#odacchi

Zoro paused, eyes narrowing as he turned to look at Sanji. “Why me?”

“Because it’s for you, dipshit,” Sanji snapped. “And stop giving me that look. I’m not going to poison you.”

Zoro’s eyes remained narrowed as he approached the kitchen counter, clearly suspicious of Sanji’s invitation. Sanji bit back the urge to say anything, reminding himself that he needed Zoro to be complacent if this little scheme of his was going to work. So instead of spitting out some choice insults like he wanted to, Sanji slid a small plate with a few dark brown squares on it towards Zoro and said, “Here.”

As predicted, Zoro scowled deeply, first at the plate and then at Sanji. “Why are you trying to feed me this shit, cook?” he demanded. “I already told you that I don’t like chocolate.”

Actually, what Zoro had specifically said was that he didn’t like chocolate because it was ‘too sweet’, a statement which had thoroughly baffled Sanji because sure, some chocolate was sweet, but plenty of it wasn’t. Sanji himself vastly preferred dark chocolate over milk due to the complexity of flavor, but when he’d asked Zoro about dark chocolate, all Sanji had gotten was an eye roll and a scoffed, “Chocolate is chocolate, stupid cook. Doesn’t matter what color it is, it’s all too sweet.”

Which had led Sanji to the hypothesis he was currently testing.

“It’s not chocolate,” he lied smoothly. “It’s cacao.”

Zoro blinked. “Hah?” he said, head tilting in confusion.

“Cacao,” Sanji repeated. “It’s actually a bean that’s been fermented, roasted, and then processed into something called cacao liquor—“ (He had the suppress a snort at the way Zoro’s ears perked up at the word ‘liquor’) “—that’s then combined with a few other ingredients and left to solidify into bars for easy consumption.”

He gestured at the squares on the plate, which Zoro looked down at with a more thoughtful expression than before. 

“Beans that get roasted?” he said. “Isn’t that how you said coffee is made?”

“Uh, yeah,” Sanji replied, surprised that Zoro had remembered that. “That’s why I thought you might like this, actually. You like black coffee, and cacao has a similar flavor profile—slightly bitter, but complex. And the notes change depending on how it’s processed.”

“Huh.” Zoro picked up one of the squares, squinting at it curiously. “So are you supposed to drink it?”

“No, although there is a powdered form that you can add to liquids,” Sanji said. “But this one you just eat as is. It’s good for you, too, in small quantities. Lots of antioxidants.”

Zoro’s nose wrinkled. “The hell are antioxidants?”

Sanji waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t worry your mossy little head about it. Just think of them as another kind of nutrient.”

Zoro glared at the word ‘little’, but didn’t set down the square. He turned it over in his fingers a few times as if trying to gauge it for traps before he shrugged, apparently satisfied that he wasn’t about to consume anything nefarious. 

“Yeah alright. I’ll give it a shot.”

Sanji had to press his lips together to keep back a grin as Zoro took a bite from the square, growing ever more pleased with himself as the swordsman’s expression shifted from a curious frown to what on Zoro passed for wide-eyed wonder, which was a notable absence of his usual scowl and a slight raising of the eyebrows.

“So?” Sanji asked as Zoro swallowed, barely able to contain his glee.

Zoro shrugged. 

“Not bad,” he said, and Sanji bit his tongue to keep himself from laughing in Zoro’s face. On the sliding scale of Zoro-ism’s, ‘not bad’ was equivalent to a normal person’s ’oh my god, that’s soooooo good!’.

“See?” he said, unable to quite keep the smugness from his tone. “Told you it wasn’t poison.”

Zoro rolled his eyes. “Whatever,” he muttered. Then his gaze dropped to the two squares still sitting on the plate. “So can I take these?”

Sanji had to turn towards the sink so that Zoro wouldn’t see the triumphant grin he couldn’t hold back. Because yeah, Sanji could have just explained to Zoro that dark chocolate referred not to the color but to the higher percentage of cocoa-to-sugar ratio instead of tricking him into eating ‘cacao’.

“Sure, marimo. They’re all yours.”

Ren, from SK

Reinhard, from Re:Zero

Tachiaki (Miira no Kaikata), Tora (12 taisen)

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2023, MINNAAAA 🐇👑💘🌸🎊