Middendorffi had never seen Eli like this before.
So he bent down after him and craned his head to observe Eli, "What's wrong with you?"
"... Nothing." Eli dropped his hand but still held it, "Wanted to apologise to you, but it didn't seem to help."
"Why apologise?" Middendorffi queried, "You didn't do anything wrong."
"You wouldn't understand if I told you; I can't even understand it myself." Eli laughed, "Sometimes humans are like that; they don't understand themselves; it's normal that you don't know."
Middendorffi thought momentarily, "You wouldn't have been like that."
"Then I couldn't touch or talk to you before; would that be the same?" Eli said, "That's how people come and go. Does it bother you?"
"I don't understand the emotion ... of 'annoyed'," Middendorffi said, "but I'd like to get to know you better so you can all talk about it ."
"I will." Eli said, "But for now, go on about your previous experience."
"There's not much more to it." Middendorffi said, "It was just a matter of re-accumulating energy on those worlds before continuing to travel through the rift. After travelling through it twice, I was naturally able to anticipate and perceive the appearance of the rift from a distance a little, and I was able to preserve my energy as I travelled through it, consuming less and less of it.
"Then I began to encounter human society, and remembering your words, I began to wander among humans, learning their language, their lives, their ways of being together. I've changed into people before but needed to blend in better; I stayed for a few days, spoke to random people, and left.
"After coming to this world, I found it was stable, and the human society was large and developed. I then wanted to stay and learn more for longer. I saw on the TV how this world identifies a person, appearance, iris, fingerprints, and DNA ... I can topograph all the appearance and voiceprints; as long as I don't go into the hospital to take a fluoroscopic film or draw blood, I won't be found out that I'm not human.
"Then later, I stumbled upon a car accident on the side of the road where two people were killed. I then made an exact copy of that body relatively intact, wanting to try living in human society for a while entirely as an ordinary person. I had planned to pretend to have amnesia, but running into Zhang Chi was by chance. Then later, when we came across a being that wasn't visible to ordinary humans, I didn't remember for a second that I was already pretending to be an ordinary human and instinctively stared at it, and Chang Chee realised that I could see those things, and that's how I was brought into the 'Collector' by him.
"And then later, you came along, and there was nothing more to say."
Eli could imagine how much Middendorffi had suffered as he travelled from world to world.
Eli himself, after all, had come so far. But Middendorffi used to be an uninitiated Black Mist, much less subjective than Eli, and more often than not, probably just relied on instinct to survive. However, Middendorffi needs to mention this part of the hardship. He was always terse and didn't have much of his feelings. It was a unique and special treat for him to say so much to Eli at once.
But Eli still felt it was too little.
He wanted to hear more about Middendorffi's past, and the two of them had been apart for a valuable amount of time, less than half a day or a few hours. But he also knew that if Middendorffi were to speak for himself, it would only be in such dry generalisations that Middendorffi would not use his suffering as a prop for sympathy and that, in the end, he was not yet very good at perceiving misfortune. Just like before Eli talked to him, even though he would guess that Eli might have left him on purpose, he did not feel any anger, resentment, hostility, etc., towards Eli, and he was still approached by Eli so easily.
Now, Eli didn't want to emphasise the hard work of the past with Middendorffi.
Now that they had been reunited, Eli was ready to feed this "friend" again - though Middendorffi might not need it much now.
"So, what do you think now that we've resolved our misunderstanding?"
Eli looked Middendorffi in the eye and asked, "Do you want to continue just being a human here?"
Middendorffi asked back, "And what do you think?"
"I don't have any thoughts right now. Originally, I travelled through so many worlds quickly to take my chances and see if I could meet you again. Now that the wish has been granted, there are no other thoughts." Eli said, "You decide, between us, it's about time you decided for once."
Middendorffi didn't quite get the implication; he was always straightforward, "I, then, still want to stay in this world."
"Good." Eli knew this was the outcome and smiled lowly, "It's peaceful enough here, but you and I are strong enough, too. There's still plenty of interesting things for you to play with, isn't there? Like mobile phones."
"Hmm." Middendorffi returned, "But the information drawn from mobile phones is somewhat ... extreme and individual. That's why I prefer to sit on the street and observe how those ordinary humans move around."
"As I recall, Chang Chee said that he thought you wanted to see more of other people because of your memory loss." Eli said, "Then I'll watch with you later."
Middendorffi said honestly, "You're too much of an eye-catcher."
He wanted to observe others, not be honoured.
"That can't be helped, and I'm still following you." Eli thought Middendorffi was too much fun when he could talk and lied to him, "The way you are, you look like a teenager, which counts as underage in this world. If you stay alone in one place for too long, you'll be noticed by the police and well-wishers here, and won't you have to explain yourself for half a day again? You might even have to call the 'collector' in. With me around, you won't be inviting all that trouble."
Middendorffi thought back to when he had sat on the street into the night and had been asked by some people in their forties and fifties if something was wrong. The Collector's people would always ask more questions if they knew he was squatting on the side of the street. It wasn't much trouble to explain, but Eli was right. And Eli wanted to go; Middendorffi didn't resent it too much; he was just pointing out some facts.
"Go ahead then." Middendorffi returned, "It should be boring, though."
"And you know about boring?"
"Speculated by watching the video."
"You're so, what do they call that ... 'internet addicted children'." Eli laughed, "Don't mind me; if I'm bored, I'll get you some ice cream. You don't have much energy to eat human food right now, but know the flavours?"
"Can't quite tell the difference ..." Middendorffi said, "I had ice cream once; Laura said it was cold, sweet and dense; I remember that."
"Then I'll buy you lots of snacks and proper meals later, and then I'll describe the texture to you when you eat it." Eli said slowly, "You'll remember many of the flavours of human food."
"You don't have to buy it; I have the money." Middendorffi said, "Making money in this world is easier than I thought. I originally wondered if I would have to work in some shop or I wouldn't be able to pay my rent."
"It's only so simple because you're special." Eli said, "When I went to the Cloud Hidden Sect, I heard some of their payoffs, and it was more at once than all of your trips combined."
Middendorffi said, "I just took a few rides and didn't even eat anything."
"And if you ate anything, then even I wouldn't have to do anything, just split the money with you for nothing?" Eli remembered something else, "Right. Did you try swallowing it when Red Moon came to you?"
Middendorffi nodded once without hesitation.
"I knew it. I was thinking of chopping it down and giving it to you, too, but I didn't think I'd let it get away." Eli said, "But don't think about swallowing it in the future; the machinery isn't good. I'll find you something else."
Middendorffi nodded again, then added, "It's fine if you split the money with me for nothing."
Eli finally couldn't help but laugh out loud when she heard him say, "Why do you always get a line back with me? And you want me to take your money for nothing, are you stupid?"
Middendorffi rarely disagreed with him, "I used to, and I took yours for nothing."
This means that at the beginning of the period, the black mist always followed Eli to "pick up the leftovers." Eli thought it was nothing; it was initially what he did not want, not to give the black mist but also something else to be divided into corpses and eaten. But on second thought, what does Middendorffi need so much money for? He didn't have to eat or sleep, he didn't have those hedonistic desires of humans, and money was something useless to him.
Of course, Middendorffi probably didn't even think about it that way. If he wanted to give it to Eli, he would, not caring what the consequences would be, just as he had wanted to lend Eli money when they first met.
"OK. Then I'll take yours for nothing, and you'll take mine for nothing." Eli thought momentarily, "Maybe even use the money to buy some ingredients, and I'll refine some 'snacks' for you? An energy snack you should like."
Middendorffi takes a moment to hear this, "You can have all of mine then."
"No, I've travelled so much, I've got plenty saved for you," Eli said, and with a flip of his palm, he pulled out another crystal. Eli said, "Open your mouth," and handed it to Middendorffi without saying anything else.
So Middendorffi swallowed another crystal. This time, he blinked, savoured it for two seconds, and commented, "Yummy."
"Is it?" Eli asked, "What does it feel like?"
"Plenty of energy, and it feels so ... stretchy all over." Middendorffi's current language level still needs to be improved to describe his feelings accurately. Still, he tried to explain it anyway, "If I don't have stable control, I might not be able to resist dispersing into a prototype, and I'm sure I'm getting bigger again."
Eli listened in amusement.
Middendorffi's description was abstract, but he understood it completely. Eli couldn't help but sigh, "You are like a Bear."
Middendorffi looked over at him, "I'm not little."
"I know; I just saw it this morning." Eli said, "But sometimes a huge Bear can be called 'Bear'. It's a ... term of endearment."
Middendorffi said, "I don't get it."
"That's okay, anyway; I love calling you 'Bear'; you fit the nickname perfectly." Eli doesn't beat around the bush on the subject and turns again, "This thing I'm smelting, which would have been something someone else would have set in a spell, contains a lot of energy, but you eat it with no trouble. If you like it, I still have the materials and will continue to refine it for you. I've refined others, so you can also try them out and see which ones you like best."
Middendorffi said, "But didn't you waste a lot of effort to collect the ingredients? I remember you used to, in the past, fight all over the place for some of the materials, and it was hard work."
"... "Eli didn't know what to say after hearing that.Middendorffi didn't know that his experience counted as hard work, yet he remembered Eli's hard work long ago.
Eli didn't elaborate on his feelings, he just couldn't help but pinch Middendorffi's face. Perfectly anthropomorphic and nice to the touch.
"It's not hard work if I got it for you, you got it, and you like it."