Winter is nothing but sugary sweet to Tails, spending time talking to him after an interaction with fans. Tails shy and shaky at first feels at ease talking with Winter the more they interact with one another, it may have been easier to speak with him but the melting feeling in his chest still lingered as long as he was with him.

"Wait really?! You never signed to a record label?" Tails asks, shocked someone with a voice as incredible as his wasn't making more money publishing songs.

Winter shakes his head, "As fun as that sounds, cooking and doodling is more so my thing. I keep the possibility in the back of my head though, especially in the event this place might go under"

"You'd probably sell out arenas though!" Tails says, sounding very passionate about the potential for Winter's success.

"Maybe I would..."

Tails looks down at the wood desk in thought, wondering what he wanted to talk to him about next. Then he began to wonder, just how interested was this seemingly perfect stranger was in becoming friends with him, did he really want to just hang out and play video games with him all day? Sit in a diner late at night laughing at jokes? Banter on and on for hours about their niche hobbies?

"H-Hey... Why do you wanna be friends with Tails so much?" He asks, looking down at the table.

"I just do" Winter responds, looking down at the desk as well, a soft smile on his face.

Tails looks up at him with sparkly eyes.

"The little guy is kind of like me, he was made fun of for being smart... Me and my siblings were made fun of for that too... as well as being hybrids" Winter explains.

"A... Hybrid?" Tails asks, curiousity taking over for a moment.

"My mother is an arctic fox, my father is a wolf" Winter explains, he looks back at his large fluffy tail, "I have the feeling the wolf mixing in with the fox is the reason, I'm different"

Winters ears droop when he remembers all those fights he used to get into at school. At least he had friends that would stick up for him though. Seeing Winter's expression change made Tails heart swell with sadness, seeing him frown also made him sad.

"O-Oh... Well, I think it's cool that you're a wolf and a fox at the same time"

Winter laughs a little, appreciating how kind he was, "Thank you Lyle"

Tails just narrowly avoids correcting him, revealing himself to him to him would have made the situation irreversibly awkward, especially considering he failed to tell Winter who he actually was. He silently fights the regret in his chest, the one that screams at him for not being straightforward about who he actually was.

"So uh..."

Tails ears perk up, he looks up with Winter meeting his gaaze.

"Is there anyway I can make up for that shitshow earlier?" Winter asks, adjusting his messy hair.

"N-No, you don't have to give me anything! Really! You don't!" Tails says, waving his hands frantically.

"Lyle, please, I'll feel guilty if I don't make it up to you. You got hurt at one of my resturaunts events, please let me treat you! My way of saying sorry for your leg almost being broken" Winter says, a serious frown on his face.

Tails grumbles, seeing the guilty look on his face and can't help but immediately cave in. Interestingly enough though he already had something in mind...

"W-Well... I do like your voice. Listening to you sing made my night, especially with the terrible night I had tonight"

"...How about a free membership for the Heartburn Lounge?" Winter offers, looking at him to see if this offer would satisfy him.

"Wha? Oh, y-yeah... I'd like that... I'll come every Friday night!" Tails says, blushing excitedly.

Winter chuckles, adoring his enthusiasm. "I'm looking forward to that"

"I-I also wanna have more of these talks with you!... They're really nice, and I wanna hear you talk more about the stuff you like" Tails adds, playing with his fingers.

"Okay, that's fine" Winter says, still smiling at him, "A-Anything else?"

Tails shakes his head, looking up at Winter's face, tracing over it's details, his red eyes making his heart skip. Winter looks at the time on his computer monitor, his screen saver being a picture of Tails speaking at a charity fundraiser a few years ago, it was 10:52 PM.

"I should start heading home, usually the subway starts pulling trains out and throwing them in the depots... Lyle, I know you're not Tails but I'd like you to be my friend"

Tails smiles brightly, stars practically appearing in his eyes, he never thought he'd hear him say that, "Yes, yes, yes, yes! I'd love to be your friend! I thought you'd never ask!"

Winter loved his enthusiasm so much, it was starting to kind of melt his heart a little how joyful he was. He puts his hand on Tails' head, the fox freezes like a deer in headlights, his eyes focusing on Winter's facial features. His clean yet sharp teeth practically biting into his heart.

"Well then-"

Winter stands up, collecting his bag and jacket and leaves the office, Tails following out of the office. The two stepping out of the restaurant into the vibrant neon lights of the city, the rain at this point has stopped and puddles littered the sidewalk as cars, buses and lorries passed by on the street.

Winter turns to Tails who's scratching his arm shyly.

"I look forward to seeing you next week!" Winter says.

"Y-Yeah, same"

Winter can see he's a bit antsy, especially with how his big tails were wagging, softly wagging and swishing around, maybe he just needed a hug, surely that would calm him down. He pulls him over and hugs him gently, Tails shouts caught off guard by this sudden show of affection. His heart starting to beat louder as he slowly raises his arms and hugs him back.

Winter let's go as Tails looks up at the friendly wolf, admiring his figure under from under his hooded jumper. Winter waves as he walks off towards the subway station. Tails can still feel him on his body even after the hug was over, the feeling of his white cotton turtleneck on his face, how nice he smelled.

"Oh..." He says to himself quietly.

The fox feeling somewhat tired makes his way back to the island hideout, on the subway and as he flew his plane, all he could think about was the kind white wolf with red eyes. When the fox gets back to his room, a starry look in his eyes, he falls down onto his bed staring at the ceiling. After a moment, he puts his hands on his cheeks.

"...He's beautiful" Tails says to himself.

Tails already can't wait for next Friday, the day he got to see him again, the day he'd get to talk to him more. Just thinking about it made him kick his feet around excitedly.

The fox tries to get some sleep but all he can dream about is him, the stylish white wolf holding his hand in a flower field, eating with him at a fancy restaurant... Even kissing in the rain. No matter what he tried to do, his chest just wouldn't stop swelling with anxiousness, with love. He gets up from his bed and turns on his computer hoping that maybe a video or something would help take his mind off the pretty stranger.

The fox shakes his head and slaps his face, "Come on Tails get it together. He's just a really nice guy... R-Really charming too.... Gah! No!"

Tails sees a building tutorial he's interested in: How to build and modify a TC-678 engine...

He clicks on it, stuff like this always did the trick when he was feeling like this, after all machines and tech stuff were his forte. Halfway threw the video though, the thoughts of Winter started to slip back into his head. He has a day dream, imagining the wolf working on the engine with him, dirty overalls and oil on his face,  but he was happy to work with him.

He bangs his head on the desk deliberately, trying to get the thoughts out of his his head... And apparently it was loud enough for Amy, who's outside his room, to hear. She knocks on the door which makes Tails jump again.

"W-Who's there?"

"Amy" Her voice says muffled by the door.

Tails sighs, "Come in..."

Amy opens the door, there's a towel covering her hair and she's holding a fancy rose gold coloured hair styler, a bright white screen on the device illuminating on her face as she pulls her pink rose themed rob closed.

"Are you ok?" She asks.

"Y-Yeah" Tails stutters.

"Are you sure, I know you had a pretty bad argument with Sonic earlier" She insists, crossing her arms.

When Tails hears Sonic's name his mood sours, "I'm fine" he responds, this time much more coldly.

"Uh huh... It sounded like you banged your head on your desk" Amy says, kneeling down in front of him to see if he had a concussion.

"Yeah, haha! I uh needed to get something out of my head" Tails responds, scratching his arm.

"Are you watching girls... Again..." Amy asks, crossing her arms.

"No! No! I stopped watching those I swear!" Tails says waving his hands frantically.

"Mhm..." Amy goes, not completely satisfied with his answer, she looks to his computer and is happy to see he is indeed not watching girls.

"This stuff makes you bang your head on your desk? I thought you understood all this" Amy says, standing back up at height.

"It's not the tutorial..." Tails says looking down at his feet.

"Then what is it?" Amy asks, concern on her face.

Tails takes a deep breath, it would be better to just tell Amy the truth than hide what was going on, after all she was the only person Tails could trust at the moment.

"I uh, went into Nightstar City earlier after what happened between me and Sonic. I got hungry while I was there and there was this restaurant in Ichigaya that offered a free concert, I kinda almost got trampled to death... And the guy singing that night saved me from getting seriously hurt. I don't know why but, he... He's just so n-nice, so gentle, even offered me a free membership for the exclusive part of the restaurant as a way of saying sorry... I uh... yeah-"

"So you have a crush in him?" Amy concludes, a knowing smirk on her face.

"N-No!" Tails shouts, his face turning red immediately.

Amy starts laughing, she knows he's trying to hide it and he's doing a terrible job at it, "Tails! Stop! You're obviously crushing on him pretty hard!"

"I'm not!... I-I swear!" Tails stutters.

"Oh really? Then tell me something you don't like about him" Amy challenges.

Tails stutters and sputters trying to think of something else didn't like about Winter. He struggled to think of something, there really was nothing he didn't like about the wolf.

"See! You like him!" Amy shouts, pointing at him and laughing.

The fox grumbles audibly and covers his face with his hands, he couldn't believe he wa that easy to figure out. But then again, with Winter's face fresh in his mind it was impossible to not be super obvious. The white wolf had a hold on him, that he couldn't deny as much as he wanted to.

"I didn't know you were into boys Tails, I'm kinda surprised" Amy says, her laughter dying down. She puts her hand on his shoulder, "You have my word, I won't tell anyone"

Tails sighs, looking into her friendly eyes, "Thanks Amy"

"Anytime" She says, then she turns to the door, "I'm gonna go finish my hair, try not to give yourself a concussion again"

"Okay" Tails responds, shooting her a thumbs up.

Amy waves lazily as she leaves the room, closing the door behind her. Tails sighs and looks back at the computer.

Maybe some research wouldn't hurt...

The fox opens a new tab and types Winter Morningstar into the search bar. Immediately Tails is greeted with all sorts of tidbits about him, a lot more than he thought, then again he was a local celebrity.

Apperantly there was also a fan website for people who liked him to that extent... Which he signed up for almost immediately.

"Wow... He goes to school from home, who knew" Tails says to himself reading his wiki page.

Tails doesn't know how long he spent reading, but when he looked in the corner to see the time, it was 2:32 AM. At that moment, he watching a video on him.

"...So Winter, what got you into singing?" The interviewer asks.

"I used to love music a lot when I was a baby, at least according to my father. One day, we were at this meeting over in Wendelford, a whole bunch of music executives were there because it was this fancy dinner. There was this song... Rizumu Ni Awa Sete Janpu! Jump to the rhythm in Japanese. While my dad was talking to all these music executives and stuff and found myself in the middle of the room, my siblings watching me too... And I just started dancing and singing along to the song!"

"Oh you can speak Japanese?"

"Mhm, I can speak a few languages!... So anyway, my dad is shocked, my siblings are taken back too by it... All the music moguls liked my voice and my dancing! With the way they looked at me when the song ended I thought I'd just embarrassed my dad but instead of him scolding me, which often times was what I'd get if I embarrassed him... He actually smiled and clapped, all these cool music people wanted to speak to me and wanted to know how I got so good... And I just told them... "Well a lot of television". Since then my dad poured a part of his soul into helping me rise up and helping my musical talent grow, learning how to cook and sing was great I guess. But there are times I wonder, what if I could be a hero instead?"

"Like Sonic and Tails right?"

Winter gasps and kicks his feet around excitedly, "Yes, exactly like those two! I actually just recently discovered how much I like Sonic's little friend, Tails the short one-"

Tails face puffs up when he hears Winter call him short, but it doesn't bother him too much.

"-Since I discovered him, I've had one dream, a simple one yet one that's out of reach for me... And that's to be his friend. I'm more of a regular boy, so if you ask me... I don't think I'd ever get to be his friend, especially since he's so much more popular than me. I would imagine stuff like playing in the arcade with him, talking about machines, being silly and getting into trouble, stuff like that"

The wolf looks down at his feet pensively, "Compared to me he's more of a lion and I'm just a silly house cat, so I don't feel like I'm worth his time"

"Oh I see" The interviewer responds.

"But hey-" The wolf perks up again, the warm smile returning to his face, "-A wolf can dream right?"

A tear streams down Tails' face as he pauses the video and looks at Winter on his screen, his lungs burning a little, "...You are worth my time, you always will be"