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The adventure seemed to end as quickly as it had started. It wasn't as short as one of Mario's typical "defeat Bowser" expeditions, but it didn't feel like enough time to properly take in the Beanbean Kingdom for what it was. Mario and Luigi hardly had time to stop; For all they knew for the past 5-6 hours, the world was just one word away from falling into Cackletta's clutches. The sense of relief after they heard Peach speak was insurmountable and just a tad bit irritating. Surely somebody could've told them the truth at some point and saved a great deal of stress.
The Beanstar was shattered, sure, but it would take quite a while to locate them. Mario and Luigi were exhausted. Turns out gets powers bestowed upon you by the temple gods took a lot out of a person. The brothers were used to magic in short, temporary bursts of mana from the power-ups cultivated throughout the world. A fire flower was a mouse compared to the bear like strength that Firebrand gave. Equipped with powers they didn't quite know how to use it, both figured a break was in order, and the Queen was inclined to agree.
"Many things will have to be done tomorrow, but that is for — well — tomorrow!" Queen Bean declared. "Once we all get some proper rest and proper food, and speaking of…" The queen turned to Mario, Luigi, and Peach, who were all standing off to the right side of her throne. "Would you care to join us for supper?"
Peach nodded curtly. "It's been quite a while since I've eaten Beanbean cuisine," She mused. "I don't believe I've been to a royal dinner here since I was very young."
"Since Bowser began acting up, our kingdom has become rather secluded, this is true," Queen Bean frowned to nobody in particular, before resuming her familiar smile. "But now that I've seen the work of the superstar siblings myself, I believe it's finally time to be a bit more lax! After all, if troubles comes knocking, I'll be safe knowing they're right beside us!"
———
Everyone seated themselves about an hour later, and approximately 30 minutes before food would start arriving. The royal dinner table wasn't particularly long or extravagant. It more-so resembled the tables that could adjust their length for a bigger family gathering rather than a bunch of royalty. Put an extra piece of wood in the middle and it could sit your aunt and uncle, type of table.
With that being said, the quality of the table was more aligned to extravagancy. The insignia of the Beanbean Kingdom was embroidered in a dark pine green in the center of the table cloth, partially hidden underneath a silver candelabra adorned with leaves. Leaf patterns also bordered the cloth in the same green as the insignia, both in dark to contrast the mint green of the primary fabric. Luigi was quite impressed with the amount of green that could be used in a room before it got overbearing. It's why he liked his outfit so much.
Queen Bean sat at one end of the table, chatting away with the princess, who was on her right. Both of them seem rather excited to see each other again. Mario and Luigi watched curiously from the queen's left.
"I swear, the last time I saw you you weren't even as tall as this table! You've had lots of sun I assume?" Queen Bean laughed as she spoke, and Peach giggled.
"Ah well, the Mushroom Kingdom is usually sunny, so I suppose so!" Peach agreed.
Mario was fidgeting with the tablecloth, and Luigi gently reached over and smacked his arm before the doors to the dining hall suddenly swung open with a brilliantly loud noise.
"Mother! I've found our advisors!" Peasley exclaimed as he sauntered into the room, Toadsworth and Lady Lima in tow. They seemed to be the embarrassed ones for once. "I found them walking alone together in the gardens."
"And we were having a fine old time thank you very much," Lady Lima grumbled. Toadsworth merely sighed and went to sit by Peach as he usually did. There was a spot left in between Queen Bean and the princess for the prince to sit, and so he took Peach's right. However, the seat remained vacant, much to the short lived mystery of everyone present, until Luigi heard the prince speaking from his left.
"So how have you been enjoying the kingdom, my hero?" Peasley asked Luigi with a smile, his hands folded underneath his chin. Luigi let his heart rate reduce before attempting to stammer out a response.
"It's-a really nice! But don't you-a want to sit by your mom?" He asked, motioning with his head towards the empty seat. Peasley merely tutted and wagged his finger.
"Well well! I didn't think it was customary to tell royals where to sit at their own table," Peasley joked, laughing through his teasing. "And besides, my mother hears enough stories from me when you guys are not present. I'd much rather sit by you."
Luigi felt himself tense up. It wasn't that he didn't want to sit by Peasley, quite the opposite actually. It just seemed quite bizarre that the prince would willingly choose to abandon his usual to go for somebody like himself. Luigi wasn't one to beat himself up too badly, but he wasn't used to having such undivided attention. Every time Peasley had met with them during their adventure, Luigi had wished for those moments to last a bit longer. He wished that maybe Peasley would offer his hand in greeting or congratulations. He wished Peasley would keep looking at him the way he's doing now. But none of those wishes could make the pit in his stomach go away. Maybe Peasley meant to talk with Mario.
"You… do?" Luigi felt it appropriate to ask. Many folks got him confused with Mario, which he couldn't really understand. Luigi was a tad bit taller, had a more oval shaped face rather than Mario's circle. Luigi also had a more neatly groomed mustache, and Mario's outfits tended to be slightly faded due to his tendency to prefer the automatic machines versus a good hand-wash, which was a habit Luigi had yet to break from him.
In addition, Luigi was remarkably green.
"Why of course!" Peasley exclaimed, as if he were stating the obvious. "When you and Mr. Red had saved me and I recognized who you two were, my first thought was that I had to sit down and interview you!"
"You… two?"
Peasley laughed at this, waving his hand dismissively. "I must be careful with how I choose my words here," He whispered, a tiny bit quieter now as he leaned towards Luigi's ear, just quiet enough so Mario couldn't hear from the next seat over. "Mario has tons of interviews with him already, but I hardly found any of you in the news. There was the one time when you went to the mansion, but even then most people wanted to ask if Mario was unharmed."
Peasley smirked. "I like the mystery."
Luigi didn't know how to respond to that. He was completely silent as food started arriving into the room. The servants were a bit perplexed that the prince was on the wrong side of the table, and the maid holding Peasley's tray quickly improvised and shifted herself into the opposing conga-line as the dishes were served. The dish appeared to be a salad, with different leafy greens and fruits located inside. Upon observation, it looked as though the greens were coated in some sort of sugary syrup, used in moderation so that the bitterness would go better with the sweetness of the fruit. The melons appeared to have some seasonings coating them, and the entire thing was served with a side of roasted nuts and glasses of Chuckola Cola.
Peach took a bite and sighed. "The fruits here are so nice…" She whispered under her breath, and that gave Luigi the motivation to take a bite as well. Mario didn't exactly need the extra encouragement.
"The fruit here grows all-year round, save for the rare harsh winters." A maid explained with a pep, and the queen shuddered.
"Thankfully we haven't had a bad winter since Peasley was a little boy. I believe he was only 3 when those storms hit"
Luigi continued to eat, before his eyes eventually wandered sideways and noticed that Peasley had hardly touched his food. He seemed to be far more interested in Luigi.
"Are you enjoying it?"
Luigi hesitated. "I think it's-a interesting!" He nodded. "I like it,"
Peasley pursed his lips. "You can be honest with me. If it had to be honest with myself, this dish isn't my favourite either, but it seems everyone else does."
Luigi let the flavours sit on his tongue some more. There was a subtle spiciness in the spices that coated the melons that wasn't overpowering or numbing. It was acquired, but not unpleasant or inedible. Luigi continued to eat.
"Ah, well… I was-a taught to always appreciate all-a the types of food" Luigi explained, before a piece of lettuce fell from his mouth as he spoke. He flushed up nearly immediately and began to apologize profusely.
It had been such a long time since Luigi ate at a proper dinner like this. During the beginning of the frequent kidnappings of Peach (and occasionally his brother), there had always been a celebration to follow. Now that they occurs every 1-2 weeks, they couldn't exactly fit those in the budget anymore. Mario and Peach usually arrived back home with just a few marks of soot on their face and a smile. Mario would drop Peach off at the castle, get a little kiss on the cheek or nose, and then they'd depart as if Mario had simply dropped Peach off at work and not saved her from a fiery inferno.
Luigi's face felt like it was on fire. "I'm-a sorry!"
Peasley tilted his head. "It's quite alright." He mused. Normally he would've been a bit more displeased, but with Luigi that feeling didn't seem to come. He was much more focused on the way Luigi's eyes seemed to blink more rapidly whenever he was under even a little bit of pressure.
Soon, both men in green had fished eating. They had remarkably finished first despite being the ones to like the dish the least. There was something lingering in both of their subconsciousness that was telling them that this was rather boring, and that they should split as soon as possible. That consciousness was shared with Mario, but he wasn't the focus on Peasley's mind right now.
The prince stood up with a flourish. "Since our responsibilites resume tomorrow, I simply must take our hero on a proper tour while the peace lasts!" He declared. Queen Bean clapped her hands together with pride.
Peasley then grabbed Luigi's hand and yanked him out of his seat. Luigi yelped as the prince marched him out of the room in quite the hurry, although his gait seemed to be a tad bit one-sided. Luigi was gobsmacked, staring down at their clasped hands. It didn't feel scandalous per say, as Luigi usually loved to hold hands with anybody he considered his friend! But to have the prince of a kingdom Luigi had never even been in until today suddenly take his hand in his, and to be skipping down the bridge and streets as if they'd known each other since infancy…?
Luigi wasn't sure he could handle this. Especially not with someone as handsome-
"Ah! Look over here!" Peasley interrupted, pointing towards the moat that surrounded the town and castle. Small pods of Bloopers had begun swimming in small groups, occasionally dipping out from under the surface before plunging back down again. "Now that the town isn't being threatened anymore, the sea creatures are back! They sometimes like to come here to get treats the young Beanlings throw down into the moat."
Peasley cleared his throat. "Now I always tell them they shouldn't do that. Uneaten food just floats to the bottom of the moat and doesn't look very appealing, but kids hardly ever listen and they never feed them food the Bloopers can't have so I cannot get too mad at them. I actually don't mind them being here now."
Luigi was standing there, still holding Peasley's hand as the prince swayed in front of him and raised Luigi's hand to his own chest. "That means my kingdom is finally safe."
Luigi could feel Peasley's heart beating. It was slow and rhytmic, not showing a trace of anxiety whatsoever. Luigi's heart felt like the Beanstar, ready to shatter into 5 pieces and lodge into his lungs.
"Ah- yeah! Me and Mario did that!" Luigi smiled sheepishly.
"That you did!"
The two of them continued walking. They visited locations Luigi had been to before, but now under less threatening circumstances. Peasley showed Luigi the finer selections at the clothing store and special secret orders at the Starbeans Cafe. But Peasley seemed to be rather antsy, shifting around and glancing down at his feet. They had been stopped rather frequently on their trip, and Peasley just wanted Luigi to himself. Peasley then raised his head, smacking the meat of his fist into his other palm. "The sauna! That's right! That's where I wanted to take us!"
Peasley then took Luigi's hand again and didn't say another world, bringing his charming hero to a more secluded part of town with less people around. The only other sign of life was the old Beanish behind the counter at the bathhouse who simply nodded to Peasley as he entered like he was regular, which that he was.
Peasley turned to face Luigi with his hands clasped behind his back. "This place stays warm practically all year. Not like the kingdom itself doesn't but…" Peasley shrugged, before he walked over to a locker with his name carved into the shelving. He brought out some towels, enough for the both of them before motioning over to the private sauna room.
Luigi was already hot red in the face, so hypothetically the man would be immune to the sauna's affects. "But I-" Luigi stopped himself. He wasn't so sure about this, and Peasley seemed to pick up on it. Peasley put his eyes towards the floor, not necessarily out of disappointed but rather understanding as he began to set the towels back.
"Ah- I believe I see what the issue is," Peasley murmured. "You wish to head to bed, do you not? It is rather late now, and I certainly wouldn't want you falling asleep in there."
"No!" Luigi shouted without thinking twice before he elaborated. "I-a want to go in. I think it'd help me-a decompress." He explained, motioning his hands to the sides as he tried to stop himself from balling them up into white knuckles fists. "I'm-a just confused, a little bit."
"What is there to be confused about?"
That was a loaded question. Luigi was treading into deeply uncharted waters with this conversation. He was feeling all sorted of conflicted emotions, but he thought back to the dinner. He thought back to how Peasley kept looking towards him with that honest, genuine gaze in his eyes. Luigi would've said it felt like he was being studied, but not so far as to say he was being dissected. It felt like Luigi was on some museum display, and Peasley was wearing a fancy beret with clipboard in hand. While they had been traveling through town that evening, the other art critics hadn't paid his piece much attention, until Peasley scoffed at them all and got them to appreciate the beauty of the art on display.
Earlier, Peasley was desperate to make his fellow bean understand:
"There's more to him that meets the eye!" Peasley had described to one crowd. "While he show timidness, that has not stopped this man from saving our home!"
"Who?" A beanish resident had questioned.
"Luigi, of course! His name has circled the news occasionally, has it not?"
Luigi was beyond embarrassed, and Peasley had to quickly close off the exhibit and take the portrait away.
Luigi didn't understand why he was still getting all the attention from someone so famous and popular. This never happened. This wasn't how things went. The change was what made him so afraid. Considering how down on his luck Luigi's life usually went, his brain had convinced him that none of this was actually real until Peasley gently took his hand.
"Would you like to come into the sauna with me?" Peasley asked, gently taking Luigi's hand back into his, with a little less force this time. Luigi hesitated. The adventure was over — as far as he knew — so the worst that could possibly happen if things went south would be that Luigi simply locks himself in the Mushroom Kingdom and never leaves his house again, which would be a fair and honest solution to potentially being rejected.
But how would he be rejected? Peasley was asking him to come to his private sauna room, where they would assumedly be completely naked together save for the towels. Was this not insane to do with someone you'd just met?
However, strangers went in saunas together all the time, so Luigi nodded despite the butterflies in his stomach. Peasley lit up nearly immediately, re-grabbing the towels.
Once both of them had rid themselves of their attire and got changed into the towels, Peasley sat down on the wood and let out a deep sigh, rolling his leg around. Coincidentally, it was the same leg Peasley tended to put less weight on.
"Is-a something wrong with your leg?" Luigi asked, before immediately regretting how blunt that sounded. Peasley merely raised his head.
"Ah, well, today has just been a bit more active than usual. I'd have used my bean mount more frequently, but unless I was traveling extremely far distances it never crossed my mind." Peasley's hand absentmindedly ran up his thigh, massaging his flesh quietly. The steam settled on his hair, the slight frizz settling down with a single pet.
"You usually use-a your bean to get around?" Luigi asked.
Peasley laughed, mostly to himself. "Yes. Quite frequently. It's not my proudest admission. You may take me as lazy for it."
Luigi was a tad confused by this. "Does-a your leg hurt when you walk on it?" Luigi asked. "We should get you to see a doct-"
Peasley shook his head and raised his hand. "It's been this way since I was young. There's not a whole lot we can do about it now rather than manage it." He seemed to massage his leg a little bit harder as he said this, and Luigi finally pieced it together.
"I don't-a think that makes you lazy. It's-a just something you need to help get around! You still fight with your sword and-a save the day otherwise." Luigi smiled a little bit. Peasley lost his smile, but not because he was saddened… but because he hadn't heard anyone but his mother say it quite like that. When tabloids had found out the young prince had gotten a bean mount, it was met with critique. Folks gathered around his portrait in the museum and hummed and hawed about how his legs wouldn't fully grow if he wasn't forced to walk, how they were disappointed that the royal prince would grow up to leech off his people. Quite remarkable things to say to a portrait just 10 years old.
"My mother mentioned those snowstorms when I was little, hm?" Peasley whispered. "That's what the doctors theorize did me in. It's also why they think I'm a lot skinnier than I should be." He leaned back, letting steam moisturize his face. "Beanish require lots of sunlight, especially in our youths. I think I missed the window."
Luigi hesitated. "Then it's-a something out of your control."
Peasley sighed. "But certainly if I just trained my leg a little more…" He then laughed. "Apologizes. What a way to start our relaxation time together."
Luigi actually liked this. He liked this a whole lot. Any nervousness about even being in the same room as Peasley was starting to fade away. The portrait everyone lauded as the best of the best was starting to show imperfections to him, and it didn't make Peasley any less beautiful. Luigi shifted closer to Peasley and kicked his legs a little bit.
"I have-a some things I can't control too!" Luigi smiled, pointing to his own leg. He set his foot with his heel raised, and it suddenly began bouncing rapidly. "If I-a angle my foot just right, it does that!"
Peasley watched Luigi's leg bounce with curiosity, gently placing his hand on top of Luigi's knee to pause it before letting go.
"It's annoying, sometimes," Luigi explained. "But I've learned to-a live with it. If the bean you-a ride helps you live with your thing, than that's-a okey dokey!"
Peasley stared at Luigi for a long time. Luigi wasn't so sure he could read Peasley's expression right now, but he could at least identify one thing.
Awe.
Peasley was still standing in the museum when all the others had left. Still staring at Luigi's portrait and writing down new things he found so awesome about him. He felt he simply must know it further. Peasley's hand shifted away from Luigi's knee. Luigi had seen a side of Peasley he felt was weak and thought nothing of it.
"That- well… that-" Peasley was the one stumbling over his words now. "That was quite nicely put, my hero." Peasley smiled.
———
After they had exited the room, Peasley's leg felt a lot better. He was cursing himself for not using his mount while was showing Luigi around, but he didn't want to feel like he was rushing his newfound… some type of word around the blocks.
They got changed back into the clothing, and Peasley noticed something shining a bright gold from Luigi's cap. Taking a quick glance, Peasley widened his eyes.
"You kept the rose?"
Luigi yelped in embarrassment, shoving his hat quickly onto his head. "S-Sorry! I-a didn't think I should throw it away because-a we may need it…?" Luigi sputtered out a quick excuse. Peasley didn't even try to counter it verbally, for it was quite an obvious lie and both of them knew it. Peasley felt his own stomach tie itself into knots.
The two left the sauna and made their way back to the castle and up towards the guest rooms. Peasley turned to face Luigi, looking up into his eyes. "It was nice spending time with you," Peasley whispered with the upmost sincerity. Peasley felt a suddenly twinge in his gut to give Luigi something to go to bed with. A kiss on the cheek? A kiss on the knuckles? Was that the thing Peach did when she was rescued?
"I'm comparing us to Mario and Peach now!" Peasley thought internally, and shook his head slightly as Luigi smiled down at him.
"Me too, your highness!"
"Please call me Peasley, I insist on not maintaining the formalities."
As Luigi retreated to bed, he took off his cap and stared at the yellow rose with a sigh. Despite everything that had happened, the colour remained a nagging reminder that their relationship likely had a hard limit on how far Peasley wanted to take it. Friendship. Just friendship.
Meanwhile, as Peasley walked through the halls, he stared up at one painting that sat between two radius windows that let the moonlight shimmer onto the marble floor. One of golden roses laid in a bed, with a fair beanish maiden clutching a bouquet of them to her chest. Below on a plaque was written:
----
Von Soyason the Bean
Born 1946
Acrylic on Canvas
Respite
A woman laying before her wedding day, surrounded by the flowers of love in Beanish culture. It's said that the more the roses shine as the sun, the deeper the love between two birds is.