikawa thinks, ah-ha! – that’s where Ushijima has been hoisted by his own overly solicitous petard, because how would he have known there was gum on his ass if he hadn’t been staring at it in the first place?
***
By the time the next day’s practice comes around, Oikawa has managed to talk himself down from the height of his panic re: Ushijima’s sudden fixation on his ass. After all, who hasn’t stared at Oikawa’s ass at one time or another? It’s a perfectly natural response to it. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything more sinister is going on.
It’s fine, Oikawa thinks, trying to concentrate as Head Coach Nakamura runs through the new hand signals he wants them to have memorised by the end of the practice session – which isn’t easy, since Oikawa spent most of last night lying awake relentlessly replaying every interaction he’d ever had with Ushijima over the past six years.
Which is stupid, Oikawa thinks, now that he’s here in the cold light of day and actually looking at Ushijima’s stupid face with its utterly unreadable expression as he comes striding across the change rooms towards him – fully clothed this time, Oikawa can’t help but notice.
“Oh, Ushiwaka-chan,” Oikawa says casually, as if it’s all the same to him. “Was there something you wanted?”
Is there some chewing gum stuck to my face this time or something? he considers asking – but doesn’t, because in the next moment, Ushijima’s hand has slammed, open-palmed, into the wall right beside his head and rendered Oikawa incapable of either talking or thinking.
Wait – what the – did this absolute asshole just kabedon me?!
Oikawa goggles up at him, mouth opening and closing in mute outrage.
Ushijima withdraws his hand from behind Oikawa’s head, holding it up to show him the black smear across his palm.
“There was a mosquito,” he says.
***
“Use me,” Ushijima says, his breath hot as it ghosts over Oikawa’s ear.
Oikawa stiffens, feeling the sweat he’s worked up over the course of the match dripping down his back.
“What?!” he manages to sputter out a second later, turning to stare incredulously over his shoulder where Ushijima is hovering, large and sweaty and overly intense.
“Use me,” Ushijima says, looking at him blandly. “On the next attack. The opposition have gotten caught up marking Miura too closely. You should toss to me next.”
***
“Ugh. He’s in love with me,” Oikawa announces when Iwaizumi arrives for their weekly dinner catch-up.
Iwaizumi frowns as he steps into the genkan. “Who is?”
“Ushiwaka-chan, obviously,” Oikawa snarls. He pauses, waiting for Iwaizumi to do his usual thing – For God’s sake, Shittykawa, who the hell would be in love with you? Please stop embarrassing both me and yourself with this kind of shit, etc., etc.
But instead, Iwaizumi quietly slips into his house slippers, walks past Oikawa to his tiny dining room table, deposits the drinks he’s brought on it, and says, “Oh.”
Well, that’s certainly mystifying, Oikawa thinks as he returns to chopping carrots, but perhaps Iwa-chan has simply had a hard day toiling at the sports science factory and Oikawa can’t expect much in the way of conversation from him until after he’s eaten, or he’s just not in the mood for this kind of thing right now – but the joke’s on him in that case, since Iwaizumi has never been in the mood for this kind of thing since the day he was born, but that has literally never stopped Oikawa even for a moment.
“Anyway, aren’t you going to ask me how my first week of practice at an incredibly prestigious university with its nationally renowned volleyball team went?” Oikawa asks, as Iwaizumi starts setting the table. “I messaged you twice this week to ask after your studies and find out what you wanted for dinner, and you just told me to leave you alone, you were in lectures, so I was forced to make an executive decision. We’re having chicken stir fry with ginger, by the way, since the supermarket was having a special. Look at this, Iwa-chan! It was only three hundred yen!”
He lifts up his magnificent find from the kitchen bench to show Iwaizumi: an enormous ginger root, bigger than his hand.
“I called it the Ushiginger,” Oikawa informs Iwaizumi as he picks up his kitchen knife again. “It makes it extremely satisfying to cut bits and pieces of it off, let me tell you, Iwa-chan.”
Oikawa hadn’t been expecting Iwaizumi to actually laugh at his delightful little joke, since he’s always known that Iwaizumi is extremely deficient in the sense of humour department. But he also hadn't expected him to frown at him, a deep furrow appearing between his eyebrows.
“Right,” Iwaizumi says slowly. “Because that’s not completely unhinged at all.”
“It’s either that or cut bits and pieces off the real thing,” Oikawa tells him blithely, as he neatly slices off an outlying knobble with a satisfying thunk and ignores Iwaizumi’s expression entirely. “I’m only thinking of you, Iwa-chan, and how lonely you’d be if I went to prison for murder. Though would it really count as murder if it’s Ushiwaka? People cut up root vegetables every day without a second thought.”
“I just think,” Iwaizumi continues implacably onwards, as if Oikawa hadn’t spoken at all, “now that you’re playing on the same team, this isn’t very productive. High school was high school. It’s done with. I’m not saying I’d be happy about it if I was in your shoes, but maybe you should just… calm down a little. Yeah, he probably chose the worst possible time to finally confess, and he probably should’ve just kept his stupid mouth shut. But you’re being kind of a dick about this, Oikawa. Even for you.”
Oikawa stares at Iwaizumi, knife paused halfway through slicing into the Ushiginger. “Who confessed? What are you talking about?”
Iwaizumi stiffens, and then he very clearly swallows. “He, uh, he didn’t confess?”
“Who didn’t?” Oikawa persists, because literally nothing Iwaizumi has said over the past few seconds makes any sense whatsoever.
Iwaizumi fiddles with the chopsticks he’s been laying out on the table, seeming suddenly extremely concerned that they’re sitting on the placemat just right. “No one,” he mumbles after a moment. “Nothing. Forget I said anything.”
“Iwa-chan.” Oikawa lifts the knife from where it’s still half-buried in the Ushiginger. He doesn’t actually threaten Iwaizumi with it per se, but he does sort of waggle it in his general direction. “What on earth are you talking about?”
Iwaizumi sighs. “Look. I made a promise to myself that I was never going to tell you this.”
“Tell me what,” Oikawa says – though he has to admit that somewhere in the back of his mind little alarm bells are beginning to ring, and perhaps he ought to stop Iwaizumi right now and tell him actually, no, he’s taking him up on his offer to forget he said anything.
“That… okay. Okay. You remember how there was that training camp with us, Shiratorizawa, Wakutani, and Datekou, right before the beginning of third year?” Iwaizumi is looking up at the ceiling, clearly having to force every single word up his throat one by one like pebbles travelling through a garden hose.
Oikawa does, of course, because it had been the first time he’d encountered Datekou’s towering middle blocker and his complete lack of eyebrows. “Yes?”
“Well. There was… an evening. The night before we all left, I was late getting back to our dorm because I wanted to talk to Wakutani’s captain about… something, whatever, it wasn’t important. And when I left the gym, Ushijima was just kind of… there, hanging around, and he asked me if I’d mind if he asked me some questions.”
“Questions?” Oikawa says – agog. He feels like he sometimes feels when he knows he’s in great form, and it’s like he’s floating above the court, watching himself deliver the best serve he’s ever made – except this is the complete opposite of that. This is dreadful.
“Yes, questions,” Iwaizumi snaps, as if it’s somehow Oikawa’s fault that Ushijima had bailed him up at a training camp with his questions. “About you. About… uh. Were you seeing anyone.”
“Why on earth would he –”
“It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out, does it, Trashykawa?” Iwaizumi says sharply, at long last fixing him with a very piercing stare, which Oikawa doesn’t like at all. “But I… look, I just gave it to him straight that even if you weren’t – since this was during that idiotic three-week period you were seeing Mikari-chan – there was no chance. Just no way. That he’d be better off forgetting all about this and setting his sights on someone more realistic, like Queen Elizabeth II.”
“Oh. Right.” Oikawa stares down at the Ushiginger. Suddenly, he doesn’t really feel like eating it anymore. “And what did he say to that?”
“He just kind of nodded and said he understood and disappeared off into the night, and the next day Shiratorizawa kicked our asses in the practice match and in every other game after that, and I just assumed he’d decided to get over it. Which was good, because I couldn’t even begin to imagine a scenario where you would possibly be interested.” Iwaizumi sighs. “To be honest, I kind of thought you already knew and were just ignoring it, the way any sane person would. And when I turned up here and you were being all theatrical about how Ushiwaka was in love with you, I just assumed he’d decided to confess after all, for some asinine reason. Obviously, I was wrong. And now, please just forget I said any of this. Please? Will you?”
Oikawa opens his mouth to ask Iwaizumi how exactly he’s supposed to do that when everything he thought he knew about the world has just been turned upside down, but all that emerges is a strange little wheezing sound – though it amounts to roughly the same thing.
“Having said that,” Iwaizumi says slowly, giving Oikawa a quizzical look, “if he didn’t actually confess, then why do you think he likes you?”
I thought he was staring at my ass one time, but he was just staring at some gum I sat in. Oh, and I thought he kabedoned me, but he was just squashing a mosquito. And I misheard something he said on the court, but it turned out to be totally harmless, thinks Oikawa.
“Why on earth else would he show up at my university, playing for my volleyball team?” is what he snaps instead of any of those things. “He’s stalking me, Iwa-chan, and if I see him on university grounds again, I’m going to call campus security.”
“Right. Okay then,” Iwaizumi says. He runs a hand over his face, as if he’s currently regretting a great many things in his life. “So in other words, you’re an idiot, and I just revealed someone’s humiliating life secret for absolutely no reason. Thanks for that, Shittykawa. You’re a real pal.”
“Well, if we’re accusing each other of being real pals,” Oikawa shoots back, “why is this the first I’m hearing about any of this? When did this happen – over a year ago? A whole year? And you didn’t tell me? If Ushiwaka-chan had accosted me outside a gym to confess his undying love for you, I would’ve told you right away, so we could’ve plotted together about how to make his life hell for the rest of his high school career!”
Iwaizumi nods, pinning Oikawa with a particularly knowing look. “There – because of that. That’s exactly the reason I didn’t tell you. Because you were already obsessed enough with him as it was. I didn’t need to give you any more reasons to get your knickers in a twist over him.”
Iwaizumi’s eyes are stabbing a million tiny needles into his skin, which is also something Oikawa feels he doesn’t really need to be doing. “Obsessed?!”
“Yes, obsessed,” Iwaizumi says. “How many times did I have to stop you from overdoing it because you said you wouldn’t be able to beat Ushiwaka if you didn’t stay back another hour, another two hours? How many times did I have to tell you to pull back on your serve, because you were just going to keep hitting them out if all you could think about was smashing them straight into Ushiwaka’s face?” Iwaizumi raises an eyebrow and shifts his gaze to where the Ushiginger is sitting, forgotten, on the cutting board in front of Oikawa. “And now you’re naming your ginger after him. I rest my fucking case, Oikawa.”
Oikawa looks down at the ginger. Part of him wants to wail at Iwaizumi that he’s being unfair and it’s not his fault that Iwaizumi can’t take an obvious joke at their high school nemesis’ expense. He hadn’t meant it seriously! He’d just thought it was funny. If Iwaizumi doesn’t think naming fresh spices after his high school nemesis is hilarious, then maybe he’s the one who’s obsessed. Oikawa wouldn’t care if Iwaizumi wanted to name his ginger after Ushijima Wakatoshi, or anyone else for that matter.
Well, Oikawa will show him.
“Fine,” he says, airily. “Fine! If that’s how you feel, no more Ushiginger.”
He picks up the board and scrapes the ginger pieces into his kitchen bin. He feels a pang to see it go – it really was a bargain, after all – but that’s nothing compared with proving a point and winning an argument with Iwa-chan.
“He’s gone! I’ve banished him. So we can eat our meal in peace now. And I’ll forget everything you told me. Would that make you happy?”
“… Yes,” Iwaizumi says slowly, eyeing Oikawa suspiciously. “You’ll really forget it? And just drop this whole thing?”
Oikawa laughs, light as a summer breeze. “Of course I will, Iwa-chan! Honestly, sometimes it’s like you don’t know me at all.”
***
Oikawa yawns discreetly, covering his mouth delicately with his hand.
He hadn’t slept a wink last night after he’d finished his meal of bland, ginger-less chicken stir fry with Iwaizumi, who he could tell wasn’t enjoying the food but was much too stubborn to admit it, since he was the whole reason the ginger sauce hadn’t come to fruition. At the end of the evening, when they’d been standing together in the genkan, Iwaizumi had simply said they’d catch up again next week, told Oikawa to stop messaging him during lectures, asked after Takeru – and then he’d kind of hovered for a bit as if wanting to say something else, though in the end he’d just turned away and let himself out, leaving Oikawa alone to obsess for the rest of the evening about what Iwaizumi had told him about Ushijima being in love with him.
Oikawa stares at the side of Ushijima’s face now, as Ushijima listens very seriously and attentively to whatever Head Coach Nakamura is talking about. Had he really had the means to utterly crush him in the palm of his hand all along and hadn’t even known it? Had Ushijima truly been so oblivious to just how much Oikawa loathed him and had loathed him ever since junior high? There was no one Oikawa had ever hated more – even Tobio-chan hadn’t quite charted that high on Oikawa’s list of dislikes, though it’d been a near-run thing at times.
If Ushijima had gotten as far as asking Iwaizumi what Oikawa thought of him, then obviously, he couldn’t possibly have known just how much Oikawa despised him – but then, he’d known that already, hadn’t he? Ushijima, in all of their interactions, had never been malicious, had never risen to Oikawa’s own maliciousness; he’d just been what he’d been, a steamroller flattening all before it, which is exactly what steamrollers are designed to do. If Oikawa had been a steamroller, he would’ve done the same.
“All right, is that clear?”
Oikawa snaps out of his reverie in time to answer, Yes! along with all the other players, even though he was only half-listening at best. He knows he needs to start doing better – the atmosphere of the team here isn’t like it was at Seijou, where good old Irihata-kun had been very happy to let him run the show. Oikawa knows, as a first-year, he could never have expected the same level of freedom in any case, but it’s clear that Coach Nakamura also runs a tight ship here, and values discipline in his team. Oikawa knows he’ll have to adjust, and adjust he will – but he can’t help but feel it’s yet another unfair advantage to Ushijima, coming as he does from Shiratorizawa, with its martinet of a coach. He’s already used to all of this, Oikawa thinks sourly as, in groups, they get up and head to the ball carts.
“Just a word to the wise,” a second-year named Goda says quietly in Oikawa’s ear as they retrieve a ball each. “You’re in Sonoda’s group. He’s looking to be made head coach next year when Nakamura-sensei retires, and he thinks he’s going to get it by being the biggest hardass possible. Watch out for him and don’t give him a chance to reprimand you.”
“Oh, thanks,” Oikawa says lightly, nodding just enough. He appreciates it, he truly does – it’s the role of a second-year, after all, to look after their kouhai. They’re not so lofty as a third or fourth-year yet, and the memories of being at the bottom of the pecking order are still relatively fresh in their minds.
He gets to experience Sonoda’s hardassery for himself a moment later, when the man barks out, “What are you first-years doing retrieving balls over there? You won’t be participating in drills – you’ll be on ball boy duties today. Watch and learn from your senpai.”
Oikawa answers Yes!, the way he knows they’re expected to here, drops his ball back in the cart and goes to stand at the side of the court. He’s not particularly unhappy about it, the disappointed frisson in his veins that he won’t be playing after all aside, since he knows there’s a lot to be learned by observing better players than him – but he becomes rapidly more unhappy when Ushijima comes and plants himself right next to him by the line, the same stoic, serious, dull expression on his face as usual. Ordinarily, he’d delight in the thought of Ushijima playing ball boy – but right now it’s a little more complicated, since he’s in the exact same position, and any and all mirth is going to have to be enjoyed privately, which takes at least half the fun out of it.
And Oikawa isn’t so stupid as to let himself get distracted at a time like this – it doesn’t matter, anyway, since there are no walls here for Ushijima to try to kabedon him against, or, he assumes, gum on his pants for Ushijima to gawk at and attempt to save him from social embarrassment over. He watches his senpai, and he completely ignores Ushiwaka-chan standing by his side, like some kind of tall, broad, utterly silent tree which has had the same haircut since it was thirteen years old.
He’s still not entirely sure what the hell it is, then, that makes him open his mouth during a water break and say, “Iwa-chan told me something interesting last night, Ushiwaka-chan.”
Ushijima turns slightly to look at him, hair dampened and sticking to his forehead with sweat from chasing down stray balls, and says, “Oh?”
Oikawa opens his mouth, ready, willing and able to cut Ushijima down to size with the devastating forbidden knowledge with which he has been gifted – only to find he has absolutely no idea what to actually say. Ushijima’s expression is benignly interested as he waits while Oikawa shuts his mouth, opens it again, and scrabbles desperately around in his brain for just the right words to tell Ushiwaka that Oikawa knows his dirty little secret, so perhaps he could just drop out of volleyball, university, and maybe even the entire country out of the shame of it all.
But in the end, somehow, he just can’t force the words out of his mouth. He knows he has to say something, though. Anything.
“He said – he said S’Port Mizuno is having a half-price sale on sneakers next week,” he eventually settles on, even though Iwaizumi had said nothing of the sort, and Oikawa wouldn’t have the slightest idea what S’Port Mizuno’s sales schedule is like.
Ushijima seems to take a moment to absorb this information. “Hmm,” he says, nodding. “That is interesting. Please thank Iwaizumi from me for passing this information on.”
Oh, great, Oikawa thinks. Now Ushijima probably thinks he was trying to make friendly conversation or that he cares about whether Ushijima can acquire cheap footwear. He’s going to think Oikawa is actually responding to his shitty-ass flirting, and then –
“You two!” Sonoda’s voice rings out suddenly from across the gym, and he comes storming over to where Oikawa and Ushijima are standing together by the edge of the court, his expression enraged. “Who told you you could have a friendly little chat? You’re here to learn, not to talk! That’ll be one hundred practice serves for each of you after the drill session has ended, and you’ll clean the gym by yourselves afterwards. Hopefully that’ll keep your minds on why you’re here, instead of talking amongst yourselves.”
Oikawa barely has time to process the full implications of this pronouncement, before Goda catches his eye, shrugging, his expression clearly saying, Sorry, but I did try to warn you.
***
“Well. This is probably some kind of exciting new experience for you, isn’t it, Ushiwaka-chan – getting punished by the coach for being a naughty boy,” Oikawa says, more to be obnoxious than anything else, since he’s hot, starving hungry, and he’s still only on his sixty-fifth serve. It’s not that he really minds doing practice serves – it’s what he used to do after regular practice had finished, anyway. But the thought of being actually punished, and what’s more punished for the crime of talking to Ushijima, is the most exquisitely galling thing he can think of right now.
The only slightly mitigating factor is that Ushijima is probably just as put out as he is – after all, Shiratorizawa’s desiccated coconut of a coach had doted on him to an extent that was, quite frankly, bordering on the weird and probably would have forgiven whatever incredibly boring transgressions Ushijima had cared to commit. Not that Oikawa can really picture him committing any in the first place, boring or not.
Ushijima says nothing for a long moment, as he tosses the ball up, deliberately, precisely, and then smashes it with unnerving force into the court, a perfect serve right on the line that almost any defender would have been deceived into calling out right until the moment it landed.
“Why do you call me that?” Ushijima asks when he turns back, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his forearm.
Oikawa blinks, wondering why, of all the moments in time, Ushijima has chosen to ask him this now. He bounces the ball slowly and deliberately, and doesn’t look at him.
“Well, I’ve got to call you something, Ushiwaka-chan,” he says, because it sounds less petty than the real reasons, which are 1) Because he’d thought it was pretty funny when he was in junior high, and 2) Because Ushijima had repeatedly told him not to.
Oikawa sends the ball up, watching as it rises, arcs and descends, before smashing his palm into it, perfectly and intentionally replicating Ushijima’s serve from a moment before. Ushijima’s serve has always been powerful, though it’s never been as precise as Oikawa’s – but maybe that’s beginning to change, Oikawa thinks sourly. Of course. No matter what he ekes out for himself, there’s always got to be a Tobio-chan or an Ushiwaka-chan just out of sight, just one step away from overtaking him entirely.
“Did you think I called you that because I liked you or something?” he says, casually, cruelly, and watches as the ball Ushijima has been spinning between his palms goes suddenly still.
“I didn’t know why, which is the reason I asked,” Ushijima says, slowly and deliberately as always. “But I had thought, at one time –”
Oikawa never finds out what he thinks, because he cuts Ushijima off with his next serve. He’s not sure he can stand to hear what Ushijima had thought, at one time – mainly because he already knows, but also because he’s suddenly infuriated.
“Well, you can forget what you thought. Iwa-chan told me everything, Ushiwaka – all about your little investigation into whether it was a good time to make your love confession,” he snaps. “Which it wasn’t, by the way. And it never would have been or ever will be. So just forget about it, all right?”
“Ah.” Ushijima nods, his expression serious – though when is it not? “I assumed Iwaizumi had told you long ago, and you’d chosen not to mention it.”
Oikawa can feel his lips pursing like he’s just sucked on an extremely large lemon. So Ushijima had thought he knew and had elected to take the moral high ground of politely ignoring it and never bringing it up? Is Ushijima completely stupid?!
“In any case, you need not be concerned,” Ushijima continues after a moment, spinning the ball between his palms again. “I have long since gotten over any romantic feelings I had towards you.”
So saying, he hoists the ball in the air and sends it sailing over the net, as Oikawa stares at him, open-mouthed.
Gotten over??!!
“What?” he wheezes out when Ushijima’s feet return to the court. “What do you mean you’ve gotten over me?”
Ushijima turns to face him, the slightest hint of confusion in his eyebrows. “Iwaizumi gave me to understand any advance would be unwelcome. So I decided not to dwell upon it. It took several months, but eventually I was able to realise my feelings of respect and admiration towards you as a player were just that, and there was no need for anything more.”
Oikawa stares at him. Who – who even talks like that? And how dare he just decide to get over his feelings, without ever having actually confessed to them in the first place?! Oikawa didn’t even get the chance to turn him down, rip up his confession letter and tear his still-beating heart out of his chest!
Oikawa realises that he’s been silently staring in outrage for some time now and he probably ought to say something, but there are no thoughts at all in his head – only a vague, dull ringing sound.
“I would have turned you down anyway,” he finally manages to snap. “Do you even know how weird that would have been, Ushiwaka-chan? The captains of rival teams can’t date. This isn’t shounen anime fanfiction.”
“Yes. That thought did cross my mind,” Ushijima says. “You had chosen to attend Aoba Jousai, which would have made things inconvenient.”
Oikawa splutters. Inconvenient?!
But still, it’s with a sick kind of fascination at this insight into Ushijima’s thought processes that he says, “So – in some insane parallel universe where I did in fact go to Shiratorizawa, you would have –” Oikawa swallows, feeling bile surging up inside him “– made your move?”
Ushijima shakes his head. “No. By the time I came to understand my thoughts on the matter, I’d been made captain. It wouldn’t have been appropriate.” He pauses. “Perhaps it never would have been appropriate, regardless.”
Oikawa stares at him. “Are you saying… you never would have said anything about it even if I had gone to Shiratorizawa, just in case, what, people thought I was only tossing to you because you were my –” the word catches in Oikawa’s throat, almost making him gag, but he gets it out eventually “– my boyfriend?”
Ushijima’s expression is flat. “No. I do not think anyone watching a game would have thought that.”
Why, because you’re just so amazing that obviously I’d be tossing to you? Oikawa almost says, but then stops himself because, obviously, it’s true. Obviously, if he’d gone to Shiratorizawa, his entire life and volleyball career would have revolved around setting to Ushijima, because that’s what Shiratorizawa’s success over the six years Ushijima had played for them had been predicated on: the absolute strength and brutal efficiency of Ushijima’s left-handed spike.
Oikawa’s insignificant pride would never have allowed for that. But the pride Ushijima had accused him of hadn’t been about refusing to play for Shiratorizawa since he couldn’t beat Ushijima if he was playing on the same team as Ushijima. It had always been about his desire to be the setter he thought he could be and not just some prop for the glory of Ushiwaka-chan. Oikawa knew that, at least – he’d always known what it was that he could do better than anyone else, what it was that made him the setter he was, instead of poor Tobio-chan at Kitagawa Daiichi, overflowing with a hyperabundance of talent but with a team who hated his guts. But if Oikawa had been playing at Shiratorizawa, he would never have been allowed to develop it. They’d both been central to their teams, in diametrically opposing ways – the rest of Shiratorizawa had existed entirely so Ushijima could be his best. Oikawa had existed to bring out the best in the rest of his team.
But Shiratorizawa had no need for a setter with their own ideas, their own strategies, their own thoughts. He would never have become the kind of setter that Ushijima had said he admired.
“Well,” Oikawa says, turning away and balancing the ball on the tips of his fingers. He can’t even remember where he’s up to in his punishment serves now, seventy-five or eighty-five – ninety-five? “Maybe if I’d attended Shiratorizawa, I would have been captain of the volleyball team, and the whole thing would have been moot.”
Ushijima’s eyebrow twitches. “Maybe so. But I think not.”
Of course, he’s right – the idea that anyone other than Ushijima could have been captain was so absurd it was laughable. Oikawa had only said it to be facetious in the first place. Trust Ushijima not to know a joke when he saw one.
“This whole conversation is ridiculous,” he mutters. Why had he even brought it up?
Oh – because he’d been angry and he’d thought it would be funny. Which it is! Everything about this situation is hilarious. Ushijima had a crush on him when they were in high school, and now he doesn’t, and Oikawa can’t even humiliate him about it. Because they’re teammates now, and they’re supposed to get along.
And also, because Ushijima is over him. He sensibly put aside his inappropriate feelings and got over him.
Good, Oikawa thinks viciously. Thank goodness for that. How incredibly disgusting.
He smashes his palm into the ball and hits it far, far, far beyond the backline, a serve that even the most incompetent of defenders would have called out from the moment it left his hand.