Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Rouge, Silver, Blaze, and Amy planned to go play laser tag at some place on a weekend to hangout with each other. Usually, Shadow never comes to these things, but Rouge convinced him to after annoyingly asking him for an endless amount of time to spend time with his ‘friends’ and ‘lover boy’, Sonic. Everyone was enjoying their time, running around in the dark room with neon colors flashing everywhere with the ‘hyping’ music. But not everyone was there. Someone was missing. Shadow.

Sonic was the first to realize this so after 30 minutes of Shadow being gone, he slips out of the building to look for the black hedgehog, eventually finding him sitting behind the building, on the ground with his knees hugged to his chest. He seems to be zoning out. Sonic slowly approaches him, noticing how Shadow’s ears are tightly flattened against his head and the way he’s gripping his arms tightly as if he’s uncomfortable.

When he’s close enough, Sonic speaks.

“Shads? What’re you doing out here alone?”

He asks as he couches down near Shadow, snapping the other hedgehog out of his thoughts and making him look up that the cobalt. He glares at Sonic and looks away.

“No reason. I was just bored..”

He grumbles. That was an obvious lie and Sonic could tell from how uncomfortable Shadow looked, which isn’t a normal sight. Sonic soon comes to a conclusion of why Shadow is outside when there’s a sudden blast of music from inside the building, making him tense up more. Ah, he might’ve gotten overstimulated or overwhelmed by all the flashing lights and loud music.

“Too loud, huh?..”

Sonic asks softly, which is different from his usual obnoxious and snarky responses.