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[unfatalist]

Prompto,

Thirty-two days ago, I wrote Noctis a note similar to this one, because I had been calculating the length of daylight from sunrise to sunset over the course of a few weeks, and it happens that I'm familiar with how many hours, minutes, and seconds of daylight there is on an average day at the end of the month of August — at least on Eos.

Since then, I've come to discover that my calculations may have been somewhat off. I'd thought that I'd managed to pin things down fairly accurately, and sometimes the length of a day does follow my predictions, but other times it doesn't for no particular reason I can ascertain. I can't say for certain, therefore, that I was right about what day it was on the Eos calendar, thirty-two days ago.

What I can say is that it's been thirty-two days since the day we believed to be Noctis's birthday. That means, by my best estimation as of the writing of this letter, there should be twenty-five days left until yours.

Again, I can't promise that any of this is accurate as far as our calendar on Eos was concerned, objectively — but it does seem fitting, somehow, to make do by simply using Noctis as our standard, and our true north.

Rest assured I'll be counting; I just thought you might enjoy doing the same.

|||| |||| |||| |||| ||||

- I.

[photoshooter]

[It's not like nobody's recognized his birthday before. Every year since he buddied up with Noct, there's been some kind of celebration. Cake, video games, good-natured ribbing and laughter, at the very least a nice text or a phone call from the people who are now his best friends in the world. His birthday's not something he tries to put out of mind anymore, knowing it'd be a night like any other night at home, dimly lit and empty. It hasn't been that in ages.

But Ignis has gone out of his way--calculated the length of daylight, what the hell, and memorized how many days between Noct's birthday and his, kept track, done the math--to keep it in mind. Ignis let him know. Ignis says he'll still be counting, too, and while Prompto's maybe finally on the cusp of comfortably taking his friends' affection for granted, the truth is that no one, not even Noct, has ever put this much effort into remembering him.

So he blinks quickly, something at least medium-sized stuck in his throat, but continues grinning like a doofus as he reads the note again.

Struck suddenly with nostalgia, even though he knows it's stupid, Prompto brings the paper up to his nose and sniffs it. Then he folds it carefully and tucks it into an inside pocket in his jacket, where it'll always be close to his chest, and jumps down to the kitchen so he can put up a chart on one of the cabinet doors.

25 DAYS UNTIL PROMPTO'S BIRTHDAY!! it says, in bold, excited writing, and then there are four rows of seven squares each (because a week is a week, even if they don't know what weekday they're on) with the twenty-fifth square circled in energetic yellow.

Prompto stands back on his heels when he's done, hands on his hips and a big, happy swell in his chest. The season might be waning, but he's sure he's never felt so warm.]