After breakfast was finished Ushijima went on his daily jog to contemplate what he'd learned through the newspaper.
Ushijima had formed the opinion early on that soulgems meant very little as far as fairytale endings go, or even as life goes. His parents had matching gems, but hadn't needed to notice that to get along. There were many relatives who still hadn't met their match, or at least didn't know it, and were very happy (if somewhat stoically so, but that was more a family trait that anything else). The weight others placed on matching this feature with another person often lead them to plight, exhaustion, or worse. It would be much more prudent to disregard the feature entirely and just get on with your life.
He believed in his opinion so much he forgot what his soulgem even looked like. The colors and shape vanished from his mind. People he knew called it a shame, the magazines cooed that it was a tragedy. It was just how he wanted to live.
Then there was Hinata Shouyou.
Hinata was a sweet young guy, who seemed so opposite to Ushijima he hesitantly wondered why he was so attached to what little they knew about each other. They barely knew each other at all, but he knew Hinata's soulgem by heart like many others knew their own.
To say he was shocked when he found out that Hinata was his match would be... understating it, perhaps.
(Had it come so easy to his thoughts because he still remembered his own, somewhere? Even when he rejected that part so thoroughly...)
But he believed in his knowledge of soulgems, and would not pursue Hinata just because of the gem. The little guy had only just started his highschool career, it would be selfish to try and hold him close when there was so much potential within him. Briefly, another orange haired highschool freshmen with limitless potential crossed his mind, and he barely stifled a laugh. But Hinata was real and so close.
He knew nothing of Hinata's beliefs about soulgems. Did he feel the same as Ushijima? Did he, like so many others, seek that match out passively? Or was it possible he was obsessed and had been looking since he'd known what to look for? Ushijima didn't know. And knowing what Hinata expected of him... Well. It could make things easier. It could make things a lot harder.
Truth be told he had no idea what exactly he was supposed to do. Maybe their match on the court had been the extent of their 'fated meeting'. Not that Ushijima wanted it to be necessarily, but without the gem tying them together, it probably would have been. After so long of rebuking that part of himself was he really ready to accept it again just because it was an excuse to spend more time with Hinata?
He spent the rest of the day pondering his decision while all too aware of his parents darting eyes and quiet words.
In the end, he sighed and turned to his computer. Hesitantly he went to the volleyball tournament's site and watched the matches of the day through, thoughts and eyes always wandering back to Hinata.
Maybe his views were wrong, but maybe they weren't. In the end, couldn't refusing to rely on soulgems also mean refusing to let it keep him from doing something selfishly like reaching back out to Hinata because it would be 'for the best'?
Turning that thought over in his head made it make less sense, but he shrugged it off. When Hinata came back, he would try and create a bridge that might have been destroyed if it had ever been there at all.