Rin is sure she can't be a very bad person. She's more an okay person, someone somewhere in the middle of the virtuousness scale. Always trying to do right by people, to work hard, but sometimes she indulges herself, occasionally she lashes out. Last week she lied about why she hadn't done her homework - that sort of thing. When she dies god will take a quick look at her record and shrug.
Whatever, the point is - she deserves better than this.

It's a Friday afternoon in autumn, and while she's pretty confident in her performance on today's history exam, it did cost her a lot of sleep the night previous. She's feeling it more and more: she's a bit irritable, and she would commit gruesome murder for a chocolate bar right now.

It happens barely a minute after she steps onto the elevator, standing stiffly next to Lia. Her friend has been avoiding her and barely spares her a glance now, which sours her mood further. The elevator doors rumble shut and it starts to move, and then there is a metallic twang. Both of their heads snap upwards in the direction of the sound, but Rin doesn't get even a moment to dwell on the satisfaction of aloof Lia jumping, because the next second, the floor under their feet drops. A strangled gasp rips from her throat as her stomach flips.

No one has ever died from an elevator just falling. With a violent jerk their little metal box' momentum is absorbed by the inbuilt safety mechanism and Rin and Lia are bent at the knees involuntarily.
Rin stumbles back a few steps, then sinks to the floor before her legs can give out. Lia meanwhile slowly straightens - Rin can hear her shaking breaths in the sudden silence - and goes down like a folding chair.

Her heart is still going a mile a minute, but ostensibly, they're okay. The lights are still on, the doors closed, the little light around the selected floor button still gaily blinking.

"Urghhhh," she complains intelligently, "Come the fuck on!"

Lia sighs, her head dropping to her chest. Then she shimmies back until she's up against the wall next to Rin, who wonders briefly if they should be putting their combined weight on just one side of their temporary prison. It's nonsense, of course, the shaft does not have enough space for the elevator in it to tip to the side. But rationality is sort of out of reach at the moment, another thing she thinks god should really be the bigger person about. Who can be held accountable for who they are in a stuck elevator?

It's not long before her leg begins to bounce. If she let herself, she could probably have a panic attack about this, which really wouldn't make the encroaching claustrophobia any better. So, with a deep breath, she vaults to her feet, relieved when the floor under her doesn't so much as shiver at the sudden movement. Sure, they're stuck, but they're not in active danger. Probably. What's the ventilation situation here?
Scraping together some false bravado, Rin strides over to the panel and firmly presses the emergency button. A small red light next to it goes on, and she waits.

A look over her shoulder reveals that Lia is watching her now, once more composed as ever.

The speaker in the wall makes a crackly dialling sound, then another, and another. It's grating against her ears. After ten awful 'beeep's, there's a click.

"You're kidding," she breathes out. Then louder, "you've got to be kidding me!"

She stomps away, yearning to pace, but it's only one and a half steps to the wall. She kicks it, which is mildly satisfying, then whirls around to go kick the other side, too.
While Lia watches mutely, the only sign she's affected by this in any way the thin line her lips are pressed into, she makes an angry circut of their tiny cage until she ends up back in front of the panel.

The second press of the emergency button yields the same result.

Clenching her fists and trying to fracture her toes against the fake wood panelling isn't enough.
"I HATE IT HERE," Rin howls. Maybe someone will hear them? Probably it will get them help no sooner than someone will notice the elevator's predicament anyway, but it does make her feel the tiniest bit better.
"What the hell! This SUCKS!"

Out of things to do, she drops into a crouch next to Lia again, wringing her hands and looking around. There's nothing but the walls and the panel of buttons, nothing that could help. Logically she knows there's probably a door in the top, but that's an easy way to kill yourself. All she knows about elevators comes from media, so she's not risking that.
After a few minutes, her eyes wander to Lia, sitting calmly with her hands in her lap and staring at nothing. She hasn't talked to her all week. It's normal for her to be a bit more withdrawn and busy during exam season, but it had been so blatant that Tump had asked Rin about it yesterday. Every time they've been together as a group recently, Lia has quietly drifted as far away from Rin as she could get, and she's been avoiding catching her gaze in class too, which is a whole new level of petty.

"What's your problem, anyway?" she demands gruffly. As far as conversation starters go, it makes the bottom ten easily, not to mention that her cheeks already burn with embarrassment at how she's behaved so far.

Lia's face turns minutely, eyes flicking over Rin before she crosses her arms.
"No problem."

Her eyes narrow. She's more hurt than angry at her friend's childishness, but crying is so not on right now. She will Not have a breakdown in a stopped elevator like some nervous wreck. It's not an option.

"Bull. You're mad at me or something."

"Maybe."

"Maybe?" noticing her volume rising, Rin tries to tone it down but only somewhat succeeds.
"What's that supposed to mean?"

Lia shoots her a glare.

"No, go on. We have the time, don't we? You're not going anywhere. Let's have this out," Rin demands, waving her red flag in front of the bull.

"Fine."

She gives her just enough time to register the corners of her mouth curling up in a faint mean smile before Lia has turned fully to face her. Deft hands reach under Rin's collar, making her wobble on her feet, and yank out the necklace from under her shirt.
"Why are you wearing this?" Lia hisses out, pulling Rin forward a bit as she gestures with the hand now clutched around the pendant. It's a small silver elephant with an ivory inset, and she doesn't know if either material is the real deal, but she loved it on sight anyway.

"Cris gave it to me," Rin answers, accidentally truthful; then, more confidently, "and what about it?"

Lia huffs, and when she abruptly lets go Rin loses her balance and lands unceremoniously on her arse, her legs awkwardly folding to the side.

"That's it, is it?"

"Seriously, what about it? What's it to you," she demands, straining her neck to gain enough height that she can glare down at Lia, who audibly grits her teeth before her face disappears behind a curtain of hair.
"We were going to tell each other everything. You promised."

Only then does the penny drop. Rin can't help the delighted laugh that bursts out of her - "Oh! You're jealous! Of all people..."

When Lia looks at her again she's glaring bitterly, but it doesn't distract her from noticing the slight redness in her cheeks.

"Laugh it up," she mutters, and Rin does.

Her laughter is petering out when Lia surges forward, using the fact that Rin instinctively jerks back to prop herself up and tower over her, one knee on each side of Rin's legs.

"You were mine first," she scolds, "and you always will be."
Rin isn't laughing anymore, rather she's starting to worry if she's about to have her eyes scratched out and hair pulled in a playground fight. She could probably get out from under her, sure, but it wouldn't be without a struggle and there is currently nowhere to run.

When she doesn't respond, Lia shifts forward, hands pinning her shoulders to the wall and leaning in, still looking furious. For a brief second Rin is distracted by the realisation that she's never seen her eyes this up close before, but then there's a hand rudely turning her face to the side.
Lia's breath ghosts over her neck, making her involuntarily shiver.

"I had you first," Lia says against her skin, and every hair on Rin's body stands on end when lips connect with her neck. She bites, at first digging her teeth in with only slight pressure, then more, and then she sucks.
It's almost nice at first, until it's suddenly really not.

"Hey!" Rin yelps, her hands fluttering over the hunched shoulders in front of her, wanting to push but not committing to it, "what the fuck! Lia, hey!"

It's over as abruptly as it began. Lia sits back - on Rin's shaking knees! - and smirks down at her. Rins eyes track the movement as she licks glistening lips, then wipes them with the back of her mouth. Seriously, what the hell just happened? All she can do is stare up at Lia uncomprehendingly-
Her hands fly up to the spot on her neck, wet and hotly flushed with blood, and she winces when her fingers touch it. She just...?

"Can't wait to see you explain that to him, doe."

'That,' she silently repeats, and finally manages to shove Lia off herself. She goes with a mean laugh, getting up all unaffected and striding to the door.
Rin blinks dumbly, caught between anger and bewilderment, pressing lightly on the forming bruise like it might be magically gone if she checks a second, a third time.
(It isn't.)

"You can't just-"

Lia shushes her, ear pressed to the slight gap between the door and its frame. At first it's just the sheer audacity that makes her fall silent, before she realizes what Lia is doing. She knocks a fist against the metal twice, and now she's listening for it, Rin can hear it too: there's people talking outside the doors. Is she really so out of it that she didn't hear them before? More importantly, how come Lia did?

Someone is shouting, and Lia's eyes go unfocussed, listening intently. When she puts her face up to the door to yell back a 'yes' Rin flinches. After this she needs to lay down and sleep for a whole day, maybe even two if she can get away with it.

Several minutes pass in silence, Rin slouched against the back wall, Lia with her back to her in front of the door. Then finally, someone is knocking from the outside, shouting for them to stand clear and the door shudders to life.
Apparently they didn't make it very far, because what comes into view is the ceiling of the floor directly below and the shoulders of a whole crowd of people gathered around the elevator. It's honestly sort of a funny sight.

A guy in a high-vis west checks something with a younger man with a clipboard, then gestures to them to come forward. He offers Lia a hand down which she takes, elegantly stepping down like a princess exiting her chariot. It honestly pisses Rin off how normal she's acting - indifferent as always. Or not always, she was definitely not actually indifferent just now, but no matter how fake, the act never fails to make Rin feel insignificant.
She misses her time window to kick Lia in the back (she would never do that. Just enjoy the thought.) and steps down herself, significantly less unruffled. Only once she's out does she realize how much less stale and warm the air outside the elevator is - maybe oxygen deprivation had a hand in what just played out.

Some of the gathered facility staff are giving her odd looks as the two of them are led past. When Lia gives her a squinty side eye she hastily claps a hand over her neck - of course they were looking at her funny. Oh god. God must be having a fucking laugh at her.

Next week, Rin decides, it will be her giving Lia the cold shoulder instead. And no one can ever hear about this.