Ushijima Wakatoshi doesn't compete against other players.
It's something as obvious to him as inhaling and exhaling, but that many people have a hard time understanding.
"Wow, Ushijima-san does train hard." From the other side of the court, the voice of Goshiki, the first year that's just made into the starting lineup, reaches him. "He must be thinking of the numbers 1 and 2, right?"
"Numbers 1 and 2…? Oh, you mean the other two high school aces that came above him in Monthly Volleyball's ranking."
"…ehhh, yeah. Ushijima must be making an effort to surpass them, isn't he?"
"As if. Wakatoshi-kun doesn't compete against anyone but himself."
He frowns: that last ball just barely hit the bottle. It managed to knock it down, of course —no matter how much he refills them to make them heavier, no plastic bottle is a match to his serve. But that serve should've been straighter. His coach keeps telling him that, with the force behind his serves, few players will be able to receive his serves or spikes, but he'd like a little more precision.
He forgets Goshiki's chat with Satori, presuming that the matter had been cleared up. But the first year seems braver than the rest and he insists on competing against Ushijima during training and practice matches. He doesn't fully get it and, to be honest, he doesn't even notice until Reon brings it up. He wonders if, as captain, he should say something to him —it doesn't affect Shiratorizawa's play too much, though, so he decides to ignore it.
"Wakatoshi, aren't you worried that he might steal your spot as the team's ace?" asks Satori in a mocking tone. It's his usual way of talking so he doesn't take it personal.
"No," he replies honestly and Hayato scowls.
"Don't you dare to tell him that in that tone."
He doesn't see anything wrong with his tone, but he lets it go, and all the exclamations from Goshiki of "did you see my last spike, Ushijima-san? Did you?" turn into background noise.
Ushijima Wakatoshi doesn't compete against other players.
He keeps an exact tally of his running times, his weight-lifting exercises, and the precision of his spikes, never bothering to compare them to anyone else's, always measuring against himself, always looking to improve his own scores.
Of course the best practice of all takes place during games, and for that reason he hopes the college team that will play against them in a practice match is as good as their coach has promised. He knows very well that he can expect no challenge from the Spring High preliminaries, right around the corner: they will just prove a tedious process they need to go through to get to the Nationals, where the real game begins.
"What? You're not thrilled to know that we will play against Aobajousai again in the final?"
Aobajousai means playing against Oikawa Tooru, the only player in all of Miyagi outside of Shiratorizawa that is worth anything, possibly the best setter he has ever seen. An opinion his own team has heard more than once, and surely Satori is trying to goad him into saying it again. Eita and Shirabu are already beyond offense: they know how much he respects their abilities and that he trusts them to toss him the ball where he needs it to spike it. Oikawa, though, is on an entirely different level.
But not even Oikawa Tooru's outstanding skills will do him any good on a team that's not on his level. You can try to improve the mediocre but you will never get very far. He tried to explain this to him more than once, without any success, the boy's stubborn pride or perhaps some inconvenient sentimentality preventing him from seeing that, no matter the effort, you'll never get anything to grow on barren land.
He should've come to Shiratorizawa.
Something he has also told him more than once, with responses that went from the most glacial sarcasm to the most colorful insults.
Ushijima Wakatoshi doesn't compete against other players. His potential with a setter of Oikawa's caliber by his side, though, would've been something worth seeing.
Hayato has told him that, after almost six years, he'd better let it go.
One day they're running on the street when soon enough, Ushijima leaves the rest of his team behind. They're too slow.
He slows down to see if any of them —Goshiki, perhaps— manages to catch up at least a little, and then he hears an unknown voice pronouncing his name.
He sees two boys, one of them with straight, black hair, almost ten centimeters shorter than him; another red-headed boy, so short he has to look down to see him, and an even tinier blonde girl by his side. They might be high school first years, though the redhead and the girl look even younger.
He asks what business they have with him, and the black-haired boy, all seriousness and no hesitation, asks him if they can watch Shiratorizawa's training. He's pretty sure that the answer, should the coach be there to give it, would be a resounding no.
But he has left his team well behind and he's bored.
He tells them over his shoulder that they'll have to keep up, and he doesn't have the slightest hope they might be able to when the rest of Shiratorizawa couldn't. To his astonishment, they don't fall behind even when he keeps his usual pace —perhaps even a little faster— and to top it all, they go all the way talking.
Or, more accurately, arguing with each other, as though they'd already forgotten he was there at all.
It's a very strange feeling.
He loses sight of them after reaching Shiratorizawa's campus —no, there they are, gaping at the horses.
He's never liked them that much.
When they finally deign to come to the gym where the volleyball club's second line is training, he doesn't let by the opportunity to throw their tardiness back in their faces.
They seem to want to watch him in action for some reason, and then the taller of the two introduces himself. His name rings a bell.
He used to be the setter at Kitagawa Daiichi, Oikawa's old school, but now that Ushijima remembers that, instead of elevating the potential of his teammates, he made tosses that were impossible to spike. A setter that insists on setting his own pace instead of matching the ace to make the best of him is a complete waste on a team like Shiratorizawa. He's not surprised he didn't get into this club.
They know Oikawa Tooru, which shouldn't surprise him that much. He can't help it and, before he realizes, he finds himself explaining to them why he's the best setter in Miyagi.
(His team has long ago begun to nod and mumble some absent-minded "yeah, yeah" or Satori, more daring, covers his ears and starts singing La Macarena vociferously whenever this subject comes up.)
The red-head doesn't seem to be getting what he means by barren land, so he decides to be as clear as possible.
"It means that, aside from Oikawa, Aobajousai is weak."
After he says it, he realizes that maybe his words won't sit too well with a team that obviously didn't manage to beat Aobajousai to get into the finals.
"If Seijo is barren land, that would makes us something like concrete, wouldn't it?"
Later, Ushijima will deny it even to himself but, in that very moment, something about the look on the boy's face, in the aura that surrounds him, makes him flinch.
It's like one of those kids on horror movies, all warm smiles one minute and possessed by an evil spirit the next.
He didn't mean to offend them and he tells them so, but he can't think otherwise about the subject.
No matter how creepy the face of the boy he has to tell this to might be.
And then, something happens. Ushijima can't quite explain it: one moment, he's turning on his heels to jump and reach the ball that's gotten away from the second line guys.
The next moment, the red-headed boy, who a mere instant before was behind him, appears before his eyes, rising in the air even higher than him to snatch the ball from under his nose.
What the hell was that?
"I'm Hinata Shouyou, and I sprouted from that concrete. We're going to knock you down and go to the Nationals."
Kageyama Tobio makes his statement of war before their departure, and Ushijima is overwhelmed by a very strange feeling as he watches them walk away.
Perhaps Oikawa Tooru isn't the only worthy player left in this prefecture.
Maybe the words I'm Hinata Shouyou, and I sprouted from that concrete will resound in his ears like an echo every time he practices a serve, a spike; maybe he'll wonder more than once whether Kageyama Tobio will live up to his boasting; if that combo of speed and skill might become a real challenge for him. Maybe he'll think that he has found, at long last, a rival capable of making the preliminaries a little more interesting.
He will tell no one, though.
Ushijima Wakatoshi doesn't compete against other players.