Prince Noctis understood a painful truth that no one else knew—contrary to popular belief, being royalty wasn't glamorous. As one of the most stressful professions ever created by human civilization, it was very far from it. In fact, it wasn't uncommon for Noctis (or his dad, for that matter) to deal with hair-ripping, draining weeks on the throne of Lucis. After all, these gentlemen were basically tasked with holding together an advanced civilization and caring for the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. In other words, there was simply no room for them to fuck up. Not even once.

This week, however, had definitely been the week from hell. First was all the bonus chaos at work—the entire government was working to clear up vicious, raging rumors that unnecessary spending by politicians was the root cause of the recent rise of taxes for citizens (this was somewhat a huge deal because some enraged crazies had been harassing various representatives and nobles with some nasty threats). And so, all because of a handful of drama-thirsty idiots, more work was getting dumped on top of the other countless things that the Caelums still had to finish. In addition, Noctis had accidentally slept through his alarm today and showed up almost 10 minutes late to a very important meeting with the governor of Duscae. Not a good impression for a future king of Lucis… Dad chewed him out for it afterwards. Finally, just to top it all off, a palace maid and a security guard had been fired after some leaked footage online revealed them having sex in the media room. The upsetting part? Of all places, they did it right on the couch, which just so happened to be one of the prince's typical napping spots. It was the loveliest place to fall asleep in, and now, he just wanted to burn it. He could never see that beloved, comfy little couch the same way. Never again.

Seeing his pal sickened, stressed and downright ready to choke a bitch, Prompto wanted to help. Maybe he couldn't do anything to remedy his problems, but he definitely had the tricks to save his sanity. To the prince's fortune, one of the puckish boy's gifts was stress relief—a major reason Noctis dubbed him a good friend. With an idea already in mind, Prompto had invited him to hang out at the place where he was currently staying. Noctis had yet to see it, though. With Prompto being unable to afford living under a roof of his own, he often relied on the hospitality of friends, acquaintances, girlfriends, friends with benefits, and just about anyone ballsy enough to give a wanted felon a place to sleep. A couple weeks ago, his previous host chased him out of her house when she came home one day and discovered him in bed with her 18-year-old daughter. Now, he had a new location somewhere down in a part of the city that locals named "The Crumbs," a worn-down area of Insomnia that was infamous for its poverty. Not to mention, it was a massive hub for drug dealing and prostitution, making it the last place where anyone wanted to be caught dead, let alone a prince. If Noctis was to go down there today, he had to tread carefully. No one could see him.

Noctis had asked his driver to drop him off at a park about a mile or two from his destination, just far enough from the sketchy area so that his activity didn't look suspicious. To make himself less obvious to any strangers, he decided to blend in by dressing down in some black jeans, sneakers, a white t-shirt and a gray hoodie. The moment his ride left, he had flipped his hood over his head while making his way down the street. Although unfamiliar with the area, the young man easily found his way, for he could tell that he was going in the right direction by the way the scenery had gotten progressively shittier as he journeyed forth.

At the end of his walk, Noctis found himself in front of a beat-up apartment building about three floors high. He squinted at the semi-faded address number above the door before glancing back down at the address scribbled on a small piece of paper in his hand. This was it, but damn, couldn't Prompto have picked someplace better to stay? Noct was only outside, yet he was already receiving a warm welcome from the foul stench of garbage, cigarette smoke and hepatitis. He was already dreading the scenery that awaited within. He was almost ready to piss himself as his imagination ran wild about whatever interesting characters had probably welcomed the gunslinger into their domain. Sure, Prompto was already involved with the "underworld" of Lucis society and very likely had some decent connections in these parts, but what caused him to choose this dump amongst other possibilities?

Come to think of it, that boy probably wouldn't have ended up here if he hadn't let his major "shotgun" steer him into trouble once again. So, in a way, maybe Prompto kind of deserved this, Noctis thought to himself.

The prince reached into his pocket and took out his phone, then searched for Prompto's number in his contacts list. He started a brand new text message. I'm here, Noctis wrote and sent.

About ten seconds later, his phone chimed. It lit up and displayed a responding text. K, be down in a sec, it read.

Placing his phone back in his pocket, Noctis made his way up the stone steps and waited next to the door. Beside the slightly scratched-up door was a large glass window that allowed him to see the inside of the main apartment hallway. When he tried to peer in, however, he could barely see much besides a small flight of steps, since it was too dark inside. Instead, he could vividly see his reflection in the glass, and the first things he noticed were his long, shimmery jet-black bangs, a few threads dangling in front of his sky-blue eyes. That reminded him: he definitely needed his hair trimmed this week.

Something moved into the reflection and quickly drew his attention from his hair. Behind him, he could see a stranger passing by on the other side of the street. It was an obese young woman, perhaps about his age, walking on the sidewalk. Her attire was quite hard to ignore, for she was scantily clad in a black jacket, a red tube-top that exposed her midriff and matching leggings, all of which were about two sizes too small for her body. Even though the boy couldn't keep is eyes off this lady, he pretended not to notice her, and so he continued to watch her in the reflection on the glass.

Noctis had to be honest with himself. He always wanted to do a fat chick.

A click and squeak had snapped him out of his thoughts. Noctis turned his head to see the scratched-up door open and his blonde friend peek out from behind it. Instantly, the prince was greeted with a playful wide grin and fox eyes that lit up with joy. "Noct!" he squealed.

Noctis returned the smile. "Hey, Prompto," he said.

Prompto pushed the door out further, ushering for his friend to come in. He cocked a brow. "Ready for some fun?" he asked. Like usual, especially when carrying out a plan to have fun, his smirk and tone were tinted with an air of mischief.

Noctis's brows furrowed with curiosity. Prompto hadn't told him how he was going to help him relieve stress, exactly. "So, what are we gonna do, anyways?" he asked as he proceeded into the doorway. What a pointless thing to ask. Noct knew that Prompto wasn't going to give him a straight-up answer. He never did. He always wanted his plans to be surprises. His rationale was that mystery always added to the fun.

Prompto turned the other way to lead Noctis into the building. Just as he expected, the boy gave him a curious response. "You'll see," he replied. Grabbing the door and taking a deep breath, the raven-haired male accordingly followed into the building.

To Noctis's surprise, the inside didn't look as horrendous as he pictured it. Not yet, at least. They were only in the main hallway and were yet to proceed up the flight of steps to the next floor. Even up the steps, it appeared dimly lit by nothing but a few weak fluorescent lights on the ceiling. Some of the burnt-out bulbs inside them definitely needed changing, unless the apartment maintenance didn't care if people missed a step and broke their necks. Prompto was the first to go up the stairs, holding onto the wall carefully as he slowly made one step at a time. "Careful," he warned the other. Noctis nodded and copied Prompto's moves along the way up.

Although this place wasn't exactly the Taj Mahal, it looked okay at this point. However, as Noctis was about to discover, this apartment building was just like an aging woman—it was only going to look worse from this point onward. While the boys made their way up the stairs, growing gradually stronger was the ashy stench of cigarette smoke. In addition, the steps began to appear a bit dirtier, and Noctis could point out random little scraps of garbage here and there. Seriously, who would throw their garbage on the floor? If the maintenance didn't care about burnt-out lights, they clearly weren't going to care so much about garbage on the floor either.

That was then he saw it.

Noctis looked twice. With a blank face, he stopped in disbelief. Prompto, shockingly, acted as if it weren't there and had kept on going. When he no longer heard Noctis moving behind him, he paused to look behind. "Something wrong, Noct?" he questioned, noticing that his friend was looking down in shock and disgust.

The prince quietly looked up at him. "You seriously didn't see it?" he muttered slowly.

"Huh? See what?"

Noct's eyes widened. Biting his lip, he pointed to something on one of the steps in front of him. "T-that!" he stuttered.

Prompto eyed the steps. Like Noctis, his face had turned blank. "Ooooooh…"

Right before Noctis was a tampon. A used tampon.

Prompto snarled a bit. "Well that's… interesting…"

Noctis choked a bit and covered his mouth. He couldn't look at it any longer, and so he hurried around the object and continued up the steps, still in horror and disbelief at the very presence of the tampon. His question was, how the fuck did it get there in the first place? And why, of all places, would someone take it out or leave it on the steps of a public domain for every passerby to see?

As they finally made it up the steps to the next floor, Noctis was greeted with another eye-snatching sight. The good news was that it quickly took his mind off the used tampon. The bad news? It was even more disturbing.

Maybe this place was actually a little worse than what Prompto deserved.

"Prompto…."

"Yeah?"

Noctis pointed to a dead mouse in the corner of the hallway.

The blonde looked and shrugged. He didn't look too surprised to see the little corpse. "Oh… Yeah, that's been there for a couple of days," he stated.

Noct looked at Prompto. "F-for a few days?!"

"Well, from what I've heard, the maintenance crew isn't that active."

Noctis scoffed. "No shit," he replied. "You guys need to tell someone about this."

"Right, sure, because complaining is totally going to convince them to move their lazy asses," Prompto droned sarcastically. "It's not even gonna get them fired, either, because nobody decent will want to take their jobs anyways. Anybody who does would probably do just as bad, if not worse."

"Then, if no one will handle the tampon or the dead mouse, then why don't you?"

Prompto's face scrunched. "Dude, are you crazy? No way I'm cleaning that up," he said. "Ain't my responsibility, plus I value my health, thank you very much." He turned his body towards the rest of the hall. "Anyways, just leave it be, and let's go," he said.

The prince tried to erase the mouse from his mind and walked behind Prompto down the hall. The young men had to walk some ways before reaching Prompto's residency, which was all the way down at the end. Along the way, the smell of cigarette smoke had become so strong that Noctis was pretty sure he would have lung cancer by the end of the visit. In the mix of the stench were other horrible smells that gloriously raped his nostrils, including what smelled like garbage and cat pee. The noises from behind the apartment doors were rather interesting, too—Noctis thought he had heard a man's muffled voice from behind one of the doors, shouting, "Whose your daddy?" over and over again.

Finally, Prompto stopped in front of a red door with the numbers "214" engraved on a metal plate on the top of it. "Here we are," he chimed merrily.

Noctis only watched quietly as the gunslinger reached for the door handle. Perhaps this was it: the moment of truth. Now, Noct would see whatever Prompto had in store for him. Although Noct was beginning to think that Prompto was starting to lose his mind for choosing a place like this, he trusted that the blonde had at least a little bit of good judgement so that he picked a good way to mentally help him. Considering how disturbed he already was for coming here, he sure a shell hoped the surprise "activity" was good enough to fix that, too.

And if whatever was on the other side of that door was any worse than wat he had seen, the surprise would have to be miraculous to mentally fix him afterwards.

The doorknob turned slowly.

Noctis took a deep breath.

In a gentleman-like manner, Prompto held the door open for him. "Go ahead," he said.

However bad it would be, he had to take it like a man, as best as he could. Accordingly, the prince walked into the doorway and entered the apartment.

Within five seconds, Noctis's jaw was already about to hit the floor.

Holy shit…