Work Text:
“What is this dish called again?” Ulaz asked. He had half hidden, peering over the top of the counter. When Shiro had initially asked why, Ulaz had explained it was a ‘safety precaution’ following the incident where Lance had tricked him into eating chocolate by assuring him it wasn’t fruit. The Paladins had quickly learned that Ulaz didn’t seem to like sweet stuff very much. After trying a piece of the chocolate, he had promptly spat it out, as if it tasted unpleasant.
However, he appeared to be trusting Shiro to not give him something that tasted disgusting. Ulaz seemed to be very curious about human culture, much as the Paladins were interested in his. Never in his life had Shiro actually expected that he would meet an alien—much less prepare human cuisine for one. In retrospect, he should have let Hunk handle this kind of thing. Shiro wasn’t a very good cook himself. He knew how to make basic things, but he had lived on mostly instant ramen and microwaveable mac and cheese back when he was still at the Garrison. Making things from scratch just wasn’t something he did that often.
“Sushi,” Shiro finally answered—not the easiest thing to make, but at least he knew how to make it. He glanced down at the cutting board on the counter and withheld a grimace. His cuts into the fish were… not that pretty to look at. It seemed more like he had been hacking into it than making clean slices. He also wasn’t sure if he had gotten all of the bones out either, but he had tried, at least? The substitute he was using for rice looked decent, though.
“Soo-she?” Ulaz repeated, still not emerging from his spot behind the counter. Only his eyes and ears were visible, and the former tracked the movement of the knife as Shiro made another slice into the fish meat. Then, Ulaz’s ears perked up as he tilted his head to the side. “Is this a human delicacy? You’re using brightly colored fish for it…”
“Some humans think it is, I guess,” Shiro said through a laugh—Ulaz’s ears seemed to give a pleased twitch at the sound. “And this is called salmon… it’s not a rare fish, though. You can find it in a lot of things back on Earth and we sometimes eat the roe—the eggs, I mean.”
“Sahl-mon,” Ulaz said, testing the word on his tongue. His claws clicked lightly against the countertop, as if he wanted to try a piece of it, but was still hesitant. However, Shiro had seen Ulaz eat an entire fish’s head before without thinking anything of it—and he had startled both Pidge and Keith while doing so. As such, Shiro doubted that his hesitance was because he thought the chunks of salmon sitting on the cutting board looked gross and inedible.
Shiro stopped cutting the fish for a moment and carefully set the knife to the side. Ulaz’s ears twitched at the sides of his head, but he said nothing. Then, Shiro motioned to the fish with a jerk of his head. “Go on,” he said in encouragement.
Ulaz’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, even as he rose up onto his toes and one of his hands inched forward. “This isn’t going to burn my tongue, is it?”
“For the last time,” Shiro said in exasperation. “Those peppers didn’t burn your tongue, they were just spicy.”
Ulaz hummed softly, but said nothing in response. Instead, he hooked a piece of the salmon on one of his claws before popping it into his mouth. He seemed pleased with the taste, as his eyes closed and his ears twitched at the sides of his head. He didn’t sink back into lurking behind the counter top, but his claws still clicked against it. Instead, he eyed the rest of the fish, as if he were far more interested in just eating that than he was in the dish proper.
When he actually went so far as to reach out to snag another piece, Shiro lightly swatted his hand away and shot him an amused look. In retaliation, Ulaz gave a mock hiss, but didn’t move, continuing to watch Shiro as he worked without any further complaints.