Amaryllis
Do I remind you of someone you never met, a lonely silhouette?
Do I remind you of somewhere you want to be, so far out of reach?
I wish you'd open up for me 'cause I want to know you.

Dodge left, dodge right, jump back, kick with right leg.

Your shin hit the side of Mikoto's forearm and your eyes met for a split second before you lost your balance and tumbled to the ground. The King who was supposed to protect and help his subjects merely watched you fall as he changed his stance from 'fight' to 'relax'. How you had been able to fight anyone with those horrible fighting skills was beyond him

Once you were done with rolling around in a childish manner, you jumped up and readied yourself for battle once more but you relaxed a little when Mikoto didn't do the same. He looked as if he were deep in thought so you didn't ask him what was going on and instead waited until he said something himself.

Your own thoughts were just about to start wandering about as well when he suddenly decided to pipe up. "We're done."

And with that he started to walk back to the bar. You had been sparring in the small street next to it.

"What? Why? We haven't even been out here for fifteen minutes!" you countered.

This had been your ritual the past few days: once you got home from school – you had started doing your very best to catch up with everything you had missed just in time to graduate – you would either do homework or start this with Mikoto. Today was Saturday though, so you had immediately gotten to it after waking up properly, which was about twenty minutes ago. Normally you would continue until you had exhausted the fire within, something that took a little less time with every passing day, but right now you didn't feel that it was time to stop just yet.

Mikoto turned back to look at you sceptically and you realised that you were missing out on something important… Something you should probably have noticed earlier.

Just as Mikoto opened his mouth, it hit you. The warmth inside of you… It was tiny, almost completely gone. What was that supposed to mean? That you could finally control it? Or…

"Your aura is barely even there. You shouldn't be having much trouble to control something like that." What he was trying to say was that your irresponsible behaviour had actually made your flames reach its limit. "You're just addicted to throwing a few punches."

"That's not true!" you shouted, balling your fists in anger at what felt like an insult to you.

The redhead raised an eyebrow at your antics and you immediately calmed down as you saw that he may have been telling the truth.

Seeing you relax visibly, he held his hand out for you to grab it so that you could return to the bar. He didn't miss how you were feeling rather miserable, knowing that you had lost these powers that could have been of great use sometimes, so he decided that he should try and cheer you up.

"At least you won't burn anything down in your sleep?" he offered with a tiny, probably fake smile.

One could have even heard the smack of your fist against his cheek while walking down the street a few blocks away.

With Izumo laughing his ass off at Mikoto's lovely red cheek and Mikoto himself having a look on his face that spelled certain doom, the other boys and you knew that it was wise to hide behind the bar and watch things unfold.

"How can he be so carefree when King is looking like that?" Rikio mumbled.

"Kusanagi-san must be really scary when he's mad, then," Masaomi added.

"Can't you do something about it, Haruka?" Yo asked you.

You shuddered at the thought of revealing your presence in front of your King. You had just punched him in the face after he tried his best to make you feel better, but then again, you were a woman and he was a tactless man. It wasn't like you had destroyed his bedside table on purpose.

When the tense air remained after a few minutes of silence, you decided that enough was enough. You had to do something about this, or else someone might actually get killd!

Everyone watched you as you got up and carefully made your way towards the angry redhead. Standing in front of him, you noticed how some of the hardness in his eyes disappeared at the sight of you. Were you hallucinating?

"Sorry, please forgive me, I shouldn't have hit you." You bowed down deeply, so deep that your hair fell over your shoulders and almost touched the floor.

A hand fell on top of your head and you expected him to smash you against the ground or something, anything aggressive, but the ruffle of your hair wasn't what you had anticipated. At the action, the tension in the air lifted almost immediately and everyone let out a sigh before starting to gab happily while you remained bent over, your hair completely frizzled now.

"I'm glad you're back," Mikoto whispered and you jerked back up at his words to stare at him in surprise, but he quickly averted his gaze to somewhere else. The chattering continued, maybe a little too loud to be sincere, and you wondered if you had been the only one to hear, or if they were just pretending they hadn't in fear of what might come.

The doors to the bar swung open all of a sudden and a happy Tatara walked into the building, followed by a somewhat less cheerful Ayame. She was still pretty shy when it came to the new members, but with just the four of you, she already dared to open her mouth by herself, without a gentle nudge.

"What have you two been up to?" Izumo was the first to break the second silence that day and he managed to make Ayame blush in just one sentence, something that used to happen less with every day. Not when it came to Tatara, though. It was pretty obvious what was going on between those two.

"We were on a date," Tatara declared happily, as if he were announcing their marriage. It probably wouldn't surprise anybody if he had though, with the amount of time they had been spending with each other the past few days.

You remembered the surprise you had felt when you came downstairs by yourself once you had recovered only to find the two of them sitting on the couch together, their hands entwined. They had tried to hide it, but you had noticed it anyway and the smirk you had sent their way hadn't gone unnoticed either.

Tatara came over to sit on a stool at the bar, figuring he should try to give his male friends some attention too, so you took his place by Ayame's side and went to sit on one of the couches together with her. You purposefully chose the sofa that was farthest from the other clansmen, deciding it was time you had a nice chat with your friend. You hadn't managed to have a proper one since you had seen her get killed, as weird as that may sound. After that you had been too sick to have a coherent conversation that lasted longer than five minutes and when you had finally recovered, you immediately used all your time for either school or 'training with Mikoto', as you liked to call it.

"Are you doing okay?" Ayame asked before you could say anything and you looked her over, checking to see if she was still feeling guilty. If what you saw was the truth, then you could conclude that she had gotten over it. At least partly.

You shrugged with a small smile on your face. "Yeah, well, Mikoto just told me that I've abused my aura too much and that I lost a lot of it. I don't even know how that works," you admitted slowly. Then you added, "But that is not your fault! It is also from how I acted before that..."

Ayame held her hands up in an attempt to calm you down and nodded before she offered you her thoughts on the matter. "Kings have Weismann levels, right? When that reaches its limits, something like the Kagutsu Crater will happen... Can't the Kings' clansmen experience the same thing?"

"I really don't know," you sighed, resting your head on the table as you kept your eyes trained on Ayame who seemed to be thinking again.

"Or maybe the Kings give their clansmen a certain amount of power and if that is depleted too fast to recover its previous amounts, it'll keep getting less and less?" she suggested.

"You mean like the shape a person's body is in? As in, you train an hour every day, for years and then you suddenly start doing three hours a week instead so in a few weeks time you can't do the same amount of training anymore?"

Ayame nodded a little, though she wasn't really sure if one could compare it with something like that. "Maybe?"

You let out another sigh as you turned your head so that your chin was resting on the table and you could look straight ahead, at the boys who were sitting at the bar, conversing cheerfully. Of course your gaze lingered on a certain person in the group, maybe a little longer than necessary.

"How did you and Tatara do it?" you wondered. You hadn't been planning on saying that out loud and wouldn't have even realised that you had if Ayame hadn't answered.

"Do what?" She probably knew what you were talking about.

"Well, you know..." You didn't really know how you were supposed to describe it. Were they going out? Were they in love? Were they in a relationship together? Then you remembered Tatara claimed that they had gone out on a date. "Go out on dates?"

You watched how Ayame swallowed and actually managed to stop that blush from creeping over her cheeks before throwing a bomb at you. "Mikoto?"

"O-of course not!" Now it was your turn to blush brightly, your lack of experience hindering you from forcing it down just like Ayame had done mere seconds ago.

Ayame raised an eyebrow at you but didn't dig any further, bless her. Then she started to think about your question, thought back to the very beginning, tried to remember how and what exactly had happened.

"There was already something when we first met..." Yes, you could remember that yourself too. You had been attacked by Tatara who then refused to let go of you as he went to drool over the new-found friend you had wanted to introduce to them. "And we just started talking, got to know each other. He helped me feel better about myself. I don't really know if I ever gave something in return though..." she trailed off, lost inside her memories for a moment.

"Then he just asked me out a couple of times, to get something to drink, stuff like that. It started when you... He just wanted to help me, because I felt horrible, that's what I had thought back then, but..."

You waited for her to continue, almost as if someone were telling you a very scary story and you wanted to know how it ended. "But?"

This time she couldn't stop her face from changing colours and you had to hold back a grin as you realised that something must have happened this morning.

"Today, he said that he liked me. Not in his usual Tatara way." You realised she had shifted from "Totsuka-kun" to "Tatara". "You wouldn't understand!" she almost cried out then, but she had to hold herself back so you wouldn't get any weird stares from the others.

You smiled at her, feeling excited that this had happened. They both really deserved someone special and they seemed to feel comfortable around each other. That wasn't as much as an indicator for Tatara, who would probably feel great sitting next to a homeless guy with a knife, as it was for Ayame, but it was the thought that counted, right?

Now it was Ayame's turn to stare at you with an expectant look on her face and you realised she wasn't going to let you off the hook now without a story of your own. She must have noticed how great it was for others to listen to her once in a while, so she wasn't going to miss the opportunity of giving someone else the pleasure of being listened to. Again.

"So, you and Mikoto," she started in an attempt to spur you on when you didn't start by yourself.

"No, it's not what you think," you quickly replied while frantically shaking your head, almost giving yourself a headache by doing that. She wouldn't give up and only shifted closer to you, thinking that it would help if she gave you the opportunity to whisper it to her.

And it actually did help.

"I'm not sure yet, I just think I have this crush on him," you mumbled while indicating a small gap between your index finger and thumb. "A tiny crush."

Ayame cocked her head to the side, a confused look on her face. "That's not true. If it were a crush, you'd be staring off into the distance happily all the time, you wouldn't be able to think of anything other than him," she whispered back at you before adding, "Plus, have you seen the way he looks at you? Either he likes you too, or he's some stalker who likes to see if his female vassal is still around or something."

You didn't believe what she said, but still you hoped that what she was saying was the truth. Of course, with a man like Mikoto the best thing was to be straightforward and right-in-front-of-his-face and not use hints like women tend to do, otherwise it might take years. Thinking about it like that, you suddenly understood that having a serious relationship with someone like Mikoto was going to take years to build anyway. First you would actually have to find the courage to tell him your feelings, which could easily take up a few months as well. You didn't expect him to take the first step. If you were ever hoping to start anything with that guy, you'd have to be the one to approach him.

Wait - when had you even agreed to liking him?

Were you even ready to attempt to build something with him?

No, probably not. Not right now, at least. But you could try to grow, to become the woman he could love with all his heart until his very last day, right? And he could shape himself into the man you would want to stay with for the rest of your life, too.

Ayame had been staring at you throughout your whole inner debate, waiting for you to finish your ramblings with yourself and respond to her without any prodding or poking from her side.

"I think you're right," you finally replied, feeling rather happy with yourself. You didn't notice her surprised look, probably wondering in which aspect she was 'right', and merely got up to find something to drink for you and your friend.

That's what you had told yourself, that you would gather your courage to take the first step, but actually doing so was a whole different matter.

What were you supposed to do, anyway?

Confess?

Ask him about his feelings?

Hug him?

You were still sitting downstairs, staring at the ceiling, though it was already past your bedtime. Not that you really had a bedtime, but when Mikoto decided to go to bed it was often an appropriate time to go to sleep yourself too.

The words "Mikoto" and "bed" seemed to make your brain formulate a plan that it didn't want to share with you, if that was even possible, and before you knew it you had bid Izumo good night and were on your way upstairs.

Izumo smiled at you and waved you off before quickly rushing to take a new customer's order.

Once you had walked up the steps, your feet seemed to hesitate for a split second. Then the wooden boards were creaking once more as you unwillingly made your way towards Mikoto's door.

When you entered his room, you saw that Mikoto lying in his bed, his back turned to you and your mind wandered back to the very first night that you had stepped in here with the intention of sleeping on his couch. You quietly closed the door behind you and tiptoed over to his bed, somehow managing to pull off your shoes, socks and trousers on your way there without tripping or making too much racket. In the meantime Mikoto had turned around to look at you and that same moonlight was pouring in through that same gap between the curtains as you crawled under the covers to lie down next to him.

"Hi," you whispered and in your nervous state, an awkward giggle escaped your lips which earned you a strange look from the redhead. He didn't say anything in return and merely let his eyes glide over your face, probably searching for any hints of discomfort like they always did.

Wasn't that enough of a sign to take this chance?

It was now or never.

Now or never.

Now or never.

You wrapped the arm you weren't lying on around his body to pull him closer and before he could protest, you pressed your lips to his.

"This is your first kiss with him so you better make it awesome!" a voice inside of you yelled like it was some kind of cheerleader.

So you gave it your very best and pulled back after not getting an immediate reaction from the redhead, but you wouldn't give up and you went back in there, nibbling and licking away at his lips in this awkward, clumsy newbie way.

Maybe he had been frozen in shock or something, but it didn't take long until you could feel him relax under the tips of your fingers that you ran up and down his body and he finally opened his mouth, his tongue shyly rubbing against yours.

At first you couldn't believe that this was what kissing felt like, it was so different from what you had expected, but then you couldn't believe that you were kissing Mikoto. The guy that the girls at school could only dream about because they were too scared to approach him. Because he would never think them worthy of his presence, probably. But he had accepted you.

And now you were kissing him.

His hands found their way into your hair, his calloused digits gently grabbing and tugging at the tresses as he pressed his body against yours, tried to dig deeper into your mouth, tried to get so close to you that the only way to get any closer would have been to have sex with you.

If he had been this desperate to touch you, to hold you, then why had he waited for you to make the move?

Because he was Mikoto. That was how he was.

Maybe he had been afraid to hurt you?

The kiss went on and on and it seemed like it was never going to end. Not that you wanted it to. It felt like the two of you were getting out all the tension that had been built up by being around each other, not realising or voicing the feelings that were being pent up inside. Right now you were probably even busy with your third or fourth kiss by now because there were moments when you just had to pull back and gasp for breath before diving right back in.

Mikoto pulled away slowly and it immediately became clear to you that the kiss was over this time. A tiny smile appeared on his face as he rolled onto his back with a deep sigh, pulling you with him so that you were practically lying on his chest. Without another word, the two of you fell asleep.

Though the redhead fell asleep first and you were left to wonder about what had happened.

What were you guys now? Lovers? A couple? You didn't dare wake him to ask him, afraid of what his answer might be.

That was just the first of many, many mistakes that you were going to make when it came to your relationship with the King.

[A/N]: helloooo readers! First of all, thank you for reading ^^ I hope you guys like it so far! Anyways, I just wanted to inform you guys that in the past 10 chapters, we have progressed almost 1 year and that the next chapter will take place about 3 years after this chapter. We will be seeing Anna, Yata and the others then~!