[Oh, Ushijima. Expecting Sakusa to be reasonable about this. Sakusa cocks his head while listening this time, his brows the most expression feature on his face. They raise when he hears about the Niiyama Girls' captain and furrow remembering Shirabu and how casual he'd been with Ushijima during first year at Nationals. These two, Sakusa can accept. It's that final one, Ushijima's most important ex, that makes finally Sakusa sneer over the table. This time Sakusa snaps a, "Hurry up. We're talking," at the unfortunate waiter assigned to them.

Once alone again, Sakusa listens patiently, albeit with an expression growing in dissatisfaction. Oikawa Tooru. He'd never met the man himself, and his only reference was an article in Volleyball magazine only a few years ago. Next to a glossy column boasting of a Japanese setter's accomplishments abroad was a picture of a man with a dazzling smile and perfectly coifed hair. Sakusa would be lying if he said he couldn't understand if it was just a physical thing. But between the tone Ushijima used back then and how he says his name now, Sakusa suspicion that things were more complicated than that is implicitly confirmed.]

I've heard of him. Our teams never played. [It's a jab. A small one, but a jab nonetheless.]

The Niiyama Girls' captain and Shiratorizawa's setter, I can understand...

[They were, in Sakusa's opinion, strong and therefore worthy. But this...nobody? Was Ushijima's ex? And the way Ushijima talked about him, Sakusa can't help but think Ushijima was the more invested partner.

Sakusa has a million questions and more still formulating, but the biggest one is:] You said you had "something" with him. Define "something."