Chapter Text
My self-summary
I am a third year university student and a wing spiker for my university volleyball team. I am very committed to my volleyball career and intend to play professionally. People who know me well tend to describe me as a serious, driven and kind person.
What I’m doing with my life
My volleyball career is of the utmost importance to me. Aside from that, I enjoy running, cooking, taking care of and learning about plants, and socializing with my teammates. I find that city life is still something of an adjustment for me, so I try to get out of the city and travel to my family's home in Miyagi whenever I can.
I’m really good at
Spiking and receiving. I am also a strong runner, although this is mostly incidental.
The first things people usually notice about me
My height. Sometimes people will notice that I am left-handed.
Favorite books, movies, shows, music and food
I do not care what books, movies or TV shows a prospective partner likes, and I don't see what difference my taste in media makes for our compatibility. Besides, I don't have time to read or watch TV or movies very often.
Six things I could never do without
Volleyball
Running
My university’s gardens
Hayashi rice
Dogs in general; my lifestyle may never permit me to care for one, but I enjoy meeting others
I am unable to think of a sixth thing without getting into universal physical necessities, such as oxygen etc. These would apply to all people and therefore I’d imagine they wouldn’t be of interest to anyone reading this.
I spend a lot of time thinking about
How to improve myself.
On a typical Friday night I am
Either at practice or playing a match. On occasion I will go out to a restaurant or bar with teammates after playing.
You should message me if
You are passionate and dedicated to your chosen career. Particularly if you play volleyball, I think we would have much to talk about.
***
Oikawa blamed Iwaizumi. He blamed Iwa-chan for many things, it was true, but this one was actually deserved. Before this semester, Iwaizumi hadn’t cared about Oikawa’s dating life, beyond making the occasional comment pointing out Oikawa’s lack of romantic or sexual experience whenever he tried to give advice on these subjects to his kohai. But other than cruelly undercutting Oikawa’s authority, he’d kept any opinions or observations about this (admittedly, somewhat neglected) element of Oikawa’s life to himself.
But then right before the start of their third year, Iwaizumi had gotten himself a boyfriend. And it turned out to be more than the short-lived, casual flings that Iwaizumi had had a few of since they started university. It was now November, and not only were they still together, they were making plans to get an apartment together in Tokyo after graduation. And when Oikawa had objected to this plan on the grounds that he and Iwaizumi had been planning to be roommates after university since forever, Iwaizumi had begun this current, obnoxious and totally unfounded campaign to convince Oikawa that something was wrong with him because he’d never had a serious relationship.
All right, so he’d technically never said that something was wrong with Oikawa, but that was the logical extension of his argument. He claimed that Oikawa never “put himself out there” and that he “put up walls with everyone” and “was going to die a virgin if something doesn’t change.”
“First of all, I’m not a virgin. Second of all, maybe I want to die a virgin,” Oikawa said, folding his arms primly over his chest. The gesture made the gym bag on his shoulder swing awkwardly against his hip as they walked back to their dorm building from practice.
He was looking forward instead of at Iwaizumi, but he still felt the glare. “I’ve known you way too long and in that entire span of years I have never seen you make it all the way through a romantic movie without crying.”
“Shut up!”
“Or even through a drama episode without crying. Or even like, one scene where the couple gets--”
“Point made,” Oikawa said, loud over the noise of Tokyo traffic. A middle-aged woman next to them at the stoplight glanced up at him and then away, disinterested. Oikawa was keeping a blush away from his cheeks through sheer force of will.
“I’m just saying that I’m pretty sure you don’t want to be alone,” Iwaizumi said, pitching his voice lower and closer to Oikawa’s shoulder. “You like the attention of all the girls in your fan club, right? But you never go out with them.”
“I tried that in high school, remember? Didn’t work.” Oikawa cleared his throat and beamed a winning smile at the old woman, but she was already crossing with the light. No one around them cared; the uncomfortable prickle of self-consciousness at the back of his neck had no purpose, and he knew that, knew it was a useless response but didn't know why he felt like this any time he had to think about possibly dating someone.
Iwaizumi stayed at his elbow as they crossed the street, sticking with the same subject like a dog worrying a bone. “Why would you think that romance is doomed to fail because of one girlfriend in high school? She didn't even date you for all that long.”
“So rude!”
“I'm just stating a fact. She probably wasn't the love of your life so why would you think the reasons that you guys broke up would be true for every other person on the planet?”
This, at least, Oikawa had a good answer for. “Volleyball--”
“You're not the only person in the world who is devoted to volleyball, dumbass.”
Oikawa made a face. “I can't date another volleyball player, can you even imagine?”
“Why not? Our teammates do it all the time.”
They were almost back to their dorm, where there would be even fewer distractions to keep Iwaizumi from pinning Oikawa with this topic like a helpless butterfly on a board. The nape of his neck was starting to sweat. “Yeah, well, I just can't picture it.”
“You just need to loosen up, be less freaked out by people.”
“I'm not freaked out--”
“You're freaked out by the idea of a girlfriend or boyfriend seeing you when you actually care about something, when you can't just put on a charming face and be, you know, fan club Shittykawa. Your team only gets to see you get all intense because you know we don't ask for more than you give on the court, and I get all your sides because you wanna keep all your emotional eggs in one basket.”
They'd reached the door to their dorm room. Oikawa had stopped walking. “Iwa-chan,” he said, his own voice far shakier than it had any right to be.
Iwaizumi was unlocking the door, tossing his gym bag in the living room and checking his phone. “I've gotta meet Kazu for dinner. Think about it, okay?”
Oikawa had managed to find some words again. “Just because you're in a relationship now doesn't mean you're at all wise.”
“Sure.” Iwaizumi clapped him on the shoulder on his way out, leaving Oikawa still standing there, staring at a spot on the hallway wall in front of him.
***
One of the middle blockers had invited Oikawa and Iwaizumi to this party, and to Oikawa’s surprise, he found when they got there (along with Kazu, of course, because lately Iwaizumi didn’t want to go anywhere without him) that either no one else on the team had been invited, or none of them had showed up, because almost all of the other partiers were people he didn’t know. The middle blocker, Hirata, introduced him in glowing terms--”this is our amazing captain I’ve been telling you guys so much about!”--which put Oikawa in a relaxed, good mood.
This turned out to be a mistake. The first sign of danger was Iwaizumi nudging him and giving him a meaningful look when they wound up alone in the kitchen. “Lots of people here, huh?”
Oikawa was already working on his third beer. “Yeah, who knew Hirata was so popular? I’m surprised that you haven’t run and hid by now, Iwa-chan, you’re not usually nearly this personable.”
Iwaizumi ignored the dig, which in retrospect was a clear sign that he was after something. “Do you think any of them are cute?”
“Oh, sure. That whole group of girls from the drama department is adorable! I need to ask that blonde one where she got her jacket…”
“I think she likes you, you should ask her out.”
“I--what? Oh my god, Iwa-chan, I can’t date an actress. I can’t date someone who’s going to be more dramatic than me!”
“Ask out one of the other people here, then,” Iwaizumi continued, bull-headed, and finally alarm bells managed to penetrate the pleasant buzz of Oikawa’s inebriation. He stiffened and lowered his beer.
“Oh no. I see what you’re trying to do.” Oikawa shook his finger in Iwaizumi’s face and got a surly eye-roll in return. “This is not the time or the place for you to fix my love life!”
“You mean, lack of one,” Iwaizumi said, and Oikawa clutched at his chest in indignation.
“Dating someone has made you so cold, so rude! Does Kazu know how cold you are? Maybe he should be the one looking for someone else to date at this party.”
It didn’t even rate on the scale of meanest things Oikawa had ever said to Iwaizumi, but it was too much for this particular moment. Iwaizumi picked up on the resentful edge in his voice, because of course he did, and his face darkened.
“Try looking for another best friend, while you’re at it.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“No, but you’re being a dick right now. If you would just--”
They were interrupted by Hirata and a couple of his friends coming into the kitchen, laughing and wanting to talk as soon as they spotted Iwaizumi and Oikawa. Oikawa switched his focus to the new people, and if his sudden interest in them meant his back was now turned to Iwaizumi, well, probably only Iwaizumi would pick up on that being pointed.
Two drinks deeper into the party, Oikawa couldn't remember Iwaizumi being involved when the conversation turned to online dating--and, horrifyingly, Oikawa’s lack of experience with it--but it was inconceivable that this could have come up without him being somehow at fault. Everyone else seemed to think there was something minorly miraculous about Oikawa never having used Tinder or Okcupid, and once this fact stumbled into view, no one could let it go.
No one accepted Oikawa’s breezy explanation that he’d never used dating apps because he didn’t need them to meet people--he met more than enough people through his fan clubs, did they not realize what a drain it was to negotiate such a large group of people who adored him? Apparently they didn’t realize, or they didn’t care, and after some “good-natured” ribbing Oikawa found himself deposited on a couch with someone else’s phone left in his care, Tinder open, instructions to “just check it out, do some swiping, figure out how to use it so that you can do it on your own!”
“This is stupid,” Oikawa complained to a now-mostly-empty room. He didn’t even know whose phone this was--well, he knew him by sight, but he couldn’t remember the name. Some friend of Hirata’s who, naturally, had liked Oikawa immediately upon meeting him, but was choosing to show his affection by entrusting him with his Tinder profile, which was just…. bizarre. But it would be churlish of Oikawa to refuse to play along, and besides, maybe he was slightly curious about how all this worked.
Oikawa’s new friend’s Tinder was apparently set to show both men and women. It wasn’t a hard app to figure out, but he was drunk, and accidentally swiped left on four people in a row because he was trying to figure out how to zoom in on their pictures; it took him another ten swipes before he got the hang of viewing someone’s full profile and all their photos. The first time he swiped right on someone and got a match, he realized that this meant that all the others he’d swiped right on hadn’t liked him back, and was full of righteous indignation for a moment before remembering he was using someone else’s phone--of course these people would be swiping right on Oikawa if they could just see his actual face.
Oikawa was starting to get bored, swiping left on routine, when his thumb froze and hovered over the screen. There was no mistaking this profile. The asshole had used a photo of himself from a volleyball magazine for his profile, so that Oikawa was presented with Ushijima mid-air, left hand raised, about to spike the ball over the net. Oikawa recognized this picture: it was from last year’s tournament, and at the time Oikawa had been outraged that the magazine had chosen a photo capturing one of the few sets delivered by the substitute setter, even though Oikawa had played most of the match.
It was a terrible choice for a dating profile picture. Stupid Ushiwaka’s face was only visible in profile and the photo was taken from too far back to give a good idea of his features. You could see that he was fit and if you knew anything about volleyball, you could see that he was about to skillfully hit an imprecise and sloppily set ball (every single play Oikawa had orchestrated during that match would have made for a better photo op) in between two middle blockers. But you couldn’t tell anything about whether or not he was attractive. There was no way anyone who didn’t play volleyball would be swiping right on this picture.
When Oikawa clicked through, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Ushiwaka was in his volleyball uniform or their team jacket in every single picture. He was only smiling in one of them, and it was from high school, and Oikawa would bet money that his creepy redhead Shiratorizawa friend had taken it.
But so much worse than the pictures was the minimal text of his profile, which simply stated his volleyball position and what team he played for, his height (asshole), a declaration that he believed in being respectful and decent, and some stupid emojis of dogs and plants. It was the least enticing thing Oikawa had ever seen.
Oikawa’s burst of laughter was perhaps slightly louder and more hysterical than it would have been if he were sober, and it attracted the attention of the phone’s owner, who seemed alarmed by the fit of laughter and snatched his phone back over Oikawa’s protests.
“You’re hooked that fast, huh?” Iwaizumi said, watching as Oikawa immediately dug his own phone from his pocket and went to install the app.
“Shut up,” Oikawa snapped, not looking up. “I was in the middle of something.”
To Oikawa’s frustration, Ushijima’s profile did not immediately pop up when he finally got Tinder up and running. There didn’t seem to be any way to search for a specific profile, so he was stuck impatiently swiping left again and again, and after a while it became almost meditative. Oikawa’s mind began wandering, and he wondered if he would notice this particular repetitive thumb-swiping motion in others now, if this is what people were always doing in front of him in lines or while waiting at stoplights and he’d just never noticed before.
He almost swiped left on Ushijima by accident when the right face finally populated his screen. But now he didn’t quite know what to do--if he wasn’t going to swipe left, then there was obviously only one other option, but--why? What was the point? The drive behind this was an all-consuming, not-sober desire to find out which way Ushijima had swiped on him but why was that suddenly so important, anyway?
Oikawa’s hesitation lasted all of a second and a half before his traitorous thumb was forging bravely ahead, swiping right. For a moment he was filled with rage, because nothing happened. But the app must have lagged, because ha! Here it was, the answer to his curiosity, a message popping up on the screen letting him know that he’d matched with Ushijima.
Unfortunately Iwaizumi noticed when Oikawa pumped his fist in the air in victory, and came over to the couch to investigate. Oikawa quickly pocketed his phone, and looked up to give his sunniest smile as Iwaizumi stood over him, glowering and sipping suspiciously from his plastic cup of beer.
“What are you up to, asskawa?”
“You told me to try online dating, so I’m trying online dating! What, now you don’t want me to? Don’t you think that’s a bit hypocritical?”
Iwaizumi glanced down at the outline of Oikawa’s phone in his pants pocket, and his eyes narrowed as he swayed forward slightly. He was quite drunk, Oikawa realized--they were in the same boat there, but one issue in their friendship that had arisen since the start of university was that when Iwaizumi got drunk, his mother hen tendencies intensified, and when Oikawa was drunk his tolerance for that kind of corralling went down the toilet. It wasn’t a great combination, and Oikawa wasn’t in the mood for it right now.
“You look like you’re scheming.”
“I’m always scheming.”
Iwaizumi’s frown deepend. “Well yeah, but you’re being more obvious about it than usual, which worries me.”
“If you’re so concerned, why don’t you just do Tinder for me?” Oikawa held out his phone with a sneer, and Iwaizumi rolled his eyes but reached to take it, and Oikawa remembered too late what was open on his screen. “Wait--”
He wasn’t fast enough to get his phone back before Iwaizumi saw that he’d matched with Ushiwaka. Oikawa cursed as Iwaizumi’s eyebrows rose and he brought the screen closer to his face.
Oikawa didn’t know what kind of reaction he was expecting, but it wasn’t what he got. “Huh,” Iwaizumi said. Then, “He doesn’t really look much like this picture in person, does he?”
“Uh, what?” Without his phone to focus on, Oikawa’s lack of sobriety was threatening to catch up to him. He pressed the palm of his hand to the scratchy surface of the couch and sat up straighter, trying to see the phone screen.
Iwaizumi handed it back to him with a shrug. “He messaged you.”
”What?”
Oikawa managed to fumble his phone and drop it, like he’d stepped out of a drama episode or something, as Iwaizumi wandered away again. He picked it up off the floor with heat spreading over his cheeks and a buzzing sensation in his ears. There was a voice in the back of his mind chiding him for being ridiculous; it sounded like Iwaizumi; there was a second voice, marveling at the fact that Iwaizumi himself wasn’t sticking around to yell at him for being ridiculous, and wondering why.
The message was polite and to-the-point. Hello Oikawa. I know that some people consider it good manners to swipe right on anyone they know personally. I’m curious whether you and I matched tonight because you were being courteous, or because you are interested in dating.
Oikawa’s thoughts swam. He’d had his own Tinder account for all of fifteen minutes; for them to have already matched with each other, Ushijima must also be on his phone somewhere, swiping through profiles and thinking about dating. Jesus christ--Ushiwaka thinking about dating. Ushiwaka using Tinder. The surrealness of this whole encounter was catching up to Oikawa, and his thoughts seemed on track to swim right over a waterfall.
But no matter how deranged he was from alcohol, there was no way in hell Oikawa could ever give any response but this one: Just a courtesy thing! I always swipe right on friends, nothing personal
The reply came quickly. Of course. Have a good night.
Oikawa found himself giggling, and covered his hand with his mouth. His stomach was starting to roll unpleasantly and his cheeks were still hot. He looked up to see that Iwaizumi was back, along with Hirata and the friend who had first loaned Oikawa his phone
“Time to get you home,” Iwaizumi said, and Oikawa wanted to snap at him for being pushy, but he also felt very ready to go home. What had just happened? Tinder was bizarre.
As they walked out of the apartment building, the crowded and smoggy Tokyo air felt like a rush of good luck. Oikawa laughed again, ignoring Iwaizumi’s weird look.
“You already like Tinder that much, huh?”
“What? It was just a good party.”
Iwaizumi didn’t contradict him. They walked in the direction of their dormitory in silence for a couple of blocks, and then Iwaizumi said, “So what did you and Ushiwaka talk about?”
Now the outside air just felt too cold and sobering. “Nothing! We didn’t talk! It was one message!”
“Okay fine, what was the one message about?”
Oikawa looked away from Iwaizumi’s irritated glare. “He…” Words floated away from him and then back again. “He was just saying hello. He swipes right on anyone he already knows, as just like a friendly thing.”
“Really? Tinder swiping on your friends?” Iwaizumi frowned. “I don’t think that’s a thing.”
“Who cares.” Oikawa sniffed. “We’re not friends, anyway. He’s just a teammate. Acquaintance. Whatever.”
“Potential Tinder date?”
“What? Iwa-chan!” Oikawa stopped walking, staring at Iwaizumi in outraged horror. Iwaizumi just looked back at him with a smirk.
“I’m going to throw up,” Oikawa declared, letting his shaky legs swerve off the sidewalk and into some hedges lining the edge of campus. He wasn’t actually drunk enough to puke, so he just kneeled down and coughed and let his head loll while Iwaizumi laughed at him, told him he was just being dramatic, then helped him to his feet.
***
Their regular season did not start up again for another two weeks. Oikawa hadn't seen much of Ushijima over this semester’s break; he and Iwaizumi had stuck around in Tokyo, taking student jobs and training with each other and occasionally other teammates, while Ushijima had been invited to a volleyball camp, then gone back to Miyagi for the rest of the summer. Oikawa hadn't actually realized he was back in the city until he'd shown up on Tinder.
Despite his initial, drunken enthusiasm for swiping through profiles, Oikawa avoided using Tinder with any seriousness. He still used the app and swiped through people, but it felt more like morbid curiosity than anything else. The people with attractive pictures seemed to universally have something weird or off-putting in their profiles, or they didn’t have any information in their profiles at all, which just seemed suspicious.
On the rare occasion that he swiped right on someone and it turned out to be a match, Oikawa found himself staring at the app’s stupid little phrases encouraging him to send a message and then putting his phone away. The thought of initiating a conversation with someone was…. uncomfortable, and he didn’t feel like examining why. And no one else was making the first move with him--very much to Oikawa’s chagrin, so far Ushijima was the only match to have said anything to him.
He occasionally found himself going back to that conversation, rereading the brief exchange, thumb hovering over the keyboard. It was just weird, that was all. Weird of Ushijima to swipe right on him and to message him, and weird that Oikawa had been seized with the urge to mess with Ushijima’s profile at that party in the first place. He couldn’t remember what he’d been thinking, what his internal logic had been for why he’d wanted so badly to see if they matched.
Every time he reread their exchange he felt uneasy. He wished he could have discerned how Ushijima had swiped on him without swiping left or right on his profile in return. He didn’t like feeling exposed like this, even if Ushijima had given him the out of claiming that he swiped right on anyone he already knew.
He felt so weird about their Tinder interaction that he expected Ushijima to be weird when he started seeing him around at the volleyball gym again, but Ushijima was--well, not normal, but no more weird and awkward than usual. He didn’t bring up the subject of online dating around Oikawa, didn’t mention their exchange. He didn’t stare without smiling or ignore basic conversational questions to respond instead with brusque critiques of someone’s volleyball technique about any more than usual.
He gave no indication that he’d thought about their messages once since Oikawa had declared his lack of interest, which was annoying because Oikawa had thought about it…. more than once.
A week into their regular practices, Oikawa found himself home alone on a Friday night. Iwaizumi was out with Kazu and Oikawa hadn’t bothered to make other plans, thinking he’d be too exhausted from the week, but instead he found himself restless. There was beer in the fridge and no one around to talk to and, well.
OkCupid profiles were much more extensive than Tinder. Oikawa found himself stuck on the very first question, not sure how to sum up his life in an introductory paragraph. Listing his favorite movies and books was a little easier, but made him feel self-conscious, and didn’t seem all that important--who would be looking at his opinions on movies to make a decision about whether or not they wanted to ask him out?
He wasn’t satisfied with anything he managed to write about himself and left most of it unfinished, figuring he’d come back to it later when inspiration struck. He moved on to browsing his matches, and surely this was someone’s idea of a vicious practical joke, because Ushijima was almost the first person to come up.
Reading it, Oikawa wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. What a ridiculous person! His arrogance practically dripped off the screen, and he was so boring. Who on earth would read this profile and be interested in going out with the person behind it?
And Ushijima, whose standards were so insanely high for everything he touched. If some random person on this website actually was interested in him, what would they have to be like in order for him to reciprocate?
Oikawa was already signing out of his preliminary account and registering with a different email address. Somehow it was much easier to create this fake profile, making himself laugh by thinking up all these sanctimonious and virtuous traits that Ushiwaka was probably looking for in a partner, than it was to finish his own profile. Iwaizumi would probably have something to say about that if he were here, but of course he wasn’t.
He should have at least hesitated and briefly contemplated the ethics and/or purpose of what he was doing before messaging Ushijima, and he might have if he'd been 100% sober or if Iwaizumi had been home. As it was, urgency thrummed just under his skin, like he couldn't finish the profile fast enough, answering just enough questions in the most boring manner possible to ensure a high match with Ushijima. He was successful, of course: 97% Match, a triumph, he'd created the ultimate boring boyfriend for the ultimate boring person. Oikawa's pulse beat in triple time as he fired off an introductory message, and if some part of him noted that the only time he felt like this was on the court, he didn't dwell on it.
Ushijima's reply came within five minutes. He was just as polite and respectful as he'd been with Oikawa on Tinder. He answered Oikawa's question about his favorite plants, then took the bait that Oikawa had included in his profile, but slyly hadn't alluded to in his initial message: Ushijima asked him what volleyball position he played.
This had been tricky, because of course Ushijima would be as familiar as Oikawa was with all the notable college players in their region, and even if Oikawa created a character who wasn't on the starting line, Ushijima might still google that university's roster (although possibly he was too simple-minded to be that investigative). Besides, there was no way Ushijima would consider himself well matched with a bench warmer.
So Oikawa's character had gone to university in Beijing, graduated last year, and was now in Tokyo to further his volleyball career. Oikawa figured that would be enough of a hook to satisfy Ushiwaka that his match was talented and dedicated to their shared sport, and besides, how funny would it be to find out that Ushi had a thing for guys older than him?
Oikawa replied to the message saying that he was the ace, a wing spiker. He hoped that they would continue talking about volleyball. He wanted to see how Ushijima would react when Oikawa started ranting about how his last team’s setter had been too independent and selfish and hadn’t served his (the ace’s) needs the way a setter properly should.
I am the ace for my team as well. What an interesting connection for us to share. Are you also your team’s captain?
Oikawa glared at the screen. Typical Ushiwaka, assuming that the ace would also be the captain, even though Oikawa was the captain of the team they both currently played for.
No actually, my setter is our captain. This was a slight risk: would Ushijima find the coincidence of both of them playing for setter captains to be suspicious? Oikawa was counting on him being too wooden and stupid to think twice about it, but his teeth dug into his bottom lip and his shoulders remained tense until Ushijima’s reply popped up on his phone.
It is the same for my team. I would prefer to be our captain, since I enjoyed fulfilling that role for my high school team. But we are still one of the best teams in the prefecture under our current captain’s leadership. Is your setter a good one? Does he work well with your spiking style?
For a few moments Oikawa was too surprised to be angry, and then the anger bloomed in every blood vessel, turning his cheeks hot and making his fingertips buzz. Ushijima had never told him to his face that he would prefer to be captain, not in so many words. It was a shock to just see him come out and say it, like it was a preference he was sure of, a solid fact about himself that he found easy to share with new people. So blunt.
Oikawa could picture him saying the words, could almost see Ushiwaka calmly meeting Oikawa’s eyes right here in his own damn living room and telling him that he wanted to be captain, that he thought it would be better for the whole team if he were captain instead of Oikawa. He’d probably say it in the same calm, robotic way that he said all hurtful things, like he didn’t know they could be hurtful so this should, somehow, absolve him of any responsibility for the hurt.
It took Oikawa’s breath away. He almost forgot that he was supposed to be talking as someone else but caught himself before he’d typed out more than two angry words. He deleted that beginning and squeezed his eyes shut, breathed, considered what to say next.
Really, he was getting what he wanted, if he’d given this whole charade enough thought to have a clear vision of what he wanted in the first place. Oikawa was able to learn Ushijima’s opinions about their team, and about Oikawa, without opening himself up to questions in return. Oikawa could recognize now that this was the desire that had spurred this whole process, and as his anger began to clear he realized he was in quite the ideal position to lead this conversation into further illuminating places.
He still wanted to know what Ushijima might say about him when he didn’t know Oikawa was listening, even if he didn’t like what he found out.
He switched tactics for what he’d say about his fake team’s setter. Our setter is good because he has adapted his style to serve me best. He recognized that a more independent setting style wouldn’t play to the strengths of his team, so he worked hard to change the way he played to suit me. Now we work very well together.
That’s interesting. I played with a setter like that in high school. We worked well together, too.
How about your setter now?
Long minutes passed before any response, and Oikawa wondered why. Was it because Ushiwaka was trying to figure out how to be tactful for once in his life? Or was he getting suspicious about this line of conversation? Or perhaps some distraction had just pulled him away.
My setter now has not changed the way he plays to serve the ace. He is the captain, so it is not his style to be subservient or changeable. He has his own way of doing things which sometimes clashes with mine. It’s complicated.
Now this, this was very interesting. So ‘complicated’ was the word Ushijima would choose to describe their relationship. Oikawa didn’t really see it that way. There was nothing particularly complex about hating someone’s guts, even if two years of playing together might make him grudgingly admit that Ushiwaka could be an asset as a player.
How is it complicated?
Another long pause. Oikawa caught himself licking his lips. He closed his eyes, took a breath, placed his phone deliberately on the table and got up to get another beer and take a piss. When he came back, there was a reply.
We were rivals in high school. I admired his skills and always thought he would do well on my team, but he resented me. Now that we are on the same team I can see that I was right to admire his skills. We have excelled together, but the resentment is still there and means that we don’t always play as smoothly together as I think we could.
Before Oikawa could finish sneering at this version of their history that absolved Ushijima of any wrongdoing and lay all the blame on Oikawa, another reply came.
I apologize if I am talking too much about myself and a team you do not know. I’m sure you don’t want to hear any more about our setter. How have you been liking Tokyo so far?
The conversation moved from volleyball to other things. Oikawa remained in-character as someone who matched Ushijima’s every interest and stated desires in a partner. He enjoyed identifying plants, liked dogs, believed in keeping a tidy and well-kept home, did not believe in drinking to excess and found deep satisfaction in maintaining healthy routines. He cared about his volleyball career above all else, and was looking for a partner that would both support that ambition while being career-oriented himself.
Ushijima expressed agreement with all of this, of course, but when Oikawa remarked on how nice it was to talk to someone with whom he had so much in common, the pause before Ushijima’s next reply was the longest yet.
It does seem like we have a lot in common and I’ve enjoyed talking with you. But I should be honest, I don’t see things going any further between us. It’s not the right time for me to start anything with someone new. I hope you have a good night.
And once again, Oikawa was left staring open-mouthed at his phone screen, surprised at Ushijima and very, very surprised that Ushijima could be surprising at all. He had expected Ushijima to agree that it was nice to talk to someone so much like him, and then perhaps to ask Oikawa’s character out, at which point Oikawa would have had to come up with some excuse for why he couldn’t meet in person that wouldn’t break Ushijima’s heart too much, considering Oikawa needed his wing spiker functional for the season ahead.
He hadn’t expected Ushijima’s lack of interest. ‘Not the right time’? What bullshit. If it wasn’t the right time for Ushijima to date anyone, why had OkCupid shown that his account was online before Oikawa had even messaged him? And Ushijima was so practical-minded, so pragmatic, if he had the goal of finding a romantic partner then how could he pass on the opportunity to date someone who would be the perfect partner for him?
It didn’t make any sense. It didn’t match with the boring, predictable Ushiwaka that Oikawa had played beside since the start of university.
When Iwaizumi came home in the morning, Oikawa was still bothered by it, frowning over his morning tea and barely glancing up as Iwaizumi tossed his keys onto the table and sat down heavily across the table from him. When Iwaizumi asked him how his night had been, Oikawa looked up, blinking.
“My night was all right,” Oikawa said, the words coming slow as he caught up with the present moment. Iwaizumi’s eyebrows rose and he leaned forward, waiting. Oikawa could pretend he had nothing to tell, could keep this secret, but Iwaizumi would know that he was holding back.
In the harsh light of morning, Oikawa was beginning to realize that the prank he’d pulled might seem to others like it was mean, cold, or manipulative. Perhaps even bordering on sociopathic. Perhaps he’d tell Iwaizumi of his misdeeds and Iwaizumi would denounce him forever as a horrible monster.
Oikawa’s feelings of dread proved somewhat correct, as when he got to the part about creating a fake account to perfectly match with Ushiwaka, Iwaizumi groaned theatrically and put his head in his hands and didn’t look up for the rest of the story. When Oikawa haltingly finished explaining how all this had ended with Ushiwaka politely rejecting the fake love interest Oikawa had created, Iwaizumi looked up and reached forward and smacked Oikawa upside the head.
It was, at least, gentler than it would have been in high school.
“You catfished him, you asshole!”
“I didn’t--”
“This is exactly what catfishing is. Man, I don’t get why you even bothered, why did you care about messaging him? You didn’t want to talk to him on Tinder that one time.”
“I still don’t want to talk to him, I hate him,” Oikawa said sharply. “And I don’t know, I was drunk and I thought it might be funny. Then I realized I could get him to talk about him or the team and, well, maybe it escalated.”
Iwaizumi fixed him with a very dirty, deeply disapproving look. “That’s a pretty shitty thing to do, even to someone you hate. Ushiwaka’s our teammate and he doesn’t deserve to be led on like that.”
Oikawa let his gaze slide to the left, avoiding eye contact, avoiding stupid Iwa-chan being right. “I know that. It was just--I don’t know. It’s not like I set up a date just to stand him up. He’ll never find out.”
“Seriously though, why’d you do it? If you were feeling curious about OkCupid then why not make your own profile?”
“I already told you, I don’t know! I don’t even know if I’ll make a real profile of my own, that site seems pretty stupid.”
Iwaizumi rubbed his palms over his face and sighed, standing up and heading to the kitchen. He kept grumping to Oikawa over his shoulder as he put hot water on for tea, but Oikawa leaned back in his chair and let his attention wander. It was beautiful outside; today was supposed to be his rest day, but a short run probably couldn’t hurt.
He remembered Ushijima telling him last night about his belief that rigorous exercise was good for the mind and soul, not just for the body. Who knew that Ushiwaka ever thought about his mind and soul?
***
The next night Oikawa couldn’t sleep, even though practice that evening had been brutal and he’d stayed an extra 45 minutes afterward to help a first-year practice his blocks. His body had no energy left but his thoughts itched, restlessness pushing at his temples even though no one issue in particular was bothering him.
The idea came to him while he was idly messing around on his phone, judging people’s instagram photos and swiping left on tinder. He hadn’t even been thinking about Ushijima, not really, and he certainly wasn’t thinking about messing with him again. But then it came to him that perhaps his strategy with that first profile had been all wrong: maybe the perfect partner in Ushijima’s mind was not a fellow ace, not someone who could compete at his level and match his strength. Maybe what he really wanted was a fan, a sycophant who could stroke his ego by caring deeply about his volleyball career and cheering him on without ever threatening to surpass him in skill.
He couldn’t resist trying again. It didn’t take him long to create another profile, which was good, because it was past midnight and he really should be getting to sleep soon. This person had fallen in love with volleyball when he’d stumbled into being the manager for his high school team, but had never pursued the sport seriously for himself partly because he was not blessed with natural height or great athletic skill, and partly because by the time he was a teenager, he was already very committed to a time-consuming pre-med path.
To Oikawa’s disappointment, Ushijima didn’t respond immediately this time. Then he remembered how late it was, and of course responsible Ushijima who kept so faithfully to a healthy sleep schedule would be asleep right now, and he felt foolish.
But there was a reply when he woke up in the morning. Just as he’d been with the previous person, Ushijima seemed polite, open, interested in talking more. Oikawa messaged back and forth with him throughout the day, between his classes and during his coffee and study breaks. When he was walking from his last class to practice with Iwaizumi, his attention split between his phone and whatever it was Iwaizumi was bitching about, Iwaizumi jostled him with an elbow and barked out, ”What’s got you grinning like that?”
“None of your business!” Oikawa stuck his tongue out and slipped his phone back in his jacket pocket. As they rounded the corner to the gymnasium, he could see Ushijima walking towards their same destination. He was also looking at his phone, and he was also smiling.
But when their conversation had progressed to the point that Oikawa’s character was telling Ushijima how admirable he seemed and how they must be a perfect match for each other, Ushijima’s response was almost word-for-word the same one he’d given to Oikawa’s previous fake profile: he had enjoyed their conversation, but he didn’t see things going any further than this. He didn’t repeat the line about now not being the right time, but he did say that he needed to put all his efforts into his training this season.
***
The next day during practice, Oikawa fell in step beside Ushijima while the team was jogging. If Ushijima was surprised that Oikawa was seeking him out for a chat, he didn’t show it, nor did he seem confused when Oikawa steered the conversation towards time management.
“It can be difficult when you’re a student to balance volleyball, your studies, and then a social life on top of that,” Oikawa said. “Particularly if you’re trying to date people, too! There are times when I’m tempted to just give up and wait until I’m out of university. How about you, Ushiwaka? Have you decided that now’s just not the right time for dating?”
Ushijima gave no sign that he’d noticed his own phrasing being tossed back to him. He kept his eyes on the road in front of them and didn’t even sound out of breath when he answered. “I might not have much time for dating, but I’ve found it is still worth it to try and meet new people. I was dating someone for most of last semester. If you like someone enough, you can always make time.”
Oikawa nearly tripped. “You were?! I mean, ah, yes, that’s a good point about making time.” He wanted to run on ahead and away from this conversation very badly now, but if he fled the moment Ushiwaka told him about a past fling, it would look weird. Who knows what wrongheaded conclusion Ushijima might take from that.
“Maybe someday my volleyball career will truly require all my time, in which case I will give up my other interests and social life. But the last time I spoke with my father he told me to take advantage of my university days and try to spend time with people, because other life situations in my future will be more isolated. I think that was good advice.”
“Ah,” Oikawa said vaguely. He bent his head, shaking droplets of sweat from the sweep of his hair to the sidewalk. Iwaizumi had said suspiciously similar things to him before, while nagging Oikawa to put himself out there and date more. It annoyed Oikawa, that Ushijima was saying thoughtful things that actually made sense.
“And the guy you dated last semester? Did he have a similar outlook?”
“Yes. He also had obligations outside of his studies, but we were able to find time to see each other.”
“Why did it end then?” Oikawa tried too late to swallow back the sharpness in his voice; he hadn’t wanted to reveal how much it rankled to know that Ushijima had apparently been successfully dating people this whole time when Oikawa was on track to get through his university career with no one in his past and no one on the horizon.
“He graduated and moved to Hong Kong for a job.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Oikawa said, with very little feeling. “How’d you meet him?”
“OkCupid.”
“Oh, really.” Oikawa was thankful that they were both out-of-breath from jogging uphill, as it somewhat disguised the bitterness in his voice. So Ushijima had definitely, unequivocally had more success than him when it came to online dating. How wonderful.
And Ushijima's line about this not being the right time had just been him trying to be polite when rejecting Oikawa (well, rejecting Oikawa's fictional people). He hadn't been interested in them, despite the fact that Oikawa had chosen pictures of attractive men and had engineered match percentages over 95% in each case. And Ushijima clearly didn't reject everybody, considering his recent boyfriend and outgoing philosophy.
Oikawa had to keep trying. Well--he didn’t have to and definitely shouldn’t, but he felt driven forward by something beyond his control, something that animated his inner clockwork and set him on a course of action while neatly bypassing any mental or emotional facility to question or hesitate. The same force had propelled him to spend hours and hours practicing his serves in junior high, had caused him to lose sleep too many nights in a row while watching tapes of other teams’ games when he was at Seijoh. Oikawa had never even tried to fight back against this kind of compulsive drive, so he didn’t fight it now.
***
Considering the effort he poured into being the team’s captain and the necessities of his college classes, Oikawa was not overburdened with free time. But thankfully chatting on OkCupid was something that could be done anywhere: idly in line at the campus cafe, standing around waiting for Iwaizumi to meet him after a class, waiting for hot water to boil for tea. Creating each new profile was more time intensive and Oikawa liked to be on his laptop for that, and sometimes alcohol helped, too, so it was more of an evening activity.
He talked to Ushijima as someone who knew nothing about volleyball but was eager to have the whole sport explained to him; he talked to Ushijima as a setter, a middle blocker, and a team captain; he talked to Ushijima as the coach of a kids’ volleyball team. He talked to Ushijima as another left-handed spiker. Each time delivered similar results. Ushijima would seem interested at first, would reply promptly and ask questions and carry on a friendly conversation, and then came the inevitable polite rejection. Ushijima never rejected him by simply ceasing to reply to the conversation thread, which somehow added insult to injury.
He sometimes varied his answers to OkCupid’s questions, but not so much that his match percentage with Ushijima dropped below 90%. And he usually worked a few details into his profile that Ushijima said he was looking for in a partner. He switched up the photos he pulled from, trying out different kinds of faces and even experimenting with foreigners (a Korean, an American, a Brazilian). But all his fake people still wound up dead in the water.
One Friday Ushijima invited Oikawa and the other third years on the team out to the bars with him and some of his former teammates from Shiratorizawa. Apparently several of them had converged on Ushijima for the weekend, which was rare considering that not all of them went to school in Tokyo.
Oikawa didn't feel especially enthusiastic about the prospect of hanging out with former Shiratorizawa students, but he also felt like he couldn't say no without being rude; three years into being Ushijima's teammate, and Oikawa could count on one hand the number of times he'd initiated anything social with his teammates. But he always went out with them when other teammates invited him, and he was always one of the last people to leave a party or a bar, so Oikawa suspected that he wasn't antisocial, but rather shy about initiating.
Besides, it would be very like Ushijima to really care about his former teammates meeting and getting along with his current team. Oikawa felt somewhat obligated as their team's captain, even if Ushijima would prefer that he wasn't.
Iwaizumi came along, but disappeared into some dark corner (or perhaps left the gathering altogether) with Kazu less than an hour into the party. Typical. Oikawa was left alone at the bar, trying not to sulk or at least to not appear to be sulking. That was how Tendou found him.
Tendou was friendly at first and he made Oikawa laugh, and asked all sorts of smart questions about the team and Oikawa’s university career thus far. Then the questions petered out and the conversation lapsed into silence. Oikawa leaned back against the bar, considering joining a circle of his fellow third year university students, although the former Shiratorizawa setter--Shirabu, Oikawa thought, they'd been reintroduced at some point tonight--was also talking with them and Oikawa didn't know him that well, wasn't sure how that might go. Tendou had pulled out his phone, and when Oikawa glanced over he saw that he was swiping through Tinder.
The fact that Oikawa didn't know Tendou well was not enough to prevent him from giving his opinion and being nosy. He leaned in closer and spoke over Tendou's shoulder, "Definitely swipe left on that one."
Tendou laughed and swiped left without questioning the suggestion. “And him?”
“Left! You don’t want those jorts.”
“Fair enough.”
Tendou swiped left and right on a few more faces, gamely following Oikawa’s guidance, before laughing and slipping his phone back into his pocket. “Ah, online dating. What a strange way to try and find someone you want to spend your time with! It can feel so daunting, right?”
Oikawa should have been immediately suspicious, but he’d been lulled into a false sense of security by the combination of beer and the satisfaction of getting to control someone else’s actions. “Mm, it’s hard out there.”
“It is! Especially when you can never be sure if people are being honest with you.”
This was pointed enough that even slightly drunk, Oikawa’s alarm bells went off. But before he could steer the topic away or just leave, Tendou continued. “I was talking about that with Wakatoshi the other day. He mentioned how many guys have started conversations with him recently, most of them being really persistent about it. I asked if I could see his messages and they raised some red flags, so I reverse googled the images. And how crazy is this, Wakatoshi has been targeted by fake accounts six different times this semester!”
Something in Oikawa’s chest twinged uncomfortably at the word ‘targeted.’ It wasn’t like that, he wanted to say. Instead he took another sip from his beer bottle, even though it was mostly empty. “Is that right.”
“Yeah! Why Wakatoshi, of all people? A lot of the messages from the fake people seemed to be about volleyball, so maybe it’s a fan of his that just kind of went off the rails. But I don’t think it was some crazy obsessed person, the messages were too well written for that.” Tendou talked a lot with his hands and with his expressive face, his eyes widening then narrowing and a smirk playing on the corner of his lips. Oikawa wondered how much of his erratic body language was genuine and how much of it was purposeful, trying to keep Oikawa off-balance until he went in for the kill.
Oikawa wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking the question he was waiting for: had Tendou told Ushijima that all those messages weren’t real? He turned to face the bar, trying to catch the bartender’s eye for a third beer. “Ushijima is not the kind of star athlete who might make a fan crazy or obsessed. I’m sure his fan club, such as it is, gets together on weekends to plant vegetables and discuss finances.”
“Huh, has Wakatoshi discussed his plant hobby with you that much? Funny that you associate him with that.” Oikawa blushed, dammit he really needed another full drink to hold on to. He hadn’t known how much Ushijima liked plants and gardening before finding his dating profile. Tendou was just fucking with him now. “Anyway, I don’t actually think it’s a fan who’s gone off the deep end. All of the fake personalities were pretty different, but none of them got extra creepy or tried to bother Wakatoshi after he turned them down. I think it’s someone totally sane who knows what they’re doing. Someone smart.”
Oikawa swallowed. He wouldn’t ask.
Now Tendou was leaning back too, his elbows on the bar and his bony ribcage arching out towards the rest of the bar, his chin jutting in the direction of a circle of people talking that included Ushijima. “But! As far as I could tell, they weren’t looking for secrets to defeat your team or trying to hack him or mess with his head or anything. And it’s not like he ever took the bait and tried to date any of the fake people, so what would the point be of telling him they were fake? It would just confuse him. Wakatoshi has never considered before that someone might possibly lie to him on the internet.”
“So you haven’t told him.” The words spilled out of Oikawa too fast, a mistake, and he cursed himself as Tendou twisted to look at him with a leer.
“Not yet! I suppose I still might. I’m kind of curious to see what this mystery person does next.” Tendou hummed a little, then drummed his fingertips against his chin like he was thinking. “But what are they after if they’re not trying to scam him for money? Judging from the messages I read, it seems like it was someone who wants to get closer to Wakatoshi, but without having to reveal themselves. Someone who doesn’t want Wakatoshi to know about their crush on him. I wonder if it’s someone Wakatoshi might already know?”
Oikawa felt his lips stretch into a smile, too sharp, and when he spoke he could feel each angry word deep in his chest. “What a detective you are! For all your confidence in reading motives and analyzing personalities, I’m surprised you’re not more of a people person. Why aren’t you more popular, I wonder?”
Tendou grinned wide at the insult. “I don’t know! Social behaviors are always so interesting and unpredictable. For instance, you could also ask the question of why do some really popular people never have boyfriends?”
Oikawa needed to be done with this conversation. He gave up on the hope of ordering another beer and gave Tendou a sarcastic finger-wave as he walked away, his blood thudding loud and heavy in his ears.
So Tendou suspected Oikawa of being the one behind Ushijima’s fake suitors, but he hadn’t given him away. He could still decide to tell, of course. And he probably would if Oikawa continued to do what he’d been doing. Oikawa hated knowing that someone had something over him like that, and it was made worse by the fact that he had no one else to blame for being in this position. He’d gone down this road in secret and completely of his own volition, and he didn’t even really understand why.
It had started as a joke, hadn’t it? But was it still a joke? Was Oikawa enough of a monster to keep leading someone on, over and over again under a different name each time, just because it was funny to see how the other person reacted? He’d never thought of it that way before--he hadn’t been letting himself think much at all, throughout this whole thing. But the way Tendou had talked, like he had to consider whether or not the person on the other end of the messages actively meant Ushijima harm, made shame and guilt settle deep in the pit of his stomach.
And then there were all the other things Tendou had said, all the irritating poison he’d tried to pour in Oikawa’s ears. Suggesting that the mystery person wanted to get ‘close’ to Ushijima, suggesting that they must have a crush on Ushijima. Now that was just a ridiculous assumption that Tendou had absolutely no basis for making. Just because Oikawa had created six different fake OkCupid matches in an attempt to get Ushijima to ask him out did not mean he had a crush.
A cool breeze hit his hot cheeks, and Oikawa realized that he’d walked all the way outside the bar door. He couldn’t just leave, he hadn’t paid his tab, so he leaned against the glass windows at the front, trying to look like he was considering a cigarette. He heard a voice say his name, and damn, of course it would be Ushiwaka.
“I wasn’t leaving,” Oikawa said. “I just needed some air.”
Ushijima nodded and came to stand next to him. His hands were in the pockets of his slacks and he was looking out at the city, his face in profile. He looked relaxed. He looked good.
“Thank you for coming out tonight. I am glad you’ve been able to meet some of my friends from Shiratorizawa. I thought you would probably get along with them if given the chance.”
He must have noticed Oikawa and Tendou talking, and thought it meant they were getting along. Oikawa had to turn away, biting his lip against a sarcastic grin. “Oh, yes. They all seem very nice.”
If Ushijima heard the bitterness, he didn’t respond to it. Oikawa felt a light touch on his elbow and looked up in surprise. Ushijima’s head was bowed and he directed his words at the pavement, but he didn’t move his hand away from Oikawa’s arm.
“I wasn’t just proud of Shiratorizawa because I thought we were the best. I cared about them and relied on them, just as you did with Aoba Josai.”
Oikawa was not ready to have this conversation. He stepped away from Ushijima’s touch and said breezily, “Oh, of course. I figured that you did. I don’t actually think you’re a robot, Ushiwaka.”
Oikawa didn’t know whether it was obliviousness or deliberate choice, but Ushijima ignored Oikawa’s attempt to lighten things up. His eyes bore into Oikawa, until Oikawa gave up on trying to find somewhere else to look and met his eyes helplessly.
“I wanted you to be a part of it, back then. Part of my group, instead of us competing like we always had. It wasn’t just about the path to victory.”
Ushijima hadn’t tried to discuss this old high school argument since their first year of university, when Oikawa had resorted to leaving the room every time Ushijima brought it up. Oikawa supposed that the presence of his Shiratorizawa friends was making him sentimental, making him go back to old differences which were better left behind.
There was something scratchy in Oikawa’s throat, making it difficult to get words out. “We’re on the same team now. You got your wish.”
Ushijima shook his head, a gesture which made his hair flop over his forehead. “You don’t understand.”
Oikawa wasn’t sure he wanted to understand. He felt like running in the opposite direction from any kind of understanding. Panic had taken root in his chest and it wanted to bloom. Ushijima would keep talking this through if Oikawa let him: would touch Oikawa again and keep explaining, keep trying to make Oikawa understand, keep trying for a closeness between them. He would keep talking until he got to making some kind of confession of--something.
And he had no idea how ludicrously brave he was being right now, braver than Oikawa could ever hope to be. He’d been brave from that first message he’d sent Oikawa on Tinder, and Oikawa had been a manipulative coward since the exact same moment.
Ushijima wouldn’t be standing here and looking at Oikawa like this if he knew what kind of person Oikawa really was.
“Let’s go back inside,” Oikawa said, and if it came out as a desperate plea, maybe Ushijima wouldn’t pick up on that; there were so many things Ushijima didn’t pick up on, so many things that went over his head because he was a direct and honest person, decent in a fundamental way that Oikawa had tried not to acknowledge for years now.
Iwaizumi reappeared with a smiling and tipsy Kazu while Oikawa was paying his tab at the bar. “There you are! Leaving already?”
“I have a headache,” Oikawa snapped. His conflicted thoughts and worries about Ushijima easily flowed into the shape of irritation with Iwaizumi instead. “What do you care, anyway? I haven’t seen you all night.”
Iwaizumi frowned at him. Kazu was leaning his face on his shoulder, eyes closed and smiling blissfully. “So? I’m not your babysitter.”
“I never asked you to be!” Oikawa grabbed his card back as soon as the bartender was done with it and stalked out of the bar, ignoring Iwaizumi’s calls after him.
Everything felt wrong: he didn’t want to see the easy, affectionate way that Iwaizumi and Kazu had with each other, not when everything in his own life felt tangled up in hard knots. Oikawa could feel his thoughts starting to whir, already picking apart Ushijima’s words tonight to analyze and decipher what they meant, already presenting him with some interesting conclusions. Oikawa didn’t want those conclusions and didn’t want to know how he could exploit this new information to his benefit, but he was thinking about it anyway.
Tendou’s words came back to him: wanting to get closer to Ushijima without revealing himself. Without any risk. Without the kind of decency and honesty and bravery that Ushijima displayed without a second thought. Ushijima deserved someone who was just as decent, deserved one of the many fake perfect boyfriends who had messaged him in the past month, deserved the kind of good person that Oikawa could only ever pretend to be.
Fuck Tendou anyway. Fuck Ushiwaka, and most of all fuck himself.