After finishing the interview Sonic went on to have dinner with everyone involved in the making of ’Sonic heroes(2003)’. They were all currently in the USA on a media tour to promote the game’s launch. This was the final day of that tour with the biggest interview, on one of the more popular talk shows. Tomorrow everyone would be on a plane and back to Japan but for the last night, it was decided to go on a celebration to an expensive restaurant as a sendoff.

The restaurant they went to was one of the most well respected and most expensive in the city. The place had an elegant look and the color red dominated the interior. The group reserved a massive table and everyone started going to their seats.

“We should’ve gone to a place that was blue,” Sonic said.

That statement got a lot of eye rolls and sighs from the group. Sonic sat next to Amy, they had been in a relationship for a very long time and it had been mostly good. Sonic could be very egotistical, selfish and had a tendency to have an emotional outburst when he didn’t have things his way but Amy at this point knew how to handle it. She could be very patient and was dominant enough to keep him from getting out of control.

Everyone else had a mostly negative opinion of Sonic, they found him to be very immature and unfit to be a leader, and he frequently mistreated the team. While Amy could overlook his flaws, everyone else had no reason to, they just kind of decided to bear with him since he was making them all rich but they had no loyalty or dedication towards him as a person. The only exception was Tails. His relationship with Tails, his once best friend had gotten colder and more of a business nature since the development of ’Sonic Adventure 1(1998)’. It was no longer Sonic and Tails, Sonic was the leading star and he made that very clear to Tails. Money and fame changes people and even though most of the team was negative towards Sonic however Tails couldn’t be mad at him.

Tails wondered, would I be like him had I ended up being the lead star? It’s easy to say no from this perspective but you truly can’t know how you react to things unless they happen to you. I miss the days when it was just us, the time when we had an unconditional friendship. Life was a lot more tough living in poverty, there was always a shortage of everything in the forest. We didn’t have anything but I miss it so much. Sonic, Knuckles, Amy, the rest, and me with barely any food on the table but we were laughing all the time.

Now it’s formal business dinners, with the best food in the world but it all feels so empty. It didn’t start out like that. After we stopped Robotnik in 1988. Sonic signed a video game deal with SEGA in 1991. and his first game was a massive hit. He could have forgotten about all of us from the forest but he came to me and asked me to co-author with him ’Sonic the hedgehog 2(1992)’. That job brought me out of the forest and turned me rich.

I remember being so happy, we were having so much fun, we constantly bounced off each other creatively and every day I had this sense of this is how things should be. The second game was a massive hit and with the following games he pushed SEGA to keep including the rest of the gang. By Sonic adventure 1(1998) he pretty much pulled everyone out of poverty and away from the forest.

The fact that he was SEGA’s leading mascot and that his actions got everyone rich started getting to his head. He felt as though everyone owed him their success and that they should listen to all of his demands.

When the development of ’Sonic adventure 2(2001)’ started, Sonic told me, as head director, he decided that I  won’t be part of the game and I wasn’t needed for the gameplay. He wanted me to record my cutscenes and leave. I was hurt by this, I thought we were best friends and he just signed me off but a part of me was glad.

I wanted to believe this was my time to go back to my old life, I returned to the forest. I tried living there but a decade of a comfortable, rich lifestyle had changed me too. The nights are really cold, there is no easy access to food and it’s boring, there is nothing to do. I just couldn’t live like that again, so he is not the only one that changed. I changed too in ways I'm probably not aware of the same way he has.

I was hit with a dreaded sense of loneliness, nobody in the gang was there, just me. What was even the point of being here I wondered. To my surprise some last-minute changes in ’Sonic adventure 2’s’ development made SEGA include me in the gameplay. I was given a call and went straight back to work.

Sonic acted towards me as if nothing happened and as angry as I was at first I decided to let it go and move on. I wasn’t owed a spot in his games, it was his goodwill that got me here in the first place. I love the act of making video games, designing my levels, and writing the dialog is fun and satisfying. However, I don’t belong in this world of high life and opulence but I also don’t fit into my old life either. I don’t even know the person I was 12 years ago.

Everyone is highly critical of Sonic, usually for good reason and I am not blind to his faults but you can’t ever know if anyone here wouldn’t have been corrupted by the power Sonic holds right now. We’ve all changed, more distant, colder, and full of ourselves. As difficult and egotistical Sonic can be, I am proud of all the games we made together. I guess I just wish that we could all be friends again like we used to be.