Another (late) Valentine's Day fic featuring Zack and Aerith (that I forgot to post here ^^;), because I love them and I want them to be happy together. A somewhat continuation to my previous fic: Here with Me. There, we see Aerith wanting to make Zack a materia-themed chocolate. Here, we see how Zack reacts to them :3 Also, the chocolates are inspired by SE's official materia-themed chocolates

A/N: This is a mix of modern AU and in-game canon

Hope you enjoy! Comments and reviews are much appreciated :D Thanks!

Aerith sat on the chair behind the cash register counter, a pink box tied in a pretty red ribbon rested between her hands. They had promised to meet in her flower shop that morning. On Valentine's morning.

A small smile teased her lips.

She still couldn't believe that they had been together for a little short of four years. It had been on her third year of high school, just before she graduated. She had thought it would be another of their usual outings, with Cloud and Tifa. She never minded. She loved them like her own brother and sister. But Aerith had also cherished the small moments she had alone with Zack, and she had thought that maybe, Zack felt the same way. Just that he had to bring Cloud wherever he went, and where there was Cloud, there would be Tifa.

So it had come as a surprise when Zack knocked on her door early that morning four years ago. A bike she had never seen before stood on the driveway. He had looked—Aerith had never seen him looking like that—sheepish, and awkward, and clumsy, as he asked her on a date. A date. Just the two of them.

Aerith hadn't let herself wonder what it had meant. She hadn't wanted to have her hopes up. Because she had broken in cold sweat when she gave him her first ever homemade chocolate on Valentine's Day the month before and though she had never clarified that it had been, indeed, a honmei chocolate, Zack had looked so happy. He had this bright smile—the brightest smile she had ever seen on him—and Aerith had thought that it was worth it. That she didn't need an answer. That she didn't need anything on White Day. Because this was his gift—this smile that could brighten a room. And she loved him for it.

Aerith glanced at the clock hanging on the wall behind her. Zack should be here any minute now. After several years of this, she wasn't feeling antsy anymore. In fact, she was brimming with anticipation. She couldn't wait to see his expression when he finally saw what she had made him—materia-inspired chocolates. She had seen them in the magazine she had bought the week before when she was helping Tifa with her own chocolate for Cloud. Beautiful truffles coated in mirror-like glaze of various colors—red, blue, green, yellow, and purple—all displayed in a pretty box.

Those very same chocolates now sat on the table before her, set neatly in rows inside the pink box. It had been too hard to make the mirror glazes like the pictures in the magazine, so instead she had dipped them in simple glazes that Tifa had also used on her own chocobo-themed chocolate. They didn't look as glossy as she would like, but they had served their purpose, and it was the taste that counted. At least, that was what Aerith was telling herself.

The door to the shop opened, ringing the bell overhead. Aerith looked up and her face broke into a smile when she saw Zack in the doorway.

"Hey," he said with a grin. "Sorry, did you wait long?"

Aerith walked over to him and gave him a quick kiss. "No, it's fine," she said. "Did you get back late last night?" Because Zack had been away for the past couple of days with Cloud for some job outside the city. They were mercenaries, taking in one odd job after another—hunting monsters, delivering packages—and with the rise of their reputation, they had been getting more and more jobs that would take them outside of the city.

"A bit," he admitted. "But I'm all ready now. Where do you wanna go for our date?"

"Before that," Aerith said, leading him by the hand back to the counter where she gave him the pink box she had left there. "Here," she said. "Happy Valentine's Day."

Zack received it with a bright smile, and with a kiss to her cheek, he said, "Thanks. Can I open it now?"

Now that he was here and the box was finally on his hands, her brimming anticipation was immediately replaced by a fidgeting anxiety because the moment of truth was finally upon her and Aerith wasn't sure she was ready to face his reaction. In the past, the homemade chocolates she had given him were simple, with a simple design, simple add-ons, simple messages. She had wanted to do something different this year, but this was a failed attempt to imitate high-end, store-brand chocolates. What if he didn't like it?

No, stop that! What mattered was the taste and the taste wasn't so bad. At least, according to Tifa, whom Aerith acknowledged to have a much higher cooking skill than her, and that was saying something. Her only respite was that he hadn't seen those materia-inspired chocolates ads. Or, at least, she hoped so.

So Aerith nodded and watched with apprehension as Zack slowly and carefully untied the ribbon and lifted the lid.

She pursed her lips, her eyes locked on every tiny change in Zack's expression.

She noticed the slight widening of his eyes, then the pause, which stretched longer than she would like. But then the corners of his lips quirked upward, and the beginning of a smile bloomed on his face.

"This is really cool," Zack said, placing the ribbon and box lid beside the cash register. He picked one up—a truffle dipped in a blue glaze. He bit into it, and his eyes widened at the flavor bursting in his mouth. "It's really good! Is this blueberry?"

Aerith let out the breath she didn't realize she had been holding. The moment of truth had passed. The appearance was all right. The taste was all right. She beamed when she met Zack's eyes again and nodded. "Yeah, they're all different flavors," she said. "The blue ones have blueberry coating; the red ones have strawberry." Aerith went on to point out each of the different colors—green for matcha, yellow for lemon, and purple for taro. There were also plain chocolates coated in powdered sugar or heart sprinkles.

"Are these the materia chocolates I saw in your magazine?" Zack asked, finishing his first blueberry piece.

That made Aerith pause. She looked up at him, at the innocent curiosity in his eyes, and felt her face heating up.

"How did you know about that?"

Zack blinked in confusion and shrugged. "You left the magazine open that day I went to your house," he simply replied. At her silence, he tilted his head to the side. "Was I not supposed to know that?"

"No—no, that's not—" Aerith pursed her lips and felt her face burning even more. She forced a smile. "They don't look as good as the ones in the magazine, are they?"

"What?" he said, surprised. "Well, I mean, yeah, I guess. They have this kind of gloss on them. Real shiny, almost like the materias themselves. But I think I like yours better."

She looked up at that.

"Look," he said, picking up another truffle, this time a green one. "These don't have that kind of gloss, but their color looks natural. They're delicious. And most of all, they're made by you."

There was always something about Zack's smile, something contagious. What had been a grim mood would brighten up; others would laugh alongside him; and she would find herself wanting to smile back. It was an instinctive response, as though he had the power to draw them out of people. Aerith couldn't stop herself from smiling.

"You just know how to make a girl happy," Aerith teased instead, trying to distract him from the growing smile on her lips.

"No," Zack said. "I just know how to make you happy."

She should have expected him to make that comeback, but she didn't, and now Aerith really couldn't stop the smile from threatening to split her face in two. Zack was grinning like a little boy who had just won a prize. But when he bit into the green truffle, his expression changed in an instant. It scrunched up like he had just tasted something sour.

"What's wrong?" Aerith asked in concern. Maybe the chocolates did taste bad after all and the blueberry one had been a lucky draw.

It was a while before Zack found his voice and Aerith couldn't believe what she was hearing: "Did you put wasabi there?"

"Wasa—?"

Aerith couldn't even finish the word, because the notion of having wasabi in a chocolate was so absurd that her brain needed a moment to register it. And then she remembered: the afternoon on the day before, making the chocolates with Tifa and Yuffie in her kitchen, and Yuffie playfully saying, "Wouldn't it be funny if Zack and Cloud ate one of these and instead of chocolate or matcha or whatever, they'd find wasabi? You know, like one of those wasabi candies they sell in the stores."

"That would be funny, yes, but please do not turn my Valentine's chocolate to a Russian Roulette, Yuffie," she had told the fifteen-year-old girl. "If you want to prank them, do it with your own chocolate not mine."

Tifa had laughed while Yuffie had reluctantly complied. But, could it be?

Aerith stared at the green-coated truffle in Zack's fingers. "Let me see," she said.

It was still chocolate inside. At least Yuffie hadn't sneaked in a coated wasabi ball in here. She stared at the coating, then took a small bite of the chocolate.

Chocolate melted in her mouth, along with the matcha coating and a faint spicy flavor of wasabi. Had Yuffie really mixed it inside the glaze? It was only a small bite, and yet she could already taste it. But Zack had bitten the truffle in half. Of course the wasabi would be overpowering.

"Sorry, I think Yuffie played a prank on you," Aerith said.

Zack scowled, and only muttered, "That kid," but he kept on chewing.

Aerith watched him try to swallow the wasabi chocolate, but it was painful seeing him bear with it. "You don't have to force yourself, you know."

When Zack finally finished the piece in his mouth, it was obvious that he hated the taste, but he was still grinning. "Who said I was forcing myself?" He plucked the other half from Aerith's fingers and plopped it into his mouth, his face scrunching up again at spiciness exploding inside him. "I am going to kill that kid," he muttered again, half laughing.

Aerith felt like she should feel sorry, for Zack, or for Yuffie, because even though Zack was eight years older than her, he was still a child himself sometimes, and Aerith knew that Zack meant what he said, in the way that he would repay her prank ten-fold. Aerith couldn't help but laugh.

In the end, Aerith forced Zack to let her have half of the truffles that contained wasabi in it. Even if he could bear it, she couldn't bear seeing him scrunch his face every time he ate it.

~ END ~