Well…this was awkward. Of course, with N, pretty much everything was awkward to some extent. But now, meeting Hilda in the Nimbasa Amusement Park after not seeing each other in nearly three years, things were especially awkward.

They were sitting on a bench, not saying anything. N looked at Hilda. Hilda looked at N. Then N looked away because the eye contact was making him uncomfortable. Then they just sat there in silence once more. N had been hoping that Hilda would bail him out by initiating the Chatting herself, but no luck so far.

What was he supposed to say? Um um um…

"I KNOW WHAT SEX IS NOW!" he blurted out quite a bit more loudly than he had been intending. Hilda stared. So did a lot of other people. Several mothers grasped tightly onto their kids' hands and hurried out of the vicinity.

As soon as the words were out of N's mouth, he knew that he'd Said The Wrong Thing. He facepalmed. And here he thought he'd been getting better at figuring out which things were the Wrong Things to say!

"Uh, but…" he tried clarifying, "I didn't, you know, actually do it…"

After a pause of a couple of beats, Hilda said in a surprisingly calm tone of voice, "How about we talk about this later? Here isn't the best place. Now let's go get a drink...I'm really thirsty." At least she didn't seem mad.

And so they did, with Hilda leading the way and N trailing behind, trying to make himself as inconspicuous as was possible for someone nearly six-and-a-half feet tall.

Several hours later, while they were waiting for the subway in a fairly remote corner of the station, Hilda said, "I think the coast is clear, so if you want to talk about that thing now, you can. Just remember to keep your voice down, okay?"

It took N a second to remember what she was talking about. Although things were still slightly uncomfortable between them, the rest of the day had been fun enough that he'd pushed the incident to the back of his mind.

"I read about it in a book," he said. "I was at the library in Slateport City in Hoenn-you should visit there sometime; they have really good curry there…well, I mean in Slateport City, not in the library! It would be pretty messy having curry in a library. But anyway, I was at the library looking for math books, but there weren't very many, so I tried looking at the science books too, and I was taking a book off the shelf when another book fell off, and I forget the title, but it was written for boys going through puberty. So I read a bit in it because it had a colorful cover, and I liked it so much I checked it out. I only wish that I could have had that book before…it would have made my life a lot easier, you know? Ghetsis never really explained it much…"

Whoops, he'd started rambling there.

"So…uh…that's how I know. So you don't think I was cheating on you or anything. Well, there was that one time I kissed a woman who was a waitress in a restaurant where I washed the dishes…but then I got scared…and she laughed at me."

Hilda had been listening politely during all of N's rambling, but now she finally spoke up.

"Well, first of all, it wasn't nice of that woman to laugh at you," she said. "Secondly, why would I get mad at you for having sex with other people? That would be kind of silly of me, since we're not even in a relationship yet!"

N blushed.

"I dunno…I just…was worried," he mumbled.

"But," Hilda continued, "You're welcome to test your new-found knowledge out on me. And I won't laugh at you!"

The next thing N knew, he was being slapped awake by a worried Hilda who was saying, "It was just a joke! You didn't have to faint on me!"