genuinely it's crazy how you can tell that ushijima's mother's family and their influence on him is like a fucking leash. like a goddamned dog collar. like something he was trained to wear. like, we see him with utsui before utsui leaves and utsui tells him good things!! important things!! things that wouldn't have made ushijima an asshole!! he tells ushijima that a strong team is one that has interesting people!! he tells ushijima that he'll combat all sorts of types!! strong types!! strange types!! new types!! he tells ushijima that these encounters will make him STRONGER!! the implication is that ushijima shouldn't believe he's the end-all-be-all because he doesn't get stronger that way!! he's meant to grow from acknowledging the strength of others!!

but then utsui takes off to the other side of the fucking world and ushijima is left with family who don't quite know what to do with him and don't quite understand him but still try to drill every bit of whatever they didn't promise utsui into his head, and the only space he feels safe in is where he meets someone who tells him that being strong is the only way to survive and it's the only out ushijima has, and so he grows up believing he cannot be anything else and that nobody should be anything else with his memories of utsui buried beneath a grave . . .

. . . until he's up against a boy who beat the odds he never could, a boy who helps him realize that there's more than one way to be strong, a boy who helps him remember his father, helps him remember no matter what you choose, wakatoshi, i hope you'll come to like volleyball, and ushijima thinks that, maybe, he's always had what he's been missing this whole time.