“Liver~♪ Liver~♪ RAW liver~♪”
“It’s delicious~! It’s DANGEROUS~!”
“Ho… so this is the legendary…”
“Captain, Your Excellency~! More grilled carrots, please~!”
“Liver, liver, carrot, liver, carrot~♪”
We’re mid-barbecue, and with the palm-top rabbits, the raw liver is somehow outpolling the grilled meat.
Sonya’s also fully imprinted on the raw liver — using those skinny julienned carrots that come with sashimi packs as her “garnish” and inhaling it by the plate.
Chasing it with beer, naturally. Glug, glug.
“Honestly, Onii-chan… you really are something else. My my… who knew raw liver could taste like THIS…”
Katia, in keeping with her dwarf-child appearance, can’t drink at all.
So for her: oolong tea and raw liver, garnished properly with green onion, like a civilized person.
“Aw, this is BAD. If I keep eatin’ this stuff… I ain’t stoppin’ tonight, y’hear me?”
Fox-eared Arisa: red wine, no garnish — just sesame oil and salt.
…Wait. Beastfolk go into heat when they eat dragon liver, don’t they. Between her and Sonya, tonight’s forecast is grim.
“Raw food is a bit much for me…”
—says Maria the succubus, while devouring dragon spare ribs drowned in ponzu with a MOUNTAIN of garlic in it.
Succubi go haywire on garlic. Tonight’s forecast worsens further.
“The garlic is delicious!”
The elves have imprinted hard on the foil-roasted garlic.
I did offer them meat. The vegetarian wall proved unbreachable.
“Everything is delicious, Master.”
Ouroboros the maid has no dislikes whatsoever.
Drinks anything, eats everything. A model household member.
“Is there no CURRY, thou?”
“You are a broken record, you know that?”
Cornelia said it with actual tears forming.
“‘Tis not that I dislike barbecue, mind thee! But to visit THY house and be denied curry…”
She looked so genuinely bereft that I ended the teasing.
“Curry at a barbecue is… basic protocol, obviously.”
I knew Cornelia was coming. It was ready the whole time.
For the record, my school of barbecue holds that the endgame is dumping all leftover meat, offal, and vegetables into the curry — creating not a mystery hot pot but a MYSTERY CURRY.
“Ohh! As expected of THEE!”
Cornelia beamed — and a chill crawled up my spine. Unfriendly gazes, incoming.
Because, you see…
Sonya and Arisa were… breathing hard. Audibly.
“We’re KIDNAPPING him~!”
“I can’t hold back neither!”
The two of them, eyes bloodshot, hoisted me bodily into the air and sprinted for the house at full speed.
Eh?
EH?
What is happening, exactly?
And then it hit me — “ah!”
That’s right… these two go into heat on dragon liver!
And this batch was RAW.
They were eating it RAW. By the PLATE!
“Tatsuya~! Tonight is the until-morning course~♪”
“Tatsuya-bro, I can’t— I just can’t HOLD IT no more!”
T-this is bad.
Normally the heat comes with flushed cheeks and a certain allure — but tonight it’s the pure, sharpened glare of apex predators.
And so, one way or another—
“AAAAAAAAAAAH!”
—my scream rang out across the moonlit night.