The first time he’d stepped onto a field with a team, viridian ground shattered by lean sun cross the dirt-dusted blades, a shiver had gone down Yamamoto’s back - from the cold, partly. Unexpected chilly weather had stymied his blood, then churned it, inside his collar a streak of heated thunder where his jugular stuttered. Looking back, Yamamoto even still recalls, through the strangely distorted vibrance of childhood, clouds pulling together overhead as bodies fell into position below. He’d been younger, but hadn’t acted quite as young, and this had been the beginning of a thousand pictures of his life where he was clothed in white and obstinate prayer.
Beyond the cold - there lay the crunch of cleats, stiff white, breath invisible but sharp. Beyond the sounds of the game, precious at first because he’d liked his own natural aptitude (and the way his mother always clapped her hands together, so soft and low, at his frame in uniform), there had been the excitement of commanding his own body.
(The shape and release of tension, no matter what plate he stood on, and the confirmation of what difference he could make if he wound himself up the right way. How - someone would smile if he smiled when he curled both hands around the bat just so, and would laugh like the sound was pouring out of them if he - distracting them, but compelling their focus too - embraced both their victories and losses.)
Vast coliseum rising above his lean frame, Yamamoto feels an echo of the same chilled flash of excitement as he associates with baseball, with other ‘games,’ even as he reviews the rumors of this strange new attraction that’s been offered to park residents.
The swordsman glances up, lets the entrance sign creak in a sudden breeze, before he passes even that with a sound of inquisitive bemusement. Must not be many coming to see the events today, if it’s so deserted. Perhaps he’ll be among a smaller audience than at some of the other entertainment.
“Yo!” he calls, the usual greeting sliding off his tongue like a drop of water in the admission tunnel’s dimness.
“Hard to see anything in here,” murmured, bounces off the walls - echo barely faded when he finally emerges, and has to throw up a hand to readjust to the sudden light.
Yamamoto laughs nervously - “Ha?” - when he finally realizes where he is: not above the arena, safely shuffled into the pews, but below, in the sand.
