*Sonic's POV *
"What are you doing here? I thought we were taking today off?" I asked when I opened the door.

"What a greeting." Shadow scoffed.

"Right. Sorry. Hi Shadow. Would you like to tell me what you're doing here on our day off?" I opened the door wider to let him in.

"Rouge said for me to come see you." Shadow said, his expression as dull as ever.

"Oh, right. She did tell me you'd be coming over last night. I was just very tired." I closed the door behind him. "This has got to be the strangest relationship I've ever been in." I chuckled.

"You've dated someone else?" He asked as he looked at me. He was resting back on the wall as he followed me with his eyes while I walked to the kitchen. "Other than that princess?"

"Yeah. A few relationships here and there, but nothing really serious." I waved my hand up and down as I explained, then went through my fridge. "You hungry?"

"Sure." He answered. "How come you never mentioned you've dated Princess Acorn?"

"It wasn't so serious. We realized we liked each other better as friends. Plus, there is some stuff about my life I dont mention to the others." I explained as I got the eggs out of the fridge and started making omelets for us.

"Really?" Shadow suddenly sounded interested in my life. He was the type to need to know everything about someone, which only made me feel worse for lying to him. Should I just tell him? But what if he ends up turning me in? I couldn't risk it no matter if he was a friend, or rather, my boyfriend. It was weird.

"Yeah. Hey, how come you're letting Rouge control this part of your life." I said, changing the subject as I pointed at him then at me so he understood what I meant. "I mean, you would have never agreed to this before. Unless you'd actually want to change."

Shadow stayed quiet and simply walked to the living room without giving me an answer. But honestly, that was answer enough. He DID want to change. I put the stuff down and walked to Shadow, not wanting to let him get away from this conversation.

"You want to try dating?" I asked. He rested back on the couch with his arms crossed. I could tell he was feeling uncomfortable. "Hey, I am seriously asking. I wasn't going to take this seriously for the sake of my own feelings, but if you really want to experience an actual relationship, I can help you with that. But you have to at least give me a yes or no answer."

"Yes." Shadow said after a short while.

"A-Alright then." I said, stuttering since I really wasn't expecting this. "I mean, I do have feelings for you, so this might be a bit more complicated on my end. I can't just ignore how I feel. It hurts, but I can teach you a few things. I just want you to be happy, Shadz."

*Shadow's POV*
It was strange, this feeling, I didn't like it. I actually felt bad for the hedgehog standing in front of me. Would Maria even agree to this?

"I dont." I stopped myself, tapping my finger to my forearm. I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. "I don't want to hurt you either, Hedgehog." His ears instantly went up in surprise at my words. I dont blame him, I usually wasn't this way.

I didn't hate him, I never have. I just couldn't stand him bothering me 24/7. I would rather have peace and quiet than having someone constantly bugging me.

A relationship with the hedgehog would help me open up to others. Maybe one day, I would actually be able to find happiness with someone else. I would be lying if I said I hadn't thought about that possibility. But I also found it ridiculous and not worth it. I mean, why would you want to have someone in your life all the time? It's stupid.

But maybe there was something I was missing, so it was at least worth a try. Sonic, although I didn't stand him sometimes, could help me. He was my best option at the moment, he's been in a relationship before, he was surprisingly not making fun of me about this and he was actually willing to give this a try even though he was only getting hurt by being in a fake relationship with me.

But can I really call it fake? I mean, we are actually dating, aren't we?

"First things first, I don't want to -" I smelled something burning and smoke coming from the kitchen, so I looked behind him. He seemed to have noticed because he snapped his head back. "Shit, the omelet!" He dashed to the kitchen.

"How can you be so damn careless, Hedgehog!" I ran to him and grabbed his hand, pulling him behind me when I noticed he was about to throw water into the pan which had caught on fire. He had left the stove unattended at full heat.

"What are you doing?" He said while panicking, his voice rushed and shaky.

"You don't pour water on a flame. How are you called a hero when you don't even know the basics?" I quickly turned off the stove. I grabbed a towel and used it to grab another pan to cover the fire and extinguish it. I got slightly burned on my arm, but the fire turned on.

"Are you okay? Let me see." Sonic sounded worried yet relieved to see there was no more fire. He removed the towel from my hand and looked at the burn. It wasn't more than a red mark on my arm, but he grabbed my hand and dragged me to sit down, then dashed off and soon came back with a first aid kit.

"I'm fine, idiot." I rolled my eyes, but he shook his head.

"You should know better than anyone to still treat and bandage your injuries." He pointed out as he took out a bandage after cleaning the burn. He was gentle, not to touch that spot with his hand, and soon enough, my arm was bandaged. "That will do it." He let go, his fingers brushing against mine.

"Thank you, hedgehog."