Lily knew Nickel as a pretty quiet person, bordering on standoffish if you only took a cursory glance at him. Silence was relatively normal around him, but it was comfortable, and you knew that he was always trying to keep an ear open to what you had to say.

But this was different. Very much so.

They had just finished talking with the seller of a particularly good-looking house (how it managed to avoid major damage from the war, neither of them knew). This particular person had named his asking price, which was much inflated since relatively undamaged houses were at a premium, of course. Nickel had known something like this would happen, and he had prepared - he just hadn't quite known by how much the price would have gone up.

Negotiating was of little use, too. The owner had seemed rather bullish when it came to what he would sell the house for, and nothing either of them said (even Lily had been allowed to say her bit) could change his mind. Lily had been frustrated by this, and she assumed Nickel was too - she assumed, because he looked like he'd kept his last vestiges of calm and patience much longer than she.

"Come on, please. These are really desperate times for everyone. If someone came to you with - I don't know, three hundred more rings, would you still turn them down?" Nickel had asked.

"Yes" had been the immediate answer. "That'll be all. Maybe if there hadn't been a war in the first place, my time wouldn't have been wasted here, hmm?"

Nickel had chosen simply to walk away. Lily could see that if he'd been there five seconds more, there might have been a scorched bird on the premises of the house.

After that Nickel said absolutely nothing. And Nickel continued to say nothing for twenty whole minutes. But unlike his usual silence, this one carried an unnerving atmosphere that gave you the firm impression that he was very, very angry.

Lily didn't dare say anything either for fear that if she did, she might be on the receiving end of an electric explosion - or at least, a few rage-filled words. She didn't know if he used swears, though on what she knew of him he didn't, and even if he did he probably wouldn't in front of a child. Still, that wouldn't stop him from saying a few choice things if he were to be provoked further. So, she kept quiet.

After those twenty minutes had pretty much elapsed, Lily heard Nickel's voice again. "You okay, Lily? You've been quiet."

"You were quiet too, mister Nickel," she replied.

"Well, that was just because I was mad," he rebutted. "Imagine saying what he said. 'Maybe if there hadn't been a war'." Nickel snorted. "How was anybody supposed to know what we would have been facing in it? Apart from Robotnik, obviously."

Lily nodded, having been told by Nickel all the events that had taken place to cause the war in the first place. "Is that why you were so mad, mister Nickel?"

"He was inconsiderate. And smug. Of course I'm gonna be mad." Nickel shrugged. "At that point, I wasn't upset about the house." Lily wanted to say something, but Nickel didn't let her. "Speaking of, let's keep looking. We don't need to dwell on that."

"Okay, mister Nickel."

.

.

.

Lily and Nickel were talking to another seller of a house in decent shape. This one was a little bigger than the last that they were looking at, but not quite as untouched - Lily guessed that it warranted the similar pricing. They could definitely fix any problems with it, she thought.

Unfortunately, the seller was just as stubborn with her asking price. Fortunately, she had understood the situation they were in and didn't make any insolent comments to make Nickel angry again.

Lily wasn't really paying attention to the conversation, instead thinking about having something for lunch. It was getting close to the afternoon, and she felt like eating something... less than healthy. But not too much, though, or else -

"Are you serious?!" Lily jolted from her thoughts at Nickel's incredulous yell, her ears flattening in reflex. Looking at him revealed that he was grinning, laughing even, but his eyes looked like he was going into hysterics. "You just - I'm mad. I'm really mad." He started walking in the direction he was facing, practically going through the stubborn saleswoman as he did, still laughing.

When Lily caught up to him, he didn't look like he'd fully recovered. "Mister Nickel? What was that all about?"

"That woman," he began, in a more British accent, "legitimately lowered her price. She did." He seemed to get distracted, likely thinking about the incident as a few stray mirthless chuckles came forth. He caught himself after a few moments and continued, "Like I say, she actually lowered it. But by one ring."

Lily was properly aghast at that. Somehow, that felt worse than sticking to the original price no matter what, like the last man did.

Nickel must have seen her face, because he went on. "Yeah. If you couldn't already tell, I'm really mad."

Lily found an opportunity to ask a question. "Why were you laughing, then?"

"There's a point where, if I get mad enough, I laugh at the stupidity of the situation to try and defuse my anger. And, I say "I'm mad" too, so no one can get confused as to my feelings." He shrugged, similar to the last time. "I'm a weird person."

"You're not that weird, mister Nickel," Lily said.

"You say that, except I wear a hoodie in the summer." She giggled. "Where do you want to go now?" he asked her.

"Can we get something to eat? I'm hungry."

"Sure. Just let me know where you wanna go when you see it, okay?"

.

.

.

In Lily's short life, she'd never felt so much relief at hearing someone say yes to something.

She and Nickel had managed to find a seller willing to negotiate with them, and they'd reached an agreement as to what would be paid for the house. They'd even paid him on the spot, they were so grateful.

But, of course, something had to happen.

Immediately after their talks had come to a close, another person appeared from out of nowhere and offered a sum of money slightly higher than what they'd just paid, as if they were at an auction. That wouldn't have been a problem if the rabbit had just explained that the house had already been sold and declined - after all, there wasn't that much difference between the offers - but he didn't do that. Instead, naturally, he accepted the bid like Lily and Nickel were not even there.

The new buyer thanked the seller, before leaving, presumably to get the currencies to pay the man. Lily immediately vocalised her thoughts. "Why'd you do that? We already paid you for it, it belongs to us now!"

The rabbit shrugged. "More money, kid."

Lily felt her insides flare, and she stamped her foot on the ground. "That's not fair! We were here first and we paid first! It's ours!" She turned to look at Nickel, wanting support, but upon seeing his face she had a feeling that he was not going to be saying that many civil words.

Lily had seen this look earlier that day. He was wearing the silent expression: yellow eyes perfectly still, mouth frowning the tiniest fraction, large fluffy ears upright and rigid as stone. No hysteria was overtaking him like the last time.

And suddenly his visage morphed into one that very vividly showed his anger. His head had lowered; his eyebrows had furrowed; his ears had twisted backwards; his eyes, remaining trained on the rabbit seller, seemed to glow with rage. His mouth, even if it hadn't changed its shape, now felt like it was sporting a very unfriendly glower.

That's when Lily realised: the first time, Nickel wasn't mad - he was annoyed. The second time, even though he said he was mad, he wasn't - he was just in disbelief. This time, he was mad. Really, truly mad.

He raised his hand and opened his mouth to speak, only to retract what he was about to say in favour of simply yanking the keys to the house that they were entitled to away from the seller without a thank you.

"Hey, you can't just take those! Give them back!"

"No," Nickel answered simply, his tone now much more measured than Lily had ever heard it but still audibly carrying much anger. "We paid for it, we own it. You can tell the other guy that we're not selling the house we just bought."

He turned tail and walked way too methodically to the house they'd bought, as if doing anything else would shatter the surroundings into a billion pieces.

"Lily," he called. She ran over to him, not at all wishing to raise his ire any further; Nickel opened the door and let her go in first, before closing the door again with more carefulness than necessary.

"Let's get acquainted with this place," he said in that same collected tone. "We live here now, after all. Who knows? Maybe we'll find something interesting."

Lily bounded off, now fully aware that she should never, ever make her friend mad. Luckily, she didn't have any plans to do so.

And, if she was being honest, a mad Nickel scared her.