A/N: A/N: Hello, Hello, Hello! You know, the title "Flutter" was supposed to signify Naruto's freedom, like "As free as a bird" something like that. It was supposed to mean wings.
DixieDiamond, itachifangirl2424, -siarafaerie-101-miss, Damp, and Arion Girl: Thank you so much for being my first reviewers!
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As Naruto walked into the room, all eyes seemed to shift from their tasks to look at him with hardened looks. The blonde didn't care as he walked over to the coffee machine to fix himself a cup of coffee. After they watched the blonde load up his black coffee with lots of milk, they went back to talking.
"Damn, Itachi is talking about us again. Argh, he makes me so mad!" Kiba said as he clenched the newspaper within his angry hands. The players seemed to back him up on this and they equally shouted their anger. 'Idiots. The whole lot of them.' Naruto thought as he rolled his eyes at their actions.
Sasuke was the only one, besides Naruto, who seemed to not care about what was being talked about, he even looked a bit depressed. Naruto sat across from him at the square table in hopes of getting some peace and quiet while he sipped at his coffee, but that was not the case.
The blonde didn't expect the raven to all of a sudden start talking and make him almost spill his coffee onto his lap.
"Itachi…is my older brother." Sasuke said breaking the calm silence. Naruto looked at him blankly before gulping down the rest of his coffee.
"He's on the Akatsuki's team. They always win." The raven said the end of his sentence tainted with bitterness. The blonde looked on emotionless as he munched on a muffin. What did he care? He didn't. Sasuke, his catcher, with his petty little problems were nothing to be concerned about, the blonde thought as he blocked out the raven's gray ramblings.
"My dream is to beat him with the best battery ever. But it hasn't happened yet, especially with the pitcher we had before." The raven said acting like the blonde actually cared and shared the same dream as him, but Naruto quickly shattered that.
"Your dreams are stupid." He said blankly, almost not realizing that he said it. The blonde was kind of just drifting in his thoughts as he said things straightforwardly. The raven tried to laugh off the blonde's comment awkwardly, which just made it more uncomfortable, well at least just for the raven.
Sasuke hoped that Naruto was the pitcher just for him to beat Itachi with, but it seemed like it was just a false hope.
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The blonde stretched his legs as a warm-up for another pre-season game. The pre-season games didn't count as real ones; they were just to see how strong their opponents were before the actual season started. Fans still came to cheer for their favorite teams hoping that this year they would win.
The team that Naruto was on had many fans but they all had a strong dislike for the blonde ever since the first game.
"Get off the mound! You suck!"
"You don't deserve to be there!"
"You slow prick!" The fans shouted at him going as far as throwing food items onto the field, making the security teams yell at them to calm down and return to their seats. 'Is that the only insult people have? Prick?' The blonde thought about how unoriginal people were.
The blonde placed his footing in the dirt of the mound, mulling over what the fans were shouting at him. 'It's not like I want to be here, you bastards. I hate the mound.' The blonde thought bitterly as he faced the batter that was up.
The batter was bulky as he placed his footing, his hand made a stop sign like gesture towards the blonde to show that he wasn't ready yet.
"Ready!" The big man shouted, it seemed more of a threatening battle cry than a sign. Naruto gripped the ball behind the glove and pitched the ball, it was so exceedingly slow that the man almost missed it but at the last second he pulled it in.
It flew into the outfield where it dropped it front of the player with the uniform number seven. He was also a bit bulky but he had a great arm as he shot the ball to the first basemen. Unfortunately, it didn't make it as the referee announced it safe. The fans erupted in boos as their favorite team was already losing thanks to a lousy pitcher.
The blonde narrowed his eyes and prepared for a big wind-up. As his arms were above his head, the player on first base made a dash for second and the blonde pitched the ball slowly.
Sasuke was praying in his head that the incredibly slow ball would hit his glove but that was nothing but a fairytale as the batter knocked it out of the park making the score two to zero.
The raven was edgy as he seemed to be restless and when the next batter came up, the catcher called a time-out. Making his way up to the mound he stopped as his eyes seemed to plead for Naruto to pitch well.
Kiba from the outfield saw the commotion and began running for the mound, the other players looking confused but stayed in their spots nonetheless. He stood beside the raven as Naruto looked at them both blankly.
"Please, Naruto, I beg of you to just pitch well. Why won't you pitch your breaking balls or at least your fastball?" The raven said as the brunette beside him looked like he was about to bust out yelling any second now.
"Why the hell should I? I don't care if this team loses; it's no skin off my back." The blonde said nonchalantly as he adjusted his cap. Sasuke stood there dumbfounded while he thought over the words that the blonde said. The raven suddenly just turned around and headed back to home base where he sat down.
The blonde smirked as the brunette got yelled at to get back into his position. For the rest of the game Naruto pitched lousily as Kiba fumed with anger and as Sasuke sat in a daze.
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After a game, it was customary for the teammates to go out and eat with each other. Unfortunately, for all of them, the blonde was included; the other players didn't want to drag along a prick of a player and Naruto didn't want to be dragged along with these people either.
But that was how it was and that was that.
Naruto watched as they all gathered into seats, leaving him on the end at another table. It was fine; he didn't want to eat with them anyways, watching them chew down their greasy disgusting burgers. When the raven noticed that Naruto was sitting alone at his own table, he decided to join the blonde.
Sasuke picked up his tray and moved over to the blonde's lonely table, ignoring the partial glares that the players were giving him. He sat down; eating almost hesitantly like the blonde was going to snap any moment at him for sitting at the table.
The raven knew he was going out of his way to make the blonde feel welcome to the team when he knew how much of an ass the blonde was but still part of his mind hoped that the blonde was just nervous and wasn't comfortable being open with the rest of them.
"Sasuke, don't associate with me, your teammates won't like it." The blonde said snapping the raven out of his thoughts. The pitcher made a mental note on what the boy was eating. Ramen. He reminded himself that later he should make a menu of the blonde's food intake. He was looking kind of scrawny.
"They're your teammates too." Sasuke said back as he took a huge bite out of his burger. He missed the look of barely concealed disgust on the blonde's face. 'If I have to keep watching them eat those gross pieces of meat, I might just puke.' The blonde thought as he withheld his gag.
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The pleasant sound of a hardball hitting against a metal bat was constantly ringing in the air. The humid heat made their uniforms cling to their frames lightly. The birds chirped as the air smelled of rain. The blonde pitcher was in the shade of the dugout as he watched the other players practice for their next game.
At one point the blonde fell asleep, whenever it got hot like this, he just had a huge urge to curl up and nap. A tap was delivered to his shoulder and his leg twitched showing that he was surprised.
"Naruto-san, it's your turn to bat." A player said and then left the blonde by himself to wake up. The pitcher yawned and stretched as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. He stepped heavily out of the dugout into the sun and picked up an unused bat.
Setting up at the base to take a swing, he narrowed his eyes at the ball as it got thrown at him. He pulled back, stomped his foot into a footing and swung at the air. The way the blonde was setting up looked like he was going to pull a big one but he didn't. The smack of a ball hitting a glove was heard through the player's ears.
The blonde looked back at the glove and gritted his teeth; he faced the pitcher again and set up the same way. All the pitches that were thrown at him were barely hit and he hit his bat against the ground in frustration. Naruto didn't have any batting skill whatsoever.
Some players hid their snickers behind their hats while some gave him a pitying look.
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Naruto placed his hands deep into his pant's pockets as he looked around, behind a pair of stylish sunglasses, at the dozen of reporters that were snapping photos of him. His blonde hair was flat against the nape of his neck and he wore a t-shirt with a band logo on it along with a pair of dark loose jeans.
He made a look of distaste as somebody ushered him up on a stand where a table and chairs were set up. He quickly sat down and waited for the questions to be asked.
"Naruto-san, how do you feel about being on one of the best teams in Japan?" A reporter asked; her recorder reached out so she could capture the blonde's voice. The blonde cleared his throat and leaned forward to speak into the microphone. "It's nothing special."
It was shocking for the reporters to hear the blonde disgrace the team by saying these things. "A player who is hot-headed and thinks that he can do anything because of his strength. A player who can easily threaten to break a person's arm without the guilt of rendering them useless for the rest of their life." The blonde said as he described the players on his team.
The reporters seemed to quiet down and listen in on the blonde's speech; it was a new look on a famous, loved baseball team. "A coach, who does nothing to help anyone and is so addicted on cigarettes and a catcher who doesn't speak up. The catcher is one of the most valuable players on a team; he calls all the shots and makes sure that the other team doesn't score."
"But this catcher doesn't speak any of his ideas. This team thinks that they can be buddies that don't have to worry about the game as long as they're all friends. They believe that as long as they have a few valuable players, they can still win."
"But a team isn't like that, it's not about pushing all the work onto one person and pressuring him to get a win for them, it's about working together no matter how bad they are to aim for the win. I don't know how I can ever get along with a team like that." The blonde said and for once, there was no sound ringing in his ears from the chattering people, it was deathly quiet.
"Uzumaki, is it true that your father paid the owner for your position?" A reporter asked uncaring of the silence and only there to get the facts. "Yes that is true, but he is not going to win this game." The blonde replied and sat back in his chair.
A few reporters whispered amongst themselves confused by what the blonde said.
"What do you mean by 'game'?" Another reporter spoke up. The blonde ruffled his hair with one hand. "I'm sorry I do not wish to speak about that matter. "
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To say that the players were angry was an understatement; they were completely enraged about how the blonde spoke of them. Kiba went all out for a screaming session while most of them decided to ignore him. Even Sasuke didn't talk to him, but the blonde didn't care.