"...What is this?" Kody looked at the spread of strange and unrecognizable foods on the table.
"An intervention," Rin said drily. "Before you make a complete fool of yourself again."
"Look, it was just the one time -"
Rin began to count on her fingers. "You tried to eat a banana by biting through the skin. You asked why the truffles smelled like feet. You poured the sauce into an oyster and tried to eat it with a spoon -"
"Okay, okay, fine. What's this?" Kody said, pointing to a random dish on the table that looked like a giant scaly bud.
"Artichoke," Rin said. "You break off a scale and then eat it from the bottom, like so."
Kody copied this, uncertain: taking a scale, dipping it in the provided sauce, chewing on the thick end. "And what do I do with this bit?"
"You just leave it on the plate and they take it away at the end of the course. This applies to almost all of these, by the way."
Kody pointed at another. "Do you really think I don't know how to eat a fish?"
Rin sighed. "It's mostly here because you tried to eat the fins and the guts. You're not supposed to do that."
"Ma always said to."
"Were you raised by -" Rin snapped her mouth shut. "Sorry. Habit."
"It's fine," Kody said, only slightly uncomfortably. "Let's get back to it."
"Right." Rin was demonstrating how to pull away bones with deft flicks of the fork, then gave the rest to Kody, who completely failed to do the same maneuver.
Eventually Kody gave up and put it down. "This is hard."
"I'll get more later so you can practice."
"What about... this one?"
"Oh! Crab legs! Those are fun, you get to use a nutcracker for them. Just... try not to get the juice all over your hands?"
Kody promptly got the juice all over his hands.
"...Close enough. Also, please use the napkin, not your clothes."
Kody immediately froze his hands in midair.
"...actually, now that I think of it, I've seen a bit of a cheat for that. You can unfold the napkin and spread it over your lap. Usually that's only for kids, but you can probably get away with it as long as you don't make it too obvious."
"Oh! Thanks."
Rin gestured at the table. "What do you want to try next?"
"What's with the giant mushroom?"
"It's called a portobello. You need to cut it into pieces before eating it."
Kody rolled his eyes. "Do I have to cut everything into pieces?"
"Yes. Unfortunately."
"What about the bread rolls? Aren't I supposed to just bite into them?"
"Oh, you're right. Yes, you do."
"Gotcha," Kody said, grinning.
