Frog

[chansoo / humor / romance] 

“What are you holding?”

“Hm?”

“I asked, what’s that in your hand?”

“A frog.”

The wide-eyed boy answers and looks away from the struggling amphibian in his hand. A big smile stretches across his cute face, and the wonders of the galaxies shimmer brightly in his large and innocent eyes. Chanyeol nods and reaches out a careful finger to touch the poor frog still trapped against his will. Gradually, his cheeks blush pink, and the soft color eventually spreads to the tips of his pointy ears and chubby fingers. Humming a song of his own, the wide-eyed boy also gently pets the frog, completely oblivious to his new friend’s flushed face.  

It was a peaceful afternoon when Chanyeol met the boy who catches frogs with his bare hands. The frog boy’s name was Kyungsoo.

---

“I don’t think you’re doing this right.”

Kyungsoo glares in annoyance at Chanyeol who peers cautiously over his shoulders. The taller teen is hiding behind his best friend because he is scared of a dead frog.

“Then you do it,” Kyungsoo retorts without skipping a beat and jabs the scalpel in his hand right at the other’s nose. Chanyeol squeaks and jumps back, disgust and irrational fear swimming in his gaping eyes.

“You know I can’t touch them!” the lanky young man screeches as his arms fly up into the air in exasperation, “The frogs are so slimy and cold, and so… so dead!”

Kyungsoo rolls his eyes and decides to ignore his best friend. He still doesn’t understand why Chanyeol insists on taking biology with him when the taller boy neither needs this credit nor does he have an interest in biology. ‘Because you’re taking it,’ was the reason Chanyeol gave to Kyungsoo in nonchalant but the wide-eyed boy doesn’t quite believe that. 

Sure, they were inseparable as kids, always doing everything together mostly because Chanyeol was a scaredy cat and a cry baby; Kyungsoo still teases his best friend about all those times when he cried over practically nothing. But they will graduate from high school soon, and they are already establishing lives of their own. Kyungsoo isn’t even sure if they will go to the same university. Although he hasn’t said anything on that matter, he is secretly dreading the possible days without Chanyeol by his side. No doubt the taller teen often is more trouble than he's worth, but he is still dear to Kyungsoo’s heart. For better or for worse, there will not be another creature that roams the earth who will mean the same to him as Chanyeol, and Kyungsoo fully recognizes that. Even so, he also knows that they couldn’t possibly be together forever. ‘Because people change,' Kyungsoo often tells himself late at night when he is pondering about the future and things he cannot control, ‘because people grow up, and we will one day grow apart.’  

“I still don't think you're doing this right,” Chanyeol mumbles again, digging his chin into his friend’s shorter and narrower shoulder. He likes how Kyungsoo always smells like fresh laundry and a forest just after the rain. It calms him, and it always has ever since they were children.

Annoyed with his friend’s nagging, Kyungsoo drops the scalpel into the metallic dissection tray with a loud clink. Then in one swift motion, he grabs the partially opened frog with a gloved hand and brings it inches away from Chanyeol’s face. There’s a brief moment of shocked silence before a high-pitched scream fills the classroom, followed closely by loud clatters of furniture falling over, miscellaneous items dropping to the floor, and a heavy thump. A satisfying smirk stretches across Kyungsoo’s lips as he turns around slowly, the dead frog limp in his hand. 

“Why would you do that???” Chanyeol screams dramatically at his best friend, who only smirks a little broader. 

“Because I can, er. Becuase I can.” 

---

It’s 2:33 a.m. when Kyungsoo makes it to the club. Visibly flustered, he quickly scans the vicinity for the familiar tall figure he is supposed to pick up. After three unanswered calls and having cursed his best friend a million times already, Kyungsoo finally spots the plastered Chanyeol leaning against a tree just down the road. Barely able to contain his anger, he marches up to the drunken man. 

“What the , Park,” Kyungsoo snaps and throws a bottle of water at Chanyeol. It hits the taller man on his head, but he doesn’t seem to care. 

“Kyungsoo, Kyungsoo, Kyungsoo...” Chanyeol mumbles repeatedly and looks up, a goofy smile glowing on his flushed face. Waving enthusiastically at his best friend, he beckons the annoyed man to join him and sit on the curb. After a good minute of struggling and unable to pull Chanyeol off of his drunken , Kyungsoo sighs and reluctantly sits down. 

“Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol slurs and delivers a slap on his friend’s arm, “I got dumped, again!!”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” the shorter man winces and draws away. He hates to be around Chanyeol when the other man is this drunk, but Kyungsoo also cannot bear to leave him alone. Having now been friends for almost two decades, Kyungsoo realized he’d rather be annoyed with Chanyeol and be there with him than to be worried about him from afar. 

“That’s alright!” the taller man throws his arms into the air carelessly and sighs in either relief or sadness, which Kyungsoo cannot be sure of, “They are right, I never really liked them that much anyways.” 

“Then why do you bother dating them in the first place?” Kyungsoo rolls his eyes.

“Because you were dating,” Chanyeol answers honestly and hiccups. 

“What?” Kyungsoo frowns, “what does that have to do with anything?” 

For a while, silence falls between them as Chanyeol stares up at the starless sky while Kyungsoo stares at him. Then as the drunken man hiccups again, he hugs the tree he was leaning on and diverts the conversation. 

“You know that frog and princess story where a frog is actually a prince and the princess is a snob and… you know, that story.”

Kyungsoo arches a brow at the sudden change of subject but hums in reply nonetheless. Asking Chanyeol to make any sense at this point is useless. 

“Well, if you can choose to be the frog or the princess, which would you be?” 

“Uh, neithe-?” 

“No, no, no no no,” Chanyeol interrupts abruptly and shuts his eyes, hugging his tree even tighter, “you don’t get to choose because I am the princess! Okay? I am the princess! Of course I am the princess!” 

“Sure, your highness,” Kyungsoo agrees and bits back his laughter. 

“And you’re the frog, not that you’re ugly or anything, but you are the frog because you’re the prince… you had a frog in your hand when we first met… but that’s not why you’re the frog...no…” 

Chanyeol’s voice grows quieter as he speaks, and slowly, he releases his grip on the tree. Twisting around, he meets Kyungsoo’s worried gaze, and his heart skips a beat. He has always liked Kyungsoo’s eyes, ever since the first time they met. He thought he has caught a glimpse of the Galaxy then, and he still thinks so. Deep, dark, but always shimmering with hope and vigor for life; Chanyeol thinks Kyungsoo’s eyes are the best part of his dreams. 

“You know, some people think that the princess saved the frog, turning him back into a prince and what not, but like, that’s not right. Not right at all,” Chanyeol hiccups again and waves a sassy finger in front of Kyungsoo’s face. His eyes soften and moisten as an overwhelming wave of emotions washed over him, making his chest itching with nausea and his stomach flutter with nerves. 

“The prince, no the frog, well he was a prince but like… look, the frog prince whatever the he was, he saved the princess, okay? He’s the actual hero! He made her see the world differently and brought some meanings to her life. I’m not exactly sure what those meanings are, but I’m sure they are important…I mean, I like the frog prince, he is a good frog, prince… person. Yah, he’s a person. And you’re a person! And so am I!… we can like each other because we are all persons, you know. So, what I am trying to say is that persons can like persons, even if they were once a frog, and… no, no no.. Urg, look! The most important thing here is that they kissed, and the princess was saved, okay? The frog prince saved the princess with a kiss...and...and...”

Chanyeol sighs deeply after his ramble and tries to contain himself from spilling everything, all that he has been struggling with for years. But he’s getting too tired. All this denying, hiding, and suffering, it is not him; actually, it is seriously cramping his style. So taking a big breath, Chanyeol grabs Kyungsoo firmly by his shoulders, whom still hasn’t uttered a word and is still confused, and says in the most serious voice he could muster at the moment: 

“Kiss me, my frog prince. Save your princess and kiss me!” 

Off in the near distance, a fight breaks out between some drunk club-goers. Immediately, a couple of the security guards also jumps in and the commotion attracts everyone’s attention. Everyone except for Kyungsoo and Chanyeol’s, that is. As the noises of violence escalate all around, the two best friends are completely ignorant of them. Chanyeol gazes passionately into Kyungsoo’s eyes while the latter gapes back with disbelief and shock gleaming in his wide eyes. Kyungsoo has heard his friend spew many ridiculous things out of that mouth of his throughout the years, but nothing can compare to this. If he’s not mistaken, Chanyeol has just drunkenly confessed to him. Opening and close his mouth like a fish out of the water, Kyungsoo’s mind buzzes frantically as he desperately searches for the right words to say. 

“I’m uh, you,” he stutters as a car alarm goes off in the background, “I'm happy you have feelings for me to-”

“Kiss me, frog prince! For I am your princess!” Chanyeol shouts in his typical melodramatic manner, overpowering the deafening honk of the alarm, and closes in on his flustered friend, “Kiss me!” 

“Wait, Chanyeol! This isn’t the time or plac-”

Another car alarm goes off, soon joined in by the loud wailing of a police car siren.  

“Kiss me, Kyungsoo!”

“I said wait!”

One more police siren echoes obnoxiously in the night, mixing discordantly with the existing siren as well as the two blaring car alarms, and Chanyeol raises his voice further. 

“GODDAMN IT! KISS ME ALREADY, YOU STUPID FROG!”

“I SAID WAIT, YOU ING IDIOT!” 

“KISS YOUR ING PRINCESS, DOH KYUN-”

And that is how Chanyeol ruined his favorite pair of dress shoes: by vomiting on it while demanding a kiss from his best friend slash love of his life. 

Kyungsoo cringes at the colorful content flowing out of Chanyeol’s mouth in a mixture of solid and liquid. Awkwardly, he rubs the long arm now holding onto his shoulders for balance and support. He doesn’t know if he should laugh in this situation, get angry, or be worried. But Kyungsoo supposes he’s glad at least he wasn’t thrown up on. 

After another half minute of gagging, , and more retching, Chanyeol finally straightens his back again. Teary eyed and haggard, he sniffles and mumbles pitifully, like a puppy whose tail was just stepped on: “In case that wasn’t so clear, I was confessing to you,” 

Chanyeol looks down at his shoes and immediately regrets doing so. Focusing his attention on Kyungsoo again, he pouts and furrows his brows together like a five-year-old demanding to be taken seriously. 

“I think I love love you,” He states quietly, his voice almost completed drowned out by the chaos all around them. 

“I figured,” Kyungsoo sighs but also cracks a small smile that expresses all of the fondness he has for the taller man as well as love, “but I’m not going to kiss you. Not now. Not after I’ve seen what just came out of you.” 

Chanyeol blinks blankly at the grinning man in front of him for a bit and gradually, Kyungsoo’s words register in his inebriated brain. In a flash, the knot in between his brows loosens and his face lights up like a sunny day in mid-July. If he has a tail, he'd be wagging it. Kyungsoo chuckles at the other’s happy expression and his cheeks heat up. It's a great feeling to know that your love is reciprocated. 

He can't recall when he had fallen in love with Chanyeol, but when he did realize, he was already traversing down a road of no return. Despite working hard to deny everything by dating girls left and right, in the end, he gave up and came to term with his feelings. He told himself that he'll just take this love to his grave, especially when Chanyeol started dating girls all of a sudden as well. He never thought how he felt about his best friend could be mirrored. But now that it's has become a reality, Kyungsoo cannot be more thankful. He has received happiness, and of course, it is from Chanyeol, his princess. 

“Come on, your highness, it's late and we ought to return to your castle,” Kyungsoo says while standing up, dusting invisible dirt off of his bottom. Grinning broadly, he bows slightly and extends a hand. Chanyeol giggles, looking like a shy girl of fifteen in front of her crush and takes the hand. Kyungsoo's temperature permeate through their palms and Chanyeol relishes in the tingles and warmth building in his chest. Butterflies are dancing in his stomach, and the giddiness of love is intoxicating him more than all the alcohol he has consumed. Despite the prospect of a hellish hangover in the morning, Chanyeol thinks he will be alright. No, he knows he will be because Kyungsoo loves him. 

--- 

The sun is high, and the sky is blue. It is the perfect day for a hike, or so Kyungsoo said. Chanyeol pants heavily and looks ahead at his boyfriend effortlessly climbing the path. He knew he was out of shape, but this is ridiculous. It seems that out of everyone hiking this route, which really are just seniors and them, he is the only one dying. Taking another deep inhale and cracking his back joints yet again, Chanyeol groans and begins to whine. 

"Do you have to walk so fast?" 

Kyungsoo halts and turns around. Immediately, he cannot help but crack a smile at his boyfriend's dishevel state and pouting face. Chanyeol looks as if he had just run a marathon when in reality they've only been hiking a rather flat mountain for about an hour. Returning to his love's side, Kyungsoo dabs gently at the sweat covering the taller man's forehead. 

"Why are we hiking anyways?" Chanyeol complains for the sixth time that day. 

“Because you need to move more,” Kyungsoo explains for the sixth time that day. 

“I’m a music composer. Hiking isn’t in my job description.” Chanyeol challenges further. 

“You’re also my boyfriend. Hiking is in that job description.” Kyungsoo smoothly shuts down any future objections. But judging by the proud grin now plastered on Chanyeol’s face, it doesn't seem like the taller man minds much.

“And you have something growing here,” Kyungsoo adds with an amused chuckle, poking at the slight bump on Chanyeol’s abdominal, “what is this, a permanent food baby?”

“His name is Travis,” Chanyeol winks and rubs his bump like how an expecting mother would. Kyungsoo’s smile falters a little, and he sends his boyfriend an unimpressed look. 

“You named your protruding gut?” 

“Kyungsoo!” Chanyeol fake gasps and turns his bump away as if protecting it, “Travis is family!” 

“Oh my God…” 

“It’s alright, food baby. Papa still loves you.” 

Kyungsoo rolls his eyes out of sheer embarrassment and mumbles as he walks away: “Why am I dating you…” 

“Because you love me,” Chanyeol shouts from behind, having overheard his boyfriend’s quiet lament, “Because you love us!” 

However, Kyungsoo’s attention was already caught by something else, and he wanders into the leafy grounds beyond the hiking path. Unhappy with the lack of attention he’s getting as well as worried for his boyfriend, Chanyeol lets his bump be and also carefully wades into the thick vegetation. He watches as Kyungsoo slowly bends down then suddenly lunges at something on the floor. Curious, he leans in closer and tries to catch a peek. 

“What have you got there?” Chanyeol whispers. Kyungsoo looks up at him with sparkling eyes and whispers in return.

“A frog, your highness.” 

Chanyeol bends down with a tiny scowl. He hates how that nickname stuck, even though he only has himself to blame. 

“Don’t call me that anymore.”

“But you were so insistent on being a princess,” Kyungsoo giggles quietly and pets the tiny creature that is oddly calm in his hands. He offers it to the taller man to pet as well, and the latter reluctantly drags a wary finger down the amphibian’s slimy back. Repeatedly, Chanyeol makes an ugly gagging face every time he touches the frog, but he still continues to pet it because he knows that his boyfriend likes frogs. That was how they first met after all, when Kyungsoo was catching frogs with his bare hands. Chanyeol will never forget that day, not only because he was surprised at why anyone would want to touch a frog, but also because he was in awe of how someone's eyes and smiles could be so beautiful. Maybe since their first meeting, he has already fallen in love. Maybe they were already written in the stars. 

Kyungsoo watches fondly at Chanyeol's changing expressions which quickly alternated between being fascinated, disgusted, and relieved as the man pokes and taps the frog. In his eyes, this is both a tiny yet grant gesture because the man he loves is trying hard to accept what he loves. Not everyone is lucky enough to find someone like this; not everyone is lucky enough to be in love with their best friend. But small moments such as this one reminds Kyungsoo time and time again that he is very blessed because he has Chanyeol. So under the cloudless blue sky with both of them hidden away among the lush greeneries, he leans in, and they kiss.

“Princess,” Kyungsoo whispers against his boyfriend’s lips and the said man growls playfully. 

Closing the gap between them again, Chanyeol bites down on the plump set of lips in front him without many thoughts, but he quickly regrets doing so. In one swift motion, Kyungsoo pulls back and replaces his lips with the frog’s slimy mouth. For a good three seconds, Chanyeol froze in his kiss with the frog before finally screaming murder and scrambling away on the ground. 

“Why would you do that??” Chanyeol screeches while spitting and rubbing his lips furiously. Kyungsoo cackles and stands up with the frog still in his hand. Then as he looks down at his freaked out boyfriend, he smirks and answers:

“Because I love you, princess. Because I love you.” 

FIN.