Chapter Text
There are some instances in my life where nothing makes any sense. One of these things that makes so little sense is the choices I decide to make and how little thought I actually put into them, only to put too much thought into them later when I already acted on them. For example, one night I decide to just stay inside and eat some spaghetti at home while rewatching an obscure cartoon no one has ever heard of, the next night I decide to save a newly elected monarch from a group of conspirators. I guess that’s to be expected from me at this point though, then again though, I think it depends on who you ask. I don’t think the average person would have guess that a short and semi-overweight plumber would become a worldwide celebrity.
I barely even remember anything about that night, well I guess I do, but it’s more so a haze rather than a clear memory. We were invited to Peach’s Castle, or well, I guess it’s technically called “Mushroom Castle”, but really who cares? Our job was to check on the plumbing and to make sure that it didn’t break down while the party was still going. As for the party, during this time Princess Peach JUST gained the position as the official ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom, to which every world ruler that I could think of at the time was invited to the ceremony for her.
Regardless, me and my brother Luigi were unbelievably excited about this. We were just a new plumbing business that moved into Toad Town, and we already had a job this big for the new princess. We were in desperate need of money at the time, but honestly, I think more than anything I was just really wanting to see the castle itself. As I jumped out of the pipe that was at the entrance of the courtyard, I was dazzled at how beautiful it was. The shinning beacons of spotlights were reflecting off of the beautiful white stone walls, some bouncing off of the stain glass windows back onto the eyes to create a heavenly-like image of bright pinks and blues. Of course, that’s not to mention how vibrant the red roofs look, and how something about the exuberant paint reflected a status of prestige and yet also innocence. Finally, there was the front door, which, compared to the rest of the castle was very modest, as it was simply a double rustic wooden oak door. The frame was about ten feet tall sure, however even then, I expected more of something grandiose from the entrance.
Then a flashing light came from behind me, and I remembered why I was here to begin with. As a tall, metal steel gate surrounded the gardens of the entire castle, crowds of paparazzi comprising mostly of Lakitus were taking hundreds of pictures of anyone who would even breathe the same air as the Princess would breathe out. Now, Luigi is a bit… camera-shy. While I can relate to this myself at certain points in my life, Luigi needed more convincing to show up at the ceremony for the job just out of sheer fear of these cameras. So, I hatched a plan. Initially, I… well I’m not proud of this at all, but I lied to my brother about how much of the paparazzi there was gonna be there. As in none, I told him there would be none. Of course, there were even more than I initially expected there to be, but that didn’t matter because I still had my idea. I was wearing a mask at the time, a mask based on an old comic that was simply called Popeye. Now, I was a HUGE fan of this series. Frankly I think that it deserved more of a chance to shine with the average person rather than just being cancelled after the TV show lasted only a single episode, even if it was pandering towards humans. Though, I’m getting off-topic again.
The fact that no one (sadly) knew what Popeye was made this plan even more perfect though. When I turned to the crowd, I could tell they were confused, so I decided to add to the feeling by declaring the first thing that came to my head. “GREETINGS LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I AM THE JUMPMAN! I HOPE YOU ARE ALL LOVING TONIGHT’S PARTY!”
They simply stared in silence.
“I AM HERE TO DEAL WITH SOME BUSINESS WITH PRINCESS PEACH! WHAT MAY THIS BUSINESS BE IN QUESTION? WELL, THAT’S FOR YOU TO LEARN FOR ANOTHER DATE! UNTIL THEN, FAREWELL-A!” It was then I pulled out a Smoke-Shroom, a mushroom that had the ability to spread into a massive smoke of spores that while safe, were incredibly annoying to see through and smelled awful. I then slammed the mushroom to the ground, blinding the view of the paparazzi and causing the group to cough in unison.
I wanted for a view moments, before seeing Luigi flying along with our bag of tools right out of the entrance pipe screaming before landing face first into the grass. I quickly took off my mask and ran straight to him to check to make sure he was ok, afterall he wasn’t used to these kinds of landings.
“Are you ok?!” I yelled at him.
“I’m… I’m fine,” Luigi responded hesitantly. While I was dressed more modestly for the occasion, with an overly stretched beige shirt, dirty dark red overalls, dusty faded gloves, and a sort of shabby hat that I went everywhere went, Luigi was dressed more formally to match the event. He wore a bright white undershirt to match his large cotton gloves, over this, he fitted a dark black dress vest with golden buttons that complimented with his black dress pants, contrasted by his dark brown shoes, finally, the final touch that he added to the outfit was a bright green bow tie, that drew the most attention out of everything he wore. Despite these precarious preparations he made for his appearance however, as he slide across the ground from his poor landing from the pipe, multible different grass stains spread across both his pants as well as his vest. I felt awful for him, especially considering that he actually had the attention and effort to properly get dressed unlike me who just forgot and got distracted. Despite this though, I was also trying to hold in my laughter to avoid coming off as a jerk in the moment. Thankfully though, because of the smoke, none of the paparazzi was able to see him in his less prepared state. It wasn’t long after though, that he started to cough out, “oh-ACK, Mario-ACK-ACK, what is that awful-ACK, smell?”
As I fell into the coughing fit that everyone started to get into, “oh well-OUGGH, it’s-”.
“AACKKKKK, wait, is that other-ACKK, other people coughing in the b-ACKKK?!” Luigi interrupted.
I then grabbed Luigi’s arm and ran to the front entrance of the castle before I could answer to get out of the awful smoke. As we approached the door, I swung it open quickly, pushed Luigi straight in, and dove right in before shutting it close. We thankfully got into the castle before the smoke faded, which made my plan to save Luigi from being anxious due to the paparazzi by creating a massive distraction a success. The bad news is though, us slamming open the doors then shutting it as hard as possible while coughing as loud as possible grabbed the attention of every diplomat and notable national leader residing on the main first floor, causing them to stare at us in shocked silence. The ones I could remember specifically were; Princess Peach, Prince Florian, the Sprixie Princesses, Toadsworth, Prince Peasley, Princess Daisy who I remember was the only one making any noise by simply snickering to herself, and Lord Bowser, who seemed the most unaffected by sudden interruption.
While I’m sure I could think of more embarrassing moments in my life, there aren’t any that automatically come to mind that compete with how awkward this moment was. I looked towards Luigi, who had stiffened into a flat board trying to hide his emotion as much as possible, despite his face looking as red as the roof of the castle outside. I had difficulty even getting my words out, however when I finally did, I stuttered.
“H-h-hello! We are the M-Mario Brothers! We are h-here to take c-clear your pipes?”
Princess Daisy then started to burst out laughing, which made Luigi blush even more and my hesitation to speak even stronger. It wasn’t until a few seconds when Toadsworth finally blurted out, “...Of-of course! Just go to the restroom to the right, I’ll meet you boys there soon!”
It took me a second before I could start speaking words again, “T-thank you sir! L-lovely castle!!” I then grabbed Luigi’s forearm as I dragged him slowly as we both stumbled toward the rightward restroom. On the way there, I had noticed that conversation across the guests had finally begun to flourish again, though that didn’t stop the feeling of embarrassment in me and especially in Luigi.
As we went in, Luigi went to go sit in the corner while I stood near the door. I swear we said nothing toward each other for about a solid minute before Luigi finally broke the silence by asking, “... why?”
I started to look away, “Look, I know there was paparazzi out there, I know I lied, but it was the only way for you to show up. You said yourself we need this job.”
“I mean… yeah but… I still said I could use my savings to pay for this month’s rent”
“I don’t want you to pay using your savings though! Besides, you didn’t see the paparazzi, and they didn’t see you, it all ended up fine.”
“Yeah, until we embarrassed ourselves in front of royals, which like… congrats for that bro.”
“... I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine just… go check and see what Toadsworth’s first job for us is.”
“........ Okay.” I soon went back to the main room of the floor, where discussion was as lively as it ever was. Before I went up to Toadsworth to ask him what he wanted us to do first, I soon remembered, I forgot about our tool bag outside.