He refuses to feel bad about wasting food. He wants to see the list of drink options.

Ashkon obligingly looks up a taxonomy of kinds of coffee beverages while riding the bus back to school.

The most important information he gleans from this is that different kinds of coffee have different amounts of caffeine and he could be drinking so much less coffee. Temporarily. Until his tolerance creeps up so much that he has to drink plain espresso by the quart. He really hates everything about coffee except the being awake part.

There are kinds that have chocolate in them. He doesn't have any idea what chocolate tastes like but people seem to really like it, so maybe it's worth a try.

<Next time we can get some kind of mocha espresso thing.>

Imaginary shrug.

He tries to imagine what it might taste like, since it's apparently supposed to taste good and he can probably on that basis derive what it tastes like from first principles by imagining what might taste good. Only he can't imagine anything tasting good. He can imagine a taste that's... unusually not very bad?

<Maybe we should put a lot of sugar in it, I think most humans like sugar.>

<I'm up for trying that once.>

Back in the college town. A medium sized walk to the campus.

It's so nice here. He's so lucky to be here. He wonders if the coffee shops are also very pretty here, if they even have those.

<If there are Elf coffeeshops they are definitely gorgeous.>

He’s excited to see them and try their weird drinks that probably all suck! As long as there really definitely aren’t starving people who will miss out on not starving because of this. Or at least will definitely not be tortured forever after they starve to death, that's really about as good. It'll be cool to try things, anyway, though also he can't wait to know how they all suck and be done and be able to stop thinking about food again.

(They made him eat garbage just to tell him off for having done it. That's - not how he would have put it before spending months reconsidering everything in light of the idea that actually they were not angels, that actually they were demons, that actually they were lying to him about everything up to and including his own actions and motives. It's less humiliating from that perspective, and less miserable to remember when his body doesn't echo his feelings, but the memory still keeps lurking there at the edge of thought and he hates it.)

<If there's anyone in Vanda Nossëo who's hungry it's because they decided to do that for some reason or are avoiding everybody who could feed them also for some reason, definitely not because there's any lack of food. Also they will not go to torture afterlives if they die of anything at all.>

<That's good.>

The possibility that Ashkon is lying or mistaken isn't decision-relevant but it seems to be affecting his emotions anyway.

Ashkon will attempt to distract him by staring at a water feature.

Ooh, nice!

Mission accomplished. They can stroll the rest of the way to school and do their homework.

Which is fun! And he’s useful!

He's so useful and Ashkon couldn't do this without him <3

At some point when Ashkon isn’t in the middle of homework he asks, <Hey, if you haven’t tried any other humans, do you think someone who has would be able to guess what I’d like?>

<Yeah, maybe! I can ask around next time I'm in the Pool, or send some emails now.>

Imaginary shrug. <Whatever works.>

Ashkon sends a couple emails.

Affection.

<Hey, am I...> It's hard to put it into words. He wants to ask if he's useless, but obviously not; here he is offering Ashkon his hands and voice. But lots of people have hands and voices, and apparently people can transform themselves, and at any rate it feels very much like he's in the way and the best thing he could do would be to shrink into nothing but a pair of hands and a voice. <Am I useless?>

<Of course not! - Yeerks can use demonic bodies. I mean ones apsels make. If an apsel makes a body there's nobody home in it, it barely breathes on its own. We don't like them. They're too empty, too lonely, I never even tried one because it sounded so awful.>

He remembers what it's like to be so lonely it starts hollowing you out. It's a very respectable thing, a very important thing, just to be company. And Ashkon seems eager to make him happy, and being someone other people can be kind to is also very important; he just spent months being a professional person-other-people-can-practice-charity-at and he's not ashamed of that.

It still sort of leaves him at loose ends, though. There's nothing he's supposed to do physically but there could be something important for him to think about and there isn't anymore.