Stuck on an Elevator!

No, no, no. Silly him, haha, his brain was obviously too fried from all the events from the past couple days. He was just having a fever dream, that’s all. Manifest. He called upon all the spiritual energies in the world, activated his internal chakras, re-aligned his planes of existence, made the tantric sign of universal energy, made a low hum, opened his third eye and pressed the elevator’s 5th floor button.

Unfortunately, there was no response.

“You realize we just have to wait until the technicians arrive, right,” said Uyeno, who was sitting in a fetal position on the ground.

“Well, trying something is better than being a couch commentator,” retorted Makoto.

Luckily the lift was equipped with an emergency button, which they used to communicate with some remote operator, but since it was close to night time the operator had told them that it would take an hour for help to arrive.

Makoto sighed as he whipped out his phone. It appeared that the universe didn’t want him to be happy for more than a day. Oh well, his objective was just to kill an hour of time and he would be out before he knew it. How hard could that be?

He went to check his facetokgram feed, but he was promptly met with a “no internet” frowny face. B-Bakana?! He only had one bar of cellular service?!

No, no, no. Silly him, haha, his brain was obviously too fried from all the events from the past couple days. He was just having a fever dream, that’s all. Mani – yeah nevermind, that shit wasn’t going to work, screw his sister. His phone had now dropped to a whopping zero bars of service, prompting him to toss it onto the ground like an old toy. Whatever good mood he’d been in was now a relic of the past.

“I can’t believe this. Of all people, it had to be you,” said Uyeno.

“Hey look, I’m not exactly having the time of my life about this either? But it’s like you said, we don’t really have a choice here.”

“Yeah, whatever,” said Uyeno, pulling out her own phone.

Makoto sighed and took a seat beside her.

They sat there in silence for a few minutes and with nothing else to do, Makoto found himself glancing at Uyeno.

“Whatchu doing without signal?” he tried.

“What is it to you?”

“Nothing… just asking.”

A few seconds passed.

“I’m reading a book,” she said, sullenly.

Makoto couldn’t help but let out a snort of amusement.

“What?”

“I don’t know, you just sounded so defensive about it, it was a little funny.”

“Well, it’s not my fault people have always teased me for being a bookworm,” she said with a huff.

When was the last time he had read something? Did the gentlemen’s ‘brochure’ hidden within his book rack count?

And just like that, a couple more minutes of silence passed.

“So, uh, whatchu reading?”

Uyeno took a quick glance at him sideways, suspiciously.

“Storms of Titan.”

“Oh wow, that sounds cool. What’s it about? Is it like a fantasy? Action-adventure?”

“It’s about the geomagnetic storms on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn.”

“Oh interesting. So who’s the main charac– wait, so it’s an astronomy book? Haven’t you been into outer space stuff since like 5th grade?”

“Y-Yeah I am, do you have a problem with that?” said Uyeno, challenging him to say otherwise.

“N-No problem, Miss Uyeno,” he said. “I just think… it’s cool that you’ve stuck with it for so long. That takes dedication,” he said, looking at her, and for once, he meant it. That was a trait that he genuinely admired about her.

“Wow, that was my life’s mission - to have you think I’m cool,” she said sarcastically, but Makoto noticed she didn’t sound as annoyed as before.

“Well, as long as it’s astronomy, not astrology,” said Makoto, shuddering as his sister’s maniacal laughter haunted his headspace.

“That’s something we are both in agreement about.”

***

“Did you eat dinner?”

“Nope,” she replied.

“Do you want anything? It’s getting kind of late I’d assume? I have a bar in my backpack that I keep for emergencies,” offered Makoto.

She crossed her arms. “If you think I’m going to take food from you again, you are dearly mistaken. A little holdup is nothing to my stomach.”

“Fine,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Whatever floats your boat.”

As he was rummaging through his bag, a rumbling sound filled the closed quarters. Huh, didn’t he just eat ramen like an hour ago? Why would his stomach…

He turned to Uyeno with a scrutinizing gaze. Her face turned beet red, and she made it a point to avoid eye contact.

Makoto sighed as he took out the bar and brought it over to her. “Take this. And no, this is not laced or poisoned.”

“Thanks,” she said meekly as she snatched the bar and ate away.

“So you-”

Suddenly, there was a loud thundercrack in the background and without warning, the lights turned off, and everything turned pitch black, save for Uyeno’s phone.

“EEK!” A shriek escaped both Uyeno and Makoto. To think Makoto had it in him to squeal like that…

“A-Ahem, oh man I think it’s starting to rain outside,” said Makoto, recovering from the shock. Sure enough, they soon heard the pitter-patter turn into an absolute downpour, with thunder rumbling occasionally in the background.

“Well this is bad, I remember reading in the student magazine that the road to our university tends to get flooded pretty easily. I hope it doesn’t delay the dispatched team further. Either way, my phone’s dead so at least we have yo-” said Makoto, right as Uyeno’s phone went out with a blip, leaving them in absolute darkness.

“Should’ve figured. It’s my bad Uyeno, I probably jinxed it,” said Makoto, looking toward Uyeno, only to see that she was cowering with her head down.

“BoooOOOooo,” he howled ominously like a ghost.

“I-Idiot, s-shut up,” she said meekly.

“You’re still afraid of the dark?” asked Makoto unbelievably.

“N-No shut up, you are,” she wailed.

Okay, she was being kinda cute here…

“Aren’t you glad I’m here now,” he said. “Imagine if I decided to head home today instead of visiting Professor Konidarisu. You would’ve been all alone in the darkness.”

“S-Same here, you imbecile,” she quipped back. “If I weren’t here you’d be scared shitless too.”

“Wow, such obscene language coming from a good girl like you. Do most people know of this side of you?”

“...”

“At least if the elevator decides to collapse, we’ll die together,” said Makoto, having the time of his life bamboozling Uyeno. “Isn’t that what they call fate? Two childhood friends reunited at the end of their lifespans for one last goodbye?”

“Stooop!” Uyeno cried. “We’re not gonna die, we’re not gonna die, we’re not gonna die…” she repeated like a mantra.

“Don’t worry, meals are on me in hell,” Makoto cheerfully remarked.

***

“Remember when we played ken-ken-pa?” he asked out of the blue—the pitch black remaining. He wanted to confirm if his dreams were just that, or something actually grounded in the past.

“Huh? Was that a thing we did?”

“You don’t remember? We were at the park with my mom, and you drew those circles on the ground? You tried to teach me but I just ended up tackling you.”

“That… huh I actually do remember. That was like when we were five! I tackled you right back, right?” she laughed.

“Yeah,” said Makoto. Seemed like these recent dreams of his were actually glimpses of the past after all.

“And I had you beat on the ground,” she said triumphantly.

“And that’s where your memory serves you wrong,” quipped Makoto.

“We were literally the same height back then,” she recalled. “No way I lost to you.”

“Hmph. Only way to settle this is to go at it now,” challenged Makoto.

“Nooope,” said Uyeno, putting an end to the idea as she shoved his body away. “You have the size advantage now, and you definitely have some perverse intentions. I’ll just take my dub back then and roll with it.”

“Sigh, fair enough,” he said back. “Don’t want the elevator to collapse on us, now do we?” Half of him was surprised he had even suggested wrestling now, but it just occurred in the moment he guessed.

***

“Hey.”

“Hmm?” Makoto was a little surprised. This was the first time that Uyeno had initiated a conversation with him in…well, he didn’t even remember in how long.

“Do you remember the camping trip our school took us on in fifth grade?”

“Uhh, parts of it, but not really. How come?”

“There was a big bonfire. Everyone roasted marshmallows together and told each other scary stories. We all danced and laughed and had a great time.”

Did that really happen? He remembered the bonfire part… kind of. Maybe he needed his memory checked. Still, why was she bringing this up now of all times?

“And that night, when everyone fell asleep, I woke you up cause I couldn’t. And then…”

“And then… we snuck out and looked at the starry night skies. Right?” interrupted Makoto, a flood of memories streaming in from that night. Flashes of grass prickling his skin, cicadas chirping, and the ghosts of the summer breezes caressing his face.

“I don’t know why I’m even thinking about this, maybe it’s because of the pitch black we’re in… but that night, when we gazed at the endless skies, you showed me my first constellation. You’re the reason I even got into the astrophysics stuff as a hobby. I guess I never thanked you for that, did I?”

Makoto didn’t know how to respond. Why was she bringing up the past today, after what they’d been through?

What they’d been through, huh? He hadn’t thought about that in ages. A mess that ended in them shining fake sweet smiles at each other, saying that they didn’t need to be friends anymore.

He could feel his eyes swelling up. Oh man, he was about to get emotional, wasn’t he? All those times they had spent together on the streets, in the wilderness, goofing off and having a blast, arguing about menial things…

“Makoto, you there?” she said, calling his name.

Suddenly, the lights flicked on again.

“THANK GOD! THE LIGHT! WE CAN SEE AGAI– Makoto… are you crying?!”

“N-No, no I’m not,” he denied vehemently, but a single tear sliding down his cheek revealed otherwise.

“Makoto! Don’t cry!” she said, wiping the wet trail off his face. “Don’t worry, we’re not gonna die! This elevator is going to hold!”

“T-That’s not it,” he said, wiping the rest off on his sleeve. “I-I… was just thinking of…”

She held her eye contact towards him, as if trying to read his mind through his pupils. “Of?”

“O-Of… all those times we hung out together, in the past…”

“Aww, you don’t need to get so emotional about it! Honestly, I think about it sometimes too…”

“You do?”

“Nope.”

Goddammit, he was one upped again?!

She started laughing. “Actually, I do, just sometimes. But I’ve forgotten how good it feels to bring your hopes up.”

Curse you Uyeno, curse you!

Then she brought up the dreaded topic —

“Should we talk about what happened back then?”