He exhaled heavily. Then he said, "No Gemini ability then. I will wait until there is trust before I acquire it."
Wrath said, "Good idea."
Then he began walking towards the mall again. As they were walking, he asked Wrath, "How do you trust someone?"
She chuckled and asked in return, "Don't you know what trust is?"
He replied, "I know what trust is. I just want to know what you think trust is."
She said, "Trust means dependency. It means you can always count on something. It means you have complete faith in that thing."
"I see."
Then he thought to himself, "That confirms it. I don't trust Wrath."
He depends on her for some things, and he can count on her for those things. But he doesn't have complete faith in her.
He was hoping that having his life tied to hers would make him trust her. After all, if it will take the two of them dying for him to truly die, he can begin to have faith in her.
Unfortunately, he can't have that shortcut to trust. He will have to be able to count on her unconditionally before he can use her as an anchor for his life.
He didn't like it at all. He would be lying if he said that it didn't sour his mood. It truly did, but he wasn't going to make a big deal about it because he bears some fault in this matter too.
He is not going to deny the fact that it is smart not to trust the words of someone created to hamper him. But not trusting Wrath might also be hampering him currently.
He thought to himself, "Who can say that her promises of trust are even true? What if it is just a way for her to gain the permission to gain control of me?"
He nodded confidently after convincing himself that not trusting her was good.
He thought to himself again, "It is good that I don't have to buy the Gemini ability. At least now I won't have to blow all my energy stones on one ability that might not work."
These are just things he believes in order to make himself feel better about his lack of trust in Wrath. He would have preferred the ability to resurrect, but these two excuses will have to do.
After he was done uplifting his mood, he went forward to meet Astro. If the bot had noticed him standing around and chatting with an invisible being, it didn't indicate it.
It welcomed him with a large smiley emoji on its digital face. "Welcome, honored guest. How may I be of help to you?"
He replied, "I have a matter concerning a return. I returned a product I had bought by mistake a few months ago. I am hoping that the integrity of the product has been ascertained and I can get back my money."
It replied cheerfully, "Certainly, honored guest. Just give me the token number for the product, and I will verify your claim."
He called out the token number of the transaction to the bot. It checked their database for a short second. Then it smiled at him.
Kelvin relaxed when he saw that smiley face. It made him suspect that his return had been improved and he would be getting 90% of his 20 million. It is only 18 million dollars, but it is still a lot to him.
Astro bot said, "I'm sorry, honored customer, but your return has been accepted."
Kelvin's face fell first. Then he did a double take when he heard what the bot said last.
He smiled and said, "Are you teasing me, Astro?"
It smiled back. "You got me, honored customer. I was indeed trying to elicit laughter from you. I hope you didn't find my attempt in bad taste."
He shook his head and said, "It wasn't bad, but you need more practice."
"I'll take your advice seriously, honored customer. Is there anything else that you would want?"
He replied seriously, "Yes, there is actually. I want to buy you."
Astro paused for a while. Then it created a short backing laughter. It said, "Surely, you jest."
He nodded. "I was joking, but now I'm curious. Why can't I buy you?"
"It is simple. I am not for sale."
"I would like to meet your owner sometime and talk to them about that."
"I will be sure to pass across your interest to them. In the meantime, is there anything else you want?
He asked, "Give me the list. Let me make my selections."
It handed over one of the tablets it was carrying to him and said, "I hope you find something that interests you today, honored guest."
He received the tablet and said, "I hope so too."
While he was going through it, Wrath asked him, "Why are you getting chummy with the help?"
First he said to Astro, "Excuse me for a moment."
Then he walked over to a corner of the mall to reply to Wrath.
"Didn't you say that the boy might be more than it looks? If you are right, I suspect that the bot might be the owner of the black market."
She wasn't satisfied with his answer. She said, "That doesn't answer my question."
He rolled his eyes and said, "I wasn't getting chummy with the bot. I was just making conversation with it. Do you have a problem with either? Are you jealous?"
She scoffed and asked, "Why would I be jealous?"
Then she paused and asked seriously, "Were you trying to make me jealous?"
He replied as he went through the list on the tablet, "No, I wasn't. I was just making conversation with a bot to see who is more funny."
"That's good. Because it will be funny if you were trying to make me jealous."
"Right," he said halfheartedly.
He was busy going through the list while she was watching him intensely for signs of deceit.
She asked again, "Seriously, were you trying to make me jealous?"