2.5
“So, how was your first fortune-telling experience?” Ibuki asked.
“How was yours?”
“I was mostly satisfied, I think. That fortune-teller is actually pretty famous. People say that she’s highly accurate.”
“I see. It seems like a simple profession, but I guess it’s actually difficult,” I replied.
Fortune-telling was partly based on templates. A fortune-teller gave you hastily thrown together generalizations, but also bits of truth, calculated to excite the listener. They didn’t just rely on luck, but also on long practice and experience.
“I’m not going to dismiss fortune-telling from now on,” I added.
“Ah, I see.”
Ibuki’s reply was short, disinterested. We headed toward the elevator.
“Geh. It’s really crowded again,” I grumbled.
If I continued onwards, I faced hell. If I turned back, I faced hell. Students crowded the elevator area.
“Sorry, but I think I’m going to find another way home. I’ll take a detour,” I told Ibuki.
“Yeah, me too.”
As we made our way to the other elevator, I remembered what the fortune-teller had said.
“That reminds me, earlier…”
“The fortune-teller said not to take any detours,” Ibuki said.
My eyes met Ibuki’s for an instant. Whether it was coincidence, or an inevitability, we decided to take the detour.
“Well, this might be interesting. Let’s see how accurate her prediction was,” I mused.
We arrived at the elevator without incident. No one else was around when we hit the button to call the car.
“Is the first floor okay?”
“Yeah,” Ibuki said.
It seemed as though our paths would soon diverge. I pushed the button for the first floor. The elevator doors closed, and the car began to move. Since Ibuki and I had nothing else to talk about, we rode in silence.
However, as the third-floor light blinked on, the elevator made a heavy grinding noise, then stopped.
It didn’t seem like we’d paused because someone had called the elevator on the third floor; it seemed more like the elevator had ground to a halt. The lights went out, and for an instant, everything was pitch black before the emergency lights came on.
“Is it a power outage?” asked Ibuki.
“Seems that way,” I replied. If this was what the fortune-teller meant about getting stuck, then she was right on the money.
“Shouldn’t we use the emergency phone?”
There was no need to panic. The elevator had measures in place in the event of a breakdown. There were surveillance cameras inside the car, and an intercom button connected to an emergency dispatch center. Ibuki leaned against the back wall of the elevator. Although I wasn’t really good at talking to people, I decided to push the call button.
However…
“There’s no response,” I said.
I didn’t know whether the phone on the other end was ringing or not, but I saw no indication that we were connecting to anyone at the emergency dispatch center.
“Is the call not going through because of the power outage?” Ibuki asked.
“No. Elevators normally have a backup battery that lasts for several hours. The fact that the emergency lights are on right now is proof of that battery. I think this means there’s some other internal failure.”
I pushed the button meant for the hearing-impaired, but got no response from that, either. Perhaps the control panel itself was dead. The battery was alive, though, and the air conditioning was working. That was a lifesaver, but what were we supposed to do?
“Can you try calling the school from your phone? We should be in range,” I said.
“I’m sorry, but would you do it?” she asked.
“I know you don’t want to talk to other people, but can’t you do that much?”
“Ugh,” she muttered.
With a disgruntled look, Ibuki pulled out her phone. When she looked at it, her expression immediately worsened. She showed her screen to me. A message said that the battery was low. Immediately afterwards, it died.
“I don’t have anyone to talk to, so I don’t usually notice when my battery is about to die. You do it,” Ibuki grumbled.
“Guess I got no choice,” I replied.
I pulled out my phone. Once I saw my screen, I stiffened.
“Hurry up already,” Ibuki urged.
“Apparently, our situation is far more serious than I originally thought.”
My phone’s battery was at only 4 percent. It was like a flickering candle flame that the wind could extinguish at any moment.
“You’re messing with me,” Ibuki growled.
“I’m the same as you. Since I don’t have a lot of people to talk to, I don’t really bother checking my battery life.”
“You’re such a useless man.”
“You know, you’re being kind of mean, even though we’re both in the exact same position. Okay, where to call now?”
I looked around to see if I could find contact information for emergency services, and discovered a ten-digit number near the button panel. However, thanks to some jerk who probably thought they were hilarious, the last four digits were scribbled over with magic marker.
“A prank like this is evil,” I muttered.
“Why don’t you call someone you know?” Ibuki asked.
“Someone I know, huh?” Who would I call? “Maybe Horikita?”
“Rejected,” she countered.
“I thought you’d say that.”
“If you call her, then that would mean she’d come to save us, right? Don’t make me laugh.”
I didn’t think it really mattered who rescued us, though. Besides, it wasn’t as though Ibuki were somehow responsible for this. The elevator simply broke down. There was no reason for her to worry; maybe she just didn’t like the idea of showing weakness in front of her rival.
“You don’t want things to get messy?” I guessed. Ibuki nodded slightly.
So, we needed someone who would come to our rescue without causing a scene, huh? That meant those three idiots were out of the question. They’d make a huge deal out of this, and probably tell everyone afterward. Sakura wouldn’t gossip, but the situation would probably fluster her. It’d be difficult for her to help us out.
Kushida and Karuizawa were probably likewise unsuited to the task. Someone who would come help without causing any issues? The one person we could rely on was…that guy.
“I’ll respect your wishes, but let me choose the person we contact,” I said.
“As long as it’s not Horikita.”
I called him right away. After the phone rang for a few seconds, the taciturn fellow quietly answered. I explained our situation and asked for help. However, not long after I started talking, my phone died. The screen silently faded to black.
“Battery ran out,” I told Ibuki.
“Did he get the message?”
“Probably.”
The only thing left to do was sit and wait. There was no need to panic—someone would definitely notice us before too long. If we tried to escape the elevator, like in a TV drama or movie, we’d just risk getting hurt.
Then, though, the situation evolved in an unexpected direction. I heard what sounded like loud grinding inside the elevator. The pleasantly cool air emanating from the vent stopped.
“No way,” Ibuki groaned.
She finally began to look upset. We were trapped in an enclosed space in the middle of summer. The temperature would likely rise dramatically. The air had only gotten a little warmer for now, but soon, we’d be sweating.
“Can we possibly escape on our own?” Ibuki asked.
“Looks like there’s an emergency hatch, but…”
Fewer elevators seemed to have hatches nowadays, but there was a square panel on the ceiling. You saw that kind of thing often in the movies, but in reality, it was unusual.
“How are we supposed to get that open?” asked Ibuki.
You couldn’t normally open the escape hatch from the inside. It was there as a last resort, so that rescuers could still enter and get people out when the elevator doors broke. The hatch was probably kept locked from the outside, except during routine inspections.
“I think we should wait. In an emergency situation in an elevator, the golden rule is to just wait it out.” That was the safest and surest path.
“If you can deal with being in a sauna, sure,” snapped Ibuki.
While we snarked at each other, the temperature continued to rise. I understood wanting to get out, but I also wanted to avoid poor decisions. I took off my jacket and sat on the floor. At times like this, it was important to remain calm.
“How about you sit, too? If it’s too hot, take off some clothes,” I offered.
“Huh? You can’t possibly be thinking something sleazy in this situation. Are you?” Ibuki asked. She’d interpreted my words in a different way than I intended.
“I heard you kept up with Horikita. There’s no way I could defeat someone like you in combat,” I told her.
“Well, that’s true, but…”
“Of course, I’ll turn around if you undress. Relax,” I said.
“I’m not taking my clothes off!” she snapped.
Ibuki quickly sat down with a thud.
We waited quietly for about thirty minutes, but still hadn’t heard from anyone.
“This isn’t good,” I muttered. Ibuki’s breathing grew ragged.
Sweat poured down our foreheads and dripped from our hair. My shirt was so soaked that it looked like I had stood under a waterfall. The situation had gotten significantly more dangerous than I previously imagined. This elevator was installed into the Keyaki Mall’s external wall. I hadn’t noticed that before, because of the air conditioning, but it would get extremely hot under these conditions.
Children have died after being stuck in locked cars in the middle of summer, and the same danger can apply to adults, too. It felt like the two of us were about to suffer heatstroke.
“I can’t take it anymore! Move!” Ibuki shouted.
She shot up and kicked the elevator wall with all of her might, leaving a dent. She kicked the same place again. The elevator wobbled slightly, but showed no sign of actually moving.
“You’re just wasting your energy. I can’t say sitting here doing nothing’s the safest option anymore either, though,” I muttered.
Even if someone outside had noticed the malfunctioning elevator soon after it stopped, the rescue crew would take roughly thirty minutes to arrive. Help might be here any minute, but if we remained stuck much longer, heatstroke would be inevitable. Our lives might be in danger.
“Guess we’ve got no choice,” I muttered.
I wasn’t about to roast to death in an elevator sauna.
“Should we kick down the door? Hey, should we kick it down?” Ibuki was quickly going berserk.
“Let’s try to open the hatch on top,” I suggested. The most important thing was to make an opening, even if we couldn’t escape through it. “The ceiling is about two meters up. Probably like 2.2 or 2.3…”
Even if I stretched as far as I could, I couldn’t reach that high.
“Move,” Ibuki snapped.
Ibuki leaped upwards directly beneath the hatch. It was an incredible jump. She reached up and pushed with all her might, but the hatch didn’t budge in the slightest. When she landed, the shock made the elevator wobble wildly.
“Looks like it’s stuck,” she said.
“Guess so.”
“Well, you predicted that it was locked, but how’s it locked? What’s the mechanism?”
“I think it’s secured with a padlock, but if so, what do we do?” I honestly didn’t have any idea.
“I’ll kick it.”
“No. That’s definitely impossible,” I said.
Ibuki might’ve been extremely confident in her strength, but this elevator wasn’t something that you could simply kick open.
“That’s an emergency hatch, right? That means rescuers need to be able to open the elevator from the outside. If we look at it from that perspective, the amount of force needed should be minimal,” she replied.
I got what Ibuki was saying, but the situation wasn’t that simple. Besides, since the hatch was located on the ceiling, it was going to be hard to kick.
“We won’t know if we don’t try,” Ibuki continued. She started looking at the elevator walls. She wasn’t planning to kick off the wall and launch herself, was she?
“Wow. So, I guess the fortune-teller’s warning really did come true, didn’t it?” I asked.
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
“The old woman told me not to panic if I get stuck. She told me to cooperate.” I turned my gaze to the elevator buttons. “The emergency button didn’t respond, and the call didn’t connect. But what about the other buttons?”
Since the first-floor button was lit, the battery was probably still alive. I tried pushing the second-floor button as a test, and it lit up. This was worth a shot. I started pushing buttons at random.
“It’s pointless,” Ibuki rebuked me. “We don’t have any other choice but to kick our way out, right?”
“No, there’s another way. Elevators have something like a cancel command function, don’t they?”
I wasn’t particularly knowledgeable about elevators, but I’d picked up a few things. There was a way to cancel a command after you pushed a button for the wrong floor by mistake. The command differed, based on the elevator manufacturer, but if you kept pushing the cancel button, that could stop the elevator.
When I continued to push the button for the second floor, the light went off.
“There should be some commands in express mode, for sure,” I muttered.
“Express?”
“Say we were on the third floor. If we headed down to the first floor, the elevator would normally stop on the second, if people on that floor hit the call button. However, if you use the express command, the elevator ignores other commands and takes you directly to the first floor.”
I didn’t know whether this elevator had an express mode, though.
“Is it worth giving it a try?” Ibuki asked.
“Well, it’s better than trying to break through the ceiling.”
In truth, I didn’t think I would get the elevator moving by using the express mode. I wanted to buy time by changing the subject, and by giving Ibuki renewed hope. She was on the verge of losing her cool.
“Help me think this through. If we both come up with ideas, we might stumble onto a solution,” I suggested.
I tried pushing the button for the first floor repeatedly, simultaneously pushing the buttons for all the other floors. No matter what I did, however, the elevator didn’t respond.
“Let me try.”
“Okay.”
Ibuki started pushing various buttons. We would really need a plan in the event that help wasn’t coming. Maybe kicking down the door was actually worth considering. Even if we couldn’t break it open completely, an opening big enough to slip through would be adequate.
I’d have preferred to get out of the elevator without resorting to violent behavior, but as long as we could escape, I didn’t really care about the means.
“I don’t really know about canceling commands, but I can’t imagine you’d be able to activate the elevator’s express mode just by punching a combination of buttons. Right?” Ibuki said.
That seemed obvious. Children mash elevator buttons at random all the time, and an elevator in express mode would also be pretty inconvenient for other passengers. We likely couldn’t activate that mode through a typical combination of buttons.
“In that case, it might be better to exclude complex commands,” I said.
Let’s say that, to use express mode, you had to enter one, six, five, five, four, two, four, and then your destination. That would be difficult to memorize, and would have a height requirement of at least six floors. A code like that would be odd if your elevator only covered three floors.
“We should try pushing the emergency button, don’t you think? So, then…one, two, or three? With the open and close buttons, that makes five buttons overall.”
“I think it’s some combination of those buttons,” I said.
If there were more combinations, it would’ve been extremely difficult to test them all. Ibuki started trying out the limited number of combinations. As I watched, I mentally crossed off the ones that didn’t work.
“Ah, I can’t take it! It’s so hot!” Ibuki whined.
She punched the wall to relieve some frustration. Considering how on-edge she was, I decided to drop it.
“It’s not opening. Have we already tested everything?” she asked.
“Almost. If there are any button combinations left…”
There was one possibility. I decided to try out one last command.
“Why don’t you try pushing the button for your desired floor, plus the close-door button at the same time?” I suggested.
“The close-door button? All right.” Ibuki muttered dismissively, but she tested the combination.
I didn’t expect the elevator to respond, but it started to move. Ibuki and I looked at each other. After a few seconds, the elevator arrived on the first floor, and the doors slowly opened. Cool air flowed inside the car. We found two adults looking at us, wearing shocked expressions.
“Are you all right?! Are you hurt?!”
“We’re okay, we’re not hurt. It was just really hot,” I answered.
Looking at our sweaty state, they could probably guess how hot it was. They offered us sports drinks right away, and instructed us to head over to the doctor’s office for examination, just in case.
“Um, can I ask one question? Could it be that we moved the elevator?”
“Oh, no, we moved it directly from here.”
A special remote control operated the elevator from the first floor. Apparently, Ibuki and I hadn’t caused the elevator to move using express mode, or anything. We just happened to push the buttons at the exact same time the adults operated the elevator remotely.
“You must have had a rough time in there.”
“Yeah, it was a disaster. Fortune-telling is serious business,” Ibuki said.
As I thanked the adults, a man watching from the sidelines approached us.
“Are you all right, Ayanokouji?” the large man asked. He seemed more anxious than someone that size should.
“You rescued us,” I told him.
This man, Katsuragi, was probably the one who’d saved the day.
“I got the gist of the situation from the information you gave me over the phone. I’m sure you must be glad to be down,” he replied.
“I have to head to the doctor’s office now, but I’ll thank you properly later,” I said.
“There’s no need. You and Sudou have helped me a lot. There are some lines we can’t cross, because we’re from different classes, but I happen to think cooperation’s an excellent thing,” answered Katsuragi.
“Sounds like things went well for you,” I said.
“Yeah. Sudou performed brilliantly. Please tell him once again that I’m very appreciative.”
“Sure thing.”
“I should thank you as well, Ayanokouji. Despite the plentiful evidence, there must have been considerable resistance to the plan I proposed.”
Katsuragi bowed his head in gratitude. I owed him, too. Had I been stuck in that elevator any longer, I might have lost it.
“If you need anything else, please contact me. I’ll assist you with anything…other than exams, of course.” Katsuragi chuckled.
With that, he turned and left.
Katsuragi and I had started to become real friends. We were as close as I was to the three idiots, maybe even more so. But how did I know Katsuragi’s contact information, even though he was in Class A? And why were we close?
The story of our friendship had begun a little while ago.
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