AN: In regards to the year 2010, I based it on two things: Munakata (Who's birthday is the 1st of October) being 21 years old when he became the Blue King, and K taking place in December 2012 where he's 24. I did my best to extract a timeline from all the relevant canon material, to get a more solid idea, of exactly when certain events occur in relation to each other. But it's quite difficult to get a hold of every scrap of lore, and I'm really only interested with the Blue and Red clans. So I may have missed something. If so, don't hesitate to let me know.

Timeline proceeding and or coinciding with the prologue of this fic:
Four Seasons of K: One Month After. (Short Story)
K: Kingdom Of Red. (Novel/Manga)
K: Guide Book. Volume 3 - Kingdom. (Short Story)
K: Side Red. (Novel)
K: On The Side - A New Life. (Short Story)
K: R:B - Blaze. (Novel/Movie)
K: Seven Stories - Lost Small World. (Manga/Movie)
K: Seven Stories 24 Pieces. Piece 1 Suoh Mikoto - Ember. Piece 2 Munakata Reishi - Ember. Piece 3 Awashima Seri - Recruit. (Short Stories)

Prologue.

[4th of June 2010]

Tatara was waiting on the street outside of Mihashira tower. When the Blue King, Awashima the Blue King's second in command, Mr Kusanagi the Red clans strategist, and Mikoto the Red King, emerged from the automatic doors.

"Hey!" He waved, jogging to join the latter two. He hadn't seen any Damocles swords, indicators of a King's sanctum and power output. No one looked hurt either. Which given yesterday was their first confrontation with another King, had certainly been a concern. Furthermore, the Blues and Mikoto were leaving the Gold Kings conference together, without coming to blows. So for now at least, things seemed to be settled.

"You got my text then?" Kusanagi inquired?

Drawing his eyes away from the Blue King, who stood at some distance from them, speaking with the woman who served as his second. Tatara nodded and smiled. "No worries, Yamata's safe and not going to do anything silly. I have a feeling that, what King said to him before the fight with the Blues broke out, might have set him right." At this last he turned his attention to 'King' or rather Mikoto, who was lighting up a cigarette. "So how did things go with the other Kings?"

"Everything's sorted." Was Mikoto's lacking answer.

"I'll fill you in once we get back to the bar." Kusnagi offered.

"Right!" Tatara jumped on the offer. Though if he was being honest, he hadn't entirely caught what Kusanagi said. Distracted as he was, by the Blue King and Mikoto's eyes meeting, when the three of them turned to head back to bar homra. Mikoto's expression had displayed to Tatara's intuitive eye, clear interest and an energy normally suppressed so thoroughly as to leave him listless, now that energy simmered at the surface.

"Suoh!"

Mikoto took a few extra steps along his path, before coasting to a stop to hear what the Blue King had to say, though he kept his back to the man.

"Your actions today were unruly and chaotic, I don't suppose things will differ when we meet next." Mr Munakata's words did not represent a question.

"Can't help yourself with those lectures, can you?" Mikoto wondered absently. Then, casting a ferocious and decidedly unfriendly smile over his shoulder, warned. "Better not keep me waiting."

The Blue King's second in command started, seemingly affronted by the perceived threat. But the Blue King himself merely smiled back, the smile was far from serene, rather there was a similar warning there at the corners of his handsome mouth.

It was Kusanagi's turn to draw ridged with tension as his own King's second. And was that a current of understanding shared between him and Awashima?

Mikoto blew out a cloud of smoke, and with that carried on towards his destination, breaking the tension.

Looking behind himself, Tatara observed a Scepter 4 vehicle pull up to collect Munakata and his companion.

With Mikoto still out walking off excess energy. And Mr Kusanagi napping through the effects of his stress drinking, post conference at Mihashira tower's slate chamber.

It fell to Tatara to prepare lunch for Anna, who now sat at the bar patiently waiting.

Anna, the Red clan's youngest by far at only 9 years old, lived upstairs in the room next to Mikoto's. Before joining clan Homra, she had been a strain with empathic psychic and clairvoyant powers, as well as the niece of Mr Kusanagi and King's old homeroom teacher. After she and Mikoto's souls had synced accidentally, and after Homra and Mikoto had rescued her from a facility, who's director was torturing and performing medical experimentation on her and others. She had all but officially adopted Mikoto as her parent, and the rest of them as her weirdo uncles and aunties.

Finishing prepping Anna's lunch, Tatara set a big plate adorned with a large slice of watermelon and tomatoes on toast along with a glass of strawberry fizzy, in front of her.

"Thank you Tatara." Pressing her hands together in thanks, she tucked in to her first bite.

That was the other thing about Anna, she was partially color blind and could only see the color red, so to make things more appetizing for her they made her meals snacks and even her drinks from red foods.

But today, Anna was merely prodding at her lunch, a look of worry on her doll-like face.

"What's the matter, is the food not good?" Tatara prompted.

She shook her head. "It's yum. But, Mikoto got into a fight yesterday and today he was scolded wasn't he?"

"You don't have to worry about him, he didn't get hurt. And the way Kusanagi tells it, the Gold and Colorless Kings were pretty lenient while putting a stop to the fight"

Anna shook her head again, her long pigmentless hair swishing around her shoulders. "It feels like he's-" Anna struggled to articulate what she must have been reading in Mikoto's emotional state. "-Mikoto's not as sad anymore."

"Oh." Tatara realized all at once that she was confused. Mikoto seemed happy after having battled to the point of turning part of the city to ruble, it certainly was a contradiction.

Tatara drew breath to try and address her concerns, when the shop bell ringing, and Mikoto's return distracted the both of them.

Hopping down off her seat, Anna met Mikoto part way to the living area in the back, and clasping the hem of his coat, trailed after him.

Tatara noted that King took no drink with him, unusual, it had become the norm for him to start self medicating midday and continue through the night, until restless sleep won out. Maybe the fight had taken it out of him?

Maybe, but Tatara didn't think so. Rather, he suspected there was more to it than that. He remembered mentioning to Kusnanagi before the fight with the Blue King and his clan, that Mikoto 'hasn't been able to blow off much steam lately...'. Was it possible that the Blue King presented a kind of playmate, someone who could and would stand on par in a fight?

In Tatara's own life, Homra had been the only consistency. He had lived his life happily in general, but adrift, with everything from his interest to his circumstances coming and going. He supposed it had something to do with the abandonment by his biological parents, and inattentiveness of his adoptive father, but he had never examined it too closely. The fact remained that the Red clan represented home, family, a sense of identity, and permanence. He wanted the same for Mikoto, for Homra to become his anchor also.

Mikoto had spoken earlier, about disbanding Homra, done so with a far away look in his eyes. He couldn't have known how terrible the thought was to Tatara's mind.
It was too early to tell, but Tatara wondered if the Blue King's presence might be just what Mikoto and Homra needed, a sort of counter balance, that might make Mikoto's situation sustainable.

Conversely, confrontation between the previous Blue and Red Kings had led to the Kagutsu Crater Incident, as a result of the Red King's Damocles falling and wiping 100km of southern Kanto off the map, 700,000 people lost their lives that night. Tatara dismissed that thought, no the Kings of today were entirely different people, and he believed the dynamic would be different too.