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Senku is ten billion percent fucked.
He had, in a moment of manic exhilaration over a scientific breakthrough, lost the tungsten ball that took him several sleepless nights to make. It happened as he was on his way to strongarm Taiju and Yuzuriha in the next phase of his experiment. He had, quite magnificently, tripped on a pebble as one was often wont to do when born with the physical prowess of a water flea.
Just as Senku attempted to break his fall, however, the ball slipped from his hands, rolled along the forest floor and paused a few inches away from a spring as if to give him the false illusion of hope. But a passing squirrel had dashed past it, ultimately sealing the tungsten ball’s fate as it fell deep into the water.
His recovery attempts after that were unsuccessful. The spring was deep and Senku’s best time without needing to be rescued like a damsel was fifteen seconds tops.
While he was considering which of his laborers friends was the best at holding their breath underwater, a rich and sonorous voice suddenly cut through his thoughts, “Was this what you had lost?”
Senku blinks. There, in front of him, is a frog sitting atop a golden ball. Even more bizarre is the blue tricorne hat, seemingly fashioned for frog dimensions, perched atop its head.
“Well?” The talking frog asks again, seemingly impatient.
It takes a total of five seconds before Senku can articulate an appropriate response. After all, frogs speaking in human tongues is not a well-documented scientific phenomenon.
Still dumbfounded, Senku shakes his head and replies, “No, my ball was more–” He gestures helplessly, wondering if the frog would even comprehend the full spectrum of colors. Herpetology isn’t quite his strongest field after all. “Silver in color.”
The talking frog, for it could not be anything but a frog, a Rana temporaria to be exact, gives him a single grave nod before jumping back into the spring with a soft splash. It returns after a brief moment with a silver ball cradled beneath its forelimbs. The tricorne hat, miraculously, had managed to stay put throughout the whole ordeal.
“Was this what you had lost?” The frog asks once more as it sits atop a large pair of balls.
“You’re a common frog,” Senku says instead, ignoring the comically suggestive image in front of him.
“How rude!” The frog makes an expression that Senku can only describe as a frown. “I am far from common!”
“No, that’s literally what you–Never mind. How is this even possible?” Unable to contain his curiosity, Senku picks the frog up, inspecting it the same way one would check a fruit for bruises. The frog, to its credit, didn’t seem to mind and even made itself comfortable in Senku’s hands after striking quite a few strange poses.
“People have lost their limbs for lesser acts of lèse-majesté, but I shall permit this act of discourtesy.” The frog snaps its forefingers at him. Senku’s eyes snap to the distinct blue pattern on its forelimb. “You may pet me to your heart’s desire!”
This time it’s Senku’s turn to frown. “How are you able to do that?”
“Do what? This?” The frog snaps its forefingers for a second time. “With my fingers, obviously. It’s quite simple, you just move your fingers like so–”
“It’s ten billion percent impossible for frogs to produce speech.” Senku interrupts, squinting his eyes at the frog after having found nothing else of note. “Human speech is produced through the synergy of air vibrating through the larynx and the complex contraction of oropharyngeal muscles, half of which a Rana temporaria does not possess. It goes against all kinds of logic that you should be able to speak.”
“Ha! A parrot may speak in tongues, or a crow may have an eye for silver, yet these are not strangers to our land.” The frog haughtily replies, displaying an uncharacteristic eloquence not observed in any known frog.
“Actually, parrots have specialized anatomy and developed brains that make imitation of human speech possible. And crows liking shiny things is a myth, but they are excellent at problem solving.” Senku rebuts, as he continues to figure out the cause for the frog’s odd intellect. Beyond its ability for speech, its blue tricorne hat, and blue striations on its right forelimb (and well that sure is quite the list), the frog, for all intents and purposes, is just a common frog.
“You are exceptionally shrewd just as you are fair.” The frog politely dips its moist head, before snapping back up at him with, “I want you!”
“What.”
“But I have yet to hear an answer to my question.” The frog jumps free from Senku’s hands and does a little glide in the air, before resuming its previous position on the golden and silver ball. “Was this the ball that you had lost?”
“No. It looks similar, but I lost a tungsten ball.” Senku pauses. “Actually, how many balls have fallen in that spring anyway?”
“Very well.” The frog gives Senku another nod, barely acknowledging his question. It returns after a few minutes with a very round and very silver tungsten ball. “Was this the ball that you had lost?” It asks again with the surety of victory in its voice.
“Yeah, that is ten billion percent mine!” Senku grins, reaching for the specimen with expectant hands. "Thanks, I don’t know what I would have done—” He does not, however, expect the frog to dodge him with pinpoint accuracy, three balls in tow.
“I merely asked if it was yours.” The frog smugly says. “I did not say I would give it to you.”
“What would a frog even want with a tungsten ball?!” Senku makes another lunge for his ball, but his constitution is no match for the speed by which the frog evades him. Despite Senku’s tenacity, the frog is a slippery thing and manages to elude his every attempt at recovering his ball.
Senku isn’t sure he’s gonna live down the fact that a frog had bested him in a battle of speed. Worse, Senku has been huffing and panting in exertion while the frog remains largely unbothered by its multiple acts of dexterity.
“You look rather charming when you’re all flushed like that.” The frog suddenly says, unprompted, flashing what it thinks is a winsome smile at Senku. It would have been considered roguishly charming perhaps on a human man, but on a frog all it incited in Senku was a distinct sense of unease.
Senku raises an arm to wipe the sweat beading from his forehead. It takes him several attempts before he can wheeze out an articulate response. “A man that praises another to his face is either flirting or scheming. I suppose the same could be said for frogs too. So, what’s your aim?”
The frog’s lips stretch into an approximation of a grin. “I may be a man full of desire–”
Senku bitterly swallows down the retort he had in mind, thinking about all the different ways he could make the damned slippery beast concede possession of his ball.
“–But I am not without generosity. I shall offer all these to you and more as courtship gifts, in exchange for the lovely maiden’s hand in marriage.”
The gears in Senku’s head stop turning. He looks at the frog, aghast. “Ha?”
The frog clears its throat, “I would like to propose marriage to the princess of The Kingdom of Science, namely you, if I wasn’t clear enough.”
“I’m not a princess. I’m a scientist.”
“A princess scientist, I see, truly you are the epitome of desire. I think we will get along famously once we are wed!”
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but I’ve got no time for marriage.” Senku sneers, digging a finger into his ear. He had received several offers for his hand in marriage as Byakuya’s sole heir, but none were quite so brazen as this frog. The frog, to its credit, is ten billion percent more endearing than any other man who had proposed to him, if only because it managed to capture his attention for more than fifteen minutes. But Senku isn’t about to say yes just because it asked. “There’s much to be done and to be seen in the world. I don’t plan on playing house and staying at home all day with any man, much less a frog, anytime soon. My life is sworn to science.”
“Ha! And I would have it no other way, your shrewdness is far too valuable to be locked away in some dusty old castle!” The frog opens its forelimb, offering Senku its hand. “If you accept my offer, then I will personally swear to approve any and all of your grant proposals!”
Senku pauses, considering. He had been feeling a little bad as of late, having to drain Byakuya’s personal coffers to cover the cost of his many experiments. All things considered, marriage to a frog isn’t really all that different to man. The frog, at least, seems supportive of Senku’s interests.
The frog’s ability to follow through on its promise was an entirely separate matter, however. Not to mention, there’s also the matter of…obligations associated with marriage.
“Would I have to share a marital bed with you?”
Senku must have made quite the uneasy expression because the frog quickly amends its offer, its tone softening. “Fine, if marriage is too much for now, then a kiss should suffice. ”
“A kiss in exchange for my tungsten ball?”
The frog sighs. “Yes. A kiss in exchange for your tungsten ball. Now wipe that glum look off your face, I am weak to a pretty creature’s tears.”
“I don’t know…” Senku stalls. It’s not as if he’s that averse to kissing. At the end of the day, a kiss is just a fleeting contact of cutaneous membranes. The problem is that the other party is a frog and kissing one sounds like a biohazard incident in the making.
“Will you not do it? For science?” The frog presses in a dangerously coy and sweet voice. “As you’ve said, I am quite the anomaly. Suppose I actually am a man cursed into a frog, unlocking my curse would open a new frontier of knowledge for you.”
Senku’s lips flatten into a thin line, unimpressed.
“And supposing I’m just a scheming frog out to kiss fair maidens, well, I remain a source of scientific inquiry. I am, after all, still a talking frog. You may examine me to your heart’s desire. Truly, it is a win-win situation for you.”
“You’re forgetting the part where I have to kiss a frog.”
“Science is all about taking risks.”
Well. Senku can’t argue with that. A scientific breakthrough at the cost of a temporary bruise to his pride, it’s not like he hasn’t done anything worse. Not to mention, he does have some vials of antiseptic on him, so it's not as if kissing a frog is any worse than touching it with his hands. Possibly. Maybe.
And besides, if he’s to be honest, Senku is mildly curious if things such as curses really do exist.
So Senku kisses the frog. He does it without fanfare and with the same clinical detachment as he does when he conducts his experiments. When all is said and done, science is science, and in the absence of a consenting control subject, the primary investigator may be their own subject.
Xeno is going to chew him out for this.
As soon as Senku’s mouth meets the frog’s own, however, a flash of green light envelops the forest. The weight of the frog on his palms disappears, only to be replaced by a strong pair of arms that snake around his waist, pulling him close. Senku yelps, but his surprise is swallowed down by a very human mouth that descends upon him, deepening the kiss.
When the light vanishes, there is an extremely blond and incredibly naked man in place of the frog. He grins, and this time, Senku thinks it's not so disconcerting anymore. “You have my gratitude for breaking my curse, fair maiden! I am Nanami Ryusui, crown prince of The Nanami Kingdom!”
It turns out that the frog was indeed the missing heir from The Nanami Kingdom. He had been cursed by a passing warlock who had found Ryusui’s multiple attempts to recruit him into his kingdom rather annoying. The curse was set to expire on its own over the course of a day, but Ryusui had somehow gotten the grand idea that only a true love’s kiss could break the curse, and what better candidate than the lovely and passionate princess scientist of The Science Kingdom?
Senku feels cheated–all that scientific conundrum for nothing–but Ryusui was quite good at coaxing him into a better mood under promises of unlimited funding for his pet projects.
After that, it is said that the two got along so famously well, much like an indulgent knight and a capricious princess, that bards across the land would sing of poetry purporting of their love.
Personally, Senku finds the whole thing a little over the top, but he doesn’t say no when Ryusui finally proposes to him with gifts of gold, silver, and tungsten.
And they lived happily ever after. The end.