The tragedy of a friend

The main hall of SMG4’s castle was uncharacteristically quiet. The sunlight filtered through the stained-glass windows, casting colorful patterns on the floor, but the atmosphere was stagnant. SMG4 was slumped in a chair, staring blankly at his phone; Saiko was idly tuning her guitar without any real rhythm; and Bob was surprisingly silent, leaning against a pillar. Tari was fidgeting with her meta-runner arm, while Meggy sat on the edge of the fountain, looking bored out of her mind.

Mario was gone for the day. He had mentioned something about a "secret spaghetti pilgrimage," and for once, the gang had enjoyed the peace. No explosions, no screaming, and no naked Italians running through the halls. It was refreshing.

"Is it weird that I actually miss the noise?" Tari asked softly, breaking the silence.

"Don't jinx it," SMG4 groaned, rubbing his temples. "I’m actually getting work done for once. Let’s just enjoy the—"

The massive television screen in the center of the hall suddenly flickered to life. Static hissed through the speakers before a grainy video began to play. Everyone looked up, expecting one of Mario’s stupid memes or a Rickroll.

Instead, they saw a house. It was a small, dilapidated place on the outskirts of the Mushroom Kingdom. The date in the corner of the screen indicated it was decades ago. A small child, wearing an oversized red hat that kept falling over his eyes, was trying to fix a leaking pipe in the kitchen.

"Is that... Mario?" Meggy stood up, her eyes narrowing. "He looks so tiny."

Luigi, who had been sitting quietly in the corner, suddenly stiffened. His face went pale, and he gripped the armrests of his chair until his knuckles turned white. "Oh no... not this. Please, not this."

On the screen, a door slammed open. Two figures stepped into the frame—Mario’s parents. They didn't look like the kind, nurturing figures one would imagine. Their faces were twisted in perpetual scowls.

"You useless brat!" the father roared, his voice distorted by the old recording. "I told you to have this fixed by noon!"

"I-I tried, Papa!" young Mario squeaked, his voice high and trembling. "The wrench was too heavy!"

What followed was a sight that chilled the room to its core. The father didn't just yell; he swung. A heavy hand connected with the boy’s face, sending the child spinning across the floor. The mother didn't intervene; she simply spat a curse at him for "getting blood on the linoleum." The beating was relentless, a flurry of kicks and blows that seemed to last an eternity.

The gang watched in horrified silence. Saiko’s hand froze on her guitar strings. Bob’s glowing eyes dimmed. Meggy’s breath hitched in her throat, her hands flying to her mouth.

"Luigi?" SMG4 whispered, his voice trembling. "Did you... did you know?"

Luigi didn't look at him. He tucked his head between his knees, his shoulders shaking. "I was younger... I was hidden in the closet. He always told me to stay hidden so they wouldn't find me. He took it all... so I wouldn't have to."

The video skipped forward through the years. They saw Mario as a teenager, his eyes losing their sparkle, his clothes tattered and stained. He looked like a ghost of a person, flinching at every loud noise, sleeping in alleys because he was too afraid to go home. They saw him working three jobs just to buy a single loaf of bread, his face covered in bruises that never seemed to heal.

Tears began to stream down Tari’s face. "He was so alone. Why didn't anyone help him?"

The screen shifted again. It showed the day Mario first met the gang. It showed his first encounter with SMG4. But now, the perspective was different. They saw the scenes they remembered, but they saw them through the lens of Mario’s internal state. Every time they had yelled at him, every time they had called him "stupid" or "fat," or kicked him out of the castle for a joke, a small crack appeared on a glowing, red orb in the corner of the screen—Mario’s soul.

The cracks were numerous. Some were old and deep, stemming from his childhood. Others were fresh. They saw the time they had all ganged up on him over a pizza, and a jagged line raced across the soul. They saw the times he was left behind on adventures, and the soul dimmed.

Melony, who had been watching with wide, watery eyes, let out a soft sob. She saw a specific memory: Mario, years ago, sitting alone in a field with a simple watermelon. He was talking to it, his voice cracking with loneliness.

"You're my best friend, Melony," the younger, sadder Mario whispered to the fruit on the screen. "You don't yell at me. You're just... here."

He had carved a face into her with a shaking hand, his only companion in a world that treated him like a punching bag. He hadn't just "found" a melon; he had poured his desperate need for love into her before she was even sentient.

"He made me because he had no one else," Melony whispered, the Fierce Deity mask at her side humming with a mournful resonance. "And I... I haven't been there for him like he was for me."

The video didn't stop at the castle. In a dark lair far away, the screen flickered before the eyes of those who had once been enemies. Waluigi sat in silence, his lanky frame hunched over. Even he, who had felt the sting of rejection, looked disturbed. Bowser, sitting in his throne room, looked down at his claws, remembering all the times he had burnt the plumber to a crisp. There was a shared, heavy silence across the land. They had all played a part in those cracks.

Back at the castle, the screen finally went dark, leaving the room in a heavy, suffocating silence. Everyone was in tears. The realization hit them like a physical weight: the "idiot" they mocked was a man who had survived a lifetime of trauma, and instead of helping him heal, they had often just added to the pile.

The heavy oak doors of the castle creaked open.

Mario shuffled in. He didn't have his usual bounce. His shoulders were slumped, his hat pulled low over his eyes. He looked exhausted, the kind of tired that sleep couldn't fix. He didn't even notice the tear-streaked faces of his friends as he trudged toward the couch.

He collapsed onto the cushions with a heavy sigh, staring blankly at the ceiling. "Hey guys," he muttered, his voice devoid of its usual energy. "I'm back. The spaghetti place was closed. Figures."

He expected a joke. He expected SMG4 to tell him to get off the furniture or Saiko to threaten him with her hammer.

Instead, there was a rush of movement.

Before Mario could react, he was surrounded. Luigi was the first, throwing his arms around his brother in a crushing hug, sobbing openly into his shoulder.

"Mario! I'm so sorry! I should have said something! I should have helped more!" Luigi wailed.

Mario blinked, stunned. "Luigi? What’s a-happening? Did you sit on a cactus?"

Then Meggy was there, kneeling by his side, her hand resting firmly on his arm. Her eyes were red and fierce. "Mario, listen to me. We saw it. We saw everything."

Mario froze. The color drained from his face, and for a second, he looked like that terrified little boy in the red hat again. He tried to pull away, his breath hitching. "You... you saw? It was... it was supposed to be deleted. I tried to hide the tapes..."

"Why didn't you tell us?" SMG4 asked, kneeling on the other side of him. The usual arrogance was gone, replaced by a deep, aching guilt. "Mario, we’ve been... we’ve been horrible to you. We thought you were just being an idiot, but you were just... you were just trying to survive, weren't you?"

Mario looked around the circle of faces. Tari was holding his hand, her robotic fingers trembling. Saiko was looking away, her jaw tight, but her hand was resting on the back of the couch near his head. Bob was actually standing still, his hooded head bowed.

Then Melony stepped forward. She didn't say anything at first; she simply knelt between his knees and looked up at him with an intensity that silenced the room. She took both of his hands in hers.

"You created me," she said, her voice steady despite the tears. "You gave me life because you were lonely. You protected me when I was just a melon, and you've protected me ever since I became this."

She squeezed his hands. "I am a deity, Mario. I have the power of a god. And I vow to you, right here, that no one—not a monster, not a villain, and especially not anyone in this room—will ever hurt you again. You carried the weight of the world alone for too long. From now on, you don't have to."

Mario looked at her, his lip quivering. The mask of the "funny man" he had worn for decades finally began to crumble. "I just... I didn't want anyone to be sad," he whispered, a single tear escaping and rolling down his cheek. "If I'm the joke, then everyone is happy. If I'm the one getting hit, then Luigi is safe."

"No more," Saiko said firmly, her voice uncharacteristically soft. "If anyone lays a finger on you, they deal with my hammer. And if we start acting like jerks again, you tell us, and we'll fix it."

"We promise, Mario," Tari added, wiping her eyes. "We’re a family. A real one. Not like the one you had."

Mario looked at them all—really looked at them. For the first time in his life, he didn't feel like he had to be the punchline. He didn't have to hide the cracks. He leaned back into the couch, letting the warmth of his friends—his family—sink in.

"Does this mean I get free spaghetti for a week?" he asked, his voice still shaky but carrying a hint of his old self.

SMG4 let out a wet laugh, wiping his nose. "A week? Mario, I’ll buy you the whole factory."

"Make it two factories," Meggy added, leaning her head against his shoulder. "You've earned it, Red."

Mario closed his eyes, and for the first time in a very long time, the cracks in his soul didn't grow. They didn't disappear—trauma like that never truly goes away—but for the first time, they were being filled with something stronger than the pain.

He was home. And this time, he was actually safe.