One day, while they were outside sitting on a bench in the park, Lily had taken interest in watching everything that happened to pass by - whether they were cars or flickies or even other people. She'd roped Nickel into a game of pointing out weird car colours - like yellow, green or pink - and during a dry spell in their fun, a pair of interesting people happened to pass by.

They were both girls, Lily noted; she started to pay closer attention to them, and also to Nickel. She'd learned that on the topic of girls, Nickel was always very reluctant to talk. He had never had a girlfriend, never gone on a date, didn't have a crush (that she knew of), would never tell her anything of gravity regarding the issue, and almost tried avoiding girls his age like they were a disease when Lily was around. Contrarywise, naturally, Lily knew there were quite a few girls who seemed to think that Nickel was the cutest thing they'd ever seen - with her even hearing one comment that he looked like he was the love of her life - and yet they never approached him, saying that he was antisocial. Sure, Nickel was shy, but he was far from antisocial. He once said it himself: he just didn't like to approach people when it wasn't necessary. Between both parties, it was a weird standoff.

Lily watched as Nickel glanced down at her, before switching his attention to the horizon. He knew the girls were coming - he was wanting someplace else to look. His (surprisingly effective) method of avoiding conversation was simply to be silent and to look somewhere else, like the screen on his hand or at Lily herself. Sometimes he would just look straight through them, as well.

The pair of females came ever closer, and it was then that Lily noticed a fairly trivial detail in the grand scheme of things: the girls were hedgehogs. One was a light grey-blue, the other a dark forest green, but again that detail was trivial. All she really wanted to see was how they reacted to Nickel's presence.

One spotted them and spoke to the other words that were lost on Lily. They were still too far away to hear.

Nickel shifted slightly beside her, and then she realised a rather unfortunate fact. Nickel had elected to sit in the middle of a rather small bench, which had allowed Lily to have an armrest; simultaneously, this meant that if these girls were to approach to sit, not only would one of them have to move to accommodate them but Nickel would be stuck to at least one of the two of them. And he really didn't like a lot of physical contact.

Before she could ask Nickel if he wanted to switch (he would undoubtedly have told her no anyway, still letting her have that armrest), the two happened upon them. "Hi," the blue one said. "Do you mind if we sit here?"

Nickel shook his head no, picking up Lily and setting her on his lap and making her squeak a bit in surprise. "Thanks," the same hedgehog said.

That was another thing - Nickel didn't talk much to new people, and when he did he wasn't loud at all. If that choice was to do with his voice, Lily couldn't understand it - he had a nice voice. She and a few other people would attest to that. Again, it could have been down to his shyness.

"What are your names?" the other girl asked.

Lily saved him from answering. "I'm Lily. And he's mister Nickel."

He muttered "Just Nickel" under his whiskers, and Lily was sure only she heard it.

"It's a nice day, don't you think?" Lily continued, trying to push the conversation in a good direction.

"Yeah, it is," the first answered. Turning to Nickel, she asked, "Aren't you hot with that hoodie on, though?"

Nickel shook his head again. "No, 'm not," he said.

There was a small silence as the girls either processed his response or processed the voice with which the response was given. Lily didn't know which.

"Really?" the second hedgehog girl queried. "But you have really long fur too, how aren't you hot?"

"Well, he kinda is..." the first mumbled, and undoubtedly Nickel had heard that, as Lily had too. Subtlety had apparently been thrown out the window - unless it hadn't been, in which case that was rather sad.

Wow. Now Lily was starting to think like her big friend Nickel.

"He just doesn't!" Lily interjected. "Mister Nickel doesn't get hot. It's really cool." She giggled at her unintentional pun.

Under the cover of Lily's laughter, the green hedgehog shifted closer to Nickel. Lily didn't miss that, nor did she miss Nickel's infinitesimal flinch that only seemed to affect his right arm, where the girl was.

"Oh - wow, you're very warm," she commented. Nickel said nothing.

"Yeah, you are." A quick look to her left confirmed to Lily that the grey-blue hedgehog had copied her friend, and now both were lightly pressed into each side of the lone boy. His left hand flinched now. "Can I touch your hair?"

Lily knew he'd say yes, even if he felt like he'd been touched enough for a lifetime. And he did.

As the girls fawned over him the little xanthic cat brainstormed ideas for getting her friend out of the situation he was in. There wasn't a food establishment nearby, so she couldn't pretend to be hungry or thirsty. There was no restroom close by, either; besides, the thought of those public restrooms made her sick. She could pretend she was tired and want to go home, though. And Nickel had told her how to fake a yawn.

She opened her mouth and waited for the feeling of needing air to wash over her - when it did, she let herself yawn very audibly. "Sorry, mister Nickel, but I feel kind of tired. Can we go home, please?"

"Sure," he said, carefully extricating himself from the spot in which he sat with her still in his arms. He put her down, only to let her clamber up onto his shoulders. "Good there?"

She nodded and closed her eyes, still trying to sell the illusion that she was sleepy.

"Alright." Lily felt him turn to the girls. "Sorry, but we gotta go. Hope that's okay."

"No problem," they said together, the green hedgehog continuing, "See you later."

She felt him nod yes, and they were off. Lily strained her ears to hear what they were talking about, picking up words like "soft" and "cute" and "deep", all of which she expected to hear.

When they had walked a fair enough distance away, she opened her eyes as he shifted his hold on her to free his right hand, which he used to rub his other arm as if he were trying to dry it with a towel; a telltale sign that he hadn't particularly liked the contact on his arm.

"Thanks, Lily," he said.

"You're welcome, mister Nickel!" she answered cheerfully.

Nickel patted her head with his free hand, and Lily purred in appreciation.

.

After a while of silence, Lily piped up again. "Mister Nickel?"

"Lily?"

"Did you ever know someone who liked you, but you didn't like them?"

As always when it came to this topic, his response was almost immediate. "Not that I knew of. There might have been one or two."

Lily was a little disappointed. She wanted there to be somebody who fit that description, so she could protect Nickel from them. Kinda like Sonic with Amy sometimes. That would have been fun, she thought.

"We're almost there," Nickel said, not particularly to anyone. Lily looked down at him, seeing him turn his head to the left, and he stopped; she followed his gaze to see a pretty girl cat with mauve fur on the other side of the street.

Looking back at Nickel, Lily noticed that he was still looking at her. "Mister Nickel, why are you looking at her?" she asked.

"She looks familiar." As he spoke, the girl turned a little more toward them and Lily now managed to see her face. At the same time, Nickel shook his head no, diverting his own attention and continuing on. "Nah. Don't know her."

"She was pretty," Lily commented. Nickel made an indiscernible sound. "I think she would like you."

"Really, Lily?" Nickel sounded perfectly unamused, and that itself amused Lily.

She giggled, and she heard faint laughter from him too after a while. "I'm just kidding, mister Nickel."

"I know." He patted her head again and she smiled wider. At the very least, she was definitely a girl Nickel liked. And that made her happy.