Chewing slowly, and lost in thought, Prompto dropped the remaining half of his burger and leaned back, crumpling his napkin in his fist.

He thought he'd be starving after spending the entire afternoon at the library and arcade, completely snack-free, but he was starting to get anxious, and anxiety always killed his appetite.

It wasn't anything to get super anxious about, really. He just couldn't make up his mind to save his life.

Go to the dance, or go home?

He definitely knew what he preferred to do. Go home, all the way. There was no chance Noct was going to be able to join him, despite telling Prompto he'd try. Or "try," rather. Prompto knew there was no way Noct would actually make it a priority of getting permission and working out an escort with the palace officials. Though to be fair, Prompto had only suggested the possibility of going that morning at school. He hadn't given Noct much notice.

And he didn't really even know why he was still considering going alone. It would be boring and lame at best even if Noct came, but without him, it would be torture. He'd just be sitting there alone on his phone or awkwardly people-watching. Dateless, friendless...and suitless, he realized.

There was no chance of going home to change now, the dance had already started. It would take too much time.

He was still weighing his options when his mom's voice from the previous night drifted back to him for the hundredth time that day.

"Why aren't you going, then?"

"Ugh, Mom, you know how I feel about dances. They're completely lame, for one thing. I don't have a date, for another. And there's no way Noct is gonna be able to go on such short notice, sooo, yeah, not going."

"Prompto, how much longer are you going to let your life revolve around the prince's agenda?"

"Huh?"

"You're graduating soon, and I worry you've let your high school years pass you by without fully experiencing them. You've been so tied to what Noctis can or can't do. Or what Noctis wants or doesn't want to do...I really think you'd actually enjoy a dance, if you'd only just go to one and see."

"Wha—"

"Prompto, you're the most upbeat and fun kid I know. You love people and excitement. It might be good for you to take a break from being the prince's buffer from the world for once."

"Mom—"

"I'm not saying he hasn't been a good friend for you. I think he's been a great friend, and you have, too. I just worry you've missed out on a lot of valuable memories and friends because you're afraid to do anything without him. Or because you're afraid he won't want to do something that you might actually enjoy. It's okay to do your own thing every once and a while. And no one said you can only have one close friend."

"Mom, I know—"

"And after graduation, how much time will you be able to spend with Noctis? Will they be shipping him off to university right away? Or will they give him a gap year to become more involved in the politics of the palace?"

"...I...don't know...?"

That. Right there. That was the real source of the anxiety that had been tugging at his nerves all day.

Prompto stared at the sorry, squashed, half-eaten burger.

How often would he be able to see Noct? It wouldn't be daily like it had been for the last several years, he knew that. But at least multiple times a week, right?

His stomach groaned uncomfortably.

Ugh, he didn't feel like thinking about that right now. It was making him feel a little ill. What he needed to think about was if he really ought to appease his mother by at least making an appearance at the spring fling.

He really didn't want to. He hated dances. Didn't he? Or did he merely think he hated them because Noct wouldn't be caught dead at one?

Had he really become that co-dependent on his best friend over the years?

Either way, he knew he would feel stupid if he went. Still in his school uniform. Without a date.

He sighed.

He supposed it wouldn't kill him. Show up, awkwardly wave to a few familiar faces, drink some punch, go home, and tell his mom he definitively did not like dances.

He wadded up his unfinished meal and slung his bag over his shoulder.

He might not be able to go home to change, but come to think of it, a suit might be overdressed for a spring fling anyway. He really had no idea.

He stopped in the restroom and rummaged through his bag. Please tell me I remembered to throw a comb and hair product in here. He had meant to that morning, just in case he ended up going to the dance.

But nope, of course he didn't remember. Son of a B. He sighed once more, meeting his eyes in the mirror and taking in his disheveled hair. There was no salvaging it without at least a comb.

He took one last attempt at rummaging through his backpack and came across a rumpled beanie in the front pocket. Figuring anything would look better than the current state of his hair, he pulled it on.

Hmm, it looked weird with his clean cut uniform. It needed to be, like...dressed down a little or something. He ditched the tie and undid his collar. And pulled his tucked shirt out.

I dunno, does that work? His grasp of fashion was admittedly limited, and he suddenly felt really stupid for giving it so much thought. Noct would be smirking at him if he was there, trying to hold back a laugh.

Yeah, well, not everyone has a team of stylists, or whatever, to dress them.

And Prompto didn't even want to know what Noct's haircuts would cost a non-royal.

Ugh, this is so lame. Who knew one innocent dance would instantly turn me into a metro?

He refused to look at himself again as he shouldered his bag and decided he might as well get this nonsense over with.

The dance was pretty much exactly what Prompto had expected. Cheap decorations and endless clusters of overly boisterous (even by his standards) kids with terrible dance moves. But at least there actually was a punch bowl. Yay.

Prompto dropped into a folding chair on the outskirts, sipping his second cup of punch and scrolling through his phone.

He really wanted to text Noct. He hated admitting it to himself, but he felt like a little kid missing their security blanket. Yep, he had definitely become overly co-dependent on his best friend. Life after graduation was going to be rough. But again, those were thoughts for another time, he reminded himself, as he felt another stab of anxiety in an already overly-anxious situation.

Yet at the same time...he didn't want to text Noct. He couldn't bring himself to, for some reason. He felt weirdly like his being at the dance was almost a betrayal of sorts to his best friend. And he knew that was silly. But he didn't want Noct to feel left out in any way. Even though he knew his friend had zero desire to be there, and really wouldn't mind that Prompto had gone without him.

He couldn't quite figure out why he wasn't gushing about the lameness of the party and how much he was dying to leave to his best friend, but he just wasn't.

He supposed he really was trying to give the dance an honest chance before bitching about it.

Maybe it was good for him to do something on his own for once. Even though his presence there was exactly as pointless as he suspected it was going to be.

"Hey, Prompto!"

Prompto started at the sound of his name.

"Can I join you?"

He turned to see who was asking. It was a girl named Emma he'd known since fourth grade. Why on earth would Emma Kensley be asking to join him?

"Uh, yeah, sure," he said, hurriedly drawing his sprawled legs in and straightening from a slouch.

He couldn't recall the last time he'd spoken with Emma. They'd had many classes together over the years, and he was sure he'd made an idiot out of himself many a time in front of her before, but luckily he couldn't recall any specific instances at the moment.

He couldn't help noting how pretty she looked as she sat down with a loud exhale and a smile. She turned and met his eyes and he looked away quickly, feeling his cheeks color.

"I'm surprised you're here, you never come to stuff like this."

She was talking to him as if she was picking up a conversation they'd left off only hours or days ago. As opposed to who knew how long ago the last time they'd actually interacted was? Prompto was so confused.

"Did you come alone?"

Oh. He got it now. She was wondering about Noct. Of course.

"Noct couldn't make it," he said, turning away from her, his attention back on the dancers.

"Oh," she replied, glancing around briefly out of politeness. "I guess I hadn't noticed. Though I probably should have, seeing how rare it is to see one of you without the other." She gave a small laugh.

Prompto's brow furrowed ever so slightly. What did she mean, she hadn't noticed?

"I meant, did you come with a date?"

The furrow deepened. Why was she asking? Was she one of those popular girls that actually sought out losers at dances to rub their faces in their loser-ness? Was that supposed to be funny or something?

When he didn't respond right away, she went on, "I just don't want to be intruding on your date, if you brought one." She glanced around again.

"Uh..." So confused. "No, I...I came alone."

She relaxed a little and flashed another smile. Prompto couldn't help noticing the lone dimple on her right cheek. She really had a great smile. "Oh, good."

She smoothed her skirt and stretched her legs out in front of her. Prompto just sat there frozen-like, still clueless as to why this girl was talking to him.

"You know," she said after a moment, clearly skilled in avoiding awkward silences. "Ashlyn is about eighty-five percent convinced the prince is gay. But that's mostly because she's bitter he's never looked twice at her," she snickered.

Ashlyn was one of her best friends and probably the prettiest girl in school. If there had been a "spring fling queen" at this dance, Ashlyn was most likely to be it. He wasn't surprised she took it as a personal offense that Noct had never shown any interest in her.

That was a random thing to say. "Noct's not gay," Prompto said, surprised there was an edge of defensiveness to his voice. Not that he cared who thought Noct was gay or straight or bi or whatever, he didn't. But he was so bugged by people talking about Noct behind his back and spreading rumors. It was beyond old by now.

And suddenly it made sense. This was all just a ruse to get some inside info on the prince from his best friend. Prompto felt like such an idiot for letting even the smallest piece of information slip. He turned forward and slouched once more, wishing she would go away. He hoped his ears didn't look as red hot as they felt.

Emma prickled ever so slightly. "I don't get it, Prompto," she said, studying him. "Just because you're the only person Noctis has ever allowed to become close to him, really doesn't make you that much better than everyone else."

His eyes darted towards her. What?

"You guys are always acting like you're gracing everyone else with your presence. It wouldn't kill you to interact with us lowly mortals every now and then."

Prompto just stared at her. "I...literally...don't understand a word you just said..." He glanced around behind him, half expecting to see the rest of her friends listening in and laughing. "Are you pranking me or something?"

She blinked at him, unmoving.

"Noct is just an extremely shy, nice kid hung up on a girl from his past." The words just tumbled out, unfiltered. "And I'm just a dorky, former fat kid who likes to run and take pictures."

Emma continued to stare at him, studying.

Prompto broke their locked gazes and slumped back again, arms folded. He was mad at himself for being baited into opening up to this stuck-up girl whom he hardly knew, and was convinced was only talking to him in order to use him in some way.

"Prompto," she said, her voice softening, "you haven't been chubby since the eighth grade."

He didn't reply.

She was silent for a moment longer, studying him further. "I think I have been wrong about you..." she said. "You're not stuck up, you really do just have a severe case of former fat kid syndrome."

Prompto looked at her. Was that supposed to be a backhanded compliment, or...?

"You know, Prompto," she went on, "If you weren't so blinded by your own warped self perception," she explained, "you might have noticed Ashlyn hasn't been able to keep her eyes off you since you walked in."

Prompto just stared at her.

"And you know what else?" The corner of her mouth pulled up slightly, revealing the faintest hint of that lone dimple. "That hat looks really good on you." She reached up and fingered his bangs for a brief moment. Then without another word she abruptly stood up and walked away.

Prompto just sat there, gaping.

What...the...hell was that all about?

The rest of the weekend passed uneventfully. Noct had had to spend it at the palace—prince duties becoming more and more involved as they were lately. Noct had hoped he'd make it back to his apartment early enough on Sunday for them to get together and game for half a day, but no such luck.

Prompto couldn't help replaying the bizarro exchange he'd had with Emma at the spring fling on Friday (he'd titled it the "Dance Dil-Emma" in his own head, hoping giving it a stupid title might make him stop thinking as seriously about it as he had), and he just could not make heads or tails of it to save his life.

He concluded she had been making fun of him the entire time. He thought. Right? The whole touching his bangs thing and hinting he looked good enough for Ashlyn to take notice had definitely been a sarcastic jab. Hadn't it?

Duh, Prompto, of course it had.

Okay, now was that his normal inner voice chastising him, or was that his former fat kid inner voice? Because apparently, after extensively googling what Emma had mentioned, his former fat kid self was never going to allow him to have an adequate amount of self-esteem.

You might not be fat anymore, Prompto, but who knows how long the running will keep the weight away? And you're still a loser, regardless.

Yeah, that was definitely his evil, former fat kid inner voice. He'd never really been aware he had two inner dialogues before. He was cool with the normal one, but the self-deprecating one might continue to be a problem when it came to his self-esteem.

You think you deserve to think highly of yourself?

Ugh, this inner conflict was so stupid. But not as stupid as Emma suggesting Prompto actually thought he was better than the rest of his peers. That actually caused him to almost laugh out loud when he thought upon it later. That had to have been a joke.

Who in their right mind would honestly translate his social anxieties and low self-esteem into snootiness?

But you know, come to think of it, hadn't he kind of done the same thing with Noct all those years ago? He'd initially misinterpreted his shyness for being stuck up, and he'd been very wrong.

It made him wonder just how wrong he might be about all the assessments he'd made about his peers. And just how wrong a lot of them must be about hi—

The snap of fingers in his face suddenly jolted him from his wandering thoughts.

Noct snickered faintly. "Did you not sleep at all last night or something?"

Prompto's attention came back to the present. He'd been standing at his open locker, staring at the books he didn't feel like gathering for Monday's first class, when his thoughts just kind of went off on their own. He had no idea when Noct had arrived next to him.

"Oh, hey," Prompto said with a slightly embarrassed grin.

"Long weekend?" Noct asked, dropping his books to his side and leaning slightly against the wall of lockers. He always preferred to carry his books, despite having a perfectly capable bag on his shoulder. Made no sense.

"Not as long as yours, I imagine," Prompto said, turning his attention back to the locker contents.

"Yeah, you're telling me," Noct replied, a little exasperated and clearly referring to his never-ending prince duties. After a moment he added, "If you stayed up late playing Dead Alive without me, you're dead. I told you not to beat it without me."

"Nah, I didn't get much gaming in," Prompto explained, giving the locker one more go-over before closing it. He zipped his bag and slung it across his back.

"What'd you end up doing?"

"Ah, not much," Prompto found himself saying. "Ran, did some homework, slept...It's kind of a wonder I'm awake and functioning today after so much excitement," he added sarcastically.

Noct snorted faintly as they turned to make their way down the hall.

That was weird. Why didn't I tell him about the dance? Prompto wasn't sure if he was afraid of inadvertently hurting Noct's feelings, or if he was worried Noct would give him crap for going to something they both considered very lame. But either way, he just hadn't mentioned it before he'd even decided he wasn't going to mention it, and now he couldn't decide if he should feel like an a-hole or not.

Man, the Dance Dil-Emma really had confused the crap out of him, hadn't it?

Speaking of which, they were about half-way down the hall when Prompto was suddenly brought about by a hand on his arm and a loud exclamation of his name.

"Hi, Prompto!" Someone said, as they whirled him about. He was certain he was about to come face to face with Emma once more, when he felt something shoved onto his head.

"I hope you don't mind," she said, adjusting a beanie over his hair, "but Lena didn't get to see your look at the dance, and I told her she was totally missing out, and I just happened to have a similar hat—"

The rest was lost on Prompto as he attempted to jerk away in surprise, but she had already grasped his collar and was fumbling with his buttons.

What in the hell?

He felt his shirt tugged and he was pushed upright again, and there indeed was Emma, beaming that one-dimpled smile at him as if she hadn't just practically assaulted him, and glancing back at her girlfriends.

"I mean, right?!" She said to them, as one of them—snapped a photo?

What the hell was going on?!

"Oh my gosh, you were so right," one of the girls said, as they giggled to each other and turned to continue on their way to class.

Emma quickly reached up to sweep his bangs out of his eyes and said, "You should wear that today," before flashing another grin and turning to hurry and catch up to her friends.

Prompto just stood there, once again completely at a loss and gaping.

What...the...hell...was...tha—

A small clearing of the throat drew his attention back to Noct...who was standing there with the faintest hint of a smirk, his brows raised as questioningly as possible.

Prompto was still wide-eyed as he gave Noct the smallest shrug of his shoulders and shake of his head. As if to say, Dude, I have no effing clue...

"Dance, huh?" Noct asked, his amused smirk solidifying.

Prompto forced his legs to move, still too bewildered to walk properly, as he resumed their route to class. "Dude, my mom completely guilted me into going," he explained.

"Mm hm," Noct said, the amused grin still plastered to his face.

"I was going to tell you..." he further explained, readjusting his bag unnecessarily.

"Uh huh," Noct replied.

"...But I just knew you'd be giving me that shit-eating grin all day." Prompto's accusation garnered a laugh from Noct.

"Better get used to it," Noct said, still grinning. "Because you've got a lot to fill me in on, from the looks of it." He eyed the beanie.

Prompto yanked the hat off, shaking his hair out.

"Hey, she told you to wear it," Noct teased.

"Is it just me, or are girls the most confusing, cryptic, crazy—"

The rest of his rant was drowned out by the bell as he and Noct made their way to their seats.

Gosh dang it but it was going to be impossible to pay attention in class today. What did it all mean?

Had she been serious? He glanced around. Did these kids really not see him as the chubby dork anymore? Did they actually see him as the sole person worthy of the prince's friendship? Did they really think he thought he was better than everyone else because of it?

It was just...straight up bonkers, is what it was. Had he accidentally and unknowingly stepped through an unseen portal on his way to the dance and into an alternate reality? Could it be a legit possibility?

Lol, yep, you are so still a dork.

His eyes fell upon Noct, who was looking back at him. He mimed pulling an imaginary beanie over his head and sweeping imaginary bangs out of the way. And then offered a thumbs up.

Prompto just stared at him, unamused.

That infuriating smirk pulled at Noct's mouth again.

Prompto seriously felt like he was in an alternate reality. Noct being goofy and teasing him? Girls not only looking at him, but dare he suggest, flirting with him? Is that really what they were doing? No, they had to be making fun of him in some way. There was no other explanation. He just wished he could understand the joke.

And call him crazy, but he was pretty certain that group of giggling girls had barely even glanced in the prince's direction earlier. What was going on with the world?

Alternate reality, for sure, he concluded. And then idly wondered if his video game save files would still be valid in this reality.

Yep, such a dork, he told himself for the eightieth time that day. But dork, he knew how to be. Dork, he was comfortable with.

Maybe his mom was right. Maybe some big changes would be coming after graduation.

He glanced back at Noct once more, who was now skimming through the textbook in front of him.

He felt that familiar prickle of anxiety creeping in. What were their plans for the prince after graduation? Would they be sending him away for college? Would they make him a full time member of the council right away? Would they ever get to beat Dead Alive together?

The anxiety shortened his breathing slightly, and Prompto immediately brought his attention back to the front of the class. Thoughts for another day, he reminded himself. Thoughts for another day.

A/N: Hi, everyone! I randomly had a whim of really missing these characters and decided to write up this completely random chapter. So, I'm kind of, sort of back and I'm really excited about it! This chapter was inspired by Prompto's adorable beanie in his DLC, and also because I'm convinced Prompto has some extremely warped perceptions of himself, and that most of his self-esteem issues are a result of those unfortunate misconceptions.

Also, I can totally relate to him because I was on the chubbier side in high school and was completely content to be the invisible nerdy girl that could easily get lost in books and video games. And then when I hit my early 20's I started running religiously, and got really thin, and watched makeup tutorials on youtube, and suddenly I was getting asked out a lot more than I was comfortable with. So, I can totally relate to how much "former fat kid syndrome" messes with your head!

I feel like I have a lot more to say but it is SO HARD to squeeze in any writing or reading time with a toddler and a baby. Even as I'm typing this, I'm anxiously listening for any crying upstairs. The baby that I was pregnant with all through writing Escape Tactics is now nine months old already (time fliiies), and he's such a higher maintenance baby than my first. But he's also extremely cute and has me completely wrapped around his finger, so I will continue to do everything according to his schedule and hopefully manage to sneak in more writing SOON, lol. I've missed this fandom!