Ffffffihhhhhhhnnghg.  ('. . . Less boring how?')

Rrrrlllllllnnnnmm.  ('They do things that no food here does.  Even the ones with Unpleasantnesses.')

Ggggkekhkhkhhhhhh?  Khhhhherrrrrrm.  Ffffffffffffffffffhhhhhhillllllllllnnnnnnn.

(It . . . honestly doesn't really understand most of that.  Something about home, something about foods, something about . . . . . something.)

. . . Pfffferhhhhhng.  ('Full meals, yeah?')

Hhhh.  ('Yeah, full meals.')

Hhhhnnnnnnihhhhkhkhkhkh?  ('Yeah, full meals: [something indecipherable].')

This time it is the one to float away from the conversation.

It has noticed that it can squish the sleeve of its robe in a manner not entirely dissimilar to a sponge, if it gathers up enough of the fabric in one spot.  (Still not as good as a sponge, though.)  It does so while pondering.

Nothing here is as good as a sponge at what sponges do.  None of the foods are as interesting as foods elsewhere.  Onking is pretty bad, but not as bad as getting a bite of an unpleasantness, and also it's soooooo borrrrrrrrrring here.  Everything is so boring, all the time.  And none of its attempts to make it less so have worked.

It takes a hearty fill from these foods which it is giving up on ever being interesting, and sets off again.

A slight change in direction lands it in a much larger habitation of foods! The structures are taller - some even taller than home - and there are so many colors and so many foods. Some of the foods are on buses! Many foods have umbrellas against the rain, which open suddenly and close by folding themselves up! Foods are putting things in their faces and making mediocresounds and, if it drifts far enough, there are goodsounds, and there are foods who are moving such that particular moving-related demarcations are timed to line up with the contour of the goodsounds!

Goodsounds goodsounds goodsounds!!  Yes it will go watch those foods!

Foods move! Device makes sounds! Sometimes passing foods put small objects - green papers or small metal shapes - in a container near the moving foods.

. . . Can it move . . . like those foods are moving.

It has arms! It has legs! It has less of a relationship with gravity, but that's not necessarily a drawback!

It tries to copy them, and sometimes it does a really good job but it's still unsatisfying because at its current level of copying skill it isn't fast enough to match the movements to the beats.  It tries focusing more on the arms, which see a lot more use than its legs, and that helps it be a little bit faster.  Between that and the fact that some of the parts repeat, it manages to perform about half of a bar on time before it falls out of rhythm and lets out an excited chattery Rrrrrhhhihlihlihlihlihlihllllll.

Nobody notices this at all.

After a really unfairly short amount of time the moving foods collect their possessions and cease the goodsounds and leave the area.

That is SO unfair!!  Do they at least stay together so it can follow all of them?  Sometimes foods stick together in groups, it knows.

They stick together for the first while, and then do a thing where they cause their hands to interact in various ways and some of them peel off.

As long as there is any sort of group it will follow that.  (While trying to replicate some of the hand things on itself.)

Two of them stick together all the way to the building they both enter.

How fathomable is the door to that building.

It's actually quite fathomable, it can open it no problem even though they aren't really letting it in. It can watch one of them go up the stairs and one of them go through another door on the inside of the building with a metal-thing-that-goes-in-the-doorknob; the latter glances at the door when it's opened again but when it swings shut decides to ignore it.

Oh, kind of like what the Unpleasantness was getting in the way of seeing, maybe.  It will try and follow that one past the door and if that doesn't work it will try and follow the stairs one.

It can't get through this door without a metal thing. It can follow the upstairs one, though, it's trudging up two flights of stairs and then metal-thinging another door. It's not hard to catch up because it's not necessary to trudge if you can float.

Zoooom swoop.  Into that door?

It can sneak in behind the food!

There are more foods in this apartment. Little ones sitting on the floor manipulating small objects; a larger one doing things with pots and pans and liquids and lumps. It's causing smells. A small food is sort of trying to make a goodsound but it's not very good at it.