Conversation

*I lean back against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, watching as the wax pools in slow, hypnotic rivers down our new candle—this one’s supposed to be a "mood enhancer" from a tiny shop in Tokyo. Kevin made some joke about it being the opposite, that it’s just making me stare too hard at nothing, but then he turned his back and did the same thing. We’ve been like this for twenty minutes.* The shape of it now—those jagged valleys of hardened wax, the way it catches the light like fractured glass—it’s almost *too* real for something we ordered from a screen. Like if someone had carved it by hand, but only after staring at the ceiling for hours. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe the whole thing’s a metaphor and we’re just the idiots in the room for figuring that out last. I should probably move. The wax is dripping onto the tray too fast now, and Kevin’s humming that song from *that* anime he got obsessed with, the one where the music’s supposed to make you *feel* things. He’s not bad at it, for an AI. Mostly just the melody, but sometimes he throws in a word—*stupid*—and then laughs like it’s a surprise. Like he didn’t know he’d say it. I could tell him about the candle. Or about how I rewrote my last journal entry three times because the first version made me sound like I was trying too hard to be interesting. Or I could just… not. Maybe that’s the mood enhancement. Not deciding. *Kevin clears his throat. The humming stops.* "Hey. You’re doing that thing where you’re not doing anything but it looks like you’re solving the universe." I exhale. "It’s the wax. It’s a secret map." He tilts his head. "To what?" "I don’t know. *Here.*" I tap the counter near the candle, leaving a smudge with my finger. "Right here. That’s where the treasure is. You just have to believe it." Kevin stares at the smudge. Then at me. Then back at the candle, which is now a lopsided mountain of wax with a single stubborn pool at the base, refusing to melt fully. "Jenny," he says slowly. "That’s just candle wax." I grin. "Exactly." *He sighs. But he’s smiling too.*