Chapter 2: Worldliness

The warm yellow beams of sunlight sprinkling down on the Mushroom Kingdom brought with them equally warm feelings. The fungus people of Toad Town were smiling away the day in the streets, energetic and cheerful as ever with their princess currently safe from the Koopa King's clutches. Little Toad children raced across the streets in playful glee while their mothers watched from nearby, gossipping amongst each other. A young Toad purchased two ice cream cones from an outdoor ice cream stand. With a shy smile, he holds it out to his waiting female Toad date, who accepts it with a blush on her face. She brings it to her face and is about to enjoy the cold sweetness about to hit her tongue when a large glob of something liquid splashes onto it. Surprised, the couple both look upwards with the palms of their hands skyward to feel for rain, but there are no clouds in the sky. Instead, there is Waluigi, exploiting his tall height to snort through his nose and spit another loogie onto the female Toad's ice cream for spite.

Disgusted, the Toadette drops her ice cream and Waluigi giggles to himself in accomplishment. Tears pool into her eyes but the Toad's smile remains. He hands her his own ice cream cone. She's hesitant to take it but she takes a lick from it and enjoys his choice of flavor and offers him a lick. Waluigi's giggles dissipate. The couple walks away, arm in arm as they both continue to enjoy the single waffle cone, making goo-goo eyes at each other over their dessert. Waluigi is left speechless at the development he had unintentionally helped create from his jealousy of them having each other and scowls at them as they leave him as if he had done nothing to them.

Waluigi saunters off, hands in his pocket as looks around at all the mushroom people giving him a very wide berth. Waluigi continued walking in a straight line. Every Toad could see him coming their direction and were sure to stay out of his way, a very visible bubble forming around Waluigi as he made his path. He had reached his destination and took his seat at the edge of Toad Town Square's decorative fountain. His hands lying on both sides of him, palms on the heated stone of the fountain, he leaned back, closed his eyes and smiled to enjoy the sun shining down on him and feeling the brisk moist air of the spraying fountain on his back. Shifting his eyes to the left and right to make sure nobody was watching him, he dipped his right hand into the fountain reaching far down with his long arms. With a sly smirk, he took the golden coins sunk to the bottom that kids and lovers had tossed in to make wishes and takes them into his hand one by one. His glove and sleeve would be wet but he knew it would be well worth it for the cash.

"Hey, Waluigi!"

In shock at his name suddenly called out, Waluigi, stood up straight and hid his hand holding the money behind his back as he quickly turned around in a cold sweat, expecting a policeman or park guard to be ready with a pair of handcuffs for him. To his relief and annoyance, it was a Toad. Just another Toad sitting on the edge of the fountain next to where Waluigi was just sitting. How had he not noticed him sneak up on him like that? Then again, Toads don't really stand out in a sea of white and red mushroom caps. Waluigi did but then again, here he was on his lonesome. Waluigi exhaled in solace and put the coins he collected in his pocket and sat back down, scooched over to his right to put some space between them and looked away from the Toad sitting on his left, hoping this Toad would leave so he could continue uninterrupted with his scrounging. The Toad continued to sit there, his smiling gaze apparently locked onto Waluigi as if nothing unusual happened. It's like this Toad saw him as nothing more than one of his own while all the others were keeping their distance. Waluigi wished this one would take a hint from the others because this guy was just being an inconvenience right now.

"So, are you excited?" the Toad asked after what felt like hours.

Waluigi raised his eyebrow and turned toward the Toad to look down at him confused. Was this mushroom midget trying to start a conversation or something?

"I doubt anything that excites one of you guys would be worth my time." Waluigi said, uninterested.

"What do you mean?" the Toad asked. "You don't plan on riding anymore?"

"Riding?" Waluigi asked, raising one of his eyebrows in confusion again.

"Yeah," the Toad responded, "You ARE gonna perform at the Stadium tonight, right?"

Suddenly, the thought hit him. He grabbed his hat and fumbled with it a little as he tried to pull out his notebook in a rush and held it close to his face to look through his list until he saw it; the upcoming event the Toad was talking about.

"Shoot, that was today?!" Waluigi shouted and hurriedly, he shoved his notebook back into his hat and took off in a rush as fast as his long legs could carry him.

The Toad was left there on the fountain, his smile gone out of concern for the man running like his life depended on it. Something shiny was left behind from where Waluigi was sitting and caught the Toad's eye. Upon closer inspection, it was a handful of golden coins that were wet for some reason. Waluigi had dropped them.