Feeling the cool spring breeze blowing through his rainbow mohawk and the warm sunlight shining down on him from above, Lemmy felt incredibly soothed by the environment around him as he leaned back against the tree with gently shut eyes and slow relaxed breathing.

Lemmy sighed as he thought about every strand of hair in his mohawk, and every cell on his skin, each feeling the breeze and sunlight independently of the others, each with their own unique amounts to a degree and how their combined contributions create the pleasant absorbent feeling of the nature around him with every single hair and cell accounted for. It was perfect…

Then he felt something very light land on the tip of his snout. Lemmy sat up and opened his eyes to see what it was. Even though it was out of focus, he could tell it was in fact a butterfly that landed on him.

Lemmy quietly squealed with excitement, this has never happened before and he was so happy. Despite this, he was able to contain his excitement enough to not startle the butterfly.

He reached his finger out near it and the butterfly flapped its delicate wings and landed on his finger. He moved his finger away a little to get a better look at the butterfly. He could see that the butterfly had symmetrical patches of yellow, pink, and light blue on its wings, the same colors of his hair. Lemmy's happiness went up rapidly upon making the connection.

He began to speak to it in an excited yet gentle voice, "Hi there little butterfly, my name is Lemmy! What's your name?" Even though Lemmy knew he wasn't ever going to get an answer, he couldn't help himself from asking. After all, he is the kind of kid who would be friends with everyone. Regardless, he pretended that it did, "Flutter? Oh I love that name!"

"You better get going now, the flowers can't pollinate themselves after all." As if it followed his advice, the butterfly slowly flew away, Lemmy staring at it with a smile as it did, "Bye Flutter!" Lemmy said as he happily waved.

Once the butterfly disappeared from view, Lemmy went back to what he was doing, he leaned back against the tree as he folded one of his legs over the other before taking a deep breath. He exhaled calmly as he relaxed and closed his eyes once again with a smile.

"Ahh… I could lay here all day…" Lemmy felt the negativity inside him slowly vanish when he came here, it was so peaceful, hypnotizing even. He felt like nothing could interrupt his meditative state.

"Lemmy?"

Lemmy was snapped out of his peaceful trance when he heard a familiar voice say his name, "Huh?" He opened his eyes to find Luigi walking over to him with a bit of a shocked and confused look. Lemmy's eyes widened with shock, "W-What the!?" He swiftly sat up as he looked back at him while being a bit startled, "L-Luigi!?"

"What are you doing here!?" They both said at the same time.

They silently blinked at each other for a moment before Lemmy broke the awkward silence, "Uh… I'll go first." Lemmy fidgeted with his fingers a little as he tried to find a way to word his explanation, it was pretty obvious to Luigi that he was a little flustered, "Uh… I'm just… relaxing… at my normal resting spot?"

Luigi froze for a second, unsure how to respond to that, "R… Resting spot?" Lemmy nodded, "Yeah, I come here occasionally to just relax for a while." Luigi, while the shock was still wearing off, decided to keep pressing on, "You come here regularly?"

"Yeah, and I have been for a while actually." Lemmy looked down at his feet awkwardly, "Ever since I started coming here, it's been a really big help for me coping with… well, you know." Luigi raised an eyebrow, "You had other ways of coping with your situation?" Lemmy looked back up at Luigi, "Yeah, I did." Then he looked straight ahead, "I now realized that I completely forgot to tell you about that, whoops."

Then a question popped into Luigi's head, how did Lemmy even get here? "But, how did you even get all the way here? Worlds 1 and 8 are pretty far apart from each other." Lemmy casually raised his hand a little, "I took a warp pipe here." Luigi was a bit confused, "A warp pipe? Covering a huge distance like that?" Lemmy nodded his head, "Larry and I were training new recruits in the Hammer Bro division last summer. While we were on break, we explored the area and found a hidden warp pipe inside a small cave." He gestured behind him towards the forest, "The other end is inside that forest over there."

Luigi's brow furrowed a little, he didn't like the idea of Lemmy possibly getting lost in there, "But, that forest is a bit dangerous, you shouldn't be wandering around in there." Lemmy then raised a dismissive hand with a smirk, "It's fine. It's super close to the forest edge. Just follow the path for like ten steps from the pipe and you can see the exit right there like another 20 steps to the right."

"Wait, it's that close?" It almost sounded too good to be true. But Lemmy confirms it with a nod and smile, "Mhm! This is a place only Larry and I know about." He then snorts indignantly, "Naturally I don't want King Dad to find out because knowing him, he'll use this as a stage for one of his kidnapping missions. Last thing I want is for this pipe to be blocked off later and have me permanently cut off from my getaway place." Luigi glanced back at his house before turning back to Lemmy, "This spot is your getaway place?"

"Yeah, this tree really stood out to me when Larry and I first came here. It's in the beautiful World 1 and in a very quiet part of Toad Town, so I'm not bothering anyone by being here." Lemmy then snickered, "Larry doesn't come here much as he finds it 'boring', clearly he doesn't see the appeal in it." Lemmy giggled when he finished.

Luigi shrugged, "Hm, I guess that checks out. It does sound like him."

While he was in thought, Lemmy continued, "I normally spend an hour under this tree before I head back. I usually come here whenever I'm on break from my jobs or after a kidnapping mission because that's when the workload drops off massively."

Luigi was a bit confused, "Massively? I thought it was all day everyday for you?" Lemmy blinked as he thought for a moment, then his eyes lit up, "Oh right, I should've been a bit more specific. The massive workload really only happens when prepping for a kidnapping mission, regardless if I'm part of it or not. It leads to like two weeks to even a month of intense work every day leading up to it. But after a kidnapping mission, most of, if not all of it stops until King Dad recovers and it gradually picks back up again." He then shrugged, "Rinse and repeat."

Lemmy glanced away from Luigi briefly, "I know it sounds bad when I say this, but in a way, I'm kind of thankful King Dad got a good beating from you guys, because now that means the workload will be very light or even gone for a good while." He looked back up at Luigi with a smile, "Now I can spend more time hanging out with Larry and to relax here and push all my negative feelings away." His face fell a little as he looked back down at his feet, "With all the stress I get from my role in the Koopa Troop, I come here every weekend to relieve it. This place is really important to me…"

"You come here every weekend?" Luigi was still having a bit of difficulty grasping it. Lemmy nodded, "Almost every weekend, at pretty much the same time. Now that it's spring, I can finally come back here again."

Lemmy then looked back up at Luigi, "How about you, why are you here? Do you also come here to relax?" Luigi took a moment to respond, "Well no. I came here because… well…" Luigi was a bit hesitant to answer, he wasn't sure how Lemmy would react to learning that his spot was right behind Luigi's house. Luigi briefly glanced back at his house again before answering, "This particular tree is in plain view of my kitchen window."

Lemmy sat there for a moment before he started giggling, then he started laughing, leaving Luigi a bit confused until he eventually calmed down a little, "Okay, that was a good one, Luigi." Luigi just stood there blinking at him, "Uh…" When Lemmy noticed that Luigi was not smiling, his giggling slowly trailed off as his smile vanished, "You are joking, right?"

Luigi scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, "Uh, I'm actually not. I was just about to start washing the dishes when I looked outside and saw you." Lemmy froze for a moment as he processed that info and once it clicked, his eyes widened. He whipped his head back up to look at Luigi in utter disbelief, "What!? Get out, there's no way that's true!"

"It is, as unbelievable as it sounds." Luigi looked back at his house and held his arm out towards it, "My house is literally right there. I saw you through that window." Lemmy was absolutely flabbergasted, he couldn't believe it, how was his spot right behind Luigi's house? He just stared at the back of the house right in front of him in shock, "But… I've been coming here for months! How did neither of us notice the other until now? How is that even possible!?"

Luigi raised his hands as he shrugged, "I don't know! I'm as shocked as you are!" Eventually, they glanced at each other as Luigi fiddled with his hat, "I've heard of coincidences, but this is absurd." Lemmy blinked at him for a moment before he looked back at the house, "I agree… Jeez, this is one heck of a twist."

They both stayed silent for a few moments until Lemmy looked back up at him awkwardly, "So, um… what now?" Luigi took one more glance back at his house, "I guess I can just head back inside and let you relax, I kind of rudely interrupted it."

"Luigi, wait!"

Luigi turned back around to find Lemmy holding his hand out to him. Lemmy pressed his fingers together as he looked up at Luigi, "Can you stay? Ignoring the crazy circumstances, I'm kind of glad you're here. I kinda want to talk with you." Lemmy gently padded the ground next to him and gave him a shy smile. Luigi stood there for a moment before he decided to take a seat next to him, the grass was pretty soft and he can see why Lemmy finds it relaxing. He looked over next to him to see Lemmy smiling at him with a hint of goofiness. Seeing this, Luigi couldn't help but grin a little.

Lemmy finally breaks the silence between them, "So, how was the trip back? How'd ya get back home this time?" He started to giggle a little as he said in a joking manner, "Did you guys walk? Or did you take a magic carpet?" Luigi decided to play along a little, "Well, we did fly rather than walk." Lemmy froze as he gawked at Luigi, "Wait, really!? You actually flew on a magic carpet!?" He crossed his arms and pouted, "That sounds so fun!" Luigi couldn't help but chuckle a little at Lemmy's playfulness, "No, we didn't take a magic carpet. We actually flew in a hot air balloon." Lemmy's face immediately lit up, "Ohh, okay. In that case, how was the ride? I bet the views were stunning!"

Luigi's face fell, "I'm… not good with heights. I chose to not look down the whole way. Not to mention how cold it was up there." Lemmy smirked, "Cold huh? I wonder if the flower helped with that." Luigi instantly recalled the potted flower Peach was carrying the whole way back, "Oh yeah, I couldn't help but notice the princess was carrying a flower in a pot. Do you know anything about that?" Lemmy happily nodded, "I do as a matter of fact. I'm the one who gave it to her!" Luigi snorts out a brief laugh, "I had a feeling."

Lemmy placed a hand on his chin as he thoughtfully gazed up at the sky while recalling the day before, "I gave it to her as a parting gift, since I'm probably not seeing her again for a while. I had Iggy help me dig one out of our garden since he knows botany a lot better than I do." He looked back down to Luigi, "It's also not just your ordinary run of the mill flower either. I like to think it's magic!" Luigi tilted his head curiously, "Oh? How so?"

Lemmy gleefully went on to tell Luigi everything he learned about it, like a child telling a grown up about something super awesome they learned. Its name being the "Azure Dreambloom" along with its magic properties. How it makes a powerful healing medicine, the warm aura it gives off, the slumber inducingly entranceful smell, and how resilient it was to harsh environments.

Luigi glanced over to his backyard where he can see the empty black plot of soil for a garden he's thinking about making, he was admittedly pretty interested, "Hm, that would look pretty nice for the new garden." Lemmy leaned towards him a little with curiosity, "You're making a garden?" Luigi turned his eyes up towards the sky as he raised a casual hand, "Well, no, but I have been thinking about it lately." He looked back at Lemmy, "Where do you even get that flower?" Lemmy snickered, "I see where you are going with this. Have fun getting one, they're pretty rare and pretty expensive. We only have a bunch of them because we took the seeds from the one Dreambloom we had at the time." Luigi's face fell a little, feeling a little disappointed, "Oh." He looked back at his empty soil plot, "Oh well, worth a shot."

Lemmy leaned back against the tree and sighed happily, "I remember the day after we got the first one, I took Larry to the garden to show him our new magic flower. Since he was a toddler, I had to make sure he didn't wreck it." Luigi was caught on that last part, he looked back at Lemmy with piqued curiosity, "Toddler?" Lemmy leaned back forward and looked at Luigi with an ecstatic face, almost as if he was recalling happy memories, "Yeah, he was!" Closing his eyes, he placed his hands together and straightened out his arms, rocking them in an adorable manner, "He was SUPER cute back then! He was my sweet little Larry!"

Luigi couldn't help but smile at the sight of Lemmy being all innocent and charming. He had almost forgotten that Lemmy was technically his enemy. But that fact didn't matter, they were not in the midst of a kidnapping mission after all.

Lemmy then calmed down a little before his face fell, "Oh… speaking of…" Lemmy looked over at Luigi, his cheeriness now gone, "I have an update for you on my situation." Luigi's grin also vanished, during their casual chat, he had completely forgotten about their conversation yesterday, "Something happened already?" Lemmy's face fell a little more into a bit of a gloomy look before he nodded, "You know how you said I should talk to you and Larry about my issues more often?"

"Um, yes?" Lemmy looked down at his feet, "Well, if I started talking to Larry about it more often, then he would no doubt catch on that I was hiding something." Luigi furrowed his brow, "Would he really?" Lemmy nodded, "Larry may be very young, but he's very crafty." Lemmy looked back up at Luigi, "And I'm the closest person to him by a landslide. So slipping something by him is super difficult." He then shrugged, "But not impossible. I did manage to fool him with my ruse yesterday."

It was then Luigi remembered what happened when Lemmy handed him the key to leave his tower, "Oh, speaking of that, I heard from the princess that there was something about you having 'an embarrassingly quick defeat.' What was that all about?"

Lemmy smiled, "Oh, that was my little cover story to hide what really happened between us. After you left, I realized I couldn't go back looking totally unscathed." Lemmy looked over to his half shrugged hand, "In hindsight, I probably should've had you stomp my head a couple times on your way out." Then he looked back at him, "But it was a little late for that, so I had to get creative." He then smiled, "And creative I got!"

Luigi was admittedly pretty curious about how Lemmy managed to hide it, "What did you do?" Lemmy described to Luigi what he did while playfully using various hand gestures, where he purposefully blew himself up to get covered in soot. While Luigi wasn't too comfortable with Lemmy doing something possibly dangerous, he was also impressed by his act and how he managed to even fool Larry, which Lemmy had already said was very difficult.

Lemmy looked at Luigi pridefully, "Since I love performing, I am the master of putting on an act! Everyone bought it!" But then his face fell a little and turned into a slight bit of guilt, "But since Larry also fell for it, I gave him a bit of a scare when he saw me." His face quickly brightened back up, "But it's all good, he knows I'm fine."

But then Lemmy's face fell again as he got off that tangent, "But anyway, you know how I said he would get suspicious if I start talking to him about my problems?" Luigi nodded, "Yes?" Lemmy awkwardly placed a hand on his arm as he looked down at his feet again, "Well, there would be no way I could hide what really happened from him. So…" Lemmy sighed, "I… told Larry about our conversation yesterday."

Luigi did a slight double take, "You did?" Lemmy nodded, "I did. I can't just hide something like this from him, I would not feel right about it. Not to mention he would probably be a bit hurt if he finds out I kept this from him." He looked back up at Luigi, "He does whatever he can to make me feel more comfortable. He deserved to know what was going on." He looked back down at his feet and muttered, "I told him everything."

"Everything?" Lemmy didn't look back up at him, "Everything. About our conversation, you supporting me, giving you the key and how my battle was faked."

"How did he take it?" Lemmy winced, "Not well. He wasn't very happy." Luigi had a feeling that's what he was going to say, now he felt a bit bad that he was now in a bit of hot water, "So, he got angry at you?" Lemmy shook his head, "No, he was a lot more scared than angry."

Luigi raised a brow, "Scared?" Lemmy sadly nodded and elaborated after a moment of silence, "Scared for me. He doesn't trust you at all. He's scared that you might take my vulnerability and abuse it."

Luigi would be a bit offended, but he was well aware of how he is viewed by Bowser and the rest of his kids, "I can kind of understand. Bowser probably raised you guys to always see Mario and I as sworn enemies."

"Yeah, that would be it. Larry thinks you might have malicious intentions and he's not irrational to think that." Lemmy looked back at him, "I mean, if not for our conversation yesterday, I would've thought the same thing. So he is not entirely wrong to be skeptical."

Lemmy solemnly hung his head again, "But that was nothing compared to how he felt when I told him…" Lemmy took a deep breath, "About the possibility of me eventually telling King Dad about my problems."

"How did he feel about that?" Lemmy closed his eyes and softly replied, "He was really distraught, terrified even. He was convinced that it was a bad idea and was borderline begging me not to do it. I've never seen him look so pale before." He sadly shook his head, "Poor Larry… I had to comfort him when it drove him to tears… He was so scared for me…" Hearing that, Luigi's face fell to that of a somber expression, "It was that bad?" When Lemmy nodded, Luigi couldn't help but silently wince, "Wow… Bowser is so intimidating that even his kids are afraid of him."

Lemmy lightly shrugged, "I guess the only good thing about this is that he'll be too scared to tell anyone. Because that would definitely land me in massive trouble if word got back to King Dad. I know he'll never let that happen to me." His face turned into that of a pensive one, "Him and I have shared a really tight bond throughout our whole lives. So I can trust him. I know for sure he'll keep it a secret." Lemmy looked back at Luigi with his tone improving a little, "I figured I'd let you know about this since it's technically talking to you about my problems."

Then Lemmy thought of something, after placing a hand on his chin and thinking about it for a moment, his eyes lit up, "Hey, speaking of that, I just got an idea." Luigi raised a brow at the sudden change in tone, "What is it?" Lemmy looked back at Luigi and smiled, "You know how you said I can also talk to you about my problems? Well, I couldn't help but notice that we don't really have a way to contact each other."

"Yes, that's true. I didn't think about that until after I got home." Lemmy patted his hands on the grass he was sitting on and gave him a smile, "Well, since I still plan on continuing to come here roughly every weekend, maybe this could be our solution to the no contact problem?" Then it clicked in Luigi's head, "Oh, you mean we can try to have our one on one conversations here?" Lemmy nodded his head vigorously, "Yeah, it's perfect!"

Lemmy looks past Luigi's house and observes the landscape dotted with toad houses, "Plus, the peaceful atmosphere would really help me out a ton when talking about them." Then he looked back at Luigi, "What do ya think?" Luigi pondered about it for a moment before shrugging with a grin, "Works for me." Lemmy beamed at him, "Awesome!"

After a couple moments, Lemmy calmed down as he turned back to the view, "On that note, I should probably head back. I've already been here for a while." He then said in a joking manner, "If I stay for too long, Larry would probably come looking for me." Luigi gave a light chuckle, "Better not keep him waiting then."

After they got up from their spots, Luigi looked at the tree and then back to Lemmy, "So, I'll see you next weekend?" Lemmy gleefully nodded in response "Mhm!" He took a quick glance at the forest that was not far away from where they were before looking back up at Luigi and waved, "Bye, Luigi!" Luigi grinned, "See ya, Lemmy." Lemmy then ran off towards the forest. Once Luigi saw him make the turn towards what he assumed was the warp pipe and disappear from view, he turned and walked back down the hill and to the backdoor.

Upon walking back inside, he noticed the kitchen sink was still full of dirty dishes that he had yet to clean. Luigi's mood fell a little, "Oh, right." He had completely forgotten about those. Sighing, he walked back over to the sink and actually started washing them this time.

While doing so, he thought about everything that happened in the past day. Lemmy's situation had been bugging him all day yesterday and today. But after having a proper talk along with a touch of lighthearted chat with him, and now that they had a proper meetup place, Luigi felt a lot better about the whole situation.

Sure, he knew that he and Lemmy were technically still enemies. But he saw that Lemmy was quick to toss that mentality aside and during all of it, Luigi absentmindedly did so as well. While he would've given it more thought first, he was at least glad that they can talk without any signs of hostilities.

After scrubbing the dishes and loading them into the dishwasher, he sat back down on his recliner and turned on the tv. He leaned back and relaxed as he flipped through the various channels and proceeded to go on with his normal routine.

With these planned meetups under the tree, I hope that pollen season treats them nicely for their sake.

I apologize that the ending was a bit rushed and short, but that was because this chapter once again spiraled out of control and I had to quickly apply the breaks here. With just over 4200 words it barely missed second place for longest chapter. I would say I need to stop doing overshooting, but I guess I should just accept that with how jampacked this story is, I can't really bring it down to my desired 2600 to 3400 word range reliably. Out of the 12 chapters (including the prologue and flashback) I've only hit that range three times. Most times I overshoot it. Since it's likely going to keep happening, I might as well stop bringing it up almost everytime because I don't know about you guys, but it's starting to get annoying having to mention it every time. (But who reads the Author's notes anyway?)

Anyway, I'm at a bit of a crossroads or grey area in this story as I'm not entirely sure how to progress. I still have a general idea, just I need to find a way to make it all play out. So I'm probably going to break my "one chapter per three days" streak here.

...

Eh, I'll figure it out.