Mario's sad past

The main hall of the Showgrounds was uncharacteristically quiet. Usually, the air was filled with the sounds of Tari’s frantic gaming, Bob’s obnoxious rapping, or the distant sound of an explosion caused by a certain red-clad plumber. Today, however, the silence was heavy. SMG4 sat on the sofa, mindlessly scrolling through his phone, while Saiko tuned her guitar with a lethargic expression.

"Is it just me, or is it actually kind of... peaceful without Mario around?" Meggy asked, leaning back against the wall. She adjusted her beanie, looking around the room. "No spaghetti messes, no screaming, no getting hit with a random penguin."

"It’s weird," Boopkins chirped, hugging his JubJub plushie. "I feel like I should be happy, but it’s just boring."

"I for one enjoy the lack of hygiene issues," Bob grunted from the corner. "The air smells 20% less like old cheese and regret."

Luigi, sitting on a small stool near the window, didn't join in the banter. He was unusually pale, his fingers nervously twisting the hem of his green overalls. He kept glancing at the large monitor mounted on the wall, his eyes darting away every time it flickered.

Suddenly, the screen hissed to life. The static was loud, cutting through the lethargy of the room like a knife.

"Hey, Four, did you start a stream?" Tari asked, tilting her head.

"No, I’m not even touched the remote," SMG4 replied, sitting up straight. "Is it a glitch?"

The static cleared, revealing a grainy, sepia-toned video. It looked like old home movie footage from decades ago. A date appeared in the corner: *Thirty years ago.*

The scene was a cramped, dimly lit kitchen in a run-down apartment. A small child, no older than five, sat at a wooden table. He wore a red shirt that was three sizes too big and stained with dirt. It was unmistakably Mario, but his eyes weren't filled with the chaotic glee they knew. They were wide, watery, and flickering with a deep-seated terror.

"Aww, look at baby Mario," Melony whispered, her eyes sparkling. "He looks so cute."

The sentiment died instantly. A loud, crashing sound echoed through the speakers—the sound of a glass bottle shattering. A tall, looming shadow fell over the young Mario. A man’s voice, raspy and thick with venom, roared from off-screen.

"I told you to stay in the closet until I was done, you little brat!"

Young Mario flinched so hard he fell off his chair. "I-I was just hungry, Papa... I haven't eaten since yesterday..."

The camera shook as a woman’s hand entered the frame, grabbing the child by his hair and hoisting him up. "Hungry? You’re a waste of space! You’re the reason we’re stuck in this dump!"

What followed was a blur of violence that silenced the room. The gang watched, paralyzed, as the parents they had never heard Mario mention turned their friend into a punching bag. It wasn't "cartoon violence." There were no stars spinning around his head, no comical "oof" sound effects. It was raw, visceral, and cruel. The boy didn't fight back; he simply curled into a ball, trying to protect his head, sobbing quietly as if he had learned long ago that screaming only made it worse.

"Turn it off," Meggy whispered, her voice trembling. "SMG4, turn it off!"

"I... I can't! The remote isn't working!" SMG4 frantically mashed buttons, but the screen remained locked.

The video skipped forward. Mario was ten now. He was sitting on a curb outside a school, sporting a black eye and a split lip. Other children ran past him, laughing and playing. Mario just stared at a discarded pizza crust in the gutter, his stomach growling loud enough for the microphone to pick up. He picked it up, brushed off the ants, and ate it with a look of desperate gratitude.

The montage continued, a horrific highlight reel of a life lived in the shadows of abuse and neglect. They saw Mario working three jobs as a teenager just to pay for his parents' gambling debts, only to be beaten when he didn't bring home enough. They saw him standing over a small crib—a young Luigi—shielding his baby brother from a flying chair, taking the blow to the ribs without a single complaint.

Luigi let out a choked sob and buried his face in his hands.

"Luigi..." Tari walked over, her robotic arm whirring softly as she reached out. "Did you... did you know?"

"I remembered some of it," Luigi wailed, his voice muffled by his palms. "But Mario... he always told me it was a dream. He told me he fell down the stairs. He told me the bruises were from playing too hard. He took everything so I wouldn't have to."

The screen flickered again, showing Mario in his early twenties, arriving in the Mushroom Kingdom for the first time. He looked malnourished, his ribs visible through his shirt. He stood before the Princess’s castle, looking at his reflection in the moat. He practiced a smile—the wide, toothy, "Okie-Dokie" grin they all knew. It looked painful on his face, like a mask that didn't quite fit.

The footage began to blend into more recent years—clips they recognized. They saw Mario being kicked into the sun by Peach. They saw themselves screaming at him for his stupidity. They saw the times they had abandoned him in pits, mocked his weight, and treated his presence like a burden.

In the video, after every "comical" beating he took from his friends, the camera would follow him when he was alone. It showed him sitting in the dark corner of his house, the "dumb" expression dropping instantly. He would stare at the wall with a hollow, thousand-yard stare, rubbing his scarred arms, before forcing that same plastic smile back onto his face to go out and do it all again.

The screen finally went black. The reflection of the gang in the dark monitor showed a group of people who looked like they had seen a ghost.

Melony was sobbing openly now, her face buried in Boopkins’ shoulder. Boopkins himself was leaking tears, his small hands shaking. Saiko had dropped her guitar; the "tough girl" persona had vanished, replaced by a look of sheer, nauseating guilt.

"We... we did that to him too," Meggy said, her voice cracking. She looked down at her hands. "Every time I lost my temper... every time I called him an idiot and kicked him through a wall... I was just like them."

"He never complained," SMG4 said, his voice barely a whisper. He felt a cold pit in his stomach. "I make videos out of his suffering. I literally profit off him being a punching bag. I thought... I thought he was too stupid to feel it."

"He's not stupid," Luigi said, standing up, his eyes red and fierce. "He just decided a long time ago that if he was the one being hurt, nobody else had to be. He acts like a fool because he wants people to laugh. He thinks that if people are laughing, they aren't angry. And if they aren't angry, they won't hurt him."

The front door of the castle creaked open.

The group froze. A heavy, rhythmic humming filled the hallway.

"It’s-a me! Mario!"

Mario strolled into the room, swinging a bag of groceries. He had a smudge of flour on his nose and that signature, vacant grin on his face. He looked at the gathered group, his eyes twinkling with what everyone now realized was a practiced, desperate light.

"Hey guys! Why everyone look like they saw a Wiggler in their spaghetti?" Mario chuckled, setting the bag down. "I got the good sauce today! We gonna have a party?"

Nobody moved. The silence was deafening.

Mario’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second—a flicker of the boy in the closet—before it snapped back into place, wider and more frantic. "Uh... did Mario do something wrong? I promise I didn't touch the printer this time! It was... uh... a ghost! A very fat ghost!"

Meggy was the first to move. She didn't yell. She didn't lecture him. She sprinted across the room and tackled him into a hug, burying her face in his red shirt.

Mario stiffened, his arms hovering awkwardly in the air. "Uh, Meggy? You okay? You're getting orange juice on the overalls."

Then came Tari, then Boopkins and Melony, and even Bob, who stood awkwardly at the edge of the pile, resting a golden blade lightly on Mario’s shoulder. SMG4 walked over, placing a hand on Mario’s cap, his eyes shimmering with unshed tears.

"Mario," SMG4 said, his voice thick. "We’re so sorry."

Mario stayed frozen for a long time. The "dumb" mask was still there, but under the weight of their collective grief, it began to crumble. His breath hitched. The groceries were forgotten.

"Why you sorry?" Mario asked, his voice losing its high-pitched, cartoony edge. It sounded tired. It sounded like a man who had been running for thirty years. "Mario is fine. Mario is always fine."

"You don't have to be fine," Luigi whispered, pushing through the crowd to grab his brother's hand. "Not anymore."

Mario looked around at the faces of his friends—his real family. He looked at the TV, then back at them, realizing they had seen the truth. The facade he had built out of spaghetti and screams finally collapsed.

He didn't say anything. He simply let out a long, shuddering breath and slumped into the hug, his head falling onto Meggy’s shoulder as he began to cry—not the loud, blubbering wail he used for comedic effect, but the quiet, shaking sobs of a child who had finally been allowed to come out of the closet.

Outside, the sun began to set over the Mushroom Kingdom, but inside the castle, for the first time in his life, Mario felt like he was actually home.