Chapter Text
Shiro often found odd things in his pockets but when he pulls out a deformed small bar of chocolate from deep inside the back of his sweatpants, he admits that he’s surprised that not even the Altean mice have discovered the sweet treat before him.
He unwraps it and then he sniffs it—hesitantly at first, because god knows how long that has been there and from where it even came from—but the aroma of dark bitter cocoa so strong draws him in and brings him all the way home.
He’s back to that gas station that his friends and him used to always stop by when skipping the most boring cadet academy classes. He’s back to that one peaceful winter morning when he made hot chocolate for the first time for his parents who had never heard of such a thing in their native countries. He’s back to when he remembered what a blue sky and a red sun looked like, back to when there were more stars he could recognize at night than ones he could barely pronounce the names of.
He can almost lose himself in the bittersweet memories like the bittersweet chocolate he holds in his hand, melting between the warmth of his fingers and slipping away but he doesn’t want to let the good happy past—the past before his other past—go. And he can almost lose himself in the smell of nostalgia and homesickness before he’s interrupted by a curious Altean behind him.
“And what is that you have there, Shiro?” she asks him accusedly.
He feels her rest her cool hand on the small of his back and he turns around, smiling sheepishly and presenting what’s in his left hand. “Chocolate,” he tells her.
She’s unimpressed—and understandably so, because in its current state, it looks like nothing pleasant.
“Try some,” he offers, handing it to her.
She wrinkles her nose so hard that the pink wings under her eyes crinkle. “It looks hideous.”
“Just a little melted,” he explains. Then with a grin, he adds, “Space goop doesn’t look much different.”
She keeps her original judgments and her facial expressions don’t waver, but she takes a risk and takes the chocolate bar from him. She lifts it to her nose and takes a whiff. And then she bites off half—and her eyes widen because she doesn’t expect it to be so brittle—and slowly rolls it in her mouth.
He’s completely entertained by her utter confusion. The furrowing of her eyebrows, the blink of her lashes, the pursing of her lips.
He smiles. “Delicious, no?”
“It’s good,” she tells him. It sounds like a question.
He doesn’t think she’s unsure though. She drops the remainder of the chocolate into her mouth and unravels the wrapping, trying to read the foreign characters on the paper.
“Chocolate?” she asks him, when she looks back up at him—and her accent makes the word sound that much more adorable in her voice.
“Yes,” he affirms. “Chocolate—one of the best things about Earth.”
“Mmm,” she says, nodding her head and folding the wrapper into quarters like she’s about to keep it for later reference. And then she realizes—
“Oh, quiznak! I didn’t ate it all without even asking if you wanted a bite! I’m so so sorry!”
He laughs quietly. “The smell of it was more than enough for me.” He steps forward and wraps his arms loosely around her waist, bringing her into him. “I’d rather have seen you enjoy it.”
She steps further into his embrace in return of his gesture, but she clasps her hands together and looks down at the wrapper, where there is barely a smudge of chocolate left. “But I didn’t leave you even one bit!”
He touches their foreheads together, noticing some chocolate hiding at the corner of her lips.
“Yes you have,” he assures her softly. And then he brings his lips down to taste his sweet.