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“Now...what would Ignis like?”Prompto stands before the supermarket flower display, tapping his foot. He takes his thumbnail between his teeth as he looks over his options. Roses? No, that’s too obvious, Prompto thinks to himself. Carnations are cute…. No, wait, that’s the Mother’s Day flower. He pulls out his phone and starts to do some research.He scrolls through pages upon pages of articles telling him to get roses, peonies, daisies, gardenias, but he doesn’t want to be that forward. Prompto begins to consider just getting a box of chocolates, but keeps reading. He doesn’t want to ask someone out with a box of supermarket chocolates. It’s lame.It dawns upon him to search up purple flowers; if nothing else, he can at least get Ignis flowers in his favorite color. He scrolls through more nonsense before coming across something perfect: lilac, for first love.Prompto’s had crushes before. He’s had plenty of them. He’s had so many he’d consider himself an expert on them.But there’s a difference between a crush and being in love.You can’t look your crush in the eye. You can’t stop looking when you’re in love. You blush around your crush. Your heart flutters when you think about the one you love.Your heart never stops fluttering when you’re in love.Prompto starts scouring the display for lilacs, but can’t find anything that matches the picture on his screen. He was loath to go to a fancier florist at first, if only because of the potential cost, but now he’s a man on a mission.He’s not going to let Ignis down.He starts running to the nearest florist, checking the map on his phone every few strides. He takes a few bad turns, almost runs into other joggers, and has to leap over a dog, but he gets there eventually. Prompto pulls the door open a little too vigorously, and the old woman at the counter shoots her head up. He closes the door very gently to compensate.“What do you want?” The old woman glares at Prompto, and he feels bad for even coming to her store; why bother an old lady? He considers going somewhere else until he decides that it’s even worse to leave without saying anything. He approaches the counter and laces his fingers together to keep from biting his nails.“I’m, uh, looking for some lilacs. Do you have any?” Prompto bites the inside of his cheek as the old woman scoffs.“Take a look around. Does it look like I have any? It’s Valentione’s Day, boy. All anyone will have are roses.”Prompto feels the smile he’d been forcing fall. He rubs his hands together and nods.“Okay, I’ll go somewhere else, then.”He leaves, making sure to be gentle with the door again, and searches up the next closest florist. It turns out to be a shack with roses and not much else, just like the old lady said. Over and over, Prompto goes into stores and comes back out empty-handed. He decides to go to one of the fancier sweet shops and get, like, chocolate-covered espresso beans or something, because he figures it’s better than nothing.Prompto whisks past all the regular street vendors on his way to his new destination. They’re all in their usual spots: the rice cake vendor, the chicken vendor, the pastry vendor, the whole gang. At the end of the street, though, the familiar smell of food gives way to something different, something more delicate. Prompto whips himself around and sees someone new: a woman about his age, dressed in pink and surrounded by all sorts of flowers. She’s got more than just roses, so Prompto approaches to give her a shot.“Hey, do you have any lilacs by any chance?” He shoves his hands in his pockets to avoid fiddling with them. The young woman looks up and smiles, and Prompto notices that she kind of looks like she could be Ignis’ sister or something. Her hair’s a darker brown, but her eyes are a similar shade of green; green eyes are on the rare side in Lucis, or at least in Insomnia. The woman brushes her bangs away from her face before she speaks.“Of course! I’m so happy you’re putting that much thought into your gift.” She rummages through one of her buckets of flowers to pull out a few clusters of pale purple blooms on long green stems. “Sorry I don’t have too many. I can help you choose some other flowers to add to your bouquet, though.” She gives an apologetic smile. “Do they like purple?”Prompto’s first thought is to refuse her offer, but then he remembers she’s a street vendor; she’s not going to charge him extra for a ‘consultation’ the way the clerks at some of the more ritzy stores do when he’s out with Noct. He nods and the woman places the lilacs in Prompto’s hands.“Alright, perfect. Are you okay with roses? Because lavender roses mean ‘love at first sight.’ Does that apply at all?” She’s got a twinkle in her eye that compels Prompto to tell her that it does, despite him having wanted to keep that bit a secret. She shuffles through one of her many buckets of roses until she comes up with three of them.“These aren’t that big, so they won’t overpower the lilacs. And see how the color is a little paler than the lilacs'? That’s so the eye is drawn toward your first choice. If that’s what you want.” Her last sentence is tacked on like an afterthought, and she lowers her hands. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to assume. Do you want the lilacs to be the main event?”Prompto nods and reaches out to take the roses from her. “Yeah, I do. Don’t be sorry, you totally know more about all this than I do.”The flower vendor cracks another smile and dives back into her buckets. Prompto realizes that he might be her first customer all day. Her buckets are full and the pouch at her hip looks empty, like there’s no cash in it. He decides he’ll let her go whole hog in arranging his bouquet.She surfaces again with her hands full of violet flowers with white centers. “Scabiosa, for pure love. Sound good to you?”“Yeah, sounds perfect.” Prompto takes the scabiosa from her and adds them to the growing bundle in his hands.“Do you want to keep it at three varieties? Or would you like some more?” The vendor pushes her hair out of her eyes again.“Just go for it,” Prompto says. “Do whatever you think is best.”Some ten or twenty minutes later, Prompto’s got a proper bouquet in his hands; lilacs, roses, scabiosa, bellflowers for gratitude, amethyst for admiration, lily of the valley for sweetness, all different shades of purple and violet and lavender. There’s even myrtle, feverfew, and lemon leaf to fill it out. He ends up paying more for the bouquet than he would have at any of the other shops he visited, but only because he shelled out a hefty tip on top of what little the vendor made him pay. She wraps the flowers in plastic and ties the bundle shut with a yellow ribbon—to complement the purple, she says, but she also has a bit of mischief in her grin, and Prompto knows she did it partly because he’s blonde. He thanks her profusely and asks for her card so he can buy from her again sometime. She laughs and tells him she doesn’t have a card, she just sets up in the streets for the major holidays; if he really needs her, though, he can find her in the old church in the fifth district of the city.Prompto thanks her again and starts on his way to Ignis’ place. He’d run to get there faster, but he doesn’t want to ruin the bouquet. He walks as fast as he can, and he’s there just before five-thirty. Good enough timing to ask Ignis to dinner.At Ignis’ door, Prompto takes a deep breath, rolls his neck, and bounces on the balls of his feet a few times to get some of the jitters out. He rings the doorbell. After a moment of shuffling and muffled voices inside, the door opens.Ignis answers the door, mouth open, preparing for a greeting, but he pauses when he sees the flowers in Prompto’s hands. Prompto holds them out.“Happy Valentione’s Day, Ignis.” He feels himself flush, but he doesn’t have a free hand to hide it, so he shrinks behind the bouquet. “I got you these. I hope you like ‘em.” Prompto’s ready to just evaporate from the force of his nerves, but then he sees Ignis smile all the way up to his eyes, and his heart feels like it’s about to burst.“Thank you, Prompto,” Ignis says as he takes the bouquet. “They’re lovely. I adore them.” He pauses and lets out a nervous laugh. “I adore you as well, but I’m afraid I wasn’t expecting this. I’m sorry that I don’t have a gift for you.”In spite of Ignis’ ashamed expression, Prompto is far from disappointed. “Don’t sweat it, Iggy. I guess then you have no choice but to go out to dinner with me.” He winks, and Ignis laughs again, this time more genuinely.“I suppose I don’t. Did you have a place in mind?”“Actually, I was going to let you choose.” Prompto panics for a second, thinking maybe he should have chosen a place beforehand, but Ignis answers quickly enough that his fears are immediately quelled.“In that case, how about the new Altissian restaurant downtown? My treat, of course.”Prompto’s ready to fight that offer, but realizes Ignis won’t back down. Instead of arguing, he takes Ignis’ hand, pulls him over the threshold, and says, “Let’s go!”