A/N: A warning, I know jackshιt about baseball in general xD so please forgive any inconsistencies. In fact, most of this may or may not be word barf-- *bows head* Forgive me for inflicting this on any readers ahaha…

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Link to properly formatted entry: (entry on forums has pretty much no italics, bolding, or correct paragraph spacing--it also censors words, as we all well know :P)

https://docs.google.com/doc

ument/d/1a89-IrpC-THAQ2UQNH5ppZTHXnSwI373zd5VTnrIV00/edit?usp=sharing

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Scarlet Blaze was all of 10 years and 3/4ths of a day alive, a barely-contained pipsqueak of excitement and joy, when he saw for the first time something that’d alter his life forever. Rising prodigy Uchiha Itachi, newest and perhaps greatest sporting talent the world has seen, running, running, swinging, long hair tailing and snapping. Winning. (Scarlet falls in love.)

Later, he tugs his parents to the library to look up what that sport was---they’re all immigrants here, unfamiliar with local language, customs. The pale-haired lady, bespeckled behind the desk, points him smiling to a shelf twice his height and more in length. “Baseball, that sounds like the sport you’re looking for.” “Baseball?”. His lips round and flatten over the foreign syllables, accented all wrong but still very, very right-feeling, warm in the way that sunshine sinks into your pores. “Mhm, would you like to look it up?” “Yes please!” With a stretch, the encyclopedia falls. Opens, aardvark-ants-banana-bats-there! Baseball (Sport). The words are too small to be traced, little flat sesame seeds under his fingertips. He reads, mouths the word over and over again until it becomes familiar, strange again, then familiar.

He imagines, and a future sparks here.

(Scarlet’s parents laugh to themselves, and agree heartily when he requests to sign up for classes at the local baseball club. Their baby boy is growing up! He has a dream! And maybe even a crush from the looks of it...? He starts wearing his hair in a ponytail, and they beam proudly from afar as Scarlet begins to walk his own path in life).

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What they don't mentions is how this is the first time he's smiled, the first time he's laughed truly in this country. Scarlet lost that namesake blaze of his somewhere across the ocean, and now that he found something to relight it he's never, letting, go--this none of them will ever voice aloud, but they'll understand regardless. Because without he would wish to leave so much as to follow the sea, chasing waves back to home-no-longer until he's too far out and swimming down, down. Down, and staying there.

All of this his parents will never say, because Scarlet himself doesn't know yet, won't let himself know and they see no point in changing that.

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First day of class -[Baseball for Beginners! Sign up today, ages 8-12] , a boy resembling a flying squirrel falls out of the sky.

In the defense of the onlookers, surprised as they are, Scarlet really does appear like said squirrel, baggy shirt futilely catching air, failing wings. And he really did trip and fall off the bleachers, short legs flying and small feet slipping, with attention riveted to everything---but himself.

(Poοf! Violently floated the dust as his features were introduced to the dirt. Undeterred, he pops up like a demented jack-in-the-box.)

Scarlet’s newly-gained ponytail was spiking and poοfing, flying up-down-up-down to the steps of short legs as he bounced back up. Hair, as well as body salt-and-pepper colored, he gasps and shakes off dirt.

The watching audience decides: A shocked squirrel then. Or maybe a deluded squirrel that had eaten hallucinogenic mushrooms stoned sky-high, who thought to jump off a tree with fantasies of flight. (There’s not much difference to a casual viewer, and casual then they were).

Chirpy, fluttering eyes, the skin around stretched tight as he tries to look at [everything! An actual bat! An actual baseball! Ohmygosh the field is actually so large, it seemed smaller on T.V] Scarlet is flying fae bound to earth and flesh by only mere strands, excitement buoying him so much.

He can’t even remember ever seeing a field this large, a field made with intent for recreation. Not where he grew up before. It was always cramped, open space a luxury not even the rich had--an unforgiving jungle of concrete trees and steel vines, chirping car horns--Scarlet’s memory fails here. (He wills it to fail, doesn't want the burden of remembering). Memories of before, of across the sea, are hazing as years pass, but no matter. Scarlet dampens, joy freezing into little icicles of want that stab. It's all gone now, three shredded passports and 13 hours of flight and two days by boat, “lets-go-cmon-Scarlet” friends and the softly shaped snack lady who gave him extra. Gone away, away-fallen behind. (liar liar you're the one who left, you left and you're forgetting, you want to be rid of -)

He blinks away the voices and longing, the home-sized hole with the shape of an entire country in his chest because now there is a dream to dream, a future to catch up with and Scarlet is going to do it no matter what. No matter what, since that jagged gap started smoothing when he saw Itachi play baseball, when he saw that wide, wide field in front of him, and Scarlet wants to heal. He wants to live, and fears wasting away and crumbling until there's nothing left but that dαmned wound where his heart used to be. So there's not enough time to waste here.

Besides, more importantly is how he’s seeing real people (!!!) play baseball right there! In front of him! Another armful of moments pass, emotions trying to surface but he doesn't notice them, willfully blind to everything other than the ongoing game. He's back to his original state, awed and amazed, admiring.

Soon however, snapping out of it, Scarlet sprints over to the other kids--there was learning to do and people to meet, watching people play could come later. After he could play it himself.

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The other children snicker (younger, all of them, eight’s and nine’s), and the instructor hides a smile as Scarlet announces to the world “When I grow up, I’m gonna play for Konoha and be the best teammate Uchiha Itachi ever had!”. Their amusement is not unfounded, however--this was spouting out of day-old stripling, soft-handed with a grip that’d never touched a bat before. One that fell off the bleachers, so star-struck by the sight of the field.

He doesn’t notice, (pointedly ignores, Scarlet isn't deaf or stupιd, no matter how might he wishes) their amusement at a small boy with a dream (not a dream, a future) large and bright enough to overflow.

Rest of instruction proceeds normally.

The class falls quiet when he tries playing for the first time, and this...this...he’s good. Sure, his posture is off in some places, and movements are sloppy elsewhere, but there is talent here. The teacher makes note, and avows to watch him closely in the future.

On Scarlet’s side, the universe has never been so colorful, so wonderful before. He’s finally good at something, after stumbling alone for so long, failing and trying again, again, in language or school or friends. He streaks through and overtakes everyone in skill (they were only a local leisure club, after all) before turning twelve, bids a bittersweet farewell to old-new friends and moves on to the state league, with the pride of his town behind him.

Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, he’s running and training and there’s a new coach who seems to hate Scarlet--who picks at everything from his stance to posture to the way his arms move when he sprints. And the way he bats. “Freedom in the swing, boy. You think tensing up like this is good enough for nationals? You can’t even make it into the junior ones, and you’re thinking of joining Konoha? Trαsh.”

He knows it’s for his own good, that he needs to get better and better. The gap between him and Itachi is closing, but the other boy--no, adult now--is still rising, in the news and on magazine covers more often than not.

But the problem is, he doesn’t understand. Not this problem, not how to relax when all he should be doing is focusing more, more. (It’s not the actual swinging the

coach is referring to, he knows that. It’s as perfect as his record, straight and shiny. People have started whispering he’s the next prodigy of the generation, but he pays that no mind--not when there’s training to do and games to play.)

On this, and only this, he utterly ignores his coach. After all, it's only worth listening to someone if they're right. That’s one of the first things he learned in this country, disgusting pet-eater (how was he supposed to know what meat they ate or didn't here? Food is food, and to waste it is evil), weird foreigner, “bay-CEE-ball idiot, how stupιd its “BAYss-ball”--actually, he did listen to this one. Correcting his pitch over and over at home, and when fixed he had gone back up and pronounced it carefully, stressing the “A” and tacking the “ss” to it lightly. The kid ignored him, and chose to point out “pronounced” was said wrong. This is how Scarlet truly learned the language, correction-friend (friend in his mind because correction-friend never physically harmed him, only pointed out with words his differences) fixing all the small nuances. For that he's forever thankful, because without that classmate he would've been left out even more, not even seen to be fixed and assimilated into the world he lived in now.

Scarlet goes home that day tense, but not knowing why (lying again, you know perfectly why, they were never friends but you're forgetting this too--). He spends the rest of the day practicing, mind empty of everything but tense-relax-watch, follow the ball there!-hips turn, arms-and-shoulders snap-turning behind it, shockwaves from impact--

He ends up finds a flaw in his batting, previously invisible: When the ball is low his knees are too tight. Not relaxed, so through this night and ones after it Scarlet becomes a ballerina dancer, a river-soft ribbon floating until force lets it crack the air, a whip. His knees lose tension, and in days after the coach doesn't mention relaxing again.

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He's fifteen, lanky-but-not tall with calluses permanently protecting hands and skid marks sunk so deep in his knees that they never wash off, despite scrubbing and soap. He's lost the height advantage that came from being older. The other boys on his team have all sprouted up, growing at what seems like the rate of bamboo--an inch here, another inch there--and a couple days later, oh hey, it's a foot taller than Scarlet now. At about the same time, annoyingly, they also begin noticing girls. Noticing girls. Noticing girls.

He does not grow much more.

Interestingly enough, this doesn't cause him to be bitter. He's used to standing out, regardless of choice or not, and this isn't a large problem, barely a problem at all. (if it wasn't for the height, his accent as well as hair would mark him apart just as easy--the only one with long hair in a forest of summer buzz cuts).

Scarlet notes the gains of his teammates, longer strides and reaches. He also notices the seeming disadvantages--loss of coordination if a pretty girl is in the audience, distraction and sighing in the locker rooms later. Rather obviously, none of this affects him, and he spends his time narrowing attention on sprinting faster, arms-hands-fingers flying quicker. It would so no good to fall behind simply due to luck in genetics---His skills are good enough to overcome that, and if they aren't, well, he'll practice until they are.

It's not like he has anything else to do, without friends to bother; his locker mate tried to invite him to a party before, but he declined. What for, he doesn't remember. (Scarlet was afraid)

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Scarlet is all of sixteen and eighty-nine days in age when headlines blare; “Star Player of Konoha Defects to Rival Team Akatsuki!!!” and “Konoha Loses MVP to Akatsuki, What Will They Lose Next?”. He doesn’t let it deter him, just changes his future from [Itachi’s Teammate] to [Itachi’s Rival]. It’s still Konoha that he’ll play for--it’s been so long he can’t even imagine doing something else. baseball has become his life now, the thrumming of his heart to aching joints and muscles--and he’s never been happier.

It’s only in private that he allows himself to mourn, the loss of a future to a dream---the smiles of shared victory, high-fives for a well-executed home run--but Scarlet moves on. He pushes forwards, moves on because that is what he has done and will always do, blazing like his name. Besides, he doesn’t remember how to cry anymore, or to feel sad. There’s been no time (and although baseball healed his heart those years ago, it's been what feels an empty chest cavity since). Scarlet promises to himself that he'll find something to love--after making his future a certain possibility. He can be careless with time then, giving hours to laughing and anger and maybe even sorrow, if he found something to care about and lose.

Freedom in the swing, there's nothing free about it, it's all calculated lax and tense and coordination. He doesn't want to try understanding,

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His eighteenth birthday should’ve been a party of friends, of family cheering, well-wishes for joining the adult world. A toast for his future.

There's no family and no friends, but his teammates treat their shortest member to free drinks at a plyboard-windowed shαck---a bar where the only ID check depends on whether you have payment and a mouth to drink with. Scarlet goes, but decline the alcohol. After all, there’s no point in getting drunk for something so insignificant as this--he hasn’t even made it out to the pro league. He walks out and leaves once he hears them singing about “wannabe-Uchiha boys”.

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He’s twenty-one and finally, finally drafted into the professional league, into the prestigious Konoha team. Scarlet is nothing but viciously, viciously satisfied--but he doesn’t allow that to bloat his head, to do anything. He’s still rookie-of-the-team, weakest of the bunch (compared to the seasoned players, is that no wonder?).

He still doesn’t understand what his old coach meant, not yet--but he thinks he might allow himself to, now that he’s there.

He tries to remember all that he's forgotten, but habit is a nasty, difficult thing to break and there is still a part of him who says no. No to diverting attention, because just being scouted and recruited by the team doesn't mean much, he still has to get better and not be benched, not be--Scarlet listens to this voice, the one that's kept him alive and on the path leading here--promptly, that's the end of distractions.

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He plays against Akatsuki, and Itachi. He feels nothing and wonders what went wrong, what changed inside him. It makes no difference who won or lost, and Scarlet wonders when the world lost its color.

Fifty-three games later, Scarlet finally gets it. He laughs wildly, bαngs and ponytail swinging, and for the first in a very long time, he takes his mind off of getbetterfocusfocusforwardstomorrow and truly plays baseball, enjoys the game for what it is (and not another step to take, another procedure he must follow in making his future). He's twenty-something back to ten years alive, and Scarlet is finally, finally, free.

(Scarlet falls in love, again)

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Afterwards, it doesn't take long for him relearn how to live. He lets himself actually talk to his teammates, finds some to be admirers and others hopeful friends. They talk, find miscommunications galore, and all promise each other to get together for just fun often, in order to make up for all that lost time, lost like morning mist and dew in the sun.

(He remembers lying to a teacher, his parents about where bruises came from at school).

There's also been a good-looking sports reporter watching his matches recently, and Scarlet fumbles a catch when the sunlight glinted off the newscaster’s white hair (so pretty!! Scarlet wonders if it's natural, then about the age of said reporter). Although that mistake somehow makes tabloids, [Konoha’s Blaze Makes First Crucial Mistake--Has Something Gone Wrong?]- he finds that he doesn't really care. Couldn't care less, because the distraction was named Midnight (so cute!!!) and he was actually younger than Scarlet by a year, newbie reporter on the scene.

(Memories of fellow then-teenaged teammates, clumsy handed because eyes were elsewhere, repeatedly sighing with dreamy eyes later. These return, and Scarlet sympathizes with them a lot more now, understands what drove the seemingly inane behavior.)

After a match one day, the Uchiha Itachi and Scarlet Blaze talk face to face for the first time. It began simply, with the older man just walking up and smiling: “You played very well today, I'm proud to be your opponent”, then extending a hand out for a handshake. Unfortunately for the recipient of said handshake, Scarlet had somehow regained all his childish idol worship, and was resembling a wide-eyed bushy-tailed squirrel once more. Slightly panicking, instead of returning the handshake, he ended up awkwardly enacting a bizarre fistbump-highfive-handshake-hug. (That also made the headlines, “Rivals Uchiha and Blaze Enact Secret Ritual Handshake After Match--Could They Be Long-lost Siblings? By Sai. Most of you have probably noticed and wondered about the resemblances between Blaze and Uchiha---from iconic hairstyles to genius talent, they are nothing but….)

Scarlet remembers….he decides to stop remembering, and focus on the present instead. After all, there's a new friend to know better (Itachi) and a reporter to ask out (Midnight! He’s actually adorable~) and a team to go out and drink with, to name a few. No time to waste here lost in thoughts of tomorrow or yearnings of yesterday, Scarlet has a now to live life in. He has now to sob and rage and hope and laugh, now to fall down and let himself rest, now to love.

He has now to be alive.

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Fin.