fandomtownies | Cafe Fina; Thursday Evening [11/04].

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Cafe Fina; Thursday Evening [11/04].

So! Prompto had actually, in a dizzying burst of rare self-confidence that he was still reeling from, asked someone out on a date, and he'd texted Liz to see where he should meet her because she was choosing the place. Somewhere called Cafe Fina, which, sure, yeah, he'd recognized it from all his morning jogs around the island, but he didn't think people ever actually went there! Maybe it was more popular back in Liz's day, or something? Anyway, it seemed nice enough, which meant no small amount of flailing about what would be appropriate to wear, but he supposed that was one of the benefits of having an Ignis on your team! Granted, that meant that what Prompto was wearing was more Ignis's style than his own, but it looked nice, and the leather pants meant that maybe, if this went horribly bad, he could just go to the DN afterwards to drown all his sorrows.

And then there was the fact that, in his anticipation and anxiousness, he had...definitely gotten there way too early, and so now there was a lot of time to kill (time to just get more anxious and nervous, really), while he waited, fidgeting, drumming his fingers on his thighs, against each other...he was too distracted nervous to really just play something on his phone, but, hey, at least the location of the restaurant allowed him to get some pretty cool shots in the meantime! Probably a lot of them, too, because that was something that was actually effectively distracting, especially once he tried to maybe catch a good one of how the sunset looked from this corner of the island, over the rooftops and the buildings, and that unique appreciation he had for sunsets and skies full of stars.

[[ for the daaa~aaa~aaaate! But also, it's a free country and a whole-ass business, so feel free to also use for all your rare Cafe Fina needs! ]]

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Liz hadn’t intended to push it so close to the time that she had actually made the reservation for. She had intended to be a lot more organised but then she decided she didn’t like the original outfit that she’d picked and instead changed three times before she finally had opted for something that she hoped was okay and decided to go with a top and skirt.

She was feeling rather anxious about this evening it had been so long since she’d done this … she of course made sure that her camera was ready and she had film in it. She was really hoping this was going to be okay.

She smiled when she saw Prompto taking photos and walked over, tugging at her skirt awkwardly, “hi, I hope you weren’t waiting too long?”

Edited 2021-11-04 09:00 (UTC)

"Liz!" said Prompto, when he saw her, as if he was surprised to see her, even though...well...you know...but, hey, there was definitely a part of him that had considered that maybe she thought better of the whole situation and decided to just ditch him, so, hey! It was kind of a surprise that she did show up, if you looked at it that way! But she was here, which meant this was really happening, and now he had probably a good half-hour of building anxious energy that was going to sit in his chest like a tangle ball around his racing heart. "Hey! Uhhhh, no, no, not at all! I, uhhhh, I actually just got here!"

He figured a white lie like that was at least better than admitting the he'd actually been there for a while now, but only after he said it did he realize that he could have just blamed the whole thing on portal travel, since he had just come from Insomnia. Damn!

Doubtless not the last misstep he'd make tonight, either...

"I'll let 'em know we're here so we can get our table!"

The sooner they sat down, the better, probably, cutting out at least fifty percent of potential embarrassing incidents!

"You..." he added, stumbling over it slightly, because there was quite the jumble of thoughts in his head right now that it was hard to shift through all of them and discern which ones were worthy of being said...or which ones would just sort of slip out, mostly unbidden, "you look great."

"Oh that's good," Liz smiled, not thinking there was any reason to doubt that, "I didn't want you to think I wasn't coming, I was ... uh...um..." freaking out and changing my outfit didn't really sound like good excuses, "yes," she said finally with a nod when he mentioned getting their table, "okay, that sounds great," she knew it had been a while but she didn't think she would already be so bad at this.

Was it too early in the evening to start blushing because that was what was happening now and she gave a warm smile as she managed to stammer, "thank...thank you, so do you," she told him.

Edited 2021-11-04 09:23 (UTC)

It was never too early to start blushing! Prompto, at this point, had just given up and figured it would be a perminant feature on his face regardless! It was definitely glowing a little brighter now as he let out a soft laugh and figured, you know, Liz was just being polite. Still...

"Thanks," he said. "Ign--"

But then he cut himself off, and not a moment too soon, because, yeah, Prompto, how about you not inform your date that you hadn't even dressed yourself for this. And as he floundered for a way to try to turn that into some other, less embarrassing statement, he was saved by the host gathering menues and moving to lead them to a table.

Which meant he could, instead of saying something embarrassing, do something probably embarrassing, but it was too late now, as he was making a bit of a show of bowing and sweeping out an arm for Liz as he declared, "Ladies first?" like a godsdamned big old nerd.

At first Liz wasn’t sure what was happening, she stood there for a bit as she stared at Prompto and then she couldn’t help but laugh at that and yes she was turning even redder.

“Why thank you,” she smiled and then more to her surprise than anything found herself curtseying back, which was … not something she ever did so this was definitely an experience for her.

She tried not to be embarrassed as she followed the waiter towards the table, “I hope this okay, I’ve never actually been in here before ~~that the mun could remember~~,” she admitted.

"I haven't either, actually," Prompto admitted, glowing a little now, pleased that the bow had at least gotten a laugh, and it seemed like a genuine one, too, not some awkward ohmygods, what have I gotten myself into? one. "I think maybe it gets kind of forgotten over here on this side of the island, when most of the restaurants are over by the boardwalk and everything, but..." He took a moment to look around. "It's actually pretty nice."

They reached a table and Prompto thanked the waiter as he left them with the menues and then Prompto, in an awkward moment later, remembered some of those courtly manners training he'd been getting from Ignis since he joined onto the Kingsglaive, moved to go pull out Liz's chair for her, and then, halfway through it, started to panic that maybe that was a little too much, some girls didn't really like stuff like that! But it was too late now, the chair was half out, so he had no choice but to awkwardly continue and ohgods why was he so bad at this??

“It always seemed to be popular when I here I was here, I remember it getting mentioned on the radio a bit when I was a student,” she said as she thought back to her student days.

“Oh,” Liz blinked a little as Prompto moved the chair for her, she really was out of her element here, she blushed as she awkwardly sat down, “thank you,” she said with a warm smile.

[and it’s now time for bed!]

Prompto tried to get the words thank you out of his mouth, but they seemed to just get caught in his throat, so all that came out was a sort of grunt of acknowledgement that almost turned into a mortified groan. Almost. He nodded stiffly and then made his way around the table to sink into his own chair....

...and wondering if he should save himself the trouble of future embarrassment by just continuing to sink down under the table and, like, die now or something.

But he didn't! He stayed on the right side of the table, and already felt his knee bouncing nervously and he tried to laugh it off.

"Well," he said, reaching for a menu, "maybe we'll be the ones to really bring it back!"

[[ sleep well!! ]]

Liz grinned at that, “we could start a whole new trend,” she said as she picked up her menu, she had no idea what she even wanted.

She should have looked at the menu when she had booked the place.

"Exactly!" Prompto agreed cheerfully. "Between all the sick photos we'll both be taking for our Instagrams of all the good food and the awesome time we're having," please, please let him not be wrong on that!, "this place will totally be on everyone's go-to list!"

When in doubt, activate insufferable optimism!

"#BestDateEver...right?"

Aaaaand insufferable dorkiness, apparently! Prompto was absolutely going to bury his face in his menu now because he could not believe that had just left his mouth right then.

But he was also maybe attempting to peek back over toward Liz to see how she might have actually reacted to that little vote of absolutely absurd confidence.

“Of course, we’ll make it go …viral?” Liz wasn’t sure if that was the correct term for it. She was still a bit behind on things like memes and such, “Is that what it’s called?”

She grinned, “of course, it will be the best date ever,” she assured him not that Prompto really didn’t have much competition there because she hadn’t exactly been on that many dates.

No eyeroll? No expression of instant realization of complete regret? Prompto let out a relieved breath and grinned back. He felt his leg start to bounce under the table a little, nervousness from feeling like he was walking a very thin line here, but he managed to get it under control. "Yeah," he said, already picturing the perfect selfie to cap off the evening, "viral. Exactly.

"Soooooo," he ventured next, realizing that there wasn't too much left to fish out of that awkward pond, and actually finally looking at the menu, "what were you thinking of getting?"

“I’m actually not too sure,” Liz admitted because she glanced down at the menu and really she should have looked at it before she came here.

“There’s a lot here,” that was how menus worked Liz.

Prompto took a moment to flip a page on the menu to see what was on the other side.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Looks like they really wanted to cover all their bases, or something. I mean, I guess that makes sense, they've got to appeal to people from all sorts of different places with different diets and everything. Like, I have a friend who can only eat fish and pizza. I don't even know what some of these things even are."

Prompto, Ignis had literally made all of those things at some point.

He peeked over across the table toward Liz.

"We could," he recommended, "just close our eyes and see what we end up with at random."

A risky venture, perhaps. But...it could at least make things interesting!

“I have a friend who eats rotten eggs,” Liz offered with a smile, “I can understand the need for different dietary requirements,” actually she wasn’t sure if Abe needed the eggs or he just liked eating them but he always insisted on having them.

She glanced back down at the menu to see if anything stood out to her, “we can try it that way,” she said, “it could be fun,”

[sorry, just got back from work!]

Prompto had to make a little bit of a face at the mention of rotten eggs, and then felt kind of bad about it, because if it was anything like Sidon with fish, Liz's friend couldn't really help it. And also, it was Liz's friend!

So he was just going to focus in on the business of ordering instead. "Could also be a total disaster," he pointed out, "but if it's that bad, we could always just ditch and get burgers."

You couldn't go wrong with burgers, right?

But he figured, since it was his idea, he should lead the charge, found the page that seemed to have the most options, closed his eyes, and lifted a finger over the menu. Swirled it around in a couple circles, aaand.....

"Huh. Split pea soup..."

He supposed it...could [[ no worries! I....took a random nap, which I never do, so everything now is all over the place lol ]]

“ We could always do that,” Liz agreed with a smile and then she closed her eyes and guided her finger over the menu before it landed on a random spot.

“Sea Bass?” she blinked once she’d opened her eyes and read what she had ended up selecting, “I can’t say I’ve ever tried that before,” actually she wasn’t even sure what Sea Bass was if she was being honest.

[it’s all good :)]

Prompto's eyes danced over the menu a little to find what Liz had landed on, to see how it was described as being prepared, because that could make a big difference. "Sounds pretty good, though," he offered, encouragingly.

A lot better than split pea soup, but he'd chosen this battle, he was going to have to fight it!

"So I guess...we're ready?" he asked, then looked around a little in a vague attempt to maybe catch the attention of the waiter so they could go ahead and place their roulette orders.

Liz read over her selection again and nodded, “I guess it can't hurt to try it," she grinned, “it’ll be a bit of an adventure and I suppose it’ll be a good photo if anything,” she added trying to stay positive about her choice.

“I suppose we are ready, yes,” she said as she placed her menu back down on the table.

"And if they're really terrible," Prompto added, grinning as he leaned forward over the table a little as if to keep it secret, "that'll just leave more room for dessert."

He wouldn't lie, though, a part of him had sort of wished he'd used this exercise in randomocity as an excuse to just get dessert, buuuut...

With the menues set aside, the waiter took the cue that they were ready and came over and so Prompto, faithfully, put in his order for the....sigh, split pea soup and just a water to drink.

“Deserts always good, you can’t really mess up desert,” Liz said with a laugh and then paused, “wait can you?” well if a certain Supertrooper was involved in making it it then yes you could mess up desert.

Liz gave the waiter her order of Sea Bass and decided to go for Diet Coke for her drink.

“So this should be interesting,” she grinned.

"And hopefully," Prompto grinned back, "that's the worst word we'll have for it."

In the proess of ordering, his hands had found his way into his lap, where his fingers started to tap out a rhythm on his thigh, which he didn't even realize until a moment after he'd spoken, when the first hints of an awkward sort of silence started to make an appearance. He stopped, put his hands on the table, and then, a second later, found he was tapping again, so he curled up his fingers a little to prevent it from happening more and tried to cover it up with a laugh.

"So," he said, "uhhh....where are you from?" That was always a good way to get a conversation going, right? And, really, they'd gotten so distracted with photography and things like that so far that they hadn't even really gotten into much of that yet, had they? "Is it...you know...this world? Or somewhere else?"

"I'm from this world but mine's not exactly a normal world, the paranormal exists where I live, even though most of the public don’t know about it,” she said as she considered her response, “I’m from Kansas originally, born in Kansas City but I moved around a lot when I was a child,” she explained, “most recently I lived in Newark, New Jersey, that was where my last job was and I suppose next to Fandom the longest I’ve ever stayed in a place,” she paused, “how about you?”

Kansas. Kansas City. Prompto made a note of that (it should be easy to remember!) because he wasn't sure he'd ever even heard of that place. Should he have heard of Kansas? But he knew New Jersey! Kind of? He'd definitely at least heard of that one!

"Oh," he said, "I'm actually from a completely different world." Which he hoped wasn't too weird, but she was a Fandom alumni! And worked with paranormal stuff! So it should be fine, right? And, really, his world wasn't even that different... "It's called Eos, and I'm from a city called Insomnia. I pretty much lived there my whole life; it's really great! Do you like big cities? Maybe I could take you some time." Was that too forward of him? Too presumptious? Either way, it was too late now, just keep talking, Prompto, that way, if you said something stupid, it would be all jumbled up in other things so it was less noticable, right? "Honestly, before I came here, I'd never even left the city, so coming to school here was a big deal for me! And now I've been to all sorts of places, but, uh, I've never been to Kansas before! What's that like?"

Liz debated for a bit, she wasn't the biggest fan of big cities but that was more to do with crowds in general if she was with Prompto it wouldn't be that bad would it?

“I’d love to visit your home world,” Liz said with a smile, “the only other world I’ve visited was that time we went to Endor to help reconstruct their village~~that the mun randomly remembered and went back to check to make sure~~ for Ethics class but that was over ten years ago,”

“I don’t remember much of it … I haven’t been to Kansas in years,” she said a little softly as she recalled, that had been the only time they’d really been a normal family before everything changed, “it was nice there though … we were happy,”

There was a small smile as she remembered one of the few times that she’d truly had a normal childhood or normal anything really, “most of the travel I did was while I was at Fandom, I’ve only really travelled for work these days,” she told him, “so what was it like coming to Earth from your world?” she asked.

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