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'You learn from your mistakes…you will learn a lot today,' Prompto read. Then blinked. Then frowned. 'Ouch, man. Even the damn fortune cookies are out to get me.'
Gladiolus was bent over laughing, Noctis was stifling a snigger and even Ignis was smiling.
'They're entirely random, Prompto, I assure you,' the bespectacled man said.
'Eat the cookie to make yourself feel better?' Noctis suggested.
Prompto pouted but crunched the cookie. It tasted like bitter ash in his mouth after the grave insult. 'I want a nice one. Someone find me a nice one.'
Gladiolus finally bestirred himself from his mirth to lean forward from his camp seat and pluck a fortune cookie from the bag they'd bought to go with the oriental inspired meal Ignis had cooked them earlier. He cracked the cookie then straightened out the strip of paper. 'A very attractive person has a message for you,' Gladiolus said. 'Well there you go. I'm the attractive person, and here is your message. Does that make you feel better?'
'No. Not at all. How is you being called attractive supposed to make me feel better?' Prompto asked.
'Because you get to bask in the glow of my attractiveness?' Gladiolus said.
Noctis tried his luck next, and broke apart a cookie to find his message. 'Serious trouble will bypass you,' Noctis read. 'Yeah, these things are clearly broken.'
'Let's see,' Ignis said, plucking a cookie for himself and carefully snapped it into two equal halves. He brushed crumbs from the paper then held it up to read. 'Only listen to the fortune cookie; disregard all other fortune telling units.'
'That's rather arrogant of it,' Noctis said, breaking his own cookie into smaller pieces to eat.
'I concur,' Ignis said, and tossed the paper into the fire between them. He kept the cookie to eat.
'Believing that you are beautiful will make you appear beautiful to others around you,' Prompto said, another cookie in his hands. 'That's not fair, Gladio's outright told him he was hot.'
'The cookies have good taste, what can I say?' Gladiolus said with a shrug.
'I hate you,' Prompto said, then climbed off his chair and sat by the cookie bag, pulling several out. 'Right, I'm going through all these until I find a nice one.'
'Won't take a fortune cookie to tell you that you'll end up with a stomach ache if you eat that many of these things,' Gladiolus said, snagging one from Prompto's hand and cracking it open. 'You will be hungry again in one hour. Huh, wow they really are true.'
'You're always hungry, that's hardly a revelation,' Ignis said.
'Fair point,' Gladiolus said. 'Do we have any leftovers?'
'It hasn't even been an hour, Gladio,' Noctis said, sitting back in his chair and enjoying his coffee.
'Have another cookie, I bet this one has something hurtful and rude in it,' Prompto said, throwing one at the tank.
Gladiolus caught it, unwrapped and cracked. 'Practice safe eating. Always use condiments.'
Noctis snorted, and almost choked on his coffee.
'Out of the gutter, highness,' Gladiolus said with a smirk.
'It's your fault his innocent mind even jumps to those conclusions,' Ignis said.
'Innocent? Noct?' Prompto asked, with his mouth full of cookie. He had an impressive stack of papers beside him on the ground.
'Again, the fault lies with the two of you for corrupting him.'
'I'm not corrupted,' Noctis said defensively.
'Yeah, we're good for him,' Prompto said, tossing a cookie Noctis's way. 'Help me out here, I can't eat all these cookies and I need to find a nice message. Iggy, you too. If they're nice fortunes give them to me and I'll pretend I found them.'
Ignis sighed and with great care broke his cookie so that not a single crumb fell into his lap. 'You will soon have an out of money experience,' he read aloud. He scoffed. 'I have those every day at the moment.'
Prompto groaned. 'They're getting worse, and the worst thing is they're true; the probability of being seen is directly proportional to the stupidity of the act.' Prompto pouted and munched the cookie to console himself. 'Story of my goddamn life.'
'Perhaps because you do so many stupid things that the probability for them being seen is just that much higher?' Gladiolus suggested. 'Also do you guys know how much sugar are in these things? Because I don't want to be babysitting a hyperactive Prom tonight when he refuses to go to sleep.'
'I'll stop when I find a nice one,' Prompto insisted, taking his time selecting the next from the pack. He was trying to choose one that felt complimentary. He broke one open and kept the paper while handing the actual cookie over to Gladiolus as a compromise. 'The fortune you seek is in another cookie…well that's just stupid.'
Noctis laughed, and broke open another, tossing his cookie to Gladiolus who was only happy to accept. Noctis unfolded his own message. 'Sometimes you just need to lay on the floor. Well, can't argue with that.'
Prompto whined. 'This is so unfair, you and Gladiolus are getting perfect ones, why are mine so rubbish? I mean the cookie even knew that Noctis is a sleepaholic. Why can't I get one that tells me I'm adorable or something?'
'Because these things tell the truth?' Gladiolus asked, ducking to the side as Prompto threw a cookie at him with force.
Noctis rummaged through one of the bags of supplies they had and tore off a sticker from an apple. He used it to attach his last fortune message to his forehead, then sat back in his chair and closed his eyes.
'Highness, it's barely eight in the evening,' Ignis said.
Noctis simply lifted a finger and pointed to the message. 'Just doing what the cookie told me to do.'
'The end is near so you might as well have dessert,' Prompto read, having grabbed another cookie. 'Okay this one I can work with. Actually I'm going to keep this saying because the end is always near at the moment, and Ignis keeps telling me we don't need to waste money on dessert. See Iggy? The cookie can't be wrong. I need dessert.'
'I will ignore your fortune in the same way that I will ignore his highness's fortune when he tries to point to it again in the morning when it's time to get up,' Ignis said.
'You're no fun,' Prompto complained, getting back in his seat and brushing crumbs off his lap. 'Is he actually asleep?'
'I don't think that even his highness could fall asleep that fast,' Ignis said, glancing over at the dark haired man sat beside him. 'At least I don't think so.'
Gladiolus screwed up one of the fortunes and pinged it at Noctis. It bounced off the prince's cheek and although the young man screwed his face up a little he didn't stir.
'Nope, asleep,' Gladiolus said.
'Impressive,' Ignis murmured. Then: 'Stop it.'
'What?' Prompto said innocently.
'I can see you balling up one of those pieces of paper. Throwing things at the crown prince is not a game.'
'It could be,' Gladiolus said. 'Ten points for the face, five for the rest of his body.'
Ignis glared.
'Prom's right, you're no fun,' Gladiolus said.
'And yet I'm strangely okay with that,' Ignis said.
However when he returned from cleaning up the dinner plates it was to find Prompto and Gladiolus's seats empty and a dozen tiny balls of paper in Noctis's lap.