A Disappointment

It’s 7:57 am . Marco has just finished greeting Jackie Lyn Thomas. He’s sure he nearly has the whole talking thing down at this point. He’s even managed to ask Jackie “How are you?”  two or three times. Step six (Actual conversation.) is just within Marco’s grasp. Marco knows that once he hits step six his entire plan will speed up. Conversation leads to questions. Questions lead to “Do you wanna hang out sometime?”. That leads to dating, and somewhere down the line he will be happily married with two to three kids. Hopefully.
	He’d probably already be at step six if he had never gotten  kidnapped by that lizard guy. After he was rescued by Star and brought back home, he found it difficult to sleep. If the monsters kidnapped him that easily before, who’s to say it won’t happen again? Who’s to say it wouldn’t be his mother or father next? Truth be told, he was scared of being alone in his own house. The lack of sleep and the resulting stress set him back to step five of his plan for about a week. Luckily, Star was there to comfort him.
	“Oh come on Marco, those guys caught you off guard! I know you would have kicked their butts if they weren’t right on top of you before you knew it. Besides, the only reason they were able to get to you was because of that lizard jerk, and he blew up!.. Probably!”
	Star did make him feel safer, knowing that he had a friend with him (with magical powers, nonetheless.) allowed him to relax. He was able to sleep normally after a while and was right back at step six before he knew it.
	Marco felt satisfied with today's greeting with Jackie. As a matter of fact he felt satisfied with just about everything at the moment. He slept well the night before, he had a nice breakfast and the weather was perfect. Marco was feeling pretty great walking to class around the school perimeter. The only thing that could make him feel any better was if he was able to “demonstrate” his karate skills to some poor monster that crossed his path. He would look like a hero, here at school too. He could imagine himself standing over some monster, twice his size, as everyone looks on. In the midst of his daydreaming, Marco almost misses the humanoid figure walk right by him and turn the corner Marco just came from. It was humanoid, but not human.
	Was Marco really this lucky? Would a monster really just walk right by him, as if he was invisible, and casually turn the casually turn the corner? It’s as if the guy was presenting himself to Marco. This thought made Marco stop in his pursuit of the figure. Is this a trap? Monsters usually come in groups. Maybe there’s ten of them waiting to jump at him from behind the corner. Marco almost ran off to find Star, together they could take a bunch of monsters at once. But there was a greediness inside of Marco that wanted all the credit to himself. He wanted to be able to say “Yeah, I took on all those guys by myself, no big deal.” This could potentially break his reputation as “the good boy.”. So against all logic within him telling him to find Star, he turned the corner ready to fight.
	Marco was not met with ten giant monsters, but just the lone figure that passed him by, still walking away from him. Unfortunately, there was no one around to see Marco kick this guys butt, but Marco wouldn’t feel any worse doing it anyways.
	“Hey,  you gotta be pretty stupid to think I’m just going to let you--”
	“Hello, Marco.” Toffee said in his usual monotonous voice.
	“Wha- How di- Why-?” Despite Marco’s inability to form an actual sentence, Toffee got the jist of it.
	“Everyone should have something to fall back on Marco, I had mine.”
Toffee was now fully turned towards Marco, waiting for him him to respond. Marco needed to calm down if he wanted to deal with guy.
	“Why are you here?” Marco blurted out, still in the classic “Defensive Karate stance,”.
	“Relax Marco, I’m just on a stroll at the moment.”
	“Do your strolls usually involve crossing dimensions?” Marco said, slowly gaining his composure back.
	“Only when the weather is this nice,” Toffee said, slightly looking towards the sky. “Where is your friend Star?”
	“That’s none of your business, and unless you want MY business all up in YOUR business, you better leave.”
	“She’s not left?”  Toffee said, raising an eyebrow. “Strange, I would’ve thought she would have left right after Ludo first came for her wand, but I was sure she would leave after the “Castle” incident.”
	“You mean when you kidnapped me?” Marco said, narrowing his eyes.
	“Trust me Marco, I only wanted the wand destroyed, what happened with you was nothing personal.”
	“Oh yeah, I suppose since it wasn’t personal it just makes everything that happened alright.”
	“If you want an apology, I’m sorry Marco.” As much as this caught Marco off guard, Toffee didn’t look very sorry.
	“Whatever, why are you so concerned about where Star is?”
	“Concerned? I’m not concerned. But I would be concerned if I were you.” Said Toffee, crossing his arms.
	“What?”
	“Ludo isn’t going to stop coming for the wand, since it’s been “repaired”.
	How did he know…?
	“You and her won’t be able to hold off Ludo forever, you know.” Toffee continued “Sometime, you’ll slip up. And then what?”
Marco didn’t have anything to say.
	“The point is, I thought she would have went back to Mewni at the first sign of trouble, not for herself, but for you.”
	“I can protect myself.” Marco firmly stated.
	“Then why did Star have to come rescue you?”
…
	“I think,” Toffee said, putting his right hand to his chin. “I think that Star is just a selfish little girl that would rather have fun fighting monsters than see her friends safety.”
	“Star cares about my safety! Or else she wouldn’t have come to save me!” Marco was desperately trying to defend his friend at this point.
	“She may care somewhat, but obviously not enough to completely remove you from any danger. But that’s none of my business.” Toffee reached into the coat of his suit. Marco tensed up, believing Toffee would draw some sort of weapon. He was somewhat relieved to see that it was just a pair of dimensional scissors. Toffee tore a hole in the fabric of time and space, opening a portal. “I would be careful as long as she is around you, Marco.” Toffee said as he stepped through the portal.
	Marco was stunned. What had just happened? Why didn’t he just jump at the guy instead of talking to him? Why didn’t he feel the urge to just kick his butt? Was it because he was afraid of him? No, that wasn’t it. Maybe it was because Marco agreed with him? … No. Marco can’t have agreed with him. Star was his friend. He cared about Star, and Star cared about him. The reason why she hasn’t left is because they both had fun, beating up monsters, and Star knows it. Right? Marco didn’t have time to finish his thoughts, as the bell to signal the start of class had just rung. Marco began walking to class in a haze.
	After getting to class, the teacher said shouted something about a “Warning” to which Marco said “Yeah yeah, sorry, it won’t happen again,” without taking his eyes off the ground as he walked to his desk. Marco sat down and began trying to process everything that had just happened. He was interrupted by a note that landed on his desk. He looked to the right of him and saw Star looking at him from the corner of her eyes with a curious and worried expression. The note read “Are you alright, bestie?” What was Marco supposed to say? That he just had a lovely conversation with the monster that kidnapped him about the weather and how Star doesn’t care about it? Marco scribbled his response on the letter and tossed it back. It read “Yeah, I’m fine, just tired.”.

	Toffee smiled.

	The seed of his plan has been planted.